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The digital transformation is dramatically changing the business-to-business (B2B) sales environment, challenging long-standing views regarding the critical competencies required of salespeople. This paper aims to explore the personal traits associated with sales performance in a digital selling environment.

Using template analysis, the researchers captured and coded over 21 h of in-depth, semi-structured interviews with senior sales leaders from various industry sectors, exploring their perceptions of the personal traits now required of B2B salespeople in the digital landscape.

The research identifies three high-level trait types critical to sales success within a digital selling environment: “analytical curiosity” – the natural motivation and ability to gather and synthesize sales-related knowledge, “empathetic citizenship” – the ability to establish initial rapport while building long-term trust and “disciplined drive” – the exertion of selling effort in a highly focused and methodical manner across all stages of the sales process.

The present data came from interviews with sales leaders in Canada. A more global sample may lead to additional insights. Moreover, the sample was drawn from long-cycle B2B sales environments; conclusions may differ for short-cycle or business-to-consumer markets.

This paper presents a framework for hiring and developing salespeople in the digital sales environment, identifying personal trait types that sales leaders should look for when hiring: analytical curiosity, empathetic citizenship and disciplined drive. The paper identifies how these trait types influence sales success, suggesting that sales leaders could coach and educate their teams to make the best use of them.

This paper presents a conceptual framework for hiring in the digital sales environment and introduces the trait of analytical curiosity not previously discussed in the literature.

Psychotherapy and clinical supervision outcomes are influenced by client and supervisee factors, one of which is cultural identity. Those with diverse racial and ethnic minoritised identities often experience disparities in therapy outcomes. Therapists and supervisors need to be responsive to the identity of those they support. The multicultural orientation (MCO) framework is an emerging concept in psychotherapy and clinical supervision that may offer these practitioners a framework to be responsive.

A preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses extension for scoping reviews was conducted. Six databases, PubMed, Scopus, Embase, Academic Search Complete, Web of Science and PsychInfo, were searched for peer-reviewed literature published in English between the years 2000 and 2023.

A total of 1,553 sources were identified, of which (n = 42) are included in this review. Findings suggest that MCO is still in its infancy as applied to therapy and clinical supervision. Most of the research has been conducted in America, using quantitative methodologies with white western populations. Cultural humility is the most studied MCO pillar, and variables such as reductions in psychological stress, the working alliance and microaggressions are reported on as outcomes. MCO applied to the group therapy process is an emerging finding of interest. However, more research is needed, especially experiential designs across different and diverse populations and contexts.

MCO is an emerging therapy and clinical supervision process that has the potential to improve the outcomes for therapy clients and supervisees. Further research is needed to replicate current studies, and further research with diverse populations, countries and contexts should be undertaken as a priority.

Universities globally have faced the introduction of research performance assessment systems that provide monetary and ranking rewards based on publication outputs. This study aims to seek an understanding of the implementation of performance-based research funding (PBRF) and its impact on the heads of departments (HoDs) and accounting academics in New Zealand (NZ) tertiary institutions. The study explores NZ accounting academics’ experiences and their workload; the relationship between teaching and research in the accounting discipline and any issues and concerns affecting new and emerging accounting researchers because of PBRF.

Applying an institutional theoretical lens, this paper explores accounting HoDs’ perceptions concerning the PBRF system’s impact on their academic staff. The research used semi-structured interviews to collect data from NZ’s eight universities.

The key findings posit that many institutional processes, some more coercive in nature, whereas others were normative and mimetic, have been put in place to ensure that academics are able to meet the PBRF requirements. HoDs suggest that their staff understand the importance of research, but that PBRF is a challenge to new and emerging researchers and pose threats to their recruitment. New academics must “hit the ground running” as they must demonstrate not only teaching abilities but also already have a track record of research publications; all in all, a daunting experience for new academics to overcome. There is also a teaching and research disconnect. Furthermore, many areas where improvements can be made in the design of this measurement tool remain.

The PBRF system has significantly impacted on accounting academics. Central university research systems were established that subsequently applied coercive institutional pressures onto line managers to ensure that their staff performed. This finding offers scope for future research to explore a better PBRF that measures and rewards research productivity but without the current system’s unintended negative consequences.

Despite the well-recognized importance of recycled water, the study of industry-peer pressure on recycled water is relatively new. This study investigates how organizations experience and react to industry-peer pressure to set recycled water targets. Additionally, this study investigates the role of board chairs involved in sustainability committees in contributing to responses to industry-peer pressure.

Using Eviews 12, this study employed a pooled logistic regression model to analyze data from 1,346 firms on Taiwan and Taipei exchanges (2017–2020).

The findings revealed that frequency-based imitation drives recycled water target-setting diffusion. However, there is no direct relationship between outcome-based imitation and recycled water target-setting. Notably, outcome-based imitation drives the adoption of recycled water target-setting of firms with board-chair membership in sustainability committees.

This study faces certain data limitations. First, this study primarily focuses on water recycling. Future research could explore other ways to reduce water usage, such as using water-efficient equipment. Second, this study gathered information solely on the presence or absence of a board chairperson on the sustainability committee. Future researchers could explore the impact of the composition of sustainability committee on recycled water target-setting. Lastly, the sample used in this study is restricted to Taiwan's corporations that existed during 2017–2020. Future researchers may consider adopting a longitudinal design in other economies to address this limitation.

The findings of this study offer several guidelines and implications for recycled water target-setting and the composition of sustainability committees. It responds to an urgent call for solutions to water shortages when pressure from governments and nongovernmental organizations is relatively absent. The number of industry peers that have already set recycled water targets is indispensable for motivating firms to set their own recycled water targets. In terms of insufficient water-related regulatory pressure and normative pressure, this study found evidence suggesting that the direct motivation for setting recycled water targets stems from mimetic pressures via frequency-based imitation. The evidence in this study suggests that policymakers should require companies to disclose their peers’ recycled water target information, as doing so serves as an alternative means to achieving SDG 6.3.

Recycled water target-setting might be challenging. Water recycling practices may face strong resistance and require substantial additional resources (Zhang and Tang, 2019; Gao et al., 2019; Gu et al., 2023). Therefore, this study suggests that firms should ensure the mindfulness of board members in promoting the welfare of the natural environment when making recycled water target-setting decisions. To reap the second-mover advantage, firms must consider the conditions in which board members can more effectively play their role. Corporations may help their chairpersons in setting recycled water targets by recruiting them as members of sustainability committees. Meanwhile, chairpersons tend to activate accurate mental models when the water conservation performance of pioneering industry peers is strong enough to indicate the potential benefits of adopting recycled water target-setting. Investors’ and stakeholders’ understanding of how the composition of sustainability committees is related to recycled water target-setting may help to identify the potential drivers of firms’ water responsibility. Investors and stakeholders should distinguish firms in terms of the board chair’s membership of their sustainability committee and focus on water-use reduction outcomes in the industry. This study provides insights into circumstances whereby chairpersons help to restore the water ecosystem.

This study explains how frequency-based and outcome-based imitation are two prominent mechanisms underlying the industry-peer pressure concerning recycled water target-setting. Moreover, this study fills literature gaps related to the moderating roles of board-chair membership in sustainability committees concerning industry-peer pressure on recycled water target-setting.

Prior studies mostly tested the association between carbon emissions and firm value in certain contexts. This study aims to advance the existing literature by concentrating on three indicators of greening in corporations namely resource use, emissions and eco-innovation, and examining their value relevance in the stock market at the global level. Furthermore, we deepen the investigation by exploring the moderating role of eco-innovation and the CSR committee between greening in corporations and market value.

The data for the study were retrieved from the Thomson Reuters Eikon database for the years between 2002 and 2019 and contain 17,961 firm-year observations which are analyzed through fixed-effects regression.

The results reveal that while resource usage is viewed as value-relevant by the market, the emissions and eco-innovation are not. However, despite eco-innovation per se not being value-relevant, its interaction with resource usage and emissions is value-relevant. Furthermore, CSR committees undertake a very critical role in translating greening practices into market value.

While the results for emissions support the cost-concerned school, the findings for resource usage confirm the value creation school. Furthermore, the interaction effect of eco-innovation and CSR committee confirms the resource-based theory and stakeholder theory, respectively.

Investors regard eco-innovation-induced pro-environmental behaviors as value-relevant. These results propose firms replace eco-innovation at the focal point in developing environmental strategies and connecting other greening efforts to it. Moreover, CSR committees are critical to corporations in translating greening practices into firm value by developing and implementing disclosure and communication strategies.

The study’s originality stems from investigating the synergetic effect that eco-innovation and CSR committees generate in translating greening practices to greater market value at a global scale.

For decades, conflict resolution (CR) educators working cross-culturally have struggled with a fundamental dilemma – whether to offer western, evidence-based approaches through a top-down (prescriptive) training process or to use a bottom-up (elicitive) strategy that builds on local cultural knowledge of effective in situ conflict management. This study aims to explore which conditions that prompted experienced CR instructors to use more prescriptive or elicitive approaches to such training in a foreign culture and the implications for training outcomes.

There are two parts to this study. First, the authors conducted a literature review to identify basic conditions that might be conducive to conducting prescriptive or elicitive cross-cultural CR training. The authors then tested the identified conditions in a survey with experienced CR instructors to identify different conditions that afforded prescriptive or elicitive approaches. Exploratory factor analysis and regression were used to assess which conditions determined whether a prescriptive or elicitive approach produced better outcomes.

In general, although prescriptive methods were found to be more efficient, elicitive methods produced more effective, culturally appropriate, sustainable and culturally sensitive training. Results revealed a variety of instructor, participant and contextual factors that influenced whether a prescriptive or elicitive approach was applied and found to be more suitable.

This study used empirical survey data with practicing experts to provide insight and guidance into when to use different approaches to CC-CR training effectively.

Robots are widely used in industrial manufacturing and service industries around the world. However, most of the previous studies on industrial robots use data at the national or industry level in the context of developed countries. This study examines the impact of imported industrial robots on firm innovation at the firm level in China.

Drawing on a large dataset of more than three million records in China, including non-publicly traded small and medium firms, the authors adopt a difference-in-differences method to investigate the impact and channels of industrial robots on firm innovation.

The authors find that the application of industrial robots increases firm innovation. Two possible channels are identified through which robots promote innovation: alleviation of financial constraints and the improvement of human capital. Further analysis shows that the effect of robots on innovation is more pronounced for firms that are highly dependent on external financing, belong to high-tech industries, import high-end robots, have insufficient supply of skilled labor and private firms (non-SOEs). The authors also find that industrial robots increase the firms' innovation quality and the marginal contribution of innovation to firms' total factor productivity.

This study provides big data evidence of the unintended positive consequences of industrial robots on firm innovation. The results are helpful to clarify the controversy of industrial robots. It also has important implications for government industrial policy making, firm innovation and human resource management.

This study aims to use cognitive appraisal theory to explain how organizational disruption influences the development of envy resulting in unethical selling practices, turnover intentions and a reduction in customer orientation that causes disruption to impact customer relationships. This research helps to address drivers of salesperson envy, the potential disruptions to customer relationships and the required need to invest in psychological resources to offset these negative effects.

A total of 211 salespeople were surveyed to test the hypotheses. First, the measurement model was validated using a confirmatory factor analysis. Next, the hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling AMOS 27. Mediation and moderated mediation were tested using the bootstrap method. Estimands were created within AMOS to test the indirect and interaction effects in the full model. A post hoc analysis further informed the findings.

The results show that the development of envy increases under conditions of organizational disruptions, leading to potential customer disruptions through turnover intentions, unethical selling behaviors and a reduction in customer orientation. In addition, the mediation analysis shows that envy drives the relationship between organizational disruption and unethical selling, turnover intentions and customer orientation through fully mediated relationships. Finally, the interaction effects between organizational disruption and psychological capital show high levels of psychological capital help to decrease the development of envy, thus reducing unethical selling behaviors and turnover intentions while increasing customer orientation.

The study provides practitioners with insights into how to reduce envy by investing in the psychological capital of their salesforce. The study also provides suggestions for handling disruptions and managing envy to prevent actions that act to damage customer relationships.

Salespeople are likely to encounter organizational disruption. Sales managers need to be prepared to manage the outcomes of organizational disruption as it impacts the sales force. Understanding how disruptions impact customer relationships through envy is an important yet under-explored topic. This research adds to and expands the sales literature using cognitive appraisal theory to help address drivers of salesperson envy and its potentially negative impact on customer relationships and shows the required need to invest in psychological resources to offset these negative effects. The study also helps expand the recent focus on worldwide disruptions by adopting another context for disruption stemming from organizational disruption.

This viewpoint paper focuses on the important role played by hospices in the UK in providing specialised end-of-life care for older people with complex needs – particularly for the growing number who choose to die at home. With demand for such care growing, the paper highlights the funding issues facing the independent hospice sector and the implications for hospices of receiving more state funding. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the challenges that hospices in the UK face in providing home-based palliative and end of life care for older people.

This a viewpoint paper informed by recent reports and research findings, as well as the author’s own work within the hospice sector.

The demand for specialised community-based and home-based palliative and end-of-life care is growing. The Covid-19 pandemic prompted wider discussion about what constitutes both “a good death” and good end-of-life care. This confirmed that most older people would prefer to end their lives free from pain, in familiar surroundings and not in hospital.

The specialised end-of-life care provided by hospices is rated highly by the regulator and the communities which they serve. In recent years, more attention has been given to providing “hospice at home” services, but coverage is limited largely due to lack of funding, the bulk of which comes from charitable fundraising. To provide a more equitable service, the fragility of the hospice funding model needs to be addressed.

If the state expands its funding of hospice care, it is important that charitable fundraising also continues to take place and is encouraged. This will help ensure that the good links between hospices and local stakeholders are maintained.

The funding of the hospice sector in the UK has been the subject of several reports both by governmental and non-governmental bodies, several in the last year. However, it is an issue of growing importance and the whole subject needs a fuller airing in academic circles.

Our study examines how artificial intelligence (AI) can enhance decision-making processes to promote circular economy practices within the utility sector.

A unique case study of Alia Servizi Ambientali Spa, an Italian multi-utility company using AI for waste management, is analyzed using the Gioia method and semi-structured interviews.

Our study discovers the proactive role of the user in waste management processes, the importance of economic incentives to increase the usefulness of the technology and the role of AI in waste management transformation processes (e.g. glass waste).

The present study enhances the circular economy model (transformation, distribution and recovery), uncovering AI’s role in waste management. Finally, we inspire managers with algorithms used for data-driven decisions.