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Responsible leadership is a concept that links leadership, corporate social responsibility, sustainability and ethics to business performance and actions of senior executives and board members. This keynote illuminates how responsible leadership mindsets and their diverse understandings of the purpose of business are related to organizational level stakeholder engagement and corporate social responsibility approaches at the upper echelon. A first link is established between broader social movements (e.g., US Business Roundtable, Conscious Capitalism, Social Entrepreneurship movement) and the social identity of responsible leaders, thereby contributing to the discussion of the changing nature of the purpose of business. The article closes with a Q&A session.

Putting relationships at the heart of what we do.

To respond to recent calls for better understanding of the complexities related to happiness management, especially from the employees' perspective, this study examines how corporate volunteering (CV), as one form of corporate social responsibility (CSR), creates sustainable happiness in business organizations.

Theoretical knowledge of CSR and CV as well as the literature on happiness management was examined to form a preliminary understanding of the phenomenon. The empirical section includes a qualitative multiple case study including two company cases of CV in Finland. The data were collected through qualitative interviews. Empirical analysis was made using thematical coding based on existing theory but also by allowing themes to emerge inductively from the data as well.

The study found that CV enables the emergence of sustainable happiness by allowing individual employee volunteers to transition from individual and rational mindsets to collective and emotional mindsets. A third transition was also identified, a process of change in the volunteers' approach in life that the authors describe as “from actual to potential”.

The study provides a theoretical contribution to the existing literature on happiness management by identifying the third dimension, from actual to potential, and depicting the way this allows employees to move from a state of being to becoming and thus the emergence of sustainable happiness. The study also contributes to existing literature on CV and CSR by revealing the way CV, as a form of practical CSR activity, generates happiness. This study concludes that companies' strategic activities that engage with society can create sustainable happiness for employees who participate. In order to achieve this, volunteering employees should have the chance to reflect on their experience and constant support from managers.

Background: Amid increasing leadership failures in the global business context, the mining industry is one of the industries with many adverse incidents, affecting employee safety, the environment, and surrounding communities. Emerging economies tend to have unique socio-economic challenges and greater relative economic dependence on mining, presenting unique challenges to leaders. The purpose of this research was to study the realities of responsible leadership in the mining industry in an emerging economy.

Methods: A qualitative research study, consisting of semi-structured interviews was conducted. Nine senior mine managers were selected to represent perspectives from different operations and mining houses. Data was gathered from August to October 2020 in South Africa, an emerging economy with significant mining operations. A thematic analysis of interview transcripts was conducted through the use of software, rendering five themes, with 12 sub-themes.

Results: The research found that requirements on mining leaders in emerging economies demand consistent balancing of a complex set of competing risks, whilst attending to paradoxical requirements among operations, and internal and external stakeholders. Leaders face several competing requirements from stakeholders, the environment, mining practices, and time frames. Responsible leaders must navigate a paradoxical maze of needs and time horizons, with several conflicting forces and dilemmas, and dichotomous relationships. Responsible leadership in the mining industry of an emerging economy is a proverbial minefield of paradoxes and dilemmas between responsible intentions and practical realities. These paradoxes and dilemmas are specifically acute in the context of emerging economies due to the dire socio-economic situations. A total of 10 competencies emerged as essential responsible leadership requirements in this context.

Conclusions: The study provides an in-depth understanding of the intricacies of responsible leadership in the mining industry of an emerging economy. This understanding will contribute to capacitating leaders in the mining industries of emerging economies to act responsibly.

The study aims to find out the extent to which hospitality sector family-owned businesses in Egypt feel committed to responsible leadership practices and subsequently meet their stakeholders' expectations.

The authors conducted semi-structured interviews with 24 owners of family restaurants in Egypt. Thematic analysis was undertaken on the collected data resulting in four major themes.

The authors find that the four dimensions (aggregation of virtuousness, stakeholder involvement, individual competencies and ethical contributions) are not fully exercised by the owners despite their readiness to behave correctly according to social norms. Furthermore, the respondents elaborated that they do not fully understand how to commence playing a role in contributing to the common good in their societies.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the present study is the first to empirically investigate responsible leadership practices in the context of small and medium-sized family businesses (restaurants in this case), particularly in the emerging market and non-Western contexts.

Anyone seeking to influence another is a potential leader. Within higher education, determining what an institution should undertake on sustainability can be daunting. Sustainability leaders face labyrinthine, multifaceted sub-cultures, influencers and viewpoints across staff, students, government, business and alumni all with an opinion on whether, how and in what order of priority sustainability should be taken forward. In this paper we take on this challenge by synthesising and critically evaluating core principles and working models for influencing and leading for sustainability in higher education. We identify a series of eight challenges affecting delivery of sustainability and seek to understand how conceptual models and principles in sustainability decision-making and leadership could address these. We draw on the experience of both authors, in tandem with comments from workshop and leadership training programme participants who attended the Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges (EAUC) Leadership Lab training in the UK, as well as reflections arising in a detailed case study from the University of Edinburgh. We bring key insights from theory and practice for the benefits of individuals or teams seeking to influence and persuade key decision-makers to embrace the sustainability agenda.

South Africa as the most unequal country in the world.

A quantitative study sought to better understand responsible leadership (RL) style in the private security sector. The authors analyzed RL’s mediating role in the relationship between rules climate (RC) and employees' perceived organizational support (POS).

The data were collected through an online questionnaire administered to full-time private guards in Ankara (Turkey). A mediation model was proposed, and research hypotheses were tested with structural equation modeling (SEM).

The results indicate a significant positive relationship between the company’s RC and managers' RL, and a positive significant relationship between managers' RL and employees' POS. RL mediates the relationship between company’s RC and employees' POS.

The theoretical framework draws on conservation of resources (COR) theory to consider RL an effective resource. The organization’s RC was a key factor the affecting leader’s responsible behaviors.

This study explores a thriving leadership style, gaining research attention across fields. To the authors' knowledge, no prior research has studied this leadership style in the security sector. The authors use COR to increase understanding of an important antecedent (company’s RC) and consequence (employees' POS) of RL, highlighting this emerging style’s mediating role.

Este artículo de enfoque cuantitativo favorece una mayor comprensión del liderazgo responsable (RL) en el sector de la seguridad privada. Analiza el papel mediador de este estilo de liderazgo en la relación entre un clima de regulación (RC) y la percepción de los trabajadores del apoyo organizacional (POS).

Los datos fueron recolectados a través de un cuestionario online que se administró a guardas de seguridad privados empleados a tiempo completo en la región de Ankara (Turquía). Se propone un modelo de mediación y se comprueban las hipótesis propuestas a través de ecuaciones estructurales con el software (SEM).

Los resultados obtenidos indican una relación positiva y significativa entre el RC y el liderazgo responsable de los superiores, así como una relación también positiva y significativa entre el RL y la POS de los empleados. Se encuentra que el RL media la relación entre el RC y el POS.

Bajo el marco teórico de la Teoría de Conservación de Recursos (COR) se considera que el RL es un recurso altamente efectivo para las organizaciones. El RC de la organización se perfila como un factor clave que afecta los comportamientos del líder responsable.

El diseño transversal del estudio (datos recogidos en un memento del tiempo) y el uso de una muestra de conveniencia son las principales limitaciones del trabajo.

Este estudio explora un estilo de liderazgo aún desconocido, pero con gran potencial, que está ganando fuerza en el ámbito de la investigación científica en los últimos años. Según nuestro conocimiento, se trata del primer estudio que explora este novedoso estilo de liderazgo en el sector de la seguridad privada. El empleo de la Teoría COR favorece la comprensión del RC como un antecedente de este estilo de liderazgo (RL), y también contribuye a comprender la POS de los empleados como clara consecuencia, destacando el papel mediador de este estilo de liderazgo emergente.

This paper proposes the development of a student-led pedagogic tool in an undergraduate development economics module offered in a UK business school. It uses the developing country informal sector as an illustrative example. The informal sector plays a huge role in contributing towards job creation, income generation, and poverty alleviation in developing countries. The overall goal of the tool is to propose recommendations of mechanisms that can be used to incentivise the informal sector to embed responsible management in their practice. The tool is to be jointly developed with students and other stakeholders in a developing country. Students are expected to acquire skills related to researching pertinent topics in the development economics field, critiquing policies and frameworks developed by global intergovernmental organizations such as the United Nations, and engaging with global stakeholders who are directly and indirectly impacted by these policies and frameworks. The paper highlights the connection between development economics, the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the United Nations (UN) Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME). The development of the tool also provides an avenue for business school students to bridge current gaps in educational institutions in developing countries in engaging with the PRME. The activities discussed in the paper present opportunities for business schools to be innovative and flexible in how they deliver responsible management education. This can ultimately expand the diversity of stakeholder involvement in contributing towards the SDGs and responsible management.

The aim of this paper is to theoretically explore the concept of leadership in a Total Quality Management (TQM) context by developing a new theoretical framework of understanding Total Quality Leadership (TQL) as well as by opening the dialogue in researching further key elements of TQL.

The approach that the paper adopts is conceptual. Based on exploration of the wider management and leadership literature of empirical and theoretical studies, this paper develops a framework of TQL.

The suggested TQL framework is composed by three main pillars, namely the proactive, adaptive and the relational. The former consists of elements like anticipation of current business environment complexities and filtering of information that enhances practice decision making. The second pillar refers to adaptation, autonomy and feedback while the last one emphasises on the importance of aspects like social interactions, engagement and empathy. The paper explains why the specific pillars with the additional elements are critical for TQM success.

Given the tremendous challenges that organisations face due to increased complexity and demanding competition of the business environments globally, the role of leadership as the major “soft” aspect of TQM approach, seems to be vital more than ever. But the type of TQL appropriate to enhance total quality success nowadays, is still (and should be) under continuous exploration. This conceptual study attempts to provide new theoretical insights of TQL as well as to open the dialogue around the main elements consisting of TQL and how the future research agenda is formulated.