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This paper aims to find an answer to the questions: To what extent is the implementation of responsible management education (RME) perceived to be adequate for developing responsible leadership skills among business school students? How should it be used effectively to guarantee such an outcome?

The authors conducted semi-structured interviews with 24 management educators working at three public business schools. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the collected data.

The findings show that the implementation of RME alone is not adequate to ensure the development of responsible leadership skills among students in business schools. However, management educators do perceive it as a considerable step towards that outcome if accompanied with internship and training opportunities to exercise and observe how social roles and activities are practiced in business, not-for-profit and civil society organisations.

This study is a pioneering attempt to address the relationship between RME and developing responsible leadership skills among students in non-Western business schools.

The importance of developing and implementing sustainable business practices has never been greater. Business schools are increasingly tasked with preparing students to contribute to this imperative and although progress is being made, the impact of integrating sustainability into business school curriculum has remained uncertain as studies exploring the impact have been lacking. The purpose of this multi-case study was to examine the impact of integration efforts in two distinct undergraduate business programs at Royal Roads University. The research focused on how students' understanding of sustainability and their associated attitudes and behaviors changed as they progressed throughout their programs. In addition to considering the impact of a sustainability-infused curriculum, other factors affecting sustainability orientations were also explored. The study was unique in both its comparative nature and in its investigation of the various contextual factors shaping sustainability orientations. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and through document analysis. Findings suggest a combination of approaches to integration is most effective in impacting sustainability perspectives. While sustainability was generally understood in a multidimensional manner, there was a noticeable environmental bias and a tendency to view it within the business framework. A need for stronger and more comprehensive conceptualizations was identified. Recommendations include: (a) embed sustainability in a comprehensive manner across the curriculum, (b) move beyond a disciplinary conceptualization of sustainability and introduce stronger sustainability discourse, (c) utilize powerful experiential and place-based pedagogies, (d) pay attention to context and ensure both the formal and the informal curriculum mutually reinforce a pro-sustainability agenda.

This paper aims to explore the importance of tailored faculty development for neurodiverse business educators. It focuses on how specialized support can enhance research output, teaching effectiveness and service contributions within the academic community.

This paper’s conceptual approach uses elements of autoethnography to inform and support prior theoretical and empirical work. An explication of how neurodiversity can be integrated into faculty development efforts is presented with emphasis on individualized support systems, empathetic mentorship and customized teaching and research support strategies to leverage often unrecognized abilities.

The research identifies that neuroatypical faculty possess certain strengths such as heightened problem-solving skills and attention to detail, which, when supported, can significantly enrich the academic environment. However, there is a lack of targeted support mechanisms for, and general awareness of, these faculty. The paper proposes modifications to existing faculty development activities, emphasizing general and individualized approaches to better harness the talents of neurodiverse educators.

Implementing the proposed strategies will foster an inclusive educational atmosphere while enhancing academic creativity, innovation and productivity. This approach also aligns with important trends in diversity and inclusion, promoting a more equitable and dynamic academic environment.

This research contributes to the field by extending the discourse on neurodiversity in higher education beyond student-focused initiatives to include faculty development. It provides actionable strategies to create inclusive environments that leverage the cognitive strengths of neurodiverse faculty, a relatively unexplored area in business education.

Users frequently target rival brands through direct criticism or indirect customer insults, yet the impact of such attacks on brand advocacy remains unexplored. The purpose of this study is to classify online attacks into brand-targeted attacks and consumer-targeted attacks and further investigate their differential impacts on brand advocacy and the underlying mechanism and a boundary condition of those impacts.

Three experimental studies using different types of brands (electronics, universities and sports footwear) are conducted to examine the effects of brand-related attack targets on brand advocacy.

This research shows that consumer-targeted attacks trigger higher brand advocacy through increasing perceived identity threat than brand-targeted attacks. Moreover, the effect of consumer-targeted attacks (versus brand-targeted attacks) on brand advocacy is mediated by perceived identity threat and mitigated when consumers’ identification with the attacked brand is strong.

The study’s findings yield practical applications for marketers and brand managers, assisting them in understanding consumers’ reactions to brand attacks. This study serves as a reference for firms to consider leveraging the association between brand identification and brand-related attack targets and uniting with loyal brand fans to manage online brand conflicts.

The present study extends prior literature on customer-brand relationships in the context of online attacks. Through investigating the impacts of brand-targeted and consumer-targeted attacks on brand advocacy, this research offers theoretical insights into consumers’ responses to online attacks with different targets.

Prior research has extensively explored the dynamics of knowledge creation and transfer within entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs). However, the research on knowledge integration within EEs, particularly by entrepreneurs, remains scant. Garnering and effectively using knowledge in such a dynamic and complex environment can provide entrepreneurs with a valuable asset for gaining a competitive advantage. To address this gap, this study aims to explore how entrepreneurs garner and capitalise on knowledge within the EE environment by using a transactive memory system lens.

This study is based on 26 semi-structured interviews with different actors and members of the same ecosystem – the northern Finnish health tech ecosystem. The data were analysed using the Gioia methodology.

This study results found that transactive memory processes (i.e. knowledge specialisation, credibility and coordination) and structures (i.e. differentiated-, shared- and meta-knowledge) influence knowledge organising in EEs.

This study provides a conceptual interplay between the EE and the transactive memory system’s processes and structures.

This paper aims to investigate the process by which performative technologies (PTs), in this case accreditation work in a business school, take form and how humans engage in making up such practices. It studies how academics come to accept and even identify with the quantitative representations of themselves in a translation process.

The research involved a longitudinal, self-ethnographic case study that followed the accreditation process of one Nordic business school from 2015 to 2021.

The findings show how the PT pushed for different engagements in various phases of the translation process. Early in the translation process, the PT promoted engagement because of self-realization and the ability for academics to proactively influence the prospective competitive milieu. However, as academic qualities became fabricated into numbers, the PT was able to request compliance, but also to induce self-reflection and self-discipline by forcing academics to compare themselves to set qualities and measures.

The paper advances the field by linking five phases of the translation process, problematization, fabrication, materialization, commensuration and stabilization, to a discussion of why academics come to accept and identify with the quantitative representations of themselves. The results highlight that the materialization phase appears to be the critical point at which calculative practices become persuasive and start influencing academics’ thoughts and actions.

In this chapter, we examine the role that business school accreditation agencies play in influencing attitudes to gender, exploring the documentation of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB); Association of MBAs (AMBA) and European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) Quality Improvement System (EQUIS) to develop an understanding of their stake in promoting greater gender equality or inadvertently encouraging gender washing. These agencies are powerful stakeholders who, arguably, set the recognized global standards. We focus on the organizational rhetoric espoused by them and have found that they are using practices we have defined as genderspinning: presenting a favorable impression to stakeholders; and moving in endless circles.

This study aims to use the knowledge management perspective to examine the mechanism through which entrepreneurship drives firms’ technological innovation in the digital age. The objective is to develop a multi-stage integrated theoretical model to explain how entrepreneurship exerts its influence on firms’ technological innovation with a particular focus on the knowledge management perspective. The findings can be used for the cultivation of entrepreneurship and for the promotion of continuous technological innovation activities.

This study uses a case-based qualitative approach to examine the relationship between entrepreneurship and technological innovation. The authors first analyze the case of SANY and then explore the mechanism of how entrepreneurship can promote a firm’s technological innovation from the perspective of knowledge management based on the technology-organization-environment framework. An integrated theoretical model is then developed in this study.

Based on a case study, the authors propose that there are three main processes of knowledge management in firms’ technological innovation: knowledge acquisition, knowledge integration and knowledge creation. In the process of knowledge acquisition, the joint effects of innovation spirit, learning spirit, cooperation spirit and global vision drive the construction and its healthy development of firms’ innovation ecosystem. In the process of knowledge integration, the joint effects of innovation spirit, cooperation spirit and learning spirit help complete the integration of knowledge and further the accumulation of firms’ core knowledge resources. In the process of knowledge creation, the joint effects of mission spirit, learning spirit and innovation spirit encourage the top management team to establish long-term goals and innovation philosophy. This philosophy can promote the establishment of a people-oriented incentive mechanism that helps achieve the transformation from the accumulation of core knowledge resources to the research and innovation of core technologies. After these three stages, firms are passively engaged in the “reverse transfer of knowledge” step, which contributes to other firms’ knowledge management cycle. With active knowledge acquisition, integration, creation and passive reverse knowledge transfer, firms can achieve continuous technological innovation.

This study has important theoretical implications in entrepreneurship research. This study helps advance the understanding of entrepreneurship and literature on the relationship between entrepreneurship and technological innovation in the digital age, which can broaden the application of knowledge management theories. It can also help better understand how to develop healthy firm-led innovation ecosystems to achieve continuous optimization of knowledge and technological innovation in the digital age.

This study proposes an integrated theoretical model to address the issues of entrepreneurship and firms’ technological innovation in the digital age, and it is also one of few studies that focuses on entrepreneurship and innovation from a knowledge management perspective.

This systematic review of the current gender inequality issues in operations and supply chain management (OSCM) seeks to illuminate the multifaceted aspects of this issue and their various implications for the field.

Employing systematic literature review and Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Literature Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) methodologies, this research delves into an analysis of 238 journal articles spanning a 47-year period. The objective is to discern existing voids and put forth actionable suggestions that align with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal Number 5 (SDG5) in the context of men and women, which pertains to realizing gender equality and empowering girls and women.

The results show a significant increase in published articles over the period. However, only five literature review articles were found that specifically address gender inequality in OSCM. The five common themes impacting gender inequality in this field are gender issues, mindset, transportation disparities, human resources and gender roles in OSCM, alongside sustainability, mobility and government policy intersections. The paper emphasizes the need for further research on these themes. It also suggests implications for educators, researchers, companies, OSCM departments and policymakers to achieve SDG5.

This study offers valuable insights by comprehensively reviewing and systematically analyzing the prevailing gender inequality issues within OSCM. It accentuates the significance of gender equality in OSCM, augmenting the burgeoning discourse and catalyzing concerted endeavors for gender equality.

This study aims to examine how virtual influencers (VIs) affect purchase intentions in tourism and hospitality e-commerce live streaming (THCLS) by focusing on the roles of VIs’ source credibility, trust in products, trust in VIs, emotional engagement, parasocial relationships and influencer–product congruence.

Survey data from 416 active viewers of VIs in THCLS were analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling.

This study highlights the importance of the VIs’ source credibility, which positively affects trust in the product, trust in VIs and emotional engagement. However, source credibility does not have a positive impact on parasocial relationships. Trust in products positively influences trust in VIs. Emotional engagement and trust in VIs significantly influence parasocial relationships, which, positively affects purchase intentions. Influencer–product congruence strengthens the link between parasocial relationships and purchase intentions but does not moderate the relationship between trust in VIs and purchase intentions. No significant gender differences were observed, although minor discrepancies were noted in the effect of trust in products on trust in VIs. The importance–performance map analysis revealed that parasocial relationships are the most important factor influencing purchase intentions, while influencer–product congruence has the highest performance, trust in products is the least important and VIs’ source credibility has the lowest performance.

This study provides actionable insights for marketers leveraging VIs in the THCLS sector, emphasizing strategies to enhance VI credibility, foster parasocial relationships, ensure influencer–product congruence and adopt gender-neutral marketing approaches to effectively influence purchase intentions.

This study offers theoretical and practical insights into the role of VIs in THCLS, illuminating their impact on consumer behaviour and purchase intentions.