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The purpose of this paper is to analyze, in the Colombian developing context, the relationship between the presence of women in corporate positions and the financial performance of the company and to know if there are differences between family and non-family firms.

Building on the contingency theory of leadership, which emphasizes that leader’s personality and the situation in which that leader operates influences corporate decision-making, the authors use panel data models on a sample of 54 Colombian public businesses for the period 2008-2015 to test the proposed hypotheses on the relationship between women´s presence in corporate governance positions and financial performance, as well as the difference between family and non-family firms.

The results support that women´s presence in corporate governance positions is positively associated with firm performance. More concretely, the authors find a relationship between women at the top corporate governance structure (as part of the board of directors, top management team and chief executive officer) and firm profitability. Results also indicate that family business, as a type of organization, (negatively) moderates the positive relationship between female participation in top executive positions (board and top executive team) and firm performance.

First, this study is limited to women in corporate positions in large companies listed on the Colombia Stock Exchange, and thus, generalizability for smaller entities may be limited. Second, data limitations do not allow us to investigate ways in which women’s presence in corporate governance structures contributes to improve firm goals.

The authors provide support to the hypothesis that positively relates women’s presence in corporate governance positions and firm performance for the case of Colombia. This serves as a guidance to Colombian regulators, corporate decision-makers and policy-makers to promote the inclusion of women in top hierarchical structures through either mandatory laws or recommendation.

Few studies have addressed the women´s presence in corporate governance positions and contribution to firm performance in developing economies. This study contributes to better understand how women impact performance in contexts where women are underrepresented in corporate governance structure and where there are no laws that pressure firms to appoint women in corporate governance positions.

The research reported in this paper brings forth the experiences of three teachers working in different schools. These teachers learned about lesson study through a course offered at the University of Malta while, at the same time, leading a lesson study with colleagues at their school. With the COVID-19 outbreak, these teachers had, out of necessity, to adopt and accommodate for their lesson study to an exclusive online approach. This paper, hence, focuses on teachers' learning as they shifted their lesson study online.

This paper presents a case study that delves into the experiences and perceptual insights that these teachers manifested in shifting to an exclusive online lesson study situation. Data collection is derived from a focus group discussion, teacher reflective entries and detailed reports documenting the lesson study process and experiences. Employing technological frames as the theoretical lens, a description-analysis-interpretation approach was employed to analyse and interpret reflections and grounded experiential perceptions that the respondents disclosed during their lesson study journey.

Notwithstanding their initial discerned sense of loss and unpreparedness of being constrained to migrate lesson study to exclusive online means, teachers eventually recognised that digitally mediated collaborative practices enhanced self-reflection about the lesson study process. Therefore, the extraordinary situation that the teachers in this study experienced not only disrupted their modus operandi but also allowed them to discern new opportunities for learning about digital technology use in lesson study.

Disruption, brought about by unforeseen circumstances, takes teachers and professional development facilitators out of their comfort zones, invariably helping them grow out of their limitations and rethink lesson study practices.

Intentionally driven disruptions prompt teachers to resolve their dissatisfactory situations by thinking out of the box, eventually helping them to improve their professional practices.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the efficiency of the Colombian higher education system, differentiating between public and private universities.

A data envelopment analysis (DEA) model is applied to separately and jointly evaluate the teaching and research efficiencies of universities. The empirical application considers a sample of 78 Colombian universities across the period 2015–2017. A two-stage DEA is performed in which DEA scores are first evaluated and then regressed on potential covariates via truncated regression.

Public universities outperform their private counterparts in terms of teaching and research efficiency, whereas private universities have higher global efficiency. Furthermore, the proportion of PhD faculty positively impacts all dimensions of efficiency and in fact is the only variable improving research efficiency.

First, the data do not permit a direct analysis of the impact of improvements in resources or capabilities on knowledge transfer. Second, policies and their efficiency may be influenced by differences in cultural contexts, regulatory frameworks and knowledge transfer activities. Finally, the country specificity of this research study calls for obvious caution when generalizing and interpreting its findings.

The analysis of this data set will help decision and policy makers identify resources that are used efficiently by universities and interventions for improving resource management by inefficient universities.

Few studies have addressed the efficiency of higher education in developing economies. This paper contributes to the literature by applying a two-stage methodological approach to estimate the efficiency of Colombian universities and provide a better understanding of the factors driving university efficiency.

The paper focuses on lesson study, which generally engages the collaborative work of a group of teachers, as implemented with a primary school art teacher who had limited opportunities for collaboration. Through lesson study, the teacher worked closely with a lesson study facilitator and an art education expert to plan a research lesson. The study explores how this collaboration generated cognitive conflicts and eventually teacher change.

This paper presents a case study using a thematic approach to data analysis. The lesson study involved weekly face-to-face meetings and daily online communications over a period of eight weeks. In an attempt to reflect upon and resolve conflicts, the teacher kept a journal in which the teacher wrote down lengthy accounts of the discussions with knowledgeable others, the teacher’s struggles and ways of resolving these. Data were complemented by the different lesson plan versions, the post-lesson discussions and a detailed report documenting the lesson study process.

The paper provides insights into the role that cognitive conflicts play for teacher change. Through ongoing communication, reflection and support to resolve conflicts, the teacher recognised more collaborative opportunities for professional development, freed from rigid lesson planning practices and reported a new conceptualisation to teaching.

Drawing on the literature about effective teacher professional learning, the paper offers implications for supporting teacher change.

This paper provides insights into how lesson study may provide conditions that enable teachers' cognitive conflict and facilitate their consequent resolution.

This paper aims to explore the effect of female’s presence in corporate governance structures to reduce agency conflicts, using a quantile regression approach.

The research investigates the relationship between company performance and boardroom gender diversity using quantile regression methods. The study uses annual data of 111 companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange from 2010 to 2020.

The study reveals that women on the board impact firm return on assets and enterprise value, varying across performance distribution. This contrasts fixed effect findings but aligns with two-stage least squares. However, quantile regression indicates that female executives and independent non-executive directors have notably negative impacts in high and low-performing companies, highlighting non-uniformity in the board gender diversity effect compared with previous assumptions.

The empirical findings suggest that companies with no women directors on the board are generally more likely to experience a decrease in performance and enterprise value relative to companies with women directors on the board. As recommended through the King Code of Corporate Governance, it is thus valuable to companies to ensure gender diversity on the board of directors.

The research confirms through rigorous statistical analyses that corporate governance policies, principles and guidelines should include gender diversity as a requirement for a board of directors.

In recent years, the field of financial technology (Fintech) has garnered significant attention due to advancements in technology, evolving consumer preferences and the growing need for financial services that are more accessible and user-friendly. The exponential expansion of Fintech is presenting novel prospects and obstacles for business. This study aims to investigate the relationship between gender diversity on corporate boards and firms’ performance, with a particular focus on the moderating role of Fintech.

The study sample consisted of financial sector firms listed on the Bahrain Bourse (banks and insurance firms) during the period 2016–2022. The data were gathered primarily from annual reports and the Bahrain Bourse website. The independent variable represents the percentage of female directors on corporate boards while firms’ accounting and market-based performance were measured using return on assets and Tobin’s Q variables. The moderating variable, Fintech, was measured using a checklist developed using the Global Fintech Adoption Index. Fixed effect (FE) regression was used to analyze the study data. An alternative gender diversity measure was used to test the reliability of the main regression analysis.

The results of the study indicate a positive relationship between gender diversity on corporate boards and financial performance. Additionally, the findings of the study highlighted the positive impact of Fintech practices on firms’ performance. Nevertheless, the impact of Fintech on the relationship between board gender diversity and corporate performance was found to be insignificant.

The study sample included a particular sector in a single country, which may limit the generalizability of the findings. Also, the current study applied FE regression to analyze the data; however, other econometric approaches could be used to overcome the endogeneity issue.

The findings of this study may have implications for policymakers and society, particularly in terms of promoting gender diversity and Fintech innovation.

This study contributes to the existing body of research by examining the potential impact of the percentage of female directors and the utilization of Fintech on firms’ performance in Bahrain. Given the ongoing endeavors to provide advanced Fintech solutions in the financial sector and the increasing focus on enhancing gender diversity in Bahraini corporate boards, this research aims to provide additional evidence in this domain. Moreover, this study stands out as one of the limited number of research endeavors that use Fintech as a moderating variable in the investigation of the impact of female directors on firms’ performance.

The current review aims to examine the growth trajectory, most influential documents, intellectual and conceptual structure of the literature regarding gender issues in family business research.

The bibliometric analysis was performed using 224 documents from 1991 to 2020 extracted from the Web of Science database.

The review finds that this field's knowledge grew exponentially during the last three decades, mainly after 2003 and the last several years. Based on the co-citation analysis, three major research lines are identified: “Women's challenges and opportunities in the family business”, “Gender diversity in the family business corporate board”, and “Gender and family SMEs management.” The temporal co-word analysis reveals that “Gender diversity in the family business corporate board” is the latest research line.

By reviewing prominent cited references and documents that cited them, the authors provide the landscapes and research gaps of three major research lines for further development.

Online systems are presented as new tools in the hands of scientific policy makers. When new research proposals require comparative assessment, these systems provide an objective criterion for evaluating both the previous work of a given group and the timeliness and originality of a proposed project. Three examples are presented: (i) evaluation of a determinate project taking into account geographic, disciplinary and historical areas and the results and applications up to the present, (ii) evaluation of a Spanish research team in Physics and (iii) evaluation of a Spanish periodical connected with food research.

Do women contribute to performance of companies on which they serve as board of directors? Many prior studies examine this issue, but no consensus is reached on the benefits of women taking on leadership positions. The present study considers this thorny issue from a slightly different perspective. Does the association between gender diversity and business performance vary across sectors and economic cycles?

The sample for this study was derived from the firms included in the S&P Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) 300 Index, and the study period of 2004–2016 allowed authors to consider the effects of different sectors as well as different economic cycles on the relationship between gender diversity of boards and business performance. The authors consider the Australian context, which is somewhat unique from the other Western countries, as quotas on boards of directors are not made mandatory and the corporate governance practices are principle-based rather than rule-based.

Employing panel data models, at the aggregate level, the authors find no evidence of board gender diversity impacting business performance. Consideration of sectoral differences and economic cycles in the empirical analyses yielded additional insights. In particular, gender diversity has a beneficial association with performance for businesses in the services and financial sectors after the changes to corporate governance guidelines relating to diversity in 2010. These economic benefits, however, are not evidenced in the resources sector.

These findings offer support for critical mass and resource dependence theories.

The findings of this study have implications for inclusion and diversity policies of businesses and the society. Specifically, the findings offer support for gender diversity of corporate boards of directors.

This study highlights that women bring their unique skills and experiences to create economic value in sectors where they traditionally have more experience and opportunities.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the simplicity and versatility of micro‐cantilever based sensors and to present the influence of added mass and stress on the frequency response of the sensor in order to determine the most suitable sensing domain for a given application.

The frequency response of micro‐cantilevers depends not only on the applied mass and surface stress, but also on the mass position. An interpretation of the theoretical frequency results of the 1st and 2nd natural frequencies, for added mass, identifies a nodal point for the 2nd natural frequency which demonstrates mass invariance. Hence, at this nodal point, the frequency response remains constant regardless of mass and may be used for identifying purely induced surface stress influences on the micro‐cantilever's dynamic response. The Rayleigh‐Ritz energy method is used for the theoretical analysis. Theoretical results are compared with experimental results.

A graph of the 2nd natural frequency of micro‐cantilevers with added mass demonstrates the variability of the frequency with mass position on the micro‐cantilever. Of particular interest is the nodal point at which mass independence is revealed. This nodal point may be exploited to investigate purely stress‐related influences on the dynamic characteristics of micro‐cantilever sensors, thereby eliminating such effects as reactant evaporation from the micro‐cantilever sensor surface. In this regard, the nodal point of the 2nd natural frequency response is used to decouple mass‐stress influences.

Owing to the micro‐scale size of the micro‐cantilevers, it may not be possible to apply mass or stress directly at the nodal point and to concentrate its influence there. Hence, a certain amount of influence due to mass‐stress coupling may remain in the frequency responses observed.

Silicon micro‐cantilevers can be easily shaped and sensitized to a variety of influences. These qualities are highly regarded for sensor applications. The work presented herein, contributes to the optimization of micro‐cantilever sensors' dynamic response as a function of mass and surface stress influences. The main criterion for choosing one or the other is based on the time for the surface reaction to take place between the sensing material and the target material. The results presented contribute to the performance optimization of micro‐cantilever based medical and bio‐sensors.

Surface stress effects are generally of much smaller magnitude than mass influences; hence, through an investigation of the stress effects at the nodal point of the 2nd natural frequency it is possible to eliminate the mass influence completely. At this position mass and stress influences are decoupled and the sensor response can be uniquely quantified as a function of the applied stress. This is important for bio‐medical and health monitoring applications in which changes to the applied mass or surface stress on a micro‐cantilever sensor, may be readily observed through changes to the natural frequency response of the micro‐cantilever.