Search results
1 – 10 of 36Mohammad Alqahtani, Desmond Tutu Ayentimi and Kantha Dayaram
Saudi Arabia (SA) is amongst the few countries with a significant foreign workforce who are employed in the higher education sector. More specifically, 39% of SA's academic staff…
Abstract
Purpose
Saudi Arabia (SA) is amongst the few countries with a significant foreign workforce who are employed in the higher education sector. More specifically, 39% of SA's academic staff members are foreign nationals and 63% of that proportion occupy professorial positions. Drawing from a workforce localisation perspective, the study was framed as an exploration of equity and social justice amongst Saudi nationals and foreign nationals in a university work setting. The authors employ the lens of how human resource development (HRD) opportunities are administered.
Design/methodology/approach
Following the choice of an exploratory qualitative study, the authors employed a multi-case study approach where each of the six universities represented a unit of analysis.
Findings
The authors found that nationality differences influenced access to HRD opportunities. These differences are reinforced by practices associated with procedural processes, managerial discretion and selective restrictions in accessing HRD opportunities.
Social implications
The findings have both practical and social implications, specifically for the SA government's strategic vision of developing local human capabilities.
Originality/value
The workforce localisation agenda within the higher education sector has both a compounding effect on local human capital and supports SA's 2030 Vision and human capital target. Nonetheless, perceived inequity and injustice in accessing HRD opportunities by foreign nationals potentially undermine morale, academic quality standards and research performance, which impacts the development of future human capital and the ‘Saudization’ goals.
Details
Keywords
Thi Thanh Binh Dao and Minh Chau Phan
This study, using stakeholder approach, aims to examine the impact of corporate governance and risk-taking on the performance of the top 100 nonfinancial listed firms in Vietnam…
Abstract
Purpose
This study, using stakeholder approach, aims to examine the impact of corporate governance and risk-taking on the performance of the top 100 nonfinancial listed firms in Vietnam from 2015 to 2019.
Design/methodology/approach
The theoretical and empirical studies are reviewed for rational hypotheses development. Firm performance is represented by return on assets, return on equity and Tobin’s Q.
Findings
Specifically, concentrated ownership structure, large workforce, being a great workplace, quick sales growth, high receivables turnover, being funded by both the state and foreigners and high-risk exposure positively affect firm performance. However, a high level of state ownership or foreign ownership, more independent members on board, large board size and chief executive officer (CEO) duality show an inverse effect. Besides, an inverted U-shaped relationship with firm performance is recognized for liquidity ratios.
Originality/value
This study uses three triangles, including governance, risk, and performance. The paper offers some evidence-based recommendations to improve firm performance in Vietnamese businesses.
Details
Keywords
Paul C. Harris, Janice Byrd, Hyunhee Kim, Miray D. Seward, Araya Baker, Alagammai Meyyappan, Deepika Nantha Kumar and Tia Nickens
The authors focus on using Critical Race Theory (CRT) as a lens through which to analyze the holistic welfare development of Black male student-athletes, namely their identity…
Abstract
The authors focus on using Critical Race Theory (CRT) as a lens through which to analyze the holistic welfare development of Black male student-athletes, namely their identity development and overall college and career readiness. The authors contend that if structured and delivered well with the appropriate supports, athletics can be more of a mobilizing mechanism for Black males versus an exploitive one. Specifically, athletic identity does not have to be exclusive, but rather one aspect of the student-athletes' multidimensional sense of self. To this end, the authors outline specific research, practice, and policy recommendations that address the unique challenges of Black male student-athletes in K-16.
Details
Keywords
Sanjukta Choudhury Kaul and Nandini Ghosh
This paper aims to trace Tata Group’s role in responding to disability in the decades immediately following India’s independence until the preliberalization period of the Indian…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to trace Tata Group’s role in responding to disability in the decades immediately following India’s independence until the preliberalization period of the Indian economy, i.e. from the 1950s to the 1990s.
Design/methodology/approach
This study’s methodology entailed a historiographical approach and archival engagement at Tata Archives (Pune, India) of the company documents. Materials and records of the Tata Company between 1942 and 1992.
Findings
Adopting the corporate culture lens, the study findings show that Tata Group demonstrated an active prosocial corporate approach toward disability. In a period governed by the ideology of a state-dominated developmental approach, Tata Group’s initiatives were related to medical interventions for a wide spectrum of disabilities, rehabilitation and efforts to ensure persons with disabilities (PWDS)’ livelihood.
Originality/value
Disability, in the neoliberalized economic landscape of India, is an emergent business issue for companies espousing workplace diversity. The historical understanding of business engagement with disability from postindependence to liberalization in India remains, however, limited. In postindependence India, the passive business response to disability emerged within an ethical and discretionary framework, with charity and philanthropy as the main modes of engagement. In this background, this paper explores Tata’s response to disability and PWDs, which was distinct.
Details
Keywords
Matt Hopkins, Meng-Hsien Lin and Angeline Nariswari
This study explores collaborative technology's effectiveness in facilitating learning in a hybrid (synchronous face-to-face and asynchronous virtual) context. In particular, the…
Abstract
Purpose
This study explores collaborative technology's effectiveness in facilitating learning in a hybrid (synchronous face-to-face and asynchronous virtual) context. In particular, the study explores the critical role of students' feeling-at-ease, including its drivers and impact on their perception of the technology.
Design/methodology/approach
The study included a classroom intervention in which a collaborative technology, i.e. VoiceThread, was implemented in a hybrid learning context. Online surveys, which included quantitative and qualitative components, were administered at the start and end of the semester to capture student perceptions and experiences with the technology.
Findings
Students who felt more at ease assessed the collaborative technology more positively. While extraversion was marginally associated with initial feeling at ease, technology anxiety was not. When using the technology to post content, students who felt more at ease preferred using audio or video over text. Students' perception of the importance of technology in facilitating their learning was a key mediator in the relationship between feeling less at ease and future intention to use the collaborative technology.
Originality/value
The paper investigates the implementation of a collaborative technology in a hybrid learning context, highlighting the critical role of feeling at ease in impacting its acceptance.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the prejudice and discrimination constructs through the lens of a transcendent knowledge concept.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the prejudice and discrimination constructs through the lens of a transcendent knowledge concept.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper seeks to demonstrate that Spiritism or Spiritist Doctrine (SD) – regarded here as a source of transcendent knowledge – offers compelling arguments and provides suitable explanations (i.e. transcendent ontology) in relation to the issue of discrimination
Findings
Overall, this paper contributes to a better understanding of diversity and inclusive perspectives by examining the antecedents and consequences of discrimination through the insightful lens of SD tenets. In this sense, the findings suggest that the discriminators and prejudiced people may ironically pass through – as a result of the law of cause and effect – the same hard situations (i.e. ordeals or nightmares) – even though in their future lives – that they impose in their current victims to forcefully open their minds, support universal values, enhance their own feelings and spiritual intelligence.
Practical implications
Evidence presented here (although conceptually in nature) could be somewhat integrated into training sections of diversity management. At a minimum, it may encourage the shift of attitudes, revision of embedded values and reflections about the spiritual consequences to the perpetrators of discrimination against minorities.
Originality/value
Taken as a whole, the SD tenets prompt us to understand that the acts of prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination engender suffering for their perpetrators, even in their future lives (i.e. reincarnations). Broadly speaking, the SD principles compel us to consider transcendent knowledge even in the context of organizational life.
Details
Keywords
Steven Kolber and Stephanie Salazar
Teachers are an adaptive group of professionals and in this chapter, we explore the ways that teachers can develop themselves as leaders, even in the absence of strong support or…
Abstract
Teachers are an adaptive group of professionals and in this chapter, we explore the ways that teachers can develop themselves as leaders, even in the absence of strong support or leadership. We explore the manner that these skill sets and strengths can be cultivated, providing lived examples of how the authors have developed themselves. The ways that teachers can follow in the footsteps of the authors is outlined in clearly defined steps. By drawing on previous literature, we provide seven strong claims of developing middle leadership knowledge and skill sets beyond your school. Much of this development and community development work that develops and sharpens leadership skills can be explored through online fora and social media tools. These tools allow skill development, professional learning, and exposure to a broad range of education stakeholders and groups; for future pathways in school leadership roles and leading beyond school gate.
Details
Keywords
Jeff Gold, Patricia Jolliffe, Jim Stewart, Catherine Glaister and Sallyann Halliday
The purpose of this paper is to argue that human resource development (HRD) needs to embrace and include futures and foresight learning (FFL) as a new addition to its field of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to argue that human resource development (HRD) needs to embrace and include futures and foresight learning (FFL) as a new addition to its field of theorising and practice. The question to consider is: How can FFL become a new feature of HRD? A key part of the authors’ argument is that the inclusion of FFL will enable HRD to add to the success of any organisation and make a vital contribution to the management of people at work.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper firstly considers some of the debates surrounding the meaning of HRD. The authors suggest that instability of the time serves to disturb any comforts that have been created in HRD and that there is a need to consider how there might be different futures for what we still call HRD in research, practice and praxis. This paper then considers how FFL might become one possibility for expanding the existing boundaries of HRD. The authors characterise futures and foresight as a learning process, which provides new but complementary features to what is already considered as HRD. This paper will show how FFL can lead to organisation's success and the way this can be achieved.
Findings
There is a wide variety of meanings of the term HRD; however, HRD is still cast as a “weakened profession” which has to play a subservient role to others in the workplace. Over the last 15 years, the expansion of the meaning of HRD has been seen as evidence of its evolving and emerging nature and development based on a co-creation with other disciplines. This creates a space for FFL, defined as an ongoing learning process to find predictable, probable, possible and/or a variety of long-term futures. FFL embraces three key processes of scanning, futuring and reconfiguring, all of which contain a high potential for participants and others to learn as they proceed, providing outcomes at each stage. FFL has been shown to enhance organisation performance and success and HRD interventions can play a key part in implementation. This represents a significant opportunity for the HRD profession to move from weakness towards strength.
Research limitations/implications
For HRD researchers, while FFL is not yet on its radar, the authors would argue that the uncertainties of the future require that more attention be given to what might lie ahead. Indeed, HRD researchers need to ask the question: What is the future of HRD research? In addition, if the authors’ call for FFL to be included in the practice of HRD, such practice will itself provide new pathways for HRD research. Further research questions might include: To what extent is FFL practiced in organisations and what role do HRD practitioners play in delivery? How does FFL impact on organisation behaviour and outcomes? What new products and services emerge from FFL? What new skills are required to deliver FFL? Can FFL enhance the status of HRD practitioners in the work place and its role in decision-making? and How can the HRD profession develop as a hybrid profession with respect to machine learning (ML)/artificial intelligence (AI)?
Practical implications
FFL produces outcomes that have importance for strategy, HRD practitioner can learn to facilitate FFL by action learning and in leadership development programmes. FFL offers a significant opportunity to enhance the importance of HRD in organisations and beyond. FFL offers those involved in HRD a significant opportunity to transfer ideas into practice that have an impact on organisation sustainability. HRD can play a significant role in the design and delivery of ML and AI projects.
Originality/value
This paper concludes with a call for embracing FFL as a challenging but important addition to how we talk about learning at work. The authors argue that FFL offers a significant opportunity to enhance the importance of HRD in organisations and beyond. At its centre, FFL involves learning by people, groups, organisations and machines and this has to be of concern to HRD.
Details
Keywords
Emerging public discourses on Islam and Islamophobia in Western countries have led to religious discrimination among this group. This exploratory study aims to understand how…
Abstract
Purpose
Emerging public discourses on Islam and Islamophobia in Western countries have led to religious discrimination among this group. This exploratory study aims to understand how marketers promote anti-discrimination efforts against Muslims on the notion of future collective unity.
Design/methodology/approach
This exploratory study uses Social Identity theory to explain the behaviour and attitude of vulnerable Muslims. The dimension of racialisation, the Whiteness theory, the oppression model and the ethnocentrism theory were synthesised to explain the practice of racism and oppression. The theory of customer diversity, equity and inclusion was synthesised to understand the importance of inclusive marketing. Data were gathered through in-depth interviews with 15 senior marketing executives.
Findings
This study observed how the minority Muslims had influenced the marketers' behaviours in combating anti-religious discrimination through various tactics such as extending the corporates' products and services offerings, being inclusive and avoiding stereotyping in their marketing communication styles and shifting the company's processes and systems to meeting this group's cultural needs.
Research limitations/implications
While this study sample's demographics were motivated by senior marketing executives' profiles, most of the participants were highly educated, had similar cultural backgrounds and were mainly from the West.
Originality/value
This study attempts to shed light on the understanding of Muslims’ discrimination or Islamophobia in non-Muslim majority countries. It is hoped that this study acts as a catalyst for collective unity and would galvanise communities, including marketers to tackle discrimination through a better understanding of a targeted group like Muslims in the marketplace. In this current time of racial and religious tension, business leaders and marketers can act as mediators of social change to normalise more positive relations between minority and mainstream consumers.
Details
Keywords
Warren Nutter and James M. Buchanan did not revise “Universal Education” to turn against providing tuition grants to segregated schools in 1965. Their revised text contains no…
Abstract
Warren Nutter and James M. Buchanan did not revise “Universal Education” to turn against providing tuition grants to segregated schools in 1965. Their revised text contains no call to expel segregation academies from the tuition grant program and does not even express disapproval of the goals or the work of segregation academies. Recent claims to that effect by Fleury (2023) and Levy and Peart (2023) cannot be sustained by either textual or contextual evidence.
Details