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As costs around the world continue to rise for education, institutions must become innovative in the ways they teach and grow students. To do this effectively, professors and administrative staff should push toward the utilization of Open Source Software (OSS) and virtual tools to enhance or supplement currently available tools. In developing countries, OSS applications would allow students the ability to learn critical technological skills for success at small fraction of the cost. OSS also provides faculty members the ability to dissect source code and prepare students for low-level software development. It is critical that all institutions look at alternatives in providing training and delivering educational material regardless of limitations going forward as the world continues to be more global due to the increased use of technologies everywhere. Doing this could provide a means of shortening the education gap in many countries. Through reviewing the available technology, possible implementations of these technologies, and the application of these items in graduate coursework could provide a starting point in integrating these tools into academia. When administrators or faculty debate the possibilities of OSS, gaming, and simulation tools, this applied research provides a guide for changing the ability to develop students that will be competitive on a global level.

The chapters in this book focus on three main areas of innovation in teaching and learning in higher education today: virtual worlds, gaming, and simulation. Advancements in both digital technologies and learning theories are transforming the way we teach and learn and those advancements are refining our views of what it means to learn in the contemporary post-industrial age. Both individually and collectively, immersive technologies have become more popular as educational tools across a range of disciplines as a means for educators to engage students more deeply in the learning process. Biggs (2003) advocates deep learning – learning that entails active and devoted engagement with rigorous, high-quality learning activities that is also enjoyable and interesting for the learner.

Jonathan Becker is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Leadership of the School of Education at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, USA. Jonathan's teaching and scholarly endeavors occur at the intersection of educational technology, policy, law and leadership. Currently, Jonathan is serving as the evaluator of a multi-million dollar, multi-year grant program funded by the U.S. Department of Education to develop simulations and to support leadership preparation and is a co-investigator of an NSF-funded grant targeted at research and development of science curriculum modules for students in underserved areas.

Introduction: The government has taken many initiatives for the overall growth of India after liberalisation and remarkably performed to make India an emerging economy. Due to changes in macroeconomic conditions, investment in companys’ shares includes the possibility of bearing high risk, which cannot be eliminated but, to some extent, minimised. The persistence of risks motivates investors to invest in different available options of investment. Gearing measures, a company’s financial leverage, represent the risk afforded within the company’s capital structure.

Purpose: The research aims to identify the risk-return analysis of financial geared stocks of Nifty 50 companies in India, which have debt equity ratios of more than 1.

Methodology: Convenience and cluster sampling techniques were used to identify companies with debt equity ratios of more than 1. The considered time period is 2010–2019.

Findings: This research found capital structure ratios, debt equity ratio, and total debt ratio. The total equity ratio does not have any visible effect on any of the dependent variables, i.e., Return on equity (ROE), Return on Assets (ROA), Earnings per share (EPS), Return on capital employed (ROCE). It explains the impact of high-levered firms’ performance on profitability and functioning. The study highlights that highly geared companies do not significantly impact the ROA, proving Modigliani and Miller’s (1958) irrelevant theory.

From the perspective of any nation, rural areas generally present a comparable set of problems, such as a lack of proper healthcare, education, living conditions, wages and market opportunities. Some nations have created and developed the concept of smart villages during the previous few decades, which effectively addresses these issues. The landscape of traditional agriculture has been radically altered by digital agriculture, which has also had a positive economic impact on farmers and those who live in rural regions by ensuring an increase in agricultural production. We explored current issues in rural areas, and the consequences of smart village applications, and then illustrate our concept of smart village from recent examples of how emerging digital agriculture trends contribute to improving agricultural production in this chapter.

The present study investigates the impact of managerial psychological characteristics on the supply chain management efficiency (SCME) of companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange.

To this aim, information about 215 companies was analyzed during 2014–2021. The sales per inventory ratio was used to calculate SCME. In the present study, the focus is on characteristics such as managerial entrenchment, managerial myopia, managerial overconfidence (MOC) and managerial narcissism, all considered as managerial attributes.

The present findings showed that managerial myopia/managerial entrenchment (MOC/managerial narcissism) have a negative (positive) effect on SCME. Hypothesis testing based on robustness checks confirmed these results. Moreover, the findings are presented separately for companies with high business strategy (first quarter) and low business strategy (third quarter). The results show that at low levels of differentiation strategy, managerial entrenchment does not have a significant effect on SCME while other managerial attributes have a significant effect on both high and low business strategy.

The present study contributes to the identification of managerial psychological characteristics influencing SCME to advance future studies and support practical efforts. The present findings can prove the significance of this research and fill the existing gap in research.

Studies highlighting negative behavioral influences of Machiavellians are plentiful; however, those prescribing their management are scarce. Machiavellians are intelligent, adaptable and resourceful people with negative, self-serving and unethical persona traits. Their abundance in organizations poses a challenge for managers in minimizing negative consequences of Machiavellian's manipulative behaviors and tap into their true potential. Leadership can play a crucial role in this regard. This purpose of this paper is to investigate the moderating effects of transformational leadership (TFL) versus transactional leadership (TSL) styles on the relationship between subordinates' Machiavellianism and their organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and counterproductive work behavior (CWB). The aim was to highlight the style that better adept in managing high-Mach subordinates.

This cross-sectional study used multiple surveys administered to 90 managers and their 269 subordinates from 56 organizations. Multiple regression was used for testing and hypothesize linear and supplementary nonlinear relationships between the study variables.

After a detailed data analysis, authors posit that, as compared to TFL, the TSL style is better suited for managing Machiavellian subordinates.

By employing transactional tactics, leaders can reign in the divergent behavior of Machiavellians, thus, transforming them into useful organizational assets.

This study expands on limited body of knowledge on managing Machiavellians. It advocates using TSL for improving the OCB of Machiavellians while countering their CWBs. Furthermore, this study contributes to transactional/transformational theories as it lends credence to the situational theory of leadership.

Based on the componential theory of organizational creativity and innovation, this study examined the relationship between managerial coaching (MC) and innovative work behavior (IWB). It focused on the mediating role of psychological empowerment and the moderating role of task interdependence.

The self-administered questionnaires were used to collect data from 420 employees of the United Arab Emirates’s public sector organizations. A hierarchical linear model (HLM) with different regression techniques was used.

The results showed that MC directly influences IWB. The path analysis also revealed that MC has an indirect effect on IWB via psychological empowerment. The moderating role of task independence in MC and IWB was also revealed.

The findings shall provide insights that will help practitioners and academics understand frontline employees' innovative behavior in public sector settings and formulate strategies that will increase the involvement of employees in displaying innovation-based activities at the workplace.

This study adds value to the literature by integrating the componential theory of organizational creativity and innovation in public sector settings.

In times of crisis and volatility, especially in the Covid-19 scenario, project organisations are facing multifaceted threats. Project organisations are inclining towards flatter organisational structures. Employees are demanding more decision-making authority due to the changing working scenario. Despite the advancement in project management, a hard skill side, project organisations are still struggling to achieve successful projects. The project manager's leadership, employee self-leadership and soft skills are presented as the solution to these aggravated problems. This article attempts to determine whether a transformational leadership style can influence project success, directly and indirectly through employee self-leadership.

The author raises the hypothesis, supported by social cognitive theory, that transformational leadership impacts project success directly and indirectly through self-leadership. Data were collected from 289 project team members in the IT sector, and the proposed relationships were assessed through Partial least squares structural equation modelling PLS-SEM.

Results show that a project manager's transformational leadership behaviour and employee self-leadership positively impact project success. Additionally, self-leadership mediates the relationship between transformational leadership and project success. Lastly, empowerment demonstrated significant moderation for self-leadership and project success, and for transformational leadership and project success.

In this study, one obvious methodological limitation is a cross-sectional design. Future research can be performed while adopting a longitudinal research design. Another conceptual limitation of the model is that the authors did not include all transformational leadership dimensions, which can be considered for future studies while replicating this research model. Another future front can be by examining other leadership styles. Another research limitation may be the single source data collection, a future study may be conducted by several sources for data collection to adequately test both of the leadership styles at different hierarchies and for project success.

The paper contributes to the literature by finding that, in crises, a project manager's transformational leadership style enhances project success. In practice, project managers are needed to adopt transformational behaviour and encourage employee self-leadership and empowerment.