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The purpose of the current application paper is to integrate previous literature with recent results from practitioners on effective practices for utilizing small groups in the leadership classroom.

We use these integrated findings to innovate practice on maximizing the role of undergraduate teaching assistants (UTAs) by matching their tasks to signature pedagogies in leadership education.

The integrated findings revealed three practice themes: (1) match UTAs to pedagogical approach, (2) create small groups by design and (3) providing training and reflection practice for UTAs.

In sum, leadership education can and should challenge historical practices in higher education whereby UTAs are used purely for grading and course logistics management.

Correct registration for the value-added tax (VAT) is a key aspect of tax compliance; it is vital in ensuring adequate tax revenue collection in all countries but particularly in developing countries such as South Africa. Non-registration hinders sufficient tax revenue collection, stifles economic growth and causes unfair competition with formal businesses. The purpose of this study is to determine whether changes in the VAT rate affect the registration decisions of businesses, ultimately impacting upon tax compliance behaviour and tax revenue collection.

An online 2 × 2 between-subjects field experiment was conducted, as part of a broader study, to consider compliance with registration requirements by small business entities in South Africa, specifically when there are changes in the VAT rate.

Although the study establishes that changes in the VAT rate tend not to have a significant impact on the registration decisions of such taxpayers, it nonetheless indicates that the magnitude of the change in the VAT rate may be influential on registration decisions, whether relating to compulsory or voluntary registration. More particularly, the greater the magnitude of the VAT rate decrease (increase), the more likely it is that taxpayers will register (deregister) for VAT purposes, indicating that the magnitude of changes in the VAT rate do have an impact on VAT registration decisions and therefore on tax compliance more generally.

Not only does the study add to the limited knowledge available on registration decisions of small businesses, but also gives valuable guidance to policymakers in terms of determining the VAT rate for the country.

Not only does the study add to the limited knowledge available on registration decisions of small businesses, but it also gives valuable guidance to policymakers in terms of determining the VAT rate for the country.

The purpose of this paper is to identify factors promoting innovation in the framework of R&D based on surveys conducted on firms in five ASEAN countries, Indonesia, Laos, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

The analytical method divided sample firms into two categories, namely, “the R&D group” and “non-R&D group.” The analysis attempts to identify which of the internal capabilities, consisting of technology, human factors and organization factors, promote innovation. Ordered probit analysis is employed.

Findings from the estimations indicate that the two groups pursue product innovation differently. The R&D group promotes innovation by cross-functional teams of production, engineering, and marketing and IT use, whereas the non-R&D group promote product innovation by HRD programs for workers, group awards for suggestions or QC, and ISO9000 series.

The number of samples related to the non-R&D group is too small to conduct statistical analysis. External linkages played an important role in the authors’ previous studies. The introduction of external linkages into the model may yield different results, though the analysis would become more complex.

The results of this paper provide the solid basis of policy to promote innovation and upgrading SMEs in the region.

Many ASEAN SMEs successfully achieve innovation without owning specified in-house departments or sections to conduct R&D.

The features of this paper lie in the original firm-level survey data and rigorous estimation method using ordered probit analysis, which are new to this literature.

This study investigated the effect of cooperative learning on the performance of female college students enrolled in “writing and research” courses at Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University (Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia). Cooperative learning (CL) activities were employed in place of traditional lectures and group activities. Two populations were compared, one with the CL methodology and one with traditional methodology. The results were assessed by final exam scores, final course grades, the number of students passing, pre and post-tests and a self-report survey. We found that this sample of Arab college students performed at a higher level in the CL classes than in the traditional classes. Findings suggest that CL is an effective method for teaching Arab college students.

The chapter describes a model solution for supporting mature women, developed as part of the Finnish Time4Help project. The solution includes training programmes for mature women supporting their careers and networking. The model is built on a new flipped training and coaching programme approach where, first, women were asked to gather a group of peers who were interested in developing their enterprises or working skills and who had similar needs and interests to them. After that, a programme was built matching the needs of this group of women. This model resembles the study circle approach particularly popular in the Scandinavian countries. Therefore, the authors build on the research literature on study circles, and study how tailored programmes help mature women to develop their careers and reach a work–life balance. The empirical part of the research builds on interviews and observations with 25 women in 5 groups and their facilitators participating in Time4Help training programmes in Finland in 2019–2021.

The purpose of this paper is to add to the debate concerning the merits of export promotion efforts by governments by investigating the effect of export promotion program (EPP) participation on the export performance of Dutch small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The authors confront participation data of an EPP targeting SMEs with rich firm-level data and use propensity score matching techniques combined with regression analysis.

The authors show that exports generated by participants do generally rise in the years after program entry, however, export growth does not outpace that of comparable, but unsupported firms. Nonetheless, there is some evidence suggesting that export shares in sales rise faster among program entrants, particularly in the first and second years after participation. Furthermore, the authors present evidence suggesting that the probability of becoming a permanent exporter is higher for participants relative to beginning exporters that did not receive support from the program.

The analysis contributes to the still relatively small literature dealing with the impact of government export promotion instruments on export performance using firm-level micro-data. The subject of analysis are Dutch small businesses. SMEs, particularly operating in advanced economies, are a group that is not frequently considered separately in this respect.

Research suggests that children in Hong Kong are at an elevated risk of emotional problems. Authoritarian parenting, a common parenting style in Hong Kong, is a critical factor associated with childhood mental health problems. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of the 6As Positive Parenting Program (6As) in modifying parenting attitudes, reduction of parenting stress and increasing self-efficacy in positive parenting, among a sample of 82 Hong Kong parents. 6As focuses on prevention by instilling positive parenting beliefs and principles, thereby reducing reliance on authoritarian and related parenting styles.

The program was evaluated using a controlled pre-post-treatment design. Outcome measures were the Chinese Child-rearing Beliefs Questionnaire, Parental Stress Scale, Parenting Self-efficacy Scale and participant feedback. ANOVA and correlation were utilized to detect treatment effects and relationships between the degree of change among measures and subscales.

Relative to the control group, the 6As Positive Parenting Program significantly changed parents’ parenting attitudes, reduced parenting stress and increased self-efficacy in positive parenting. In sum, 97.6 percent of the participants agreed that the program is a good fit for the Hong Kong culture.

A larger sample would have been desirable for this study. One factor that limited analyzable data was that some of the participating organizations enrolled participants into the program who did not meet research inclusion criteria. Furthermore, the size of groups varied from 5 to 16 participants, which may have produced different group dynamics that added variability to outcomes. Future 6As parenting program research should attempt to standardize group size or to directly compare the effectiveness of smaller vs larger groups. Furthermore, as noted earlier, the research was conducted during the primary school application period, which may have heightened the parenting stress for parents of younger children.

The results suggest that an enhanced belief in authoritative, autonomy and training strategies could reduce parental stress and shift parents’ attitude toward a more positive approach in child-rearing.

There is considerable need for a holistically designed parenting training that is culturally credible and sensitive.

Findings suggest that positive parenting can enhance the parent–child relationship and reduce parental stress. The results support governmental, non-governmental organizational and community focus on positive practices for parenting training in Hong Kong.

As a problem-solving tool, the kaizen event (KE) is underutilised in practice. Assuming this is due to a lack of group process quality during those events, the authors aimed to grasp what is needed during high-quality KE meetings. Guided by the phased approach for structured problem-solving, the authors built and explored a measure for enriching future KE research.

Six phases were used to code all verbal contributions (N = 5,442) in 21 diverse, videotaped KE meetings. Resembling state space grids, the authors visualised the course of each meeting with line graphs which were shown to ten individual kaizen experts as well as to the filmed kaizen groups.

From their reactions to the graphs the authors extracted high-quality KE process characteristics. At the end of each phase, that should be enacted sequentially, explicit group consensus appeared to be crucial. Some of the groups spent too little time on a group-shared understanding of the problem and its root causes. Surprisingly, the mixed-methods data suggested that small and infrequent deviations (“jumps”) to another phase might be necessary for a high-quality process. According to the newly developed quantitative process measure, when groups often jump from one phase to a distant, previous or next phase, this relates to low KE process quality.

A refined conceptual model and research agenda are offered for generating better solutions during KEs, and the authors urge examinations of the effects of well-crafted KE training.

How can social presence, participation and a sense of community be formed in an online setting without compromising on social connectedness through physical distancing? Under consideration of the goals for an Education for Sustainable Development, transformative science and the social techniques of Theory U, developed by Otto Scharmer (2016), an online Community of Inquiry of researchers, practitioners and learners was to be developed, followed and observed to discuss the question whether and how it was possible to create an awareness-based, future-oriented and socially committed online community that would enrich social transformation processes.

Methods of 1st, 2nd and 3rd person research were applied, as well as group discussions, one Mentimeter survey and one standardised questionnaire with an open question.

Results indicate that it is not only possible to create a feeling of community in an online setting, but also point to the terms and conditions which act as enablers and influencers, like seeing each other face-to-face, collective check-ins and check-outs as well as small group break-out sessions. Video conferencing and the practicing of rules of conduct and communication, also referred to as netiquette, enable a transcendence of the physical distance to reach a feeling of belonging and social presence in the perception of the participants.

In line with global sustainable development, the study also sets an example for how to reduce personal emissions when planning an international conference. Also, it shows how to create online spaces to connect people worldwide, which will support to take over responsibilities as world citizens.

People seem to function according to different models, which implies that in business and social sciences, heterogeneity is a rule rather than an exception. Researchers can investigate such heterogeneity through multigroup analysis (MGA). In the context of partial least squares path modeling (PLS-PM), MGA is currently applied to perform multiple comparisons of parameters across groups. However, this approach has significant drawbacks: first, the whole model is not considered when comparing groups, and second, the family-wise error rate is higher than the predefined significance level when the groups are indeed homogenous, leading to incorrect conclusions. Against this background, the purpose of this paper is to present and validate new MGA tests, which are applicable in the context of PLS-PM, and to compare their efficacy to existing approaches.

The authors propose two tests that adopt the squared Euclidean distance and the geodesic distance to compare the model-implied indicator correlation matrix across groups. The authors employ permutation to obtain the corresponding reference distribution to draw statistical inference about group differences. A Monte Carlo simulation provides insights into the sensitivity and specificity of both permutation tests and their performance, in comparison to existing approaches.

Both proposed tests provide a considerable degree of statistical power. However, the test based on the geodesic distance outperforms the test based on the squared Euclidean distance in this regard. Moreover, both proposed tests lead to rejection rates close to the predefined significance level in the case of no group differences. Hence, our proposed tests are more reliable than an uncontrolled repeated comparison approach.

Current guidelines on MGA in the context of PLS-PM should be extended by applying the proposed tests in an early phase of the analysis. Beyond our initial insights, more research is required to assess the performance of the proposed tests in different situations.

This paper contributes to the existing PLS-PM literature by proposing two new tests to assess multigroup differences. For the first time, this allows researchers to statistically compare a whole model across groups by applying a single statistical test.