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Article
Publication date: 31 January 2024

Annika Baumgart, Robin Bell and Ria Wiid

Family businesses require internal communication (IC) to guide and provide direction, and the unique nature of involving both family and nonfamily employees add complexity…

Abstract

Purpose

Family businesses require internal communication (IC) to guide and provide direction, and the unique nature of involving both family and nonfamily employees add complexity. Navigating this complexity helps to ensure effective direction and management of family businesses. This paper explores the existing research concerning IC within family businesses and discusses the lenses and contexts through which it is commonly studied.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper provides a concise literature review to identify the most common lenses through which IC in family business has been researched.

Findings

IC in family enterprises is mostly studied through the lenses of IC between family generations, IC and the influence on family identity, and IC in times of crises. Existing research is largely focused on the role of family in IC, and limited consideration is given to the role of nonfamily members and family members outside of the business.

Originality/value

The paper synthesizes the direction and findings of existing research into IC within family business and provides avenues for future research. Managerial implications are also presented based on the synthesis of existing literature.

Details

Journal of Family Business Management, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2043-6238

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 22 April 2024

Amirreza Alizadeh Majd, Robin Bell, Sa’ad Ali, Arefeh Davoodi and Azadeh Nasirifar

This study aims to investigate the impact of job rotation on employee performance and explores the mediating role of human resources (HR) strategy and training effectiveness on…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to investigate the impact of job rotation on employee performance and explores the mediating role of human resources (HR) strategy and training effectiveness on this relationship, within the petrochemical industry, which represents a highly specialist and hazardous industrial context.

Design/methodology/approach

Data was collected through a questionnaire which was distributed among the experts working in an Iranian petrochemical organization. Previously validated scales were used to measure job rotation, employee performance, HR strategy and training effectiveness, and partial least squares structural equation modeling was used for hypothesis testing.

Findings

The research findings indicated that job rotation had a negative effect on employee performance, while training effectiveness and HR strategy positively mediated the relationship between job rotation and employee performance. This highlights the importance of ensuring effective training and a HR strategy to support job rotation of skilled and specialist employees.

Practical implications

Managers of employees in specialist and hazardous industries, such as petrochemical workers, interested in job rotation to support employee career development, should be mindful of potential negative implications on employee performance. To support and improve employee performance, job rotation should be considered alongside HR strategy and training.

Originality/value

Previous research has largely focused on the value of job rotation to develop managers’ organizational understanding and to reduce injury within blue-collar work, which has led to a paucity of research into job rotation within highly skilled and specialist industrial roles. It is highlighted within the literature that it remains unclear what supports effective job rotation. This study addresses this lacuna by investigating how job rotation affects employee performance in a highly skilled and specialized industry and how strategy and training effectiveness mediate this effect.

Details

Industrial and Commercial Training, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0019-7858

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 10 November 2023

Reuel Johnmark Dakung, Robin Bell, Laura Aseru Orobia, Kasmwakat Reuel Dakung and Lemun Nuhu Yatu

This study examines the relationship between entrepreneurial passion, entrepreneurial support programs and entrepreneurial intention, and the moderating role of entrepreneurial…

Abstract

Purpose

This study examines the relationship between entrepreneurial passion, entrepreneurial support programs and entrepreneurial intention, and the moderating role of entrepreneurial support programs in the relationship between entrepreneurial passion and entrepreneurial intention, among students with physical disabilities in Nigerian tertiary institutions.

Design/methodology/approach

This study used a closed-ended questionnaire survey, composed of previously validated scales, to sample 209 students with physical disabilities at tertiary institutions in Nigeria. Hierarchal regression was performed to assess the relationships between the variables and test the hypotheses.

Findings

Both entrepreneurial passion and entrepreneurial support programs were found to be significantly positively related to entrepreneurial intention, and entrepreneurial support programs also moderated the relationship between entrepreneurial passion and entrepreneurial intention.

Research limitations/implications

This research paper identifies that developing entrepreneurial passion and providing accessible and inclusive entrepreneurial support programs are valuable in supporting and facilitating a passage into entrepreneurship for those with disabilities.

Originality/value

This research paper addresses calls for further understanding of how those with disabilities can be supported into entrepreneurship, by identifying supporting factors. The research paper provides further understanding of the entrepreneurial passion and intention nexus by exploring the relationship within those with a physical disability, where significant barriers exist and within a developing country context where entrepreneurship might be a necessity rather than driven by passion.

Details

Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, vol. 30 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1462-6004

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 19 December 2022

Robin Bell

Business model innovation (BMI) has been posited as essential for both new and existing digital business, as they commonly operate in competitive and fast-moving markets with…

Abstract

Purpose

Business model innovation (BMI) has been posited as essential for both new and existing digital business, as they commonly operate in competitive and fast-moving markets with limited entry barriers. However, it is highlighted within the literature that the understanding of how BMI contributes to business success and how new digital ventures develop competitive advantage is still unclear. This study aims to address this lacuna by exploring how young Chinese digital businesses develop and innovate their business models to survive in fast-moving and competitive markets.

Design/methodology/approach

This research adopted a multiple case study design, with qualitative data being collected from the founders of five Chinese digital businesses, to develop an understanding of the evolution of their business models and BMI from their inception.

Findings

The findings add support for the contention that BMI can play an important role and is beneficial in the success of such new digital ventures in highly competitive environments. The founders attribute their success to a willingness for continued BMI, an openness to new opportunities, developing customer relationships and continuous iteration.

Originality/value

This research addresses calls to further the authors’ understanding of how BMI contributes to business success and how new digital ventures develop competitive advantage by exploring the BMI of five highly successful digital businesses from their inception.

Details

International Journal of Innovation Science, vol. 16 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1757-2223

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 15 January 2024

Danielle E. Sachdeva

Immigration-themed children’s literature can be an important resource in the classroom, especially because some U.S. immigrant groups, including French-Canadians, have received…

Abstract

Purpose

Immigration-themed children’s literature can be an important resource in the classroom, especially because some U.S. immigrant groups, including French-Canadians, have received limited curricular representation. Using the qualitative method of critical content analysis, this study aims to examine depictions of French-Canadian immigrants to the United States in contemporary children’s books.

Design/methodology/approach

Postcolonialism is employed as an analytical lens with special attention given to the ways immigrant characters are constructed as different from the dominant group (i.e., othering), how dominant group values are imposed on immigrant characters, and how immigrant characters resist othering and domination. Three books comprise the sample: “Charlotte Bakeman Has Her Say” by Mary Finger and illustrated by Kimberly Batti, “Other Bells for Us to Ring” by Robert Cormier, and “Red River Girl” by Norma Sommerdorf.

Findings

The findings reveal multiple instances in which French-Canadian immigrants are constructed as Other and few instances in which these characters resist this positioning, and these books reflect the real ways French-Canadians were perceived as subalterns during the mass migration from Québec to the United States between the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Originality/value

This study is significant because it examines portrayals of a substantial immigrant group that has been overlooked in the immigration history curriculum. This sample of children’s books may be used to teach children the complexities of immigration history and provide a more nuanced understanding of immigration during the 19th and 20th centuries.

Details

Social Studies Research and Practice, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1933-5415

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 June 2023

Daniel Torchia, Simone Domenico Scagnelli and Laura Corazza

The purpose of this paper is to extend research on boundary making and breaking through alternative football clubs. These entities have borne out of the disappointment caused by…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to extend research on boundary making and breaking through alternative football clubs. These entities have borne out of the disappointment caused by the neoliberal turn of the football industry, which excluded traditional fans from being active actors and therefore call for study and generalization of specific forms of alternative accountability.

Design/methodology/approach

The study looks at emerging trends in the accounting and sport literature by drawing on two concepts that emerged in critical scholarship: critical performativity and critical dialogical accountability, with the aim of better understanding how these elements are developed and shaped within an alternative form of football organization. The focus on Football Club United of Manchester drives the ethnographic approach with data collected via participant observation, field-notes, documental analysis and semi-structured interviews.

Findings

The research shows that the pillars of the club's ethos, pushing its critical performative interventions toward setting new boundaries, are democratic governance and accountability, favoring participation and inclusion, and strictly linked to this, a responsibility to local communities. However, the study also highlights the difficulties of maintaining these boundaries when core values are threatened by degeneration.

Originality/value

The study makes a novel contribution to the field of accounting and sport, showing how an alternative football club adopts inclusive accountability systems that go beyond mainstream neoliberal practices. Such an inclusive approach can stimulate critical performativity, moving away from means-end rationality.

Book part
Publication date: 12 December 2023

Rebekka J. Jez

Although special education was built upon the foundation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the discrimination that many racialized students receiving special education services…

Abstract

Although special education was built upon the foundation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the discrimination that many racialized students receiving special education services experience cannot be denied. Many culturally, ethnically, and linguistically diverse students receiving special education services encounter labels that perpetuate racism and ableism and lead to inequitable access to services and resources necessary for more positive postsecondary outcomes. By honoring intersectionality and dismantling the singular identity, educators can become change agents and shift the historic oppressive narrative to create a system of empowerment as these individuals transition from transitional kindergarten to age 21 special education programs (TK-21) schools into adulthood.

Details

Contextualizing Critical Race Theory on Inclusive Education From a Scholar-Practitioner Perspective
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80455-530-9

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 5 September 2023

Robert P. Robinson and Jordan Bell

The purpose of this study is to analyze the first major federal education policy, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, and the most recent federal policy, the Every…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to analyze the first major federal education policy, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, and the most recent federal policy, the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015, through a Black critical theory (BlackCrit) lens to understand better how these educational policies have served as antiblack projects. Furthermore, this study locates examples of educational Freedom Dreams in the past and present to imagine new possibilities in Black education.

Design/methodology/approach

By analyzing education policy documents and history through BlackCrit methods, the authors expose how education policy is inherently an antiblack project. Freedom Dreams catalyze possibilities for future education.

Findings

The data confirms that while these policies purport equity and accountability in education, they, in practice, exacerbate antiblackness through inequitably mandated standardized testing, distributed funding and policed schooling.

Originality/value

This paper applies BlackCrit analysis of education policy to reimagine Black educational possibilities.

Details

Journal for Multicultural Education, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2053-535X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 January 2024

Cydney Y. Caradonna

It is critical for those who are engaged in the work of resisting the movement of academically restrictive policy to understand that it is a deliberate act on the part of…

Abstract

Purpose

It is critical for those who are engaged in the work of resisting the movement of academically restrictive policy to understand that it is a deliberate act on the part of conservatives to outlaw critical race theory (CRT) specifically, because it is a theoretical mechanism for discrediting the rhetorical foundations of their policy movement. The knee-jerk institutional courses of action to now defund initiatives and curriculum related equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) represent what has always been a deeply rooted investment in white supremacy on the part of the institutions (Baldwin, 2021; Patel, 2021; Squire, 2021).

Design/methodology/approach

The author explores and defines the CRT tenets of interest convergence (Bell, 1980) and whiteness as property (Harris, 1993) in relation to EI (Fricker, 2007; Dotson, 2011) as frameworks for examining three EGOs in the region where these policies have become most dominant. All three are critical tools of analysis for understanding the stake the White conservative political elite have in EGOs, and the magnitude of EI these policies represent, and stand endorse in their rhetoric. Definitions of EI often rely on the work of Amanda Fricker’s (2013) text on the subject, but this paper is invested in the expansions of this theorization for speaking to the nature of the injustice that EGOs represent as a matter of historical trend, with grave implications for futures marked by continued oppression. Whiteness as property and interest convergence are points for explicating the dialectic and material aspects of issues of race and equity in this country; namely, how knowledge processes inherent to higher education sound even more alarms as EGOs become commonplace for college campuses.

Findings

To support the arguments laid out, the author provides a historical review of the settler-colonial foundations of higher education as an american institution. This is meant to provide contour to the image of postsecondary education that exists today. In accordance with this paper’s allegiance to CRT, many of the texts would be considered revisionist history (Delgado and Stefancic, 2023), which stray from dominant narratives of american comfort and speak more accurately to the experiences of minoritized populations. The author then applies the same analysis to the sociopolitical contexts of EGOs, and to policy language itself. Each section is closed with an explanation of its connection to tenets of CRT and EI so as to provide a thread to follow into the subsequent discussion section.

Research limitations/implications

In the first presentation of the early writings of this work, the author was lucky enough to be in community with Barbara Applebaum at the annual meeting for the American Educational Studies Association and engage in discourse surrounding EI and CRT applications to EGOs. In conversations surrounding the will in the willful ignorance that is exemplified in the movement of EGOs, the author had shared with Dr Applebaum the early thinking on how that will was the same force that brought together converging interests, which have continually forecasted interest divergence. This is commonly referred to as “political backlash.” The author had said something along the lines of: “if we follow the interest convergence, we can get in front of the subsequent political moves to turn the clocks on what was once celebrates progress.” This conversation planted the seed for what is the thesis of this paper. Interest convergence and divergence happen at the will of white populations because of the american truth of whiteness as property. In the context of higher education, this means that because educational pursuit has largely been white property, it has served as an arena for white populations to converge and diverge their interests with those of the minoritized. For example, the policies that drained federal funding for higher education in the 1970s were passed on the tails of a Civil Rights Movement that shook the very foundation of this country and expanded access to postsecondary education for racially minoritized groups (Berret, 2015).

Originality/value

Ensuring that this social construction is a matter of status quo has largely been the work of postsecondary institutions, and EGOs represent the most recent attempt at epistemically imposed inferiority. Explicit attention to the fact of higher education’s complicity and overall investment in the socialization of oppression is necessary to engage in transformative practice that resists anachronism. If higher education researchers and practitioners do not recognize the stake in both the presence and resistance to EGOs, there would likely be acts of resistance that will belie an act of interest convergence – and later divergence – on the part of the state.

Details

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, vol. 43 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2040-7149

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 23 August 2023

Robin Lieb

There is ample evidence that financial market development leads to economic growth. If improving labor rights can be shown to positively influence equity markets, then that, in…

Abstract

There is ample evidence that financial market development leads to economic growth. If improving labor rights can be shown to positively influence equity markets, then that, in turn, will lead to economic growth. The finance literature has examined the impact of a broader metric, namely, the Economic Freedom Index, on equity returns worldwide, and the evidence is mixed. This study focuses on one dimension of economic freedom: labor rights. Specifically, the study analyzes the impact of labor rights on national equity market indexes using the Labor Rights Index developed by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Fraser Institute (FI). Using panel regression analysis for 49 countries (for the OECD Index) and 76 countries (for the FI Index) over the period 1985–2014, the study finds that changes in labor rights have a statistically significant positive impact on equity returns, after controlling for business-cycle effects and time-fixed effects. The study also finds significant differences in the labor–rights–equity returns relationship between developed and less developed economies.

Details

Contemporary Issues in Financial Economics: Evidence from Emerging Economies
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80117-839-6

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