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Avoidable voluntary turnover negatively impacts an organisation’s workforce and decreases its sustainability and productivity. His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service’s (HMPPS) leaving rates are among the highest in the public sector. The purpose of this study is, thus, to support HMPPS in improving Band 3 prison officers’ (POs) retention and in developing an effective employee retention strategy.

Grounded in retention literature, the present study uses a mixed-methods, cross-sectional, phenomenological research design. Primary data was gathered using an online qualitative survey, which was sent to POs working at a public sector prison in the Northwest of England with less than five years of work experience.

The results highlight the impact of career development and training and development due to their importance to POs in comparison to the POs’ dissatisfaction with HMPPS’ performance in both factors. Furthermore, most expectations of retention factors were only partially met, illustrating the need to reform the existing recruitment process and the translation of expectations into the reality of the role. In conclusion, HMPPS should focus attention on performance-improvement, especially in relation to career development and training and development, as well as investigating and reforming the current recruitment processes.

Recommendations to improve the retention of POs include the improved management of career plans, an increased selection of managers based on their management abilities, increasing training opportunities and equating staff's access to them, and evaluating the effect of payment boosts.

The role of POs and their professional environment has not previously been combined with contemporary retention literature. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research paper is the first of its kind using qualitative data to understand retention in the English and Welsh prison service.

Using Schein’s Descriptive Index (SDI), this paper aims to first examine gender role stereotypes and requisite managerial characteristics among Irish business students over a 10-year period. Then, the paper investigates whether there have been changes in gender role stereotypes during this period and subsequently unpack the reasons behind any changes recorded.

In total, 1,124 students from the same business student population rated men, women and managers in general, using SDI. Data was collected first during the academic year 2008–2009 and again in 2018–2019 to determine stability or change in gender role stereotypes and requisite managerial characteristics. Intraclass correlation coefficients scores were computed to determine the relationship between gender and requisite managerial characteristics and identify differences and similarities between the two samples. To explore the content of gender stereotypes, an examination of the specific descriptive items was conducted by performing a factorial analysis using Duncan’s Multiple Range Test. Finally, the authors adapted the scales developed by Duehr and Bono (2006) to determine whether broad gender stereotypic characteristics with respect to communal and agentic, attributed to men, women and managers, differ by sample.

The overall findings indicate changes in the extent of gender role stereotyping of the managerial role among the male cohorts studied. The subsequent analysis of the descriptive items identified that the change among the male cohort is due to the levels of agency they perceive women to now possess.

The authors contribute to the literature on both gendered and managerial stereotypes by showing changes in the pro-male stereotype of the managerial role and contribute to the existing debate on a shift towards a more androgynous view of leadership.

These findings help understand the content of gender role stereotypes that recent graduates bring with them to their first job post-graduation. The observed changes in the level of agency ascribed to women by their male counterparts could prove to be an important step forward for women’s advancement to managerial positions.

The findings indicate that both male and female cohorts in Sample 2 perceived men and women in general to possess the same levels of communal and agentic traits as their managerial counterparts.

An integrative model that predicts users' stickiness to WeChat is built. In the proposed model, perceived value plays a dual mediating role in the causal pathway from users' immersive experiences of presence and flow to their engagement and stickiness. Furthermore, presence is treated as a bi-dimensional construct made up of spatial feelings and the sense of being in company, and users' engagement is conceived as cognitive, affective and behavioural contributions to WeChat's marketing functions.

The authors develop a measurement instrument and analyse data from a survey of 917 WeChat users. They use a hybrid partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) and neural network approach to confirm the reliability and validity of the measurement items and all the relationships between the constructs.

The paper provides robust evidence about the mediating influences of both utilitarian and hedonic value on users' engagement with the immersive experiences of presence and flow. An additional finding highlights the role of social norms in engagement and stickiness.

Rather than studying the effects of the immersive experiences of presence and flow from either a hedonic or a utilitarian perspective, the authors consider how immersive experiences shape both utilitarian and hedonic value, as well as their joint impact (along with that of social norms) on users' engagement and stickiness.

This paper aims to critically examine the accounting and information systems literature to understand the changes that are occurring in the management accounting profession. The changes the authors are interested in are linked to technology-driven innovations in managerial decision-making and in organizational structures. In addition, the paper highlights research gaps and opportunities for future research.

The authors adopted a grounded theory literature review method (Wolfswinkel et al., 2013) to achieve the study’s aims.

The authors identified four research themes that describe the changes in the management accounting profession due to technology-driven innovations: structured vs unstructured data, human vs algorithm-driven decision-making, delineated vs blurred functional boundaries and hierarchical vs platform-based organizations. The authors also identified tensions mentioned in the literature for each research theme.

Previous studies display a rather narrow focus on the role of digital technologies in accounting work and new competences that management accountants require in the digital era. By contrast, the authors focus on the broader technology-driven shifts in organizational processes and structures, which vastly change how accounting information is collected, processed and analyzed internally to support managerial decision-making. Hence, the paper focuses on how management accountants can adapt and evolve as their organizations transition toward a digital environment.

This paper aims to explore how the maieutic role of management accounting (MA) can be sustained in the context of MA digitalization.

The paper begins with practitioners’ descriptions of the context that makes the MA support of non-routine decisions maieutic. To understand how the maieutic characteristics can be sustained in future MA digitalization, the authors then analyze the discourses these practitioners have about artificial intelligence (AI) in providing MA support.

As a basis, the authors’ data show various maieutic characteristics within the use of MA answers in decision-making as well as within the MA process of generating such answers. The paper then identifies three MA digitalization discourses, namely, “computation,” “judgment” and human-AI “interaction” discourse, each with their unique agendas on how AI should be used.

The paper is based on the premises that AI and digitalization are often discussed without sufficient understanding about the context being digitalized. The authors’ data suggest that MA support in non-routine decision-making is fundamentally maieutic, and AI – as it currently stands – is not expected to change this by providing perfect answers. The authors provide novel insights about maieutic MA support and the current discourses on using AI in MA support, and how digitalization does not necessarily compromise maieutic MA support but instead has the potential to sustain or even enhance it.