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This program evaluation aimed to investigate the benefits and challenges of an international, intercultural, e-community-engagement experience involving youth and higher education students. The authors sought to understand the meaning that participants would make of an international, intercultural, e-community-engagement experience.

The program evaluation component of this project was qualitative, participatory and action-oriented. It was composed of online reflection sessions with small, international groups of higher education students from Iraq, India, Morocco, South Africa and the USA immediately following each of five interactive exchange sessions with youth from South Africa. It also included one culminating reflection session to which all of the higher education student participants were invited and a written questionnaire that was completed by the youth participants at the conclusion of the project. The reflection sessions were recorded and transcribed. Transcripts and survey data were reviewed for emergent themes.

Cultural exposure emerged as the primary theme with participants valuing the opportunity to learn about different cultures and to connect with individuals from across the globe.

This program evaluation was not designed as a generalizable study. This pilot initiative provides evidence of the potential value and importance of international, intercultural e-community-engagement experiences for youth and higher education students.

The potential value of technology to build exchange opportunities for young people is immense and largely untapped. International, intercultural e-community-engagement initiatives can be made available to students globally with relatively limited resources. A highly structured and focused plan provides clarity about expectations and requirements for students. A high level of commitment is required by all participants, including the faculty coordinators.

Although the project was brief, exposure to numerous countries and cultures allowed participants to challenge their assumptions about different peoples and places in the world. The potential benefits for greater compassion and understanding of communities and cultures in an international context are high.

This program evaluation contributes to and extends the literature on the possibilities and challenges of international e-community-engagement; it demonstrates the potential for e-community-engagement across multiple countries to broaden students' exposure to and interest in global perspectives.

The author aims to develop an employee competency framework for a volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA) environment and propose learning and development (L&D) interventions for organisations and employees to develop competencies for thriving in a VUCA environment.

The framework synthesis method was used to determine employee competencies that are essential in a VUCA world.

The author identified 10 competencies that are essential for employee development in a VUCA world. The author categorised these employee competencies as cognitive (cognitive flexibility, agility mindset and personal ambidexterity), cross-cultural (cross-cultural intelligence and cross-cultural collaboration), analytical (creativity and complex problem solving) and personal effectiveness competencies (personal resilience, continuous learning and adaptive mindset).

The proposed competencies could be used for the personal development of employees and organisations. The VUCA competency framework developed in this study includes behavioural dimensions for each competency, which could be used in self-assessment, recruitment and selection and talent and performance management. Furthermore, the author proposes L&D interventions required for developing these competencies. Overall, this study contributes to human resources (HR) development in the VUCA era by proposing the development of specific individual competencies as necessary conditions for survival and growth.

VUCA competencies empower employees to not only survive but also thrive in an unpredictable and rapidly changing world. By incorporating these competencies in L&D interventions, organisations can help employees develop the necessary competencies to thrive in a VUCA environment, thus contributing to their personal and organisational success.

The objective of the study was to explore which COVID-19 teaching and learning methods, that enhanced accounting students' learning experience, should be applied at a residential university after the pandemic.

A qualitative exploratory approach within an interpretive paradigm was applied. A total of 15 semi-structured interviews were conducted with accounting students and the data were analysed using thematic analysis.

This study shows how pre-COVID-19 accounting education can be adapted by learning from the teaching and learning experiences gained during the pandemic and that there are various teaching and learning methods that can be applied in the post-COVID-19 period to enhance students' learning experience. These blended active teaching and learning methods include: the flipped classroom, discussion forum, electronic platform (to ask questions during class), key-concept videos and summary videos. Introducing these teaching and learning methods comes with challenges and the study provides recommendations on how to overcome foreseen obstacles. The contribution of the research is that it informs accounting lecturers' decision-making regarding which teaching and learning methods to apply in the aftermath of COVID-19 to enhance students' learning experience.

It is uncertain which teaching and learning methods employed during the COVID-19 pandemic should be applied at a residential university to enhance the teaching and learning experience after the pandemic. Accounting lecturers might return to their pre-COVID-19 modus operandi, and the valuable experience gained during the pandemic will have served no purpose.

Emotional labour (EL) is a complex phenomenon that has received increasing attention in recent years due to its impact on employee’s well-being and job satisfaction. For a comprehensive understanding of the evolving field of EL, it is important to extract different research trends, new developments and research directions in this domain. The study aims to reveal 13 prominent research topics based on the topic modelling analysis.

Using latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) method, topic modelling is done on 1,462 journal research papers published between 1999 and 2023, extracted from the Scopus database using the keyword “EL”.

The analysis identifies several emerging trends in EL research, including emotional regulation training and job redesign. Similarly, the topics like EL strategies, cultural differences and EL, EL in hospitality, organizational support and EL, EL and gender and psychological well-being of nursing workers are popular research topics in this domain.

The findings provide valuable insights into the current state of EL research and can provide a direction for future research as well as assist organizations to design practices aimed at improving working conditions for employees in various industries.

Topic modelling on emotional labor is done. The paper identifies specific topics or clusters related to emotional labor, quantifies these topics using topic modeling, adds empirical rigor, and allows for comparisons across different contexts.

World Health Organizations (WHO) (2023) states that governments and employers have a responsibility to uphold that right by providing work that simultaneously prevents workers from experiencing excessive stress and mental health risks. The business environment continues to produce a lot of stress on workers, which includes internal pressures to achieve results and employees suffer the consequences. Some companies have turned to mindfulness as a technique that helps mitigate these consequences and have joined Kaizen as a process improvement technique in the work environment. Therefore, this study has a research purpose: “to comprehend the possible linkage between Kaizen philosophy from an individual perspective, with Mindfulness ZEN Buddhism technique to understand the individual benefit (well-being) of each employee in organizations.” The answer to this represents the research gap in this article. The research questions governing this study are as follows: RQ1: Does Mindfulness is used as Kaizen technique of personal-individual improvement in 21st-century organizations? RQ2: What elements and characteristics of Kaizen and mindfulness can be found working together? And RQ3: Which qualitative impact of mindfulness and Kaizen in the workplace outcome (well-being, performance of the job (process)) and relationships with other employees)?

This research used a qualitative approach due to the recent phenomenon studied. In a certain way, it was used a mixed-method (combination of qualitative data – web search secondary data analysis and qualitative research-Convergence Model). First, it was done an intensive web search with the aim to identify companies' corporate mindfulness programs, along with companies which have applied mindfulness and Kaizen programs. It was identified a group of big companies with global and international presence (“famous” for their products and services) in diverse industrial and service sectors, country of origin and business locations; with the purpose of getting a holistic vision of all organizations which have practice Kaizen and mindfulness. Therefore, this study explored secondary data related to both practices, analyzing reports or briefings published in management magazines and official WEB pages and/or business magazines.

As a result of the triangulation of the data with its secondary data convergence model and qualitative research, a theoretical framework was reached that shows the benefits of the two combined twin techniques of Kaizen and mindfulness. The worker experiences a path that goes from concentrating on the execution of their processes, following their operating standards (Standardize, Do, Check, Act [SDCA] cycle), going through the evolution to continuous improvement or Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle, experiencing work with concentration-awareness and reducing your daily stress, maintaining high sensitivity to the work process and your environment and finally, discovering an essential life purpose. Finally, worker experiences benefit when there is wide application of both with the SDCA and PDCA cycles such as high motivation, constant learning from your mistakes, day-to-day learning and the Munen Musso (not using the mind).

The main limitation is the qualitative methodological bias and secondary data research. In addition, to have a theoretical sample. However, the richness of the data helps to overcome this limitation. On the other hand, the qualitative research interviews are for a certain geographical area, therefore, the results cannot be generalized.

The results of this research can shed light on operations managers in the use of techniques for continuous improvement and improvement of people's quality of life, such as mindfulness. In Mexico, they are beginning to be used jointly (twin techniques) to comply with Regulation 035 of psychosocial risk, the researchers are sure that in other countries it will be used in the same way to comply with regulations. However, the research findings show the benefits that can be provided to workers in organizations by applying Kaizen and Mindfulness together.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, according to the literature review, this is the first article that explores the relationship between Kaizen and Mindfulness as twin techniques that help improve the individual quality of life of employees in organizations.

The media is described as a fourth estate of the realm due to its ability to frame and shape discussions on governance and provide a stimulus for fighting corruption. But is the media really an effective tool for fighting corruption? This question arises due to the possibility of the media being used for propaganda, biased reporting and media owners’ and journalists’ engagement in corruption. The current study addresses the question by exploring the relationship between the media and corruption from the perspectives of Ghanaian justice and anti-corruption officials.

The study adopts a qualitative approach by interviewing justice and anti-corruption officials across three administrative regions in Ghana.

The results show that while justice officials describe the media as a medium for accusing officials unjustifiably and exaggerating the scale of corruption, anti-corruption officials believe the media helps to fight corruption. In addition to uncovering and exposing public officials’ corruption, the media is also a double-edged sword characterised by intra-vigilance: the media hold “their own” (i.e. journalists fighting corruption) accountable through criticism and exposure of wrongdoings.

The double-edged nature of the media can strengthen and enhance the fight against corruption because anti-corruption actors and journalists will be cautious as misjudgements or errors committed will not be overlooked or concealed by the media. Therefore, anti-corruption agencies in Ghana can collaborate with the media to uncover and expose corruption committed by public officials and even journalists or media owners.

This study is the first in Ghana to explore the relationship between the media and corruption from the perspectives of justice and anti-corruption officials. The approach, frameworks and methodology adopted in this study can be applied in similar studies in other countries on the African continent and beyond.

The paper aims to understand how state and non-state domestic terrorism impacts MNEs in foreign markets. Despite the burgeoning literature on terrorism within international business (IB), most research has focused on international terrorism, or terrorism generally. Consequently, there has been limited research examining how domestic or local based terrorism impacts foreign firms.

This is a conceptual paper.

Domestic terrorism is the most common form of terrorism in the world today and involves the state and non-state actors. Non-state domestic terrorism can be low intensity or high intensity. High intensity non-state-domestic terrorism typically involves regular and protracted political violence, along with inter-communal violence. This can expose MNEs to considerable operational, governance and legitimacy pressures.

The paper contributes to the gap in IB terrorism research with regards domestic or local based terrorism. Drawing on IB theory and critical terrorism research, the paper addresses the nature and impact of domestic terrorism within IB. The authors’ paper shows the operational, governance and legitimacy pressures of both state and non-state domestic terrorism for MNEs in host markets. While most IB scholars consider the threat of non-state terrorism for international firms, this study shows how domestic state terrorism benefits and constrains foreign firms.

In recent years, the global consumption of craft beer witnesses remarkable growth. This growth is attributed to the evolving demographics of beer consumers, particularly the emergence of a new generation known as Digitarians or Generation Z. This study aims to analyze the key determinants influencing craft beer consumption among Digitarians.

An online questionnaire is administered, and a total of 296 completed responses are included in the statistical analysis. The methodology uses logistic regressions combined with a backward selection process and variance inflation factor analysis to address multicollinearity. The logistic regressions are conducted in three steps to delve into the research objective and gain insights into the behavior of young consumers. The stepwise backward selection aids in obtaining robust coefficients as a variable selection tool.

The results shed light on how Digitarians’ preferences for craft beer are influenced by various factors, including self-perceived knowledge, alcohol content, gender, food pairings, environment and companionship.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper contributes novel insights by being the first study to explore the significance of craft beer choices among Digitarians, identifying the role of several predictors in their consumption patterns.