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Small talk, often regarded as a superficial interaction unrelated to work, is a pervasive and inescapable aspect of daily life and professional settings. In China, where the notion of guanxi – the cultivation of strategic relationships – is deeply valued, workplace small talk (WST) is a strategic tool used by employees to strengthen their interpersonal networks. This study aims to investigate the positive impact of WST on task performance within the Chinese workplace and explores the mechanisms underpinning this relationship.

This study adopted a time-lagged research design to test its hypotheses using data from 516 employees across various Chinese firms.

This study revealed that WST exerts both direct and indirect positive effects on task performance. It boosts task performance indirectly via two mediators: relational energy and positive affect. This study also delineated a chain mediation model wherein WST sequentially elevates task performance by first enhancing relational energy and then fostering positive affect.

Counter to the prevailing focus on the negative repercussions of WST, this study sheds light on its beneficial outcomes, proposing novel pathways connecting WST to task performance. These insights contribute to both academic discourse and the development of practical management strategies.

Ethical principles and practices frequently support the position that people with disability are vulnerable. Vulnerability in research traditionally infers a need for protection from harm and raises questions over the person’s capacity to consent and engage. In addition, vulnerability in ethics infers a state of permanency and one that is all-encompassing for everyone within the vulnerable groups. This construction of vulnerability in effect legitimises the exclusion of people with disability from research or monitors and restricts how people with disability can engage in research. This results in an implicitly ableist environment for research. In this chapter, which has been led by researchers with disability, we argue that there is a critical need to move beyond a popularised social construction of vulnerability which serves to perpetuate barriers to including people with disability in research. Like all terms, the traditional and popular construction of vulnerability is open to reclaiming and reframing. Under this reconstruction, what is traditionally viewed as a limiting vulnerability can be owned, openly disclosed and accommodated. Following a pandemic-inspired ‘new normal’ that supports flexible workplace practices, and in accordance with UNCRPD goals of inclusive employment and reducing disability inequity, we argue that the pathway for people with disability as career researchers needs an ethical review and overhaul. We provide readers with a practical roadmap to advance a more inclusive academy for researchers with disability.

This research used a temporal approach to operationalize employee engagement, capturing subjective/objective time of the day and day of the week to analyze the dynamic patterns of employees’ daily/weekly well-being, basic needs satisfaction, and situational work motivation under the integrated framework of self-determination theory.

Multi-level data was collected using the survey structure outlined under the day reconstruction methodology (DRM) with samples of Canadian part-time working undergraduate students and full-time US corporate employees (1980 work episodes reported by 321 participants).

Multi-level confirmatory factorial analysis results supported the measurement invariance for within-person variables in all the working episodes across the US and Canada samples. Structural equation modeling path analysis results, using the within-person variables, captured the daily temporal patterns that employees’ well-being (vitality and positive affect), basic psychological needs (autonomy and relatedness), and situational autonomous motivation started at a high level and decreased with both subjective and objective time of the day. Negative affect showed asymmetric daily and weekly temporal patterns compared to positive affect. A few indirect paths were found, including one from the subjective time of the day to employee well-being (vitality and affect) via situational autonomous motivation and another one from the day of the week to vitality and positive affect via relatedness needs satisfaction and situational autonomous motivation.

The socio-cultural and business impacts of work scheduling practices and implications for theory-driven, evidence-based organizational development practices were discussed together with the research limitations.

Results on how the variations in self-regulation during the performance of different work tasks in a single work event help practitioners to connect repeated situational motivational change patterns to effective supervision. HR business partner can also utilize such findings to shape evidence-based practice to improve employee engagement.

This research is one of the few pioneer studies to look into how temporal factors, such as work scheduling, affect employees' well-being through the dynamic understanding of the mediated path model from time to employee well-being via psychological engagement conditions such as motivation and needs satisfaction.

Supervisors play an important role in the educational life and progress of graduate students. Having a positive and supportive working relationship with one’s supervisor is important to student wellbeing and contributes to graduate students’ ability to thrive within higher education. In this chapter, the authors examine the impact of supervisors on graduate student wellbeing and thriving within the context of higher education. Students with highly autonomy-supportive supervisors tended to report higher thriving. Findings indicate that the quality of interactions, the type of support provided by, and the quality of student–supervisor relationships are important factors and considerations for graduate student thriving. This study advocates for the recognition of the critical role that supervisors play in the thriving and languishing of graduate students and calls for more structured and wide-reaching professional development programs that work to create an environment where autonomy-supportive and compassionate supervision are seen as the standard for graduate faculty.

This chapter offers a theoretical framework to explore the relationship between resilience, wellbeing, and authentic leadership through the students’ transition from high school to university. It highlights how student leaders can thrive despite the challenges they face throughout this transition. First, the author presents an overview of resilience research, specifically by defining key characteristics of resilient students, followed by the outline of the four waves of resilience research. Next, the author describes the construct of wellbeing and the common characteristics among the wellbeing models in relation to the general university student population, as well as student leaders. Next, the author reviews the authentic leadership theory, including its key components of authentic leadership, the psychological capabilities for authentic leadership, and how resilience manifests in authentic leaders. The author concludes with an overview of transitional periods, critical life events, and their manifestations in the transition from high school to university.

The purpose of this study is to investigate Koreans' preferences for FCDM versus SDM and explored the influence of Asian cultural values on decision-making in the context of managing chronic illnesses, such as type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Shared decision-making (SDM) emphasizes collaboration between providers and service recipients to decide on the best treatment options. However, it may not fully account for the role of families in managing chronic illness, particularly for people from Eastern cultural backgrounds who value active participation from their families in decisions. In response, family-centered decision-making (FCDM) has been proposed as an alternative approach. Using a vignette experiment design, data (n = 316) were collected from Koreans in the US and in Korea who were randomly presented with either SDM or FCDM processes for reaching T2DM treatment decisions. In addition to demographic information, participants reported on three dimensions of their decision-making experience: satisfaction, perceived effectiveness, and perspective-taking. They also rated their Asian cultural values and familiarity with T2DM. Results show better satisfaction, perceived effectiveness, and perspective taking for FCDM compared to SDM when examined in context of treatment types and perceived illness severity. Moderation effects were found for familiarity of illness, with familiarity effects varying by perceived severity. Study findings provided some evidence in favor of FCDM in Asian communities addressing the disabilities and chronic illness of a family member. Although the current study investigated treatment decisions for T2DM during doctor's visits, FCDM has shown potential to be applied in other service settings.

Based on the stimuli-organism-response (SOR) theory, the purpose of this study is to demonstrate the impact of consumers’ engagement in pro-environment activities on social media on consumer green consumption behaviour, and explore the explicatory mechanism and boundary conditions for the relationship between them.

This study collected data from 312 Chinese consumers by using the research platform Credamo, a Chinese online survey platform. A structural equation model and hierarchical regression modelling were used to analyse the data.

Consumers’ engagement in pro-environmental activities on social media has a positive influence on environmental awareness that positively affects green consumption behaviour. Environmental awareness plays a mediating role in the relationship between consumers’ engagement in pro-environmental activities on social media and green consumption behaviour. Furthermore, green intrinsic motivation and green extrinsic motivation play positive and negative regulating roles respectively in the relationship between environmental awareness and green consumption behaviour.

This study enriches the research on the antecedent variables of green consumption behaviour. At the same time, it also expands the research on the outcome variables of the impact of engagement in environmental protection activities on people’s subsequent behaviour, deepens and expands the research on green consumption behaviour and its applicable boundaries, offering both theoretical insights and practical implications for enterprise marketing strategies and government management.

This research aims to examine the performativity of corporate reports as an example of an accounting inscription that can frame the relationship between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander entities and their stakeholders. The framing and overflow effects of these reports have been explored to consider whether they strengthen or undermine the reputation and capability of these community-controlled entities.

Aligned with actor–network theory and a decolonising research protocol, qualitative interviews were conducted with senior managers and directors of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander entities and their key stakeholders to explore their experiences of corporate reporting. Additional analysis of these organisations' annual reports was conducted to corroborate key reporting themes.

This research has identified a dual role for corporate reporting, simultaneously framing performance against an expectation of failure, but with the potential for accounting inscriptions to highlight positive contributions to cultural and community priorities. It also indicates the need for sector specifics within the reporting frameworks and adequate resourcing for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander entities to meet reporting obligations.

This research makes policy-based recommendations in terms of user-driven and culturally informed performance measures. It also highlights the importance of adequate funding for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander entities to carry out meaningful performance evaluations beyond the preparation of financial statements.

One of the few empirical studies to capture the performativity of accounting inscriptions from the perspective of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander entities. This sector has received minimal attention within the accounting discipline, despite significantly contributing to community well-being and cultural protection. There is emancipatory potential via policy frameworks that resonate with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural beliefs and practices.