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Author Jeff Resnick explores the vulnerability of firms whose executives fail to manage the perceptions of their company – indeed, their corporate reputation – with as much rigor as they apply to managing financial, operational or technology risk. Mr Resnick offers up a snapshot of current attitudes towards managing corporate reputation, including research underscoring CEOs perception that it has become far more important than it was several years ago, and juxtaposes this with data that indicates US investors remain as distrustful of corporate ethics today as they were in the heated moment of corporate scandals. Mr Resnick then presents a provocative case for better managing reputation – a company’s most critical important intangible asset – in a more strategic manner. Finally, he provides readers with steps for effectively monitoring reputational risk. His monitoring system focuses on a multi‐stakeholder measurement approach that more fully informs executives’ decisions concerning their corporate reputation. Critical to making his case, Mr Resnick uses examples from recently completed reputational research, focusing on the electric power industry and conducted by an independent reputation‐rating agency.

The applications of artificial intelligence (AI), natural language processing and machine learning in e-commerce are growing. Recommender systems (RSs) are interaction-based technologies based on AI that can offer recommendations for products for use or of interest to a potential consumer. Curiosity, focused immersion and temporal dissociation are often treated as the dimensions of cognitive absorption, so exploring them separately can provide valuable insights into their dynamics. The paper aims to determine the effect of the cognitive absorption dimensions namely focused immersion, temporal dissociation and curiosity independently on RSs continuous use intention.

A quantitative research design was used to explore the effect of dimensions of cognitive absorption on AI-driven RSs continuous use intention in e-commerce. Data were gathered from 452 active users of Amazon through an online cross-sectional survey and were analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling.

The findings indicated that curiosity and focused immersion directly affect RSs continuous use intention, but temporal dissociation does not affect RSs continuous use intention.

The current research focused on Amazon’s RSs that use AI and machine learning techniques. The research aimed to empirically explore the effects of the dimensions of cognitive absorption separately on AI-driven RSs continuous use intention in e-commerce. This research may be of interest to executives working in both public and private industries to better harness the potential of recommendations driven by AI to maximize RSs’ reuse and to enhance customer loyalty.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how a middle school science teacher, new to programming, supports students in learning to debug physical computing systems consisting of programmable sensors and data displays.

This case study draws on data collected during an inquiry-oriented instructional unit in which students learn to collect, display and interpret data from their surrounding environment by wiring and programming a physical computing system. Using interaction analysis, the authors analyzed video recordings of one teacher’s (Gabrielle) pedagogical moves as she supported students in debugging their systems as they drew upon a variety of embodied, material and social resources.

This study presents Gabrielle’s debugging interactional grammar, highlighting the pedagogical possibilities for supporting students in systematic ways, providing affective support (e.g. showing them care and encouragement) and positioning herself as a learner with the students. Gabrielle’s practice, and therefore her pedagogy, has the potential to support students in becoming better debuggers on their own in the future.

While much of the prior work on learning to debug focuses on learner actions and possible errors, this case focuses on an educator’s debugging pedagogy centered on the educator debugging with the learners. This case study illustrates the need for educators to exhibit deft facilitation, vulnerability and orchestration skills to support student development of their own process for and agency in debugging.

The purpose of this paper is to share the authors’ perspectives as members of a research-based course project focused on learning game design and development. The authors provide important aspects of their findings as usable knowledge in the form of implications for potential use in new contexts.

This is a case study of one instance of a course-based structured learning opportunity. The authors chose to interview each other about various aspects of the course structure and its affordances and constraints for creating an effective and supportive learning environment.

The paper provides findings as implications for potential transfer to new contexts. As considerations for engendering the type of learning the authors promote, they share much of the interview responses in an effort to not only contextualize their perspectives but also identify important aspects for similar projects.

As a single case, the authors focus on areas of transferability rather than generalizability. With more cases, they could build the list of important aspects, but with this individual case, they can simply share the ideas they find most salient from their work.

The paper includes implications for those interested in creating similar opportunities that combine undergraduate research projects and coursework to enhance students’ ability to pursue individual interests typically not found in traditional course models.

This paper provides an example of a non-traditional opportunity for learning as a potential model for others.

A comprehensive whole‐school approach has emerged as a promising model for building connectedness in the school setting. The health‐promoting school model, through its whole‐school orientation and attention to the school organizational environment, identifies structures and processes that influence school connectedness. This paper aims to investigate this model.

This study examines the key mechanisms of health‐promoting school structures and processes, as well as the pathways of their influence on school connectedness, by using a qualitative case study methodology in three school communities in southeast Queensland, Australia. In‐depth interviews, focus groups, observations and documentary evidence provided the data.

Key elements of the health‐promoting school model that facilitated interactions between school community members were events that were characterised as positive, social, celebratory, and with no financial cost, as well as informal gatherings that involved food or events with communal eating. Through these interactions, mutual reciprocal relationships were developed. School community members began to learn about and understand one another's positive qualities, which in turn promoted additional aspects of school connectedness. The key elements and pathways of the health‐promoting school approach were supported by factors such as informal teaching, reinforcement, adequate time for relationships to develop, and being embedded within the whole‐school orientation. The results of this study are used to formulate a theoretical model of how the health‐promoting school approach builds school connectedness.

These findings are important because they provide insight into the central role of food in the school culture and how it links other key elements and factors that can be implemented in the school setting to build connectedness.

The purpose of this paper is to offer an epistemological vantage point for theory development in the case of strategic leadership, an emerging focus of scholarly attention in strategic management.

The authors invoke Rescher's epistemological platform for making the case, Rescher being one of the most influential philosophers in the USA.

The analysis suggests that since strategic leadership differs from supervisory leadership, both on organizational reach and incorporation of external elements, defining the strategic leadership problem exclusively as a difference in context – what Weick referred to as a strategy of knowledge growth by extension – is likely to prove unproductive. Rescher's platform can be put to use for specifying the two critical though inter‐related epistemological challenges in the beginning of the theory development project: the choice of concepts, and the type of relations among the concepts. These epistemological challenges may be reframed as opportunities to capture the phenomenal variety embedded in these concepts, and to deploy a diversity of approaches to examine their correspondence.

Contending and complementary views on strategic leadership, and hence concepts representing alternate views should be allowed. Bridges should be built between islands of scholarship, but these bridges are likely to be found in special issues of journals (devoted deliberately to nurture multiple perspectives), edited books and invited conferences.

Engagement with “strategic” leaders is an epistemological necessity for both theoretical and pragmatic reasons.

This paper demonstrates how epistemology can strengthen theory building in the case of strategic leadership. Given the signal importance of this phenomenon, good theories and, therefore, epistemological challenges should occupy a central stage of discussions in this early stage.

The relationship between routine work stress and psychological distress was investigated among 733 police officers in three US cities, during 1998‐1999. The Work Environment Inventory (WEI) was developed to assess exposure to routine work stressors, while excluding duty‐related traumatic stressors (critical incidents). The WEI and its general properties are presented. The relationship between routine work stress exposure and psychological distress is then explored. Exposure to routine work stressors predicted general psychological distress (r = 0.46), as well as post‐traumatic stress symptoms following officers’ most traumatic career incident (rs = 0.26 to 0.39). Multivariate analyses found that these effects were independent of, and larger than, the effects of cumulative critical incident exposure. (Time since the most traumatic event, social support, and social desirability effects were also controlled statistically.) Routine occupational stress exposure appears to be a significant risk factor for psychological distress among police officers, and a surprisingly strong predictor of post‐traumatic stress symptoms.

This study aims to build on Gee’s (2003) earlier question exploring specifically the learning processes associated with broadening cultural empathy and exploring personal bias through gameplay in the role-playing game, Oblivion.

Methodology for this case study (Stake, 1995) was informed by narrative (Reissman, 2001) methods that focused on collecting descriptions of the unique experiences of participants while being engaged in gameplay and their personal reflections synthesizing game-based engagement and course content. “Narrative research offers the possibility of exploring nuances and interrelationships among aspects of experience that the reader might better understand other related situations” (Josselson, p. 239). Our study focused on using narrative research methods to examine embodiment within the fictional world of the game as an experiential participatory-learning experience.

All participants indicated that the most salient learning experiences of the course was playing the game. The process participants underwent the experience of an event in the game and linked this gaming experience to their personal real-life reaction combined with emotions and thoughts. They then self-reflected on those reactions, which cumulatively contributed to self-reported increased self-awareness in the areas of personal bias, stereotypes, attitudes, values, beliefs and privilege. Three themes were identified from the data, namely, increase or variance in levels of self-awareness, navigating unfamiliar cultural systems and increased understanding and cognitive empathy for others. In addition, a fourth additional theme of embodiment and the value of embodiment were identified.

Lacking in the findings were reports by participants regarding application of skills to different cultural populations. Future research will focus on how integration of application of skills can be facilitated using similar pedagogical practices. Because this study included a small number of participants who were counseling students in a master’s program, the applicability of the findings to other student populations is limited. Further research would need to determine whether or not the findings could be replicated with other types of students.

Embedding the intervention within the structure of a course appeared to provide a supportive and safe space for experiencing embodied selves, it also provided a mode for performing their future selves for and with colleagues experiencing similar situations. In this way, they were able to venture with and among their colleagues toward a fuller understanding of self, and particularly in conjunction to diverse populations. These features of the intervention appeared to work in concert together holistically affording a space where they could be vulnerable enough, open enough, to begin questioning their central thoughts and beliefs and increase their empathy for others who are different.

Using the game of Oblivion allowed our students to have an embodied experience in a virtual space where they got to experience being in a completely different culture and experience culture shock. They had to make decisions that forced them to review their belief systems, go against their belief systems, or explore options that were against their belief systems in a safe way with no real-life repercussions. This embodied experience allowed our participants to engage in behaviors that none would dare to do in their real world and provided a comfort zone to explore taboo subjects.

Embedding the game within the curriculum encouraged participants to experience feelings of embodied empathy (Gee, 2010). Oblivion assisted in this process by providing participants the opportunity to gain entry into a unique designed world, a realistic but pseudo-cultural world replete with social and institutional structures both familiar and foreign to their real life. This appeared to provide a realistic manifestation of self, positioning participants toward experiencing embodied empathy for the designed scenarios in the game.

This paper aims to provide insights into the what, why, and how of recognising corporate brand crisis through a synthesis of organisational experiences with threats to brand reputation, and to offer guidelines for analytic approaches and suggested organisational actions.

The approach takes the form of a clinical set of examinations and interpretation of a substantial number of recognised corporate brand crisis situations. The analysis and suggested approaches in the paper have been tested with corporate executives and communications counselors in classrooms and private applied situations.

The main points are: reputational trouble can come in many forms, from many sources and many publics; the most serious situations are those that affect the distinctive attribute/characteristic – “the essence of the brand” – most closely associated with the brand's meaning and success. A number of specific examples illustrate this point. However, past and present corporate behaviour is the most significant element in a crisis situation. Authenticity plays a key role in building, sustaining, and defending reputation. From analysis of many corporate brand crisis experiences the paper finds that forthrightness in communications and substantive credible responses in the form of behaviour are most likely to restore trust and rescue a brand in crisis. The most important actions, however, are those taken to build a “reputational reservoir” as a strong foundation for corporate reputation.

Research on reputational troubles is rarely based on documented information from inside the affected/afflicted organization. Except when companies have successfully overcome such situations (such as Johnson and Johnson in the Tylenol tragedy), internal information is typically unavailable. Examination of media coverage and informal discussions with former executives can be mitigating substitutes.

The principal implications relate to: how an organization can assess the seriousness of an actual or prospective situation affecting its brand reputation; suggested approaches to the value and use of corporate communications and the salience of authenticity; and suggested actions in the face of brand crisis.

The paper provides an analytic approach to assessing the seriousness of threats to organisational brand reputation. It also examines actual reputational troubles in the context of corporate‐level marketing and corporate communications; and draws on extensive case studies and seminars in this area with experienced executives.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an argument why digital badges in higher education should be used as an assessment tool and not only as a credentialing mechanism.

This paper unpacks the use of digital badges in videogames and explains how it aligns with quality assessment practices. Several research studies are provided as examples of this alignment.

Because different people have different reactions to different badges, some people will likely be best served by badges that are designed to be assessments.

The meta-analysis in this paper helps to shift current thinking on the use of digital badges in higher education away from a framework that only considers badges as credentials. Digital badges that are designed as assessments can be educative for learners who would otherwise not benefit from its use.