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In a rapidly shifting market, organizations seek more diverse and innovative employee development interventions. Yet, these initiatives may have limited impact without employees’ engagement. This conceptual paper aims to propose self-leadership as a value-added strategy for promoting both individual and organizational development.

The authors conducted a conceptual analysis with three case examples. The cases were purposefully selected, aiming to comprehend how the concept of self-leadership has been applied within organizations and to identify real-life examples where self-leadership has been adopted as an organizational strategy.

This study demonstrates that self-leadership plays a significant role in facilitating human resource development (HRD) initiatives. Specifically, the authors illustrate how self-leadership interventions in companies empower individuals to take charge of their development, aligning personal and organizational goals. When effectively applied, self-leadership strategies positively impact HRD practices in the areas of training and development, organization development and career development, yielding benefits for both employees and employers.

This study addresses knowledge gaps in the emerging field of self-leadership in HRD by providing three companies’ examples of how self-leadership can add value to HRD. The findings offer unique insights into the synergy between self-leadership and HRD, benefiting academics interested in this line of inquiry and HRD practitioners seeking innovative approaches to employee and organizational development.

This introduction provides the methodological framework for the book, approaching the business of football through the lens of its most reliable consumers – the fanbase. Fan cultures necessarily inform the normative understanding of a football club, due to the popularly held belief that it is the fan’s – or some reified idea of the fan – that is the permanent feature of a football club and that provides its identity. Players and owners come and go, but the relationship between the club and the fan is, theoretically, never-ending. In truth, this is never a real fan who could exist, but a constructed image of the fan built out of other narratives and that, at some level, football fans associate themselves. This fan is no one in particular, but is drawn from a close reading of football culture and identifying the directives of the traditional fan. Utilising a combination of critical theory and the existing literature on football club ownership, our goal is to reveal the distinction between how people talk about the social dimension of football clubs, and how they actually relate to their fans and the wider world in the era of late capitalism. A club is not simply the romanticised notions held by those within the games, but, as with all businesses, it is also the product of it conducts itself in a series of other networks of exchange. Often irreconcilable with the aforementioned romantic notions, these networks often get hidden by the prevailing discourse.

The contemporary focus on extracurricular activities, here the educational incubator environment, accentuates a need to understand what we offer students in terms of the curricular and extracurricular learning environments when situated in the same higher education institution (HEI). Current research points towards breaking down the invisible barriers and silo thinking. In this conceptual study, we apply the Didaktik triangle as a theoretical and conceptual framing to make comparisons of structurally based conditions for curricular and extracurricular entrepreneurship education (EE). We present a framework that helps bridge the ‘what’, ‘why’, and ‘how’ questions in the two different learning spaces and, thereby, conjoin educators and consultants in possible pedagogical discussions on how they work with the students. The suggested bridge frames a wider ‘why’ and adds a more holistic and cohesive view of the two different types of settings. Our study contributes to the literature on how to bridge the blurred lines between curricular and extracurricular activities and break down the silos. The framework can act as an inspiration for entrepreneurship educators and practitioners who wish to provide more suitable and sustainable structures and develop a holistic learning environment.

What are the academic experiences of senior professors in the field of public relations (PR) at the Brazilian universities? This chapter proposes the advance of knowledge on the theoretical framework of contemporary liberal feminism by refining the previous theoretical and methodological publications. This theoretical lens prevails in earlier works, with empirical studies grounded in industry and corporate environments – mainly done by researchers from the United Kingdom, North America and Scandinavia, while PR feminist postmodernism appears in European literature – all scarce in Brazil and Global South (Latin America and African nations). Moreover, studies applying female or male PR scholars in university settings are rare in national and international literature. Hence, we gathered data and analysed narratives from seven senior female PR professors from Brazil, using an interpretative qualitative approach. Thus, this chapter about the female PR academic experiences and everyday practices highlights the starting point for an onto-epistemological discussion to understand the liberal feminist educational-based context in a Latin American country. Henceforth, two conceptual-practical dimensions – feminist PR competence and feminist PR performance – along with three methodological recommendations are presented for enhancing the contemporary liberal feminism theme as a robust research domain in PR and Strategic Communication agenda.

The purpose of this study is to better understand technology adoption and working from home (WFH) behaviour of micro and small enterprises (MSE) with 4 to 49 employees during the first (2020) and second (2021) COVID-19 lockdowns in Switzerland.

This study uses two data sets gathered using computer-assisted telephone interviewing surveys conducted with 503 managing directors of Swiss MSEs after the first and 506 MDs after the second COVID-19 lockdown period.

The study revealed that during the COVID-19 pandemic, WFH arrangements are related to the adoption of technology by Swiss industry groups. Furthermore, industry characteristics and technology adoption strategies are also associated with the long-term prospect of WFH. The overall result confirms the predominant role of technology pioneers.

The study focuses on MSEs in Switzerland during a specific period. The data set includes mainly quantitative data. Future studies could investigate larger enterprises in international contexts, integrating employees’ viewpoints founded on long-term gathered qualitative data. The implications of this study include predictions about future WFH behaviour in Swiss MSEs.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study collecting data in Swiss MSEs after the two COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020 and 2021. As a result, this study offers a unique perspective on a specific business segment, which accounts for around 70% of global employment.

This chapter is on positive education in primary schools (including pre-schools), and how programmes that use interventions from positive psychology (PPIs) can have positive effects (academic and for well-being), on children in this age group (up to 11 years). It explores some of the key challenges of implementing PPIs at younger ages and why, compared to secondary schools, limited studies of PPIs in pre- and primary schools exist. Based on the author’s personal experience of successfully delivering a multiple PPI (mPPI) in a primary school in the United Kingdom, the chapter also presents a case study. In particular, a mPPI known as Hummingbird Primary, adapted from the Hummingbird Project which has successfully been delivered in high schools; see Chapter 3. The case study presents an overview of the mPPI, the impact it had and some of the lessons learned. The chapter concludes with recommendations for educators wishing to implement PPIs in a whole primary school setting.

This study aims to investigate the association between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and tax avoidance, as well as the effect of earnings performance on this link. We suggest a negative association between CSR and tax avoidance based on the Stakeholder Theory. We also suggest that earnings performance moderates this relationship. Based on a sample of 25 Tunisian firms during the years 2012–2017, data were gathered via annual reports of the companies, and a survey-questionnaire was used to gather CSR information. The research design uses ordinary least squares (OLS) regression to investigate the association between CSR and tax. In addition, the analysis is performed using panel data to account for heterogeneity at the individual level and over time. Using this research design, the study provides a comprehensive examination of the effect of CSR on tax avoidance among Tunisian companies over a 6-year period. According to our findings, companies that participate in CSR initiatives show less tax avoidance than those that do not. Moreover, in line with the Slack Resource Theory, for businesses with higher earnings, the negative link between CSR and tax avoidance is stronger. Our research demonstrates that businesses may utilize CSR to improve their standing in the community and lower the likelihood of tax avoidance. These results suggest that profitable firms may have more funds available to spend on CSR initiatives and, as a result, are more motivated to maintain a positive reputation by refraining from tax avoidance strategies.

Buying online has become a widespread and common activity for consumers, and, for many organizations, e-commerce has become a very profitable alternative to sell their products and services, also allowing them to leverage their strategy in new geographical markets immediately. Although the literature on the subject is comprehensive, there is a gap in identifying the holistic constructs that are the determinants of consumers' choice of an online store. This research resorts to an exploratory study, based on a nonsystematic literature review, seeking to identify these constructs. The results obtained allowed us to identify the following constructs: consumer behavior, customer experience, web content, catalog, terms and conditions, customer support, perceived value, trust, security and privacy, satisfaction, and loyalty. Customer experience, satisfaction, and loyalty constructs stand out from a strategic perspective.

This chapter examines the concepts of race and racism, critically reviewing their historical and contemporary applications in everyday life as well as in academic and policy debates. Racism has been extensively researched, with various theories and conceptualisations developed across social science. However, there is a great deal of disagreement regarding its nature, contemporary significance and empirical validation. This chapter examines these and attempts to synthesise some of the common definitions of racism provided in the literature. It explores related concepts and underlying themes pertaining to expressions of race and racism. Furthermore, it unpacks current knowledge about racial issues and discusses recent advances in the conceptual understanding of various forms of racism. It also elucidates the social, political and analytical applications of racism as a concept and the significance of racism in contemporary societies. The chapter concludes by highlighting how racism is a dynamic phenomenon, continuously evolving with the social, political and technological transformations in contemporary societies.