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This study aims to investigate a unique approach to learning languages through self-directed online learning. Specifically, it explores the self-management abilities and skills learners need while learning a language outside traditional classroom settings when using mobile-assisted learning technology.

A mixed-methods approach was used in this study, including an online survey of 84 people and 10 semi-structured interviews.

Findings reveal the significant role of specific and well-defined learning goals in enhancing learners’ performance. These goals can be either self-initiated by the learners themselves or defined by the technological features of the learning platform. However, the presence of distractions in learners’ daily lives presents challenges to effective time management, affecting learners both physically and psychologically. A key aspect of self-directed language learning lies in the learners’ ability to seek out relevant human and material resources beyond the confines of a single mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) tool. The authenticity of these resources is crucial in ensuring meaningful and effective learning experiences.

Understanding how learners navigate and discover valuable resources is a central focus of this study. This research offers valuable insights into the field of self-directed language learning, revealing the pivotal role of self-management skills with mobile-assisted learning technology. The findings contribute to the broader field of language education and offer practical implications for educators and developers seeking to optimize self-directed language learning experiences through innovative and technologically driven approaches.

MALL is often ideal for individualized informal learning, but the existing literature focuses heavily on formal learning situations, underestimating the importance of MALL practices in various informal settings. Most research reports on MALL-based self-directed learning primarily sample traditional English-learning university students. Therefore, there is a need for research on how nontraditional older adult learners self-direct their language learning with mobile technology outside the classroom.

Recent reports show that knowledge-based sectors contribute significantly to the global economy and underscore the importance of innovation. Innovation in both products and processes is vital to maintaining competitiveness. Self-managing teams, emphasizing autonomy and limiting the role of management, have been viewed as a solution to encourage innovation. However, management's efforts to coordinate and align employees with the organization's interests can inadvertently stifle innovation. Achieving the appropriate balance between granting employees autonomy and retaining managerial involvement is paramount, creating a paradox known as the control-autonomy dilemma. This article highlights the importance of perceived managerial support to strike the appropriate balance.

Practitioner paper

To address the control-autonomy dilemma, organizational practices that balance management control and employee autonomy are crucial. These include input practices that emphasize skill development and/or output practices that set clear goals. With self-rule, maintaining perceived managerial support becomes harder. Without it, employees may hesitate to engage in innovative behaviors. While not needing constant supervision, employees do need to have the perception that their managers provide essential resources and motivation for their work.

This paper is the first to highlight how the level of perceived managerial support (PMS) will differ due to the nature of the organizational practices and the type of innovation.

The purpose of this study was to examine if team composition based on adaption-innovation (A-I) problem-solving styles is related to the teamwork quality and team effectiveness (TE) of student project teams participating in a [state-gifted program (SGP)].

A correlational design was conducted with a sample of 72 (SGP) participants, consisting of 15 project teams (n = 15), which formed three groups: (1) the homogeneous adaptive group, which consists of five homogeneous adaptive teams (n = 5); (2) the homogeneous innovative group, which consists of five homogeneous innovative teams (n = 5), and (3) the heterogeneous group (i.e. a mix of innovative and adaptive individuals), which consists of five heterogeneous teams (n = 5).

A one-way ANOVA and post-hoc test revealed that team composition based on problem-solving styles is related to teamwork quality and TE. Regarding TE, both homogeneous groups (i.e. all adaptive or all innovative individuals) were more effective than the heterogeneous group. However, regarding teamwork quality, only the adaptive group had significantly higher teamwork quality than the heterogeneous group.

We recommend that leadership educators utilize Kirton’s adaption-innovation inventory (KAI) as a tool for building effective student project teams. KAI can be used by leadership educators in two major ways: to assign students to groups (as done in the current study) or for team building, where team members share their KAI scores to better understand their problem-solving preferences.

The findings add to the literature by specifying the type of homogeneous groups (i.e. homogeneous adaptive), which may offer an advantage over heterogeneous groups regarding teamwork quality.

In uncertain and emerging conditions, businesses must adopt new strategies to compete and survive the changing and unstable environment. This research seeks to investigate the role of dynamic capabilities in the competitiveness of startups, emphasizing resilience and strategic alignment.

Isfahan Scientific and Research Town has always been a pioneer in the field of science and technology in Iran and is known as the most extensive technology and knowledge-based complex in Iran. The sample size of 300 companies active in the startup field was selected using a simple random sampling method. Questionnaires were collected from the managers of technological startup companies in Isfahan, and the SEM model was used to analyze the data.

This research shows that dynamic capabilities in terms of coordination, flexibility and integration significantly impact competitiveness. Resilience and strategic alignment also increase the organization’s performance and strengthen the organization in gaining a more competitive advantage in the industry.

Finally, dynamic capabilities indirectly affect competitiveness through resilience and strategic alignment. This shows a need for strategic alignment and resilience to change advantage shape in dynamic conditions.

Based on the Social Exchange Theory (SET), the paper attempts to extend the research on the relationship between green self-managed teams and firm performance by exploring the serial mediation of extra-role green behavior and environmental performance. Furthermore, via moderated mediation, the study inspected the differences in relationships among these variables for manufacturing and service organizations.

Data of 407 respondents from 122 manufacturing and service organizations (having green self-managed teams) operating in India were collected using purposive sampling. Various statistical techniques like confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), correlations, multiple regressions and bootstrapping were employed.

The results indicated that extra-role green behavior and environmental performance served as serial mediators. Additionally, the nature of the organizations significantly moderated several indirect relationships, with one pathway found to be insignificant.

The study may be limited by the fact that the data were collected at a single moment in time rather than using a longitudinal design.

The study guides service organizations to attract environmentally conscious employees by promoting green self-managed teams and manufacturing organizations to enrich their operations and service delivery through such teams.

The study uniquely examines how green self-managed teams addressing environmental issues contribute to improved firm performance through mutual exchanges. It also advances existing literature by conducting a comparative analysis across manufacturing and service organizations in an emerging Indian market.

Examining dominance in influencing leadership perceptions for men and women has received significant scholarly attention. The studies typically show that dominance is beneficial for men in attaining leadership positions but not for women. However, the studies were predominantly conducted more than two decades ago. Given the developments in gender research, this study extends the dominance line of inquiry by probing the impact of dominance need on leader emergence for men versus women in self-managed work teams. Furthermore, this study aims to examine if team dominance needs dispersion posits as a boundary condition for the combined impact of dominance needs and gender on leader emergence.

The authors conducted a longitudinal study that lasted one semester and involved 44 ad hoc self-managed work teams.

This study found that dominance needs facilitated leader emergence regardless of gender, and team dominance needs dispersion. Furthermore, men with high dominance needs were likelier to emerge as leaders than women with high dominance needs in high dominance needs dispersion teams. By contrast, women low in dominance needs received a harsher penalty in their leadership emergence than men low in dominance needs in low dominance needs dispersion teams

These results depart from the usual findings regarding the backlash effects that dominant women face and paint a rosy picture regarding the use of dominance in shaping leader emergence. However, the findings support the notion in gender stereotypes research that women are judged more critically than men in ascending to leadership positions.

Leadership research has traditionally focused on formal leadership; however, leaders may emerge in informal settings in self-managed teams, and little is known about who emergent leaders are and what their characteristics are. This study investigates emergent leaders' behaviors, roles, skills, and leadership style, drawing on a multi-method approach.

We first identify emergent leaders using social network analysis and aggregation approaches. Second, we investigate emergent leaders' characteristics using interviews with forty agile team members in five organizations.

Results indicate different roles of emergent leaders (i.e. coach, liaisons), leadership styles (i.e. supportive), skills (i.e. culturally intelligent, strategist), and influencing factors (i.e. personality, technical knowledge, social circle).

We contribute by identifying emergent leaders through multiple identification methods (i.e. network analysis, aggregation), and then through identifying their various characteristics, we contribute to leadership literature as well as idiosyncrasy-credit theory. We also add to agile-leadership theory, showing that multiple informal leaders may emerge within agile teams. Finally, our findings have practical implications for self-managed teams, informal group settings, organizational change professionals, and organizations with horizontal structures.

This paper aims to explore how accounting is fostering neoliberal citizenship through the participants of Australia’s National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). More specifically, this paper aims to understand how accounting discourse and the management accounting technique of budgeting, when intertwined with automated administrative processes of the NDIS, are giving rise to a pastoral form of power that directs people’s behaviour toward certain ends.

Publicly available data has been crafted into an autoethnographic case study of one fictitious person’s experiences with the NDIS – Mina. Mina is an amalgam created from material submitted to the Joint Parliamentary Standing Committee on the NDIS. Mina’s experiences are then analysed through the lens of Foucault’s concept of pastoral power to explore how accounting has contributed to marketising and digitising public disability services.

Accounting rhetoric appears to be a central part of rationalising the decision to shift to individualised disability funding. Those receiving payments are treated as self-governable, financially responsible subjects and are therefore expected to have knowledge of management accounting techniques and budgeting. However, NDIS’s strong reliance on the accounting concepts of funds, budgets, cost and price is limiting people’s autonomy and subjecting them to intervention and control.

This paper addresses calls to explore the interplay between accounting and current disability policies. The analysis shows that incorporating accounting into the NDIS’s algorithms serves to conceal the underlying ideology of the programs, subtly driving behaviours towards neoliberal objectives. Further, this research extends the Foucauldian accounting literature by revealing the contribution of accounting to reinforcing the authority of digital pastors in contemporary times.

In 2018, a group of higher education institutions (HEIs) in Switzerland started discussing the future of education. With the COVID-19 pandemic, many of their initial ideas and solutions were tested in the unpredictable, emergency online setting. This study aims to use student and faculty member perceptions to outline the future of higher education.

This research is based on eight surveys from students and faculty members at one Swiss HEI in business studies. While many previous studies focus on one group or one moment in time, this study examines the future of business education from both perspectives and traces the responses throughout the pandemic.

Teaching and learning strategies and perceptions evolved during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nonetheless, despite the potential, many HEIs simply reverted to normal instead of adapting to the “new normal”. Conversely, some HEIs have continued using the same exercises and tools that were used in the emergency remote pandemic-mode, without adapting or reflecting on the current learning environment. Based on the findings, both students and faculty members have increased their interest and proficiency in using digital tools although the students remained more open toward the opportunities of digital teaching and learning.

Based on the results, this study offers a model for the future of education that HEIs could implement when moving forward, whether on campus or online.

The research aims to investigate the changing skills required for international entrepreneurship (IE) and the awareness of these skills among students and professionals in four European countries. The study intends to investigate students' and professionals' perceptions of entrepreneurial skills and the potential for educational programs to improve their awareness of these skills.

This quantitative cross-sectional analysis uses an online questionnaire to collect data from 75 university students and 75 entrepreneurs in four European countries. Several tests validate the data, and Cronbach's alpha succeeded in measuring internal consistency. The results showed differences in the perception of skills between students and entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurs had developed all competencies except access to finance, while students had lower perceptions of their skills, except for collaboration. Students needed to improve significantly in access to finance, business planning, financial skills, knowledge of the labour market and digital marketing. Practitioners only required significant improvement in access to finance and digital marketing.

Education programs should fit the needs of different groups: a broader program for students and more specific courses on access to finance and digital marketing for practitioners.

The present research's original feature highlights the need to monitor and adapt to the constantly changing skills for IE and the importance of hard and soft skills. The paper provides insights into the subject's awareness and perceived standard, with reflections for policymakers and practitioners.