Amidst the fluidity of today's post-COVID business environment, this paper aims to fortify the discourse on strategic agility, by presenting a comprehensive best practice framework for its development and sustenance. This is achieved by carrying out an empirical investigation on four best practice multinational corporations. Despite abundant scholarly attention, a critical gap persists in the empirical examination of specific functional practices and their role for fostering strategic agility. This research fills this void, leveraging in-depth interviews with strategic-level managers and analyzing archival data, revealing that strategic agility necessitates a systemic approach and congruent efforts across organizational functions. Key findings underscore the role knowledge management as the linchpin, with corresponding emphasis on dynamic talent management, strategic partnerships, open innovation, digitalization, and sustainability. As a result, this paper contributes to the strategic management literature by offering practical insights for managers of global businesses in navigating the complexities of a rapidly evolving competitive landscape towards organizational excellence.

Occupational Safety and Health is often poorly managed in micro-sized enterprises (MiSEs) and small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Previous studies have shown that employers in such enterprises do not conduct and/or regularly review workplace risk assessments, even though this is required by legislation. In other cases, they may conduct a superficial workplace risk assessment just to comply with legislation and satisfy the authorities. This study attempts to shed some light into the actual use or non-use of workplace risk assessment by MiSEs and SMEs, the level of its utilization, and investigate if it is used as a tool of occupational safety and health promotion and the reduction of workplace accidents and occupational diseases. It also introduces the concept of employers’ perception of the actual value of the risk assessment process. Data from ESENER-2 survey were analysed as well as data gathered by a survey conducted in Cyprus that included 201 MiSEs employing less than five employees, an area not covered by previous ESENER surveys. Analysis revealed that a significant percentage of employers in MiSEs do not perceive risk assessment as a valuable tool for improving occupational safety and health, indicating a problematic perception of and attitude towards health and safety issues. Moreover, considerable differences were identified not only in occupational safety and health management, but also in the perceived value of workplace risk assessment between northern and southern European countries, as well as for enterprises employing less than five employees.