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This study aims to address the question of why managers make different decisions in employee downsizing when their firms face external threats. Our research intends to shed light on whether and how CEOs' cognition (motivational attributes associated with regulatory focus) influences their decision-making and firms’ strategic actions on downsizing under high resource scarcity in the industry environment.

We used a longitudinal panel of 5,544 firm-year observations of US firms from 2003 to 2015 to test our conceptual model. The data was obtained from various sources, including corporate earnings call transcripts and archival databases. We used panel logistic regressions with both fixed and random effects in our research design.

Our results suggest that CEOs' motivational attributes could influence their employee downsizing decisions in response to external threats. We find that CEOs who are more promotion-focused (a stronger drive towards achieving ideals) are less likely to lay off employees during high resource scarcity. Conversely, CEOs with a higher prevention focus (a greater concern for security) do not have a meaningful impact on employee downsizing during periods of external resource scarcity.

Previous research has argued that a significant external threat would diminish individuals' impact on firm strategies and outcomes. Our findings challenge this idea, indicating that CEOs with a stronger drive towards achieving ideals are less inclined to lay off employees when resources are scarce in the environment. This study contributes to behavioral strategy research by providing new insights into how upper echelons’ cognition can influence their decision-making and firms’ employee downsizing.

The purpose of this study is to contribute to the discussion surrounding the definition of accounting proposed by Carnegie et al. (2021a, 2021b) and further elaborated by Carnegie et al. (2023) from/under an institutionalist political-economy (IPE) based foundation and to specifically extend this approach to the arena of social and environmental accounting (SEA).

By adopting an IPE approach to SEA, this study offers a critique of the use of the notion of capital to refer to nature and people in SEA frameworks and standards.

A SEA framework based on the capabilities approach is proposed based on the concepts of human capabilities and global commons for the purpose of preserving the commons and enabling the flourishing of present and future generations.

The proposed framework allows the engagement of accounting community, in particular SEA researchers, with and contribution to such well-established initiatives as the Planetary Boundaries framework and the human development reports initiative of the United Nations Development Programme.

Based on the capability approach, this study applies Carnegie et al.’s (2023) framework to SEA. This new approach more attuned to the pursuit of sustainable human development and the sustainable development goals, may contribute to turning accounting into a major positive force through its impacts on the world, expressly upon organisations, people and nature.

The aim is to understand how goal orientation may help entrepreneurs maintain life satisfaction when faced with multiple crisis episodes. To do so, the authors study the early impact of COVID-19 on the life satisfaction of entrepreneurs who were previously faced with venture distress.

Data on 164 Belgian entrepreneurs, who were faced with previous venture distress, are used. The analysis is quantitative, and uses survey data, in combination with databases. The survey was administered in the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic (June 2020).

Entrepreneurs high in learning goal orientation are less likely, and those high in performance-avoidance orientation are more likely to experience a decline in life satisfaction. Additionally, the time span between the two crises moderates the relationship between learning goal orientation and life satisfaction. Particularly, entrepreneurs high in learning goal orientation are less likely to experience a decline in life satisfaction if more time has passed between venture distress and the COVID-19 crisis.

Often, entrepreneurs are faced with multiple episodes of distress. The authors study entrepreneurs who have been in venture distress before and are then confronted with the COVID-19 crisis. The study shows that goal orientation, which is a type of self-regulation, plays an important role in how entrepreneurs’ life satisfaction is affected. Also, the authors find that the time between distress events matters. These are important insights for practitioners, including entrepreneurs and support providers.

The study adds to the emerging discussion on the impact of crises on entrepreneurs. It studies life satisfaction (a measure of well-being) and complements studies that examine the impact of crises, on entrepreneurs’ actions and firm performance.

We review and synthesize the existing research on directors' and officers’ (D&O) liability insurance. Our objectives are (1) to examine the institutional forces and regulatory requirements that have influenced the development of D&O liability insurance; (2) to identify the factors that influence firms to purchase D&O liability insurance and explore the consequences associated with its usage and (3) to identify gaps in the current literature and provide recommendations for future research on D&O liability insurance.

We perform a systematic literature review (SLR) using the Preferred Reporting Items for a Systematic Review of Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines to examine archival studies that investigate the determinants and consequences of D&O liability insurance. Using a Boolean search strategy on the “Web of Science” (WoS) and PRISMA selection criteria, we review 64 published archival research articles and three working papers from 1987 to October 2023.

Our review reveals that disclosing detailed information regarding D&O liability insurance, such as total insurance premiums and coverage limit, is predominantly voluntary, except in Taiwan. Our findings suggest that the decision to purchase D&O liability insurance is influenced by litigation risk, which is determined by factors such as firm size, complexity and corporate governance variables. We also find that D&O liability insurance has implications for financial reporting, audit outcomes, investment behavior and capital market performance.

In the post-COVID era, where firms face pressure due to financial constraints, our research emphasizes the practical importance of carefully considering and understanding the impact of D&O liability insurance, particularly as it concerns the demand for such insurance.

To the best of our knowledge, this study represents the first systematic review of previous research on D&O liability insurance. Our review highlights some research gaps, particularly in relation to the implications for financial reporting practices, auditing outcomes, firm investment behavior and capital market consequences.

The paper provides a step-by-step guide in the guise of a roadmap for service improvement initiatives using importance performance map analysis (IPMA).

To empirically illustrate how IPMA can be applied to any service industry, three sectors are considered; sports and fitness (study A), hospitality (study B) and higher education (study C). Following the proper selection of measuring instruments and their evaluation using structural equation modeling-partial least squares (Smart-PLS), IPMA is applied to identify those attributes having strong total effects (high importance) over the targeted construct (satisfaction) but which also have low average latent variable scores (low performance).

For sports and fitness (study A), the physical aspects and programme quality require managerial attention. For the hospitability sector (study B), it is service commitment, interaction quality and internal sense of happiness. Whereas for higher education (study C), it is administrative quality as well as the element of transformative quality, namely the university’s role in adding to its students’ emotional stability, which needs the attention of the top management.

This study provides researchers and practitioners with a roadmap for applying PLS-SEM and IPMA for continuous service quality improvement. The roadmap extends upon Ringle and Sarstedt’s (2016) work. It highlights critical decisions that need to be considered in the pre-analytical stages of the IPMA application, i.e. at the research design phase in selecting the most appropriate service quality measurement model specifications. It not only contributes to the existing body of knowledge by providing empirical evidence to advance theory development in the quality management field but also has implications for the practitioners in any service sector on where to focus their attention for an effective service improvement.

Aiming to explore how audience consume and produce media events in the digital, distributed and social era we live in, the paper analyzes the viewing patterns of video news items during a media event (the week of Donald Trump's presidential visit to Israel, the first to a country outside the US), compared to a parallel comparable “ordinary” period (two weeks later, in which no inordinacy events occurred). The comparison focused on simultaneous activities of audiences engaged with the event, with either related (i.e. second screening) or unrelated (i.e. media multitasking).

The research is a diary study based on a dedicated mobile app in which respondents reported their news-related behavior during two periods: a media event period and comparable “ordinary” period.

Participants reported watching significantly more news video items in the first day of the media event week compared to the first day of the “ordinary” week. More than half of the viewing reports of the media event were not on TV. In the media event week, there were significantly higher percentages of viewing reports on smartphones/computers and significantly higher percentages of second-screening reports.

This is the first study that empirically explores the viewing patterns of video news items during a media event, compared to an “ordinary” period, focusing on media second screening of audiences engaged with the event. This comparison may reveal whether (1) media events still retain their centrality in a multi-screen era and (2) the role of the internet and online social media in the experience of media events.

The primary objective of this paper is to show a systematic and methodological approach for the digitalization of critical clinical pathways (CPs) within the healthcare domain.

The methodology entails the integration of service design (SD) and action research (AR) methodologies, characterized by iterative phases that systematically alternate between action and reflective processes, fostering cycles of change and learning. Within this framework, stakeholders are engaged through semi-structured interviews, while the existing and envisioned processes are delineated and represented using BPMN 2.0. These methodological steps emphasize the development of an autonomous, patient-centric web application alongside the implementation of an adaptable and patient-oriented scheduling system. Also, business processes simulation is employed to measure key performance indicators of processes and test for potential improvements. This method is implemented in the context of the CP addressing transient loss of consciousness (TLOC), within a publicly funded hospital setting.

The methodology integrating SD and AR enables the detection of pivotal bottlenecks within diagnostic CPs and proposes optimal corrective measures to ensure uninterrupted patient care, all the while advancing the digitalization of diagnostic CP management. This study contributes to theoretical discussions by emphasizing the criticality of process optimization, the transformative potential of digitalization in healthcare and the paramount importance of user-centric design principles, and offers valuable insights into healthcare management implications.

The study’s relevance lies in its ability to enhance healthcare practices without necessitating disruptive and resource-intensive process overhauls. This pragmatic approach aligns with the imperative for healthcare organizations to improve their operations efficiently and cost-effectively, making the study’s findings relevant.

The authors revisit the notion of co-production, highlight more critical and re-politicized forms of co-production and introduce three principles for its operationalization. The paper’s viewpoint aims to find entry points for enabling more equitable disaster research and actions via co-production.

The authors draw insights from the authors’ reflections as climate and disaster researchers and literature on knowledge politics in the context of disaster and climate change, especially within critical disaster studies and feminist political ecology.

Disaster studies can better contribute to disaster risk reduction via political co-production and situating local and Indigenous knowledge at the center through three principles, i.e. ensuring knowledge plurality, surfacing norms and assumptions in knowledge production and driving actions that tackle existing knowledge (and broader sociopolitical) structures.

The authors draw out three principles to enable the political function of co-production based on firsthand experiences of working with local and Indigenous peoples and insights from a diverse set of co-production, feminist political ecology and critical disaster studies literature. Future research can observe how it can utilize these principles in its respective contexts.

The purpose of this study is to examine how construction project managers’ conflict management styles (CMSs) affect project team resilience from the perspective of social identity theory.

This study adopted a cross-sectional survey design and collected paired data from 110 construction project managers and 474 employees in China. Based on the data collected, the authors tested the proposed hypotheses using hierarchical regression analysis.

The results show that a project manager’s cooperative CMS positively affects team resilience, and a project manager’s competitive and avoidant CMS negatively affects team resilience. Team followership plays a mediating role in this relationship. The team power distance moderates the effects of a project manager’s cooperative and avoidant CMSs on team followership.

This paper enriches the existing literature on conflict management in construction projects and have potential guiding significance and application value for team resilience management practices.

Organizations in today's changing environment face significant challenges, requiring continual innovation. Understanding oneself from the employee's perspective is paramount, especially in organizations and businesses, transforming all levels, accommodating new work paradigms and adapting to the post-pandemic business world. The authors examine the employees' critical dimensions, self-concept and resilience through self-reported studies to ascertain the impact on their performance in the organization. Self-concept, a multidimensional knowledge structure, implies the individual's description and examination, including psychological characteristics, attributes and skills. On the other hand, resilience is adapting appropriately to adversity, challenges and stressful situations and emerging unscathed. Resilience additionally leads to profound personal growth and acceptance of reality. It also endows the individual's sense of identity over time. It provides insights into work behavior and outcomes and fosters a positive psychological perspective to improve performance. Job performance is an observable individual performance that adds value and enables organizational goal achievement. To sum job performance is an achievement-related behavior. The research study examines the relationship between employee self-concept, resilience and performance elements (task, contextual and counterproductive work behavior).

Cross-sectional data were collected from 224 employees from the retail sector to test the hypotheses among self-concept, employee performance elements and resilience. SPSS 21.0 was used, and the authors conducted reliability, correlation and regression analysis using statistical tools to analyze the mediating effect.

Self-concept and employee performance elements have significant relationships. The mediating effect of resilience on the relationship between self-concept and counterproductive work behavior and self-concept and contextual performance is significant. In contrast, resilience does not impact the relationship between self-concept and task performance.

The authors examined a framework of untested variables, namely self-concept and the different factors of performance (task, contextual and counterproductive behavior). The authors investigated the mediating effect of resilience in the model, which was not previously explored.