Rainer Michael Rilke

1 INTRODUCTION A growing problem is that some employees are not performing to their full potential. For instance, it is estimated that at least half of the US workforce consists of “quiet quitters,” employees who refrain from going above and beyond at work and barely fulfill their job descriptions (Clifton, 2023; Harter, 2022). This trend aligns with the findings of Gallup (2023), which indicate a recent decline in employee engagement.

ABSTRACT Human resource management (HRM) practices in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to increase employees’ job satisfaction are on the rise. Given that SMEs often adopt highly formalized HRM practices of large companies, for example, in the case of annual performance appraisals, we investigate the relationship between the degree of formalization of annual performance feedback and employees’ job satisfaction in the SME context.

Socially responsible investing (SRI) involves considering environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues when picking stocks. Once a niche area of fund management, the volume of global sustainable investment in five major markets reached $35.3 trillion at the start of 2020, a 54.5 percent increase since 2016 and 35.9 percent of total assets under management.