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The purpose of this paper is to investigate how organizations create focal engagement objects through posts to their social media community members and how the members engage with these posts in ways that potentially co-create value. Of additional interest is the use of platform, tone and language to determine how they potentially influence value co-creation.

The research method is netnography. Two Australian-based cause organizations were selected for the study, and posts were collected from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube platforms used by the communities, as well as likes, clicks, shares and retweets. Data was examined using content and thematic analyses.

Findings for the characteristics of the posts indicate how platforms need to be member-centric and that post tone and language can be used for engaging members effectively. Three consumer engagement objects were thematically derived from the posts: events, donations and fundraising, and social justice that includes shout-outs and thunderclaps. In turn, consumer responses evidenced engagement sub-processes of co-developing, acknowledging, rewarding, sharing, advocating, adding momentum and learning. The likes, clicks, shares and retweets assisted in determining the amount of community interactions with posts in the cause brands’ communities.

This research is limited to the extent it involved two cases. As with any cross-sectional research, the findings are snapshots of interactions on the two sites over the two-week data collection periods. Theoretical implications provide a deeper insights into value co-creation by empirically examining how organizations and their supporters employ and use post resources to co-create value collectively, and how the characteristics of the posts and behavioral interactions potentially facilitates this.

Managerially, this investigation will assist both commercial brand and cause brand organizations to plan and adapt their social media strategies to enhance supporters’ engagement with posts in this digital environment.

The social implications of this study are that it provides an understanding of how cause organizations can harness online communities for value co-creation to generate social good.

The study is both original and adds value to the research community. The findings presented provide an insightful conceptual framework to guide future research into this important area of consumer engagement with resources in social media communities leading to potential co-creation of value.

The purpose of this paper is to summarize the key findings from a critical review of relevant US research to determine whether teachers, on average, improve in their effectiveness as they gain experience in the teaching profession.

This paper is based on the authors’ review of 30 studies published since 2003 that analyze the effect of teaching experience on student outcomes in the USA.

The authors find that: teaching experience is positively associated with student achievement gains throughout much of a teacher’s career; as teachers gain experience, their students are more likely to do better on measures of success beyond test scores; teachers make greater gains in their effectiveness when they teach in a supportive, collegial environment, or accumulate experience in the same grade, subject or district; and more experienced teachers confer benefits to their colleagues.

A renewed look at this research is warranted due to advances in methods and data systems that have allowed researchers to examine this question with greater sophistication.

High rates of suicide and self-harm are reported in prisons in Western countries, while fewer studies exist from a non-Western context. This study aims to identify rates of suicide, non-fatal suicide attempts and self-harm in Moroccan prisons and to better understand the context, methods, tools, predictors and profile of persons engaged in the acts.

The authors report findings from a mixed-methods study carried out before an intervention project. The study consists of a systematic literature review, an analysis of suicide case files, a quantitative survey on suicide attempts and self-harm, as well as interviews and focus group discussions. The authors calculate suicide, suicide attempt and self-harm rates and present descriptive data on the incidents. The authors use regression models to explore the association between the number of incidents per individual and selected predictors, adjusting for clustering by institution.

Over a four-year period, 29 detained persons in Morocco died by suicide (average annual suicide rate 8.7 per 100,000). Most were men under the age of 30. Hanging accounted for all but one case. In one year, 230 suicide attempts were reported. Over a three-months period, 110 self-harm cases were reported from 18 institutions, cutting being the most common method. Self-harm was significantly more prevalent among persons with a life sentence or repeated incarcerations.

To make the study manageable as part of an intervention project, the authors collected data on suicides and suicide attempts from all prisons, while data on self-harm were collected from fewer prisons and over a shorter time period. The authors did not collect comparable information from detained persons who did not die by suicide, attempt suicide or self-harm. This prevented comparative analyses. Further, it is possible that self-harm cases were not reported if they did not result in serious physical injury. Data were collected by prison staff; thus, the voice of incarcerated persons is absent.

This study provided a solid basis for designing an intervention project including the development of a national prison policy and guidelines on suicides, suicide attempts and self-harm and a country-wide training program for prison staff. It also led to a better surveillance system, allowing for trend analysis and better-informed policymaking. The qualitative results helped create an understanding of how staff may trivialize self-harm. This was integrated into the training package for staff, resulting in the creation of prison staff trainers who became the strongest advocates against the notion that self-harm was best ignored.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first published data on suicide and self-harm in Moroccan prisons. It underscores the necessity for the intervention project and gives valuable insights into suicide and self-harm in a non-Western prison context. Further research is needed to assess whether the findings are typical of the region.

Despite significant anti-discrimination laws in most countries, gender pay gap still remains a substantial concern. The notion of comparable worth has been promoted for several years by the ILO and a few countries to fight against relatively lower female salaries. The purpose of this paper is to review the rationales for comparable worth and explain how gender biases, generally involved in traditional job evaluation, can be prevented.

To do this, after reviewing the motives, logics and three major applications of comparable worth logics in pay equity policies, the authors expose an analysis of a French sectorial job classification that the authors carried out as experts for establishing a French Equality Ombudsman’s guide.

The findings show how the redundancy and definition of job evaluation criteria, along with the weighting system, contributes to undervaluation of clerks jobs, predominantly held by women. The authors also highlight the main recommendations of the guide to prevent gender bias in job evaluation, that are derived from this case study, among others. The authors conclude on the difficulties of implementing comparable worth in France, in a period of long lasting economic crisis and of weak union power.

The paper is based on a single case study, conducted for policy actors. It was not conducted at first for academic research purposes, and may thus have some methodological limitations. The implications of the research are, however, important at academic level – highlighting the persistence of gender bias – and at policy level, as it provides recommendations for negotiators.

The guide originally aimed at giving guidelines and “good practices” in order to prevent gender discrimination in job evaluation.

The paper draws attention to the importance and difficulty of undergoing such classification changes in times of economic crisis. Stronger legal action seems necessary.

This experience is the first of its kind – promoted by the Ombudsman – in France. It has never been related in an academic journal as far as the authors know.

Single-use plastic bags given to shoppers by retailers have increasingly become a key target for sustainability initiatives, with bans being introduced around the world. The rationale for such bans is based on the environmental impact of single-use bags, compared to their multi-use alternatives. The arguments for bans are underpinned by assumptions about how consumers will respond to the changes, yet do not account for the known patterns of buyer and consumer behaviour from the social sciences. This lessens the delivery of desired outcomes and hampers implementation strategies. This chapter draws upon this established knowledge to demonstrate how such marketing knowledge of fundamental buyer and consumer behaviour is critical when developing and implementing a public policy programme, using the example of a retail ban on the use of single-use plastic bags in Australia. It illustrates how these known patterns hold in this context and shows how social marketing can be used to help shape programme implementation and uptake and the reinforcement of new positive behaviours.

Ulf Bengtsson works for Motorola Inc. as an Organization Effectiveness consultant. In this role he works in the area of change acceleration, organization design, and other strategic OD initiatives. His undergraduate degree is in Organizational Communication from Cleveland State University and he earned a Masters in Management and Organizational Behavior (concentration in OD) from Benedictine University. He has done award-winning papers and presentations and has numerous publications on topics including organizational behavior, organization development, and appreciative inquiry. A Swedish citizen, he now resides in Chicago. Ulf can be reached at: Ulfl@motorola.com.Allen C. Bluedorn (Ph.D. in sociology, University of Iowa) is the Emma S. Hibbs Distinguished Professor and the Chair of the Department of Management at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He has taught and studied management and the organization sciences, first at the Pennsylvania State University, then for the last 23 years at the University of Missouri-Columbia. These efforts have produced seven major teaching awards, over 30 articles and chapters, and his recently published book, The Human Organization of Time (Stanford University Press, 2002). He has served as president of the Midwest Academy of Management, as a member of the Organizational Behavior Teaching Society’s board of directors, as a representative-at-large to the Academy of Management’s board of governors, as associate editor of Academy of Management Learning and Education, and as division chair of the Academy of Management’s Organizational Behavior Division.David Coghlan is a member of the School of Business Studies at the University of Dublin, Trinity College, Ireland. His research and teaching interests lie in the areas of organisation development, action research, action learning, clinical inquiry, practitioner research and doing action research in one’s own organisation. His most recent books include Doing Action Research in Your Own Organization (co-authored with Teresa Brannick, Sage, 2001), Changing Healthcare Organisations, (coauthored with Eilish Mc Auliffe, Blackhall: Dublin, 2003) and Managers Learning in Action (eds. D. Coghlan, T. Dromgoole, P. Joynt & P. Sorensen, Routledge, 2004).Paul Coughlan is Associate Professor of Operations Management at the University of Dublin, School of Business Studies, Trinity College, Ireland where, since 1993, he has researched and taught in the areas of operations management and product development. His active research interests relate to continuous improvement of practices and performance in product development and manufacturing operations. He is President of the Board of the European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management, and a member of the board of the European Operations Management Association.Fariborz Damanpour received his Ph.D. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He joined the Graduate School of Management at the Rutgers University in 1985. Currently he is a professor at the Department of Management and Global Business of the Rutgers Business School, where he served as the chairperson of the management department from 1996 to 2002. Prior to his academic career, he worked as an engineer, an organizational development consultant, and the manager of a start-up unit in a large organization. His primary areas of research have been management of innovation and organization design and change. His papers have been published in several management and technology management journals including the Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, Journal of Management Studies, Management Science, Organization Studies, and Strategic Management Journal. He serves on the editorial boards of the IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, and Journal of Management Studies.Joyce Falkenberg is Professor of Strategy and Associate Dean of the School of Management at Agder University College (HiA) in Kristiansand, Norway. She received a Ph.D. from the University of Oregon in 1984. Her dissertation focused on strategic change and adaptation as a response to changes in the environment. Her research has continued the focus on strategic change with an emphasis on implementation. Recent work has combined this emphasis with the strategy issues of congition, strategizing, and resource based perspective. Before coming to HiA in the summer of 2003, Joyce Falkenberg was a member of the faculty at the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration. She taught in many international programs, including NHHs Masters of International Business; executive masters programs in Russia and Poland; and held seminars in Latvia, China, Switzerland, and Germany. Falkenberg has served on the Executive Board of the Academy of Management Business Policy Division and on the Editorial Board of the Academy of Management Review.Mary A. Ferdig Ph.D., is Director of the Sustainability Leadership Institute in Middlebury, Vermont, a research and education organization dedicated to developing leadership capacity for building a more sustainable world. Her research interests focus on leadership for sustainable organizational and social change, grounded in complexity and social constructionist perspectives. She consults with leaders in not-for-profit and business sectors as well as teaching process consultation and leadership communication in the Management and Organizational Behavior Master’s program at Benedictine University and the Public Administration and Community Services program at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. She also serves as an External Examiner in the Doctoral Program in the Complexity Management Centre, Hertfordshire University, London, U.K.Robert T. Golembiewski is Distinguished Research Professor, Emeritus at the University of Georgia, where he is part of the Public Administration program. Bob G is an internationally-active consultant in planned change, and he is the only pracademic who has won all of the major research prizes in management: the Irwin in business, Waldo Award in PA, the NASPAA Award in public policy, two McGregor awards for excellence in the application of the behavioral sciences, and the ODI Prize for global programs in planned change.