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Many US firms are facing difficulty finding qualified US citizens to fill technical/scientific positions and are turning to foreign nationals to meet their needs. In some cases, the employee/company match is less than ideal. This study focuses on foreign‐born employees working in a particular industrial sector in rural Georgia, USA. Some firms in this industry feel that the problems they are experiencing with these employees are due to cultural factors. The primary purpose of this exploratory study is to identify cultural and other issues affecting the integration of foreign‐born individuals into firms in rural communities. This article stimulates thought concerning human resource issues in our increasingly interactive global environment.

Boutique hotels reflect a nascent phenomenon in the literature and in the accommodation sector. As a result, they are void of governmental classification and regulation. Concurrently, they lack any form of operational definition. The purpose of this paper is to address these limitations by identifying the core attributes found to define boutique hotels.

To fulfil the purpose of this paper, the authors conducted a systematic literature review on Web of Science. This resulted in an analysis of 33 peer-review articles published from 1994 to 2022.

The findings of this review revealed that boutique hotels are defined by eight core attributes; these are (1) multiple ownership structures, (2) situatedness in a historic premises, (3) strategic locations, (4) thematized internal décor, (5) experience design, (6) high levels of personalization, (7) novelty in service provisions and (8) niche marketing strategies.

For policymakers, this paper may be used as a reference point to establish designated classification systems for boutique hotels. For practitioners, this paper may be used as a source of inspiration and benchmark to establish boutique hotels which align to the criteria highlighted in this paper. For scholars, this paper proposes an operational description of boutique hotels and novel areas for future research.

This paper represents one of the initial efforts undertaken by researchers to unify the literature on boutique hotels.

The study uses machine learning techniques to cluster regional retail egg prices after 2000 in China. Furthermore, it combines machine learning results with econometric models to study determinants of cluster affiliation. Eggs are an inexpensiv, nutritious and sustainable animal food. Contextually, China is the largest country in the world in terms of both egg production and consumption. Regional clustering can help governments to imporve the precision of price policies and help producers make better investment decisions. The results are purely driven by data.

The study introduces dynamic time warping (DTW) algorithm which takes into account time series properties to analyze provincial egg prices in China. The results are compared with several other algorithms, such as TADPole. DTW is superior, though it is computationally expensive. After the clustering, a multinomial logit model is run to study the determinants of cluster affiliation.

The study identified three clusters. The first cluster including 12 provinces and the second cluster including 2 provinces are the main egg production provinces and their neighboring provinces in China. The third cluster is mainly egg importing regions. Clusters 1 and 2 have higher price volatility. The authors confirm that due to transaction costs, the importing areas may have less price volatility.

The machine learning techniques could help governments make more precise policies and help producers make better investment decisions.

This is the first paper to use machine learning techniques to cluster food prices. It also combines machine learning and econometric models to better study price dynamics.

Since a teacher's identity is the result of ongoing discussion, explanation, negotiation and justification, famous education quotes were integrated into a language teacher practicum in a teacher education program in the northwest university in Taiwan. This study aims to explore the influence of discussing education quotes on 10 English as a foreign language student teachers' professional identities. This study also aims to discuss the following research questions.

This case study focused on 10 student teachers' identity construction in a practicum class under one advisor. According to Merriam (1998), a case is a “thing, a single entity, a unit around which there are boundaries” (p. 27). The case was a practicum and the unit of analysis was participants' identity construction.

First, reading and discussing famous quotes was a useful “discourse” and “language” for student teachers to construct and negotiate their identities. Second, through the integration of reading and discussing quotes, participants revealed more professional identity in knowledge and expertise, particularly in English instruction in the post-test.

This study examined the influence of discussing educational quotes of 10 students’ professional identity. However, given the nature of the study, there were some limitations. First, although the small sample size offered rich data through observation, artifacts and pre-and post-tests, it restricts our ability to generalize the results.

This study is highly practical (i.e. learning by discussion) and strongly interactive among the participant in a professional and social context. The conceptual framework in Figure 1 presents a theoretical framework supporting reading and discussing quotes as the discourse for the student teachers for their professional identity construction. Social context and relationship shape their professional identity (Izadinia, 2013). Student teachers spent much of their time with their cooperating teachers and administrators in their cooperating schools. In order to foster student teachers’ professional identity construction, it is recommended that student teachers should be encouraged to read and discuss educational quotes with teachers and administrators in their cooperating schools as a mean of professional dialogue and learning.

In this study, it was argued that educational or English teaching quotes could be used as viable, effective and appropriate materials in documenting student teachers' professional identity construction out of their classroom practice in their practicum. The findings of this study derived from the nature of 10 student teachers' professional learning via discussing famous education sayings, and professional learning took place during the practicum.

Most of the studies reviewed above were small-scale and qualitative case studies. Some involved only one or two single cases (e.g. Antonek et al., 1997; Calandra et al., 2006; Camp, 2013). Only a few studies were analyzed and explored based on theoretical frameworks (e.g. Chasteen, 2015). No explicit references were made to any theoretical frameworks in most of the studies. This study included both qualitative (observation and artifacts) and quantitative data (pretest and posttest) to explore the influence of discussing education quotes on 10 student teachers' professional identities and reflective practices.

This study investigates the economic outcomes of organic farming controlling for the four major aspects of a cropping system, including climate, genotypes, management and soil. Considering possible variations in treatment responses, this study also presents empirical evidence of heterogeneous treatment effects associated with spatial agglomeration or farm covariates.

Rice farm households data taken from the 2015 Agriculture Census is merged with township-level seasonal weather data, crop suitability index and average income per capita in Taiwan. To address the selection bias problem, the authors apply the Probit-2SLS instrumental variable (IV) method in the binary treatment model under homogeneous and heterogeneous assumptions.

It is found that organic farming leads to a significantly positive effect on rice farms' economic performances in terms of cost reduction and profit growth. This positive treatment effect is more sizable with spatial agglomeration. Furthermore, the treatment effect of organic farming is found to vary with the farm characteristics such as farmland area and the number of hired workers.

Two important implications for the promotion of sustainable agri-food production are inferred: (1) establishing organic agriculture specialized zones may benefit rural development; (2) providing economic incentives to small farms to expand their scale may be a more effective policy means to promote sustainable agri-food production.

The findings in this study complement the body of knowledge by drawing insights from the agriculture census data and providing profound evidence of the heterogeneous outcomes of organic farming due to spatial clustering and farm covariates.

Scale-ups have a crucial role in our society and economy, are known for their fast growth and high performance and undergo significant organizational change. Research on the organizational elements that ensure scale-ups sustaining high performance is limited. This empirical study aims to investigate the organizational culture in scale-ups using the Competing Values Framework, including the clan, adhocracy, the market, hierarchy cultures and its relation to performance.

Quantitative and qualitative data were collected in five scale-ups. Surveys provided data of 116 employees on organizational culture, assessed using the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI) and perceived performance. The aggregate outcomes and performance measures were analyzed using correlation analysis. Interviews were held with ten top managers and mirrored against the quantitative data.

The results show that top managers and employees have different perspectives on the culture scale-ups are supposed to have. Top managers perceive market culture as more and hierarchy culture as less present in their organizations than employees. The clan and adhocracy culture are positively correlated to performance and are preferred by employees. Market and hierarchy culture types are negatively correlated to performance and are least preferred by employees.

It enables scale-up leaders to specifically intervene when cultural elements are experienced by employees that will not drive performance and fit the high performance and fast-growing scale-up environment.

This study is the first that showed that organizational-wide surveys, combined with in-depth interviews, are suitable for top managers of scale-ups to diagnose the organizational culture and the effect on the organization's performance.

This research focuses on the demand from medium-sized firms to access public equity as a source of finance. The acceptance of public equity differs strongly between countries, particularly between the United Kingdom and Germany. Therefore, this research aims to identify the impact of national culture on the decision to go public in these two countries.

The theoretical framework builds on the satisficing theory of rationality, the pecking-order theory as well as Hofstede's cultural dimension theory. Using a questionnaire, over 1,000 medium-sized businesses in the United Kingdom and Germany were surveyed.

The findings demonstrate that British medium-sized firms are more open to using public equity as a source of finance than their German counterparts. The results indicate that national culture not only affects the decision to go public but also has a negative impact on uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation.

The originality of the research lies in the focus on medium-sized firms and the effects of cultural differences between the United Kingdom and Germany. No previous research has explored how culture influences the decision to go public using a dataset generated from medium-sized firms in the United Kingdom and Germany.

The purpose of this systematic literature review was to collect and review the studies published worldwide in English language presenting the persuasive role of information/content credibility (IC) on the information adoption behavior (IAB) of social media users.

The relevant literature was searched by the reviewers from two specialized databases, i.e. Library, Information Science and Technological Abstract (LISTA) and Library and Information Science Abstracts (LISA), whereas five general databases, i.e. Emerald, Springer Link, Taylor and Francis Online, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global and Google Scholar, using the Internet (portal) services available at the two Pakistani universities, i.e. University of Sargodha and the University of the Punjab. The search was updated in February 2022.

The results of this study revealed that there was a significant impact of IC over the IAB of social media users.

This study is the first of its nature that aims to collect and present a systematic review of the literature based on empirical evidence of the influential role of IC on the IAB of social media users.

This study aims to explore the individual lived crucible experiences of women leaders in higher education (HE) and business as the catalyst to investigate organisational inequality regimes that prevent women leaders from fully participating, contributing and flourishing at work. Drawing upon Bolman and Deal’s four-frame theoretical organisational model, this study analyses women’s lived crucible leadership experiences to better understand the organising processes and practices that render intersectionality invisible that reinforce and perpetuate inequality regimes.

A collaborative autoethnographic research method was selected for data collection. The research team members each selected one significant crucible moment from their professional career and used the Gibb’s six-part reflective cycle to document their narrative and reflect on their leadership experience. A reflexive thematic analysis was used based on Braun and Clarke’s six phases.

The study features the importance of creating a climate in organisations that acknowledges the need for greater equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) to support women leaders. Four global themes emerged from the analysis of the leadership narratives: organisation, power dynamics, emotional distress and perseverance and intersectionality. These themes illuminate a greater understanding of organisational life for women and confirm the presence of inequality regimes of gender and race.

This is the first study to explore the impact of women leaders’ crucible experiences through the lens of the Bolman and Deal’s model that highlights the need to consider an EDI lens as the fifth frame.