Search results

Background: Quality of life is a core concern for cancer patients, which can be negatively affected by illness-related death anxiety; yet understanding of how to appropriately target psycho-oncological interventions remains lacking. We aimed to explore experiential acceptance in cancer patients, and whether acceptance – as an alternative to avoidant coping – was related to and predictive of better quality of life and death anxiety outcomes.

Methods: We used a longitudinal, quantitative design with a follow-up after three months. Seventy-two participants completed a questionnaire-battery measuring illness appraisals, acceptance and non-acceptance coping-styles, quality of life, and death anxiety; 31 participants repeated the battery after three months.

Results: Acceptance was an independent explanatory and predictive variable for quality of life and death anxiety, in the direction of psychological health. Acceptance had greater explanatory power for outcomes than either cancer appraisals or avoidant response styles. Avoidant response styles were associated with greater death anxiety and poorer quality of life.

Conclusions: The findings support the role of an accepting response-style in favourable psychological outcomes, identifying a possible target for future psychological intervention. Response styles that might be encouraged in other therapies, such as active coping, planning, and positive reframing, were not associated with beneficial outcomes.

The purpose of this study is to extend the findings from a very limited number of studies that have focused on the potential antecedents of firm diversity. Specifically, the authors examined the extent to which a set of firm-level diversity management initiatives, which included diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) policies and oversight structures, senior leader values and utility perceptions about DE&I and DE&I dissemination strategies, may be related to firm-level reported diversity – overall, and that which is specific to gender, ethnicity, race and disability.

The data for this study were gathered from a national sample of 200 US restaurant and foodservice companies during the third quarter of 2021 by an independent data collection firm.

After controlling for firm size, age, ownership structure and chain affiliation, the results from a series of regression analyses showed that formal diversity management policies and procedures (e.g. policies beyond those legally mandated), structural oversight of diversity management initiatives (e.g. designated diversity leader) and beliefs among senior leaders regarding the utility of diversity management initiatives, were positively related to firm-level diversity. There were also several notable differences in the significance of the findings across the four diversity groups, indicating support for a contingency explanation.

There are two unique contributions to this study. First, by considering a more support-based (vs compliance and control) approach to managing DE&I that is authenticated by senior leadership’s beliefs about the utility of DE&I, the findings advance the understanding of the nature and scope of diversity management initiatives that may influence firm-level diversity – in general, as well as that which may be specific to restaurant and foodservice settings. Additionally, the findings offer industry-specific insights regarding the extent and relevance of DE&I policies and practices that have been adopted by restaurants and foodservice organizations and prescriptive guidance for future inquiry on this topic.

This study intends to understand if managerial coaching, a sustainable competitive strategy, has an impact on sales performance, through customer and results orientation of the salesforce. It also aims to investigate whether pressure for results, one of the predominant demands in organizations today, and the centralisation of decisions, a traditional management demand still present in several organizations, undermine the effect of coaching on performance.

The 167 responses collected, through the distribution of questionnaires among workers in the commercial area, were analysed through a structural equation model using the partial least square (PLS) technique.

The results of this study confirm that managerial coaching has a positive impact on sales force performance through customer and results orientation, with customer orientation having a greater impact on performance. It was also found that centralised decision-making and pressure for results do not undermine the relationship between managerial coaching and performance, and they even reinforce the positive impact of results orientation on performance.

Managerial coaching practices can impact sales, especially when associated with customer orientation, freeing employees from the pressure for results and the centralisation demands. This scenario favours a more sustainable and emancipatory sales force management.

This study is the first to integrate organizational demands, namely pressure for results and centralisation, to better understand the effect of managerial coaching on sales performance, through customer and results orientation, thereby extending previous research on this topic.

Despite the long-established importance of infant mental health, internationally this has not been mirrored in the provision of infant mental health services. Within Scotland in the UK, there has been significant recent government investment in developing infant mental health services. However, existing research identifies a massive knowledge and skills gap that could create barriers to implementation. This study aims to use qualitative methods to consider the views of relevant professional stakeholders on education and training within infant mental health.

The authors completed semi-structured interviews with 14 professional stakeholders working in a health board in Scotland. This study used purposive sampling to include a broad range of professionals across health and social care services and analysed the resulting data using Braun and Clarke’s (2006) methodology. This study adopted a reflexive stance throughout, including the research team interviewing each other as part of the process.

Within the theme of education and training, we identified four sub-themes. These included roles for public health and societal education, training for parents, training for professionals and increasing professionals’ experience of infant mental health.

The issues identified are relevant in any area of the UK or internationally in considering the role of education and training in developing and maintaining new infant mental health services. Further research with families and with wider groups of professional stakeholders would be of further benefit.

Many individuals start a new firm each year, mainly intending to become independent or improve their financial situation. For most of them, the first years of operations mean a substantial investment of time, effort and money with highly insecure outcomes. This study aims to explore how entrepreneurs running new firms perform financially compared with the established ones and how this situation influences their well-being.

A questionnaire survey was completed in 2021 and 2022 by a representative sample of N = 1136 solo self-employed and microentrepreneurs in the Czech Republic, with dependent self-employed excluded. This study used multiple regressions for data analysis.

Early-stage entrepreneurs are less satisfied with their financial situation, have lower disposable income and report more significant financial problems than their established counterparts. The situation is even worse for the subsample of startups. However, this study also finds they do not have lower well-being than established entrepreneurs. While a worse financial situation is generally negatively related to well-being, being a startup founder moderates this link. Startup founders can maintain a good level of well-being even in financial struggles.

The results suggest that policies should focus on reducing the costs related to start-up activities. Further, policy support should not be restricted to new technological firms. Startups from all fields should be eligible to receive support, provided that they meet the milestones of their development. For entrepreneurship education, this study‘s results support action-oriented approaches that help build entrepreneurs’ self-efficacy while making them aware of cognitive biases common in entrepreneurship. This study also underscores that effectuation or lean startup approaches help entrepreneurs develop their startups efficiently and not deprive themselves of resources because of their unjustified overconfidence.

This study contributes to a better understanding of the financial situation and well-being of founders of new firms and, specifically, startups. The personal financial situation of startup founders has been a largely underexplored issue. Compared with other entrepreneurs, this study finds that startup founders are, as individuals, in the worst financial situation. Their well-being remains, however, on a comparable level with that of other entrepreneurs.

The purpose of this study is to test whether equity theory (ET) – which posits that individuals compare their outcome/input ratio to the ratio of a “comparison other” and classify individuals as Benevolent, Equity Sensity, and Entitled – applies to the modern workplace of global virtual teams (GVT), where work is mostly intellectual, geographically dispersed and online, making individual effort nearly impossible to observe directly.

Using a sample of 1,343 GVTs comprised 6,347 individuals from 137 countries, this study tests three ET’s predictions in the GVT context: a negative, linear relationship between Benevolents’ perceptions of equity and job satisfaction in GVTs; an inverted U-shaped relationship between Equity Sensitives’ perceptions of equity and job satisfaction in GVTs; and a positive, linear relationship between Entitleds’ perceptions of equity and job satisfaction in GVTs.

Although the second prediction of ET is supported, the first and third have statistically significant opposite signs.

The research has important ramifications for management studies in explaining differences in organizational behavior in GVTs as opposed to traditional work settings.

The authors conclude that the main novelty with ET in GVTs is that GVTs are an environment stingy with satisfaction for “takers” (Entitleds) and generous in satisfaction for “givers” (Benevolents).

Through this reflexive, theoretically informed polemical piece, this paper aims to seek to reflect on the role of accounting education in United Kingdom Higher Education (UKHE). The authors reignite an old, but pertinent debate, whether accounting graduates should be educated to be accountants or receive a holistic, critical education.

The authors adopt a theoretical position drawing on the work of Slavoj Žižek and Mark Fisher, and their fusion of Lacanian psychoanalysis and Marxism, in particular Fisher’s (2009) conceptualisation of “capitalist realism” to take a critical standpoint on the effects that UKHE marketisation is having on the teaching of accounting and other business-related disciplines.

The authors outline four key aspects of where accounting education in UKHE is influenced by capitalist realism, as a result of the marketisation of UKHE.

The paper is a reflexive polemic and so is limited by this written style and presentation.

The authors argue that capitalist realism is a dominant theme that influences accounting education. They propose that universities now, more than ever, must focus on their societal duty to foster critical viewpoints in their graduates and dispose of a model that is subject to capitalist realism ontology.

The theoretical stance allows for a potentially deeper consideration of issues surrounding marketisation of higher education, from the micro level of social interaction (that of the accounting academic and their impact/perceptions of the reality).

This chapter first describes the essential aspects of a currently changing world, which is characterised by digitalisation, globalisation and politically unstable situations. Based on this transformation context, key concepts such as leadership, innovation, innovation leadership and leadership competences are introduced, along with a new definition and framework for innovation leadership. The chapter discusses the distinction between innovation leadership and innovation management, and the connecting lines between these two concepts. The innovation leadership framework is described and related to the individual contributions of the authors in the book. The chapter frames these contributions along the dimensions of self-leadership, team leadership, organisational leadership and ecosystem leadership.