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Conversations around diversity, race and science fiction and fantasy films/television have sparked in response to recent casting decisions made in the upcoming live-action The Little Mermaid, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and Star Wars' Obi-Wan Kenobi (Deggans, 2022; Romano, 2022). Backlash against casting of actors of Color in these genres highlights racial projects where a cultural memory of whiteness comes up against multicultural change. The authors of this paper feel that there is great potential in using current-day racial issues around fantasy films/television to explore these racial projects with students in social studies classes (Omi and Winant, 2014).

Using a qualitative textual analysis (Peräkylä, 2005), the authors examined online news media outlets addressing the casting of actors of Color in the aforementioned media pieces. After reviewing over twenty articles, the authors determined two major themes that would serve as the findings.

In this paper, themes of nostalgia for an imagined ‘way things were’ and future-based fears of how things will become emerged from the analysis, revealing a need for engaging students in the history of sci-fi and fantasy media, and the existing, diverse histories of storytelling featuring multiple races.

The authors argue that examining racial projects found in contemporary sci-fi and fantasy casting are chances for students to understand complex racial histories and how they blend into current-day cultural landscapes, and are opportunities to practice analysis of real-life racial histories and richly-imagined fantasy worlds, noticing how and why the two often collide when it comes to race.

Firms are increasingly pressured to comply with mandatory supply chain transparency (SCT) regulations. Drawing on information processing theory (IPT), this study aims to show how blockchain technology can address information uncertainty and equivocality in assuring regulatory compliance in an interorganizational network (ION).

IPT is applied in a single case study of an ION in the mining industry that aimed to implement blockchain to address mandatory SCT regulations. The authors build on a rich proprietary data set consisting of interviews and substantial secondary material from actors along the supply chain.

The case shows that blockchain creates equality between actors, enables compliance and enhances efficiency in an ION, reducing information uncertainty and equivocality arising from conflict minerals regulation. The system promotes engagement and data sharing between parties while protecting commercial sensitive information. The lack of central authority prevents larger partners from taking control. The system provides mineral provenance and a regulation-compliant record. System cost analysis shows that the system is efficient as it is inexpensive relative to volumes and values of metals transacted. Issues were identified related to collecting richer human rights data for assurance and compliance with due diligence regulations.

The authors provide some of the first evidence in the operations and supply chain management literature of the specific architecture, costs and limitations of using blockchain for SCT. Using an IPT lens in an ION setting, the authors demonstrate how blockchain-based systems can address two key IPT challenges: environmental uncertainty and equivocality.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze Spain’s success in developing mass tourism between 1950 and 1965.

This analysis will be carried out from a marketing point of view using the paradigm of the four Ps: product, price, promotion and place, but focusing on the product since, as will be seen, the three other variables had a much lesser impact at that early stage. The product, in holiday tourism, is the destination, a combination in which the main protagonist is the hotel. The authors will analyse the main characteristics of the tourist accommodation on offer in Majorca and Ibiza in two ways: by studying the general statistics on the one hand, and on the other, through the detailed description of two hotel projects focused on the same tourist market but conceptually very different. In the first, a British design from 1956, we see the seed of what could have been and was not. Spain could have been filled with enclave-type tourist destinations with little connection to the local economic network. The second hotel design, on the other hand, shows us the ideal establishment for the exploitation of mass tourism in open destinations.

In Spain, mass tourism was explosively successful because the local business community was able to offer a very attractive product.

The authors use the architectural designs of two hotels as the central axis of the description of the Spanish tourism product.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the causal relationship between Lean practices and team performance. Specifically, the authors tried to demonstrate which practices act as enablers of continuous improvement and waste elimination and what is their impact on team performance.

A survey was carried out in a Higher Education Institution (HEI) in Southern Brazil. The authors obtained a sample of 785 respondents. The data analysis procedures involved confirmatory factor analysis and structural equations modeling.

The results of the research provided support for the positive influence of continuous improvement on waste elimination and of these two practices on team performance. In addition, empirical support was obtained for the effect of leadership support, employee involvement and internal process customers on continuous improvement.

Data collection was carried out online, so we were not able to maintain full control of the research respondents. This research generates relevant insights for decision-makers in the HEI environment, especially concerning Lean practices and team performance. The effects analyzed are even more relevant given the pandemic context.

This study shows how some higher education Lean practices can positively affect continuous improvement and better team performance. The results raise important insights for decision-makers to offer better higher education public services, especially given the context and changes imposed by the pandemic situation.

This paper initiates the discussion about enablers of continuous improvement and waste elimination in HEI and demonstrates their impact on team performance.

This paper explores intergenerational perceptions of kindness in the context of Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and the COVID-19 global pandemic. The purpose of this exploratory study is to investigate perceptions of kindness in the context of traumatic events and its potential value in authentic allyship in organizational environments.

Authors interviewed 65 individuals (31 self-identifying as non-racialized and 34 self-identifying as Black, Indigenous and People of Colour aka BIPOC). Participants included Generation Z (Gen Z; born between 1997–2012/5) and Generation Y (Gen Y; also referred to as Millennials, born between 1981 and 1994/6) across North American, Europe and Africa. Millennials currently represent the largest generation in the workplace and are taking on leadership roles, whereas Gen Z are emerging entrants into the workplace and new organizational actors.

The paper offers insights into how to talk about BLM in organizations, how to engage in authentic vs performative allyship and how to support BIPOC in the workplace. The study also reveals the durability of systemic racism in generations that may be otherwise considered more enlightened and progressive.

The authors expand on kindness literature and contribute theoretically and methodologically to critical race theory and intertextual analysis in race scholarship.

The study contributes to the understanding of how pro-social behaviours like kindness (with intention) can contribute to a more inclusive discourse on racism and authentic allyship.

Authors reveal the potential for kindness as a pro-social behaviour in organizational environments to inform authentic allyship praxis.

The aim of this research study is to mitigate shading impact on solar photovoltaic array. Photovoltaic (PV) array when getting shaded not only results in appreciable power loss but also exhibits multiple power peaks. Due to these multiple power peaks, the maximum power point tracking (MPPT) controllers’ performance will be affected, as most of the times it ends up in tracking the local maximum power peak and not the global power peak.

The PV panels in an PV array when getting shaded even partially would result in huge power loss. The pattern of shading also plays a crucial role, as it renders a cascaded impact on the overall power output because the cells/panels are connected in series and are parallel. Therefore, during shading, intelligent schemes are needed to appropriately connect and discard the unhealthy and healthy panels in right place with right combination. This research proposes one such scheme to mitigate the shading impact.

To mitigate the shading impact and also to have a smooth power-voltage (P-V) curve, a new series inducing switching scheme is introduced. The proposed scheme not only mitigates the shading impact and enhances the output power but also smoothens the P-V curve that facilitates the MPPTs to track the P-V appropriately.

The research findings are inventive in nature and not copied work. The reference works and the inspirations have been duly cited and credited.