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Boards presently are considered the most critical component in improving corporate governance (CG). Board diversity is increasingly being recommended as a tool for enhancing firm performance. Academic research and regulatory action regarding board diversity are focussed mainly on gender and ethnic composition of boards. However, the perspective of board members on board diversity and its impact is mostly missing. Moreover, while strategic leadership perspective suggests that a broader set of upper echelon’s characteristics may shape their actions, empirical evidence investigating the impact of less-explored attributes of diversity is almost non-existent. While the research on the input–output relationship between board diversity and firm performance remains equivocal, an intervening relationship between board diversity and board effectiveness needs to be understood. The purpose of this paper is to address all three limitations and explore the subject from board members’ perspective.

The paper presents the findings of qualitative, exploratory research conducted by interviewing 42 board members of FTSE 350 companies. The data are analysed thematically.

The findings of the research suggest that board members of FTSE 350 companies consider the diversity of functional experience to be a critical requirement for boards’ role-effectiveness. Functionally diverse boards manage external dependencies more effectively and challenge assumptions of the executive more efficiently, thus improving CG. The findings significantly contribute to the literature on board diversity, as well as to strategic leadership theory and other applicable theories. The research is conducted with a relatively small but elite and difficult to approach set of 42 board members of FTSE 350 companies.

The paper makes a unique and significant contribution to praxis by presenting the perspective of practitioners of CG – board members. The findings may encourage board nomination committees to seek board diversity beyond the gender and ethnic characteristics of directors. The findings may also be relevant for policy formulation, as they indicate that functionally diverse boards have improved effectiveness in a range of board roles.

Board diversity is about building a board that accurately reflects the make-up of the population and stakeholders of the society where the company operates. The aim of board diversity is to cultivate a broad range of attributes and perspectives that reflects real-world demographics as boards need to continue to earn their “licence to operate in society” as organisations have a responsibility to multiple constituents and stakeholders, including the community and the wider society within which they exist. Building social capital through diversity has value in the wider context of modern society and achieving social justice.

The paper makes an original and unique contribution to strategic leadership theory by strengthening the argument of the theory. The paper explores beyond widely researched attributes of gender and ethnicity on boards and explores the impact of a less-researched characteristic of directors – their functional experience. Moreover, the paper opens the “black box” of CG – boards, and presents the perspectives of board members. The findings indicate that board members in FTSE 350 boards define diversity more broadly than academics and regulatory agencies often do.

This paper aims to identify trust’s role in the student–lecturer relationship and to identify the factors that build trust in this relationship, as well as the mechanisms through which trust influences entrepreneurial intentions and behaviours.

This paper presents the results of empirical research based on a semi-structured interview questionnaire. The participants included 12 entrepreneurs, 25–40 years old, who were running their own small enterprises. They were categorised by industry.

This study’s results suggest that entrepreneurship education based on trust in student–lecturer relationships contributes to the formation of entrepreneurial intentions and behaviours. This study has identified the factors that build trust between students and lecturers. Three mechanisms were also identified as having the greatest impact on transforming entrepreneurial intentions into actions: increasing self-efficacy, cultivating a broader perspective and encouraging initiative and risk taking.

An obvious limitation of this research is its small sample size. Moreover, this study’s respondents were all entrepreneurs running small companies – mainly start-ups – with up to 50 employees established by entrepreneurs up to four years after graduation. Additionally, the majority of the sample were men of Indian nationality. In subsequent studies, including more diverse respondents would be useful. Moreover, a quantitative survey of a larger sample with greater gender and cultural diversity would be worthwhile to test the proposed model.

This paper helps explain the trust’s importance in the student–lecturer relationship. This paper reveals how relationships should be established to support entrepreneurial learning outcomes.

The results of this research expand the knowledge on trust-building between students and lecturers that can develop successful entrepreneurial attitudes amongst students and help students succeed as entrepreneurs. To the authors’ knowledge, no previous research had examined this topic. This study’s results are probably more universally relevant than our limited sample suggests, so further in-depth research is needed.

This paper aims to reveal gendered leadership constructs that hinder a competency-based view of leadership in Swedish-based global companies and the implications for leadership recruitment and development to top management positions.

The paper is based on qualitative semi-structured interviews, which have been analyzed using a gender analytic framework to identify how senior management, Human resource management and leadership trainees are discussing leadership and career development.

Three themes were identified as clouding the issue of gender-equal leadership practices thereby creating an opaque gendered lens of who is defined as eligible for leadership positions. The three themes were: symbols as gendered images, counting heads – preserving the existing system and illusive gender inclusion.

Recruitment practices were identified as contributors to homosocial practices that perpetuate male-dominated leadership representation. However, specific recruitment practices were not fully explored.

The potential use of gender equality as a sustainable management practice for competitive organizations to recruit and develop talented people.

To create resilient and gender-equal recruitment and leadership development practices.

This research offers an original perspective on gender representation at the senior management level in global companies by revealing gendered leadership constructs in the leadership recruitment and development process as antecedents to unequal gender representation in senior management positions.

Research in the context of an individual’s choice of an entrepreneurial career has looked at effect of perceived self-efficacy (PSE), personality characteristics (PC) and subjective norms on entrepreneurial intentions (EIs). In contrast, the purpose of this paper is to compare these constructs across a vocational student (VC) group and an academic group (AC), in a supportive entrepreneurial ecosystem. It also includes PC of the individuals as a variable.

The analysis is based on a quantitative method followed by a qualitative approach to gain more insights in the study domain. It includes administration of a survey questionnaire and a round of unstructured interviews with select students.

Theorizing that there would be significant differences in PSE, PC and EIs between the two groups, the study demonstrates that for all the three variables, individuals opting for a vocational course exhibit significant difference as compared to an academic group. The results are significant when controlled for family business background and gender.

This paper has contributed to the academic literature in the entrepreneurship domain by differentiating the choice of an academic course prior to taking up a career in entrepreneurship and how it impacts entrepreneurial orientations. These interrelationships can further be extended into the domain of social media and networks, to draw interesting insights pertaining to how students get influenced by the social media in their choice of entrepreneurial career.

The study investigates factors like media, tribal, religious and party politics' influence on Nigerias’ 2023 presidential election choice. It confirms dominant social media platforms and examines their influence on election polls, e-participation and political candidate choice. The main objectives of this study are to: investigate if tribal, religious and party politics affect the respondent’s choice of a presidential candidate, ascertain the respondent's most used social media platform for political engagement and determine how social media platforms influenced the election polls during the 2023 Nigerian presidential election.

A sample size of 384 registered voters was used to survey three states in Southeast Nigeria hinged on the technological acceptance model, the instrumentalist theory of ethnicity and the theory of reasoned action.

The study found that tribal politics did not influence political candidates during the 2023 Nigerian presidential election. However, religious and party politics influenced their choices as well as X (Twitter), found as the most used and most influential social media platform vital for enhancing participatory democracy and informing people at real-time.

The researchers experienced challenges such as ensuring that the respondents filled the questions appropriately to reduce the number of void questionnaires and a funding problem since they had yet to receive any grant to enhance the study.

The study commends improved Internet connectivity and accessibility among the citizens for increased political engagement on social media. It also recommends that the Nigerian government enforce the rule of law in politics to enable diverse tribes and religions to experience democratic e-participation and development without marginalisation or subjugation by incumbent power. The findings affirm that social media is apt in political communication during the 2023 presidential elections in Nigeria. The study is a contribution to knowledge, timely and original.

Although the early conversations of microcelebrity centered on Anglo-centric theories and context despite the varied backgrounds and cultural context of microcelebrity, this compilation of chapters seeks to assess and reframe the applications and uptake of microcelebrity around the world. Each of the chapters in this anthology contribute to expand the theoretical concept and contextualize the history and cultural affairs of those who are famous online. The case studies provide examples of how a microcelebrity emerges to fame because of their exposure and interaction within a group of niche users, a specific online community, or a specific cultural and geographical context through the social networks that emerge online. Academic scholarship on microcelebrity has crossed methodologies, disciplines and platforms demonstrating the wide appeal as the influence of these figures are on the rise. As preparation for the reader, this chapter offers a brief history of current scholarship, with an emphasis on shifting knowledge production away from an Anglo and Global North perspective. The introduction chapter serves as a road map for the reader breaking down each of the three sections of the book – norms, labors, and activism. Lastly, the co-editors have outlined different ways to read the text group chapters according to reader interest.

The purpose of this study to identify the role of women in political agenda at Azad Jammu Kashmir. The political parties are always considered main gatekeepers to women’s political representation. Existing scholarship highlights the significance of centralized political institutions (parties) with structured set up for the effective representation of women at different levels. However, the functioning of these institutions is greatly influenced by the social and cultural context of a country in which they operate.

This paper mainly analyzes social and cultural practices and those informal ways that operate within the exited democratic government setup and creates serious obstacles for women’s effective political representation at the party level. For this purpose, a qualitative research methodology is used to get the full insight of the issue at hand. The authors conducted 25 in-depth interviews with women members of three different political parties.

The results revealed that both (social context and political structure) have a significant impact on women’s nature and level of participation in the political processes in Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

Prevailing social and political context of Pakistan does not support a truly democratic and centralized political system. Parties are weak entities with the less democratic organizational structure, which ultimately have a negative impact on women’s political representation.