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Front-line lean leadership is critical for implementing and sustaining lean production systems (LPS). The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationships between front-line lean leader (FLL) capacities (cognitive, social, motivational, knowledge and experience), lean leader practices (developing people and supporting daily kaizen) and the degree of implementation of lean tools (pull system, involvement of employees and process control) in manufacturing companies.

A survey was conducted with FLLs from large Brazilian manufacturing companies. The survey collected 103 responses, 99 of which were validated. Data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

There was a positive, significant and direct relationship between FLL capacities, leadership practices and a degree of implementation of LPS tools on the shop floor. The validated model is a reference base for planning FLL capacities and practices that result in more effectively implementing LPS on the shop floor.

The findings provide managers with a new perspective on the importance of the development and training of FLLs focusing on leadership capacities. As decisions about developing lean capabilities impact the application of Lean leadership practices and the use of lean tools, they are also related to day-to-day lean activities and improved operational results. Additionally, the proposed model can be used by managers as a basis to diagnose, develop and select lean leaders.

This study seeks to fill a theoretical gap of knowledge on front-line lean leadership as it jointly addresses and empirically analyzes the existing relationships between lean leadership capacities, encompassing the perspective of psychology, lean practices and tools on the shop floor.

With the rise of the gig economy, management positions are increasingly staffed with flexible labor, so-called interim managers. They plunge into organizations for a limited period, operating in a liminal position as partly insider, partly outsider. Although several contributions to their client organizations are acknowledged, it is unknown how the interim manager’s knowledge from previous assignments is made useful in the new context under these particular working conditions. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to increase the understanding of how the interim manager’s knowledge is transferred to the client organization while operating from a liminal position.

This paper presents an interview-based multiple case study of six interim assignments where knowledge transfer is considered a social and context-dependent process.

The findings unveil the multifaceted nature of the liminal position, which consists of task orientation, time limitation, political detachment and cultural distance. These facets contribute to knowledge transfer in terms of new shared understandings and joint interests, which in turn might create new practices that augment continuous knowledge-sharing patterns.

The results contribute to the research on flexible work arrangements by shedding light on how the liminal position, predominantly depicted as an obstacle for the individual, might facilitate knowledge transfer. Through the process of knowledge generation, it is shown how a short-term engagement might enable the organization to increase its knowledge over time.

This study aims to explore the phenomenon of Islamic religious communication and how Islamic banks in Pakistan use religion-based communication, along with its expected outcomes.

Transcendental phenomenology approach is opted using a multi-stage data collection strategy consisting of observations, documentary reviews and semi-structural interviews to get deep into the phenomenon in a particular context.

Findings highlight Islamic religious communication as workplace Islamic da’wah that is majorly categorized into compulsive da’wah, objectics da’wah and impulsive da’wah, serving its role in bringing spirituality to work through work-faith integration.

The finding of the study can be used in planning, formulating and implementing Islamic da’wah-based model to induce spirituality at work.

This study is the first of its type exploring Islamic da’wah in an organizational context as a mean to bring spirituality at work.

This paper aims to explore how employees reconceptualized their time and space to order and structure their lives in an unprecedented scenario of nonvoluntary work from home.

Set in the context of lockdowns due to the pandemic scenario, the study uses a constructivist approach to collect data through in-depth online interviews to understand how employees coped with the challenges emanating in a nonvoluntary work from home situation. The respondents were purposively selected to reflect a diverse pool in terms of gender, familial responsibilities and age/tenure.

The findings present temporal and spatial themes that provide several insights into how employees made sense of time and space as resources to navigate their challenging work-home roles.

In the present study, the authors found that when boundaries get violated, it does not necessarily manifest in the form of dissatisfaction with one or the other domain. The respondents in the current study show-cased adjustment mechanism to cope with the boundary permeability that happened. They adopted ways in which they could safe-guard their multiple identities in the situation they found themselves in, do justice to the salient roles in their lives, emerge as more empathetic humans and look forward to a brighter and more hopeful future. This opens-up a possibility of studying the theory behind human behavior in crisis-like situations and the degree of acceptance that people show when they find themselves in undesirable-unalterable situations.

A mental reorientation is required on the part of both employees and employers to navigate smoothly in this new “normal” and find more sustainable solutions to the problem if the remote working or hybrid mode of working becomes mainstay. Clear demarcations between work and nonwork time are a key element to ensure proper work schedules for remote workers. Offline meetings and get-togethers can be organized on a periodic basis to facilitate employee interaction and engagement. Participation of employees in key decisions becomes more important in such situations as it makes employees feel more connected with their work space.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the study is original as it is set in a completely unprecedented situation of lockdowns (during the pandemic) that affected the lives of everyone in some way or the other. The findings of the study are unique and insightful, as they help understand the sense-making mechanism adopted by people to successfully navigate through the crisis.

This study introduces a non-orthodox approach to the dominant policy-based approaches to graduate employability through contextualizing international students’ everyday experiences within their educational and wider structural contexts of the labour market.

The study used narrative frames to collect data from 180 international students from China, Hong Kong, India, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Nepal at a New Zealand tertiary institution. Narrative frames as a research tool in educational contexts are used to ellicit the experiences of individuals in the form of a story as participants reflect on their experience. The frames use sentence starters to draw responses from participants about their experiences (Barkhuizen and Wette, 2008).

This study argues that, through a socialization process, international students develop identities that fit an ever-changing labour market. This process is catalysed by a higher education landscape that produces career-ready subjects capable of appropriating different social spaces that prepare students and graduates to enter the labour market. Further, it argues that graduate employability should be understood as a complex process through which students and graduates socialise themselves through negotiating the socioacademic spaces by (1) familiarising themselves with the dominant workspace norms, (2) positioning themselves as more career-ready individuals, and (3) imagigining employable selves capable of meeting the needs of the job market.

This study has limitations. Only one data collection source has been used. It would have been great to use narrative frames along with interviews. In addition, the data would have been stronger if the researcher could have used classroom observations, which could be a future initiative.

This study could provide practical insights to tertiary institutions about international students’ developing capabilities and identities so they could better prepare themselves for the world of work. Further, this study provides insights about some of the challenges that international students face in tertiary contexts to become career-ready. Hence, educators could employ strategies to better support these learners in their everyday learning spaces. This study also has useful benefits for future and current international students and international graduates regarding what investments they need to make so they can better socialize themselves in their tertiary and workplace practices.

This study has social implications. It helps international students better understand the social, cultural and academic expectations of their host countries. Therefore, they could better socialize themselves into those practices and contribute more effectively to their academic and workplace communities. The study also helps academic and workplace institutions strategize more effectively to address the social and cultural needs of international graduates. The study also contributes to the social and cultural understanding of the teachers that engage with international students on a daily basis by helping them devise activities that better address these students’ and graduates’ needs.

The study adds theoretical and methodological value to the debates around graduate employability. It includes the voices of 180 students and unravels their day-to-day experiences of capability building and employability development from their own perspectives.

Pune is a prominent information technology (IT) hub in India, where snacking has become a customary practice among IT professionals. This study aims to determine the pattern and factors associated with snacking among IT professionals from various multinational corporations (MNCs) in Pune, Maharashtra, India.

This cross-sectional study considered 404 IT professionals aged 21 to 50 years. A convenient sampling method was adopted to administer a validated questionnaire. Information on snacking patterns and factors associated with snacking were recorded. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data with p = 0.05. The participation was voluntary, and confidentiality was ensured.

The mean age of the participants was 31 ± 7.9 years. Almost half (51.5%) of the participants engaged in daily snacking. The sociodemographic factors such as younger age (0.000), marital status (p = 0.001), salary package (p = 0.006), living situation (p = 0.05), designation (p = 0.042) and work experience (p = 0.001) significantly related with the unhealthy snacking pattern scores. Daily snacking was significantly associated with hunger (p = 0.001), stress (p = 0.001), weight (p = 0.000), peer influence (p = 0.041) and taste (p = 0.001). Hunger, stress, taste, peer influence, boredom and weight were significantly (p = 0.05) associated with unhealthy snacking patterns.

The mean age of the participants was 31 ± 7.9 years. Almost half (51.5%) of the participants engaged in daily snacking. The sociodemographic factors such as younger age (0.000), marital status (p = 0.001), salary package (p = 0.006), living situation (p = 0.05), designation (p = 0.042) and work experience (p = 0.001) significantly related with the unhealthy snacking pattern scores. Daily snacking was significantly associated with hunger (p = 0.001), stress (p = 0.001), weight (p = 0.000), peer influence (p = 0.041) and taste (p = 0.001). Overall, hunger, stress, taste, peer influence, boredom and weight were significantly (p = 0.05) associated with unhealthy snacking patterns such as snacking in between, prioritizing taste over nutrition, exclusion of fruits and vegetables in snacks, lack of control over snacking and snacking habit.

This study uniquely identifies the snacking pattern of IT professionals from Pune, India, which primarily includes unhealthy snacking. Various socio-demographic and other factors such as hunger, taste, stress, boredom, convenience, weight and peer influence, were associated with unhealthy snacking. Understanding the snacking pattern and its determinants can help create nutrition interventions to promote healthy snacking and decrease the risk of noncommunicable diseases in IT professionals.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the evolution of interconnectedness of European insurers among themselves, as well as with other non-financial firms, for the period 2000–2021 and to analyze the stock return movements around the costliest catastrophic events (hurricanes) in the past two decades.

This paper follows the “simple” approach of Patro et al.(2013) and examines the daily stock return correlations of the largest 30 insurers and the largest 30 non-financial firms headquartered in Europe. In addition, the study uses event study methodology to examine stock return movements around the costliest hurricanes.

We find that the European insurance sector has become highly interconnected during the past two decades; however, its increasing connectedness with non-financial firms is limited to a few firms. In addition, we find weak evidence of the destabilizing effects of catastrophic events on European insurers and non-financial firms; however, the potential for cat risk contagion effects exists as the insurance industry becomes heavily interconnected.

The extant literature is largely concerned with the contribution of the insurance sector to the systemic risk of the financial sector. We focus on a specific region (Europe) and analyze the evolution of interconnectedness of the largest insurers within the insurance sector as well as with the largest non-financial firms encapsulating important crisis periods. In addition, we relate to the literature that examines the market reactions around catastrophic events to test the relevance of traditional insurance activities in instigating potential contagion shocks.

While many works have reported adopting exploratory practice (EP) principles in language teaching research, only a few studies have explored the enactment of EP in an online extensive reading of students majoring in English education. Given the relative paucity of attention to the use of EP as the practitioner research in English language teaching (ELT), the present EP investigates how students understand online extensive reading practice mediated by online group discussion and extensive reading logs, where the first author served as the online extensive reading practice instructor.

The exploratory practice focuses on incorporating research into pedagogy and fastens the importance of the quality-of-life in the classroom. The data were collected through students reading logs and semi-structured interviews. The collected data were analyzed using the thematic analysis. In this case, there were six phases including familiarizing with the data, generating initial codes, searching for the themes, reviewing the themes, defining the theme and writing up.

The findings reveal that online group work driven by EP enables everybody to engage in learning activities. EP assists the students in perceiving their potential and gaining a better awareness of the need to devote themselves to the class. In the EP activities, they work together to build a peaceful situation to advance the quality of learning in EFL classrooms.

The present study’s limitation is the small sample. Apart from that, the research results cannot be generalized to other places.

This study suggests that EP is suitable to create a mutual understanding among the learners and teachers. To conclude, English language competency can be achieved in a pleasant atmosphere through EP.

The present study succeeded in adding new literature studies related to EPs by discussing online group discussions and their challenges during the learning process. These aspects were identified through reading logs and interviews with students. Thus, it focuses on the implementation and challenges of online group discussions.

To extend research into sport consumer behaviors related to online sports betting, this study is designed to identify and examine the relationship between online sports betting motivations and online sports betting intentions. By applying a push-pull framework from online sport consumption and gambling studies, nine motivations to engage in online sports betting were identified. These motivations were hypothesized to motivate online sports betting intentions.

A quota sampling technique based on the sports bettor demographics available in the American Gaming Association (AGA, 2019) and the Pew Research Center (2022) obtained a total of 550 completed surveys that met the inclusion and exclusion criteria. For data analyses, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) were used to examine the measurement model and the hypothesized model, respectively.

The results revealed that four motivations (i.e. monetary gain, excitement, convenience and negative technology-readiness) were related to online sports betting intention, while five motivations (i.e. sport fandom, positive technology-readiness, impulsivity, socialization and promotion) were not.

The results provide foundational theoretical knowledge of what motivates sports fans to participate in online sports betting. Furthermore, the findings assist practitioners in their allocation of resources by enhancing their understanding of online sports betting motivations.

The purpose of this paper is to offer an accessible and interdisciplinary research strategy in organisational ethnography, called action ethnography, that acknowledges key concepts from action research and engaged and immersive ethnography. It aims to encourage methodological innovation and an impact turn in ethnographic practice.

A working definition of “action ethnography” is provided first. Then, to illustrate how an action ethnography can be designed by considering impact from the outset, the author draws on a study she is undertaking with a grassroots human rights monitoring group, based in England, and then discusses advantages and limitations to the approach.

The author suggests three main tenets to action ethnography that embrace synergies between action research and ethnography: researcher immersion, intervention leading to change and knowledge contributions that are useful to both practitioners and researchers.

This paper provides researchers who align with aspects of both action research and ethnography with an accessible research strategy to employ, and a better understanding of the interplay between the two approaches when justifying their research designs. It also offers an example of designing an action ethnography in practice.

Whereas “traditional” ethnography has emphasised a contribution to theoretical knowledge, less attention has been on a contribution to practice and to those who ethnographers engage with in the field. Action ethnography challenges researchers to consider the impact of their research from the outset during the research design, rather upon reflection after a study is completed.