Search results

This case was developed from a primary source and is based on interviews and personal evaluations.

Maria was at a scheduled lunch with her direct manager, John, who inquired about the privacy leak regarding employee data she had found a few months earlier. Upon discovering the issue, Maria took on the task of ensuring the privacy leak was dealt with and resolved. John knew it was a challenging interdepartmental task because other managers did not immediately recognize the seriousness and full impact of the issue on employee privacy. Plus, the belief was that the project to combine two software programs improving CRM functionality, causing the employee data leak, needed immediate release. During the lunch, Maria stated that the privacy problem was fully eliminated and that, in the end, it did impact a lot more than only a few employees. John actively encouraged Maria in the conversation to seek feedback from Richard, the managing director directly involved and responsible for the project, which Maria had already done. When the feedback arrived, Maria felt extremely hurt by the comments and began to question the validity of the company’s values. Now, she must decide what her options are.

This case study is about dealing with feedback, career development and how to receive and provide feedback. It presents a situation that allows for a variety of ways to address negative feedback and shows that different reactions can have broader consequences for career development. At the same time, the case illustrates how feedback is given in international teams and companies, and how intercultural or gender-relevant circumstances may have to be considered.

This case study was written for use in BA and MA classes to promote discussion regarding feedback. Relevant courses in business and administration or an international business study program could be organizational behavior, communication training, conflict management, an intercultural competencies course or in line with career management sequences.

Early program BA students, BA students in advanced semesters as well as MA students with work experience are all markets for the case. It has been class-tested with BA international business students. While advanced BA and graduate students are able to and expected to enrich discussions by contributing personal stories, early program BA students benefit from learning how to create feedback and how to read feedback – including from other students, instructors and managers, to use during their first internships.

By celebrating tourism destinations through cruise collections, luxury brands open to new influences. They may develop deeper connections with certain geographical areas, but may also challenge the quintessentially national dimension of luxury brand culture. The best example of synergies between a luxury fashion brand and tourism destinations are the Christian Dior cruise collections with Maria Grazia Chiuri at the helm. This chapter is to understand how cruise collections may enhance luxury fashion houses' brand culture through the connections they develop with tourism destinations. Further, the chapter assesses the extent to which destinations can benefit from the exposure provided by luxury fashion brands' cruise collections.

Higher education institutions (HEIs) offer courses and programmes focusing on sustainability in economics, as courses on sustainable development (SD), which examine the economic, social and environmental dimensions of SD. This paper aims to examine sustainability integration in economics degree programmes.

Through an extensive literature review in Web of Science (WoS) and information search in Google, conducting to 28 relevant case studies, this paper elucidates the emphasis given to sustainability as part of economics degree programmes in HEIs.

The results suggest that, whereas the inclusion of sustainability components in this field is a growing trend, much still needs to be done to ensure that matters related to SD are part of the routine of university students studying economics.

It is worth noting that the literature review conducted in WoS was primarily aimed at assisting in the selection of university case studies. The 28 university case studies scrutinised in this study may lack sufficient representation from numerous developing countries.

This study highlights challenges in integrating the SD into economics degree programmes, suggesting the need for curriculum adjustments as underscoring operational issues, acting as barriers. The inclusion of sustainability in economics programmes must navigate operational issues stemming from packed timetables and busy schedules, requiring innovative solutions.

As far as the authors are aware, this study holds substantial importance in its emphasis on implementing sustainability within HEIs’ economics programmes, assisting in pursuing SD.

The novelty of this study lies in addressing sustainability with the specific economics focus programmes within the HEIs context.

This study aimed to investigate the sensemaking strategies employed by early-career employees working within organizationally constrained environments.

Grounded in the sensemaking-as-accomplishment framework, a longitudinal multi-case study was conducted, involving three early-career employees. These participants were interviewed multiple times concerning tasks they themselves identified as anomalous and ambiguous.

The study's findings illuminate how early-career employees utilize sensemaking strategies to accomplish anomalous-ambiguous tasks. These strategies are interwoven with deliberate efforts to mitigate organizational constraints that exist in the organization or arise during the execution of complex tasks.

Notable limitation pertains to the time gap between task completion and the interviews. Conducting real-time interviews concurrently with task execution or immediately afterward was not feasible due to constraints in participant availability. This research has implications for organizational learning initiatives, particularly those encompassing employee-driven self-learning components. Insights derived from studies like this can inform the development of effective self-learning schemes within organizations.

Previous sensemaking research focused on what takes place in high-reliability organizations. This study explored sensemaking strategies in workplaces that are organizationally constrained.

After completion of the case study, students will be able to identify and discuss ways in which informal financing of the kind discussed in the case study can provide new or different opportunities for access to alternative financing schemes; assess the role of“social capital” in micro and small business development and to understand and apply the role of social capital for female entrepreneurs in the Global South; critically analyse and reflect on the new role of digital technologies in challenging traditional patriarchal social norms and exclusion and ultimately be able to evaluate the role of digital technologies in terms of its practical implications for female entrepreneurs; and understand the role played by socio-cultural and historical contexts in female-owned/managed businesses within informal sectors of the economy. Furthermore, the students should be able to discuss how these contexts provide opportunities or challenges for actionable/robust/relevant business plans for female entrepreneurs.

This case study aims to create a platform for classroom conversations around: context of entrepreneurship in informal economies, challenges of accessing finance, women entrepreneurship, opportunities of digital entrepreneurship and resource acquisition and social capital. Overall, this case study intends to inspire and cultivate additional voices to advance authentic understanding of informal business practices in the financial sector that go beyond traditional formal western settings. This case study is based on a true story relating to the “sou-sou” financing system – an informal financing scheme – originating from West Africa which has been transported to other parts of the world including Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and other parts of Africa. The characters involve Maria, the main protagonist; Eunice, from LAC; and Fidelia from West Africa. With first-hand information from Eunice and Fidelia, Maria learnt about the ideological principles and the offerings of flexibility, trust, mutual benefits and kinship of the sou-sou system and was inspired to integrate digital technologies as a sustainable game changer for accessing microfinance. This case study draws on the contextual understanding of the economy in the Global South as well as the gender-based aspects of entrepreneurship as key aspects of women entrepreneurship and digital entrepreneurship. The sou-sou system is presented as a practical solution to the challenges faced by women entrepreneurs in the Global South to access finances, and the integration of digital technologies is considered instrumental not only in reinforcing the traditional system but also in transforming the entrepreneurial prospects for these women.

This teaching activity is aimed at postgraduate students in Master of Management and Master of Business Administration programmes. It can also be used for short executive courses, specialised PhD seminars and advanced bachelor programmes. This case study could be taught in the field of entrepreneurship in areas related to technology, gender, women entrepreneurship and financing in the context of the Global South.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

Unplanned urban mobility causes negative effects on the population and the environment. This study aims to understand how higher education institutions (HEIs) are managing the transportation issues related to their activities and how they are implementing actions towards more sustainable practices in this regard.

A systematic review and bibliometric analysis were performed using the Proknow-C method, and the bibliographic portfolio was evaluated to answer guiding questions about distribution of articles over the years and around the world, the most relevant and frequent topics, the travel behavior of university life and the main methodologies used. The meta-analysis was modeled using a programming language in R to execute Bibliometrix package.

Sharing systems, active transport, public transport, urban planning, car parking management and travel behavior are the most relevant topics related to sustainable mobility in HEIs. Different strategies to reduce car use are adopted, and the geographic location of the university and the availability of housing and shopping services in close proximity directly influence travel patterns. As a result, seven guidelines and strategic actions associated were proposed to promote the engagement of institutions in the development of sustainable transport and guide future studies about new solutions to promote sustainable university commutes.

This paper presents a new perspective by performing a critical literature review based on the experiences reported by several isolated studies on the subject. Initiatives of sustainable transport guidelines can be used by academics, urban planners, higher education administrators and other stakeholders to make universities more environmentally friendly, inclusive and accessible.

This chapter presents a research study that examined post-disaster authentic university academic care resilience (PAUACR) at a Historically Black College and University (HBCU). PAUACR is a university’s and its students’ capacity to bounce back from post-disaster educational challenges. PAUACR requires a strong caring response and authentic academic care environments. For the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI), PAUACR following Hurricanes Irma and Maria was crucial to ensure students successfully completed the academic year. To assess UVI’s PAUACR, this study utilized a caring about academic caregiving inventory (CAACI). This 49-item instrument was used to gain students’ discernment of post-disaster authentic university academic care (PAUAC). The research employed a cross-sectional exploratory survey research design. The empirical analysis found associations between the structural workings of UVI’s academic caregiving in the aftermath of hurricanes Irma and Maria. These findings offer distinctive indicators of UVI’s PAUACR. Along with the findings, this chapter offers practical lessons of academic resilience drawn from the experience of conducting post-disaster research.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how effectively leading sustainable hotels have integrated Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into their reporting. The main aim is to pinpoint areas for improvement concerning SDG reporting which can help the hospitality industry to achieve a transformation in a more SDG-aligned global tourism system.

For this study, a content analysis technique was used to extract the information regarding strategic consistency of SDG reporting. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches were applied to the analysis of this information. This paper seeks to assess the extent to which the materiality analysis, corporate targets and performance indicators defined by the world’s top sustainable hotels in their sustainability reports are consistent with those SDGs linked to the business. To that end, the authors have selected the most sustainable hotels according to the SAM Corporate Sustainability Assessment in 2020.

The results of this study show that the most sustainable hotel companies did not take a strategic consistency approach when reporting the SDGs. These findings identify four areas for improvement concerning reporting, which may promote the adoption of a strategic and consistent approach in SDG reporting.

This study includes a set of recommendations to provide the market with complete, coherent and comparable information on their contribution to the SDGs and, therefore, foster collective learning to bring about sustainable tourism transformation.

This paper represents a contribution to the discussion on the strategic or symbolic implementation of SDGs at a corporate level. In addition, this paper reflects a deeper understanding of how hotel companies could improve their reporting and management system to contribute to SDGs.

Different studies relate the presence of depression to lower cognitive performance and higher functional dependence in older people; however, this is not entirely clear. The purpose of this study is to validate the existence between the association of these conditions.

Cross-sectional and descriptive study was conducted in which the memory, metamemory and global functionality test performance of depressed and non-depressed participants was compared between two groups, one cognitively healthy and other with cognitive decline. The participants were 420 older adults, with an average age of 69 and five years of schooling.

The importance of describing cognitive performance in older adults with depression may provide evidence to support an adequate differential diagnosis and the design of an adequate future therapeutic plan. Identifying and preventing depression in the elderly can improve health and well-being in the elderly.

Depression is a prevalent and highly disabling disease. When it is suffered by an older person, it is associated with higher mortality, functional dependence, poor physical health, worse quality of life indicators and psychological well-being. In the elderly, the clinical diagnosis of depression is difficult, as it has a high comorbidity and is often confused with other health conditions prevalent during older adulthood.

To assess which partnerships were most critical during the recovery planning process following Hurricanes Maria and Irma. We discuss the roles and impact of different types of partners, barriers and facilitators to partnerships and lessons in collaboration during the development of the economic and disaster recovery plan for Puerto Rico.

The Homeland Security Operational Analysis Center (HSOAC) was tasked with assisting the Puerto Rican government with an assessment of damages from Hurricanes Maria and Irma and the development of the Recovery Plan. During the process, a small team compiled and coded a database of meetings with non-HSOAC partners. The team was divided into sector teams that mirrored FEMA’s Recovery Support Functions. Each sector completed two surveys identifying high impact partners and their roles and contributions, as well as barriers and facilitators to partnerships.

A total of 1,382 engagements were recorded across all sectors over seven months. The most frequently identified high impact partners were federal and Puerto Rican governmental organizations partners. NGOs and nonprofits were noted as key partners in obtaining community perspective. Sector teams cited a lack of trust and difficulty identifying partners as barriers to partner engagement. Given the expedited nature of disaster response, establishing partnerships before disasters occur may help facilitate community input. Early networking, increased transparency and defining roles and responsibilities may increase trust and effectiveness among partnerships.

To our knowledge, this is one of the few studies that quantifies and illustrates the partnerships formed and their contributions during recovery planning, and lessons learned.