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Evolving digital technologies continue to enable new ways to collect and analyze data and this has led some researchers to claim that skillful use of data analytics and big data can radically improve a company’s performance, but that in order to achieve such improvements managers need to change their decision-making culture and to increase the degree of collaboration in the decision-making process. The purpose of this paper is to create an increased understanding of how a decision-making culture can be changed by using a design approach.

The paper presents an action research project in which the authors use a design approach.

By adopting a design approach organizations can change their decision-making culture, increase the degree of collaboration and also reduce the influence of power and politics on their decision-making.

This paper proposes a new approach to changing a decision-making culture.

Using data analytics and big data, a design approach can support organizations change their decision-making culture resulting in better and more effective decisions.

This paper bridges design and decision-making theory in a novel approach to an old problem.

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether Hofstede’s cultural dimensions have a significant relationship with ethical decision-making among tax practitioners while performing their duties in ensuring tax compliance among taxpayers.

A structured questionnaire was used to collect data from tax practitioners in the state of Terengganu, Malaysia. Two hundred questionnaires were distributed via Google Forms and email to tax practitioners who were selected from the Inland Revenue Board of Malaysia website using a mixture of systematic random and snowball sampling approaches. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences software program was used to analyse the collected data.

The results show that power distance (PD), individualism (IND) and uncertainty avoidance (UAV) have a significant relationship with ethical decision-making, whereas masculinity (MAS) has no significant relationship with ethical decision-making among tax practitioners while carrying out their duties. The positive relationship of PD and of IND with decision-making behaviour indicates that ethical decision-making is highly practised in a low PD and low IND culture rather than in a high PD and high IND culture. In contrast, UAV shows a negative beta sign, which indicates that tax practitioners tend to practise ethical decision-making in a high UAV culture.

This study fills a gap in the literature in regard to the influence of culture on tax compliance particularly among tax practitioners in Malaysia. The study shows how culture is related to the decision-making practices of tax practitioners while performing their role as an intermediary between their clients and the government. It is worthwhile to examine the decision-making of tax practitioners because the results of such an examination not only provide some insights into the professional practices of accountants that will be of interest to the relevant authorities such as the Malaysian Institute of Accountants, they also offer some information that will be of assistance to higher learning institutions in formulating accounting programmes to produce the future generation of accountants.

The history of Organizational Development (OD) reveals a much older tradition of organizational science than the conventional wisdom would suggest. By the 1960s and 1970s OD became self‐confident and dynamic. This period was not only highly experimental but established the principles of OD for much of the twentieth century. By the end of the twentieth century new images of OD had occurred and much of the earlier thinking had been transformed. This review illustrates some examples under a series of themes that have had a major impact on the discipline of OD and on the wider thinking of organizational theorists and researchers.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the process of fostering a maker culture in a liberal arts university. It explores the impact of making on student learning and engagement, as well as the role of the library’s maker program.

This paper is a case study that presents the tools and activities used in an academic library’s maker program. Structured interviews were conducted with faculty, staff and students to review the program and maker culture influence on campus.

Findings highlight the library’s role in supporting maker culture on a liberal arts campus and address ways making contributes to student engagement and learning. Interviewees also recommend strategies to increase awareness and market the library’s maker program to engage a wider community.

Though there are many articles written about the maker movement and libraries, this study contributes to the growing body of research on makerspaces in higher education, with particular focus on a library at a liberal arts university.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to bring data to suggest that group processes have a biological base, lodged in human neurology as it evolved over the last 7 million years.

Design/methodology/approach – The method for discovering the neurological basis of group processes is labelled evolutionary sociology, and this method revolves around: (1) cladistic analysis of traits of distant ancestors to humans and the great apes, with whom humans share a very high proportion of genes, (2) comparative neurology between the great apes and humans that can inform us about how the brains of humans were rewired from the structures shared by the last common ancestor to humans and apes, and (3) ecological analysis of the habitats and niches that generated selection pressures on the neurology of apes and hominins.

Findings – A key finding is that most of the interpersonal processes that drive group processes are neurologically based and evolved before the brain among hominins was sufficiently large to generate systems of symbols organized in cultural texts remotely near the human measure. There is, then, good reason to study the neurological basis of behavior because neurology explains more about the dynamics of interpersonal behavior than does culture, which was a very late arrival to the hominin line.

Research implications – One implication of these findings is that social scientific analysis of interpersonal processes and group dynamics can no longer assume that groups are solely a constructed process, mediated by culture and social structure. There were powerful selection pressures during the course of hominin evolution to increase hominin sociality and especially group formation, which required considerable rewiring of the basic ape brain. Since groups are not “natural” to apes in general and even to an evolved ape-like humans, it is important to discover how humans ever became group-organizing animals. The answer resides in the dramatic enhancing of emotions in hominins and humans, which shifts attention away from the neocortex to the older subcortical areas of the brain. Once this shift is made, theorizing and research, as well as public views on human sociality, need to be recast as, first, an evolved biological trait and, only second, as a most tenuous and fragile of a big-brained animal using language and culture to construct its social world.

Originality/value – The value of this kind of analysis is to liberate sociology and the social sciences in general from simplistic views that, because humans have language and can use language to construct culture and social structures, the underlying biology and neurology of human action is not relevant to understanding the social world. Indeed, just the opposite is the case: to the extent that social scientists insist upon a social constructionists research agenda, they will fail to conceptualize and perform research on more fundamental forces in the social world, including group dynamics.

This paper aims to make the case for continued opportunity for high levels of human well-being under descent conditions characterised by declining economic throughput and socio-political complexity.

Relationships between assumptions about human well-being formed within a modern industrial context, the guiding narratives attending these, and the broader cultural influence of ideas from the evolutionary sciences are examined. Alternative ways of making sense of these relationships are explored. The experiences of societies guided by cultural narratives based on different premises to those most influential in industrial societies are reviewed for their implications for human well-being under descent conditions.

Human experiences of well-being are principally a function of the sources of meaning and associated narratives by which members of a culture make sense of their situation, as these determine the nature of the material and energetic conditions required to live well. Under descent conditions, the narrative of progress that has supported viable societies during the 300-year period of industrial expansion is unlikely to continue serving humanity well. Collective participation in the renewal of guiding cultural narratives is a primary target for efforts to provide continued opportunities for high quality of life to all members of humanity.

The findings point towards specific characteristics of cultural sense-making narratives that may support viable human societies under descent conditions.

By moving beyond the default assumption that descent automatically implies decline in human well-being, a barrier may be lowered to more open and mature society-wide engagement in conversations about the present human predicament and effective ways of responding to it.

New connections are identified between perspectives based on biological evolutionary theory and the continued influence of the idea of progress in establishing default assumptions about prospects for human well-being under descent conditions. Experiences of non-industrial societies are taken as the basis for identifying opportunities for human well-being under far more modest material and energetic conditions than those available to the portion of humanity that presently enjoys benefits of industrial development that outweigh the attendant costs.

This chapter examines the interaction between formal and informal organisation of work in a deep-level mining workplace. In response to organisational constraints, underground mining teams make a plan (planisa) to offset production bottlenecks which affected the daily running of the production process at the rock-face down the mine. They ‘get on and get by’ inside the pit to cope with organisational dysfunctions and management inefficiencies. The chapter highlights the limits of formalised work methods and the significance of the frontline miners’ informal work practice of making a plan (planisa) as an existing and alternative working practice that shapes their subjective orientation, agency and resilience to deep-level mining work processes and managerial initiatives. While the informal work practice of planisa has pros and cons, any managerial strategy designed to improve organisational productivity, safety and teamwork must recognise and systematically articulate the frontline miners’ work culture of planisa. This is especially important if we are to fully understand the limits of contemporary organisational strategies and workers’ orientations towards modernised work processes and managerial practices.

In recent years, theory and research have been increasingly devoted to understanding organizational behavior in cross-cultural and global contexts, with particular attention being paid to the appropriateness of various human resources management (HRM) practices because practices that may be effective within one cultural context may not be effective in other cultural contexts. This chapter argues that a multi-level perspective is needed to explain the interplay between HRM practices and employee responses across cultural contexts. Specifically, the multi-level framework developed in this chapter elucidates the importance of fit between HRM practices, individual values, organizational values, and societal values. Societal values play a key role in the adoption of HRM practices, and the effectiveness of these HRM practices will depend largely on “fit” or alignment with the values of the societal culture in which the organization is operating. HRM practices also shape the collective responses of employees through organizational climate at the organizational level and through psychological climate at the individual level. For positive employee attitudes and responses to emerge, the climate created by the HRM practices must be aligned with societal and individual values. Building on these notions, the strength of the societal culture in which the organization is operating serves as a mechanism that links relationships between climate, value fit, and attitudes across levels of analysis. The chapter concludes with some recommendations for future research and implications for practice.

The International Human Resource Management literature has paid less attention to the selection of expatriates and the decision-making criteria with regard to such selection, than to issues relating to expatriates’ role, performance, adjustment, success, and failure. Yet, before expatriates commence their assignments, they need to be selected. The purpose of this book chapter is to provide an overview of issues related specifically to expatriate selection. In particular, the chapter traces the chronological development of selection over the last five decades or so, from prior to 1970 until present. The chapter subsequently identifies five expatriate selection criteria that have been applied in regard to traditional international assignments, but are also relevant to alternative assignments.

We begin by reviewing expatriate selection historically and its position within expatriate management based on changing business environments. Then, drawing from over five decades of literature on international assignments, we identify and discuss five organizational, individual, and contextual level criteria for selecting expatriates.

Emphasis on different issues tends to characterize expatriate selection during the various decades since the literature has taken up the topic. The chapter describes those issues, following a chronological perspective. In addition, the chapter organizes the various selection criteria in five clusters: organization philosophy, technical competence, relational abilities, personal characteristics, and spouse and family situation.

While there are studies on expatriate selection, there is more to be understood with regard to the topic. Provided all other expatriation phases are subsequent, if selection is not understood in detail, the foundations of studying phases and processes that take place once expatriates are selected may not be sound. While the scholarly conversations of other expatriate-related issues should continue, the international human resource management literature can absorb more analyses on selection. A better understanding of expatriate selection will assist its better management. The chapter provides a basis for human resource management professionals to be able to map the various criteria for selection, and decide, under particular circumstances, which ones to prioritize and why.

The chapter brings clarity to a topic that has remained less researched when compared to other areas of interest related to expatriates and their international assignments by tracing the historical development of this important phase of the expatriation process. In addition, the chapter organizes a number of selection criteria along five core areas and discusses each of them to gain insights that help explain expatriate selection in greater detail.