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While companies in developed countries are increasingly turning to indigenous employees, integration measures have met with mixed results. Low integration can lead to breach of the psychological contract, i.e. perceived mutual obligations between employee and employer. The purpose of this paper is to identify how leadership and organizational integration measures can be implemented to promote the perceived insider status (PIS) of indigenous employees, thereby fostering fulfillment of the psychological contract.

A search for relevant literature yielded 128 texts used to identify integration measures at the level of employee–supervisor relationships (leader-member exchanges, inclusive leadership) and at the level of employee–organization relationships (perceived organizational support, pro-diversity practices).

Measures related to leadership included recruiting qualified leaders, understanding cultural particularities, integrating diverse contributions and welcoming questions and challenges. Organizational measures included reaching a critical mass of indigenous employees, promoting equity and participation, developing skills, assigning meaningful tasks, maintaining good work relationships, facilitating work-life balance, providing employment security, fostering support from communities and monitoring practices.

While PIS has been studied in western and culturally diverse contexts, it has received less attention in indigenous contexts. Yet, some indigenous cultural values are incompatible with the basic assumptions of mainstream theories. Furthermore, colonial policies and capitalist development have severely impacted traditional indigenous economic systems. Consequently, indigenous people are facing many barriers to employment in ways that often differ from the experiences of other minority groups.

Companies around the globe increasingly receive immense shareholder scrutiny due to perceivably excessive executive director remuneration. The debate in South Africa intensifies due to severe pay inequality. The authors thus accounted for the perspectives of asset managers and listed financial services companies in South Africa pertaining to the impact of voting and engagement on director pay policies and practices.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with selected asset managers, chief executive officers, chief financial officers and remuneration committee members of listed financial services companies to gauge their views on the impact of shareholder activism endeavours on remuneration governance. The qualitative data was analysed by conducting thematic analysis.

Most of the asset managers and financial services representatives preferred proactive, private engagement on pay concerns, given the impact thereof on voting outcomes, and ultimately director remuneration practices and policies. Independent remuneration committees have a prominent role in facilitating engagements with investors to ensure fair remuneration.

The consequences should be clearer if organisations receive substantial votes against their pay policies and implementation reports. South African regulators can consider the “two-strikes” rule to ensure that action is taken in response to shareholder voting on director remuneration matters.

Representatives of asset managers and listed financial services investee companies offered valuable insights on remuneration governance deliberations in an emerging market. This in-depth analysis highlights the importance of proactive engagement to ensure that corporate leaders are paid fairly.

Peer support is increasingly being introduced into mainstream mental health services internationally. The distinctiveness of peer support, compared to other mental health support, has been linked to values underpinning peer support. Evidence suggests that there are challenges to maintaining those values in the context of highly standardised organisational environments. The purpose of this paper is to describe a “principles-based” approach to developing and evaluating a new peer worker role in mental health services.

A set of peer support values was generated through systematic review of research about one-to-one peer support, and a second set produced by a UK National Expert Panel of people sharing, leading or researching peer support from a lived experience perspective. Value sets were integrated by the research team – including researchers working from a lived experience perspective – to produce a principles framework for developing and evaluating new peer worker roles.

Five principles referred in detail to: relationships based on shared lived experience; reciprocity and mutuality; validating experiential knowledge; leadership, choice and control; discovering strengths and making connections. Supporting the diversity of lived experience that people bring to peer support applied across principles.

The principles framework underpinned development of a handbook for a new peer worker role, and informed a fidelity index designed to measure the extent to which peer support values are maintained in practice. Given the diversity of peer support, the authors caution against prescriptive frameworks that might “codify” peer support and note that lived experience should be central to shaping and leading evaluation of peer support.

This paper adds to the literature on peer support in mental health by describing a systematic approach to understanding how principles and values underpin peer worker roles in the context of mental health services. This paper informs an innovative, principles-based approach to developing a handbook and fidelity index for a randomised controlled trial. Lived experiences of mental distress brought to the research by members of the research team and the expert advisors shaped the way this research was undertaken.