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Taking advantage of a unique measure of corporate culture obtained from advanced machine learning algorithms, this study aims to explore how corporate culture strength is influenced by board independence, which is one of the most crucial aspects of the board of directors. Because of their independence from the corporation, outside independent directors are more likely to be unbiased. As a result, board independence is commonly used as a proxy for board quality.

In addition to the standard regression analysis, the authors execute a variety of additional tests, i.e. propensity score matching, an instrumental variable analysis, Lewbel’s (2012) heteroscedastic identification and Oster’s (2019) testing for coefficient stability.

The results show that stronger board independence, measured by a higher proportion of independent directors, is significantly associated with corporate culture. In particular, a rise in board independence by one standard deviation results in an improvement in corporate culture by 32.8%.

Conducting empirical research on corporate culture is incredibly difficult due to the inherent difficulties in recognizing and assessing corporate culture, resulting in a lack of empirical research on corporate culture in the literature. The authors fill this important void in the literature. Exploiting a novel measure of corporate culture based on textual analysis, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to link corporate culture to corporate governance with a specific focus on board independence.

This paper systematically reviewed research work on drivers of teamwork, which will reinforce construction work teams to enhance workers’ safety performance. This study adds to the existing but limited understanding of teamwork drivers on construction workers’ safety performance. This paper presents scholars and industry-based professionals with critical initiatives that have to be implemented in organisations to get positive results in safety while working in teams with an emphasis on systems drivers of teamwork on safety performance at the organisational level, which will help in providing information on the functioning of the teams and contribute towards improved safety performance of team workers.

This study aims to systematically examine the existing body of knowledge on drivers of teamwork by analysing 53 publications from the years 1997–2021. The Scopus search engine was used to conduct a systematic review and germane publications were collated.

According to the findings of the review, since 1997, there has been a burgeoning concern in the research of drivers of teamwork and its impact on workers’ safety performance. After performing a systematic review, 37 drivers of teamwork were identified. The top five drivers are effective communications, team workers’ relations, leadership, shared knowledge and information, and team training. Moreover, it was noted that the United States and Australia have been the international regions of focus for most of the research in the area of drivers of teamwork from the years 1997–2021. The 37 drivers of teamwork are distributed into six major socio-technical components: people drivers; culture drivers; metrics drivers; organisational and management practices and procedures drivers; infrastructure drivers and technology drivers.

The results reported present research scholars and professional practitioners with an overview of the drivers of teamwork that could be implemented in the construction industry to streamline potential implementations and improve safety performance of construction workers.

A list of teamwork drivers has been developed to ratify potential empirical research in the area of construction safety. The results would contribute to the existing but restricted understanding of drivers of teamwork in the construction industry.

This study aims to analyze how sustainability, through an efficient knowledge management (KM) system, can serve as a driving force with respect to corporate culture and reputation. The research questions that guided this study are mainly the following: Are KM and sustainability related? Can culture strengthen the link between KM and sustainability? Can the link between KM and sustainability be affected by reputation?

The methodological approach adopted corresponds to qualitative research of analysis on the reference literature in the international field, also supported by empirical analysis.

In this study, the authors show that there is no explicit correlation between sustainability and KM. This relationship, in fact, is not underlined in nonfinancial reporting because it is absent or because it is not considered relevant. Too often sustainability is reduced to a mere relational and reputational tool, ignoring the fact it must be considered a consequence and not the main goal to improve companies’ culture.

The sample studied by the authors refers to the top 40 companies listed on the Italian market, not allowing to generalize the findings across the international context.

The practical implications that could result from making explicit the relationship between sustainability and KM are multiple: the substantial benefits of the reputational aspect, an increase in the economic value related to sustainability; to ensure the going concern of the company and implement its ability to produce and share value in the long term.

The social benefits of a stronger relationship between sustainability and KM are related to the possibility to improve the wealth of all the stakeholders.

This paper analyzes the links between sustainability and KM to understand the influence of these factors on corporate culture and reputation.

Exploiting an innovative measure of corporate culture based on machine learning and earnings conference calls, this study aims to investigate how corporate culture is influenced by hostile takeover threats. To sidestep endogeneity, this study uses a unique measure of takeover vulnerability principally based on the staggered implementation of state legislations, which are plausibly exogenous.

In addition to the standard regression analysis, this study also executes a variety of other empirical tests such as propensity score matching, entropy balancing and an instrumental variable analysis, to demonstrate that the results are robust. The final sample includes 27,663 firm-year observations from 4,092 distinct companies from 2001 to 2014.

This study documents that more takeover exposure weakens corporate culture considerably, consistent with the managerial myopia hypothesis. Threatened by the takeover risk, managers tend to behave myopically and are less likely to make long-term investments that promote strong corporate culture in the long run. Additional analysis focusing on a culture of innovation, which is especially vulnerable to managerial myopia, produces similar evidence.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to explore the effect of takeover susceptibility on corporate culture using a distinctive metric of corporate culture based on textual analysis.

The purpose of this article is to determine safety culture indicators that can improve the health and safety performance of small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) contractors in Ghana.

A three-round Delphi method was used. The first round consisted of 31 experts out of which 18 of them rated their agreements with a set of 87 potential safety culture indicators using a 10-point Likert scale of importance (1 = important and 10 = very important) and the 16 experts who completed the final round were given the opportunity to suggest other indicators. The 87 indicators were categorised into 14 core health and safety elements. Indicators that attained a group median value of 5–10 for 50% or more expert ratings were accepted.

At the end of the third round, a consensus was reached on the indicators when they attracted median scores of 5–10 for at least 50% or more of the health and safety experts rated the indicators between 5 and 10. Out of a total of 87 indicators at the start of the Delphi process, the consensus was reached on 70 that were retained.

The health and safety experts were not given the opportunity to add new indicators to the structured questionnaire until the third round.

This is the first study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to have a consensus by health and safety experts on leading indicator metrics of positive culture of construction safety in Ghana for improved SME construction company’s health and safety performance in Ghana. If these indicators are adopted and used effectively in Ghana, they would ensure positive culture of construction safety and subsequently help to protect construction workers.

In the last few years, the size of Linked Open Data (LOD) describing artworks, in general or domain-specific Knowledge Graphs (KGs), is gradually increasing. This provides (art-)historians and Cultural Heritage professionals with a wealth of information to explore. Specifically, structured data about iconographical and iconological (icon) aspects, i.e. information about the subjects, concepts and meanings of artworks, are extremely valuable for the state-of-the-art of computational tools, e.g. content recognition through computer vision. Nevertheless, a data quality evaluation for art domains, fundamental for data reuse, is still missing. The purpose of this study is filling this gap with an overview of art-historical data quality in current KGs with a focus on the icon aspects.

This study’s analyses are based on established KG evaluation methodologies, adapted to the domain by addressing requirements from art historians’ theories. The authors first select several KGs according to Semantic Web principles. Then, the authors evaluate (1) their structures’ suitability to describe icon information through quantitative and qualitative assessment and (2) their content, qualitatively assessed in terms of correctness and completeness.

This study’s results reveal several issues on the current expression of icon information in KGs. The content evaluation shows that these domain-specific statements are generally correct but often not complete. The incompleteness is confirmed by the structure evaluation, which highlights the unsuitability of the KG schemas to describe icon information with the required granularity.

The main contribution of this work is an overview of the actual landscape of the icon information expressed in LOD. Therefore, it is valuable to cultural institutions by providing them a first domain-specific data quality evaluation. Since this study’s results suggest that the selected domain information is underrepresented in Semantic Web datasets, the authors highlight the need for the creation and fostering of such information to provide a more thorough art-historical dimension to LOD.

Anyone seeking to influence another is a potential leader. Within higher education, determining what an institution should undertake on sustainability can be daunting. Sustainability leaders face labyrinthine, multifaceted sub-cultures, influencers and viewpoints across staff, students, government, business and alumni all with an opinion on whether, how and in what order of priority sustainability should be taken forward. In this paper we take on this challenge by synthesising and critically evaluating core principles and working models for influencing and leading for sustainability in higher education. We identify a series of eight challenges affecting delivery of sustainability and seek to understand how conceptual models and principles in sustainability decision-making and leadership could address these. We draw on the experience of both authors, in tandem with comments from workshop and leadership training programme participants who attended the Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges (EAUC) Leadership Lab training in the UK, as well as reflections arising in a detailed case study from the University of Edinburgh. We bring key insights from theory and practice for the benefits of individuals or teams seeking to influence and persuade key decision-makers to embrace the sustainability agenda.

The current national patient safety strategy for the National Health Service (NHS) in England states that actions need to be taken to support the development of a patient safety culture. This includes that local systems should seek to understand staff perceptions of the fairness and effectiveness of serious incident management. This study aims to explore the perspectives of patient safety professionals about what works well and what could be done better to support a patient safety culture at the level of Trust strategy and serious incident governance.

A total of 15 professionals with a role in serious incident management, from five mental health trusts in England, were interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide. Thematic analysis and qualitative description were used to analyse the data.

Participants felt that actions to support a patient safety culture were challenging and required long-term and clinical commitment. Broadening the scope of serious incident investigations was felt to be one way to better understand patient safety culture issues. Organisational influences during the serious incident management process were highlighted, informing approaches to maximise the fairness and objectivity of investigation findings.

The findings of this study offer original insights that the NHS safety system can use to facilitate progression of the patient safety culture agenda. In particular, local mental health trusts could consider the findings in the context of their current strategic objectives related to patient safety culture and operational delivery of serious incident management frameworks.

This study aims to investigate the implementation of lean human resource management (HRM) practices in manufacturing small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and explore how various factors interact to influence their successful adoption. By exploring the interplay among these factors, the research seeks to identify key drivers affecting the adoption of lean HRM in manufacturing SMEs. Ultimately, the research intends to provide insights that can guide organisations, practitioners and policymakers in effectively implementing lean HRM practices to enhance operational efficiency, workforce engagement and competitiveness within the manufacturing SME sector.

The study combined total interpretive structural modelling (TISM) and Matrice d'Impacts Croisés Multiplication Appliquée à un Classement (MICMAC) analysis. TISM helped in understanding the hierarchical relationship among different factors influencing lean HRM implementation, whereas MICMAC analysis provided insights into the level of influence and dependence of each factor on others.

The research revealed that “top management support” emerged as the most independent factor, indicating that strong support from top management is crucial for initiating and sustaining lean HRM practices in manufacturing SMEs. On the other hand, “employee involvement and empowerment” was identified as the most dependent factor, suggesting that fostering a culture of employee engagement and empowerment greatly relies on the successful implementation of lean HRM practices.

While the study provided valuable insights, it has certain limitations. The research was conducted within the specific context of manufacturing SMEs, which might limit the generalizability of the findings to other industries. Expert opinions introduce subjectivity in data collection. Additionally, the study may not cover all critical factors, allowing room for further exploration in future research.

The findings have practical implications for manufacturing SMEs aiming to implement lean HRM practices. Recognising the pivotal role of top management support, organisations should invest in cultivating a strong leadership commitment to lean HRM initiatives. Furthermore, enhancing employee involvement and empowerment can lead to better adoption of lean HRM practices, resulting in improved operational efficiency and overall competitiveness.

This research contributes to the field by offering a comprehensive exploration of the interplay among factors influencing lean HRM implementation. The use of TISM and MICMAC analysis provides a unique perspective on the relationship dynamics between these factors, allowing for a nuanced understanding of their roles in the adoption of lean HRM practices in manufacturing SMEs. The identification of “top management support” as the most independent and “employee involvement and empowerment” as the most dependent factors adds original insights to the existing literature.

This paper investigates the effect of counter-cultural human resources (CCHR) practices on firm performance. Specifically, it investigates the impact of national culture [future orientation (FO), in-group collectivism (I-GC), performance orientation (PO), power distance (PD) and uncertainty avoidance (UA)] on the calculative and collaborative HR practice–firm performance relationship.

This study uses data from the CRANET and GLOBE studies to conduct a multi-level analysis of the impact of national culture on the calculative/collaborative HR–firm performance relationship.

It finds support for both the CCHR and societal-culture fit (SCF) perspectives of national culture, with FO and I-GC supporting the CCHR perspective and the other culture dimensions aligning more closely with SCF.

These findings empirically validate that CCHR practices can help supplement behaviors lacking in the cultural environment in which organizations operate.