Search results

The purpose of this paper is to investigate followers’ judgments of leader culpability and learning during a crisis, and the extent to which judgments of culpability create hopelessness and reduce crisis learning. The authors also study factors that moderate these relationships.

Using the survey method the authors collected data from 354 individuals from a nonprofit organization that filed for bankruptcy. Respondents’ comments also provided qualitative data that was used to triangulate the findings.

The authors find that followers made judgments of leader culpability and reported crisis learning. However, followers’ judgments have no direct effect on their crisis learning, but have an indirect effect by increasing hopelessness. The authors also find that followers’ job satisfaction and perceptions of sufficient crisis communications moderate this relationship. The qualitative data provides insights into the areas on which leaders were judged, and what was learned during the crisis.

More research on internal stakeholders’ judgments of their leaders during organizational crises is important as they affect followers’ psychological states and behaviors. Future research can test the findings in a longitudinal study.

Leaders need to pay attention to the judgments of their followers during a crisis as they could foster hopelessness and reduce learning. Providing sufficient crisis communications and enabling job satisfaction could lessen these negative effects.

Extant research tends to focus on the judgments of external stakeholders during crises. This study is one of the first to examine the effects of internal stakeholders’ judgments of leader culpability on their sense of hopelessness and crisis learning, and the moderating factors that reduce their negative effects. The authors also contribute to understanding what aspects of leadership are judged by followers during a crisis, and what followers learn from a crisis. These are areas that have not been previously examined in crisis management research. The authors also provide evidence from individuals in an actual organization in crisis which tends not to be the norm in crisis attribution and crisis learning research.

Entrepreneurship education has had a remarkable evolution over time and the number of entrepreneurship textbooks has multiplied given the increased interest in entrepreneurship programs in higher education. Yet, studies that review the coverage of textbooks focusing on entrepreneurship are scarce. This study provides an inventory of entrepreneurship textbooks and the topics they cover as well as specific emerging topics they do not cover by analyzing the content of 57 textbooks. Our results suggest that most textbooks provide significant coverage of such topics as the nature of entrepreneurship, business plans, financing, marketing, and cases. Among emerging concepts, social media has been relatively well covered with increasing coverage in more recent textbooks, while business canvas, as an example of alternatives to conventional business plans, is rarely covered. Most textbooks have provided little coverage of such topics as sales, family business, women and minorities, as well as ethics and sustainability. This study not only reveals areas that are covered by existing textbooks but also themes that future textbooks and research could cover to address the challenges of future entrepreneurship education.

Like a thief in the night, the Web has progressively undermined the validity of traditional brand theory and practice.Yet few brand owners and marketers appear to be aware of this fundamental shift and continue to treat the medium as if it were just another distribution channel, when in fact the Web demands a complete reappraisal of the brand building, marketing and total business processes. This paper aims to review traditional brand and marketing theory, to consider its relevance in the global digital age and to suggest necessary changes that brand owners need to manage in order to take advantage of and avoid the dangers inherent within a fast changing environment.

The case was developed from two 2-h interviews with the Chief Operating Officer of A-Basin, Alan Henceroth; there is no CEO of A-Basin. The second interview was recorded on a Zoom call to provide accuracy of quotations and information. A variety of secondary sources were used in terms of better understanding the current state of the ski industry, as well as its history.

Arapahoe Basin (A-Basin) is a historic, moderately sized, ski area with proximity to metropolitan Denver, Colorado. For over 20 years A-Basin partnered with Vail, allowing skiers to use the Vail Epic Pass, for which A-Basin received some revenue from Vail for each skier visit. The Epic Pass allowed pass holders unlimited days of skiing at A-Basin. More and more skiers were buying the Epic Pass, thus increasing the customer traffic to A-Basin. However, the skier experience was compromised due inadequate parking, long lift lines and crowded restaurants. The renewal of the contract with Vail was coming due, and A-Basin had to consider whether to renew the contract with Vail. The case is framed primarily as a strategic marketing case. The authors use Porter’s five forces model to assess the external environment of A-Basin, and the authors use the resource-based view and the VRIO tool to assess A-Basin’s internal strengths. Both frameworks provide useful analysis in terms of deciding whether to continue A-Basin’s arrangement with Vail or end the contract and pursue a different strategy. In 2019, after consultation with the Canadian parent company Dream, A-Basin made the decision to disassociate itself from the Epic Pass and Vail to restore a quality ski experience for A-Basin’s customers. No other partner had ever left its relationship with Vail. An epilogue details some of A-Basin’s actions, as well as the outcomes for the ski area. Generally A-Basin’s decision produced positive results and solidified its competitive position among competitors. Other ski areas have since adopted a similar strategy as A-Basin. A-Basin’s success is reflected in a pending offer from Alterra, Inc., to purchase the ski area.

The A-Basin case can be used in both undergraduate and graduate strategic (or marketing) management courses. It is probably best considered during the middle of an academic term, as the case requires students to apply many of the theoretical concepts of strategy. One of the best books to enable students to use Porter’s five forces is Understanding Michael Porter by Joan Magretta (Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2012). Magretta was a colleague of Porter for many years and was an Editor of the Harvard Business Review. For a discussion of the VRIN/VRIO concept, see Chapter 4 of Essentials of Strategic Management by Gamble, Peteraf and Thompson (New York: McGraw-Hill Education, 2019).

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the stressors involved in pre-qualification clinical psychology as reported by a sample of the UK trainee clinical psychologists. The main coping strategies reported by the trainees are also explored.

One-to-one interviews were conducted with 15 trainee clinical psychologists using qualitative research methods. Themes were established using the main principles of thematic analysis.

Three themes were identified that described the pressures involved in applying to the course, the support networks available to trainees, and the commonalities in their personal history, experiences and self-reported personality characteristics.

It is important to investigate the sources of stress and coping strategies in trainees to help them cope more effectively. The findings of the study are discussed within the context of clinical psychology training.

Thirty years ago, Richard H. de Lone wrote a remarkable book that appears to have sunk into oblivion. The context and aim of this volume is a good opportunity for reviving the book because it represents an excellent application of a macro-sociological perspective. Its main thesis is that it is children, who are the bearers of the American dream, and that it is they who shall rescue the nation from inequalities. Over and over again throughout US history, the recipe has been investments in education in the hope that these measures eventually will solve inherent tensions between economic rationality (market capitalism producing inequalities) and political aims (favouring equality). In other words, de Lone argues, rather than approaching structural problems with positive bearings on childhood here and now, children are expected to have their individual lot improved in the hope that equality appears in the next generation. In this sense, children are instrumentalised for solving deep-seated tensions in society. This is the wrong order, as de Lone suggests it in the book's concluding chapter: Instead of trying to reduce inequality by helping children, we may be able to help children by reducing inequality (de Lone, 1979, p. 178).

Project ventures are an increasingly prevalent organizational form in many industries. The management literature has stressed their flexibility and adaptability advantages. This chapter focuses on the learning implications of the source of flexibility most essential to project ventures: the ability to switch partners during project formation and execution. This partnering flexibility creates opportunities to respond to new knowledge about characteristics of project tasks and project partners. Partnering flexibility, however, also creates learning challenges. The short-term nature of relationships between project partners and the disintegration of the project team after project completion challenges the accumulation and transfer of knowledge to future projects. Beyond the introduction of related learning opportunities and challenges, we identify potential contingency factors in the project context that shape when partner flexibility will have beneficial versus harmful effects. On the organizational level, we propose that project-governing permanent organizations can support project-venture learning. On the industry level, we highlight potential learning benefits of standardized partner roles and coordination practices. Thus, our chapter introduces a multilevel contingency framework for the evaluation of both learning opportunities and challenges of partnering flexibility in project-venture settings. We formulate testable propositions focused on partner-project fit and project performance.

This study aims to investigate the role of middle-class consumers’ need for uniqueness (CNFU), consumer susceptibility to interpersonal influence (CSII), inspiration and behavioral intentions toward masstige products. Specifically, this study examines the differential effects of CNFU dimensions, the underlying mechanism of consumer inspiration and the moderating role of CSII in the purchase intentions toward masstige products.

Two studies were carried out to test the proposed relationships. Study 1 examines the differential effect of CNFU dimensions and the mediating role of consumer inspiration for data collected from Tier 1 cities in India. Study 2 replicated Study 1 findings for the jewelry masstige products and tested the moderating role of CSII for data collected from Tier 2 cities. Structural equation modeling was used to test the proposed hypotheses.

The study findings confirm the differential effects of CNFU dimensions on inspiration and its mediating role in masstige products’ purchase intentions. Furthermore, the study found that CSII moderates the effect of CNFU dimensions on inspiration toward masstige (jewelry) purchase intentions. Status does not determine masstige purchase intention.

The present study was carried out in the emerging market of India. Future studies should replicate the study findings in other emerging markets.

The study findings have important implications for marketers of masstige brands in developing effective marketing strategies in the emerging markets.

The study is among the few studies to investigate the differential role of CNFU dimensions and inspiration for masstige brands in an emerging market context.

The following study examines how, and to what extent, the introduction of school‐based management (SBM) in schools and the authority thereby delegated to principals to hire and dismiss supervision instructors have changed instructors’ role expectations and job conflict and affected their professional considerations. Based on data gathered from in‐depth interviews, it was evident that before SBM, supervision instructors typically faced multiple and contradicting expectations and, therefore, used various strategies to avoid role conflicts. However, after SBM was introduced, the discrepancy among these expectations has increased, and so did the uncertainty and insecurity that instructors perceived on the job. These circumstances have encouraged instructors to prefer personal concerns over professional obligations and to direct their efforts so that their future employment will be ensured. The study concludes that school principals need to increase their professional knowledge regarding supervision instruction and devote their efforts towards establishing an organizational learning culture in their schools.