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The aim of the research is to investigate the influence of emotional attitudes towards change on managers' tolerance of ambiguity.

A total of 70 CEOs of Greek IT firms completed questionnaires examining tolerance of ambiguity, emotional attitudes towards change ambiguity and job satisfaction. Principal components analysis and ordinary regression analyses were used to explore the hypotheses.

The paper finds that three factors characterize managers' emotional attitudes towards change, namely dominance, arousal, and pleasure. Furthermore, it indicates that job satisfaction can be taken as a critical intervention variable that “energizes” managers' arousal (i.e. stimulation, excitement and frenzy) which, in turn, influences their tolerance of ambiguity.

Deeper and broader level of research is necessary in Greek IT industry regarding the influence of emotional attitudes on tolerance of ambiguity. Likewise, this research should be expanded to other industries.

The findings provide further support on the significance of emotional attitudes during change and the paper suggests policies to enhance managers' tolerance of ambiguity.

The originality of this study lies in the finding that job satisfaction energizes the arousal factor, which, in turn, influences significantly managers' tolerance of ambiguity. Another important contributing factor is that the study is carried out in Greece, where few studies have been conducted in this area.

A major justification for the state subsidy of university education at public institutions (and, in some countries, of private universities too) is the economic and social benefits accruing to society as whole from a significantly university-educated workforce and citizenship. Based upon a broad range of research findings, a particular societal benefit emanating from higher education relates to good citizenship: that it leads to more open mindedness and tolerant political attitudes. We examined these issues using a representative sample of students from Israeli universities to clarify the extent to which these outcomes would be paralleled in the Israeli setting, where the university experience differs markedly from that found typically in the West.

The research is based on a comparison of political tolerance levels between first- and final-year students enrolled in regular undergraduate study programs (of four days a week or more). However since a change in tolerance is likely to be contingent also on the amount of time that the student spends on campus during the study year, we introduce, as a control group, students enrolled in compressed study programs (of three days a week or less) and compare changes in their tolerance levels with tolerance changes of students enrolled in regular programs. Research questionnaires were distributed to undergraduate students at three universities from the three major districts in Israel–north, south and center. The achieved sample size was 329 students.

Using Difference-in-Differences techniques, we looked for any changes in students' general political tolerance, over the course of their studies. Surprisingly, we found no such effect on political tolerance attitudes. Israeli students are older and often married and though nominally full-time students, they often hold down a full-time job. Thus they come and go to attend lectures but do not otherwise spend much time on campus. Given the somewhat perfunctory nature of the university experience for most Israeli students, it does not to lead to more open-minded and tolerant political attitudes.

Some broader, practical applications of the research, beyond the Israeli case, are presented, particularly related to distance learning and to the impact of COVID-19. Attention is given to more recent “Cancel culture” developments on university campuses.

The results have wider implications, to other university setting in other countries. Changes in political attitudes may occur in university settings where campus life is well developed, with opportunities for student interaction, formally in extra-curricular events or through social mixing outside the lecture hall. Where the university experience is more minimally confined to attendance at lectures these desirable outcomes may not be forth coming. These findings are relevant to other university frameworks where campus attendance is marginal, such as in open university education and, even more explicitly, in purely internet-based higher education study.

As we saw in Chapter 3, there are two aspects of individualism and “personhood.” In the first instance, “personhood” gives individuals more options in negotiating their identities in society. But “individualism” also means that persons are also held individually liable for the achievement of societal goals. Displaying civic responsibility is after all part of the modern definition of proper citizens.

In 1991 Lithuania reclaimed its independence from the Soviet Union and subsequently enlisted its education system as a tool for imparting the democratic skills and worldviews necessary for EU accession. However, the internalization of new democratic norms proved to be more complicated than the unidirectional transmission expected by many elites, as students, parents, and politicians played a part in the way that educational reforms were understood, implemented, embodied, and even resisted. Although tolerance education was initially included in Lithuanian reforms with little fanfare, there has been an increasingly visible backlash against it, as some now see its existence as an encroachment on the right of “Lithuanians” to develop a strong national identity after 60 years of occupation. By analyzing key educational policies in Lithuania, as well as international barometers for social tolerance, this chapter finds that the embrace of intolerance by many individuals and elites in Lithuania is not just a proclivity for prejudice, but a tool for challenging the boundaries of EU expectations to define the values and norms of an independent nation-state.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an estimate of the degree to which financial risk tolerance changed in relation to the initial surge of COVID-19 cases in the US.

Data from a large sample of investors and other consumers covering the period beginning April 2019 and ending in early May 2020 were used to estimate aggregate levels of financial risk tolerance and to determine if the willingness to take financial risk changed across five distinct periods in relation to the spread of COVID-19.

A general reduction in aggregate levels of financial risk tolerance was observed during the initial peak of COVID-19 period and the subsequent declaration of a pandemic, with the most significant drop in risk tolerance being exhibited by those who were 25 years of age or younger.

The findings from this study – primarily that in terms of FRT, the COVID-19 pandemic impacted young people disproportionately – suggest that in addition to helping young people feel comfortable in terms of their personal health situation and access to employment and health insurance, policy makers, financial service firms and financial literacy educators should provide information and guidance to young people regarding why being willing to take financial risks is important and how FRT corresponds to the proper functioning of the investment markets.

A data-drive methodology was utilized in this study to define the periods. This approach was taken due to the lack of defined and published pandemic interval periods specific to COVID19. However, the findings based on the data-driven methodology bring practical implications such as young people are sincerely considered in the catastrophic situation.

Recent globalization of markets has led to corporate activities that span numerous national boundaries within a single multinational corporation. We address the particular problem of cash flow management in a multinational setting. Uncertainty regarding changes in exchange rates, differences between currency bid and ask prices, possibly unknown changes in both lending and borrowing rates, and uncertain cash flows from subsidiaries make this problem difficult to specify in a traditional crisp environment. In this paper, we show how fuzzy programming techniques can be employed to handle the general problem of multinational cash flow netting. We also provide a specific numerical example comparing the results of the crisp and fuzzy contexts with the aid of sensitivity analysis.

Conflict and resistance on the part of employees assigned to teams have accompanied the recent increase in the use of work teams in organizations. Previous empirical research identified several sources of employee resistance including violations of fairness, increased work‐load concerns, uncertain manager support, unclear role definitions, and lack of team member social support. From a literature review, we identified additional sources of employee resistance including trust, cultural values, and low tolerance for change. Empirically, we conducted a content analysis of 1,060 open‐ended comments of employees in two Fortune 50 organizations who were newly assigned to self‐managing work teams (SMWTs). The results suggest that employees' concerns did reflect issues of trust and low tolerance for change, but not cultural values. We discuss the implications of our findings for conflict management scholars as well as managers who are charged with handling increased conflict due to employee resistance to teams.

This paper sets out to corroborate the existing literature on investors' risk tolerance and to assess how the 2008 financial crisis has affected risk tolerance among Italian investors.

Based on a unique dataset of real-world portfolio choices made by 1,245 Italian investors over a period of 15 years (from 2003 to 2017), this paper presents two steps of analysis. In step 1, the whole period 2003–2017 is considered with the aim to integrate and corroborate the existing literature on the topic of risk tolerance, considering a complete economic and financial cycle. Step 2 took 2008 as the pivotal point between pre-crisis (2003–2008) and crisis (2009–2017) with the aim to observe the influence on risk appetite of the economic and financial effects of the crisis.

The results obtained confirm that men are more risk tolerant than women and older people are less risk-taking than their younger counterparts, although the relationship between age and risk tolerance is not necessarily linear. Moreover, our paper demonstrates that a crisis scenario has an influence on Italian investors' risk tolerance.

Our results are of interest to financial advisors, financial planners, asset managers, psychologists, behavioral researchers and more in general to providers of financial products and services.

The results presented in this paper are relevant and original because they are based on real investors who made real choices concerning their portfolio asset allocations.

The aim of the research is to investigate how managers' personal traits, emotions and attitudes shape their tolerance of ambiguity (TOA); and consequently, the influence of managers' ambiguity tolerance in organizations' financial performance.

Survey data were collected from 54 Greek banks. A total of 412 senor-level managers completed questionnaires examining TOA, personal traits, emotions and attitudes in the workplace. Principal components analysis and ordinary least-squares regressions were used to explore the hypotheses of the paper.

Three factors characterize managers' emotions in the workplace, namely pleasure, arousal and dominance; and, respectively, two factors their involvement, namely importance and interest. Further, locus of control, importance, job satisfaction, pleasure and organizational commitment critically affect managers' TOA, which, in turn, seems to influence positively organizations' profitability.

Further research is required in Greek banking industry regarding the influence of managers' emotional and cognitive attributes in organizations' financial performance. Likewise, this research should be expanded to other industries.

The findings provide further support on the significance of emotional and cognitive attitudes in the workplace; the paper suggests policies to enhance managers' TOA, and thus, organizations' profitability.

The originality of this study lies in the finding that emotional and cognitive characteristics affect managers' TOA, which, in turn, influences significantly organizations' profitability. Another significant contributing factor is that the study is carried out in Greece, where few studies have been conducted in this area.

This study aims to analyze how risk tolerance is influenced by bull and bear market phases, age and professional work experience (PWE) of investors in emerging economies. The authors also analyze how different market phases (bull and bear) influence risk tolerance of investors in emerging economies for different age groups and with varying PWE.

The study uses two quantitative methods, one-way ANOVA and hierarchical regression model (HLM) to analyze individual investors' financial risk tolerance (FRT) in India.

The authors find that age and PWE have positive relationship with FRT behavior. However, interactions of these variables with market phase variable indicate that risk tolerance has nonlinear increasing relationship with investor's age and PWE. The risk tolerance of older investors is consistently high in both bull and bear market conditions, while young investors display a nonlinear risk behavior in different market conditions.

The study suggests that financial planners should include a longitudinal risk profiling of investors based on age groups, PWE and the current market phase to better understand investors' FRT and also to prefer more context-specific advice to investors in emerging economies, which, consequently, result in increasing the retail investors' interest in otherwise sparsely participated equity market.

Interaction effect of bull and bear market phases on relationship between age and PWE and FRT has been scantly studied.