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The purpose of this study is to assess the contributions of graduate research to social innovation and change for learning and improved transdisciplinary practice. Universities, as centers of teaching and research, face high demand from society to address urgent social and environmental challenges. Faculty and students are keen to use their research to contribute to social innovation and sustainable development. As part of the effort to increase societal impact, research approaches are evolving to be more problem-oriented, engaged and transdisciplinary. Therefore, new approaches to research evaluation are also needed to learn whether and how research contributes to social innovation, and those lessons need to be applied by universities to train and support students to do impactful research and foster an impact culture.

This paper uses a theory-based evaluation method to assess the contributions of three completed doctoral research projects. Each study documents the project’s theory of change (ToC) and uses qualitative data (document review, surveys and interviews) to test the ToC. This paper uses a transdisciplinary research (TDR) quality assessment framework (QAF) to analyze each projects’ design and implementation. This paper then draws lessons from the individual case studies and a comparative analysis of the three cases on, namely, effective research design and implementation for social transformation; and training and support for impactful research.

Each project aimed to influence government policy, organizational practice, other research and/or the students’ own professional development. All contributed to many of their intended outcomes, but with varying levels of accomplishment. Projects that were more transdisciplinary had more pronounced outcomes. Process contributions (e.g. capacity-building, relationship-building and empowerment) were as or more important than knowledge contributions. The key recommendations are for: researchers to design intentional research, with an explicit ToC; higher education institutions (HEI) to provide training and support for TDR theory and practice; and HEIs to give more attention to research evaluation.

This is the first application of both the outcome evaluation method and the TDR QAF to graduate student research projects, and one of very few such analyses of research projects. It offers a broader framework for conceptualizing and evaluating research contributions to social change processes. It is intended to stimulate new thinking about research aims, approaches and achievements.

The production of the ‘good life’ or the ‘less bad-life’ (Berlant, 2007, 2011), especially among generations of the Marcos dictatorship and the Epifanio de los Santos Avenue revolutions (henceforth, EDSA revolutions) in the Philippines, is animated by the ‘mobility imperative’ (Farrugia, 2016). The mobility imperative includes processes that encourage or demand mobility (Farrugia, 2016) for individuals and institutions. It figures in various ‘systems of practice’ (Levitt, 1998, 2001) among families in migrant-sending communities, government and corporations that magnify how migration is the ticket to better life (McKay, 2012) or its glorification as a heroic act (de los Reyes, 2013, 2014). Among the generations of the Martial Law and the EDSA revolutions, therefore, the ‘good life’ is hinged upon departure as professionals (e.g. nurses and engineers), workers in elementary occupations (e.g. construction and domestic workers) or mail-order brides or pen pals. Put simply, the good life in these generations is a function of remittances.

This chapter examines how the contemporary generation of young people construct the ‘good life’ in differential and new terms (de los Reyes, 2023; McKay & Brady, 2005) from previous generations. Using interviews and vision boards of left-behind children (15–18 years old), it argues that left-behind children critically appraise the ‘mobility imperative’. The chapter shows that there is a growing imagination of alternatives to the migration-induced good life among left-behind children, and therefore, they gradually refuse the ‘mobility imperative’. For them, the aspired good life consists of potentially being employees or entrepreneurs in their own villages and living a life with their own families (de los Reyes, 2019, 2020).

This paper studies early stages of actor mobilization for institutional change within Swedish esports.

The authors employ interpretative phenomenological analysis.

The authors’ findings explain how actors become motivated to act in critical reflections linked to conflicting legitimacy judgments and emotionally charged personal struggles. Moreover, the findings show how, as actors get activated in collective action, they identify efficacy lines around valid domains and experience emotionally charged collective endeavors. Furthermore, the findings explain how particularities in early experiences project legitimacy aspirations that orient collective action toward validity ends and particular values and ideals shaping actors' grassroots movements.

This study adds to legitimacy and institutional change theory through individual actors' perspectives, providing key insights into how they are motivated, activated, and oriented. This study is the first to investigate grassroots activists' personal stories in esports.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the aftermath of business failure (BF) by addressing: how the individual progressed and developed new ventures, how individuals changed business behaviors and practices in light of a failure, and what was the effect of previous failure on the individual’s decisions to embark on subsequent ventures.

The authors resort to qualitative methods to understand the aftermath of BF from a retrospective point of a successful entrepreneur. Specifically, the authors undertook semi-structured interviews to six entrepreneurs, three from the north of Europe and three from the south and use interpretative phenomenological analysis.

The authors found that previous failure impacted individuals strongly, being shaped by the individual’s experience and age, and their perception of blame for the failure. An array of moderator costs was identified, ranging from antecedents to institutions that were present in the individual’s lives. The outcomes are directly relatable to the failed experience by the individual. The authors also found that the failure had a significant effect on the individual’s career path.

While predicting the failure of healthy firms or the discovery of the main determinants that lead to such an event have received increasingly more attention in the last two decades, the focus on the consequences of BF is still lagging behind. The present study fills this gap by analyzing the aftermath of BF.

The history of academic inquiry into leadership as a discipline has yielded the unintended consequence of compounding confusion and perpetuating the myth of leadership as mystical. This paper takes that acknowledgement and inquires into the past and future of leadership theory development from a systemic perspective to define the concept, propose an initial framework in which literature and inquiry may be framed, and offer a curriculum for leader(ship) training and development. Three aspects are proposed – requisite, fantasy, and requisite fantasy. This paper suggests the latter is the most appropriate and defines leadership as a binding strange attractor to social patterns. Upon this definition, this paper proposes an initial framework of six elements and six relationships for assimilating and re-organizing the literature, prescriptions, and speculations surrounding the discipline. Lastly, this framework serves to propose a curriculum for advancing the practice of leadership through training, development, and education.

Leadership education is a prominent component of youth programming. In their efforts to promote leadership development, most youth programs promote character development and teach interpersonal skills but fall short in teaching leadership because they fail to encourage the use of authority. In this paper, we present the stories of five late adolescent exemplars as a case study of youth leadership emergence through volunteerism. These youth demonstrated leadership by transitioning from participating in community service activities to becoming organizers of their own beneficent efforts. Through a qualitative analysis of interviews with these adolescent leaders, we present themes that were important to their emergence as leaders. We then discuss how these findings should be used to inform youth development programs that are designed to encourage youth leadership through volunteerism.

This exploratory study examined the leadership education potential of sexual assault prevention training via a prevention approach that expressly constructs bystander education as a leadership issue. Evaluation of the Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) program offers a practical application of a leadership education approach through a feminist lens, a framework recently advocated by Iverson, McKenzie, and Halman (2019) to better prepare student leaders for active engagement with the central social issues of their time. After undergoing one-day MVP leadership trainings, student leaders (n = 239) evidenced positive gains in such areas as leadership readiness in gender violence prevention, confidence as bystanders, and a willingness to help others. Results also suggest that participants’ prior knowledge, leadership background, and peer group membership shaped their engagement with the program. As a feminist method, MVP worked well for both women and men and across students’ varying racial/ethnic identities, but differences by peer group reveal areas in which additional research and intervention programming may be needed.

After the COVID-19 outbreak began, travel demand dropped sharply and the potential impact of COVID-19 on sharing accommodations appears to be significant. Thus, it would be meaningful to investigate how travelers have changed their perceptions of staying at sharing accommodations in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The purpose of this research was to compare consumers' perceived risks of using sharing accommodations, such as Airbnb, before and during the coronavirus pandemic.

Paired sample t-tests were applied, using two surveys collected in 2017 (pre-pandemic) and 2020 (peri-pandemic). The effects of stress levels from COVID-19 and previous experience with sharing lodging services on risk perception changes were also examined.

Consumers showed higher social, physical, performance and convenience risk perceptions during the pandemic. Not surprisingly, those respondents who were more conscious of the pandemic in terms of concern and anxiety had higher changes in their risk perceptions. In addition, changes in risk perception differed by consumers' usage experience.

The results of this study add to the body of knowledge about consumers' risk perceptions of the sharing economy, particularly in connection with a huge disruption such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Narrative-driven, choice-based games, games that allow gamers to make decisions regarding the game characters and storylines, can bring forth emotional changes in their players and offer empathy during scenarios that a player may not experience in real-world situations. Therefore, they can be used as tools to help with gender nonconforming (GNC) individuals’ resilience regarding their gender identities. This study explores GNC peoples’ game-playing experiences with choice-based games, especially how such experiences help them gain resilience and shape their gender identities.

This study follows the classic phenomenological approach to understanding the experience of GNC gamers’ resilience experience from their own perspectives. In-depth interviews were conducted with 12 GNC participants, aged between 18 and 34. Each interview lasted 45–90 minutes. Interviews were transcribed and coded using NVivo R1. The essence of meanings was identified using themes and interpreted through qualitative analysis.

This paper identified six gender- and resilience-related common themes within GNC people’s gaming experiences, including 1) character creation: exploring gender identity through an avatar; 2) self-exploration and experimentation in games; 3) resonating experiences; 4) positive inclusive features in games; 5) storytelling and involving the player and 6) your actions have meaning.

The themes, patterns and game features identified in this study may provide insight into potential resilience-building activities for GNC people. They may inform digital mental health interventions, information services and game design practices.

Equity, inclusion and social justice have become a significant theme in today’s society. This study focuses on a marginalized community, GNC people and their mental health and resilience building. Results of the study will contribute to the understanding of this community and may inspire more intervention methods to help them cope with stress and difficult situations.

Research on gaming’s health benefits for the general population has been abundant, but studies about using games to help the LGBTQ+ community have been largely overlooked until recent years. Research on casual games’ mental benefits for LGBTQ+ people is particularly lacking. This research is one of the first in-depth, comprehensive investigations of GNC individuals’ resilience experiences with a particular type of casual video games, choice-based games. The phenomenological study offers rich description of gaming and gender identity exploration from gamers’ viewpoints.

The purpose of this paper is to address gaps in the knowledge about human resource (HR) professional involvement in strategic decision-making in China compared with that in Australia.

First, the authors compare the strategic involvement of Chinese and Australian HR professionals. Second, based on the upper echelon theory, the authors compare the impact of chief executive officer (CEO) and top management team (TMT) between both countries on HR involvement in strategic decision-making. Data were collected from matched pairs of HR and TMT executives in China (n = 168) and in Australia (n = 102).

Results indicate a difference, despite of no statistical significance, in HR involvement in strategic decision-making between Chinese and Australian samples. TMT behavioural integration was positively related to HR involvement in strategic decision-making in a collectivistic culture (i.e. in China), but not in an individualistic culture (i.e. in Australia). However, CEO support for HRM was positively related to HR involvement in strategic decision-making in Australia, whereas it is not related in China.

The paper conducts a comparative study and practical, and research implications are discussed at the end.