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The purpose of this study is to explore the intersection of mindfulness practices and ethical decision-making within organisational leadership. Drawing from ancient Buddhist principles and contemporary neuroscience, this study aims to illuminate how mindfulness can enhance cognitive and emotional regulation, thereby fostering ethical behaviour and improved decision-making among leaders and employees. By examining the theoretical and practical implications of mindfulness in the context of organisational behaviour, this research seeks to contribute to the development of more compassionate, ethical and effective leadership practices, ultimately promoting a more mindful and sustainable business environment.

This concept paper explores the integration of mindfulness meditation practices with decision-making, particularly its influence on ethical choices, through a comparative study of modern techniques and the ancient teachings of the Tripitaka. Using a methodology that spans literature review in organisational behaviour and leadership, alongside in-depth analysis of the Tripitaka and contributions from scholars like Bhikkhu Bodhi, the paper examines the potential of mindfulness in enhancing ethical decision-making. It incorporates a range of sources, including peer-reviewed journals and seminal books across various disciplines, to underscore the transformative potential of mindfulness in addressing contemporary challenges and guiding leadership practices.

This discussion explores how mindfulness, rooted in ancient Buddhist philosophy and aligned with modern neuroscience, can significantly enhance managerial decision-making by fostering a balance between cognitive and emotional factors. It delves into the transformative potential of mindfulness in refining thought processes, promoting ethical decision-making and mitigating cognitive biases. By bridging traditional wisdom with contemporary scientific insights, the analysis underscores mindfulness as an active, dynamic process crucial for personal growth and effective leadership in complex environments.

One limitation of this research is its reliance on theoretical frameworks and literature reviews, which may not capture the full range of practical challenges in implementing mindfulness practices within organisations. Additionally, the diversity in mindfulness methodologies and the subjective nature of mindfulness experiences may affect the generalisability of the findings. Future research should include empirical studies to validate the proposed benefits of mindfulness in organisational settings and explore the most effective strategies for integrating mindfulness practices into leadership and decision-making processes. This would help in understanding how mindfulness can be tailored to suit different organisational cultures and individual preferences.

The practical implications of applying mindfulness in organisational settings include enhanced decision-making abilities, improved leadership effectiveness and increased employee well-being. Mindfulness training can equip leaders and employees with the skills to manage stress, navigate complex ethical decisions and maintain focus amidst distractions, leading to more thoughtful and responsible business practices. Organisations might see a reduction in conflict, enhanced creativity and better teamwork, contributing to a more harmonious and productive workplace. Implementing mindfulness programmes could also support talent retention and attraction by promoting a workplace culture that values mental health and ethical behaviour.

The social implications of integrating mindfulness into organisational decision-making and leadership, as suggested by the document, include promoting ethical behaviour, enhancing emotional regulation and improving team dynamics. Mindfulness practices can lead to more informed and conscious decision-making, reducing cognitive biases and fostering a culture of ethical awareness within organisations. This shift towards mindful leadership could potentially transform organisational cultures, encouraging greater compassion, ethical responsibility and collective well-being, thereby contributing positively to broader societal values and norms.

The originality and value of this research lie in its novel integration of mindfulness concepts derived from ancient Buddhist teachings with contemporary neuroscience and organisational behaviour studies. By exploring the deep-rooted philosophical underpinnings of mindfulness and their applicability to modern ethical decision-making and leadership practices, this work offers a unique perspective that bridges historical wisdom with current scientific understanding. It provides a comprehensive framework for understanding the transformative potential of mindfulness in organisational settings, highlighting its capacity to foster ethical leadership, enhance decision-making processes and contribute to a more mindful, compassionate and sustainable business environment.

Although significant research has examined the concept of transformational leadership, few studies have explored the indirect impact of transformational leadership on individual and organizational outcomes within the context of crisis. Accordingly, this study aims to advance our understanding of the indirect impact of transformational leadership on school performance and principals' work alienation within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. In doing so, this study contributes to this developing stream of literature by hypothesizing the indirect effect of two relational resources, namely employee trust and relational coordination, which mediate the relationship between transformational leadership, school performance and principals' work alienation.

This study draws on a unique sample of 634 principals from Irish primary schools navigating the COVID-19 crisis. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was performed using Mplus 8.3 to test the hypothesized model.

Mixed findings emerged concerning the mediating process of relational resources and their impact on transformational leadership, school performance and principals' work-alienation. In particular, support is found for the critical role of principals whose transformational leadership style can help increase school performance. However, evidence suggests that employee trust does not mediate the relationship between transformational leadership and principals' work alienation.

This study provides several practical insights for education professionals, policymakers and HRM practitioners across each phase of the crisis management cycle. Firstly, regarding the pre-crisis stage, educational institutions should invest in targeted leadership development programs that prioritize relationship-building and effective communication among stakeholders. Second, during crises, the study emphasizes the role of relational resources in mediating the impact of leadership on school performance. Moreover, the study illustrates the importance of proactively cultivating strong connections with stakeholders, fostering timely, problem-solving-based communication. Finally, in the post-crisis phase, collaboration with government stakeholders is recommended to inform recovery policies.

This study makes several contributions to the literature on leadership and crisis management. First, this study adds new insights suggesting how principals as leaders influence school performance during crisis. Second, by adopting a relational perspective, this study suggests two types of relational resources (i.e. employee trust and relational coordination), as the mediators between transformational leadership, school performance and principals' work alienation. Third, this study moves the existing research on leadership during crisis forward by focusing on the functional effectiveness of leadership while focusing on the principals' work alienation during the pandemic.

In the prior literature, the motivation to adopt wearable fitness technology (WFT) has been linked with either intrinsic or extrinsic. However, how the subcategories of extrinsic motivations (identified, introjected and external) affect the consumers’ WFT adoption decision remains sparse. Furthermore, do regulatory focus (prevention vs promotion) and gender differences the effects of different motivations on WFT adoption is almost unknown in the health-care marketing literature. This study aims to fill the above-mentioned gap and to unfold the WFT adoption beyond the traditional motivation by incorporating the organismic integration theory (part of self-determined theory) and regulatory focus theory.

This study used a questionnaire-based survey. Using the “AMOS” survey, questionnaire responses of 641 respondents were analyzed and validated by using structural equation modeling. All the variables were adopted from the literature.

The results show that intrinsic, identified and external motivations have the greatest impact on consumers’ decisions, while introjected motivation was not significant directly. The moderation effects of regulatory focus are significant in such a way that prevention focus influences the introjected motivation and promotion focus affects the external motivation and WFT adoption decision. Furthermore, the findings on gender moderation suggest that women are more intrinsically motivated, and men are more externally motivated for WFT adoption.

The new insights and contributions of this study provide a better understanding of WFT adoption and help sellers develop more effective marketing strategies.

This study incorporates subcategories of extrinsic motivations to provide a deeper understanding of consumers’ behavior. Furthermore, this study applies a unique framework of organismic integration theory to consumers’ WFT adoption. It is also among very few research that investigate regulatory focus and gender impact on consumers’ WFT adoption.

In recent years, the public sector has faced the challenge of digitalisation. This has significantly impacted the relationships between citizens and public organisations and, thus, it widely affects participatory processes, such as participatory budgeting (PB); in fact, digital tools (DTs) have emerged as a solution, increasing citizen engagement whilst improving efficiency, reducing costs and saving time. This contribution analyses PB in Rome, which is also implemented with DTs, seeking to understand how DTs impact citizens’ role in creating public value.

The study is based on a qualitative approach, precisely by analysing a descriptive and exploratory single case study of PB’s first adoption in Rome in 2019. The information is obtained from multiple sources and examined through document analysis.

In the Roman context, DTs in PB primarily facilitated cost-effective information sharing, offering citizens basic participation. Unfortunately, the potential for more interactive DTs was overlooked, failing to enhance citizen engagement in critical phases like deliberation, evaluation or monitoring. Therefore, the tools did not fully support citizens becoming co-creators of public value instead of just users in governance.

The novelty of this study lies in exploring the difference between the use of DTs that assist citizens/users in improving service quality and those that support citizens in creating a public and shared value. It ventures further to assess various tiers of participation, meditating on the digital elements that stimulate active engagement and value creation instead of simply expanding the participant pool or process efficiency.

Medical schools aspire to graduate doctors who are competent in interpreting, conducting and publishing scientific research. Hence, the purpose of the paper is explore the impact of a structured compulsory community-oriented, project-based research program in the undergraduate medical curriculum on medical graduates’ future careers, publications and motivation for scientific research.

An online questionnaire was sent through the Alumni Association of the Arabian Gulf University (AGU) to medical graduates who have valid email addresses, seeking information on their scientific productivity along with demographic and current employment data. Responses were collated and analyzed using a standard statistical software package. The chi-square test and p-value were calculated. P-value <0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Completed forms were received from 91 medical graduates. In this sample, almost a quarter of the respondents have published a research paper out of their undergraduate research project, and about 50% have published at least one paper (as main or co-author) after graduation. Both demographic and medical specialty was not related to the doctor's perception of the benefits they have attained from the compulsory undergraduate research program. However, medical graduates who are at senior levels in their medical careers and those who are employed in secondary healthcare are significantly more likely to publish research papers.

The compulsory community-oriented, project-based research program in AGU has positively contributed to the research productivity of graduates, and it would be worthwhile to include such programs as an integral part of the undergraduate medical curriculum.

In public management research, the focus in the public value debate has been on public administration organizations’ broader societal outcomes. Public value describes how public administrations form a vital part of the social context in which people develop and grow. However, there has not yet been an analysis of how public administration contributes to happiness in society.

In this study, we empirically analyze the relationship between people’s happiness and the public value of public administration. Our approach is based on a unique Swiss survey dataset comprising 870 individuals.

We find a positive relationship between public administration’s public value and happiness. We also find preliminary evidence with a moderation analysis that the relationship between a value-creating public administration sector and self-reported happiness is stronger for public administration employees.

While correlation studies cannot claim causal explanations and common method bias may additionally limit any research in social science, we took a number of measures to mitigate related problem. We tested our model in two samples and took both several procedural techniques and a survey design minimizing common method bias.

The paper discusses implications for public sector performance measurement for public management and practitioners.

This study calls for a more positive view on the multiple functions public administration performs for society. After an era of critical voices, our study helps reclaim public administration as a positive force for society at large in times of grand challenges, such as climate crisis, demographics and digitization.

This study has highlighted the importance between public administration’s public value and happiness in Swiss public service organizations. The study also showed that an employment in the public administration contributes to the happiness of individuals and beyond to society.

The purpose of this study is to understand the public value of the government of Kuwait using blockchain technology to develop the capabilities of smart cities.

Research was conducted in Kuwait, where the increased use of blockchain technology has been evidenced in both the private and public sectors. A total of seven IT managers were interviewed to gauge their responses to blockchain and its use in Kuwait ministries.

Blockchain technology offers many benefits for the development of smart cities in Kuwait. This is a statement that received almost mutual agreement amongst all the IT managers interviewed. However, as regards wider acceptance, the majority mentioned that a framework is necessary to better articulate the public value of using blockchain in smart cities in Kuwait.

This paper develops research hypotheses and a framework for articulating the public value of blockchain technology for smart cities in Kuwait.

Since the 1980s, New public management has fostered the introduction of managerial approaches similar to those of the private sector in public administrations. Recently, the advantages of performing risk management in the public sector have been recognized; however, to the best of our knowledge, research on risk management in public administrations is underdeveloped, and there is a need to understand how risk management is performed. This paper addresses these issues and investigates whether and how risk management is performed in Italian public administration.

This study focused on a sample of 503 Italian municipalities and used a mixed research method. Through a qualitative content analysis of documents published on municipalities’ websites, data and information were collected and elaborated using quantitative indicators.

The main results are that a high percentage of large Italian municipalities perform risk management and comply with theoretical provisions on risk management, sometimes displaying isomorphic behavior in risk management practices.

This study provides a new perspective on risk management in Italian municipalities, contributes to filling a gap in the literature and suggests a theoretical perspective on municipalities’ approaches when introducing new managerial practices.

This paper aims to explore the impacts of a blockchain network implementation to support purchasing processes of a Brazilian public organization.

The Grumbach method was used to build the scenarios. Five experts with knowledge in blockchain and experience in public procurement were consulted on 20 possible preliminary events, defining their probability of occurrence and relevance. The data obtained were processed in Puma software, which returned a selection of ten definitive events, based on probability, relevance and standard deviation indicators, generating a map of prospective scenarios.

Three following scenarios are shown, the ideal scenario, the one with greater implantation benefits and fewer complications; the trend scenario, more likely to occur under current conditions; and the most likely scenario of occurrence, according to experts. The results indicated which simulated events are drivers (motives), and which are influenced (dependent). They were categorized as opportunities or threats to the deployment of the technology.

Although public procurement processes are standardized by Brazilian legislation, new events may arise from the replication of the model in different organizations. The research revealed the need for practical testing in a simulated public procurement environment.

The article explores the interaction between disruptive network technology and processes linked to public sector efficiency. Studies on electronic government point to the future of public management.

The teaching and learning of anatomy has experienced a significant paradigm shift. The present study assessed the level of knowledge in anatomy in medical postgraduate students and explored the impact of interventions in the form of anatomical videos on knowledge obtained. An awareness of the importance of human anatomy for clinical skills was created to ensure a certain level of competence be achieved by the end of the anatomy course.

Postgraduate medical students were recruited from various specialties on voluntary basis. The first step was to conduct a preliminary screening exam to determine the level of anatomical knowledge. The students were then divided into two groups at random, one of which received no intervention (the control group), and the other of which watched the videos with content that was pertinent to the practical demonstrations (intervention). To assess the effects of the video intervention, a post-test was administered to all students.

Both spot tests (SPOTs) and short answer question (SAQ) components for scores of all the regions from the intervention groups were comparable to the scores obtained by the post-test control group, although the findings were not significant (p > 0.05). However, the intervention group from the abdomen (ABD) region did perform significantly better (p < 0.05) than the screening test score.

The results of the research study imply that interventions like anatomical videos can bridge the postgraduate trainee’s anatomy knowledge gap in a practical method which will immensely help in increasing their knowledge.