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In today’s interconnected world, social capital has emerged as a crucial business competence, drawing significant attention in recent literature. Using social network analysis, this study aims to investigate the impact of network centrality, established by a firm through its board members (i.e. boardroom networks), on corporate cash holdings.

This study uses extensive panel data comprising 36,963 firm-year observations of firms listed on the Australian Securities Exchange, spanning a 22-year period (2001–2022). The study uses firm fixed-effect regression along with several alternative specifications and an instrumental variable approach to ensure the robustness of the results. Boardroom network centrality is quantified by five measures that capture different perspectives on networks as viable conduits for resource exchange and information flow: degree, two-step reach, closeness, eigenvector and betweenness.

The authors find evidence for the benefits of board networks. Firms with well-connected boards (central firms) are more likely to have smaller cash holdings. The findings also reveal distinct effects stemming from local and global properties of centrality, with local network measures playing a more pronounced role in shaping cash-holding decisions. Overall, the evidence reflects the ability of connected directors to enhance governance by limiting managerial discretion over cash reserves, thus reducing agency conflicts associated with cash holdings.

This study offers important insights for regulators, investors and practitioners, highlighting the potential for connected directors to effectively curtail managerial autonomy in deploying corporate cash holdings.

This study contributes to the ongoing discussion about the advantages and drawbacks of board networks, which constitute a vibrant and burgeoning area of research in the finance literature. It also complements scanty network-based studies on firm cash holdings. Importantly, this study extends prior work by providing robust evidence and a comprehensive analysis of the nuanced roles that board networks play in affecting the level of cash reserves.

The purpose of this study is to explore beginning teachers’ diverse challenges and how these are related to self-directed professional learning through social media.

The authors conducted a content analysis of 2,445 “New Teacher” tagged posts shared in the r/Teachers subreddit. With 1,246 posts relevant to beginning teachers’ challenges, the authors used a socio-ecological model to analyze and categorize the challenges.

Results showed that posts reflected diverse and complex challenges. Such challenges were found to be interrelated and associated with employment status, highlighting teacher marginalization issues. Results also show that most posts sought resources or advice rather than merely complaining about their situations, meaning that beginning teachers leveraged the anonymity and shared affinity offered by r/Teachers to overcome their challenges as self-directed professional learners.

The current study not only highlights diverse and complex challenges faced by beginning teachers but also sheds light on how they navigate their challenges in social media spaces. This research provides unique insights into how social media, particularly an anonymous affinity space – r/Teachers, can benefit teachers’ professional growth in today’s digital era.

Islamic financial institutions (IFIs) in Malaysia continue to promote Shari‘ah-compliant business and transactions. As a result, the governors have a lot to think about before issuing any fatwa or ordinance, which impacts the majority of Malaysians. Nevertheless, the point of views from the governors have not been highlighted much. This research seeks to investigate the extent to which the conception of al-Siyasah al-Shar‘iyyah is embraced by Shari‘ah committees’ leadership roles within IFIs. The importance of al-Siyasah al-Shar‘iyyah in decision-making makes abandoning the Shari‘ah principle untenable and its significant role for IFIs in Malaysia cannot be overstated. It serves as a crucial tool for decision-making by authorities and governors.

The objectives of this research are attained by examining diverse sources obtained through library research, encompassing books, journals, newspapers, websites and reports. In addition, to use an analytical method to assess the role of al-Siyasah al-Shar‘iyyah in IFIs pratical, the authors collect information through interviews with five participants actively engaged in Shari‘ah committees within financial institutions, both directly and indirectly.

The research paper concludes that al-Siyasah al-Shar‘iyyah holds significance for Shari‘ah committees in IFIs when providing legal opinions. In situations where existing madhhab-based laws prove insufficient for addressing a particular issue, the Shari‘ah committees will autonomously engage in new ijtihad to ensure effective resolution of the matter.

The implication that could have been resulted from this study is to indicate how Shari‘ah committees in IFIs structuring a set of rules and regulations embedded by al-Siyasah al-Shar‘iyyah elements to produce maṣlaḥaḥ for the ummah. This perspective is barely discussed in depth as Malaysia has unanimous scholars who work in this area. Thus, the authors attempt to bring the discussion academically and express the point of view from governors’ perspective.

In the Malaysian context, where Islamic banks and financial institutions are overseen by Shari‘ah committee members and the Central Bank of Malaysia, this study delves into the practical experiences of governors in carrying out the responsibilities of al-Siyasah al-Shar‘iyyah within the decision-making process. The objective is to investigate the perspectives of Shari‘ah committees when they encounter scenarios where prevailing madhhab opinions prove inadequate in addressing contemporary issues within the country.

This study analyzes how possessing female chief financial officers (CFOs) on boards in emerging economies impacts on firm investment efficiency and addresses overinvestment and underinvestment tendencies of firms based on this aspect. The study draws from resource-based and stakeholder theories. Additionally, it explores how institutional gender parity influences this relationship.

The study uses a two-step system generalized method of moment (GMM) estimation technique to test its hypotheses. Data span from 2010 to 2021 and cover firms in emerging economies. The approach addresses endogeneity and accounts for unobserved heterogeneity in the data.

The study’s results support the hypothesis that firms with female CFO decrease overinvestment and underinvestment tendencies, indicating improved investment efficiency. This effect is more pronounced in emerging economies with higher gender parity and support for female leadership.

The study’s findings suggest fostering gender parity and female leadership in emerging economies to maximize the benefits of female CFO board membership. Policymakers should advocate for corporate governance practices and gender parity through supportive policies to advance economic outcomes and competitiveness.

This study advances existing literature by highlighting the positive outcomes of having female CFOs on boards in emerging economies. It emphasizes gender diversity’s importance in leadership and advocates for inclusive institutional frameworks.

The purpose is to explore the existence of different export manager profiles in terms of managerial attributes and personal traits according to gender. The study aims to answer two research questions: (1) Do export manager profiles differ depending on gender? If so, (2) which are the traits or managerial attributes that differ by gender and which is the relationship among them?

The article relies on a quantitative empirical analysis of a sample of export managers of Spanish small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Our results point to the existence of gendered export manager profiles that differ in terms of objective managerial attributes, personal traits, managerial styles and subjective perceptions relative to discriminatory practices and detrimental stereotypes. Two gender-specific substitution effects exist: one between managers’ experiential skills and their formal education and the other between managers' entrepreneurial orientation and the use of relational networks.

Our data are limited in terms of geographical scope and firms size; therefore, our results are no generalizable without new studies on this issue.

Our findings can help firms to understand the relevance of export teams that encompass different gender managers and benefit from the combination of diverse managerial attributes, personal traits and relational processes in their international growth.

Gender is an scarcely studied issue in international business and management literature despite its relevance in the international institutional context. This article addresses the gender aspect of export management.

Explorar la existencia de perfiles de gestor de exportaciones diferenciados en función del género. El estudio pretende responder a dos preguntas de investigación: (1) ¿difiere el perfil de los gestores de exportación en función del género? En caso afirmativo, (2) ¿en qué atributos directivos/rasgos se observa la diferencia y cuál es la relación entre ellos?

Análisis empírico cuantitativo sobre una muestra de gestores de exportación de pequeñas y medianas empresas (PYMEs) españolas.

Nuestros resultados apuntan a la existencia de perfiles de gestor de exportación diferenciados por género en términos de atributos objetivos, rasgos personales, estilos de gestión y percepciones relativas a prácticas discriminatorias y estereotipos perjudiciales. Existen dos efectos sustitución en función del género: (1) experiencia profesional versus educación formal y (2) orientación empresarial versus uso de redes relacionales.

El género es una cuestión escasamente estudiada en la literatura sobre gestión internacional a pesar de su relevancia en el contexto institucional internacional. Este artículo aborda el aspecto del género en la gestión de exportaciones.

Nuestros datos son limitados en términos de ámbito geográfico y tamaño de las empresas; por tanto, no son generalizables sin la realización de nuevos estudios.

Nuestras conclusiones pueden ayudar a comprender la relevancia de los equipos de exportación que integran a directivos de diferente género y se benefician de la combinación de diversos atributos directivos, rasgos personales y procesos relacionales en su crecimiento internacional.

Self-presentation is an important aspect of influencer marketing. Drawing upon self-presentation theory and source credibility theory, this study aimed to unravel how the self-presentation strategies of a layperson, opinion leadership and micro-celebrity influence source credibility (i.e. trustworthiness, expertise, physical attractiveness and social attractiveness) and how source credibility, in turn, affects brand responses.

An online experiment among female participants (N = 229) was conducted. Participants were shown a sponsored blog in which the influencer presented herself as either a layperson, an opinion leader or a micro-celebrity.

The study demonstrated that the presentation strategy of a layperson was more persuasive than a micro-celebrity presentation because of higher levels of (1) trust and (2) social attractiveness. In addition, opinion leaders were perceived as having more expertise than laypeople and, therefore, positively enhanced brand responses.

The current findings provide relevant insights into the theoretical mechanisms (i.e. expertise, trustworthiness and social attractiveness) that explain the effects of self-presentation strategies on brand responses.

Our findings imply that credibility perceptions determine the persuasiveness of the SMI. This study showed that layperson and opinion leadership self-presentation strategies are relatively more persuasive.

This study is the first to show that influencers’ self-presentation strategies determine how people respond to the brands that influencers promote. In addition, we show that these effects are explained by the influencers’ trust, social attractiveness and expertise.

The purpose of this paper is to identify influential workplace engagement interventions that were initiated by managers over several years as revealed in many studies. Also, an action learning guide is offered for an individual manager to use such interventions with the employee in shaping activities to assist employee learning and performance improvement which may result in greater workplace engagement.

The first step was to examine the research literature on: the meaning of workplace engagement along with theory bases for it, the framework for stimulating employee engagement and information about action learning in the workplace. Second, was the identification of manager/organization interventions found to result in employee assessment of their own positive growth in workplace engagement? Third, we offer a practical, action learning approach.

An action guide is presented as an example of a method to assist a manager working with, in this case, a single employee. The guide is grounded on empirical research, mostly meta-analyses, and reflects positively assessed workplace engagement interventions.

In the performance management, human resources and training domains there is limited research and/or examples of practical guides for managers to use to link guidance with efforts to apply specific interventions to support employee workplace engagement. This paper provides the manager with a path to assist employees.

The purpose of this action research study was to design, implement and evaluate interventions that enhanced the induction program for new teachers in a P-12 school district. At the outset, we hoped the study would provide new teacher support resulting in improved teaching practices, increased job satisfaction and/or increased teacher retention among the target population. With this in mind, our research question was: What structures and supports from a school-university partnership facilitate capacity-building among university teacher education faculty, school and district leaders, mentor teachers, and new teachers in the context of an induction program?

This study used an intervention-centered mode of action research methodology that aims to make systems-level change. This type of action research intends to solve real organizational problems with a focus on conducting “research in action” rather than “research about action” (Coghlan and Brannick, 2014, pp. 5–6). This approach necessitates that data collection and analysis are iterative processes, occurring throughout the research process, instead of solely at the end stages of the research process. Our action research process used Coghlan and Brannick’s (2014) action research cycle model. The cyclical four-step process includes constructing (verifying the problem in the local context), planning action, taking action and evaluating action. Facilitated by the interim director of a Professional development schools (PDS) partnership in the Southeastern United States, a team of co-researchers which included three university teacher education faculty and four school district administrators used action research methodology to create systemic change that enhanced the district’s induction program. We collected data through multiple qualitative methods, including surveys, focus groups, observations and interviews during the course of three action research cycles. These data and our theoretical framework (complex adaptive systems theory and social network theory) informed two major interventions that supported new teachers during the challenging first year of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.

The interventions and the research process were mutually beneficial for both institutions and contributed to professional learning and growth at the individual, group and system levels. The three major findings described include: (1) engaging in collaborative action research is mutually beneficial for both schools and universities; (2) induction programs benefit from university resources; (3) learning communities build all educators’ professional capacity.

Our research recommendations are: (1) more research is needed on the benefits of school-university partnerships to induction programs; (2) school-university partnerships should leverage action research to improve systems; (3) within school-university partnerships, the connection between collaborative leadership and sustainability requires further research. One limitation was that this study was conducted in a single school-university partnership context involving a large public university and a mid-sized public school district that had a well-established partnership. More induction-centered research is needed in different types of school-university partnership contexts that have varying levels of longevity and partnership structures.

Our recommendations for practice include (1) school-university partnerships should leverage collaborative learning communities to catalyze individual, group and systems-level learning and change, and (2) school-university partnerships must prioritize induction support to strengthen the teaching profession.

Since Hunt’s (2014) literature review on induction support in PDS partnerships, very few empirical studies have been conducted in this research area. This study, which examined induction support in a PDS partnership over a two-year period, makes a significant contribution to the scholarly literature on induction teacher support in school-university partnership contexts. Facilitated by the interim director of a PDS partnership, a team of co-researchers, which included three university teacher education faculty and four school district administrators, used action research methodology to create systems-level supports that enhanced the district’s induction program.

This study synthesises the self-determination theory (SDT), expectation-confirmation model (ECM), and protection motivation theory (PMT) to formulate an integrated theoretical framework that elucidates the process of shaping the intention to continue using facial recognition payment (FRP) under the conditional impact of perceived technology security.

Data from 667 Beijing Winter Olympics visitors with FRP experience were collected through an online survey and analysed using variance based-structural equation modelling (VB-SEM).

This study reveals that the intention to continue using FRP evolves through three key stages. Initially, in the expectation stage, the multidimensional concept of artificial autonomy (sensing, thought, and action), which is underpinned by self-determination, is pivotal, strongly influencing perceptions of service enhancement and fostering trust in FRP. Subsequently, the confirmation stage underscores the importance of perceived service enhancement and trust as vital drivers in maintaining FRP usage, while also contributing to subjective well-being. Crucially, perceived technology security emerges as a key moderating factor, enhancing positive perceptions and intentions towards FRP, thus influencing its sustained adoption.

This study stands out by revealing the nuanced interplay between artificial autonomy and user perceptions, particularly concerning service enhancement, technology security, and trust, as they influence well-being and the continued adoption of FRP. Robustly grounded in the integrated theoretical framework of SDT, ECM, and PMT, the study’s findings are critical for comprehending the core elements and specific drivers that promote sustained FRP use, especially as we consider its potential widespread implementation. Therefore, this study not only advances theoretical understanding but also offers practical guidance for optimising FRP deployment strategies in a rapidly evolving technological landscape.

The study aimed to address how recruits perceive their roles and develop professional identities during in-classroom and in-field training.

This study explored the professional identity formation process by analysing asynchronous surveys with recruits from 13 municipal police departments in British Columbia, Canada. The participants were surveyed twice: after classroom-based training following Block I at the British Columbia Police Academy (BCPA) and after their departmental field training following Block II.

The analysis revealed that police recruits lacking public safety experience transformed their occupation and lifestyle. The training at the police academy helped develop recruits' muscle memory as they applied their knowledge to the situation through hands-on practice. Moreover, teamwork at the police academy and during field training allowed recruits to form their police identity. The study was conducted between 2020 and 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, thus revealing how the recruits learnt effectively whilst facing continuous challenges and adjusting.

This study relied solely on the respondents' language in text-based answers; therefore, it was not possible to ask follow-up questions or seek clarification. Consequently, several inputs were excluded from the analysis. This would not have been the case if a quantitative method, where answers can be selected accurately, had been used.

This study demonstrates that police recruits acquire diverse competencies and skill sets through rigorous formal requirements, nuanced informal aspects and comprehensive training at the BCPA and during field training, all of which pivotal in shaping their professional identities.