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The purpose of this study was to examine the learning experiences of high school Black males participating in an academy of engineering that was configured as a magnet school. We followed a qualitative case study design to explore the experiences of 16 Black male academies of engineering students. We identified three recurring themes from the interviews with the Black male academy of engineering students: Promoting Interests in STEM, Drawing Connections to Core Academic Concepts, and An Affinity for Hands-on Learning through the Engineering Curriculum. The results of our study helped us to better understand how academies provide a platform for Black male students' interest in engineering as a viable college and career pathway.

Many psychological, cultural, and social barriers exist that impact Black male participation in the workforce. In this chapter, authors discuss the impact that mentorship, racism, society, culture, economics, and other pertinent factors have on the career development of Black men. This chapter examines programs and strategies that effectively address the career development needs of Black men. A review of counseling interventions and their applicability to career counseling with Black men are presented. Emerging trends in career development for Black men are also discussed. In addition, provided in this chapter are personal narratives given by the authors who contextualize their career development experiences through culturally-specific career development theoretical frameworks. Lastly, implications for research, counseling, counselor education, and policy, as well as recommendations for professional development are offered.

The purpose of this paper is to use the case of York University in Canada to analyze the connection between University Social Responsibility and voluntary disclosure. The authors examine whether the university’s voluntary air emissions disclosure is performative by exploring whether York University’s espoused commitment to its community stakeholders truly guides its incentive to disclose carbon emissions in the absence of a legal mandate.

This qualitative exploratory study uses a post-humanistic approach to build on publicly available data on key measures and metrics of air quality and carbon emissions to facilitate our understanding of representational and interventionist uses of measurement models by social actors and their basis for making voluntary disclosures.

York University linked the logic of capital markets with sustainability disclosures as an incentive for managing the cost of long-term debt. This paper contributes to measurement practice of sustainability disclosure by reinforcing the practice-theoretic conception of measurement that questions the independent nature of objects measured from the measurement methods and reporting tools.

The findings of this study are important to higher education administrators, regulators and policymakers, as they offer a strategic guide for the assessment of reports on an organization’s commitment to sustainability and in determining the efficacy of voluntary reporting to community stakeholders in general although they are intended for specific groups.

Using York University as an illustrative case, the authors argue that air emissions per se are not a reality that shapes decisions at the organizations; instead, the intra-action of air emissions measurement, communications and operational investments define the reality where sustainability is advanced. Specifically, the authors find that the performative effects of emissions disclosure may be associated with socially desirable outcomes in terms of social responsibility and concrete financial rewards.

Governments worldwide have used administrative reforms to align public organizations with the needs of their key stakeholders. However, despite successfully implementing them, they do not consistently achieve the desired organizational performance. This paper aims to explore the relationship between the implementation of administrative reforms and the performance of public organizations from a comprehensive perspective. For this purpose, the authors analyze the mediation role of three crucial dynamic capabilities.

This research used a survey-based methodology. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the data obtained from a sample of public officials and managers working in public organizations in the State of Ceará (Brazil).

The results of this study suggest that dynamic capabilities can have a decisive role in implementing government policy proposals and helping public organizations align their outcomes with stakeholders' needs. In addition, they indicate the existence of two levels of capabilities and identify a road map for their implementation.

From a practical point of view, by identifying these capabilities and their interrelationship, this study provides a roadmap to reduce the complexity of their use and help managers of public organizations deliver desired outcomes relating to the quality of individual and collective stakeholders.

This study makes important contributions to the literature, enabling scholars and practitioners to see the result of government policy proposals beyond the efficient use of public resources. It shows the role of dynamic capabilities as mediation instruments for changing public organizations, which can be used in administrative reform implementations and continuous improvement processes. Finally, it provides empirical research on the interaction between the three dynamic capabilities in the context of public organizations, differentiating these capabilities into two levels, which provides a road map for their implementation and development by public managers.

Os governos de todo o mundo têm usado reformas administrativas para alinhar as organizações públicas com as necessidades de seus principais interessados. Entretanto, apesar da implementação bem-sucedida, elas não atingem consistentemente o desempenho organizacional desejado. Este estudo tem como objetivo analisar a relação entre a implementação de reformas administrativas e o desempenho das organizações públicas, visto de uma perspectiva abrangente. Para este propósito, analisamos o papel de mediação de três capacidades organizacionais cruciais.

Este estudo utiliza uma metodologia baseada em questionários. Foi utilizada modelagem de equação estruturais para analisar os dados obtidos de uma amostra de funcionários públicos e gerentes que trabalham em organizações públicas no Estado do Ceará (Brasil).

Os resultados deste estudo sugerem que as capacidades dinâmicas podem ter um papel decisivo na implementação de propostas de políticas governamentais e ajudar as organizações públicas a alinhar seus resultados com as necessidades das partes interessadas. Além disso, eles indicam a existência de dois níveis de capacidades e identificam um roteiro para sua implementação.

Do ponto de vista prático, ao identificar essas capacidades e suas inter-relações, este estudo fornece um roteiro para reduzir a complexidade de seu uso e ajudar os gerentes de organizações públicas a obter os resultados desejados em relação à qualidade das partes interessadas individuais e coletivas.

Esta estudo faz contribuições importantes à literatura, permitindo que académicos e profissionais vejam o resultado de propostas de políticas governamentais além do uso eficiente de recursos públicos. Ele mostra o papel das capacidades dinâmicas como instrumentos de mediação para mudar as organizações públicas, que podem ser utilizadas em implementações de reformas administrativas e processos de melhoria contínua. Finalmente, fornece resultados empíricos sobre a interação entre as três capacidades dinâmicas no contexto das organizações públicas, diferenciando essas capacidades em dois níveis, o que fornece um roteiro para sua implementação e desenvolvimento pelos gestores públicos.

Drawing on signaling and social identity theories, the main objective of this paper is to suggest and validate a research framework to investigate the association of corporate social responsibility (CSR) perceptions with organizational attractiveness by uncovering the underlying mechanism of organizational trust.

By conducting regression analysis, the study hypotheses were tested with the data collected from a snowball convenient sample of 318 potential job seekers.

The study results revealed that prospective applicants' perceptions about a company's CSR undertakings are significantly associated with their trust in and attraction to the company. Noticeably, organizational trust partially mediated the direct relationship between CSR perceptions and organizational attractiveness.

Based on the study results, some specific theoretical advancements and helpful insights have been highlighted for human resources (HR) practitioners in today's competing organizations. The paper ends by outlining key research drawbacks and directions for possible work in the future.

Despite the plausible underlying role of organizational trust in the link between CSR and organizational attraction, empirical studies of this theoretical phenomenon are still lacking in the context of pre-hire recruitment literature. This may be the first study that identifies organizational trust as a salient psychological factor through which job seekers' CSR perceptions become more instrumental in influencing their attraction to a firm.

The primary goal of university education globally is to promote research, knowledge, and innovations instrumental for national development and societal transformation. In line with this goal, East African countries, namely Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania have invested heavily in university education in the last 60 years since independence. The evidence of this is the increasing number of both private and public universities, and the number of students joining the institutions. While the expansion of university education is to be celebrated, it should not be taken for granted that this expansion indicates development. The purpose of this research was to assess the impact of university education on regional development in the three East African countries, that is, Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. Data were collected through historical analyses, database searches on electronic and printed sources, and interviews. The study found out that the three African countries have formulated the goals of education toward the achievement of development and that large budgets have been committed to educational expansion in the university in recent years. However, the impact of the universities in the development of the region expected through research and innovation is minimal because of major challenges that include expansion of access without adequate government funding; compromises quality; graduate unemployability and political interference; students’ unrest and strikes; weaknesses in earlier levels of education; regional, gender, and class inequalities; and misalignment of education, development, and contextual strengths. Proposed future strategies included the calls for governments to enhance regional consultations on development and education, the need for specialization in programs rather than duplication, enhancement of international collaborations and networking, rethinking the role of education in development within given contextual and environmental realities, and good governance and adequate funding of education.

While previous operations management literature acknowledges the positive influence of Lean and Industry (I4.0) on performance, recent studies examining the synergy between these two factors have produced inconsistent and contradictory results. Therefore, this study aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the effect of Lean and I4.0 synergy on firm performance.

This study utilised a meta-analysis approach, examining 23 empirical studies exploring multiple effects of the Lean and I4.0 synergy on firm performance. Multiple subgroup analyses were conducted to assess the contradictory outcomes and identify in what conditions such synergy may achieve performance.

The results affirm the prevailing positivist perspective among most scholars regarding the positive influence of the Lean and I4.0 synergy on firm performance. However, the overall effect size derived from the studies indicates a weak relationship, suggesting that this synergy alone is not the sole determinant factor of firm performance. In addition, the subgroup analyses reveal the presence of contingent conditions that may affect the performance outcomes when integrating Lean and I4.0, as most effects exhibit a weak relationship.

This study represents the first meta-analysis investigating the relationship between the Lean and I4.0 synergy on firm performance. By shedding light on the contradictory effects often depicted in the operations management literature, this study provides a critical reflection for researchers who tend to adopt an overly optimistic view of such synergy.

Post-Sarbanes Oxley Act (SOX), the audit committee has been empowered greatly to play a central role in the corporate governance of firms. Embedded in agency theory, this study aims to examine the effect of the audit committee on the likelihood by firms to pay dividends.

The study population is US firms in the Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) database from 2007 to 2018. The authors apply the multivariate logit fixed-effect regression for the analyses after conducting the appropriate statistical tests.

From the results of the research model, the authors find that there is a positive relationship between the size and gender diversity of the audit committee and the propensity to pay dividends suggesting that a larger audit committee with substantial women representation improve the information environment in firms leading to higher dividend distribution. The extent of busyness of the audit committee impacts negatively on the propensity to pay dividends. The results are driven by high-performing firms and not driven by specific levels of firm size.

The findings of the study give impetus to the audit committee as an important component of the corporate governance mechanism that advances the interest of stakeholders. Thus, efforts that seeks to promote the audit committee’s resourcefulness must be embraced by all stakeholders.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to focus on audit committee and dividend payout policy of US firms post-SOX. The study demonstrates how the audit committee characteristics including its size, gender diversity and busyness affect dividend policy by mitigating information asymmetry problems.

The aim of this paper is to review metrics and develop a framework for measuring leagile supply chain. Metrics that are applicable in the lean, agile and leagile strategies are identified in the literature and are then combined into a framework that can reflect both agile and lean strategies – the leagile supply strategy.

This work is based on the systematic literature review. Literature was collected, then lean and agile metrics were extracted, analysed, counted and grouped into the framework. Findings are compared against literature on leagile supply chain.

Findings indicate that there are sets of metrics specific to lean strategy, such as are process-focused, cost, productivity, inventory and delivery-based metrics, and specific to agile such as flexibility, responsiveness, information sharing and cooperation. There are also metrics common for both strategies; they are related to time, quality and customer satisfaction. Lean measures are tangible and focused on internal processes and products, while agile measures are targeted at external environment.

The framework could be used by practitioners as a starting point for performance system design.

There is a need to stop looking at lean and agile as separate and distinct supply strategies. Results of this research indicate that lean and agile are interlinked, both are focusing on customer satisfaction and quality. Applying a proposed set of metrics enables to design supply chain measurement system that reflects both strategies to measure leagile supply chain. The framework could be used by practitioners as a starting point for performance system design.