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Increasingly, universities are involved in providing leadership development opportunities that support students’ academic endeavours and their personal and professional development, including employability and citizenship skills. Leadership experiences are beneficial not only for students, but also for universities, the wider community, and future employers. To develop a greater understanding of students’ perceived benefits of their involvement in peer leadership activities, a group of Australasian universities participated in a pilot survey based on the United States National Survey of Peer Leadership. Overall, the results suggest students believe they benefit from peer leadership experiences across a range of key outcomes areas, most prominently creative problem solving, appreciation of diversity, and a sense of belonging and contributing to the university community.

Around 400,000 working days per year are lost in the construction industry due to stress, depression or anxiety, but a large proportion of the industry – those primarily not based “on-site” – is not included in these statistics. Little research has been conducted in this group about their experiences of occupational stress. The authors explored how stress was experienced and managed by construction professionals and its perceived impact on health.

The authors interviewed 32 construction professionals in a British construction company, with varying levels of seniority and years in the industry. Interviews were transcribed, coded and analysed thematically.

Stress was viewed an inevitable and increasing part of the construction industry, exacerbated by recent economic challenges. Participants talked about a culture of stress and overwork but often felt unable to challenge it due to job insecurity. Senior management acknowledged stress was a problem within the industry and something that potentially threatened company productivity. Company-wide initiatives had been implemented to address stress levels (e.g. Mental Health First Aiders), but were criticised for ignoring underlying issues. Informal means of managing stress were identified, such as careful consideration of team dynamics, which allowed employees to form close bonds and using “banter” and camaraderie to relieve stress. However, the persistence of a macho male image meant some participants were reluctant to talk about their feelings at work. Participants described individual coping strategies, such as exercise, but these were hard to prioritise in challenging times.

There is growing recognition that health and well-being must be given greater priority in the construction industry. Industry pressures and competitive practices undermine efforts to improve staff well-being. Action must be taken at senior levels to address this conflict, while building on existing informal mechanisms of support and stress relief.

Collaboration and psychological safety are key factors to effective teams. LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® (LSP) has emerged over the past decade as a development tool used in both educational and workplace settings for a range of purposes. In this study, the authors sought to investigate the impact of the experience of participating in a LSP away-day on the collaboration and psychological safety of the participants.

In this study the subjective experience of participants of LSP workshop awaydays using a coaching approach were examined through interpretative phenomenological analysis. Members of two teams were invited to participate in team awaydays and approximately six weeks later, they were invited to share their reflections on the experience and its impact on team relationships and team performance.

The interviews revealed that participants' felt experience of engaging with LSP was positive, created closer bonds within the team and a better understanding of each other and the challenges which the team were facing. Participants reported a tangible change in the way they are collaborating and engaging not only just with fellow participants but also with other colleagues.

The experience of the participants in this study supports the view that LSP can have a positive role to play in developing psychological safety and collaboration in organisational teams and that there was a lasting impact on group norms which was sustained after the event.

Optimal application and commitment toward financial management practices enhance organization performance. This study aims to assess the influence of financial management practices on organizational performance of small- and medium-scale enterprises.

Data were collected from 45 small-sized and 72 medium-sized firms. Data supported the hypothesized relationships. Construct reliability and validity were established through confirmatory factor analysis. The conceptual model and hypotheses were evaluated by using structural equation modeling.

The results indicate that working capital significantly influenced organizational performance. Capital budget management significantly influenced organizational performance. A non-significant influence of asset management on organizational performance was observed.

The generalizability of the findings will be constrained due to the research’s SMEs focus and cross-sectional data.

The study’s findings will serve as valuable pointers for stakeholders and decision-makers of SMEs in the development of well-articulated and proactive financial management systems to ensure competitiveness, sustainability, viability and financial competences.

The study adds to the corpus of literature by evidencing empirically that financial management practices significantly influenced SMEs’ performance.

The purpose of this study is to examine how informational faultlines on a board affect the management of knowledge owned by directors and the consequences on organizational performance. In this study, informational faultlines are defined as hypothetical lines that divide a group into relatively homogeneous subgroups based on the alignment of several informational attributes among board members.

The study uses unique hand-collected panel data covering 7,247 board members at 106 publicly traded firms to provide strong support for the hypothesized U-shaped relationship. The authors use a fixed effects approach and a system generalized method of moments approach to test the hypothesis.

The study finds that the relationship between informational faultlines on a board and organizational performance is U shaped, with the least optimal organizational performance experienced when boards have moderate informational faultlines. More specifically, informational faultlines within boards are negatively related to organizational performance across the weak-to-moderate range of informational faultlines and positively related to organizational performance across the moderate-to-strong range.

By explaining the mechanisms through which informational faultlines are related to organizational performance, the authors contribute to the literature in a number of ways. By conceptualizing how the management of knowledge plays an important role in the particular setting of corporate boards, the authors add not only to literature on knowledge management but also to the faultline and corporate governance literature.

This study offers a rationale for prior mixed findings by providing an alternative theoretical basis to explain the effect of informational faultlines within boards on organizational performance. To advance the field, the authors build on the concept of knowledge demonstrability to illuminate how informational faultlines affect the management of knowledge within boards, which will translate to organizational performance.

Internal control systems are critical to an organization's efficiency and promotes the adherence to norms and rules. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of internal control systems on banking industry effectiveness.

Data were collected from 15 commercial and 20 rural banks. The hypothesized relationships were supported by the data. A structural equation modeling was applied in testing the conceptual model and hypothesis. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to establish validity and reliability of the dimensions.

The results show that organizational effectiveness was significantly impacted by three dimensions of internal control systems: control activities, control environments and risk assessment. However, the impact of monitoring of control on organizational effectiveness was not significant. The results also show a nonsignificant impact of information and communication on organizational effectiveness.

Since the current study concentrated on the banking sector with its distinct characteristics, the generalizability of the conclusions may be limited.

The study's findings may aid decision-makers and stakeholders in the adoption, designing and implementation of proactive internal control system to enhance operational efficiency, effectiveness and competitive advantage.

The study advances the literature by empirically evidencing that internal control systems impact organizational effectiveness.

This paper contributes to the theory of the relationship between human resource management (HRM) and innovation at small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by conducting a conceptual analysis of the question why Germany boasts by far the highest number of “Hidden Champion” SMEs. This is done by case studies from the army and public financial management of aid disbursal in developing countries. Implications for HRM at SMEs are discussed.

Conceptual analysis using case studies.

Contributing towards filling the gap concerning theoretical underpinnings of the link between HRM and innovation, we suggest that interdisciplinary work from relevant organisational case studies indicates that the concept of institutional design to provide motivational incentives may be relevant, especially concerning high performance systems with bundles of HRM practices. Specifically, the fundamental principle of subsidiarity is found to be important.

The research is broadly applicable to organisations of all kinds, as the diverse case studies indicate. We point towards tentative implications for the firms that account for the majority of the work force, namely SMEs, and among them the most successful ones, the so-called “Hidden Champions”.

HR managers can improve motivation, performance and innovation by decentralising decision-making as far as possible, while ensuring the overall organisational goals are well understood and shared, and resources are dedicated to train and educate staff. Additionally, the conception of rank-order competitions complements the institutional design.

Greater productivity and material performance as well as greater job satisfaction via larger autonomy and decision-making power on the local level can be achieved by the application of subsidiarity as key HRM configuration. This can be employed at SMEs, as discussed, but also other organisations. Further, the principle of subsidiarity and the greater emphasis on staff training and education may help reduce inequality.

Our paper contributes towards filling the gap in the literature on the link between HRM and innovation, by identifying the role of subsidiarity. We introduce an interdisciplinary perspective, with contributions from economics and psychology, among others. We also contribute to the history of HRM.

This research evaluated learning outcomes of a leadership development program at a large, southern land grant institution. The program is an interdisciplinary, semester-long class where experience and theory are juxtaposed to offer leadership training and development. Through an intensive research project, the program exposes students to four practical skills and four adaptive skills related to leadership development. The research outcomes of this study found that students did perceive to have gained the intended leadership skills as related to the four practical and four adaptive skills set forth by the program curriculum. As leadership programs continue to grow, these programs must be assessed and evaluated to continue to garner merit within the academic community.

Accomplishing the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is imperative for societies to meet their grand challenges. Achieving these goals by 2030 requires sustainability change agents with a can-do-attitude. This study aims to show how institutions of higher education can become partners for social marketing in bringing forward such change agents.

Taking a case study approach, this paper examines a master’s programme to identify factors relevant to educating sustainability change agents that can serve as a basis for a social marketing planning primer to foster the SDGs.

This study presents the social marketing discipline with a viable option for supporting the achievement of the SDGs through higher education. Its contributions are twofold. First, it is shown that when interdisciplinarity and a project-based approach are conceptualized and organized to create a motivating and meaningful learning environment with the SDGs as guiding principles, students, as sustainability change agents, can increase awareness and have the potential to generate impacts regarding the SDGs at the individual, organizational and institutional levels. Second, based on this, the paper provides guidance to social marketers regarding the planning of a campaign targeting higher education institutions. The authors argue that the aim of this campaign should be to promote the implementation of the SDGs as guiding principles above all, as this can facilitate the process of students becoming sustainability change agents who help achieve the goals in a timely manner.

Whilst single case studies are usually limited in drawing generalizations, the present study offers a starting point for investigating the role of universities as a target group for social marketing in fostering further sustainable development. Building on its findings, future research could test the proposed social marketing planning primer and evaluate the impact on the SDGs at a larger scale than only one university.

It is proposed to use the findings of the study to model a social marketing campaign aimed at universities to motivate them to help develop sustainability change agents in all disciplines by integrating the SDGs as guiding principles for study programmes.

Students’ impacts range from leading peers to buy sustainable products and consume less to influencing a company to adopt sustainable packaging, thereby contributing to social change.

This study is among the first to examine the possible effect of a study programme on the SDGs at different societal levels by taking the perspectives of multiple stakeholders into account and combining the theory of higher education with sustainability and social marketing.