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Considerable progress has been made over the past 20 years toward the construction of a global stress paradigm for accountants in the workplace. Over this time period, a number of antecedents and consequences of personal and organizational stress have been identified and empirically verified. These efforts have provided the foundation for future investigations, which will likely provide additional guidance to those seeking to implement strategies aimed at enhancing individual well-being and organizational efficiency. This chapter synthesizes the findings of these studies to construct a model of the stress dynamic among accountants aimed at guiding future efforts designed to refine our understanding of this critical phenomenon.

Consumer expectations of quality have grown in recent years, forcing organisations, both service and manufacturing, to adopt total quality management (TQM) principles to satisfy customer demands efficiently. However, previous studies on the performance impacts of total quality management practices have mainly focused on the financial performance of firms in the manufacturing sector. This study focusses on the research questions: (1) What is the effect of TQM practices on operational performance? and (2) How do TQM practices combine to influence the operational performance of healthcare facilities?

Using a sample of 154 health facilities (i.e. private hospitals, pharmacies, maternity clinics, and diagnostic centres), the authors applied symmetric (PLS-SEM) and asymmetric (fsQCA) data analysis approaches to examine how TQM practices influence the operational performance of health facilities in the Ashanti Region of Ghana.

The PLS-SEM results revealed that five out of the seven TQM practices investigated influenced operational performance. However, the fsQCA results identify five different complex combinations of TQM practices that lead to operational performance.

Longitudinal studies can be conducted in the future to assess changes in the variables over time. A control variable, such as firm size, should be considered to assess the level of implementation of TQM practices based on firm size. A different performance measure, for instance, sustainability indicators or the balance score card, could be used to examine performance.

A proper and coordinated integration of the TQM practices is required for firms to be able to achieve operational performance. TQM practices vary in their sufficiency for operational outcomes; therefore, management needs to carefully consider their implementation as part of the organisation's strategy.

This research, by focussing on TQM practices from both symmetrical and asymmetrical perspectives, contributes to the understanding of the literature on TQM, thereby providing actionable insight on how to invest in the various TQM practices for improved operational performance.

If child custody decisions are based on erroneous beliefs, family courts may not be acting in the best interests of children. This study examined family court professionals' beliefs about family violence. Respondents (N = 410) of diverse professions, including child custody mediators, evaluators, and therapists, family law attorneys and judges, victim advocates and university students, completed a 10‐item multiple‐choice quiz. Results revealed low rates of correct responding, with respondents correctly answering approximately three out of 10 items on average, based on current research in the field. Overall, response rates were highly consistent with the discredited patriarchal paradigm. Shelter workers and victim advocates had the lowest average score, and men were found to have slightly higher scores than women. More troubling, students' scores were not significantly lower than those of family court professionals. Implications are discussed with respect to decision‐making in the context of child custody disputes.

Diffusion treatments may comprise the diffusion of interstitial elements such as oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, or boron into the surface from a gaseous or molten salt bath environment, or less commonly it may consist of substitutional diffusion of a previously deposited metal coating or by packing in materials such as ferromanganese or chromium with suitable additives.

A recent study reported Black women are frequently labeled unprofessional due to hair presentation, 1.5 times more likely to be sent home citing “unprofessional hair,” and 80% likely to alter their natural hair texture (Dove, 2019) through chemicals or heat to fit into organizational norms. Meanwhile, conversations about hair discrimination and bias remain whispers in The Ivory Tower. Despite this study, contemporary research regarding higher education and the politics of Black women, Black hair, and hair texture is sparse. The lack of representation in higher education organizations and lack of literature suggest that Black, higher education professional women are at risk of experiencing chilly work environments that could impact belonging, career trajectory, and earning potential. Some individuals outside the African Diaspora may consider the notion of a physical characteristic, like hair, to be insignificant, let alone a salient identity for Black women. However, my experience as a higher education practitioner and scholar states differently. I assert higher education institutions continue to perpetuate and reproduce oppressive dynamics that specifically target Black women and Black hair when hair discrimination and bias are left out of the conversation to address diversity and inclusion concerns. This chapter introduces a historical context of Black hair discrimination; explores my lived experiences navigating Black hair, hair texture, and professionalism in higher education; outlines challenges for higher education institutions and prioritizes Black women alongside diversity and inclusion efforts.

The purpose of this study is to explore the extent to which working in a management team in which leadership functions are shared impacts the role clarity, job overload, stress and job satisfaction of team members. It also aims to explore the moderating influence of organizational encouragement for team work.

The study uses data obtained from 200 top management team members working in Christian church organizations in the USA. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the relationship of shared leadership with the role conflict, role ambiguity, job stress, and job satisfaction of the management team members. These relationships were also evaluated for team members in organizations with both higher and lower levels of encouragement for team work.

A model in which role conflict and ambiguity mediate the relationship between shared leadership and job stress and job satisfaction provides the best fit with the data. Shared leadership within a management team was negatively related to team member role overload, role conflict, role ambiguity and job stress. Shared team leadership was positively related to job satisfaction of team members. The relationship of shared leadership with team member job outcomes is stronger in organizations with lower levels of encouragement for teamwork.

A practical implication of these results for leaders of management teams is that sharing some leadership roles and responsibilities within their teams with other members may have positive effects for the effectiveness of the team as well as the satisfaction of the team members. The generalizability of the results may be limited by the team size studied and the tendency of church pastors to be pre‐disposed to helping their management team members.

This is one of the few studies that have examined the effects of shared leadership within management teams on team members. Although shared leadership within teams may increase job demands on members and require team members to take on new roles, it seems to have positive effects on team member perceptions of their jobs. In addition, the extent to which an organization encourages teamwork makes a difference in the relationship of shared leadership with team member jobs.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, the article explores an understudied side of invention commercialization–the rejection of business as something “dirty” among Russian scientists. As such, the paper contributes to the individual-level explanations of innovation promotion, hence balancing extant literature's excessive focus on institutional explanations. Second, the article suggests that Russian scientists' rejection of business is rooted in broader Russian work ethics rift between “material” and “ideational” aspects of life. As such, the paper shows how dominant collective values refract in the management practice of specific social class, i.e. of scientists.

To analyze the rift between material and ideational aspects of Russian scientists' work, the article employs directed content analysis (DCA) of in-depth interviews with 45 Russian scholars. To address credibility bias of the research findings stemming from DCA, I further draw on the survey of existing studies, researches and polls highlighting Russian population attitudes toward the dichotomy between “material” and “ideal” realms.

This study argues that Russian scientists' likelihood of invention commercialization is positively associated with their ability to integrate in a personal psyche business and science as equally valuable facets of life.

The article identifies the three groups of scientists – opportunity-seekers, idealists and integrators – with different attitudes to invention commercialization. The article shows how policymakers should apply institutional incentives differently to each group of scientists to achieve higher rates of invention commercialization.

Unwanted intrusive thoughts (UITs) are a major public health concern (Nock et al., 2008; Bentum et al., 2017), and they are key to the development of a variety of dysregulated behaviours (Jungmann et al., 2016; Bergen et al., 2012). Thus, this study aims to investigate reductive mechanisms for unwanted intrusive thoughts by analysing aspects of affectivity in clinical and non-clinical samples.

Quantitative means of data collection and analysis were used to explore UITs and affectivity. In total, 530 adults took part in this study (236 males, 253 females and 15 transgenders). Participants consisted of clinical (N = 168) and non-clinical samples (N = 336) who completed the Midlife in the United States sense of control scale (Lachman and Weaver, 1998), 20-item neuroticism scale (Goldberg, 1999), self-compassion scale (Neff, 2003a), flourishing scale (Diener et al., 2009), Positive and Negative Affect Schedule - Negative Scale (Watson et al., 1988), generalised anxiety disorder seven-item (Spitzer et al., 2006) and repetitive thinking questionnaire-10 (McEvoy et al., 2010).

Participants who experienced high levels of psychological flourishing, emotional stability, self-compassion, perceived control and affective well-being were prone to experience minimal UITs. Anxiety was positively related to UITs. These findings suggest that these aspects of affectivity may aid the reduction or management of clinical and non-clinical unwanted intrusive thoughts.

This study has addressed gaps in knowledge and the literature on UITs by demonstrating that psychological flourishing, emotional stability, self-compassion, perceived control and affective well-being as aspects of affectivity can be implemented as a reductive mechanism for UITs, and such implementation may have a high probability of effective reduction or management of clinical and non-clinical unwanted intrusive thoughts.