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The purpose of this study is to discuss the significance of “contextual factors” on the talent development of underserved populations. Understanding the “context” and background of an individual provides greater insight into their life experiences (Paik, 2013). Race, class and gender, in particular, play a role in one’s life, providing both barriers and opportunities.

To examine contextual and other factors, in-depth biographical case studies were systematically studied across 10 diverse notable artists and scientists. Over 85 autobiographies, biographies and other sources were carefully content-analyzed for commonalities and differences in artists’ and scientists’ lives.

Because of their ascribed statuses (e.g. race, class, gender), these individuals had to navigate their unique school and life circumstances. Within their sociocultural contexts, however, key relationships (e.g. parents, teachers, mentors and peers) helped mitigate the challenges. All artists and scientists had a “village” – key stakeholders who invested in them at every stage of their talent development.

Parents, teachers, mentors and peers are not only critical, but they are lifelines for talent development. Key implications discuss the role of contextual factors and support networks for aspiring diverse artists and scientists.

The theoretical framework for this study is based on the productive giftedness model (PGM) (Paik, 2013, 2015). PGM includes 10 key psychosocial and environmental factors and how they influence “productive giftedness” (e.g. achievements, accomplishments, leadership). Within the model, both “alterable” and “contextual factors” provide access to different opportunities, support and resources. The model is considered generalizable and applicable for diverse populations.

To demonstrate transparency and accountability, the three boards in this study are required to meet in public in front of an audience, although the boards reserve confidential issues for discussion in private sessions. This study examines boardroom public accountability, contrasting it with accountability in board meetings held in private. The study adopts Erving Goffman's impression management theory to interpret divergences between boardroom behaviour in public and private, or “frontstage” and “backstage” in Goffman's terminology.

The research observes and video-records three board meetings for each of the three boards (nine board meetings), in public and private. The research operationalises accountability in terms of director-manager question-and-answer interactions.

In the presence of an audience of local stakeholders, the boards employ impression management techniques to demonstrate accountability, by creating the impression that non-executive directors are performing challenge and managers are providing satisfactory answers. Thus, they “save the show” in Goffman terms. These techniques enable board members and managers to navigate the interface between demonstrating the required good governance and the competence of the organisations and their managers, while not revealing issues that could tarnish their image and concern the stakeholders. The boards need to demonstrate to the audience that “matters are what they appear to be”, even if they are not. The research identifies behaviour consistent with impression management to manage this complexity. The authors conclude that regulatory objectives have not met their transparency aspirations.

For the first time, the research studies the effect of transparency regulations (“sunshine” laws) on the behaviour of boards of directors meeting in public. The study contributes to the embryonic literature based on video-taped board meetings to access the “black box” of the boardroom, which permits a study of impression management at board meetings not previously possible. This study extends prior impression management theory by identifying eleven impression management techniques that non-executive directors and managers use and which are unique to a boardroom context.

This paper explores the relationship between board interlocks and firm outcomes by reviewing the most recent peer-reviewed articles examining this research theme.

A systematic and bibliometric methodology of assessing 369 peer-reviewed articles from the Web of Science (WoS) database was applied. The study also leverages key R-packages litsearchr and Bibliometrix software to enhance the descriptive and thematic literature analysis to identify gaps and opportunities for new research.

This study confirms a rapid increase in articles on this thematic area, over the last decade, with increasing collaboration occurring among researchers in the United States, Europe, China, South Korea and India. Four core research clusters are identified. The first and largest cluster links interlocked directors to issues related to corporate governance and firm outcomes. The second cluster links social network theory, interlocking directorates and firm outcomes. Smaller emerging research clusters include topics related to ownership structure, board size, political connectedness and impacts on firm outcomes. The final cluster examines the influence of board interlocks on market value and firm innovation.

Interlocked directors can have both positive and negative impacts on a wide variety of firm outcomes. This study places great interest in the selection of new directors, ensuring that the selection has aligned with the needs and interests of the company and disclosures of potential competing interests are declared and considered. Equally important are the governance practices used to monitor directors' behavior and to protect the interest of shareholders and the firm. This is particularly relevant in the internal appointment of interlocked directors to critical positions, such as audit committees or instances where interlocked directors may simultaneously hold CEO or executive leadership positions in other companies.

This paper examines the board interlocks literature related to firm outcomes. Additionally, this review identifies several topics and disciplines which, if pursued, could enrich the literature and promise new avenues for future research.

This is a conceptual paper, intended to link the constructs self-initiated expatriation (SIE) and career. The author suggests that regarding SIE as an episode in a career allows one to use ideas from the careers literature to suggest novel areas for research on SIE, thereby contributing to the SIE literature. The author employs a particular perspective on career – the social chronology framework (SCF) – to show how the framework can suggest these novel areas of research on self-initiated expatriation. The SCF views careers through three perspectives related to the space within which the career takes place, the career actor who “has” the career, and the time over which the career plays out. By looking at SIEs through each of these perspectives in turn a number of research questions are suggested that have the potential to enrich the SIE literature.

The paper first considers the construct of career and shows how self-initiated expatriation fits with it. Next, it introduces the SCF, and finally shows how it can be used to derive ideas for research on self-initiated expatriation.

There are none, given that this is a conceptual paper.

The paper suggests future directions for research on SIEs.

The author believes that the application of the SCF to the study of self-initiated expatriation is novel.

Previous theoretical and empirical literature has advocated growth in the access and use of flexible working arrangements by establishing their link with individual and especially parental subjective well-being. Given this, the current research investigates impact that their own or their partners’ transition to flexitime and teleworking has on parental subjective well-being. The cross-partner dimension has not been explored yet by prior studies. Measures for cognitive, subjective well-being include satisfaction with life overall, satisfaction with the amount of leisure time, and satisfaction with health. Ordered logit longitudinal models are estimated using Understanding Society data from 2009 to 2019. Corroborating prior studies, the current analysis finds that mothers’ transition to flexitime and teleworking has a positive impact on their leisure time and health satisfaction. For fathers, switching to telework improves satisfaction with their amount of leisure time, while adopting flexitime can take a toll on self-reported health satisfaction. However, contrary to expectations, mothers’ move to teleworking can be injurious for fathers’ life satisfaction levels, yet fathers’ adoption of flexitime fosters mothers’ satisfaction with their leisure time amount.

Positive experiences with working from home (WFH) during the Corona pandemic (COVID-19) have motivated many employees to continue WFH after the pandemic. However, factors influencing employees' WFH intentions against the backdrop of experiences during pandemic-induced enforced working from home (EWFH) are heterogeneous. This study investigates factors linked to information technology (IT) professionals' WFH intentions.

This mixed-methods study with 92 IT professionals examines the effects of seven predictors for IT professionals' WFH intentions. The predictors are categorized according to the trichotomy of (1) characteristics of the worker, (2) characteristics of the workspace and (3) the work context. Structural equation modeling is used to analyze the quantitative survey data. In addition, IT professionals' responses to six open questions in which they reflect on past experiences and envision future work are examined.

Quantitative results suggest that characteristics of the worker, such as segmentation preference, are influencing WFH intentions stronger than characteristics of the workspace or the work context. Furthermore, perceived productivity during EWFH and gender significantly predict WFH intentions. Contextualizing these quantitative insights, the qualitative data provides a rich yet heterogeneous list of factors why IT professionals prefer (not) to work from home.

Reasons influencing WFH intentions vary due to individual preferences and constraints. Therefore, a differentiated organizational approach is recommended for designing future work arrangements. In addition, the findings suggest that team contracts to formalize working patterns, e.g. to agree on the needed number of physical meetings, can be helpful levers to reduce the complexity of future work that is most likely a mix of WFH and office arrangements.

This study extends literature reflecting on COVID-19-induced changes, specifically the emerging debate about why employees want to continue WFH. It is crucial for researchers and practitioners to understand which factors influence IT professionals' WFH intentions and how they impact the design and implementation of future hybrid work arrangements.

As social media has become an ingrained aspect of our lives—including our political relationships with other citizens and the state—various governments have warned public servants that being politically active online might threaten the reputed impartiality of themselves and the public service. This study examines whether public servants are less likely to be politically active on social media than other citizens, and seeks to understand public servants’ varying disposition to be politically active online by investigating the role of employees’ underlying Big 5 personality traits.

Multivariate regression, along with marginal effects and predicted probabilities, are used to investigate public servants’ online political activity with survey data from Canada, a country where impartiality is a core public service value, and where governments, public service commissions and even public sector unions have voiced cautious messages about the threat online political activity presents to the reputed impartiality of public servants, and the public service at large.

Analysis of the direct effects of being a public servant and each Big 5 personality trait finds that being a public servant significantly, and substantively, reduces the probability of engaging in online political activity, meanwhile, Extraversion and Conscientiousness have consistent, significant and substantive relationships with being politically active online. Subsequent analysis investigating the dynamic between the Big 5 and being a public servant, uncovers a more complex story. Among public servants, Openness and Neuroticism, rather than Extraversion and Conscientiousness, are associated with significant and substantive changes in the probability of engaging in some online politically activities. This is consistent with research investigating the relationship between the Big 5 and risk aversion, given that public servants in Canada work in an environment with a highly cautious discourse portraying social media as a serious risk to impartiality.

The findings also speak to best practices for public service human resource managers by shedding light how public servants’ behavior can be better understood and managed by paying attention to their underlying personality traits.

This study moves beyond analyzing trends between public and private sector employees, to instead examine public servants’ online political activity. This study offers theoretical and empirical insight into how public servants’ disposition to be politically active online is, in part, influenced by their underlying Big 5 personality traits, specifically, Neuroticism and Openness.