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The European university context reveals a high degree of gender inequality. In Italy, the overall female employment rate is significantly lower than in the rest of Europe; nevertheless, gender equality in universities is consistent with the European average. In 2006, the Italian Government required public organisations (thus state universities) to formulate positive action plans (PAPs) and disclose the positive actions planned for the following three years to promote gender equality. However, the law does not provide any guideline for the contents of the PAPs. The purpose of this paper is to analyse gender equality disclosure in PAPs to investigate whether and how Italian State Universities (ISUs) are taking a role in promoting gender equality.

The paper uses content analysis to investigate contents of gender disclosure in 28 PAPs. The authors developed a coding instrument based on the Guidelines for Gender Equality Programmes in Science.

The paper found that most PAPs are focused on creating a favourable environment for women inside the organisation, while little attention has been paid to creating gender awareness in research and teaching activities, as well as in supporting women’s leadership. The paper concludes that ISUs are failing as key players in the cultural change of the society toward gender equality.

First, the paper contributes to the accounting literature by providing an analysis of accounting for gender by universities. Second, it adds to the debate on positive actions for gender equality in the university sector.

I begin by examining some ways in which organisations have attempted to improve their recruitment and selection procedures to minimise bias and unfair discrimination, and focus on the assessment centre as a potentially useful technique in this respect, especially for managerial selection. I go on to examine the assessment centre in more detail, including its origins, construction and uses, before discussing the strong evidence for its validity as a selection and assessment procedure. I then describe some recent British innovations in assessment centre design and practice, especially in its use for management and organisation development purposes, before discussing some of my own recent research, in collaboration with Ivan Robertson and Usha Rout, on participants' attitudes towards the use of assessment centres for selection and development purposes, including gender differences in attitudes.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether intervention participants’ process appraisals relate to change in well-being and lean outcomes of entire teams. For this purpose, the study focussed on two main characteristics of a lean implementation process – workshop quality and outcome expectancy – and their interaction with the participation rate, and examined their association with leaner work processes and affective well-being in nursing teams.

Data were collected from a lean implementation project within 29 nursing wards of a university hospital. Employee surveys covering lean work processes and affective well-being at work were conducted before the implementation of four-day lean workshops in each nursing ward and six months after. The participating employee representatives evaluated the workshop quality and outcome expectancy of the workshops.

Multilevel analyses indicated that workshop quality did not relate to leaner work processes, but was associated with enhanced affective well-being after six months. By contrast, outcome expectancy was associated with leaner work processes, but did not relate to well-being. No moderation effects with participation rate were found.

The study shows the importance of monitoring process indicators in the early stages of implementation and optimising workshop contents and formats accordingly to ensure positive outcomes for entire teams.

The present study considers intervention participants’ process appraisals of workshop quality and outcome expectancy as good indicators of future change in lean work processes and the well-being of entire teams.

Most approaches to the management of equal opportunity in the “race” field in the UK have emphasised policy development and communication, gender and ethnic monitoring, and attention to developing recruitment and selection practices that ensure a more representative workforce. Race training, especially racism awareness training, has often been given a key role. Organisation development (OD) approaches have not tended to be influential, despite the origins of OD in addressing practical problems of race relations. Drawing on empirical work with assessment procedures, in particular the use of developmental assessment centres, and on work on improving collaboration between nurses and social workers so as to enable women of Asian origin to enjoy greater access to hospital social work services, it is argued that such OD approaches as teambuilding, survey feedback and targeted career development are crucial to the management of equal opportunity, and to the management of cultural change.

This research analyzes the alignment of story framing between Samarco and news media following the dam disaster in Minas Gerais in November 2015. Drawing on framing theory as the underlying impetus, the study seeks to answer five major questions: RQ1: How did Samarco frame the mining tragedy in the aftermath of the dam collapse? RQ2: How did the news media frame the mining tragedy in the aftermath of the dam collapse? RQ3: Did the frames presented by Samarco and news media coincide? RQ4: Did the frames presented by Samarco and news media contradict? RQ5: What can be observed about the information flow and interaction between news media and the general public on social media? From a methods perspective, the study uses comparative textual analysis and NodeXL social network visualization to analyze the discourse around Samarco and information flow on social media in the aftermath of the tragedy. The results show that, while some social media content served as a forum for expressions of empathy toward survivors, social media content on Twitter mostly delivered a one-sided and positive view of the firm’s actions.

Composed earlier this century, the distribution of men′s and women′s jobs in the 1980s demonstrates a concentration of women in low‐paid, low‐opportunity jobs despite women having longer working lives and being better educated. Barriers to women′s progress, both attitudinal and structural are examined, with examples from banking and other industries. The role of legislation in stimulating questioning of women′s under‐representation in management positions is acknowledged, and the reasons for starting positive action programmes are explored. An explanation is given of these programmes, which are similar to the American affirmative action programmes. How positive action can break down barriers is discussed in relation to the European banks studied. It is concluded that without positive action the position of women at work will deteriorate, but that employers will increasingly become involved in the programmes, as will unions and consultants.

This paper aims to review the rescaling of integrated planning policies for the built environment by the transposition of European directives on air quality in The Netherlands.

This is a case study examining European and Dutch policies, legislation, case law and reports by various Dutch Courts of Auditors and assessment agencies.

The paper reveals how a combination of measures that prohibit practices and measures constituting new ways of working has facilitated environmental protection and integrated planning. The case shows that transposition matters. At first, the aim of transposing European environmental directives into an integrated national legal system resulted in an erosion of integrated planning as courts nullified new development decisions. In later instances, it resulted in the National Cooperation Programme on Air Quality (NSL), an integrated system, allowing the weighing and monitoring of all policies that affect air quality.

The findings of this study of Dutch air quality regulation may contribute to other studies into the rescaling of environmental governance in relation to interactions between central norm-setting and integrated local policies.

The case study shows a real working institutional system that relies on an interactive web tool that facilitates integrated planning decisions which respect environmental limit values. The problems faced and opportunities the system afforded are also discussed.

This paper increases understanding of the process of the transposition of European directives in relation to integrated policies for the built environment, with a specific emphasis on ambient air quality.

NEVER since the Industrial Revolution have there been so many radical changes in the manner of producing goods as we are witnessing today. Manufacturing is new in its concepts, in technical and mechanical techniques and largely new in materials, methods and machines.

The purpose of this paper is to present the concept, methods of implementation, results and experiences from the first stage of the three-year project on school staff health promotion carried out within the framework of the health-promoting school (HPS) network in Poland.

The project was implemented in 2012 in 22 primary and lower secondary schools, with a group of 780 teachers and 276 non-teaching staff. To be eligible for their school to be included, head teachers and at least 60 per cent of school staff members had to volunteer to commit to the project. An action research approach was used. The project is implemented on the basis of an agreement between the Medical University of Warsaw and the Centre of Education Development.

Over the first eighteen months of implementing the project, the schools selected priority problems to solve, constructed an action plan for the first year and evaluated their outcomes. Only 7 schools reported that they had achieved their goals. The difficulties experienced by schools were associated with inadequate planning skills, insufficient support from some head teachers, and low involvement of staff members in the project activities. However, openness to change and new learning, and a readiness to participation further in the project was observed across 17 from 22 schools.

This pilot project was the first attempt to introduce health promotion among school staff into the HPS network in Poland and provides valuable lessons on implementation.

Resilient firms are more likely to survive crisis. This paper aims to investigate the resilient behavior displayed by small and medium enterprise (SME) owners in the pandemic context and the sequence of antecedents leading to resilient behavior.

Seven SME owners, from different business sectors, were interviewed twice in 8 months, to assess their actions and underlying entrepreneurial resilience. A model was developed depicting the sequence of activities leading to entrepreneurial resiliency behavior. The study was conducted in the capital city of Odisha, an eastern Indian state.

The results indicate that entrepreneurial resiliency is manifested in various forms where the SME owners engage in bricolage. Resiliency has an inevitable time dimension, where SME owners estimate the period for which adversity is likely to persist. They focus on alternative action to demonstrate resiliency. It was also learnt that revenue management during a crisis requires entrepreneurial marketing with innovativeness, opportunity seeking and value creation to improve resiliency.

This research is important for policymakers who can strengthen resiliency through the support and provision of adequate information to SME owners. Educators can use the model for discussion and pedagogy. Finally, SME owners can evaluate their response behaviors to a crisis and draw insights.

The approach of the study was longitudinal and qualitative. This study contributes to the literature gap on resiliency in the context of emerging markets and SMEs.