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Personal branding is a strategic tool of marketing and communication to define success in organisations. While it constitutes a conscious attempt to commodify self and audit self, it must be intentionally managed to obtain its optimum results. This study aims to illustrate how personal branding may also pose unintentional and unconscious strategic tool for women academics in academia to help them get wider visibility and increase their chances of getting into leadership positions.

We employed a case study approach and convenience sampling to select our unit of analysis. Three universities in both public and private universities in the eastern regions of Indonesia were purposefully selected, and interviews were held with 30 female leaders occupying and occupied middle and lower leadership hierarchies.

Our research shows that, despite their unintentional, unplanned and poorly designed personal branding, women have been able to advance to their current leadership positions by building their own rooms for practising their own preferred leadership values to get them visible and heard. This way is performed through a gendered networking, previous leadership experience and bureaucratic requirements. The consequence of such a practice may limit the range of visibility to getting noticed as worthy individuals for senior leadership roles. This might be one reason why women are scarcely found in senior leadership positions.

We propose that natural strategies of constructing, narrating and marketing or communicating personal branding in academia through authentic actions can also be helpful for the success of women to get to leadership roles in a smaller and ambient environment.

This paper aims to outline the role that serendipity can play in providing a complementary and previously unrepresented vector in deliberate and emergent strategies within organizations.

The paper is conceptual in nature and draws upon the serendipity pattern in sociological theory and serendipitous relations in developmental sciences to provide a framework for executives to consider when examining the process of strategy formation. Two case vignettes are used to illustrate the difference between luck and serendipity and the paper also traces key micro foundations of serendipity by returning to the original serendipity fable and a famed science experiment producing “floppy-eared” rabbits.

The notion of chance favoring the “prepared firm” is espoused where the prepared organizational mind is positioned as an antecedent of serendipitous strategy formation. This is based on Louis Pasteur’s famous aphorism, “chance favors the prepared mind.” Components of the prepared firm include deep domain knowledge, anticipatory mindset, noticing, abductive reasoning, elaboration and relations development.

The paper is a conceptual articulation of a novel concept that now requires deeper empirical case development and ultimately statistical validation. The paper suggests linkages between serendipity and theories of absorptive capacity and the attention-based view of the firm.

Several mindsets, capabilities and relations for architecting organizational serendipity are suggested for executives using a stylized framework.

From a strategy process perspective, the Mintzberg and Waters seminal article “Of strategies deliberate and emergent” is complemented by considering “floppy-eared” strategy characterized by unexpected, anomalous and strategic datum.

Over 2.7 million workers are employed in the UK construction industry and with the fragmented nature of the construction sector; cases of poor mental health of workers are on the increase. This upsurge in the number of workers experiencing poor mental health could directly impact construction safety with significant financial adverse consequences on employers and the UK economy. Studies have identified lapses within the construction sector emphasising the lack of transparency regarding reporting of mental health and well-being of construction workers due to the inadequate engagement from employers and the lack of genuine leadership commitment to tackle mental health.

This study adopted a non-probability purposive sampling strategy, using a self-selected sample. A self-administered questionnaire benchmarked against the mental health core and enhanced standards tools by the “Stevenson/Farmer review of mental health and employers” served as the basis for the methodology. A total of 106 industry managers from highways, construction, maritime, utilities, home building, rail and haulage/fleet were involved in this study.

The findings indicate that the industry is making good strides towards addressing mental health issues; poor mental health have significant financial burdens on businesses and the economy; some contractors have mental health initiatives and programmes in place; there is inconsistency of support available to employees; some contractors now integrate leadership training; the level of engagement vary based on the strategy and action plan adopted by organisations; different mechanisms are adopted for monitoring mental health issues, and there are cross-industry initiatives.

A limitation of this study is the number of participants which is not representative of the entire UK construction workforce. Therefore, the findings from this study as much as it presents some understanding of employee mental health and well-being cannot be overtly generalised across multiple industries, different geographic regions or contexts.

Employers should have a clear representation of the mental health of their employees to help them understand what affects worker’s mental well-being and how they can support them. Disregarding the multifaceted causes of mental ill-health due to the perceived financial implications could be more devastating for the industry.

The importance of innovation has attracted growing attention due to the complex and rapidly changing business environment. This study aimed, first, to examine the joint effect of servant and authentic leadership (AUL) styles on employee creativity (EC), second, to examine the direct and mediated effect of servant leadership (SL) on employees' innovative work behaviour (IWB), third, to examine the effect of EC on IWB and finally, to investigate the moderating effect of creative self-efficacy (CSE) on the relationship between AUL and EC.

A quantitative approach was used, and the data were collected from 446 employees in the Qatari public sector. The data were then analysed by employing partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) using SmartPLS software to validate the measures before testing the proposed model.

The results of this study emphasized the strong hypothesized link between EC and IWB. It also endorsed the mediating role of EC between SL and IWB and the moderating role of CSE in the AUL-EC relationship.

The originality of this study comes from various aspects. First, it is unique in separately examining EC and innovation and the link between them. Second, it investigates the joint impact of servant and AUL styles on EC. Third, it explores the mediating role of EC between SL and IWB. Fourth, the moderating effect of CSE on the AUL-EC link also was examined to gain a full understanding of the relation effect. Finally, the value of the current study also comes from the integration of the triangular theory of creativity, SL and AUL theories and self-efficacy theory to explain the proposed model of the study. Moreover, this study serves as a guideline for decision-makers on how to enhance IWB among employees by focusing on leadership programmes and the creative and innovative culture.

Identity, positioning and possibilities intersect differently for South Asian women in white academia. Within a broader migrant community that defines Australian life, these identities and positioning imply great possibility, but pursuing such pathways within academia is a walk on the last strand of resilience. This paper explores this tension of possibilities and constraints, using hope theory to highlight the cognitive resistance evident in the narratives of three South Asian women in Australian academia.

The authors use collaborative autoethnography to share their narratives of working in Australian universities at three different stages of careers, utilising Snyder's model of hope theory to interrogate their own goal-setting behaviours, pathways and agentic thinking.

The authors propose that hope as a cognitive state informs resistance and enables aspirations to contribute within academia in meaningful ways whilst navigating the terrain of inequitable structures.

The authors' use of hope theory as a lens on the intersectional experiences of career making, building and progression is a new contribution to scholarship on marginalised women in white academe and the ways in which the pathways of resistance are identified.

The purpose of this study is to raise awareness about the ethical implications of artificial intelligence (AI) in the library and information industry, specifically focusing on bias and discrimination. It aims to highlight the need for proactive measures to mitigate these issues and ensure that AI technology is developed and implemented in an ethical and unbiased manner.

This viewpoint paper presents a critical analysis of the ethical implications of bias and discrimination in the library and information industry with respect to AI. It explores current practices and challenges in AI implementation and proposes strategies to address bias and discrimination in AI systems.

The findings of this study reveal that bias and discrimination are significant concerns in AI systems used in the library and information industry. These biases can perpetuate existing inequalities, hinder access to information and reinforce discriminatory practices. This study identifies key strategies such as data collection and representation, algorithmic transparency and inclusive design to address these issues.

This study contributes to the existing literature by examining the specific challenges of bias and discrimination in AI implementation within the library and information industry. It provides valuable insights into the ethical implications of AI technology and offers practical recommendations for professionals to confront and mitigate bias and discrimination in AI systems, ensuring equitable access to information for all users.