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Conflict and violence are the main drivers of globally escalating humanitarian needs. Local grassroots initiatives are pivotal in distributing humanitarian supplies in the acute response phase until more established humanitarian aid organizations can enter. Nevertheless, scant research exists regarding the role of grassroots associations in providing humanitarian assistance during a military conflict. The purpose of this paper is to understand the role of grassroots associations and identify important themes for effective operations.

This paper adopts a case-study approach of three Ukrainian grassroots associations that began operating in the immediate days of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The findings are based on analyzing primary sources, including interviews with Ukrainian volunteers, and are supported by secondary sources.

Grassroots associations have local contacts and a contextual understanding of population needs and can respond more rapidly and effectively than large intergovernmental agencies. Four critical themes regarding the operations of grassroots associations emerged: information management, inventory management, coordination and performance measurement. Grassroots humanitarian response operations during conflict are challenged by personal security risks, the unpredictability of unsolicited supplies, emerging volunteer roles, dynamic transportation routes and shifting demands.

Grassroots responses are central to humanitarian responses during the acute phase of a military conflict. By examining the operations of grassroots associations in the early months of the 2022 war in Ukraine, the authors provide a unique perspective on humanitarian logistics. Nonetheless, more inclusive models of humanitarian responses are needed to harness the capacities and resilience of grassroots operations in practice.

The purpose of this study is to determine if blockchain-supported carbon offset information provision and shipping options with different cost and environmental footprint implications impact consumer perceptions toward retailers and logistics service providers. Blockchain and carbon neutrality, each can be expensive to adopt and complex to manage, thus getting the “truth” on decarbonization may require additional costs for consumers.

Experimental modeling is used to address these critical and emergent issues that influence practices across a set of supply chain actors. Three hypotheses relating to the relationship between blockchain-supported carbon offset information and consumer perceptions and intentions associated with the product and supply chain actors are investigated.

The results show that consumer confidence increases when supply chain carbon offset information has greater reliability, transparency and traceability as supported by blockchain technology. The authors also find that consumers who are provided visibility into various shipping options and the product's journey carbon emissions and offset – from a blockchain-supported system – they are more willing to pay a premium for both the product and shipping options. Blockchain-supported decarbonization information disclosure in the supply chain can lead to organizational legitimacy and financial gains in return.

Understanding consumer action and sustainable consumption is critical for organizations seeking carbon neutrality. Currently, the literature on this understanding from a consumer information provision is not well understood, especially with respect to blockchain-supported information transparency, visibility and reliability. Much of the blockchain literature focuses on the upstream. This study focuses more on consumer-level and downstream supply chain blockchain implications for organizations. The study provides a practical roadmap for considering levels of blockchain information activity and consumer interaction.

The US Federal Government awards contracts worth hundreds of billions of dollars each year. Many firms that rely on these contracts have appointed former government officials to their corporate boards in the hopes of securing government contracts. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between these government experienced directors (GEDs) on boards and firms being awarded government contracts.

The paper compiles a panel data set from 2017 to 2020 for S&P 500 firms. This includes hand-collected data for government-experienced directors on boards. This is tested using both regression and analysis of variance methodologies.

Results find that former government officials on corporate boards increase the amount of government contracts secured by the firm, both in absolute terms and as a percentage of firms’ revenue. There are significant industry level effects for the health care and financials sectors. Government-experienced directors on boards are also positively related to firms receiving COVID contracts. Lobbying was not found to be related to the securing of regular government contracts but was positively related to firms obtaining COVID contracts.

This paper contributes to the literature by using panel data, an expanded definition of GEDs and data on COVID contracts. The “revolving door” between government and firms is paying off for companies.

This research paper aims to investigate the effects of internal audit’s (IA) use of data analytics and the performance of consulting activities on perceived IA quality.

The authors conduct a 2 × 2 between-subjects experiment among upper and middle managers where the use of data analytics and the performance of consulting activities by internal auditors are manipulated.

Results highlight the importance of internal auditor use of data analytics and performance of consulting activities to improve perceived IA quality. First, managers perceive internal auditors as more competent when the auditors use data analytics. Second, managers perceive internal auditors’ recommendations as more relevant when the auditors perform consulting activities. Finally, managers perceive an improvement in the quality of relationships with internal auditors when auditors perform consulting activities, which is strengthened when internal auditors combine the use of data analytics and the performance of consulting activities.

From a theoretical perspective, this research builds on the IA quality framework by considering digitalization as a contextual factor. This research focused on the perceptions of one major stakeholder of the IA function: senior management. Future research should investigate the perceptions of other stakeholders and other contextual factors.

This research suggests that internal auditors should prioritize the development of the consulting role in their function and develop their digital expertise, especially expertise in data analytics, to improve perceived IA quality.

This research tests the impacts of the use of data analytics and the performance of consulting activities on perceived IA quality holistically, by testing Trotman and Duncan’s (2018) framework using an experiment.

This case study is developed using secondary sources, including newspapers, periodicals and academic references.

This case study examines the challenges of a market leader in a changing industry and how that leader might respond. Growth was becoming exceedingly difficult for Netflix due to various external forces. For a company that relied on radical innovation to reinvent the video market industry and gain market dominance, Netflix appeared to be focusing on protecting its market position through strategies designed to reinforce its existing strengths and assets. Could Netflix maintain its leadership position and reignite growth by pursuing a reinforcement strategy, or was it time for another reinvention?

This case was written for strategic management classes at the graduate and undergraduate levels. The case was classroom tested with undergraduate business students in a strategic management course and masters-level organizational leadership students in a strategic innovation and change management course.

Though alternative building technologies (ABTs) have been encouraged to address accessible and affordable issues in low-cost housing (LCH) provision, their adoption is still overwhelmed with encumbrances. The encumbrances that hinder ABT adoption require an in-depth study, especially in developing countries like Nigeria. However, studies regarding ABT and its role in improving Nigeria's LCH to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11 are scarce. This research investigates encumbrances to ABT adoption in Nigeria's LCH provision and suggests feasible measures to prevent or reduce the encumbrances, thereby improving achieving SDG 11 (sustainable cities and communities).

This research utilised qualitative research and adopted a face-to-face interview as the primary data collection. The interviewees comprised ABT practitioners and end users in Nigeria who were chosen by a convenient sampling technique. The study's data were analysed manually through a thematic approach.

This study shows that stakeholders should embrace ABT in LCH provision to improve achieving SDG 11 in Nigeria. Also, it clustered the perceived 20 encumbrances to ABT adoption in LCH provision into government/policymaker, housing developers/building contractors, ABT users and ABT manufacturers-related issues in Nigeria's context. This study suggested mechanisms to mitigate encumbrances to ABT adoption in LCH provision, thereby improving achieving SDG 11.

This research adds to the limited literature by analysing ABT adoption encumbrances in Nigeria's LCH provision, which could assist policy formulation for the uptake of ABT in LCH provision and improve achieving Goal 11.

The literature on leadership is quite extensive; however, this study explains the impact of leadership styles on career success, career competence and career adaptability in the health sector. It explains the impact of servant leadership on career competence and career adaptability with a serial mediating impact of psychological safety and proactive behavior as well as self-efficacy and proactive behavior.

It is a quantitative study, and it tested the suggested model in hospitals in Pakistan. The data were collected from 310 health practitioners from the hospitals, and it was analyzed with partial least square structural equation modeling.

The findings suggest that psychological safety and proactive behavior serially mediate the impact of servant leaders on career competence and career adaptability; hence, servant leadership tends to increase career competence and career adaptability of individuals. One more serial mediation has been tested with positive results between servant leadership and career competence and career adaptability.

The study takes a very well theoretically linked model which tests the serial mediating path of servant leadership to career competencies and career adaptability.