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Lens of conservation of resources (COR) theory has been used to study how organizations can create resource passageways for their employees via managers. This has been examined in cross-cultural virtual work teams distributed across time and space within the high-resource loss context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Longitudinal field design was used in a transnational organization involving data collection at three times over eight months. At Time 1, qualitative methodology was used to propose a conceptual model. At Time 2 and Time 3, an online survey was used to collect data for 205 virtual work teams across 10 countries in the Asia–Pacific region pre and post “manager as coach” training respectively.

Using COR theory, the study highlights that “manager as coach” training is an effective resource for managers in the high resource depletion context of the pandemic. Access to timely support increases saliency for the resource-gain spiral and has a cross-over impact on virtual work team outcomes suggesting transferability of resources from managers to subordinates. Also, managers across all nationalities view coaching training as an equally valuable resource.

The study provides evidence for investment in timely and relevant support for managers to positively and swiftly impact virtual work teams during high-resource loss contexts.

The study expands COR crossover theory across space and time dimensions using a longitudinal field research design.

The paper provides the author's opinions about key issues in strategy and the future to the readership.

The paper takes the form of an opinion column.

Different sizes of groups must be used for different business purposes.

The paper is based not on rigorous research, but on the author's experience of planning engagements across a wide variety of private and public enterprises.

The paper illustrates a couple of points that are perhaps insufficiently appreciated.

The paper expresses opinions that the author believes have not been expressed in quite this way before.

Presents a special issue, enlisting the help of the author’s students and colleagues, focusing on age, sex, colour and disability discrimination in America. Breaks the evidence down into manageable chunks, covering: age discrimination in the workplace; discrimination against African‐Americans; sex discrimination in the workplace; same sex sexual harassment; how to investigate and prove disability discrimination; sexual harassment in the military; when the main US job‐discrimination law applies to small companies; how to investigate and prove racial discrimination; developments concerning race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; developments concerning discrimination against workers with HIV or AIDS; developments concerning discrimination based on refusal of family care leave; developments concerning discrimination against gay or lesbian employees; developments concerning discrimination based on colour; how to investigate and prove discrimination concerning based on colour; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; using statistics in employment discrimination cases; race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning gender discrimination in the workplace; discrimination in Japanese organizations in America; discrimination in the entertainment industry; discrimination in the utility industry; understanding and effectively managing national origin discrimination; how to investigate and prove hiring discrimination based on colour; and, finally, how to investigate sexual harassment in the workplace.

Partnerships between public health organizations and private corporations may be best positioned to address many of the major healthcare challenges currently facing nations across the globe. Strategically chosen partners can collaborate and share resources to develop and successfully implement valuable solutions to achieve common goals. The key is using innovation methods to effectively leverage the best resources provided by each partner. The authors explain the value of public-private partnerships while also providing insight into how specific tactics from projects undertaken by their international communications firm, Fleishman-Hillard, assisted partnerships in their efforts to develop innovative solutions to address healthcare challenges.

THE catalogue, as a library appliance of importance, has had more attention devoted to it than, perhaps, any other method or factor of librarianship. Its construction, materials, rules for compilation and other aspects have all been considered at great length, and in every conceivable manner, so that little remains for exposition save some points in the policy of the catalogue, and its effects on progress and methods. In the early days of the municipal library movement, when methods were somewhat crude, and hedged round with restrictions of many kinds, the catalogue, even in the primitive form it then assumed, was the only key to the book‐wealth of a library, and as such its value was duly recognized. As time went on, and the vogue of the printed catalogue was consolidated, its importance as an appliance became more and more established, and when the first Newcastle catalogue appeared and received such an unusual amount of journalistic notice, the idea of the printed catalogue as the indispensable library tool was enormously enhanced from that time till quite recently. One undoubted result of this devotion to the catalogue has been to stereotype methods to a great extent, leading in the end to stagnation, and there are places even now where every department of the library is made to revolve round the catalogue. Whether it is altogether wise to subordinate everything in library work to the cult of the catalogue has been questioned by several librarians during the past few years, and it is because there is so much to be said against this policy that the following reflections are submitted.

The paper aims to explore the determinants of perceived job performance in a sample of shop‐floor employees in a manufacturing plant in northern Mexico.

It is hypothesised that job satisfaction, age and education levels are significant predictors of job performance. A thorough literature review reveals that studies of the variables that influence job performance within a manufacturing setting are basically lacking. A questionnaire distributed amongst shop‐floor employees and their immediate supervisors was used in order to measure the variables included in the study. Statistical analyses were performed with the data in order to test for the reliability and validity of the measures, and also to test the three main research hypotheses.

It was found that two variables that measure job satisfaction are positively and significantly associated with job performance. This result is consistent with previous studies. Nevertheless, age and education levels do not show a significant association with job performance. Interestingly, it was also found that education levels are negatively related to job satisfaction.

The sample size is small, and it includes only one manufacturing plant. Consequently, the statistical analyses are limited. These limitations prevent the generalisation of the results. More objective measures of job performance would be preferable. Also, other variables such as leadership style and motivation could be included in future studies.

Although exploratory in nature, the results from this study can be used to gain a better understanding of the different factors and relationships that are conducive to higher job satisfaction, and how job satisfaction is related to job performance.

Job satisfaction and its influence on performance have been researched across a number of industries and sectors. Nonetheless, to the best of one's knowledge, this is the first study that uses a sample of shop‐floor employees in a manufacturing plant to test this relationship. A similar situation is observed in terms of age and education levels: the effect of those variables on performance within a manufacturing setting has been clearly under‐researched.

The study analyses the preference for forestry insurance amongst tree growers in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. Specifically, the authors examine the factors influencing the amount of forestry insurance and the choice for forestry insurance types.

A total of one hundred and seventy (170) tree growers were sampled for the study. The tobit model, multi-nomial regression and Kendall's tau were employed to analyse the factors affecting the amount for forestry insurance, the choice for forestry insurance types and the perils to forest quality, respectively.

The results of the study indicate that the incidence of bush fire and theft were the key perils that affect forest quality. In total, 52.94% of respondents preferred forest plantation fire insurance as named-peril insurance whereas 70.59% preferred a combination of forest plantation fire, windstorm and consequential loss insurance as multi-peril insurance. The majority (89.4%) of the respondents were willing to pay an amount between Ghc 10.00–49.00 (US$ 2–8) per stand. On the one hand, results of the tobit model reveal age, income, experience in forest management, land ownership and the previous occurrence of fire as the factors affecting the amount for forestry insurance. On the other hand, the multi-nomial results indicate the previous occurrence of fire, gender, forest size, income and risk aversion significantly influenced the choice for forestry insurance types, namely named peril and multi-peril.

Several studies exist for forestry insurance in the developed countries. However, in West Africa specifically, Ghana, studies on forestry insurance appear to be non-existent. Above and beyond, this study, therefore, adds to the paucity of research on forestry insurance in Ghana and serves as a framework for agricultural insurance institutions such as the Ghana Agricultural Insurance Pool (GAIP) and World cover and other agricultural insurance institutions globally.

In this socio‐economic climate there may still be budget for talent development, but it might not be as much as we have grown accustomed to. There is a growing need for effective, sustainable and prudent programs: the question is “how?” This paper aims to address this issue.

Through the author's work with clients in industry, services and government, five key talent development principles are distilled, tested and evaluated.

There are various, sometimes conflicting, ways to determine who is of value within an organisation. HR departments are unlikely to address talent management as an integrated process. The form and purpose of talent development efforts are frequently mismatched. Preferred learning styles and the design of talent programs are often at odds. Talents have the potential to be much more engaged in and meaningful to their organisation.

Clarify what “talent” means in your organisation by formulating a crystal clear policy. Perceive talent management as an integrated process and start organising it as a coherent effort, involving all human resource departments. Fulfil a clear and present organisational need with your talent development efforts. Offer mentoring by true role models and thus enhance the talent's organisational “know‐how” and business insight and accelerate their development. Harness the power of the talent pool, because talents working in teams could offer your company a huge and largely untapped cognitive surplus.

The five key principles of talent development and the 25 decisions will aid human resource professionals in assessing or designing their own talent, leadership and career development trajectories.

The present situation is marked by the threat of COVID-19 pandemic on entire humankind and researchers across the globe are looking forward to vaccines or medicines to tackle COVID-19. However, according to the scholars and health-care agencies, vaccines alone would not be of much help and in the longer run adhering to the physical distancing policy along with sanitation could be the only solution. Moreover, extant studies across different areas have noted a positive association between various human psychological factors and prosocial behaviours. Additionally, an empirical study undertaken in the western context has tried exploring the association between human psychological factors and physical distancing behaviour (a kind of prosocial behaviour) in the COVID-19 context. The results of the extant study seem intriguing and encouraging enough to undertake a more robust exploratory study in this developing area. Against this background, this study aims to explore the relationship between individuals’ mindfulness and physical distancing behaviour, along with the mediating role of empathy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

To achieve the study objectives, this study has used an online survey method and has collected responses from the general adult population in India spread across all six regions. The survey was conducted during May 2020 when India was under a nationwide lockdown to mitigate the risk of COVID-19 pandemic. The respondents were identified based on convenience and snowball sampling techniques. Using social media platforms, the prospective respondents were contacted through WhatsApp, LinkedIn and Facebook or e-mails. Post data cleaning, a total of 315 responses were found to be suitable for analysis. For analysis, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to establish the validity and reliability of the conceptual model, whereas Pearson correlation was undertaken to study the relationship between variables and mediation was examined using the PROCESS macro of Hayes.

The findings were encouraging and could become the foundation stone for further research and a practical guide for policymakers, agencies working in the health-care areas and even corporate leaders. As expected, an individual’s mindfulness was noted to be positively-related and influencing physical distancing behaviour. The mediation analysis indicated the intervening role of empathy in the association between an individual’s mindfulness and physical distancing behaviour.

The findings of the present could be a game-changer in restricting the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. As espoused by various scholars, as well as health-care organizations about the use of physical distancing in mitigating the risk of COVID-19, policymakers, health-care authorities and even corporate leaders could look forward to strategizing and execute the dissemination of various mindfulness-based programs among the individuals. These mindfulness-based programs, which could be disseminated offline and online through smartphones, could, in turn, help in positively influence physical distancing behaviour among the individuals leading to the success of physical distancing policy.

This study relates and extends the mechanism of mindfulness in influencing individuals’ physical distancing behaviour in the pandemic situation, notably the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, based on the “empathy-altruism hypothesis”, as well as Schwartz’s theory of fundamental values, the intervening role of empathy has been explored and the findings further helped in extended these two theories in the domain of pandemic.

This study could be the first to conceptualize and examine the human psychological factors, particularly the relationship and role of an individual’s mindfulness with physical distancing behaviour among the general public during the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, this could also be the first study to conceptualize and explore the intervening role of empathy in the relationship between an individual’s mindfulness and physical distancing behaviour. Moreover, in conceptualizing and exploring the relationship between an individual’s mindfulness and physical distancing behaviour, this study explored and extended the “reperceiving” mechanism of mindfulness and the “empathy-altruism hypothesis” along with Schwartz’s theory of fundamental values in the domain of pandemic.