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The purpose of the paper is to produce new knowledge about the positions that public libraries both take and are given in the conflicts over politics and identity that play out in contemporary cultural and library policy debates. Using conflicts over drag story hour at public libraries as case, the study seeks to contribute to an emerging body of research that delves into the challenges that public libraries as promoters of democracy are confronting in the conflictual political landscape of today.

The paper presents an analysis of debates reported in news articles concerning Drag story hour events held at Swedish public libraries. Utilizing the analytical lenses of discourse theory and plural agonistics, the analysis serves to make visible the lines of conflicts drawn in these debates – particularly focusing on the intersection of different meanings ascribed to the notion of the reading child, and how fear is constructed and used as an othering devise in these conflicts.

Different imaginings of the reading child and the construction and imagination of fear and safety shapes the Drag story hour debates. The controversies can be understood as a challenge to the previous hegemony regarding the direction and goals of Swedish cultural and library policy and the pluralistic democratic society these policies are meant to promote.

The paper offers new insights into the consequences of the revival of radical right politics, populism and societal polarization, and the different responses from public libraries.

This study aims to ascertain the personal characteristics of a group of successful academic entrepreneurs in a South African university enterprise and the prevalent barriers and enablers to their entrepreneurial endeavour.

The authors used a Delphi process to identify and rank the characteristics, enablers, barriers and behaviours of entrepreneurial academics, with a Nominal Group Technique applied to establish challenges they encounter managing their enterprise and to propose solutions.

Perseverance, resilience and innovation are critical personal characteristics, while collaborative networks, efficient research infrastructure and established research competence are essential for success. The university’s support for entrepreneurship is a significant enabler, with unnecessary bureaucracy and poor access to project and general enterprise funding an impediment. Successful academic entrepreneurs have strong leadership, and effective management and communication skills.

The main limitation is the small study participant group drawn from a single university enterprise, which complicates generalisability. The study supported the use of Krueger’s (2009) entrepreneurial intentions model for low- and middle-income country (LMIC) academic entrepreneur investigation but proposed the inclusion of mitigators to entrepreneurial activation to recognise contextual deficiencies and challenges.

Skills-deficient LMIC universities should extensively and directly support their entrepreneurial academics to overcome their contextual deficiencies and challenging environment.

This study contributes to addressing the paucity of academic entrepreneur research in LMIC contexts by identifying LMIC-specific factors that inhibit the entrepreneur’s movement from entrepreneurial intention to entrepreneurial action.

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914), recognized as the father of philosophical pragmatism, has been described as a philosopher’s philosopher. Eliyahu Moshe Goldratt (1947–2011), considered the father of the management philosophy theory of constraints (TOC), has been described as being, first and foremost, a philosopher. The TOC body of knowledge is mainly preserved as concrete methodologies used in the management discipline. By examining the foundational elements of synechism and the TOC, the purpose of this study is to investigate the intellectual connections between the arguments and legacies of Goldratt and Peirce. Although this connection is worthy of much further investigation, the research emphasizes the possible implications from a management philosophy perspective.

Based on a “review with an attitude,” the authors first examined the foundations of Goldratt’s TOC through the lens of Peirce’s synechism. Next, the authors then examined how the study of Peirce combined with a selection of contemporary research in the management and organizational studies domain could point out a direction toward completing Goldratt’s unfinished intellectual work to establish a unified science management while addressing some of the current gaps in the TOC body of knowledge.

Major findings show that synechism’s growth may extend TOC knowledge, improving managerial practice in organizations. Findings on the convergent ideas of both also reveal that Goldratt valued all synechism categories, emphasizing the importance of not overlooking Firstness. Furthermore, the study analyzes the abductive inference demonstrated in the two use cases, introducing an additional metaphor to the management of organizational systems inspired by Peirce’s philosophical concepts. The research concludes that incorporating TOC and synechism principles can enhance management and organizational practices and enrich management philosophy and theories.

This pioneering research opens promising opportunities to draw parallels between Peirce and Goldratt. Interdisciplinary collaboration will enhance the rigor and validity of integrating synechism and TOC. Experts in organizational behavior, systems theory and complexity science can provide valuable insights into this debate, while practitioners and consultants could help identify barriers and opportunities for integrating synechistic principles.

The study proposes a novel abductive approach using Peirce’s cable metaphor as an initial framework to build a unified science of management based on evolutionary stages: TOC, common sense and connectedness.

This research reinforces the argument that contemporary management practices need philosophical thinking. The authors argue that re-evaluating the foundations of management thought enriches the decision-making process in organizations and the understanding of contemporary theories in management and organizational studies.

Food insecurity is a major public health concern, especially for refugee families. Despite the growing population of refugee families in the USA and the harmful effects on youth’s health and well-being, there are limited qualitative studies exploring food insecurity among US refugee adolescents. The use of community-based participatory research and photovoice can highlight the strength of gathering and sharing underrepresented and disadvantaged group experiences. The purpose of this study was to understand adolescent refugee's food insecurity perspectives and experiences, with a nutrition and food access focus. Three main themes and nine subthemes emerged around the role that food security plays in a healthy, thriving community. The main themes included food must be more accessible in school; importance of food access in one’s community; and food access and creating a vibrant community. Implications regarding how to apply these results with community and school-based food programs are discussed.

This study followed a phenomenological research approach to understand the experiences of refugee youth and what constitutes healthy food access in a community. Data analysis was conducted using Braun and Clarke’s (2006) thematic analysis to ensure that data saturation was met (Guest et al., 2006).

The thematic analysis of the photovoice methodological approach revealed three main themes and nine subthemes around the role that food security plays in a healthy and thriving community. These themes are as follows: food must be more accessible in school; importance of food access in one’s community; and food access and creating a vibrant community.

Funding resources limited the duration of meeting in which we could meet and discuss the photo’s students were taking. Second, consistent with phenomenological studies, the sample size was small. However, common sample size for studies using a phenomenological approach ranged from 5 to 25 (Creswell et al., 2007), which is in alignment with this study. Next, while participants did receive training in the SHOWeD method, the photography training was limited to only one hour. Despite the limited training, participants felt they had sufficient knowledge and skills to take the necessary pictures.

This study provides important policy implications for school-based food programs, such as food pantries and free or reduced school meals, and how it plays an important role in refugee youth’s well-being and education. Based on feedback from the study participants, many school-based food programs were considered not available or easily accessible, and that youth and their families were often unaware of programs available to them. This study revealed the important role schools can play in ensuring food security among refugee youth and their families as well as for refugee youth to reach their full potential equitably.

This study used a creative research approach that integrates photovoice as a means to elevate the voices of a marginalized populations. This approach has been identified as one of the most culturally appropriate method when working with refugee children and youth (Pieloch et al., 2016). Second, the study included having multiple meetings, that recruited from previously established partnerships. This form of community building and activism elevates participants voices (Catalani and Minkler, 2009). Finally, this study used a cycle of photography and discussion and held a final public photo exhibition for both the participant’s community and its influential leaders (Catalani and Minkler, 2009; Evans-Agnew and Rosemberg, 2016). The results of this study have important policy implications for schools and communities.

This study examines how asking employees to self-assess their performance during the compensation setting process, when they are unaware of their marginal contribution to firm profit, affects employer welfare. Previous research suggests that giving employees a voice in the compensation setting process can positively affect employee performance and firm profit (Jenkins & Lawler, 1981; Roberts, 2003). However, the study proposes that asking employees to assess their own performance as part of the compensation setting process can have unintended consequences that ultimately lead to higher employee compensation demands. This is because asking employees to assess their performance increases their overconfidence in their own performance and their compensation demands. As a result, employers may face the dilemma of whether to meet these higher compensation demands or risk economic losses due to employee retaliation if their demands are not met. Through experimental evidence comparing a control condition without self-assessments and three self-assessment reporting conditions, the study provides evidence that supports the notion that eliciting employee self-assessments as part of the compensation process reduces employer welfare. Data on employee perceptions of performance further support the notion that asking employees to evaluate their performance leads to an inflated perception of their performance. These findings provide a theory-based explanation of why, in practice, many companies disentangle employee performance assessments from the compensation setting process and that companies are well advised in doing so.