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1 – 10 of 39The purpose of this study was to obtain valuable insights into students’ engagement and experiences within the virtual learning environment, especially in the context of crises…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to obtain valuable insights into students’ engagement and experiences within the virtual learning environment, especially in the context of crises. Among the innumerable challenges people throughout the world faced during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, those of students in institutions of higher education needing to engage in online academic studies are of special interest. Using an online survey, this study could predict students’ online engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic through three theoretical frameworks: the students’ academic motivation to study, the Big Five personality traits, and loneliness, and with a new tool measuring the participation in the Zoom platform.
Design/methodology/approach
To examine the psychological and technological factors predicting the students’ engagement, this study surveyed 547 students from different academic institutions of higher learning.
Findings
Findings show that the less lonely the students felt, the less neurotic they were, and the higher they scored in levels of extroversion, agreeableness, consciousnesses and openness to experience, the greater their engagement in their academic studies. In addition, students who were older, more educated, with higher intrinsic motivation and lower lack of motivation were more engaged in their online academic studies. Finally, participating in classes through the Zoom platform and experiencing it positively was a significant predictor of higher academic engagement.
Originality/value
Recognizing these factors can enable educators, institutions of higher learning, counselling services and students to obtain tools for higher engagement in online learning.
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This paper aims to elucidate responsible leadership as a construct with strong moral and ethical underpinnings, as well as a focus on multiple stakeholders and the triple bottom…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to elucidate responsible leadership as a construct with strong moral and ethical underpinnings, as well as a focus on multiple stakeholders and the triple bottom line. This paper also highlights the interdependence of the economic, social and environmental dimensions of a business to achieve corporate sustainability.
Design/methodology/approach
This conceptual paper is the outcome of analysing and synthesizing the findings of the literature review on three main constructs: responsible leadership, triple bottom line and corporate sustainability. This review enabled the development of logical associations among these constructs.
Findings
The literature revealed logical associations between responsible leadership, the triple bottom line and corporate sustainability. All three constructs embody the three dimensions of economic, social and environmental sustainability, which form the basis of the associations.
Practical implications
Responsible leadership, grounded in stakeholder theory, goes beyond the traditional dyadic leader–follower relationship to influence multiple stakeholders within and outside the organization and achieve positive outcomes for both the organization and society. Multiple levels of outcomes and higher levels of organizational performance for businesses are the hallmarks of responsible leadership.
Originality/value
This paper highlights the importance of responsible leadership and triple bottom-line performance for corporate sustainability. Responsible leadership has the potential to create significant impact on business and society, to achieve long-term corporate sustainability. A conceptual model of responsible leadership is also proposed to show the association between responsible leadership, the triple bottom line and corporate sustainability.
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Valerie A. Chambers, Matthew J. Hayes and Philip M.J. Reckers
Counterproductive work behavior (CWB) imposes significant costs on organizations, thus antecedents of CWB are of particular interest to both practitioners and academics. The…
Abstract
Purpose
Counterproductive work behavior (CWB) imposes significant costs on organizations, thus antecedents of CWB are of particular interest to both practitioners and academics. The authors examine how one’s own narcissism interacts with co-worker narcissism to influence willingness to engage in retaliatory CWB against a co-worker.
Design/methodology/approach
The data for this study were obtained from Amazon Mechanical Turk participants and Master of Business Administration students, representing a cross-section of employee representatives.
Findings
The authors find that employees expect narcissistic co-workers to engage in continuing future CWB and this, in turn, increases employees' willingness to engage in retaliatory CWB. That is, non-narcissistic employees are provoked to engage in organizationally-destructive behaviors by peers perceived as narcissists. This affect is attenuated by the employee’s own narcissism. Relative to non-narcissists, narcissistic employees find a narcissistic co-worker more likeable, which reduces their willingness to engage in retaliatory CWB against the co-worker.
Practical implications
For corporations and HR managers, this study demonstrates the caution necessary when considering hiring and operational practices. Specifically, non-narcissists demonstrate increased willingness to engage in organizationally-destructive behaviors after interpersonal conflict with a narcissistic co-worker.
Originality/value
The authors extend prior research about interpersonal drivers of CWB, which primarily considered superior-subordinate dyad, by examining the joint effects of individual and co-worker narcissism in peer-to-peer relationships.
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Md Sajjad Hosain and Mohammad Afsar Kamal
With the increasing use of Internet and mobile handsets, mobile-based electronic payment apps (MEPAs) are becoming very popular around the world due to having various advantages…
Abstract
Purpose
With the increasing use of Internet and mobile handsets, mobile-based electronic payment apps (MEPAs) are becoming very popular around the world due to having various advantages. The intention of this exploratory study is to investigate the role/impact of selected factors in adopting three MEPAs of China: Wechat, Alipay and UnionPay based on the extended technology acceptance model (ETAM). After conducting a thorough and careful literature review, this study identified and divided seven such factors into three broad categories: (1) technological factors: perceived ease of use (PEU) and perceived usefulness (PU); (2) personal factors: perceived trust (PT), perceived privacy (PP) and perceived risk (PR); and (3) social factors: social influence (SI) and peer influence (PI) that were assumed to affect the intention to adopt MEPAs (IAMEPAs).
Design/methodology/approach
1,597 Chinese individuals were selected through purposive sampling technique who regularly used MEPAs at the time of collecting data. For collecting primary data from the selected respondents, a cross-sectional survey instrument was used. The study utilized IBM SPSS 25 for descriptive statistics and a second generation covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM) technique through AMOS 25 for testing the hypothesized relationships.
Findings
From statistical analysis, it was identified that five factors: PEU, PU, PT, SI and PI have significant positive impact on the dependent variable, IAMEPAs while PR and PP have insignificant influence on IAMEPAs.
Originality/value
This is one of the studies ever conducted to discover the factors that can have impact on the adoption of MEPAs using ETAM. It is strongly expected that this exploratory study can motivate the scholars to commence additional investigations regarding this increasingly popular financial technology (Fin-Tech). In addition, it can be anticipated that the MEPA service providers can widen their service effectiveness according to the users’ opinion reflected in this study. Furthermore, policymakers involved with Fin-Tech can also formulate and implement effective policies and guidelines based on the empirical outcomes.
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Ian Pepper, Carol Cox, Ruth Fee, Shane Horgan, Rod Jarman, Matthew Jones, Nicoletta Policek, Colin Rogers and Clive Tattum
The Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) for Higher Education in the UK focuses on maintaining, enhancing and standardising the quality of higher education. Of significant impact are…
Abstract
Purpose
The Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) for Higher Education in the UK focuses on maintaining, enhancing and standardising the quality of higher education. Of significant impact are the development of subject benchmark statements (SBS) by the QAA, which describe the type and content of study along with the academic standards expected of graduates in specific disciplines. Prior to 2022, the QAA did not have a SBS to which higher education policing programmes could be directly aligned.
Design/methodology/approach
Over 12-months, a SBS advisory group with representatives from higher education across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, The College of Policing, QAA, Police Federation of England and Wales and policing, worked in partnership to harness their collective professional experience and knowledge to create the first UK SBS for policing. Post publication of the SBS, permission was sought and granted from both the College of Policing and QAA for members of the advisory group to reflect in an article on their experiences of collaborating and working in partnership to achieve the SBS.
Findings
There is great importance of creating a shared vision and mutual trust, developed through open facilitated discussions, with representatives championing their cause and developing a collaborative and partnership approach to completing the SBS.
Practical implications
A collaborative and partnership approach is essential in developing and recognising the academic discipline of policing. This necessarily requires the joint development of initiatives, one of which is the coming together of higher education institutions, PSRBs and practitioner groups to collaborate and design QAA benchmark statements.
Social implications
The SBS advisory group has further driven forward the emergence of policing as a recognised academic discipline to benefit multiple stakeholders.
Originality/value
The SBS for policing is the first across the UK. The authors experiences can be used to assist others in their developments of similar subject specific benchmarking or academic quality standards.
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Yu-Ping Chen, Yu-Shan Hsu and Margaret Shaffer
Drawing on the whole-life perspective of career development and the conservation of resources theory, the authors consider whether self-initiated expatriates' (SIEs’) cultural…
Abstract
Purpose
Drawing on the whole-life perspective of career development and the conservation of resources theory, the authors consider whether self-initiated expatriates' (SIEs’) cultural intelligence (CQ) is a general, cross-domain resource that helps SIEs gain resources in the work and nonwork domains. The authors contend that CQ will be associated with greater levels of organizational and community embeddedness, which in turn will facilitate their career satisfaction. The authors also propose the role of perceived host country community diversity climate as an environmental condition that, when low, strengthens the relationships between CQ and organizational and community embeddedness.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors examine the study hypotheses based on two distinct samples of SIEs (Sample 1: 169 Asian SIE professionals; Study 2: 147 SIE academics).
Findings
SIEs' CQ positively relates to their organizational and community embeddedness, which in turn is associated with greater levels of career satisfaction. The authors also find that SIEs with high CQ are more likely to experience community embeddedness and career satisfaction when they perceive that the host country community diversity climate is low.
Originality/value
First, this study goes beyond existing literature that rarely examines nonwork inputs to SIE career success. Second, extending previous CQ research with a strong organizational focus, the authors investigated how CQ influences SIEs' work and nonwork embeddedness. Third, the authors found that the absence of a peripheral ecological condition, perceived host country community diversity climate, may strengthen the direct relationship between CQ and embeddedness and the indirect relationship between CQ and career satisfaction.
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Denis Cormier, Samira Demaria and Michel Magnan
This study aims to assess if the voluntary reporting of adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), a widely used non-generally accepted…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to assess if the voluntary reporting of adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), a widely used non-generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) measure, has effects on information asymmetry and value relevance and how the adjustments to GAAP earnings made to derive it contribute to these effects. This study focuses on firms from two countries with contrasting institutional settings, Canada and France.
Design/methodology/approach
Relying on multivariate analyses and using Heckman’s procedure to address the sample self-selection issue, this study first estimates the likelihood of a firm to report adjusted EBITDA. Then, this study examines if adjusted EBITDA, as well as the adjustments made to GAAP earnings to derive adjusted EBITDA (adjustments), affect a firm’s information asymmetry and its value. These adjustments are essentially GAAP-grounded items that are discarded by management to derive non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA. The dependent variables are share price volatility, as a proxy for information asymmetry, alongside market-to-book and stock market return as indicators of value.
Findings
In terms of the used sample, results suggest that Canadian firms are much more likely to report adjusted EBITDA than French firms. Chief executive officer (CEO) attributes (CEO power) appears to increase such likelihood. Moreover, for both Canadian and French firms, adjusted EBITDA is associated with reduced stock market volatility, an indication of lower information asymmetry, as well as higher market-to-book and returns, suggesting value relevance. The results also indicate that investors view the adjustments to GAAP earnings made by management to derive adjusted EBITDA as not value relevant (similar to noise). The GAAP-grounded elements that management discard to derive adjusted EBITDA actually increase information asymmetry.
Originality/value
This study adds to prior research on the interface between a CEO attributes and governance and non-GAAP reporting. This study also provides evidence that, despite very different institutional settings, non-GAAP reporting conveys relevant information to capital markets’ participants in both France and Canada. Hence, a country’s institutional setting may have a differential impact on the disclosure choice but not on the resulting value relevance of such disclosure. Finally, this study extends the non-GAAP literature by examining the value relevance of a widely used yet under-researched measure, adjusted EBITDA.
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The operations and viability of microfinance institutions (MFIs), crucial for socioeconomic development and poverty reduction, heavily rely on the multilevel relationships among…
Abstract
Purpose
The operations and viability of microfinance institutions (MFIs), crucial for socioeconomic development and poverty reduction, heavily rely on the multilevel relationships among borrowers, loan officers and MFIs. This study examines the relationship between interpersonal and firm-level relationship quality (RQ) and their simultaneous impact on customer loyalty (CL) in microfinance. Additionally, it investigates the mediating effect of firm-level RQ between CL and interpersonal RQ.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, correlational research methods were employed. Completed questionnaires were received from 498 MFI borrowers in Dar es Salaam and Mwanza cities. Regression techniques and structural equation modeling were utilized to analyze the data. Before hypothesis testing, the validity and reliability of the measurements were confirmed.
Findings
Interpersonal-level and firm-level RQs are significantly related. Interpersonal-level RQ and its dimensions are significantly linked to CL, whereas firm-level RQ and its dimensions are insignificantly related to CL, except for commitment. Interpersonal-level relationships have a stronger impact on CL than firm-level relationships. Among all the dimensions of RQ, commitment has the greatest influence on CL at both levels. Firm-level RQ negatively and insignificantly mediates the relation between interpersonal-level RQ and CL.
Research limitations/implications
The study findings only apply to Tanzania's microfinance industry, because the interactions between and the relative effects of firm and interpersonal ties may vary across various contexts and cultures. Future research may consider replicating this study in other contexts and cultures to confirm these findings.
Practical implications
This study advances the understanding of how multilevel relationships affect CL within the microfinance industry. This insight will assist MFIs and policymakers in identifying alternative and more efficient relational strategies to enhance CL, a critical element for the sustainability of MFIs. In turn, the sustainability of MFIs in low-income countries like Tanzania holds paramount importance for stimulating socioeconomic development and, hence, achieving the goal of poverty eradication.
Originality/value
While previous studies on multilevel relationships concentrated on a single relational dimension (trust) and were conducted within the realms of retail, airline and industrial manufacturing, the current study employs the three most popular relational dimensions: trust, commitment and satisfaction, within the microfinance context. Additionally, this study investigates the mediation effect of firm-level RQ between interpersonal-level RQ and CL, a previously unexplored area in research.
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Rosie Kitson-Boyce and Palwinder Athwal-Kooner
The purpose of this study is to explore the experiences of those volunteering within a restorative justice service thus enabling an insight into their perceptions of the different…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to explore the experiences of those volunteering within a restorative justice service thus enabling an insight into their perceptions of the different methods used, their beliefs about restorative justice effectiveness, and its place within the criminal justice system. The study also sought to identify any challenges and positive experiences the participants encountered during their role as volunteers, with volunteering during the COVID-19 pandemic explored specifically.
Design/methodology/approach
Data was collected from the participants (n = 5) via semi-structured interviews and analysed using thematic analysis, thus enabling patterns within the experience of the volunteers to be identified.
Findings
A prior understanding and interest in restorative justice was evident within the data, with participants demonstrating a preference for direct, face-to-face mediation. The perceived lack of support from external agencies was discussed along with the role of education in their volunteering experience. Finally, it was acknowledged that although face-to-face practice was deemed the most effective overall, certain practices adopted during COVID-19 enabled aspects of the role to be carried out more efficiently and equally as effectively.
Practical implications
The findings from this study draw out real-world implications, producing tangible action points for restorative justice services. Some tentative suggestions for future practice are outlined.
Originality/value
The volunteers’ role within restorative justice is often overlooked within the literature (Paul and Borton, 2013) and time constraints can add additional barriers to a hard-to-reach population. However, volunteers play a vital role in restorative justice. By exploring and listening to the volunteers’ experience, this study expands an additional strand within the literature in terms of what makes restorative justice effective and the challenges that are faced from a volunteer perspective.
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Inbar Livnat and Michal Almog-Bar
This article asks how gender, ethnicity and other identities intersect and shape the employment experiences of social workers. During recent decades, governments have contracted…
Abstract
Purpose
This article asks how gender, ethnicity and other identities intersect and shape the employment experiences of social workers. During recent decades, governments have contracted social care to for-profit and nonprofit organizations (NPOs) globally as a part of the adaption of the neoliberal approach. Most employees in these organizations are women. However, there is a lack of knowledge about women working in social service NPOs and their unique working environments.
Design/methodology/approach
This article explores the experiences of women employed as social workers in social care NPOs in Israel regarding intersectionality. 27 in-depth interviews were conducted with women social workers working in social service NPOs. Participants reflected diversity in ethnicity, religion and full-time and part-time jobs. Thematic analysis was used.
Findings
The findings shed light on: (1) the contradiction social workers experienced between the stated values of the social care NPO and those values’ conduct, (2) intersectional discrimination among social workers from vulnerable populations and (3) the lack of gender-aware policies.
Social implications
The need to raise awareness of the social care sector and governments to those contradictions and to promote diversity through gender-aware policies and practices.
Originality/value
The article suggests a conceptualization describing gender employment contradictions in social care NPOs, discusses how the angle of intersectionality expands the understanding of the complexities and pressures exerted on social workers from minority groups and emphasizes the need for social care NPOs to acknowledge and deal with these contradictions.
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