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The past few decades has seen the proliferation of “family-friendly” policies incorporated into the workplace to promote the recruitment and retention of women for whom time to take care of families and elders has been primary. Despite the increase of women in high-level professions, many organizations have cultures that still do not support work-life integration. We propose a paradigmatic shift from family-friendly policy development and solutions focused on compliance transactions – to what we call “strategic organizational development and transformational change.” We take the argument one step further and suggest three powerful organization intervention strategies to build the culture's capacity to accomplish the business strategy, while weaving work-life integration into the DNA of the 24/7 culture.

This paper uses a representative sample of U.S. workers to examine how self-employment may reduce work-life conflict. We find that self-employment prevents work from interfering with life (WIL), especially among women, but it heightens the tendency for life to interfere with work (LIW). We show that self-employment is connected to WIL and LIW by different causal mechanisms. The self-employed experience less WIL because they have more autonomy and control over the duration and timing of work. Working at home is the most important reason the self-employed experience more LIW than wage and salary workers.

In 1995 China instituted a 40‐hour work week resulting in what is now called “long weekends.”The purposes of this research was to determine what Chinese children prefer to do during the new long weekend, and the extent of their influence on what the family does. The study was conducted among 618 third and fourth grade children who were asked to “Draw what comes to your mind when you think about the long weekend.” The children were also asked to take home a questionnaire to their parents. The drawings were assessed using content analysis. The drawings mainly show that children want to play, preferably away from home. The results of the questionnaire to the parents reveal that the children pretty much determine what the entire family does on the weekends, and that in general they will go places and do things that provide fun for the children. Some indicators of spending for family weekend leisure were obtained that have significant marketing implications.

The purposes of this paper are to provide a description of AI and to document and compare two applications of AI, one in program evaluation and another in an applied research study.

Focus groups, interviews and observations were used to gather rich qualitative data which was used to detail Appreciative Inquiry's value in evaluation and research.

AI aided the researcher in connecting with the participants and valuing what they shared. In both studies, the use of AI amassed information that answered the research questions, provided a rich description of the context and findings, and led to data saturation. The authors describe and compare experiences with two applications of AI: program evaluation and a research study. This paper contributes further understanding of the use of AI in public education institutions. The researchers also explore the efficacy of using AI in qualitative research and recommend its use for multiple purposes.

Limitations occurred in the AI-Design Stage by using a positive viewpoint and because both program and partnership studied were new with limited data to use for designing a better future. So, the authors recommend a revisit of both studies through the same 4D Model.

This manuscript shows that AI is useful for evaluation and research. It amplifies the participants' voices through favorite stories and successes. AI has many undiscovered uses.

Through the use of AI the authors can: improve theoretical perspectives; conduct research that yields more authentic data; enable participants to deeply reflect on their practice and feel empowered; and ultimately impact and improve the world.

AI is presented as an evaluation tool for a high-school program and as a research approach identifying strengths and perceptions of an educational partnership. In both studies, AI crumbled the walls that are often erected by interviewees when expecting to justify or defend decisions and actions. This paper contributes further understanding of the use of AI in public education institutions.

Employees today face a number of threats to their work and financial well-being (i.e., economic stress). In an aim to provide an agenda and theoretical framework for research on multilevel outcomes of economic stress, the current chapter considers how employees’ economic stress gives rise to emergent outcomes and how these emergent outcomes feed back to influence well-being. Specifically, we draw from Conservation of Resources theory to integrate competing theoretical perspectives with regard to employees’ behavioral responses to economic stress. As employees’ behaviors influence those with whom they interact, we propose that behavioral responses to economic stress have implications for group-level well-being (e.g., interpersonal climate, cohesion) and group-level economic stress. In turn, group-level and individual-level behavioral outcomes influence well-being and economic stress in a multilevel resource loss cycle. We discuss potential opportunities and challenges associated with testing this model as well as how it could be used to examine higher-level emergent effects (e.g., at the organizational level).

A novel cost-effective bio-digester was explored to convert biological waste into useful clean energy. The bioreactor was aimed to anaerobically digest locally sourced cow dung and chicken droppings.

The design consideration is a batch horizontal 267 L digester made from cast iron with centrally positioned four-impeller shaft to enhance mixing. The system operated with a retention time of 63 days and a substrate (cow dung and poultry waste) ratio of 1:2 and water substrate ratio of 1:0.5 in the gasholder system. The purification, compression and performance evaluation of the generated biogas were also conducted.

The total volume of gas produced for each substrate compositions designed over 14 days ranges between 49.34 and 52.91 mL/day. The optimal value of 52.45 ml using cow dung and poultry waste (w/w) 20:80 was obtained. The average ambient temperatures during the study were within the mesophilic range of 20-40°C. The pH values were stable and always in the optimal range of 6.5-8.0. The reductions in moisture content, ash content, total solids and volatile solids were from 80.50-0.20 per cent, 39.60-14 per cent, 18.50-5.90 per cent and 11.60-4.90 per cent, respectively.

The developed digester is cost-effective and would help minimize solid waste disposal. The estimated methane contents of the gas from cow dung and chicken waste after scrubbing were found to be 71.95 per cent and could be harnessed in solving the energy crisis in the developing nations.

The aim of this paper is to examine the academic performances of first-year accounting students using a discussion board.

The paper develops a model to determine the impact of discussion board usage on overall student performance. A number of variables are controlled for including academic aptitude, previous accounting experience, gender and student background. Included in the model are diagnostic information indicators of student use of the discussion board, obtained from the Web-based learning environment tracking reports.

The multiple regression analysis shows a positive benefit in terms of greater marks for students who post on the discussion board compared to those who do not post, even after controlling for academic ability.

The improved knowledge construction gained by actively using discussion boards may be used by teaching staff to promote greater student acceptance and voluntary participation in discussion boards resulting in more interaction and possibly higher academic achievement.

While technology and WBLEs have been well accepted in accounting education, and are widely used (Watson et al., 2007), the introduction of discussion boards has resulted in a dearth of research on their use and effectiveness. In-depth accounting educational literature reviews (Apostolou et al., 2013, 2010; Watson et al., 2007; Watson et al., 2003; Rebele et al., 1998) have reported very few studies on discussion boards over three decades.