Research background: Even though antecedents of green consumption have already been considered in numerous scientific articles, their findings still remain inconsistent. Furthermore, far less attention has been paid to understanding the underlying mechanism of cultural values, including collectivism and long-term orientation, and perceived environmental knowledge influencing intention to purchase environmentally friendly products, as well as the meditating role of green purchase willingness in the linkages between antecedents and green purchase intention. In addition, some previous studies suggested that it might be meaningful and significant to explore these linkages in the cross-cultural context with different levels of economic development. Purpose of the article: This study explored the effects of cultural dimension, perceived environmental and green purchase willingness with regard to intention to purchase environmentally friendly products of Vietnamese and Polish customers. Moreover, the mediating role of green purchase willingness was also investigated in this study. Methods: To achieve the objectives of this research, customer surveys were conducted in two developing countries ? Vietnam and Poland. Two convenience samples of 611 Vietnamese consumers and 301 Polish consumers have been recruited from 03 May to 03 October 2020. The structural equation modelling (SEM) was utilized to examine the conceptual framework and test the proposed hypotheses. Findings & value added: The research revealed that green purchase willingness became the most influential factor to predict green purchase intention in both cultures. Also, perceived environmental knowledge was found to have substantial effects on willingness and intention to purchase environmentally friendly products in both countries, even though the influential degree in Poland was much higher than that in Vietnam. Remarkably, cultural dimensions were found to significantly affect green consumption in the collectivist culture of Vietnam, while these relationships were not significant in Poland. This study was expected to significantly contribute to the existing literature by boosting our understanding of the importance of cultural values and perceived knowledge environment in promoting green consumption in the cross-cultural context.

PurposeDemographic changes and consequent diversification of teams of employees in organisations require us to change one’s approach to managing human resources and to search for new methods adjusted to contemporary challenges. One of such methods is reverse mentoring. It is a new form of mentoring where the younger employee is the mentor sharing expertise with the older employee. The purpose of this article is to identify advantages that reverse mentoring offers individuals who participate in the mentoring relationship – the younger mentor and the older mentee, and the entire organisation, as well as to identify conditions conducive to revealing desired advantages.Design/methodology/approachThe article presents results of empirical research conducted based on the qualitative method and semi-structured individual interviews. The research focussed on five pairs from five different organisations operating in Poland who applied reverse mentoring as well as managers or human resources managers of these enterprises.FindingsResearch results show that reverse mentoring may offer numerous advantages to both individuals engaged in the relation (the mentor and the mentee) and the entire organisation. Thus, reverse mentoring seems to be an efficient tool for sharing knowledge, creating engagement, developing leadership and, first and foremost, building intergenerational relations based on mutual acceptance. Conclusions drawn from the research show that efficacy of reverse mentoring depends on the level of engagement in the mentor/mentee relation and the level of organisational support – engagement of the officers, supportive organisational culture and atmosphere conductive to cooperation.Research limitations/implicationsOne of the limitations of the research is the fact that reverse mentoring is not common in Polish organisations, thus the number of the interviews is limited. Furthermore, the data were collected from companies operating in Poland and they refer to one cultural circle. Another limitation is closely connected with the nature of qualitative research, as the research findings may be influenced by the personal perspective of participants.Practical implicationsThe paper helps managers to build intergenerational relations. It encourages the use of reverse mentoring by emphasising its various benefits. It also specifies the conditions which need to be taken into consideration in order to increase the chances of enjoying the benefits, especially the necessity to prepare individual development plans adjusted to the needs and expectations of participants, proper selection of pairs for the mentoring relation and sufficient preparation of each party to the relation. This knowledge may be used by practitioners of managing human resources to develop organisational support for mentoring programmes.Social implicationsThe paper presents reverse mentoring as an opportunity for intergenerational knowledge sharing and developing intergenerational cooperation.Originality/valueThe results of the research extend the knowledge in the area of applying reverse mentoring to create intergenerational relationships. So far, this subject has received limited attention in the literature. Since reverse mentoring is not a widespread method, and research in this area is relatively rare, the value of the paper is to fill the gaps in this subject.

Innovation is a very important attribute of energy companies. Its level largely depends on employees’ attitudes and behaviours, which are determined on the one hand by individual factors (e.g., psychological contract) and on the other hand by organisational factors (e.g., human resources (HR) practices). The aim of this article is to identify the relationship between pro-innovative HR practices, psychological contract and employee attitudes—commitment and job satisfaction. The research was conducted in a company which is one of the leading Polish electricity suppliers. Data were collected using a proprietary survey questionnaire. The research involved 402 HR professionals responsible for shaping and implementing pro-innovative HR practices in the company. Hypotheses were tested using the partial least squares structural equation modelling technique (PLS-SEM). The results indicate the existence of a positive relationship between pro-innovative HR practices, psychological contract and employee commitment and satisfaction. Furthermore, they indicate that organisations wishing to increase employee commitment and job satisfaction should strengthen and implement existing psychological contracts. One way to do this is to invest in pro-innovative HR practices, such as competence development, knowledge sharing or creativity-based candidate selection, as they have been shown to be good moderators of these relationships. The obtained results may be of particular importance for HR management specialists and managers responsible for shaping desired attitudes and behaviours of employees.

This study attempts to describe the value systems of four generations of employees—Baby Boomers, Generation X, Generation Y, and Generation Z—as well as to identify differences and similarities between values that are appreciated by them. Moreover, it presents a discussion on the essence and role of values in human life, a comparison of results of domestic and foreign research on differences among value systems, especially work–related values, and, finally, the results of an own study conducted applying qualitative methods. The analyses confirmed that there are many significant differences among the value systems of different generations of employees, but similarities, too. This underlines the importance of being familiar with these differences with respect to human resource management, creating working conditions, and choosing leadership style.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become one of emerging issues in such countries as Vietnam and Poland and in the rest of the world. This is due to the advantages it brings to socio‑economic sustainable development or the living environment. The focus of this research is to present a comparative analysis of the current understanding, awareness and attitudes of Polish and Vietnamese customers. The study employs quantitative analyses and some tools of descriptive statistics to show that although Vietnamese and Polish customers have a rather positive attitude towards the issues related to CSR, they are still not interested in CSR reports on companies’ reputation and image as well as environmental pollution. Moreover, customers also pay attention to low prices rather than the CSR reputation of companies. By utilising the Mann‑Whitney U Test, this study shows that even though both countries are seen as transitional economies, there are certain differences in attitudes towards and awareness of CSR activities between Vietnamese and Polish customers.