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1 – 10 of 20Maud van Merriënboer, Michiel Verver and Miruna Radu-Lefebvre
Drawing on an intersectional perspective on racial, migrant and entrepreneurial identities, this paper investigates the identity work of racial minority entrepreneurs with…
Abstract
Purpose
Drawing on an intersectional perspective on racial, migrant and entrepreneurial identities, this paper investigates the identity work of racial minority entrepreneurs with native-born and migrant backgrounds, confronted to experiences of othering in a White entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Design/methodology/approach
The study takes a qualitative-interpretivist approach and builds on six cases of racial minority entrepreneurs in nascent stages of venture development within the Dutch technology sector. The dataset comprises 24 in-depth interviews conducted over the course of one and a half year, extensive case descriptions and online sources. The data is thematically and inductively analysed.
Findings
Despite strongly self-identifying as entrepreneurs, the research participants feel marginalised and excluded from the entrepreneurial ecosystem, which results in ongoing threats to their existential authenticity as they build a legitimate entrepreneurial identity. Minority entrepreneurs navigate these threats by either downplaying or embracing their marginalised racial and/or migrant identities.
Originality/value
The study contributes to the literature on the identity work of minority entrepreneurs. The paper reveals that, rather than “strategising away” the discrimination and exclusion resulting from othering, racial minority entrepreneurs seek to preserve their sense of existential authenticity and self-worth, irrespective of entrepreneurial outcomes. In so doing, the study challenges the dominant perspective of entrepreneurial identity work among minority entrepreneurs as overly instrumental and market-driven. Moreover, the study also contributes to the literature on authenticity in entrepreneurship by highlighting how racial minority entrepreneurs navigate authenticity threats while building legitimacy in a White ecosystem.
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The purpose of this study was to examine consumer data acquired by branded prescription drug websites and the ethics of privacy related to the interconnected web of personal…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to examine consumer data acquired by branded prescription drug websites and the ethics of privacy related to the interconnected web of personal information accessed, packaged and resold by tracker technologies.
Design/methodology/approach
The research used the DMI Tracker Tool to collect data on the top 17 branded prescription drug websites, with a specific interest in the tracker technologies embedded in those websites. That data was analyzed using Gephi, an open-source data visualization tool, to map the network of trackers embedded in those branded prescription drug websites.
Findings
Findings visualize the interconnections between tracker technologies and prescription drug websites that undergird a system of personal data acquisition and programmatic advertising vehicles that serve the interests of prescription drug marketers and Big Tech. Based on the theory of platform ethics, the study demonstrated the presence of a technostructural ecosystem dominated by Big Tech, a system that goes unseen by consumers and serves the interests of advertisers and resellers of consumer data.
Research limitations/implications
The 17 websites used in this study were limited to the top-selling prescription drugs or those with the highest ad expenditures. As such this study is not based on a random sampling of branded prescription drug websites. The popularity of these prescription drugs or the expanse of advertising associated with the drugs makes them appropriate to study the presence of tracking devices that collect data from consumers and serve advertising to them. It is also noted that websites are dynamic spaces, and some trackers within their infrastructures are apt to change over time.
Practical implications
Branded prescription drug information has over the past three decades become part of consumers’ routine search for information regarding what ails them. As drug promotion moved from print to TV and the Web, searching for drug information has become a part of everyday life. The implications of embedded trackers on branded prescription drug websites are the subject of this research.
Social implications
This study has significant social implications as consumers who are searching for information regarding prescription medications may not want drug companies tracking them in a way that many perceive to be an invasion of privacy. Yet, as the Web is dominated by Big Tech, web developers have little choice but to remain a part of this technostructural ecosystem.
Originality/value
This study sheds light on branded prescription drug websites, exploring the imbalance between the websites under study, Big Tech and consumers who lack awareness of the system that operates backstage.
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Kate Hutchings, Katrina Radford, Nancy Spencer, Neil Harris, Sara McMillan, Maddy Slattery, Amanda Wheeler and Elisha Roche
This paper aims to explore challenges and opportunities associated with young carers' employment in Australia.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore challenges and opportunities associated with young carers' employment in Australia.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a multi-stakeholder approach, this study captures the reflections of stakeholders (n = 8) and young carers (n = 10) about opportunities for, and experiences of, paid employment for young carers.
Findings
Despite many organisations internationally increasingly pushing diversity agendas and suggesting a commitment to equal opportunity experiences, this study found that young carers' work opportunities are often disrupted by their caring role. For young carers to be successful in their careers, organisations need to provide further workplace flexibility, and other support is required to attract and retain young carers into organisations and harness their transferrable skills for meaningful careers.
Practical implications
The paper highlights important implications for human resource management practitioners given the need to maximise the participation of young carers as workers, with benefits for young carers themselves, employers and society.
Originality/value
The research adds to the human resource management and work–family conflict literature in examining young carers through drawing on Conservation of Resources theory to highlight resources invested in caring leads to loss of educational and work experience resources. This leads to loss cycles and spirals, which can potentially continue across a lifetime, further contributing to disadvantage and lack of workplace and societal inclusion for this group of young people.
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Elina Erzikova and Diana Martinelli
The purpose of this paper is to examine US public relations professionals' perceptions of the benefits and challenges associated with the concept of moral entrepreneurship…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine US public relations professionals' perceptions of the benefits and challenges associated with the concept of moral entrepreneurship, defined as the purposeful process of changing or creating new institutionalized ethical norms. This study argues that the concept of moral entrepreneurship provides organizations with a potentially valuable framework to actively recognize societal pressures and problems and act accordingly to better the environment in which the organization resides and operates.
Design/methodology/approach
This exploratory study uses purposive in-depth interviews with 25 diverse public relations professionals, who represented communication firms, in-house public relations departments, higher education, nonprofits and government.
Findings
Respondents assigned a high value to the concept of moral entrepreneurship: In addition to its being viewed as the right thing to do, they recognized its practice as a way to help organizations recruit and retain employee talent and improve stakeholder trust. However, based on the interviews, organizational leadership is the primary initiator of ethical changes; therefore, without a seat at the management table, practitioners lack the influence to initiate such new organizational directions and take on the role of moral entrepreneurs only when directed to do so by their superiors. Barriers to adopting a moral entrepreneurship approach included a limited budget and shortage of staff, employees' resistance to change, fear of failure, poor leadership and a politically polarized workplace.
Practical implications
Practice implications include considerations for furthering moral entrepreneurship in organizations.
Originality/value
This study is the first to explore the applicability of the concept of moral entrepreneurship in public relations. The paper underscores the need for further discussion around novel approaches to ethics in public relations that go beyond simple compliance with professional codes and industry standards and that help organizations lead societal change.
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This paper aims to provide a historical overview of AA, its purpose and benefits, the legal rationale for the SCOTUS ruling and what it means for colleges and the workplace…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to provide a historical overview of AA, its purpose and benefits, the legal rationale for the SCOTUS ruling and what it means for colleges and the workplace regarding equitable opportunities for minority groups (which include women, Blacks, Hispanics, Asians and other low-income populations), as they aim for the “American dream”.
Design/methodology/approach
SCOTUS decision and rationale, along with literature.
Findings
The race-based affirmative action (AA) precedent was recently overturned by the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) in the case of Students for Fair Admission (SFFA), Inc. vs President and Fellows of Harvard College/University of North Carolina. SCOTUS ruled that race cannot be a specific basis for college admission. In other words, public and private colleges and universities will no longer be able to consider “race” as a factor in deciding which qualified applicants should be admitted to enhance the diversity of their student body.
Originality/value
This is an original analysis.
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Steven D. Silver and Marko Raseta
The intention of the empirics is to contribute to the general understanding of investor responses to market price shocks. The authors review assumptions about investor behavior in…
Abstract
Purpose
The intention of the empirics is to contribute to the general understanding of investor responses to market price shocks. The authors review assumptions about investor behavior in response to price shocks and investigate alternative rebalancing heuristics.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use market data over 40 years to define market shocks. Portfolio rebalancing implements constrained Markowitz mean-variance (MV) heuristics.
Findings
Momentum rebalancing in portfolio management outperforms contrarian rebalancing in the study interval. Sensitivity analysis by decade, sector constraints and proportion of security holdings bought or sold continue to support momentum rebalancing.
Research limitations/implications
The results are consistent with under-responding to price shocks at consensus levels in financial markets. The theoretical background provides a basis for experimental lab studies of shocks of different magnitudes under conditions in which participants have information on the levels of other participants and a condition in which they can only observe their previous estimates.
Practical implications
Managing portfolios in the face of price disturbances of different magnitudes is informed by empirical studies and their implications for investor behavior.
Originality/value
This is the first study the authors can locate that uses market data with alternative rebalancing heuristics to estimate price returns from the respective heuristics over a time interval of 40 years. The authors support the results with sensitivity estimates and consider implications for the underlying agent heuristics in light of background studies.
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The modern corporation is evaluated by many measures that go beyond profit, which was the emphasis for years previously. Today’s corporation is weighed against expectations of…
Abstract
Purpose
The modern corporation is evaluated by many measures that go beyond profit, which was the emphasis for years previously. Today’s corporation is weighed against expectations of many stakeholders, including not just customers but employees, investors, the government and even the public at large with no discernible financial or other tie to a company. As such, corporate boards necessarily must be concerned with more than financial performance, including corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the increasing emphasis on environmental, social and governance (ESG) metrics. Given that public relations scholars and practitioners have long been concerned with stakeholder relationships, social responsibility and other non-financial indicators, it would make sense that public relations has a more obvious presence on corporate boards.
Design/methodology/approach
This study examined the 25 companies in the Fortune Modern Board 25 to determine how many board members had a background or expertise in public relations that would contribute to the leadership necessary for the concerns of the modern corporation, and whether the boards had a committee designated to public relations or related functions.
Findings
Results show that there are few corporate boards that have public relations represented prominently in either their members or committees. The same is true for executive leadership teams. Public relations or communications executives do appear to play some role in ESG, CSR and DEI reporting, but often there are staff members with those specific titles and roles.
Research limitations/implications
The study was limited to 25 corporations on a Forbes list that ranked them as best in communicating ESG, CSR and DEI. The method examined publicly available literature which was revealing to the research questions, but more could be learned by interview or survey with CCOs.
Practical implications
The study shows the current presence of public relations capacity in terms of members of corporate boards, corporate committees and among the C-suite is not significant. Also, rather than PR as a function owning modern concerns of DEI, ESG and CSR, there are professionals with specific expertise in those areas who are responsible for those corporate issues.
Social implications
Corporate social responsibility (CSR), ESG (environmental, social, governance) and DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) have recently been stressed as important for corporations to measure and report. The role of the public relations profession in managing and/or communicating in these areas is important to consider in terms of public expectations and satisfaction of communication on these subjects.
Originality/value
This paper is unique in integrating public relations theory and practice with board theory and the current management concerns with ESG, CSR and DEI. Little if any previous research has considered which professions are in charge of communicating on these concerns.
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Vince Szekely, Lilith A. Whiley, Halley Pontes and Almuth McDowall
Despite the interest in leaders' identity work as a framework for leadership development, coaching psychology has yet to expose its active ingredients and outcomes.
Abstract
Purpose
Despite the interest in leaders' identity work as a framework for leadership development, coaching psychology has yet to expose its active ingredients and outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach
To do so, the authors reconcile published systematic literature reviews (SLRs) in the field to arrive at a more thorough understanding of the role of identity work in coaching. A total of 60 eligible SLRs on identity work and coaching were identified between 2010 and 2022. Four were included in the data extraction after selecting and screening, and the full texts of 196 primary studies reported therein were analysed.
Findings
Amongst the coachee-related factors of effective coaching, the coachee’s motivation, general self-efficacy beliefs, personality traits and goal orientation were the most frequently reported active ingredients, and performance improvement, self-awareness and goal specificity were the most frequently supported outcomes. The analysis indicates that leaders' identity work, as an active ingredient, can be a moderator variable for transformative coaching interventions, while strengthening leadership role identity could be one of the lasting outcomes because coaching interventions facilitate, deconstruct and enhance leaders' identity work. Further research is needed to explore the characteristics of these individual, relational and collective processes.
Originality/value
This study adds value by synthesising SLRs that report coachee-related active ingredients and outcomes of executive coaching research. It demonstrates that the role of leaders' identity work is a neglected factor affecting coaching results and encourages coaching psychologists to apply identity framework in their executive coaching practice.
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Yongchao Martin Ma, Xin Dai and Zhongzhun Deng
The purpose of this study is to investigate consumers' emotional responses to artificial intelligence (AI) defeating people. Meanwhile, the authors investigate the negative…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate consumers' emotional responses to artificial intelligence (AI) defeating people. Meanwhile, the authors investigate the negative spillover effect of AI defeating people on consumers' attitudes toward AI companies. The authors also try to alleviate this spillover effect.
Design/methodology/approach
Using four studies to test the hypotheses. In Study 1, the authors use the fine-tuned Bidirectional Encoder Representations from the Transformers algorithm to run a sentiment analysis to investigate how AI defeating people influences consumers' emotions. In Studies 2 to 4, the authors test the effect of AI defeating people on consumers' attitudes, the mediating effect of negative emotions and the moderating effect of different intentions.
Findings
The authors find that AI defeating people increases consumers' negative emotions. In terms of downstream consequences, AI defeating people induces a spillover effect on consumers' unfavorable attitudes toward AI companies. Emphasizing the intention of helping people can effectively mitigate this negative spillover effect.
Practical implications
The authors' findings remind governments, policymakers and AI companies to pay attention to the negative effect of AI defeating people and take reasonable steps to alleviate this negative effect. The authors help consumers rationally understand this phenomenon and correctly control and reduce unnecessary negative emotions in the AI era.
Originality/value
This paper is the first study to examine the adverse effects of AI defeating humans. The authors contribute to research on the dark side of AI, the outcomes of competition matches and the method to analyze emotions in user-generated content (UGC).
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Seyedeh Khadijeh Taghizadeh, Syed Abidur Rahman, Davoud Nikbin, Malgorzata Radomska and Shaghayegh Maleki Far
This study aims to investigate how dynamic capabilities, i.e. sensing, learning, integrating and coordinating trigger sustainable innovation performance. It also examines the…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate how dynamic capabilities, i.e. sensing, learning, integrating and coordinating trigger sustainable innovation performance. It also examines the direct and moderating role of environmental turbulence towards the sustainable innovation performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Design/methodology/approach
The data were collected through a cross-sectional survey of 169 SMEs in Oman and analysed through structural equation modelling using SmartPLS software.
Findings
Findings of this study reveal that the sustainable innovation performance of SMEs is greatly influenced by the synergy of learning, integrating and coordinating capabilities. Notably, among these capabilities, coordinating capability emerges as the most important capability for SMEs with a primary emphasis on fostering both human and organizational well-being. However, this research reveals that building dynamic capabilities alone might not be sufficient to address social, ecological and economic sustainability criteria, and SMEs may need to extend their view beyond internal processes and integrate various environmental contingencies into their approaches while focusing on sustainable innovation performance.
Practical implications
This research is useful for business managers while allocating resources in their business efficiently and effectively to achieve sustainable innovation performance. It also highlights that SMEs need to integrate various environmental contingencies into their approaches while focusing on sustainable innovation performance.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first to contribute to SME scholarship by mainly investigating the effect of specific four types of dynamic capabilities on sustainable innovation performance in a turbulent environment. This study is likely to contribute to the SMEs addressing sustainability innovation performance and develop capabilities to be sustainable in a turbulent environment.
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