Search results

The purpose of this viewpoint paper is to explore middle leaders' ability to recognise emotions in the context of workplace research, and to propose measures that might support them in their role.

This paper combines a contemporary literature review with reflections from practice to develop more nuanced understandings of middle leadership. This paper applied the Geneva Emotional Recognition Test (GERT) to explore the level of emotional recognition of 86 individuals (teachers to headteachers (equivalent to school principals)).

The preliminary findings suggest that teachers and headteachers have higher levels of emotional recognition than middle and senior leaders. This paper subsequently argues that the task-orientated nature middle leadership compounds an individual's ability to engage effectively in relationship-orientated tasks. This explains why middle leaders scored lower on the GERT assessment. This is further inhibited by the anti-correlation in the brain's ability to deal with the task-positive network (TDM) and default mode network (DMN) processing functions where individuals operate in one neural mode for long periods.

The viewpoint paper proposes a number of implications for middle leaders and suggests that middle leaders should proactively seek out opportunities to be engaged in activities that support the DMN function of the brain and subsequently the relationship-orientated aspects of leadership, for example, coaching other staff members. However, it has to be recognised that the sample size is small and further work is needed before any generalisations can be made.

This paper offers a contemporary review of the role of middle leaders underpinned by a preliminary study into individuals' ability to recognise emotions.

The “what is beautiful is good” (WIBIG) effect implies that observers tend to perceive physically attractive people in a positive light. The authors investigate how the WIBIG effect applies to user personas, measuring designers' perceptions and task performance when employing user personas for the design of information technology (IT) solutions.

In a user experiment, the authors tested six different personas with 235 participants that were asked to develop remote work solutions based on their interaction with a fictitious user persona.

The findings showed that a user persona's perceived attractiveness was positively correlated with other perceptions of the persona. The personas' completeness, credibility, empathy, likability and usefulness increased with attractiveness. More attractive personas were also perceived as more agreeable, emotionally stable, extraverted and open, and the participants spent more time engaging with personas they perceived attractive. A linguistic analysis indicated that the IT solutions created for more attractive user personas demonstrated a higher degree of affect, but for the most part, task outputs did not vary by the personas' perceived attractiveness.

The WIBIG effect applies when designing IT solutions with user personas, but its effect on task outputs appears limited. The perceived attractiveness of a user persona can impact how designers interact with and engage with the persona, which can influence the quality or the type of the IT solutions created based on the persona. Also, the findings point to the need to incorporate hedonic qualities into the persona creation process. For example, there may be contexts where it is helpful that the personas be attractive; there may be contexts where the attractiveness of the personas is unimportant or even a distraction.

The findings point to the need to incorporate hedonic qualities into the persona creation process. For example, there may be contexts where it is helpful that the personas be attractive; there may be contexts where the attractiveness of the personas is unimportant or even a distraction.

Because personas are created to closely resemble real people, the authors might expect the WIBIG effect to apply. The WIBIG effect might lead decision makers to favor more attractive personas when designing IT solutions. However, despite its potential relevance for decision making with personas, as far as the authors know, no prior study has investigated whether the WIBIG effect extends to the context of personas. Overall, it is important to understand how human factors apply to IT system design with personas, so that the personas can be created to minimize potentially detrimental effects as much as possible.

Understanding consumer brand relationships from the perspective of the consumer has been a research topic for years. Despite this, there are still various ways in which the construct is interpreted. This paper aims to identify the most typical interpretation of brand relationships by consumers.

A four-study prototype analysis was conducted, in which a bottom-up approach was applied to identify lay people’s conceptualization of consumer brand relationships.

The prototype analysis generates a comprehensive list of features of consumer brand relationships that provide a nuanced understanding of the concept. The most typical characteristics of a brand relationship according to consumers are quality, bond, value and joy. Comparing this relationship prototype with existing literature shows that there may be a gap between theory and practice regarding the concept of brand relationship.

The prototypical conceptualization of brand relationships shows which aspects play a role in consumers' most common interpretation of the construct. This provides an opportunity to assess the validity of existing conceptualizations of brand relationships. Knowing which aspects are most relevant for consumers’ brand relationships allows brands to make adjustments as needed and improve at establishing and maintaining relationships with consumers.

In the context of Portugal, this study examines the stereotypes of accountants held by laypeople and how they are influenced by financial crises and accounting scandals.

To better understand the social images of accountants, the authors adopt a structural approach based on the big five model (BFM) of personality. The authors test this approach on a Portuguese community sample (N = 727) using a questionnaire survey. The results are analyzed considering the socioanalytic theory.

The results suggest the existence of a stereotype dominated by features of conscientiousness, which is related to the superior performance of work tasks across job types. This feature comprises the core characteristics of the traditional accountant stereotype, which survives in a context challenged by financial scandals and crises. The findings highlight the social acceptance of accountants as an occupational group but do not suggest the possibility of accountants benefiting from the highest levels of social status when considered in relation to the traditional accountant stereotype.

By combining the BFM and the socioanalytic theory, this study provides a unique theoretical approach to better understand the social images of accountants. The findings demonstrate the suitability of using the BFM to study the social perceptions of accountants. They also indicate a paradox based on the survival of the traditional stereotype. This stereotype appears to be resistant to scandals and financial crisis, instead of being impaired, giving rise to another prototype with concerns about integrity.

This paper aims to investigate the relationships between business slack resources and environmental performance and considers the possible effects that management commitment, corporate strategy to sustainability and innovation intensity can have on such interactions.

We performed partial least squares path modeling regressions on a sample of 697 non-financial listed companies worldwide, considering a time frame of 13 years.

Operational and financial slack resources are both detrimental to environmental performance in the short term. Nevertheless, financial slack resources are useful to boost innovation that enhances environmental performance. Environmental performance improvement seems to be more a matter of managerial commitment and strategic approach towards sustainability, rather than the availability of slack resources.

Due to literature shortcomings on which effects slack resources can have on environmental performance, this paper sheds some light on the topic while also highlighting the role of management commitment, corporate sustainability strategy and innovation.

Managers should use financial slack resources in innovation activities to improve environmental performance. In doing so, they need to create retaining earnings to offset any costs using financial slack resources.

Adopting a holistic and net of endogeneity analytical perspective, this paper highlights some virtuous and critical interactions between the managerial commitment and strategic approach to sustainability, the availability of slack resources, innovation intensity and environmental performance to understand which aspects may foster or hinder the ecological transition of businesses.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the effect of real credit ratings change on capital structure decisions.

The study uses three models to examine the impact of credit rating on capital structure decisions within the framework of credit rating-capital structure hypotheses (broad rating, notch rating and investment or speculative grade). These hypotheses are tested by multiple linear regression models.

The results demonstrate that firms issue less net debt relative to equity post a change in the broad credit ratings level (e.g. a change from A- to BBB+). The findings also show that firms are less concerned by notch ratings change as long the firms remain the same broad credit rating level. Moreover, the paper indicates that firms issue less net debt relative to equity after an upgrade to investment grade.

The study covers the periods of 2009 to 2016; therefore, the research result may be affected by the period specific events such as the European debt crisis. Moreover, studying listed non-financial firms only in the Tadawul Stock Exchange has resulted in small sample which may not be adequate enough to reach concrete generalization. Despite the close proximity between the GCC countries, there could be jurisdictional difference due to country specific regulations, policies or financial development. Therefore, it will be interesting to conduct a cross country study on the GCC to see if the conclusions can be generalized to the region.

The paper contributes to the literature by testing previous researches on new context (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, KSA) which lack sophisticated comparable studies to the one conducted on other regions of the world. The results highlight the importance of credit ratings for the decision makers who are required to make essential decisions in areas such as financing, structuring or operating firms and regulating markets. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study of its kind that has been applied on the GCC region.

This paper aims to assess to what extent South American countries have integrated recommendations of the international agenda to address human mobility in the context of disasters and climate change in their national laws and policies.

This research sought to find the level of discussions around human mobility in disaster laws, NDCs and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) by looking for a range of search terms connected to human mobility in the context of disasters and climate change, followed by the content analysis of these terms.

Some advances with regards to human mobility are already confirmed in the domestic level of South American countries through humanitarian visas to disaster displaced persons and the inclusion of the topic in the DRR, climate change laws, NAPs and INDCs/NDCs. But they have not developed specific strategies with regards to it. Hence, their advances still require that national norms and policies are harmonized with the international guidelines. This will enable to fill the protection gap of people in context of disasters and climate change.

The results assess the level of harmonization above-mentioned between international instruments with national policies on human mobility in the context of disasters and climate change in South America.

Health promotion strategies often attempt to change people’s behavior through targeting their risk perceptions. These perceptions may, however, be moderated by other factors. This study therefore aimed at investigating the trustworthiness and consistency of risk information, as well as respondent perceptions of the adequacy of amount received among a representative sample of former smokers, and how this information is related to gender, age, education level and whether using nicotine or not.

The respondents are part of a seven-year follow-up of former smokers in Sweden. Initially, 1400 respondents were contacted, whereof 705 (response rate 50%) answered a Web-survey. The majority (85 %) was still nicotine-free but some made use of nicotine in different forms. The data analysis includes descriptive statistics and logistic regressions.

Most respondents trusted risk information whether offered by the public authorities or came from other sources such as media, and generally perceived that there was an adequate amount. However, there were some differences between the products, where quite a few distrusted information on Nicotine Replacement Therapies (NRTs) and some perceived the information on snus and NRTs as contradictory and too little.

Knowledge about how former smokers perceive information regarding negative aspects of cigarette use may facilitate more effective risk communication with current smokers, and it may also be important for communicating information about other nicotine products to those who are trying to or who already have quit smoking.

The purpose of this research work is to examine the financial effect of supply chain disruptions (SCDs) caused by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and how the magnitude of such effects depends on event time and space that may moderate the signaling environment for shareholder behaviors during the pandemic.

This study analyses a sample of 206 SCD events attributed to COVID-19 made by 145 publicly traded firms headquartered in 21 countries for a period between 2020 and 2021. Change in shareholder value is estimated by employing a multi-country event study, followed by estimating the differential effect of SCDs due to the pandemic by event time and space.

On average, SCDs due to pandemic decrease shareholder value by −2.16%, which is similar to that of pre-pandemic SCDs (88 events for 2018–2019). This negative market reaction remains unchanged regardless of whether stringency measures of the firm's country become more severe. Supply-side disruptions like shutdowns result in a more negative stock market reaction than demand-side disruptions like price hikes. To shareholder value, firm's upstream or downstream position does not matter, but supply chain complexity serves as a positive signal.

This study provides the first empirical evidence on the financial impact of SCDs induced by COVID-19. Combining with signaling theory and event system theory, this study provides a new boundary condition that explains the impact mechanism of SCDs caused by the pandemic.