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The personalities of leaders have been shown to impact the culture of their organizations and are also expected to have a more distal impact on the firm’s financial performance. However, the authors also expect that leader gender is an important intervening variable such that exhibiting various personality dimensions may result in unique cultural and performance-based outcomes for women and men leaders. Thus, the authors seek to examine first the impact of leader personality on organizational performance, as driven through organizational culture as a mediating mechanism. In doing so, the authors propose the expected impact of specific personality dimensions on certain types of organizational cultures, and those cultures’ subsequent impact on the organization’s performance. The authors then extend to consider the moderating effects of leader gender on the relationship between leader personality and organization. To support their propositions, the authors draw from upper echelons and implicit leadership theories. The authors encourage researchers to consider the proposition within a sample of the largest publicly traded US companies (i.e., Fortune 500) at an important era in history such that for the first time, 10% of these companies are led by women. In doing so, the authors hope to understand the leadership dynamics at the highest echelons of corporate governance and provide actionable insights for companies aiming to optimize their leadership composition and drive sustainable performance.

Despite being conjointly stronger in their synergies in the past, there is still a significant gap between management and organization studies and sociology. The temporal lag is also, on occasion, a substantive lag. The emergent sociological concept of emotional reflexivity has recently been used in organizational studies. The question that animates this contribution concerns the nature of this translation, reception, and extension; thus, we ask how organization studies have been using the sociological concept of emotional reflexivity? We will examine recent seminal sociological studies on emotional reflexivity to answer this inquiry and consider some organizational studies citing these. We describe the reception of sociological ideas of emotional reflexivity in management and organization studies literature. By analyzing the differences and disconnections produced within this discourse, it will be possible to understand that emotional reflexivity is rarely addressed in emotional encounters between people and other modes of being in modern organizations. We introduce narrative fiction as a method; the narrative focuses on the relationships between humans and other beings in the workplace dynamics of a vocational school. The story tells how Charlie, a deaf student, changed his life after entering the vocational school and becoming involved with different pedagogical teaching-learning strategies. Adopting two deaf dogs, which had both suffered from past unsuccessful adoption experiences, produced life-enhancing emotional reflexivity. We conclude with a research agenda scoping further directions.

Children's film and fiction often portray a witch as either an evil hag or an incompetent older woman yet when the male witch is within the narrative, he is named Sorcerer or Wizard, suggesting therefore that (unlike the hag) age and gender is not a factor when performing witchcraft. Moreover, the male witch identity is introduced from the position of empowerment and competency rather than prejudice. Witch identities are gendered, and the male witch is underappreciated and overlooked by the historical identity of the female witch.

This chapter analyses how the male witch is presented in selected children's film and fiction through the frameworks of Hegemonic, Hybrid, and Mosaic Masculinity. Hegemonic Masculinity demonstrates the toxic performance of the male witch, indicating to readers and audiences that to be male and a witch, a heterosexual man must be cruel and manipulative. Hybrid Masculinities relate to some patriarchal behaviours such as violent outbursts, that also blend with more empathetic and emotional behaviours. Mosaic Masculinity presents the male witch in a way that is fluid and disrupts the binary of Hegemonic and Hybrid Masculinity.

This chapter acknowledges the absence of presence of the male witch and encourages a more authentic representation of the male witch that is akin to those who practice witchcraft. There are non-toxic examples of masculinity that challenge the potential for stereotyping, hence there is a need for a better representation of what it means to be a witch within popular culture.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the character traits and challenges of women leaders in Myanmar within the context of responsible leadership (RL) and aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the dynamics of RL in this specific cultural and social setting. Furthermore, the paper seeks to highlight the unique challenges faced by women leaders, both within organizations and in society at large. Ultimately, the paper intends to advocate for increased awareness and actions that promote gender equality in leadership positions, fostering a more inclusive and supportive environment for women leaders in Myanmar.

This study uses an exploratory qualitative research design to comprehensively investigate the character traits and challenges experienced by women leaders in Myanmar concerning RL. It involves semi-structured interviews with five women leaders selected through convenient sampling. These participants hold leadership positions in various fields, including societal welfare, nongovernmental organizations and social businesses. The interview protocol is designed to elicit rich insights into the participants’ leadership experiences, responsibilities, challenges and perspectives on RL. Data collection involves recording and transcribing interviews, ensuring accuracy and reliability. To maintain participant confidentiality, identities remain anonymous. Ethical considerations are adhered to, emphasizing voluntary participation and the right to withdraw at any point without consequences. Thematic analysis is used to identify recurring patterns and themes in the interview data. Themes related to character traits, challenges faced within organizations and society and potential solutions are derived through an iterative process of data coding, categorization and interpretation.

The study’s findings indicate that women-responsible leaders possess character traits similar to their male counterparts. However, they face unique challenges at the organizational and societal levels in Myanmar. To address these issues and foster the growth of women leaders, spreading awareness is crucial. Awareness programs can educate individuals, organizations and society about the significance of RL and gender equality in leadership roles. Such initiatives create an inclusive environment that supports the development of responsible women leaders in Myanmar.

The original value of this study lies in its contribution to the existing body of knowledge on women’s leadership and the specific context of Myanmar. By examining the character traits of women-responsible leaders and the challenges they face within organizational and societal contexts, this study sheds light on the unique experiences and barriers encountered by women in leadership positions. Furthermore, this study’s original value lies in its emphasis on the need for awareness and action to foster more women leaders in Myanmar. By bringing attention to the organizational and societal challenges faced by women and advocating for change, this study encourages stakeholders, including policymakers, organizations and communities, to address these issues and create a more supportive and inclusive environment for women leaders.

Are there smart ways to find heuristics? What are the common principles behind heuristics? We propose an integrative definition of heuristics, based on insights that apply to all heuristics, and put forward meta-heuristics for discovering heuristics.

We employ Herbert Simon’s metaphor that human behavior is shaped by the scissors of the mind and its environment. We present heuristics from different domains and multiple sources, including scholarly literature, practitioner-reports and ancient texts.

Heuristics are simple, actionable principles for behavior that can take different forms, including that of computational algorithms and qualitative rules-of-thumb, cast into proverbs or folk-wisdom. We introduce heuristics for tasks ranging from management to writing and warfare. We report 13 meta-heuristics for discovering new heuristics and identify four principles behind them and all other heuristics: Those principles concern the (1) plurality, (2) correspondence, (3) connectedness of heuristics and environments and (4) the interdisciplinary nature of the scissors’ blades with respect to research fields and methodology.

We take a fresh look at Simon’s scissors-metaphor and employ it to derive an integrative perspective that includes a study of meta-heuristics.