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With the growing need for employees to be innovative, public-sector organizations are investing in employee training. This study aims to examine the effects of a combined Lean Six Sigma and innovation training, using action learning, on public-sector employees’ creative role identity and innovative work behavior.

The authors studied a public service agency in Singapore in which a five-day Lean Innovation Training was implemented, using a combination of Lean Six Sigma and Creative Problem-Solving tools, with a simulation on day one and subsequent team-based project coaching, spread over six months. The authors administered pre- and postintervention surveys among all the employees, and initiated group interviews and observations before, during and after the intervention.

Creative role identity and innovative work behavior had significantly improved six months after the intervention, enabled through senior management’s transformational leadership. The training induced managers to role-model innovative work behaviors while cocreating, with their employees, a renewal of their agency’s core processes. The three completed improvement projects contributed to an innovative work culture and reduced service turnaround time.

Starting with a role-playing simulation on the first day, during which leaders and followers swapped roles, the action-learning type training taught all the organizational members to use various Lean Six Sigma and Creative Problem-Solving tools. This nimble Lean Innovation Training, and subsequent team-based project coaching, exemplifies how advancing the staff’s creative role identity can have a positive impact.

This paper elucidates the role of anger in error management (EM) and organizational learning behaviors. The study explores how anger can catalyze learning, emphasizing its strategic implications.

A double-layered moderated-mediated model was developed and tested using data from 744 Chinese CEOs. The psychometric properties of the survey instrument were rigorously examined through structural equation modeling, and hypotheses were tested using Hayes's PROCESS macros.

The findings reveal that anger is a precursor for recognizing the value of significant errors, leading to a positive association with learning behavior among top management team members. Additionally, the study uncovers a triple interaction effect of anger, EM culture and supply chain disruptions on the value of learning from errors. Extensive experience and positive grieving strengthen the relationship between recognizing value from errors and learning behavior.

This study uniquely integrates affect-cognitive theory and organizational learning theory, examining anger in EM and learning. The authors provide empirical evidence that anger can drive error value recognition and learning. The authors incorporate a more fine-grained approach to leadership when including executive anger as a trigger to learning behavior. Factors like experience and positive grieving are explored, deepening the understanding of emotions in learning. The authors consider both negative and positive emotions to contribute to the complexity of organizational learning.

Research on technology acceptance of online entertainment with age, gender and cultural factors as moderator, is rarely conducted. Previous research predominantly focused on age or gender as moderator, neglecting the influence of cultural factors. Therefore, this study aims to investigate acceptance of online entertainment technology, incorporating age, gender and cultural factors as moderator.

Data were collected through a survey comprising 1,121 individuals aged 14–24 years from three cities in Indonesia. The proposed theoretical model examined the causal effect of acceptance and moderating effects due to individual gender, age, power distance, individualism, feminism and uncertainty avoidance (AU). Subsequently, structural equation modeling was used to evaluate the theoretical model, and the results confirmed several findings from previous research.

The findings confirmed the positive direct impact of habit and price value (PV) on behavioral intention and hedonic motivation, as well as social influence on habit. The recent findings derived from the moderating effect analysis showed that age, individualism and feminism played a moderating role in the effects on individual intention due to habit. Additionally, gender and AU moderated the effects on individual habits due to hedonic motivation.

This research contributes to the limited knowledge of technology acceptance of online entertainment, and also integrates the causal effects of individual intention due to habit, PV, hedonic motivation and social influence, considering the moderating role of culture, age and gender. Consequently, the investigation provides valuable insights into the literature by presenting evidence of age, gender and cultural differences in acceptance. Furthermore, it offers practical guidance to online entertainment application developers on designing applications to satisfy consumers of different ages, genders and cultures.

This paper aims to present the vertical integration state-of-the-art and propose an expansion of the operations and supply chain management (OSCM) field by identifying gaps and bottlenecks.

This paper uses a systematic literature review based on a sample of 173 OSCM field articles, collected from Scopus and Web of Science databases.

There are no single factors, such as future costs, structures or skills development, in the decision to vertically integrate operations. It is necessary to combine the vision of production costs with the perspective of governance and transaction costs. In addition, it is essential to consider the competency perspective and its impact on capability building.

Few studies have attempted to understand how vertical integration is used in terms of OSCM research themes and theories. Vertical integration can help companies face challenges and serve as a potential solution for achieving better prices, demand control and quality management.

The significant role of vertical integration mechanisms in supply chains is crucial for managers evaluating a firm's reconfiguration with more vertical operations. Policymakers interested in supporting the smoothness of vertical integration decisions in regulatory agencies play a key role as contingencies.

In times of global challenges, vertical integration is a strategy known to be more effective for firms to obtain a competitive advantage, making them more resilient.

This paper addresses gaps in the vertical integration theme and provides insights for future research development.

The purpose of our research is to better understand inquiry-based pedagogy in the context of leadership education. Specifically, we sought to learn about how leadership learning is characterized in an immersive inquiry course, and how inquiry-based pedagogy is experienced by students engaged in interdisciplinary leadership learning.

We used a case study approach as an overarching methodology. The research methods employed to collect data were World Cafe and episodic narrative interview. Further, we used collocation analysis and systematic text condensation as analytical strategies to interpret data.

Our findings led us to four primary conclusions: (1) inquiry-based learning helps to foster an inquiry mindset amongst leadership education students; (2) the challenges and tensions associated with inquiry-based learning are worth the learning gains for leadership students; (3) the opportunity to learn in relationship is beneficial for leadership development outcomes and (4) students’ experiences of inquiry-based learning in leadership education often included instances of transformation.

Limitations of the research were: (1) it is a case study situated within a unique, particular social and educational context; (2) demographic data were not collected from participants, so results cannot be disaggregated based on particular demographic markers and (3) the small sample size involved in the study makes it impossible to generalize across a broad population.

This research has enabled a deep understanding of structural and relational supports that can enable effective inquiry-based learning in leadership education. It also offers evidence to support institutional shifts to inquiry-based pedagogy in leadership education.

Our research demonstrates that use of inquiry-based pedagogy in leadership education has long-lasting positive effects on students' capacity for applied leadership practice. Consequently, participants in this type of leadership learning are better positioned to effectively lead social change that is pressing in our current global context.

There is scant (if any) published research that has focused on using inquiry-based pedagogies in leadership education. This research makes a significant contribution to the scholarship of leadership education.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether and how inter-firm cooperation and firm age moderate the relationship between family ownership and productivity.

We first estimate the total factor productivity (TFP) of a large sample of Italian firms observed over the period 2010–2018 and then apply a Poisson random effects model.

TFP is, on average, higher for non-family firms (non-FFs) than for FF. Furthermore, inter-organizational cooperation and firm age mitigate the negative effect of family ownership. In detail, it is found that belonging to a network acts as a moderator in different ways according to firm age. Indeed, young FFs underperform non-FF peers, although the TFP gap decreases with age. In contrast, the benefits of a formal network are high for older FFs, suggesting that an age-related learning process is at work.

The study provides evidence that FFs can outperform non-FFs when they move away from Socio-Emotional Wealth-centered reference points and exploit knowledge flows arising from high levels of social capital. In the case of mature FFs, networking is a driver of TFP, allowing them to acquire external resources. Since FFs often do not have sufficient in-house knowledge and resources, they must be aware of the value of business cooperation. While preserving the familiar identity of small companies, networks grant FFs the competitive and scale advantages of being large.

Despite the wide but ambiguous body of research on the performance gap between FFs and non-FFs, little is known about the role of FFs’ heterogeneity. This study has proven successful in detecting age as a factor in heterogeneity, specifically to explain the network effect on the link between ownership and TFP. Based on a representative sample, the study provides a solid framework for FFs, policymakers and academic research on family-owned companies.

The use of “homework”, activities outside of the classroom or session, is widely applied in a range of disciplines including teaching, therapy and training. The argument advanced by advocates is that it provides an opportunity to consolidate knowledge learnt in the classroom and develop mastery in an applied environment. However, the use of homework has not been widely discussed or researched within business coaching, which is a form of personal development. This exploratory study aims to examine whether homework, as a coaching intervention, may enhance the clients' learning experience.

Data were collected from eight early career coaches and eight coaching clients. Not all clients were related to the coaches. Each client had experienced a minimum of three coaching sessions. Interviews were recorded and analysed using thematic analysis. The study explored the use of (1) client-led, (2) coach-led and (3) collaboratively developed homework during the engagements.

The findings indicated that homework is widely used and was perceived to have mixed effects. The positioning of the homework by the coach, including the terminology used to describe the activity, and the type of work can affect the level of engagement and thus the perceived value generated.

This is the first study to explore the nature of “homework” in coaching. More work is needed to better inform the use of “homework” in coaching practice, including the type of work and how this is agreed with different types of clients, for example, should homework be coach, collaborative or client led?

This article explores the scientific construction of library olfactory space, based on the case of the olfactory space in the Jiangsu University library. It specifically focuses on understanding the interaction between the physical architectural space of the library and users’ olfactory perception and behavioral activities, with the ultimate goal of creating a deeply integrated olfactory experience in the Jiangsu University Library.

In this article, an empirical research method was used to gather perceptions from 30 university student users regarding the library olfactory space and to understand their olfactory preferences and requirements for its construction. Through qualitative analysis of the interview texts, the study identified correlations between user perceptions and elements of the library olfactory space.

The qualitative analysis of user interview texts and results from the library olfactory space design experiment contributed to the design proposal for the Jiangsu University Library olfactory space. The design proposal for the Jiangsu University Library olfactory space is provided and includes library architecture, activity context, functional services, olfactory experience design and technological applications.

This case study takes the environment, development strategy and user needs of the Jiangsu University Library as its unique research background and as such is not universal or generalizable to other libraries.

This article differs from others by advocating for the innovative architectural spatial design of libraries through olfactory experience, breaking the traditional perception of libraries as solely through visual and auditory senses.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between the corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance of job-hopping executives at their former and subsequent firms.

We conduct regression analyses using a sample of firms listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges from 2010 to 2020 to examine whether CSR performance is similar from one firm to the next as executives switch jobs.

We find a positive relationship between the CSR performance of former and subsequent firms under job-hopping executives. This relationship is the strongest in the year of the job switch; it weakens in the second year and eventually disappears in the third year. In addition, we show that this relationship benefits different CSR stakeholder groups and is contingent on executive and subsequent firm attributes and job-hopping characteristics. Furthermore, we demonstrate that firms that hire a new chief executive officer from a firm with a strong track record in CSR, the new firm experiences a significant surge in CSR performance compared with firms that do not experience such a shock.

This study has implications for executive hiring decisions.

This study extends the understanding of CSR determinants through the lens of inter-organisational ties associated with job-hopping executives.

Climate change poses risks to society and the demand for carbon literacy within small and medium-sized enterprises is increasing. Skills and knowledge are required for organizational greenhouse gas accounting and science-based decisions to help businesses reduce transitional risks. At the University of Copenhagen and the University of Northern British Columbia, two carbon management courses have been developed to respond to this growing need. Using an action-based co-learning model, students and business are paired to quantify and report emissions and develop climate plans and communication strategies.

This paper draws on surveys of businesses that have partnered with the co-learning model, designed to provide insight on carbon reductions and the impacts of co-learning. Data collected from 12 respondents in Denmark and 19 respondents in Canada allow for cross-institutional and international comparison in a Global North context.

Results show that while co-learning for carbon literacy is welcomed, companies identify limitations: time and resources; solution feasibility; governance and reporting structures; and communication methods. Findings reveal a need for extension, both forwards and backwards in time, indicating that the collaborations need to be lengthened and/or intensified. Balancing academic requirements detracts from usability for businesses, and while municipal and national policy and emission targets help generate a general societal understanding of the issue, there is no concrete guidance on how businesses can implement operational changes based on inventory results.

The research brings new knowledge to the field of transitional climate risks and does so with a focus on both small businesses and universities as important co-learning actors in low-carbon transitions. The comparison across geographies and institutions contributes an international solution perspective to climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies.