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Youth leadership life skills are the “development of life skills necessary to perform leadership functions in real life” (Miller, 1976, p.2). A model developed by Kapostasy indicates life skills should be taught through FFA (Staller, 2001). Thus, it is important to evaluate youth leadership life skills developed to determine the effectiveness of leadership curriculum and its quality and impact. This research study surveyed Arkansas FFA members after attending the 2012 Arkansas Leadership Conference to determine the leadership life skills developed while at the conference. Furthermore, this study looked at relationships between FFA participants and FFA participation with youth leadership life skills and provides recommendations for future research and for practitioners.

This article considers how the evaluation of research teams can better account for the challenges of transdisciplinarity, including their larger team size and more diverse and permeable membership, as well as the tensions between institutional pressures on individuals to publish and team goals.

An evaluation team was retained from 2015 to 2020 to conduct a comprehensive external evaluation of a five-year EPSCoR-funded program undertaken by a transdisciplinary research team. The formative portion of the evaluation involved monitoring the program’s developmental progress, while the summative portion tracked observable program outputs and outcomes as evidence of progress toward short- and long-term goals. The evaluation team systematically reviewed internal assessments and gathered additional data for an external assessment via periodic participation in team meetings, participant interviews and an online formative team survey (starting in Year 2).

Survey participants had a better understanding of the project’s “Goals and Vision” compared to other aspects. “Work Roles,” and particularly the timeliness of decision-making, were perceived to be a “Big Problem,” specifically in regard to heavy travel by key managers/leadership. For “Communication Channels,” Year 2 tensions included differing views on the extent to which management should be collaborative versus “hierarchical.” These concerns about communication demonstrate that differences in language, culture or status impact the efficiency and working relationship of the team. “Authorship Credit/Intellectual Property” was raised most consistently each year as an area of concern.

The study involves the use of a unique survey approach.

Participants in leadership development programs take part in multiple developmental experiences that can influence the composition of their social network and enhance social capital. However, further investment in such practices may be limited because little is known about the relationship between leadership development approaches, networking ability, and social capital. This study explores how common developmental approaches may contribute to social capital, taking into consideration the role networking ability plays in this relationship. This descriptive, correlational study included a sample of graduates (N= 231) from 15 statewide agricultural-based leadership development programs. Our findings reveal that: 1) Networking is an antecedent to social capital, 2) skill building and personal growth approaches to leadership development are significant predictors of networking ability, and 3) networking ability is a significant predictor of social capital.

The impact of frontline robots (FLRs) on customer orientation perceptions remains unclear. This is remarkable because customers may associate FLRs with standardization and cost-cutting, such that they may not fit firms that aim to be customer oriented.

In four experiments, data are collected from customers interacting with frontline employees (FLEs) and FLRs in different settings.

FLEs are perceived as more customer-oriented than FLRs due to higher competence and warmth evaluations. A relational interaction style attenuates the difference in perceived competence between FLRs and FLEs. These agents are also perceived as more similar in competence and warmth when FLRs participate in the customer journey's information and negotiation stages. Switching from FLE to FLR in the journey harms FLR evaluations.

The authors recommend firms to place FLRs only in the negotiation stage or in both the information and negotiation stages of the customer journey. Still then customers should not transition from employees to robots (vice versa does no harm). Firms should ensure that FLRs utilize a relational style when interacting with customers for optimal effects.

The authors bridge the FLR and sales/marketing literature by drawing on social cognition theory. The authors also identify the product categories for which customers are willing to negotiate with an FLR. Broadly speaking, this study’s findings underline that customers perceive robots as having agency (i.e. the mental capacity for acting with intentionality) and, just as humans, can be customer-oriented.