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This paper aims to explore how young students experience the contribution of a pedagogical assemblage based on design thinking (DT) while contributing to the transition to a more just and sustainable university.

This qualitative research considers the case of two pedagogical experiences developed at Universitat Politècnica de Valencià, Spain. In both experiences, a methodological proposal that includes practices of care, just transitions and DT was implemented. The data obtained through in-depth interviews, surveys and digital whiteboard labels was analyzed under the lens of three relational categories in the context of sustainability.

Learnings are acquired through five categories: place-based learning, prior learning, embodied learning, collaborative teamwork and intersectionality. The research shows how the subjective knowledge of young students positions them as co-designers and leaders of a University that drives a more just and sustainable transition.

The originality of the paper lies in the shift of DT from a human-based approach to a justice-oriented relational approach.

Value co-creation (VCC) helps platforms establish competitive advantages. Unlike their traditional counterparts, social attribute is a key concept of social e-commerce platforms. This study integrates VCC and social network theories, introduces relational embeddedness and divides this variable into economic and social relational embeddedness to explore its impact on VCC intention. This study also explores the mediating and moderating roles of customers' psychological ownership (CPO) and regulatory focus, respectively.

A questionnaire survey was conducted among users of mainstream social e-commerce platforms in China, and the relationship among the variables was revealed through a structural equation modeling of 464 valid responses.

The dimensions of relational embeddedness positively affect CPO and VCC intention, with social relational embeddedness exerting the strongest effect. CPO positively affects VCC intention and partially mediates the relationship between relational embeddedness and VCC intention. Promotion and prevention focus positively and negatively moderate the relationship between CPO and VCC intention, respectively.

This study expands the VCC research perspective and links the VCC concepts to social network dynamics. From the relational embeddedness perspective, this study identifies the type and intensity of relational embeddedness that promotes users' VCC intention and contributes to theoretical research on VCC and relational embeddedness. This study also introduces CPO as an intermediary variable, thus opening the black box of this mechanism, and confirms the moderating role of regulatory focus as the key psychological factor motivating users' VCC intention.

This paper is one of the first studies to examine specificities, including limits of mindfulness at work in an African organisational context, whilst dealing with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. It specifically addresses the role of organisational and managerial support systems in restoring employee wellbeing, social connectedness and attachment to their organisations, in order to overcome the exclusion caused by the ongoing pandemic.

The study uses a qualitative research methodology that includes interviews as the main data source. The sample comprises of 20 entrepreneurs (organisational leaders) from Ghana and Nigeria.

The authors found that COVID-19-induced worries restricted the practice of mindfulness, and this was prevalent at the peak of the pandemic, particularly due to very tough economic conditions caused by reduction in salaries, and intensified by pre-existing general economic and social insecurities, and institutional voids in Africa. This aspect further resulted in lack of engagement and lack of commitment, which affected overall team performance and restricted employees’ mindfulness at work. Hence, quietness by employees even though can be linked to mindfulness was linked to larger psychological stress that they were facing. The authors also found leaders/manager’s emotional intelligence, social skills and organisational support systems to be helpful in such circumstances. However, their effectiveness varied among the cases.

This paper is one of the first studies to establish a link between the COVID-19 pandemic and mindfulness limitations. Moreover, it is a pioneering study specifically highlighting the damaging impact of COVID-19-induced concerns on leader–member exchange (LMX) and team–member exchange (TMX) relationships, particularly in the African context. It further brings in a unique discussion on the mitigating mechanisms of such COVID-19-induced concerns in organisations and highlights the roles of manager’s/leader’s emotional intelligence, social skills and supportive intervention patterns. Finally, the authors offer an in-depth assessment of the effectiveness of organisational interventions and supportive relational systems in restoring social connectedness following a social exclusion caused by COVID-19-induced worries.

Drawing upon theories of conservation of resources (COR), broaden-and-build (BnB), self-determination, and the job demands- resources (JD-R) model, this study uniquely tries to understand the mechanisms that contribute to happiness at work by proposing a model of the effects of emotional culture of joy on happiness at work, where psychological safety and relational attachments serve as intervening mechanisms among the aforesaid relationship.

A three-wave time-lagged study with 340 employees from Pakistani organizations was conducted. Data were analyzed using covariance-based structural equation modelling.

The results indicate that emotional culture of joy significantly predicts happiness at work. Furthermore, emotional culture of joy significantly and positively influences both psychological safety and relational attachment. Finally, the relationship between emotional culture of joy and happiness at work is found to be mediated by both relational attachment and psychological safety.

The results are of utmost importance as they provide insights to policy makers and organizations administrators on the value of emotional culture of joy and its contribution to employees’ wellbeing, and indeed its role in fostering important psychological and emotional resources such as psychological safety and relational attachment.

This study is unique for the following reasons. First, it addresses and bridges a gap pertaining to the drivers of happiness at work. Second, this is the first study that considers emotional culture of joy as an antecedent to happiness at work. Third, the employment of both psychological safety and relational attachment as intervening mechanisms in the relationship between emotional culture of joy and happiness at work has not been previously addressed in the management and wellbeing literature. Finally, the study shifts direction from studying organizational drivers (i.e. HR, organization support, etc.) of happiness at work to the examination of psychological and emotional resources that may influence happiness at work.

Relations in university settings are becoming more heterogeneous in terms of race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, class, and gender. In South Africa, transformation imperatives have radically changed the complexion of the country’s university campuses but have also entrenched political imperatives in its universities. As a consequence, the university is a highly politicised space. This is not new. What is new is a communication environment characterised by real-time, global networked digital communication and the uptake of digital media platforms (including social media platforms). We explore the effects of politicisation and new modes of communication using the case of a controversial article published in a South Africa journal and the ensuing polemic. Drawing on both institutional theory and Castells’ description of the network society, we conceptualise collegiality along two dimensions: horizontal collegial relations which exist for the purpose of knowledge creation and transfer which, in turn, depends on self-governance according to a taken-for-granted code of conduct; and vertical collegiality which describes collegial relations between academic staff and university management, and which is necessary for the governance of the university as a complex organisation. We conclude that the highly personal nature of communication that is propelled by digital communication has a direct impact on collegial relations within the university. The motivations of both university academic staff and management, as well as the public, extend beyond stimulating collective debate in the service of knowledge production to serving individual and/or ideological agendas as the communication of science becomes politicised. While issues pertaining to collegiality in South Africa may at first glance appear to be unique to the country, we believe that in a globally transforming academy, the South African case may offer novel insights and useful lessons for other highly politicised university systems.

The recent livestreaming commerce has magnified the role of influencer marketing, where the influencers are partnering with brands for product promotion. This study examines the impact of influencer attributes, interaction strategies and parasocial relationships on impulsive buying in livestreaming commerce.

A survey with 368 livestreaming commerce users was analyzed using the symmetric-thinking approach – partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and asymmetric thinking approach – fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA).

The results of PLS-SEM indicate that influencer trustworthiness, influencer interactivity and self-disclosure determine parasocial relationships, which in turn influence impulsive buying. The fsQCA finding returned three configurations with various combinations of the causal conditions (i.e. influencer attributes, interaction strategies, parasocial relationships, perceived fit uncertainty and perceived quality uncertainty) explaining the formation of impulsive buying.

These findings provide unique linear and nonlinear insights to explain the combinatory effects of influencer attributes, interaction strategies, parasocial relationships, perceived fit uncertainty and perceived quality uncertainty on impulsive buying in livestreaming commerce.

The majority of emerging adults in the United States spend time in cohabiting unions. Prior research has suggested that higher levels of sexual non-exclusivity may exist among those in cohabiting relationships compared to marital unions. Although these basic patterns have been explored in prior work, research examining the potential reasons why levels of sexual non-exclusivity differ by union status has been limited. Drawing on a relational perspective and using the fifth wave of data from the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study (TARS), the present study found that higher levels of sexual non-exclusivity in cohabiting relationships were explained by intimate relationship characteristics and sexual histories rather than sociodemographic factors, partner heterogamy, or partner- and couple-level drug use. These findings highlighted that understanding the higher rates of sexually non-exclusive experiences in cohabiting relationships, compared to marital relationships, requires attention to specific dynamics of the intimate partnership and prior relational experiences of both partners. The study concluded that cohabitation has a unique place in emerging adults’ relationship landscape and may set the groundwork for future relationship functioning.