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There have again been increasing calls for management educators to strengthen the development of leadership in their programmes. However, it is unclear as to how such calls can be best answered. One way forward may be to rethink our conceptualisation of leadership. This paper seeks to address this issue.

Dominant theories of leadership may offer limited help to management educators. The dominant conceptualisation of leadership is questioned using empirical evidence from recent studies and interviews undertaken by the authors which examined managers' understandings of leadership.

This article suggests that mainstream leadership theories are framed by systems‐control thinking and highlights a number of issues in respect of teaching leadership. Proposes that a process‐relational framing of leadership may be a more useful way to think about leadership.

Whilst the interview data drawn upon is exploratory and therefore cannot be taken as conclusive, we hope to stimulate a wider rethinking of leadership than is currently present.

Tentative suggestions are presented for responding to calls to improve the teaching of leadership.

The paper emphasises a process‐relational understanding of leadership and may be seen to offer practical help to management educators concerned with the teaching of leadership.

Informed by multiple disciplines, theories, and methods, higher education scholars have developed a robust and diverse literature in many countries. Yet, some important (organizational) sociological perspectives, both more established and more recent, are insufficiently linked. In particular, we identify two theoretical strands – institutional and relational – that, when joined, help to explain contemporary developments in global higher education and yield new organizational insights. We review relevant literature from each perspective, both in their general formulations and with specific reference to contemporary higher education research. Within the broad institutional strand, we highlight strategic action fields, organizational actorhood, and associational memberships. Within the relational strand, we focus on ties and relationships that are especially crucial as science has entered an age of (inter)national research collaboration. Across these theories, we discuss linkages between concepts, objects, and levels of analysis. We explore the methodological approach of social network analysis as it offers great potential to connect these strands and, thus, to advance contemporary higher education research in a collaborative era.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the value and limitations of a practice-based approach (PBA) to studying the adoption and use of information systems, through a summary of the theory and exploration of empirical data about the use of collaborative software.

A selection of theoretical resources from the practice-based approach, namely, its view of routine and change, socio-materiality, relational thinking and knowing are introduced. They are employed to analyse the adoption of a collaborative technology in a corporate setting. The empirical data is 30 interviews with human resource (HR) professionals involved in a project in a large Mexican University.

The adoption and use of the collaborative technology is shaped by collective, historical, social and contextual factors that permeate the HR practices being supported by the information system. Among the factors that shaped participation are the interconnection of HR practices to other practices of the University; the existence of habits and the sense of routinisation reflected in HR practitioners’ patterns of interaction and media use; the concern of practitioners that participation in the community did not fit the way HR practices are performed; and the political manoeuvring taking place between actors to persuade potential users to participate in the community.

The strength of the analysis using key tenets from a PBA is to deepen our understanding of context as shaped by collective and historical conditions. The sociology of translation can be used to further increase understanding of the political process around the adoption of the collaborative technology. Remaining issues point to a major issue with the theoretical resources from the PBA used in this study, namely the adequacy of its treatment of structural power.

The paper reports research of significance to those interested in information systems by providing an alternative perspective that sheds light on contextual, social and historical factors affecting the adoption and use of information technologies. The paper is also valuable in suggesting how the PBA can benefit from Actor-Network Theory (ANT). This will be relevant to the field of praxeological studies.

The purpose of this paper is to understand staff experiences of cognitive analytic team formulation, within an inpatient unit for women with a diagnosis of personality disorder.

In total, 16 staff completed an online questionnaire, rating their views on how helpful formulation sessions had been in regards to ten domains. Following this, six staff participated in semi-structured interviews exploring their experiences of the process and impact of cognitive analytic team formulation. Transcripts were analysed using thematic analysis.

Responses from questionnaires indicated the general process of team formulation was helpful across each domain. Interviews highlighted benefits such as an increased capacity to think and work relationally. This was impacted upon by staff’s confidence in using the model and the practicalities of attending sessions.

Team formulation has been described as the facilitation of a group of professionals to create a shared understanding of service-users’ difficulties. Team formulation continues to demonstrate benefits for staff working within complex mental health. The challenges of this are considered, however overall, a cognitive analytic framework seems to offer staff the opportunity to integrate learning from a service-user’s history, and current relational difficulties, in a way that develops reflective capacity and informs intervention.

Limited research has explored the theoretical models underpinning team formulation, and the impact for staff learning and practice. The current study develops previous work by specifically focussing on the contribution of cognitive analytic theory to team formulation.

This paper seeks to describe the work of Ian Macneil, a legal scholar advocating the use of relational contract theory and behavioral norms to evaluate exchange relations in business. The aim is to show through bibliometric and comparative analyses that Macneil has influenced management scholarship and dialogue about relational contract theory to an extent not recognized by management scholars.

Evidence of impact is evaluated through a bibliometric analysis of primary and secondary citations. This is followed by a comparison of Macneil's theory with four theories – integrated social contract theory, stakeholder theory, transaction cost theory, and rational choice theory.

Results indicate that Macneil has had a substantial impact on researchers working in different business disciplines, from marketing to economics and management. Bibliometric analysis reveals that his work is widely cited, suggesting that Macneil's contribution extends beyond legal scholarship to influence business scholarship.

Implications are that Macneil's relational contract theory should be considered when developing frameworks for guiding research on workplaces that are increasingly relational, connected and global. This is especially relevant in cases where workplace exchange appears on the surface to be non-contractual and based on societal customs and norms.

This paper recognizes the work of a major legal scholar in the formulation and discussion of relational contract theory in business scholarship. It introduces concepts that can support and act as a guide for future research on forms of relational exchange and recognizes the importance of Ian Macneil's work in supporting that research stream.

Extends the current understanding of customer satisfaction at the business‐to‐business level in the Asian banking industry. The main thrust of the paper is an attempt to conceptualise a comprehensive model of satisfaction at the business‐to‐business level incorporating guanxi (Chinese business relationships), relationship marketing and the disconfirmation paradigm. The essence of the research highlighted the importance of relational constructs, in addition to the disconfirmation paradigm, in impacting customer satisfaction at the business‐to‐business level in the Singapore banking industry. At the business‐to‐business level in the Asian context, the disconfirmation paradigm is still the predominant paradigm influencing the customer satisfaction process. Relationship marketing and guanxi are significant in our comprehensive model of corporate‐customer satisfaction. Relationship marketing was found to have both a direct and an indirect impact (through disconfirmation) on corporate‐customer satisfaction. Guanxi was found to exert an indirect impact on satisfaction as opposed to the initial hypothesised direct impact on satisfaction.

The purpose of this study is to examine the importance of relationship marketing and particularly customer trust in energy-efficiency labels in social marketing interventions geared towards energy-efficient consumption.

A conceptual model was empirically tested on a sample of 517 users of electronic appliances living in South Africa. The study involved a cross-sectional design, and data were collected via a self-administered survey. Structural equation modelling and mediation analysis were used to test the hypothesised relationships.

The results indicated that customer trust is influenced by customers’ perception of the price and quality of energy-efficiency products, their attitude towards such products and their level of satisfaction with the environmental performance of the products. Customer trust, in turn, showed a positive influence on the customers’ intention to purchase energy-efficiency products and their loyalty to such products. As a central variable, customer trust was found to be an important mediator in the conceptual model.

The findings provide social marketers with important insights on the critical role that customer trust plays in achieving a long-term behavioural shift towards energy-efficient consumption.

Focusing on customer trust in energy-efficiency labels, this study provides empirical evidence of the mediating role of trust in influencing the intention to purchase and the decision to remain loyal to eco-friendly products. Moreover, this paper provides greater clarity on various levers to be activated to enhance the trust that customers have in energy-efficiency labels.

The paper frames modern slavery as a global wicked problem and aims to provide a set of international business (IB) policy recommendations for taming it. The outlined approach can also guide IB policymaking to address other kinds of wicked problems.

This is a conceptual paper that reviews existing literature on wicked problems and integrates it with an IB policy double helix framework. The paper focuseses on the role multinational enterprises (MNEs) play in moderl slavery globally, either through global value chains or within global factory modes of operation.

As a global wicked problem, modern slavery will never be solved, but it can be re-solved time and time over. Understanding the social reproduction of modern slavery can help shift the focus from labor governance and a narrow supply chain focus toward the role of transnational governance and the need to address institutional, market and organizational failures.

The paper contributes to the gap in an overarching theory of modern slavery and systematically applies the concept of wicked problems and wickedness theory to modern slavery. Drawing on an IB policy double helix framework, the paper addresses the governance nexus between modern slavery, IB and policymaking which can in turn advance IB policy research and theory.

The need to innovate and apply alternative forms of school organization is evident as the COVID-19 pandemic has generated a need to establish new conceptualizations of schools and education management. The paradigm shift in learning inexorably necessitates a corresponding paradigm shift in educational organization, administration and management in order to build organizational resilience and capital. This study proposed framework seeks to address this issue by proposing a transformation of educational organization and management, shifting away from the unilateral, hierarchical school models and towards a unique, smart collaborative school ecosystem in which residents, industries, schools, universities and research centers can create new digital knowledge and inventive products, services and solutions by enlarging their capitals.

Drawing upon Bourdieu's theory of social capital, our theoretical contribution is to present the influence of three forms of capital (social, economic and cultural) in cultivating educational capacity and resilience in the school ecosystem, with a particular focus on the role of digital capital in reinforcing the school ecosystem capitals. The authors also argue that ecosystem leaders and principals as boundary spanners play an important role in promoting capital exchange and enlargement as they balance the permeability of organizational boundaries at times of crisis by maneuvering across fields.

Achieving educational improvement and building organizational capacity and resilience through the enlargement of system (and subsystem) capitals requires that key actors develop synchronized interpretations of educational aims and functions in various contexts. The authors delineate the importance of developing a synchronization strategy in the proposed conceptualization of smart and resilient school ecosystems.

By integrating research from both non-educational and educational literature, the proposed framework provides a new perspective for educational administration, organization and management, shifting away from the unilateral, hierarchical school models toward a unique, smart collaborative school ecosystem in which members can create new knowledge by enlarging their capitals. Practical lessons for leaders and policymakers from our conceptual framework are proposed.