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Open Access
Article
Publication date: 25 August 2022

Mathilde Vandaele and Sanna Stålhammar

Education in sustainability science is largely ignorant of the implications of the environmental crisis on inner dimensions, including mindsets, beliefs, values and worldviews…

3269

Abstract

Purpose

Education in sustainability science is largely ignorant of the implications of the environmental crisis on inner dimensions, including mindsets, beliefs, values and worldviews. Increased awareness of the acuteness and severity of the environmental and climate crisis has caused a contemporary spread of hopelessness among younger generations. This calls for a better understanding of potential generative forces of hope in the face of climate change. This paper aims to uncover strategies for fostering constructive hope among students.

Design/methodology/approach

This study examines, through qualitative interviews, the characteristics of constructive hope amongst proactive students enrolled in university programs related to global environmental challenges. Constructive hope describes a form of hope leading to sustained emotional stability and proactive engagement through both individual and collective actions.

Findings

The findings are presented according to four characteristics of constructive hope: goal, pathway thinking, agency thinking and emotional reinforcement. This shows how students perceive the importance of: collaboratively constructing and empowering locally grounded objectives; reinforcing trust in the collective potential and external actors; raising students’ perceived self-efficacy through practical applications; teaching different coping strategies related to the emotional consequences of education on students’ well-being.

Originality/value

We outline practical recommendations for educational environments to encourage and develop constructive hope at multiple levels of university education, including structures, programs, courses and among students’ interactions. We call for practitioners to connect theoretical learning and curriculum content with practice, provide space for emotional expressions, release the pressure from climate anxiety, and to foster a stronger sense of community among students.

Details

International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, vol. 23 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1467-6370

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 October 2006

David Ozag

To determine the nature of the relationship between merger survivors' trust, hope, and normative and continuance commitment.

3829

Abstract

Purpose

To determine the nature of the relationship between merger survivors' trust, hope, and normative and continuance commitment.

Design/methodology/approach

Correlation and multiple regression studies.

Findings

The results indicate a statistically significant relationship between merger survivors' trust, hope, and normative commitment. The results of a correlation study indicate no significant relationship between merger survivors' trust, hope, and continuance commitment.

Research limitations/implications

One limitation evolved from the scales used to measure the relationship between the study's constructs. The scales were not isolated to measure particular aspects of merger survivors' trust, hope, nor normative and continuance organizational commitment. Also, debate exists regarding the proper time to evaluate mergers survivors' perceptions regarding the merger.

Practical implications

Trust in management can reduce perceptions of threat and harm, and facilitate constructive, goal‐determined, survivor responses. Hope can enhance merger survivors' sense that they could cope with the merger. In turn, high levels of hope produced more active responses to the merger. Active and constructive survivor responses can produce positive commitment toward the organization. Conversely, a lack of trust in management can increase perceptions of threat and harm in merger survivors. The lack of trust in certain merger survivors can facilitate destructive responses, where the merger survivors' focus is on goals outside the organization.

Originality/value

No systematic attempts to understand the relationship among the constructs has been identified.

Details

Journal of Management Development, vol. 25 no. 9
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0262-1711

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 July 1947

WE begin a new volume of THE LIBRARY WORLD with this number. For forty‐nine years we have striven to maintain the policy and programme of its founder and first Editor, James Duff…

Abstract

WE begin a new volume of THE LIBRARY WORLD with this number. For forty‐nine years we have striven to maintain the policy and programme of its founder and first Editor, James Duff Brown: to provide a journal for independent opinion to find utterance in; for young librarians to make their needs and aspirations known; for intelligent, and we hope generally constructive, criticism to be made; and for such personal chronicles to appear as would seem to create and perpetuate friendships. Much of permanent worth has adorned our pages and, of course, much that served the passing moment but always, even in the many controversial Letters on Our Affairs which for thirty‐three years have continued unbroken, the effort has been to serve and in no circumstances to allow personal anonymous attack. We shall continue in our established course but we hope, as conditions grow easier, to widen our activities in harmony with the necessary advances in library method and practice. We invite the new men, to whom the profession looks for the new heart which keeps its body going, to use our pages when they have anything to say.

Details

New Library World, vol. 50 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0307-4803

Article
Publication date: 1 February 1949

B. AGARD EVANS

This is the uncompleted story of an attempt to co‐ordinate documentation internationally in a limited field. It is presented as an example of how things do happen and in the hope

Abstract

This is the uncompleted story of an attempt to co‐ordinate documentation internationally in a limited field. It is presented as an example of how things do happen and in the hope that constructive suggestions may arise in the discussion.

Details

Aslib Proceedings, vol. 1 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0001-253X

Article
Publication date: 27 November 2018

Chamila Perera and Chandana Hewege

This study aims to explore how young adults understand the climate change problem. It also explores whether environmental paradigms explain how young adults perceive climate…

1948

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to explore how young adults understand the climate change problem. It also explores whether environmental paradigms explain how young adults perceive climate change risks in their everyday green conscious behavior.

Design/methodology/approach

This interpretive research draws on in-depth interviews with 20 young Australians (aged between 19-25 years) who engage in green conscious behavior.

Findings

Three thematic categories (“non-local” climate change risk, oscillation between environmental paradigms and anthropocentric environmentalism) emerged from the data. The study finds that “non-local” climate change risk perceptions and environmental paradigms inform green conscious behavior. However, no association between environmental paradigms and climate change risk perceptions is found. The study postulates a skeletal theoretical framework for understanding the green conscious behavior of young adults.

Practical implications

Recommendations are provided on how to sustain young adults’ interest in environmental wellbeing and in promoting green commodities in young consumer markets. Suggestions include creating a clear awareness of climate change with a constructive or positive appeal resolving ‘non-local’ climate change risk perceptions and position green commodities as “pro-actions” or “solutions”, as opposed to “reactions”, when reaching young consumer markets.

Originality/value

A high level of green consciousness among young adults is recorded in recent global surveys. This green conscious young consumer segment, however, appears to be largely ignored by green commodity marketers. This study provides green commodity marketers with necessary insights to explore the opportunities that might arise in this unique market segment.

Article
Publication date: 8 October 2021

Rehema Namono, Ambrose Kiplimo Kemboi and Joel Chepkwony

Although a burgeoning body of literature has established the influence of hope and employee creativity, the debate on the relative importance of hope and its components of pathway…

Abstract

Purpose

Although a burgeoning body of literature has established the influence of hope and employee creativity, the debate on the relative importance of hope and its components of pathway and agency on its outcomes has not been clarified. Literature has it that hope and its individual components of pathway and agency have a varying magnitude of influence on its outcomes. Some scholars argue that agency and pathway components better predict its outcomes than overall hope. The current study establishes the relative importance of hope and its components on creativity using evidence from Makerere University, Uganda.

Design/methodology/approach

The study adopted a cross-sectional quantitative survey design to collect data from the academic staff of Makerere University. The study used usefulness analysis to establish the relative importance of the predictor variables on the dependent variable.

Findings

The study findings revealed that agency and hope components of hope significantly predicted creativity. Overall, hope also significantly predicted creativity. Regarding relative importance, hope turned out to be the most “useful” predictor of creativity, followed by its components of agency and pathway.

Research limitations/implications

The study was conducted in a public university setting located in urban areas. The findings may not be generalizable to private settings due to variations in the teacher's creative behaviour with variation in the creative environment. The study was also cross-sectional, which may not yield results of changing employee creativity over time. Further studies should establish the link between hope and creativity using a longitudinal survey to compare employee creativity using data collected at different intervals.

Originality/value

The value of the current study is both theoretical and empirical. Theoretically, the study findings enrich the hope theory by revealing the relative importance of hope on its outcomes over and above its components. The study also confirms the assertions of the dual pathway to creativity model by revealing that employees who are rich in hope components of agency and pathway have the cognitive flexibility to pursue creative goals and, when faced with failure, can generate alternative solutions to solve work problems.

Details

Continuity & Resilience Review, vol. 3 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2516-7502

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 10 August 2017

Fabienne Baider and Maria Constantinou

This chapter focuses on the anti-European stance as it unfolds in Marine Le Pen’s and Jean-Marie Le Pen’s discourses. As most far-right parties in Europe, both politicians focus…

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the anti-European stance as it unfolds in Marine Le Pen’s and Jean-Marie Le Pen’s discourses. As most far-right parties in Europe, both politicians focus on the notion of freedom and national sovereignty, asserting a strong anti-European Union stance; however, they construct their anti-European momentum by playing on different strategies and emotions. By using corpus linguistics tools, the present study examines and analyses the discourse of both politicians in interviews and debates. It concludes that if they share most issues on which they base their political agenda such as the fear of increasing immigration because of the Schengen’s agreement, they differ as regards the ways they discursively address the same issue. Marine Le Pen relies more on a constructive/rational stance, by focusing on facts and figures as well as on solutions, while moving away from the strong and negative emotions which her father constantly used mainly as provocation strategies. This may have helped her build a favourable political momentum as witnessed in the 2014 European elections.

Details

National Identity and Europe in Times of Crisis
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78714-514-6

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 6 May 2004

Michael J Mantel and James D Ludema

This chapter explores the power of appreciative inquiry in moving beyond a one-time intervention technique to sustaining positive change by creating on-going “conversational…

Abstract

This chapter explores the power of appreciative inquiry in moving beyond a one-time intervention technique to sustaining positive change by creating on-going “conversational convergence” around continuously evolving futures and directions for an organization. A conversational map was created from nine years of change data revealing the centrality of language in creating and sustaining change. Awareness of the corporate conversational streams and the intentional influencing of these streams helped sustain the positive change process over this extended period. This influence was applied at the individual level by developing a commitment for appreciative leadership principles and at the corporate level by incorporating appreciative design elements into the organization’s social architecture.

Details

Constructive Discourse and Human Organization
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-76230-892-7

Book part
Publication date: 5 December 2013

David S. Bright, Edward H. Powley, Ronald E. Fry and Frank Barrett

A common concern raised in opposition to Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is that a focus on life-giving images in organizations tends to suppress negative voices. It is supposed that AI…

Abstract

A common concern raised in opposition to Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is that a focus on life-giving images in organizations tends to suppress negative voices. It is supposed that AI sees little value in skeptical, cynical, or negative perspectives. However, when AI is properly understood, all voices – both positive and negative – are seen as essential to the life of organization. The challenge is to create an atmosphere in which the cynical voice, rather than perpetuating dysfunction, can be tapped to build generativity. This chapter describes how to accomplish this objective through the use of analogic inquiry, thus exploring the focus on generativity that is central to AI.

Details

Organizational Generativity: The Appreciative Inquiry Summit and a Scholarship of Transformation
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78190-330-8

Article
Publication date: 1 May 1978

FRANK EAGLE and ANDREW WEST

The National Ports Council has been developing a concept of progress meetings based on working groups, over a period of ten years. The original ideas were refined from experience…

Abstract

The National Ports Council has been developing a concept of progress meetings based on working groups, over a period of ten years. The original ideas were refined from experience with a Fred Olsen Lines cargo handling subsidiary in the London Millwall Docks and extended to the local Port Authority as well as a number of other British ports. In Olsens the project began in 1967 when the NPC was called in to assist with problems encountered in operating a new labour agreement. The new mechanised system of loading and unloading ships with palletised cargo handled by fork lift trucks was a complete contrast to traditional methods of handling the Canary fruit trade. In particular the management of the new system put great strains on the cargo superintendents and supervisory group who were coping with the new technology. The approach used was essentially to create an atmosphere of mutual trust and support between individuals and between related levels of management. People were encouraged to discuss: • What their job objectives were and how these related to their concept of overall efficiency for the organisation. • What problems existed and possible means of overcoming them. The role that we played was to listen, to summarise and to help the various levels of management and managed to diagnose the work problems they encountered. As we had no axe to grind we could put a point of view to people and at the same time show them how they might be perceived by others.

Details

Industrial and Commercial Training, vol. 10 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0019-7858

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