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Scenarios are cognitive aids for thinking about the future in a sustained and disciplined manner. Because scenarios must be facilitated, scenarios must be considered in the context of their practice. In the strategic management literature, there has been a considerable conversation on the practical difference between “hot” and “cold” cognition. Thinking in this conventional literature demonstrates how the facilitators of scenario planning workshops establish and channel the productive cognition of their clients away from hot cognition and toward cold cognition. But how? As a thought experiment, we examine whether the sociological concept of “emotional labor” helps explain the cognition management of clients by facilitators during scenario planning. We end by considering how a deeper practical understanding of emotional labor might help facilitators identify mechanisms and adapt their tools to better manage the cognitive-affective dimensions of scenario planning in practice.

This paper analyzes the role that the climate change concern (CCC_i) has on the willingness to accept an environmental tax. The author aims to grasp how individual general tax preferences can differ with respect to the specific (environmental) tax. He focuses attention to the Italian case since it has been argued that the potential acceptability of a carbon tax in Italy is relatively high, and this topic has been scarcely explored so far among Italian citizens (Rotaris and Danielis, 2019).

The author conducted an online survey among 514 Italian economics students.

The CCC_i positively influences the environmental tax morale (ETM_i). The general tax morale (TM_i) positively affects the specific (environmental) TM_i. The CCC_i alters individual tax preferences. The author evidenced that also subjects with low TM_i turned out to be willing to pay an environmental tax if aware of the environmental issues.

Although the author used a common methodology in this strand of research, he is aware that in an online survey individuals can be influenced by the self-reporting and hypothetical choice bias (see Swamy et al., 2001), that in turn can characterize their reported preferences. Moreover, even if economics university students are commonly used as a subject pool in experimental economics settings, and although several studies showed that the behavioral responses of students are largely the same as those of nonstudents in identical experiments (for a discussion see Alm, 2012; Choo et al., 2016), there is awareness that in this case, they are not taxpayers yet (Barabas and Jerit, 2010).

The author’s results remark the importance of increasing climate change awareness among people to let them be more willing to pay the environmental tax, for instance through investments in sensibilization campaigns on the importance of energy source usage and climate-related topic. Then, an increase in the general TM_i leads to an increase in the specific (environmental) TM_i. The author’s evidence showed that people with high tax morale logically recognize the positive impact of paying an environmental tax when the CCC_i increases, since the more the theme becomes important, the larger the willingness to pay the specific tax. For this reason, policymakers should carry on campaigns to increase the general level of TM_i to increase the overall tax compliance level and the relative tax revenues, following the guidelines given by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2019) to support taxpayer education programs, such as including TM_i research and analysis into education programs, improving the ease of paying taxes or strengthening revenue–expenditure links to build the social contract.

It should be paramount to increase awareness about environmental topics among people in general and among those who are relatively tax immoral. The author’s results remark on the importance of targeting energy and environmental tax policies to groups rather than to individuals. According to this evidence, we support the use of nonmonetary tools to nudge people in the environmental transition by changing their behavior in energy use, for instance through the taxation on fuel and other nonrenewable energy resources.

It is the first empirical study that analyzes the impact of CCC_i on the environmental TM_i in Italy, in particular controlling for the role of the general willingness to pay taxes (TM_i). To obtain individual attitudes toward tax payment, most of the empirical studies in behavioral economics employ international surveys. For studies across citizens living in European countries, the European Social Survey (ESS) and European Values Study (EVS) represent the most used ones (see, for instance, Martinez-Vazquez and Torgler (2009) in Spain; Torgler and Werner (2005) in Germany; Nemore and Morone (2019) in Italy). However, these surveys do not allow to study the relationship between the environmental and general TM_i across the same subject pool. In fact, despite the ESS (2016) provides individual responses about the willingness to pay an environmental tax, it does not provide information about the general individual attitude toward tax payment (this information is contained only in the ESS wave of 2004, hence referring to a different subject pool). On the contrary, each wave of the EVS (i.e. 2008, 2017) provides information about the general individual attitude toward tax payment, but this survey does not provide a question regarding the willingness to pay an environmental tax. Therefore, to obtain information about the willingness to pay both general and environmental taxes, across the same subject pool, it is needed to carry out a survey.

This paper aims to define a hierarchical and multi-criteria framework based on pillars of the Modernization of Higher Education to evaluate European Accounting Doctoral Programmes (EADE-Model).

The authors applied a quali-quantitative methodology based on the analytic hierarchy process and the survey approach. The authors conducted an extensive literature and regulation review to identify the dimensions affecting the quality of Doctoral Programmes, choosing accounting as the relevant and pivotal field. The authors also used the survey to select the most critical quality dimensions and derive their weight to build EADE Model. The validity of the proposed model has been tested through the application to the Italian scenario.

The findings provide a critical extension of accounting ranking studies constructing a multi-criteria, hierarchical and updated evaluation model recognizing the role of doctoral training in the knowledge-based society. The results shed new light on weak areas apt to be improved and propose potential amendments to enhance the quality standard of ADE.

Theoretical and practical implications of this paper are directed to academics, policymakers and PhD programmes administrators.

The research is original in drafting a hierarchical multi-criteria framework for evaluating ADE in the Higher Education System. This model may be extended to other fields.

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualise a research study to examine leadership as a relational concept between leaders and followers. The context is within surgical practice examining how motivated consultant surgeons are to lead junior doctors and which type of leadership style they use. From a follower perspective, the motivation of junior doctors will be explored, and their leadership preferences will be correlated with those of the actual style of consultant surgeons.

In this paper, the authors provide a detailed description of the methods for an international quantitative research study, exploring sequentially how motivated consultant surgeons are to lead and how leadership styles impact on the motivation of junior doctors. The objectives, method and data collection of this study are explained, and the justification for each method is described.

The findings for this outline study illustrate how critical it is to redefine leadership as a relational concept of leader and follower to ensure adequate support is provided to the next generation of consultant surgeons. Without consideration of the relational model of leadership, attrition will continue to be a critical issue in the medical workforce.

The research limitations are that this is a proposed quantitative study due to the need to collect a large sample of data from surgeons across the UK, Egypt and Germany. This research will have immense implications in developing new knowledge of leadership as a relational concept in medicine and healthcare. This study additionally will impact on how leadership is conceptualised in the curriculum for specialist surgical practice.

The practical implications are that relational leadership is supportive of generating a supportive leadership culture in the workplace and generating more effective teamwork.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study of its kind to look at a relational model of leadership in surgical practice between consultant surgeons and surgical trainees. This study will also identify any specific country differences between the UK, Germany and Egypt.

Absorptive capacity, technological collaboration and servitization are analyzed to establish ways to overcome the balance between products and services in manufacturing companies. A fresh perspective is introduced by presenting a framework for innovation strategy, moving beyond product-based R&D.

The hypotheses are tested using data on Spanish firms in the high-tech chemical and pharmaceutical industries through ordinary least squares regression analysis. The sample consists of 112 manufacturing firms included in the Spanish Survey of Business Strategies.

The results show that absorptive capacity facilitates servitization and that technological collaboration moderates the relationship between absorptive capacity and servitization. The synergies between absorptive capacity and technological collaboration for servitization are recognized from the perspective of open innovation as a way of resolving the trade-off between products and services.

Future research should introduce more sources of collaboration by broadening the value chain perspective. Other approaches to innovation may also be considered, including relationships to process innovation.

The results can provide meaningful guidance for companies to determine the key opportunities of servitization driven by absorptive capacity, and the best ways to leverage open innovation and collaboration strategies to exploit such approaches.

This research enriches theories on servitization, open innovation and innovative behavior. Open innovation strategy should be linked to greater servitization activity and should support an open service strategy. This approach is crucial for building innovation capabilities through technological collaboration.

Quality management practitioners have yet to cease the potential of digitalisation. Furthermore, there is a lack of tools such as frameworks guiding practitioners in the digital transformation of their organisations. The purpose of this study is to provide a framework to guide quality practitioners with the implementation of digitalisation in their existing practices.

A review of literature assessed how quality management and digitalisation have been integrated. Findings from the literature review highlighted the success of the integration of Lean manufacturing with digitalisation. A comprehensive list of Lean Six Sigma tools were then reviewed in terms of their effectiveness and relevance for the hybrid digitisation approach to process improvement (HyDAPI) framework.

The implementation of the proposed HyDAPI framework in an industrial case study led to increased efficiency, reduction of waste, standardised work, mistake proofing and the ability to root cause non-conformance products.

The activities and tools in the HyDAPI framework are not inclusive of all techniques from Lean Six Sigma.

The HyDAPI framework is a flexible guide for quality practitioners to digitalise key information from manufacturing processes. The framework allows organisations to select the appropriate tools as needed. This is required because of the varying and complex nature of organisation processes and the challenge of adapting to the continually evolving Industry 4.0.

This research proposes the HyDAPI framework as a flexible and adaptable approach for quality management practitioners to implement digitalisation. This was developed because of the gap in research regarding the lack of procedures guiding organisations in their digital transition to Industry 4.0.