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The personalities of leaders have been shown to impact the culture of their organizations and are also expected to have a more distal impact on the firm’s financial performance. However, the authors also expect that leader gender is an important intervening variable such that exhibiting various personality dimensions may result in unique cultural and performance-based outcomes for women and men leaders. Thus, the authors seek to examine first the impact of leader personality on organizational performance, as driven through organizational culture as a mediating mechanism. In doing so, the authors propose the expected impact of specific personality dimensions on certain types of organizational cultures, and those cultures’ subsequent impact on the organization’s performance. The authors then extend to consider the moderating effects of leader gender on the relationship between leader personality and organization. To support their propositions, the authors draw from upper echelons and implicit leadership theories. The authors encourage researchers to consider the proposition within a sample of the largest publicly traded US companies (i.e., Fortune 500) at an important era in history such that for the first time, 10% of these companies are led by women. In doing so, the authors hope to understand the leadership dynamics at the highest echelons of corporate governance and provide actionable insights for companies aiming to optimize their leadership composition and drive sustainable performance.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse five biases in the valuation of financial investments using a mental time travel framework involving thought investments – with no objective time passing.

An investment’s initial value, together with any periodic funding cash-flows, are mentally projected forward (at an expected rate of return) to give the value at the investment horizon; and this projected value is mentally discounted back to the present. If there is a difference between the initial and present values, then this can imply a bias in valuation.

The study identifies (and gives examples of) five real-world valuation biases: biased funding cash-flow estimates (e.g., mega infrastructure projects); biased rate of return projections (e.g., market crises, tech stock carve-outs); biased discount rate estimates (e.g., dual-listed shares, dual-class shares, short-termism, time-risk misperception, and long-termism); time-duration misestimation or perception bias when projecting (e.g., time-contracted projections which lead to short-termism); and time-duration misestimation or perception bias when discounting (e.g., time-extended discounting which also leads to short-termism). More than one bias can be operating at the same time and we give an example of low levels of retirement savings being the result of the biased discounting of biased projections. Finally, we consider the effects of the different biases of different agents operating simultaneously.

The paper examines key systematic misestimation and psychological biases underlying financial investment valuation pricing anomalies.

This chapter investigates the relevance and necessity of leadership and authentic leadership roles in organisational change in the modern VUCA world. He argues that authentic leaders need to learn to adapt to the increasingly VUCA environment, asking: Can they? Do they? If so, how? Authentic leaders need to evaluate not just the metrics behind success or failure but also their leadership traits and behaviour during organisational change to determine whether adjustments may be warranted. Taran provides an inspiration list of categories for leadership and authentic leadership self-refection. He calls for in-depth case studies of authentic leadership in response to VUCA circumstances that could be largely descriptive producing a body of data against which new theories can be tested and refined.

This chapter explores conflict in digital transformation as a leadership challenge. The authors maintain that conflicts cannot be left to HR managers; rather, they must be anticipated, handled adeptly and made a leadership priority. Although conflict resolution is a well-researched area, this is not the case for authentic leadership in digital transformation. Thus, the field is ripe for empirical research. Pitman and Reilly call for research on conflict in digital transformation, the role of leadership in averting and resolving conflicts and whether these roles change understanding of authentic leadership. The impact of AI warranting a revision of orthodox authentic leadership theory represents a further domain of potential research.

Fertility aspirations shape family planning behavior of a couple. Desire to have certain number of children is linked with various micro- and macro-level factors such as individuals’ characteristics, sociocultural contexts and unconscious personal motivations. Fertility aspirations are an important component of fertility decision-making and a major predictor of childbearing. In India, Uttar Pradesh (UP) is the most populated state with historically high levels of fertility rates as compared to national average. This research is a qualitative exploration of the perspectives and practices of women with respect to their fertility aspirations and family planning behavior in an urban setting. A cross-sectional study was conducted between August 2017 and July 2018 among married women and men of the reproductive age group of 17–49 years using qualitative methods. The study was done in Pakbara, a Census Town (has a minimum population of 5,000) in the district of Moradabad, situated in western UP. It was found that along with personal motivations of having a quality life change in objective circumstances has led to changes in the fertility aspirations of the participants, particularly women. Increasing education, more mobility in public spaces, aspirations for a quality life, exposure to mass media and new job opportunities generate revision of parental aspirations. Couples, particularly from middle and upper-middle classes, limit their family size to attain upward social mobility. Couples from lower economic class have realized that rise of household income has not been commensurate with rise in prices. Thus, restricted childbearing is one way to cope with the situation.

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) have become prioritized goals of business, such as hiring more women and racial minorities. This study adds to the body of research regarding the value of diversity in organizations by examining the relationship between diversity at the workforce level and the financial performance of the organization. The empirical results of prior research have provided mixed results, finding mainly positive, but also negative, and nonsignificant relationships (Sharma et al., 2020; Vlas et al., 2022). The purpose of this study is to examine the current employment status of women and racial minorities in top US companies, then analyze if a correlation exists between a company’s profit margin and its percentage of women and racial minority employees and managers.

This study examined the top 200 companies in the Fortune 500 companies; these are the largest companies by revenue in the USA. Companies were ranked according to each variable (% of women employees, % of racial minority employees, % of women managers and % of racial minority managers) and then divided into equal quartiles. The mean profit margin for the top quartile was compared with the mean profit margin for the bottom quartile. T-tests were used to determine whether significant differences in profit margin exist between companies. This methodology of comparing top and bottom quartiles was developed in prior studies.

Fortune 200 companies have an average of 40% women and also 40% racial minorities in their workforce. Both women and racial minorities account for a smaller percentage of managers. Women account for 34% of managers, while racial minorities account for 29%. There is a significant positive relationship between profit margin and two of the variables. Companies with 45% or more women managers have a significantly higher profit margin than companies with the lowest percentages of women managers. Companies with 48% or more racial minority employees have a significantly higher profit margin than companies with the lowest percentages of racial minority employees. These findings are in-line with the existing body of research that has found mixed impacts of diversity on firm performance (cf. Hoobler et al., 2018; Leung et al., 2022) and draws attention to the need to consider the impact of gender and racial diversity on firms at various management levels within the firm to better understand the impact that increasing diversity has on firm performance (cf. Curado et al., 2022).

This paper adds to the body of knowledge by assessing the current status of women and racial minorities in top US companies and, then, analyzing if a correlation exists between a company’s profit margin and the number of women and racial minority employees and managers. Findings provide companies with further incentive to maintain DEI as a prioritized goal.