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This paper is dedicated to elaborating, proposing and validating an action plan to enhance the mitigation of risks generated by the COVID-19 pandemic in the electric sector supply chain, aiming to promote a more resilient supply chain.

For this, a systematic review of the literature was carried out to prepare an action plan that was validated by a group of experts, through the Delphi methodology.

As a result, an action plan was obtained, with 18 actions subdivided into 13 resilience elements and related to 20 main risks arising from the pandemic. The actions oriented to the development of relationships among supply chain members, promotion of a culture oriented to learning and problem solving, contingency plan, safety stock and risk management were pointed as those capable of generating resilience in the chain analyzed in the moment of crisis.

The results achieved can contribute to the expansion of debates in the area of resilient supply chain management, as well as contribute to supply chain managers in their elaboration and definition of actions that aim to make the supply chain more resilient. It is noteworthy that no similar study was found in the literature considering the specificities of supply chain management in the Brazilian Amazon region.

While entrepreneurship may be driven by personal interests and lifestyle choices, entrepreneurial actions are not only economically driven opportunity-searching processes but also enactments of social transformation that may or may not lead to socioeconomic benefits. We advance that exploring these entrepreneurial processes can inform a theory of the firm that may explain how socioeconomic processes shape the socioeconomic environment of communities while serving individuals. This article discusses several understandings of the firm, as theorized in extant literature. Guided by these different conceptualizations, we present a case study of an artist and artisan cluster in Western Massachusetts to demonstrate various understandings of entrepreneurial processes. By way of conclusion, we develop the idea of the firm as a geographically embedded relational understanding aiding entrepreneurs to achieve personal goals while coconstructing their local environment.

Service-learning (SL) shows potential to respond to the global policy agenda of education for sustainable development (ESD) by increasing pro-sustainability competences through direct involvement of students in projects that satisfy identified community needs. Nevertheless, there is a scarcity of studies that attempt to measure the impact of SL on students’ sustainability competences, especially the action competence. This study aims to address this gap by examining the experiences of higher education students.

A pre-post survey design based on the Self-Perceived Action Competence for Sustainability Questionnaire was conducted on an interdisciplinary group of 219 students of two courses (Sustainable Development and Ecology) in Medellin, Colombia, half of which (109) participated in SL projects.

Sufficient empirical evidence was found to suggest that SL boosts the impact of academic courses regarding action competences in students (specially their willingness to act).

The statistical analysis shows some contradictions that should be addressed in further research.

These results can encourage more educators and universities to implement strategies such as SL to move forward with ESD and thus help overcome the current socioecological crisis.

This paper not only discusses the theoretical potential of SL but also contrasts theory with empirical observations of 13 SL projects assessed in terms of self-perceived action competence for sustainability.

This study aims to analyze the influence of farmers’ degree of participation in collective action on their adoption decisions and waiting time regarding soil and water conservation (SWC) measures.

The Probit model and Generalized Propensity Score Match method are used to assess the effect of the degree of participation in collective action on farmers’ adoption decisions and waiting time for implementing SWC measures.

The findings reveal that farmers’ engagement in collective action positively influences the decision-making process regarding terrace construction, water-saving irrigation and afforestation measures. However, it does not significantly impact the decision-making process for plastic film and ridge-furrow tillage practices. Notably, collective action has the strongest influence on farmers’ adoption decisions regarding water-saving irrigation technology, with a relatively smaller influence on the adoption of afforestation and terrace measures. Moreover, the results suggest that participating in collective action effectively reduces the waiting time for terrace construction and expedites the adoption of afforestation and water-saving irrigation technology. Specifically, collective action has a significantly negative effect on the waiting time for terrace construction, followed by water-saving irrigation technology and afforestation measures.

The results of this study underscore the significance of fostering mutual assistance and cooperation mechanisms among farmers, as they can pave the way for raising funds and labor, cultivating elite farmers, attracting skilled labor to rural areas, enhancing the adoption rate and expediting the implementation of terraces, water-saving irrigation technology and afforestation measures.

Drawing on an evaluation of farmers’ degree of participation in collective action, this paper investigates the effect of participation on their SWC adoption decisions and waiting times, thereby offering theoretical and practical insights into soil erosion control in the Loess Plateau.

Although the literature on the effectiveness of team interventions is constantly expanding, there has been a strong focus on the process mechanisms that could explain their success, often overlooking the contextual aspects in which these interventions are carried out. Based on the Context-Mechanism-Outcome framework, this study aims to investigate the influence of contextual factors on the effectiveness of digital team coaching interventions that use social network visualisation to enhance team coordination and reduce interpersonal conflicts.

Using a multi-wave, longitudinal design, this research analysed 38 work teams from three organisations over three-time points. Data collection focused on manager and peer support, the mechanisms of training transfer and action plan implementation and the outcomes of these interventions. Surveys were administered in three organisations, involving 317 respondents across different phases. The intervention spanned six to eight months, incorporating three to four structured online group sessions. Each session involved a multi-stage process, concluding with a result-oriented action plan about work-related goals. The intervention included social network visualisation, discussions, coaching and continuous refinement of action plans.

The analysis highlights how manager support significantly correlates with team coordination and performance, mainly when teams are less engaged in implementing action plans. Peer support did not show a mediating effect on training transfer or outcomes but had direct positive impacts on team coordination and performance.

Teams actively implementing action plans may require less immediate managerial support for effective coordination and high performance. The manager’s role becomes crucial, particularly in the early stages of the intervention or in those teams where online coordination alone may not be adequate for action plan implementation. Peer support for training transfer could enhance the effectiveness of the intervention in achieving desired team outcomes; therefore, cultivating a supportive peer environment is crucial for the success of such interventions. Monitoring and assessing team dynamics are vital to maximise the benefits of digital team coaching interventions.

This study stands out for its innovative exploration of the interplay between managerial and peer support in the context of digital team coaching, using social network visualisation as a novel approach to enhancing team dynamics.

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.

Rapid sensitivity analysis and near-optimal decision-making in contested environments are valuable requirements when providing military logistics support. Port of debarkation denial motivates maneuver from strategic operational locations, further complicating logistics support. Simulations enable rapid concept design, experiment and testing that meet these complicated logistic support demands. However, simulation model analyses are time consuming as output data complexity grows with simulation input. This paper proposes a methodology that leverages the benefits of simulation-based insight and the computational speed of approximate dynamic programming (ADP).

This paper describes a simulated contested logistics environment and demonstrates how output data informs the parameters required for the ADP dialect of reinforcement learning (aka Q-learning). Q-learning output includes a near-optimal policy that prescribes decisions for each state modeled in the simulation. This paper's methods conform to DoD simulation modeling practices complemented with AI-enabled decision-making.

This study demonstrates simulation output data as a means of state–space reduction to mitigate the curse of dimensionality. Furthermore, massive amounts of simulation output data become unwieldy. This work demonstrates how Q-learning parameters reflect simulation inputs so that simulation model behavior can compare to near-optimal policies.

Fast computation is attractive for sensitivity analysis while divorcing evaluation from scenario-based limitations. The United States military is eager to embrace emerging AI analytic techniques to inform decision-making but is hesitant to abandon simulation modeling. This paper proposes Q-learning as an aid to overcome cognitive limitations in a way that satisfies the desire to wield AI-enabled decision-making combined with modeling and simulation.

Ethics is fundamentally a science of social and collective responsibility. Ethics concerns human behavior as responsible or accountable. Because of the nature of social interaction, certain members of the society will bear greater authority, and hence, greater individual and social responsibility than others. In our world, personal responsibility and social responsibility are hardly separable. Personal responsibility becomes responsibility for the world because the person and the world are inseparable. In this chapter, we use the term responsibility from a legal, ethical, moral, and spiritual (LEMS) standpoint as some promise, commitment, obligation, sanctioned by self, morals, law, or society, to do good, and if harm results, to repair harm done on another. Hence, responsibility from a moral perspective is trustworthiness and dependability of the agent in some enterprise. Its inverse is exoneration – the extent to which one is excused from commitment and repairing the harm done to others by one’s actions. We apply the theories and constructs of executive responsibility to two contemporary cases: (1) India’s Super Rich in 2014 and (2) the Fall and Rise of Starbucks. After exploring the basic notion of responsibility, we present a discussion on the nature and obligation of corporate responsibility into three parts: Part I: Classical Understanding and Discussion on Corporate Responsibility; Part II: Contemporary Understanding and Discussion on Corporate Responsibility, and Part III: A synthesis of classical and contemporary views of responsibility and their applications to corporate executive responsibility.

The study utilises unique survey data gathered from 12,427 party members. The dependent variable measures party members’ in-party commitment and is based on willingness to donate money, to contribute effort, the feeling of belonging in the party network and social trust in the party network.

In this article, we study how different extra-parliamentary online and offline activities are associated with in-party commitment amongst political party members from the six largest Finnish parties. We especially delve into the differences between members of the Finnish parties.

We found that extra-parliamentary political activity, including connective action through social media networks and collective action through civic organisations, is highly associated with members’ in-party commitment. Additionally, members of the newer identity parties more effectively utilised social media networks, whilst the traditional interest parties were still more linked to traditional forms of extra-parliamentary political action.

By employing the sociological network theory perspective, the study contributes to ongoing discussions surrounding the impact of social media on political participation amongst party members, both within and beyond the confines of political parties.

This focal chapter deals with the understanding of important ethical theories used in executive moral reasoning such as teleology, deontology, distributive justice and corrective justice, virtue ethics versus ethics of trust, from the perspectives of intrinsic versus instrumental good, moral worth versus moral obligation, and moral conscience versus moral justification. Ethical and moral reasoning will power executives to identify, explore, and resolve corporate moral dilemma, especially in the wake of emerging gray market areas where good and evil, right or wrong, just or unjust, and truth and falsehood cannot be easily distinguished. We focus on developing corporate skills of awareness of ethical values and moral imperatives in current otherwise highly commoditized and turbulent human, market, and corporate situations. The challenges of morality are multifaceted and diverse. Professionals usually have self-discipline and self-regulation abilities, ego strength, and social skills. Morality in the professions is not concerned with the issues of rudimentary socialization; rather, the issues involve deciding between conflicting values, where each value represents something good in itself. There are problems in both knowing what is right, good, true, and just on the one hand, and on the other hand, in doing what is right and avoiding wrong, doing good and avoiding evil, and being fair and just while avoiding being unfair and unjust. Several contemporary cases will illustrate the challenging dimensions of ethical and moral reasoning, moral judgment and moral justification embedded in executive decision processes, and corporate growth and profitability ventures.