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This paper aims to clarify the need for Chief Knowledge Officers (CKOs) and explain how some recent views on competencies for educational guidelines, a Knowledge Management (KM) competency model and expansion of practice management concepts make the need for CKOs clearer.

This viewpoint was developed in response to recent publications disparaging the idea of a CKO. The method used was to extract ideas from published and in-work papers to establish the basis for and explain the postulated Unified Competency Theory of KM and its implications regarding the need for CKOs.

CKOs are needed to ensure that all organizationally relevant functions’ knowledge and KM assessments and/or audits are individually complete and collectively sufficient. A risk/opportunity management role also provides justification.

This paper mainly limits its discussion to the papers that comprise research leading to the Unified Competency Theory of KM, its implications and an updated practice management model. Other points of view that might substantiate or refute the conclusions have not been addressed.

The KM field needs to better identify KM’s risk and opportunity management role and functional imperative. Organizations may need to reevaluate their directions with regards to KM and a CKO.

It extends the concept of practice management to permit differentiating disciplines. It provides new rationale for CKOs.

Fundamental “purposes” of Australian police organizations are examined, not with a view to solving the complex and ongoing question of an accountable police mandate, but to consider the difficulty of its reconciliation with the new managerialism sweeping numerous public organizations in Australia – police organizations included. Briefly explores the purposes of policing and a problematic police culture as a lead in to a discussion on the possibly deleterious effects of new managerialism and its associated management faddism. Problems associated with the theory of managerialism, which police managers may not be aware of, are explored: managerialism and economic rationalism; management fads and tool tropism; managerialism as a thinly veiled control agenda; and the potential human costs to police officers arising from managerialist approaches. Suggestions are made for ways forward for police organizations which include a recognition of the down‐side of managerialism and a suggested shift away from a belief in a purely rationalistic organization to one which recognizes and accommodates an actor’s “voice” as a legitimate input to growth, learning and institutional development.

Faith‐based activism in living wage campaigns is on the rise. Summarizes recent campaigns to enact living wage ordinances in US municipalities, underscoring the role of community‐church partnerships such as Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice, and other local organizations in the struggle for wage justice. Explores the theological bases of this activism by tracing the evolution of the concept of a just, living wage in Christian social economic thought. To illustrate the historical and philosophical roots of living wage discourse, provides textual analysis of major Roman Catholic and Episcopal Church documents and briefly considers writings by US social economists in the first half of the twentieth century.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate prevailing capital budgeting practices in Sri Lankan listed companies.

A comprehensive primary survey was conducted of 32 out of 46 chief financial officers (CFOs) of manufacturing and trading companies listed on the Colombo Stock Exchange in Sri Lanka. Garnered data were then analyzed using appropriate statistical techniques.

The results revealed that net present value (NPV) was the most preferred capital budgeting method, followed closely by payback (PB) and internal rate of return (IRR). Similarly, sensitivity analysis was regarded as the dominant capital budgeting tool for incorporating risk and the widely used method for calculating cost of capital was the weighted average cost of capital. Moreover, results revealed that size of the capital budget affects the use of the capital budgeting methods (NPV, IRR and PB) and incorporating risk tool (sensitivity analysis and simulation). Further, results revealed that CFOs had higher educational qualification were preferred to use sophisticated capital budgeting practices dominantly NPV, IRR and incorporating risk tool of sensitivity analysis although they were found to be reluctant in use of accounting rate of return. In a similar vein CFOs with higher experience were preferred using IRR and sensitivity analysis.

This study contributed to academics, practitioners, policy makers and stakeholders of the company. Moreover, this research has proffered a more reliable and comprehensive analysis of capital budgeting practices in Sri Lankan listed manufacturing and trading firms. Since Sri Lanka is an unexplored country on capital budgeting practices, this research was originally contributed to the extant literature per se.

The purpose of this study is to deepen the understanding of individuals’ flood disaster mitigation behaviour through the theoretical lens of self-determination theory (SDT). Specifically, the paper examines the influence of autonomy, competence and relatedness on individuals’ self-determined motivation for flood disaster mitigation. The study also examines whether self-determined motivation influences individuals’ flood disaster mitigation behaviour adoption.

Through a cross-sectional survey design, the study used a quantitative research approach for data collection and analyses. Specifically, data was analysed using the structural equation modelling technique.

The result of this study revealed that competence was the strongest predictor of self-determined motivation, followed by autonomy. The result further shows that self-determined motivation positively influences individual’s adoption of flood mitigation behaviour. However, the results showed that relatedness does not predict self-determined motivation for flood disaster mitigation.

To enhance the effectiveness of flood disaster mitigation social marketing campaigns, the SDT psychological needs constructs (particularly, competence and autonomy) can aid in assessing the motivation of the target population towards adopting mitigation behaviours. An assessment of motivation will help understand perception of flood risk and behavioural evaluation. The consideration of autonomy and competence on motivation will aid in developing effective campaigns to satisfy the needs of the target population.

The paper adds to the limited research that used SDT to understand a social marketing phenomenon.

The aim of the paper is to argue that principal preparation programs should help candidates: recognize the political role of the school principal; develop political skills (including the ability to strategically appropriate policy); and understand that the political approach of the principal influences teaching, learning, relationships, governance, and reform efforts. In addition, the paper reports findings of the analysis of Ontario's Principal Qualification Program guidelines to determine if they require principal preparation programs to develop aspiring school leaders’ political skills.

The paper reviews theoretical arguments and empirical studies from the fields of school micropolitics, business, educational leadership, and critical policy studies to establish five political skills principals require. The authors then conducted a content analysis of Ontario's Principal Qualification Program guidelines to determine if they require principal preparation programs to develop aspiring leaders’ political skills.

Ontario's Principal Qualification Program guidelines do not explicitly direct principal preparation programs to help candidates develop political skills. However, the guidelines recognize that principals pursue political goals and work in political environments, and they offer opportunities for appropriating the guidelines in ways that promote the development of principal candidates’ political skills.

The paper is the first to analyze Ontario's Principal Qualification Program guidelines to determine if they require principal preparation programs to develop aspiring leaders’ political skills. It also identifies policy appropriation as a political skill that should be developed in principal preparation programs and provides a model of how principal preparation policies themselves may be appropriated to support a focus on developing aspiring principals’ political skills.

Australia's early adoption of international financial reporting standards (IFRS) in 2005 was influenced by the argument that the quality of financial reporting would be improved as a result. The purpose of this paper is to provide an historical review of quality in relation to financial reporting in Australia by investigating how the qualitative characteristics of relevance, reliability, comparability and understandability developed in Australia between 1961 and 2004.

This paper reviews the relevant academic and professional literature during the period as well as reporting on a survey of academics and others who contributed to debates about the characteristics of accounting.

In Australia the notion of “quality” can be captured by relevance, reliability, comparability and understandability although the names and descriptions of these elements have been debated over a 40‐year period. The paper contends that the exact meanings of those elements in relation to financial reporting remain unresolved, in spite of their adoption by the AASB Framework (2004) as the qualitative characteristics of accounting information.

Future research into the qualitative characteristics in Australia, which include questions such as the extent to which certain reporting practices or standards meet the requirements of one or more of the qualitative characteristics could be based on the historical development of these characteristics, as described in this paper. This paper also identifies critical areas that require further dialogue between researchers, standard setters and users of general purpose financial statements.

This paper describes links between a comprehensive list of attributes of accounting information that have been considered important over the past 40 years, and the four qualitative characteristics adopted by the AASB Framework. It also provides a history of contemporary accounting dilemmas, and reveals a lack of resolution to issues associated with each of the qualitative characteristics.

The purpose of this article is to employ Self-Determination Theory to explain the mediated impact of work design – empowerment and serial and investiture socialization – on employee work affect. The theory proposes fulfilment of three psychological needs – autonomy, competence, and relatedness – will mediate individuals' ability to achieve contextually relevant well-being. An empirical study tests this claim and exposes the structure of the mediating effects.

Survey responses were collected from a sample of 239 front-line service employees using snowball data collection. SEM was used to test hypotheses.

Findings suggest that empowerment and serial and investiture socialization are significantly differentially related to need fulfilment. Additionally, all forms of need fulfilment do not directly influence employee affect. Instead, there are both direct and interactive effects that work simultaneously to influence employees' positive work affect.

This study exposes specific work design levers managers can manipulate to benefit employees. This research highlights the different effects of specific work design variables on employee work affect.

This paper extends understanding of Self-Determination Theory by exposing the direct and interactive effects of need fulfilment on work affect for service workers. Also, it delivers a deeper exploration of the impact of work design on employees by modelling multiple work design variables as well as process variables simultaneously to provide a more detailed picture of how work design influences employee work affect.

The purpose of this paper is to address the question of what motivates leaders to engage in effective leadership behaviours by integrating transformational leadership theory and self-determination theory. The authors propose that the type of enacted leadership behaviour is related to level of self-determined motivation.

This study presents validity evidence for an 18-item scale of motivation for transformational leadership based on Gagné and Deci’s (2005) six levels of internalization. A total of 310 employees (mean age=39, 64.5 per cent female, 46 per cent formal leaders) completed the scale, other measures of leadership, and job satisfaction.

Results supported the theorized six-factor structure of the scale and provided evidence for incremental validity in the prediction of job satisfaction and transformational leadership above and beyond another measure of motivation to lead.

The lack of amotivation and the presence of autonomously controlled extrinsic motivation are predictive of effective leadership behaviour, a key finding with implications for leadership selection. The study was limited by the use of self-report data. Future studies should examine additional predictors and outcomes of the construct (e.g. subordinate attitudes or performance and leader personality), and whether it is stable over time.

Leaders’ motivation for role effectiveness is an unexplored area of research. This study suggests that type of motivation can be important for effective leadership and provides a validated scale for use in future leadership research and selection.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how university fieldtrips progressively deepen student engagement, and explain that stage-by-stage using the organismic integration theory.

Using reflective logs, follow-up focus groups after two years and facilitator observations, this Malaysian qualitative study followed 12 business students across two three-day rainforest fieldtrips.

Students progressed toward greater – and enduring – engagement, and transferable socio-cognitive skills, via three thematic stages. Voice and self-reflection – motivated by protecting group harmony – were key, enabled by facilitator and peer encouragement.

This exploratory study invites research in specified education cultures. Further, a longitudinal, quantitative study could be designed to examine the conceptual framework developed in Figure 1.

University curricula, especially in collectivist high power distance cultures, should include fieldtrips as a particularly powerful form of experiential learning. Benefits of deeper engagement extend beyond present to future courses and the workplace. Higher student attraction/retention and employability may follow. Intrinsic motivation grows through the student–instructor interaction, watching theoretical principles in action, and having eureka moments through reflection, expression and exchange of ideas.

The research fills a gap by mapping student engagement progressively from extrinsic to intrinsic motivation along with socio-cognitive competencies. The authors reveal the centrality of voice and reflection to promote group harmony, explain the roles of facilitators and peers and show long-lasting transferable benefits to learning. Novelly, the authors provide empirical support for existing conceptual frameworks but also extend these.