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The purpose of this paper is to redefine quality in the context of “access” providing higher education institutions (HEIs), through a theoretical lens, in order to find solutions to the wicked problem of access vs quality and “inclusiveness vs excellence” debate in higher education (HE).

This theoretical paper builds upon institutional theory and resource dependency theory to, first, analyse access vs quality debate and, second, provide answers to the undesirable and at times conflicting “trilemma” of scale, cost and quality in HEIs. To achieve the second objective, the paper offers a different perspective to address trilemma by proposing a synergistic coexistence between inclusiveness and excellence through “transformative” quality and learning theory.

“Transformative” quality uses reframing the problem, appraising culture and quality concepts, and eventually develops transformative interventions in access providing HEIs to improve their quality and enhance inclusiveness. Inclusiveness in HEIs needs to be addressed through the investigation of specific hypotheses, for which a closer examination of factors impacting the quality of access providing HEIs has been conducted. The goal is to facilitate a perfect mélange of inclusiveness and excellence in HE and, thus, create a new learning environment.

This paper contributes towards the access vs quality debate through transformative quality by developing transformative interventions and investigating factors affecting quality in HE.

The contribution has several policy, managerial and governance implications. Addressing these implications will enable the promotion of the third mission of HE, that is, to develop graduates who meaningfully engage with the society and their profession.

Quality and inclusiveness is a serious global problem requiring immediate attention and rigorous theory-informed frameworks. Through the investigation of specific factors and proposing meaningful interventions, this paper identifies the need to study a critical issue having global implications and investigates how it can be resolved.

The purpose of this study is to enhance the understanding of the role of contracts in channel relationships. Treating contracts as a multidimensional construct, this study examines the effects of contractual issue inclusiveness and contractual obligatoriness on performance and opportunism, as well as the moderating effects of relational norms on the above relationships.

Based on the data of 206 samples collected from distributors of house furnishing, computer and computer components, moderated regression is used to test the hypotheses.

The empirical test generally supports the conceptual model and provides three findings. First, contractual issue inclusiveness is more profound in enhancing relationship performance than contractual obligatoriness, and contractual obligatoriness is more statistically powerful in mitigating opportunism than contractual issue inclusiveness. Second, relational norms can enhance the positive effect of contractual issue inclusiveness but not contractual obligatoriness on performance. Third, relational norms can strengthen the negative effect of contractual obligatoriness but not contractual issue inclusiveness on opportunism.

First, this study investigates only contractual issue inclusiveness and contractual obligatoriness, and future studies should consider other dimensions of contracts. Second, the influence of external environment is not considered in the model. Third, data from Chinese distributors limit the generalization of conclusions. Finally, data come only from buyers, and suppliers’ viewpoints are not included.

The results provide a framework for managers to use contracts and relational norms. Managers should pay attention to the alignment between contractual dimensions and firm objectives because various dimensions of contracts have different impacts on channel relationships.

Prior research has documented contracts’ role in coordinating channel relationships but has not achieved consistent conclusions on contracts’ effectiveness. Furthermore, extant research indicates that channel members will use contracts and relational norms simultaneously but has conflicting views on the combined effects of these two control mechanisms. The study contributes by addressing these issues.

This paper aims to unveil the general nature of virtual chat groups in multi-ethnic societies like Nigeria towards knowing whether and how diversity inclusiveness codes of conduct are encouraged and managed among virtual chat group participants.

Data in this research was collected via five virtual focus groups of five to eight discussants each and was complemented by virtual field surveys. Responses were validated through verification of registered personal mobile phone numbers. Each design was implemented to cover Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones. The research was broadly framed – according to the uses and gratification theory, social inclusion hypothesis and utilitarian theory of ethics.

The research shows how virtual chat groups can enhance understanding of diversities. However, virtual chat-group outcomes are better managed if anticipated gratifications are predictable and based on the utilization of stated conduct codes.

Given Nigeria’s vast population, the sample size for this study is not adequate nor systematic enough towards generalizations. However, the diverse background of focus group discussants enhances the vista for understanding inclusive virtual chats in diverse societies. Moreover, the instruments of research data collection were validated.

This research points out that virtual chat groups’ codes of conduct are most effective when participants can anticipate collective gratifications. However, firmness and fairness in the implementation of code of conduct principles are essential for long-term virtual group chat sustenance.

Code of conduct principles are essential for the long-term virtual chat group sustenance. When this is achieved, some of the social problems of Nigeria may be solved, and the social, ethnic and religious differences may not hinder the proper development of the country.

The research exposes the nature and role of virtual chat group communication inclusivity codes of conduct amidst participants’ demographic diversity.

Starting in the 1960s, university systems around the world began to undergo a variety of drastic changes that would forever alter higher education. The spread of social movements were fueled by anti-war protests, demands for civil rights, and new forms of economic and political organization (Lipset, 1993). In terms of changes in universities, students demanded greater educational access and equal opportunities. A worldwide logic of inclusiveness increasingly affected national political and educational outcomes, including transformations in multiple dimensions of the status of women in the polity and in the educational system. This chapter focuses on the emergence and expansion of women's studies curricula in universities throughout the world, treating this unexpected development as a further manifestation of the globalization of a logic of inclusiveness.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether contractual completeness is a cornerstone to stakeholder management in Public–Private Partnership (PPP) projects in Uganda.

This study adopted a cross-sectional and quantitative approach. Data were collected by means of a questionnaire survey from a sample of 103 PPP projects in Uganda. Partial Least squares structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data.

The study found that contractual completeness dimensions (contractual obligatoriness, contingency adaptability, issue inclusiveness, term specificity) are all significantly and positively associated with stakeholder management in PPP projects in Uganda.

This paper is one of the few studies on stakeholder management in PPP projects from a developing country’s perspective, thus contributing to scanty literature on how to manage stakeholders in PPP projects.

This paper is limited to the relationship between contract completeness dimensions and stakeholder management in PPP projects in Uganda. Future studies should be conducted on other factors that affect stakeholder management in PPP projects in Uganda.

Our results imply that when all the relevant issues are included in the contract, contract terms are explicitly stipulated, all the unanticipated changes are described and when all the parties involved are restrained by a binding force of a contract, conflicts and opportunism reduces and stakeholders concerns are addressed.

Inclusion is of critical importance to creating healthier workplaces, if the ongoing dynamic of workforce diversity is taken for granted. The purpose of this paper is to designate the role of spiritual leadership in fostering more humane and inclusive workplaces.

The authors review the extant literature on two distinct research streams, inclusion and inclusive leadership, and spiritual leadership, elaborate a mediation model, identify antecedents and outcomes, and articulate a set of propositions reflecting key findings.

The authors advance a conceptual model according to which inclusive practices founded on spiritual values will mediate the positive relationship between spiritual leadership and a climate for inclusion. They argue that calling and membership as components of spiritual wellbeing will reinforce employees’ experience of both uniqueness and belongingness, thus affecting their perceptions of inclusion and inducing multi-level beneficial outcomes.

Spiritual leadership assumes a preeminent role in embracing and valuing diversity: it embodies a potential for positioning inclusive ideals more strategically, in view of enabling employees unfold their genuine selves and experience integration in work settings.

Spiritual leadership helps inclusive goals to be situated in their societal context; inclusion is thus viewed as both an organizational and societal good, embedded in social contexts, and pertinent to corporate vision, mission and philosophy.

The paper examines spiritual leadership as a predictor of climates for inclusion. Drawing on spiritual values, spiritual leaders display a strong potential for inclusion, facilitating diverse employees to experience feelings of both belongingness and uniqueness in work settings that assume high societal relevance.

A core premise of the paper is that participative, democratic organizational forms have a direct effect on openness. A key proposition is that organizational forms that promote inclusion, transparency and shared decision-making more broadly as part of their structure and culture would enhance greater openness. However, democratic forms are not a panacea when it comes to openness, there are inherent paradoxes, leading to inevitable tradeoffs that democratic organizations must manage.

The theoretical framework in the study explores the interaction between open strategy making and organizational democracy. This paper reviews the literature on open strategy and organizational democracy and presents propositions linking openness and elements of democratic organizations.

Open strategy requires a level of inclusion and transparency not typically associated with hierarchical organizations. This paper proposed that an organizational context where there are institutionalized processes that promote both transparency and inclusiveness, shared decision-making and a supportive organizational culture would promote openness. At the same time, these organizations need to manage key paradoxes associated with organizational democracy to benefit from its positive effect on openness. The idea is not that hierarchies cannot be open; they may simply need to be more creative and work harder at providing the scaffolding for participation.

This is a conceptual paper and we cannot make any claims of causality. It is also possible to refine the framework by adding or eliminating some of the conceptual variables.

Opening up the strategy process to non-traditional stakeholders can improve the strategy formation process. Non-traditional stakeholders can bring new insight, and be motivated and prepared for strategy implementation when they are part of the strategy formation process. Organizations need to focus on creating a climate that supports openness by emphasizing structural forms that promote openness. Sharing decision-making, profits and creating a democratic culture are important for successful openness. In addition, organizations need to manage the tradeoffs that arise as they link organizational democracy to openness.

This paper discusses the link between open strategy and organizational democracy. The research sheds light on how organizational forms, specifically structure affects openness, as well as the limits to structure and openness.

This paper aims to argue that national cultural context variables influence open strategy formation processes. This study suggests that country-specific differences may influence open strategy, a form of strategic decision-making and present propositions linking national culture dimensions, national trust orientation and open strategy.

The conceptual framework links the literature on Hofstede’s cultural dimensions to the open strategy paradigm. This paper adopts a contingency approach linking national culture to open strategy.

The theoretical arguments demonstrate that uncertainty avoidance, time orientation, power distance, individualism versus collectivism and national trust culture all have a moderating influence on the antecedents and outcomes of open strategy. The findings extend the external validity of the open strategy paradigm and show that a culture-bound explanation of open strategy may be useful to the understanding of open strategy.

The findings highlight the challenges and opportunities that managers face when they adopt open strategy processes in multinational settings and across different cultures. Managers need to be aware that national cultural variables affect how employees behave and how they are likely to act when faced with opportunities for inclusion, shared decision-making and transparency. The findings suggest that training employees ahead of time on the cultural effects of their behavior may aid the successful adoption of open strategy in different cultures.

This manuscript to our knowledge, maybe one of the first to make a direct link between openness and national cultural values. In the process, the conceptual framework extends research on the role of context on openness, as well as research at the nexus of cross-cultural issues and strategic decision-making.

Existing attempts to assess national development and processes of democratization suffer from conceptual and measurement challenges. This paper proposes a comprehensive concept of democratic development and develops a more inclusive concept of democracy to provide a common set of categories to evaluate its depth and quality.

In order to measure the depth and health of democracy, democratic development incorporates four categories of human progress, each measured by multiple variables. The four categories deemed important for human progress are general development, democratic health, democratic inclusiveness, and human capital. Components of democratic development incorporate existing measures of political and economic development to create a comprehensive and accessible measure of democratic development.

The comparative tables based on multiple goals of development clearly reveal that neither the GDP index nor the HDI are adequate measures of development. Democratic development can be more fully captured by four perspectives: development, democratic inclusiveness, democratic health, and human capital, providing a framework to measure progress in reform, democracy, and development, from public agencies up to the national level. This concept incorporates aspects and orientations of the capabilities approach to create a concept that is amenable to use as a self‐assessment tool and as a basis for comparison of development, broadly conceived.

This inclusive concept is particularly well suited for analyzing citizen satisfaction and democratic stability.

Rather than focusing on singular measures, the approach presented here offers a balanced set of measures aimed at providing a comprehensive view of the gamut of democratic and economic development processes relative to existing models that is more appropriate for self‐assessment/planning purposes than traditional measures, which may be more appropriate for statistical modeling purposes.