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Studies of entrepreneurial intentions (EIs) have become increasingly common, informed usually by Ajzen’s (1991) theory of planned behaviour (TPB). Although the TPB postulates that beliefs determine EIs, the contents of the beliefs have not been properly studied, leaving EIs’ cognitive underpinnings and cognitive approaches to influencing EIs unclear. To clarify the TPB/EI-belief nexus, the study examines the conceptual background of entrepreneurial cognitions and elicits the beliefs of a group of nascent micro entrepreneurs (NMEs) to compare them with their TPB attitudes and EIs, facilitating assessing their mutual consistency as implied by the TBP.

The respondents are entrepreneurial novice clients of a micro business advisory organisation. Their TPB attitudes and EIs were measured using standard TPB/EI methods. Comparative causal mapping (CCM) combined with semi-structured interviewing was used to reveal the NMEs’ typical belief systems, presented as aggregated cause maps.

The NMEs have uniform, relatively detailed belief systems about entrepreneurship and micro business. The belief systems are consistent with theory- and context-based expectations and logically aligned with the NMEs’ expressed TPB attitudes and EIs. CCM provides an accessible method for studying contents of entrepreneurial cognitions.

It was not possible to study “entrepreneurship-negative” respondents or the intensity or origins of some specific beliefs.

Diagnosing and better understanding beliefs can benefit entrepreneurship education and development, in general or connected with TPB/EI studies.

The study reveals entrepreneurial belief systems systematically, evidently not done before generally or in terms of “everyday” micro entrepreneurship or TPB. It clarifies and supports the TPB notion that beliefs underpin actors’ attitudes and intentions.

A successful component of programs designed to deliver youth leadership develop programs are youth educators who understand the importance of utilizing research-based information and seeking professional development opportunities. The purpose of this study was to determine youth educator’s perceived confidence in leading youth leadership development programs. Study objectives included describing types of youth leadership development training received by youth educators, describing the number of hours of youth leadership development training received by youth educators, describing the perceived importance of youth leadership development training received by youth educators, describing youth leadership development training delivery mode preferences of youth educators, determining if the addition of hours of training received and the perception of the importance of youth leadership training improved the prediction of perceived confidence beyond that provided by differences in selected demographic variables (gender, age, years of service, education level, office location). The target population for this study was southern region 4-H youth development educators. Results of this study indicate that perceived importance of youth leadership development training is predictive of youth educator’s confidence level in teaching youth leadership development.

Youth leadership development programs are a cornerstone of many youth serving organizations. The importance of youth leadership development to the core goals of programs is illustrated by its explicit inclusion in program logic models as well as its implicit presence when older youth serve in teaching and mentoring roles for younger youth. The success or failure of a youth leadership development program may be linked to many factors, one of which is the educator who leads the program. Youth educators influence program success in many ways. The focus of this study is to explore educators’ prior experiences as well as their perceived confidence in delivering youth leadership development programming. Given the strong connections between a person’s beliefs and behaviors, it is important to understand youth educators’ beliefs within the context of their prior experiences (Ajzen, Joyce, Sheikh, & Cote, 2011). This study seeks to expand the literature about youth educators’ youth leadership development training beliefs. It has practical implications for developing professional development trainings for youth educators as well as theoretical implications for advancing a deeper understanding of educators’ core beliefs about training specifically related to youth leadership development.

Research suggests that children in Hong Kong are at an elevated risk of emotional problems. Authoritarian parenting, a common parenting style in Hong Kong, is a critical factor associated with childhood mental health problems. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of the 6As Positive Parenting Program (6As) in modifying parenting attitudes, reduction of parenting stress and increasing self-efficacy in positive parenting, among a sample of 82 Hong Kong parents. 6As focuses on prevention by instilling positive parenting beliefs and principles, thereby reducing reliance on authoritarian and related parenting styles.

The program was evaluated using a controlled pre-post-treatment design. Outcome measures were the Chinese Child-rearing Beliefs Questionnaire, Parental Stress Scale, Parenting Self-efficacy Scale and participant feedback. ANOVA and correlation were utilized to detect treatment effects and relationships between the degree of change among measures and subscales.

Relative to the control group, the 6As Positive Parenting Program significantly changed parents’ parenting attitudes, reduced parenting stress and increased self-efficacy in positive parenting. In sum, 97.6 percent of the participants agreed that the program is a good fit for the Hong Kong culture.

A larger sample would have been desirable for this study. One factor that limited analyzable data was that some of the participating organizations enrolled participants into the program who did not meet research inclusion criteria. Furthermore, the size of groups varied from 5 to 16 participants, which may have produced different group dynamics that added variability to outcomes. Future 6As parenting program research should attempt to standardize group size or to directly compare the effectiveness of smaller vs larger groups. Furthermore, as noted earlier, the research was conducted during the primary school application period, which may have heightened the parenting stress for parents of younger children.

The results suggest that an enhanced belief in authoritative, autonomy and training strategies could reduce parental stress and shift parents’ attitude toward a more positive approach in child-rearing.

There is considerable need for a holistically designed parenting training that is culturally credible and sensitive.

Findings suggest that positive parenting can enhance the parent–child relationship and reduce parental stress. The results support governmental, non-governmental organizational and community focus on positive practices for parenting training in Hong Kong.

Shared understandings of curriculum reform within and between the levels of the educational system are suggested to be crucial for the reform to take root. The purpose of this paper is to explore variation in perceived curriculum coherence and school impact among state- and district-level stakeholders.

The participants (n=666) included state- and district-level stakeholders involved in a national curriculum reform in Finland. Latent profile analysis was employed to identify profiles based on participants’ perceptions of the core curriculum’s coherence and the reform’s impact on school development.

Two profiles were identified: high coherence and impact, and lower consistency of the intended direction and impact. State-level stakeholders had higher odds of belonging to the high coherence and impact profile than their district-level counterparts.

The results imply that more attention needs to be paid in developing a shared and coherent understanding particularly of the intended direction of the core curriculum as well as the reform’s effects on school-level development among state- and district-level stakeholders.

The study contributes to the literature on curriculum reform by shedding light on the variation in perceived curriculum coherence and school impact of those responsible for a large-scale national curriculum reform process at different levels of the educational system.

This study aims to investigate which configurations of organizational-level and group-level management controls support an identity fit for management accountants in the management accounting profession. It aims to complement recent qualitative management accounting research. This stream just begun to use role and identity theory to investigate role expectations, conflicts and coping strategies of management accountants when they struggle with their work identity.

Based on configuration theory, this study uses a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to indicate all possible configurations of formal and informal management controls that improve management accountants’ sense of their identity in an organization. The analyses are based on the results of a cross-sectional survey of 277 management accountants from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

The results show that a strong group culture and high psychological safety at the group level are relevant conditions for a high identity fit. Further, the configurations differ regarding the career stages of management accountants.

This study contributes to work identity research of management accountants and to research on formal and informal control configurations as a control package. It is of particular importance for various professions that are affected by role change, as from the findings on management accountants’ identity fit, implications can also be made for other organizational functions that need to engage in identity work.

Effective leadership in public schools includes, but is not limited to being able to communicate goals, set expectations, monitor instructional progress, coordinate the curriculum, and supervise and evaluate faculty (Snowden & Gorton, 2002). All of these leadership skills are driven by a need for leaders to build collaborative rapport and create a positive learning environment for both teachers and students. This study looked at the relationship between personality type as measured by the Keirsey Temperament Sorter (Keirsey & Bates, 1984) and leaders’ preferred leadership approaches as measured by the Instructional Leadership Beliefs Inventory (Glickman, 2002). Although this study found no significant correlations, the data provides insight to help determine how and to what extent personality type is related to a preferred leadership approach.

This paper aims to understand the discrepancy between Germany’s immediate positive response to the so-called “Europe 2015's refugee crisis“ and the strict asylum legislation adopted in Germany in the following year.

The discrepancy is attributed to external and internal forces. The external force is Germany’s obligation to adhere to the Common European Asylum System. The internal force is the role of the different policy actors. The paper focuses on the role of the media as an example of a private policy actor. Through adopting the theory of the social construction of target populations, the paper studies how the media constructs “asylum seekers”, the target of the new asylum legislation. The role of the media is analyzed using the methodology of qualitative content analysis of a selected number of newspaper articles.

The majority of the studied articles problematized receiving and hosting refugees and focused on the reason behind migration differentiating between asylum seekers fleeing conflict areas and all others who might be abusing the asylum channel. The findings of the content analysis, as such, resonate with the amendments that focused on facilitating the integration of accepted “refugees” but restricted further entry. As such, it could be argued that these findings explain the influence of the media on the amendments and as such provide an explanation to the discrepancy between the initial response and the amendments.

The analysis focused on one newspaper. The findings, as such, are not representative. The aim is only to provide an example of how the German media dealt with the refugee crisis and to suggest using the theory chosen by the paper to analyze the link between asylum legislation and the construction of asylum seekers. To understand how asylum legislation is influenced by how asylum seekers are constructed, more studies are needed. Such studies could analyze the role played by other media outputs and/or the role played by other policy actors in constructing the target of the policy.

The media’s response is based on analyzing a sample of newspaper articles published by a German newspaper following the so-called 2015 refugee crisis. Accordingly, the findings represent an original endeavor to understand how the media reacted to the crisis.

The purpose of this study is to discover the learning mechanisms and temporal dynamics of implementing systems (Six Sigma) as it unfolds over time.

The data come from a European engineering company that was implementing a Six Sigma-based quality management system (QMS) over a seven-year period. The analysis is based on an event-sequence reconstruction of the implementation process as it unfolded over time and discovers four different learning mechanisms that emerged: programmatic, persistent, adaptive and dialectical learning mechanisms. The research follows a process design study, where the authors study how the process unfolds over time.

Much of the literature on implementing management systems suggests that implementation follows a prescribed sequence of “turn-key” steps. However, the findings show that only 40% of all events were driven by prescribed “turn-key” generic practices, while 56% of events required constructing new practices via adaptive and dialectical learning. Moreover, the implementation process did not proceed in a linear programmatic fashion, but instead followed a punctuated equilibrium pattern, which alternated between periods of incremental change and major organizational change. The study also found that implementation required changing many complementary organizational structures and practices that were interdependent with the management system (i.e. Six Sigma). By understanding the implementation process, managers can better assess the time and effort involved, better adapt the system to their situated context and predict critical junctures where implementation could break down.

This research complements the few studies that have examined the process of implementing management systems. Most studies examine factors or conditions that result in implementation success (the what of implementing systems), but few examine the process of implementation and the learning that takes place during implementation (the how of implementing systems), which is a complex nonlinear process that involves different modes of learning.

The purpose of this paper is to supply an in-depth description of the educators’ values, beliefs and confidence changing from a traditional learning environment to a learning environment integrating technology.

The descriptive case study design was employed using descriptive statistical analysis and inductive analysis on the data collected.

Themes on a high level of confidence, the importance of professional development and training, self-motivation, and excitement about the way technology can enhance the learning, along with concerns over the lack of infrastructure and support for integrating technology, and about the ability of students to use the technology tools for higher ordered thinking surfaced.

Additional research may include a more diverse population, including educators at the kindergarten to high school level. Another recommendation would be to repeat the study with a population not as vested in technology.

A pre-assessment of the existing values, beliefs and confidence of educators involved in the change process will provide invaluable information for stakeholders on techniques and strategies vital to a successful transition.

To effectively meet the learning styles of Generation Z and those students following, educators need be able to adapt to quickly changing technology, be comfortable with students who multitask and be open to technology-rich teaching and learning environments.

This study filled a gap in the literature where little information on the humanistic challenges educators encounter when integrating technology into their learning environment providing insights into the values, beliefs and level of confidence of educators experiencing change.