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The work-from-home scheme (WFH) is increasingly being adopted in service firms. However, the blurred border between employees’ work and life can create work–life conflict (WLC) that negatively affects their well-being. Therefore, identifying factors that help employees overcome WLC and nurture their well-being is imperative. From a transformative service research (TSR) and personal psychology perspective, this study aims to explore the roles of service employee state of mindfulness and resilience in reducing WLC, alleviating its negative effects and ultimately nurturing their happiness.

A structural model was proposed. Data were collected from 339 WFH employees in various knowledge-based services such as professional services, information, education and training, financial consulting and marketing. Direct, indirect, mediating and moderating effects were estimated using the CB-SEM method.

Mindfulness is the overarching capability that helps reduce WLC and raise resilience. It nurtures WFH employee happiness not only directly but also via the mediation of resilience and WLC. Resilience, on the other hand, mediates the effect of mindfulness on happiness and moderates the negative impact of WLC on happiness.

Firms are recommended to organize mindfulness and resilience training programs, and encourage organizational- and job-related facilitators. WFH employees should actively participate in such programs and add them to their to-do-list practices.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first empirical studies of employee mindfulness and resilience in the WFH context. It contributes to the TSR research stream and enriches the concepts of mindfulness and resilience by elucidating different mechanisms in which each of these personal qualities operates to help employees nurture happiness in this specific working condition.

Confidence gives entrepreneurs the belief that they can exercise control and that they have the ability to ensure the success of a focal entrepreneurial endeavor. However, failure can rattle an entrepreneur's confidence causing them to question their belief and ability. This study investigates the link between confidence and entrepreneurial plan upon reentry after crowdfunding failure. Particularly, it examines whether more confident entrepreneurs who failed in their original crowdfunding endeavor persist or change their plan in terms of the positioning of the crowdfunding endeavor and the funding goal in the subsequent attempt.

Using a sample of 2179 serial crowdfunding entrepreneurs who initially experienced failure before launching a subsequent crowdfunding endeavor, this study explores and tests four hypotheses on the relationship between confidence and the change implemented by entrepreneurs in their subsequent crowdfunding endeavors after failure.

The results suggest that more confident entrepreneurs who experienced failure in their initial crowdfunding endeavor persist in their positioning when they attempt a subsequent endeavor. However, no strong relationship was observed between entrepreneurial confidence and persistence with the funding goal of the initial crowdfunding plan in the subsequent crowdfunding endeavor. The study also finds suggestive but inconclusive evidence that the level of negative performance in the failed crowdfunding endeavor moderates the relationship between the entrepreneur's confidence and change in crowdfunding positioning.

This study provides new insights into the effect of entrepreneurial confidence on crowdfunding endeavors after an initial failure. Prior research has focused on its effect in driving the performance of crowdfunding endeavors rather than on how it may affect the plan in terms of the positioning and funding goal enacted by the entrepreneur after experiencing failure.

The authors motivate this research on the gender diversity of the board because of the recent increases in the number of women in top executive teams (Francis et al., 2015), which has probably been the result of the adoption of legislation for gender quotas as well as the establishment of corporate governance recommendations for gender diverse boards in several countries. The purpose of this study is to consider the quality of board directors when examining the effect of female directors on earnings management.

The analyses follow the system generalized method of moment to address endogeneity concerns (e.g. a board with higher quality is more likely to have female directors on board and vice versa). Besides the lags of the endogenous variables, the authors use the female industry ratio as an additional instrument (Liu et al., 2014), as female directors might be inspired by other female directors according to industrial sectors (measured by the two-digit industry codes), where competitors are likely to follow gender diversity practices of other firms within the same industrial sector.

The authors’ findings show a negative and significant association between board gender diversity and earnings management (EM), suggesting that independent female directors are the drivers of such effect. High-quality boards decrease the incidence of EM but hinder the potential involvement from female directors towards reducing EM. The incumbent effect of high-quality boards on female director’s contribution on EM reverses with less powerful CEOs.

The authors contribute to the extant literature by recognizing that the effectiveness of a female director on decreasing EM is a function of the environment in which decision-making takes place (i.e. board quality/powerful CEOs).

This paper aims to examine the impact of board gender diversity (BOGD) following the adoption of gender quota legislation on earnings management (EM) in an emerging market, Egypt, whose cultural and economic conditions and institutional context are unlike most previously studied countries’ context.

The authors use ordinary least squares (OLS) regression to estimate the impact of gender quota legislation on EM using data from listed companies in Egypt from 2015 to 2022. Difference-in-difference (DID) approach estimation was used to validate the robustness of the main results.

This paper documents that gender diversity on boards has a significantly negative impact on EM. In addition, this paper provides robust evidence using the DID approach to show that BOGD is significantly negatively linked with EM for the period following gender quota legislation. Furthermore, the results support the critical mass and agency theories.

The findings of this study have important implications for Egyptian companies, regulatory bodies and investors in emerging markets. Specifically, these results suggest that when choosing board members, enterprises should pay particular attention to BOGD, and female involvement in all listed firms should be monitored by regulators.

This paper provides evidence supporting the positive contribution of women in society by enhancing the economic performance of Egyptian firms and promoting the country’s sustainable development strategy in light of Egypt vision 2030.

As per the authors' knowledge, this empirical study is unique in investigating the impact of BOGD quota regulation on EM in Egypt. This paper contributes to BOGD as a major factor in improving financial reporting quality in Egyptian companies.