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The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical evidence of engineering knowledge creation in the context of product failure management, thereby extending knowledge about organizational learning and mindfulness to a largely unexplored context. The study addresses a gap in the literature by illustrating “engineering epistemology” as a critical knowledge asset that gives rise to superior problem solving – and potentially – superior business performance.

The authors conducted qualitative research based on phenomenological interviews with product engineers to generate a grounded theory about organizational knowledge creation. Rigorous analysis of narratives detailing the “lived lives” of problem solvers relied on a research protocol recommended by Corbin and Strauss.

The findings show that engineers' real‐world problem‐solving practices mirror Nonaka and Takeuchi's five phases of knowledge creation and the three stages of sensemaking in enactment theory, the genesis of Weick's notion of mindfulness. A synthesized model illustrates how a five‐step problem‐solving process facilitated by environmental conditions resulting in organizational learning is influenced by an “engineering epistemology”.

The sample was limited to engineers based primarily in the US Midwest. While the authors' methodology (grounded theory) was appropriate for theory generation, the results invite quantitative testing involving a larger and more diversified sample of engineers.

The paper highlights the social aspects of engineering problem solving that firms can optimize for effective problem investigation and higher organizational learning.

The paper conceptualizes problem‐solving teamwork as epistemic collaboration, with the often un‐optimized potential of generating organizational learning. It is, to the authors' knowledge, the first research to concentrate on modeling the dynamics of knowledge creation in an engineering problem‐solving context.

Physicians are commonly promoted into administrative and managerial roles in US hospitals on the basis of clinical expertise and often lack the skills, training or inclination to lead. Several studies have sought to identify factors associated with effective physician leadership, yet we know little about how physician leaders themselves construe their roles. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Phenomenological interviews were performed with 25 physicians at three organizational levels with physicians affiliated or employed by four hospitals within one health care organization in the USA between August and September 2010. A rigorous comparative methodology of data collection and analysis was employed, including the construction of analytic codes for the data and its categorization based on emergent ideas and themes that are not preconceived and logically deduced hypotheses, which is characteristic of grounded theory.

These interviews reveal differences in how part- vs full-time physician leaders understand and value leadership roles vs clinical roles, claim leadership status, and identify as physician leaders on individual, relational and organizational basis.

Although the physicians in the sample were affiliated with four community hospitals, all of them were part of a single not-for-profit health care system in one geographical locale.

These findings may be of interest to hospital administrators and boards seeking deeper commitment and higher performance from physician leaders, as well as assist physicians in transitioning into a leadership role.

This work points to a broader and more fundamental need – a modified mindset about the nature and value of physician leadership.

This study is unique in the exploration of the nature of physician leadership from the perspective of the physician on an individual, peer and organizational level in the creation of their own leadership identity.

Women remain dramatically underrepresented in the engineering profession and far fewer women than men persist in the field. This study aims to identify individual and contextual factors that distinguish women who persist in engineering careers in the US.

Qualitative research was conducted based on semi‐structured interviews with 31 women engineers, ten of whom had left an engineering career and 21 persisting for on average 21 years. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, coded and analyzed.

Women who persisted in engineering careers articulated high levels of self efficacy, described themselves in terms of their identity as an engineer, and were motivated by the challenges and novelty of the profession. Women engineers' ability to adapt enabled them to persist and thrive despite working in a male‐dominated culture characterized by difficulties associated with the workplace, including discrimination. Women who opted out of engineering were less likely to recognize options in navigating the workplace and some felt as if they were pushed into engineering. Persistent engineers were less likely to be married and had fewer children.

Although appropriate for an inductive study using a grounded theory approach the sample was small and the data was self reported.

A model is developed that integrates individual and contextual factors explaining a woman's persistence in an engineering career and has potential to explain persistence in other professions. To retain more women in engineering careers, organizations and managers should provide opportunities to develop identified skills within the professional domain and should provide opportunities for women engineers that provide continuous learning, on‐going challenges and novel work.

Although numerous studies have addressed the retention of women in academic engineering programs and several recent studies have described why women leave engineering careers, the novelty of this study is that it addresses why women stay.

The purpose of this introductory paper is a harbinger to the collection of scholarly articles by some well‐known international scholars in quality and business fields to this special edition of IJQRM on mindfulness and quality in small and large firms. It also provides an analysis of existing research on mindfulness in general.

Through a survey of secondary data, this conceptual paper reviews the theory and extant literature on mindfulness, quality and reliability in small and large firms, and provides a picture of the application of the mindfulness theory in different disciplines, including business.

First, mindfulness enhances quality and mindlessness diminishes it. Second, mindfulness‐based approaches to quality may offer a more resilient and sustainable solution to quality and reliability issues facing organisations, compared to routine‐based approaches.

The paper shows how management approaches that promote human cognition of quality and reliability issues in organisations and capacity to develop multiple effective and resilient solutions can better serve businesses than the routine‐based quality and management initiatives.

The paper aims to help explain how certain smaller university endowments are able to provide investment results that are more typical of much larger endowments. Investment teams' characteristics and risk-reward perceptions are examined in relation to portfolio composition and performance.

This exploratory study uses a grounded-theory approach consisting of 20 in-depth interviews of financial officers at US colleges and universities with assets between $100 million and $200 million. Ten were conducted from the top performance quartile and ten from the bottom quartile. Interviews were transcribed and coded; afterward, emerging themes and constructs were identified. Objective investment performance over a ten-year period was employed from a well-known industry survey.

Top-performing endowments were described as having endowment teams with greater investment expertise, efficacy, decision-making independence and learning commitment than teams from the low-performing endowments. Teams from top-performing endowments assessed alternative investments more favorably and made greater portfolio allocations to them as compared to teams from low-performing endowments.

Because of the chosen research approach, the research results may not be generalizable.

The paper includes implications for colleges and universities in the management of their endowments, and particularly in the selection of committee and other team members.

The paper is original in exploring certain team characteristics and practices of institutional investment decision-makers and their relationship to portfolio composition and performance.