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The purpose of this paper is to propose a new theory promoting long-term learning among mid-level leaders in schools via simulation training.

The proposed model is derived from the socioecological model, a model that takes into account the multifaceted effects of different disciplines. The proposed interdisciplinary model may be assimilated by considering the ethical-social context of mid-level leaders undergoing simulation training.

A new interdisciplinary model emerges from the original socioecological model. The model's interdisciplinary approach, crossing disciplines such as leadership, management and learning, enables this model to serve as a platform for research that enhances long-term learning among mid-level leaders in schools.

The elicited model, which can be assimilated via simulation training, may enhance long-term learning among mid-level leaders in schools and help to shape educational policy, improve learning and impact the exchange of knowledge between countries.

The emergent interdisciplinary model is expected to foster thinking beyond the traditional boundaries of each discipline and to enhance long-term learning in an ethical context among mid-level school leaders. The model's interdisciplinary approach, which creates new emergent dimensions suited to the challenges of the 21st century, makes this model a unique platform for research and simulation training that enhances long-term learning.

To identify and discuss the issues and success factors surrounding biometrics, especially in the context of user authentication and controls in the banking sector, using a case study.

The literature survey and analysis of the security models of the present information systems and biometric technologies in the banking sector provide the theoretical and practical background for this work. The impact of adopting biometric solutions in banks was analysed by considering the various issues and challenges from technological, managerial, social and ethical angles. These explorations led to identifying the success factors that serve as possible guidelines for a viable implementation of a biometric‐enabled authentication system in banking organisations, in particular for a major bank in New Zealand.

As the level of security breaches and transaction frauds increase day by day, the need for highly secure identification and personal verification information systems is becoming extremely important especially in the banking and finance sector. Biometric technology appeals to many banking organisations as a near perfect solution to such security threats. Though biometric technology has gained traction in areas like healthcare and criminology, its application in banking security is still in its infancy. Due to the close association of biometrics to human, physical and behavioural aspects, such technologies pose a multitude of social, ethical and managerial challenges. The key success factors proposed through the case study served as a guideline for a biometric‐enabled security project called Bio‐Sec, which is envisaged in a large banking organisation in New Zealand. This pilot study reveals that more than coping with the technology issues of gelling biometrics into the existing information systems, formulating a viable security plan that addresses user privacy fears, human tolerance levels, organisational change and legal issues is of prime importance.

Though biometric systems are successfully adopted in areas such as immigration control and criminology, there is a paucity of their implementation and research pertaining to banking environments. Not all banks venture into biometric solutions to enhance their security systems due to their socio‐technological issues. This paper fulfils the need for a guideline to identify the various issues and success factors for a viable biometric implementation in a bank's access control system. This work is only a starting point for academics to conduct more research in the application of biometrics in the various facets of banking businesses.

The purpose of this paper is to proposes benevolent leadership development as a framework to incorporate principles of responsible management education to mainstream management curriculum, specifically within the context of leadership courses.

The illustrative processes, exercises, and projects in this paper come from leadership development courses offered in Turkey and in Canada.

This paper presents four anchors that support benevolent leadership development: ethical sensitivity, spiritual depth, positive engagement, and community responsiveness.

The paper develops the framework of benevolent leadership as a means to impart the principles of responsible management.

The paper shares pedagogical strategies to incorporate benevolent leadership in leadership development courses through use of individual and team projects and exercises.

The paper shares a theoretical framework and practical insights for incorporating multiple literacies and sensitivities – namely morality, spirituality, positivity, and community – in leadership development.

This paper aims to examine the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sales revenue of two retail companies (Marks & Spencer and Tesco) in the UK to understand how CSR activities can influence retail sales growth. Prior studies have used different theoretical and methodological approaches to report the relationships between CSR and financial performance generally as positive, negative, mixed or neutral, and these are yet to be conclusive.

Clarifying the existing inconclusive results, the authors deduced donations, community work and environmental responsibility CSR activities from the literature and mapped them out onto sales revenue to formulate conceptual propositions. The authors extracted the corresponding data from the companies’ websites and financial reports, focusing on their 2006-2014 CSR and sales activities, and statistically analysed the longitudinal data with Pearson correlation coefficient.

The findings revealed positive correlations between donations and sales revenue for the two companies, which suggest that retailers’ philanthropic activities can boost sales levels overtime. Whereas the findings on the community work and the environmental-friendly activities relate either positively or negatively to sales revenue for the companies.

There is an indication for retail managers to pursue philanthropic activities to effect sales growth. Retailers exhibiting features of Marks & Spencer can commit to community investment to increase revenue over time, whereas those showing features of Tesco can pledge environmental-friendly strategies to influence a stronger correlation between carbon emissions and sales revenue levels.

The outcomes support the extant findings that donations can improve retail sales performance, while community work and the environmental-friendly activities do not necessarily improve sales growth in the retail sector but suggest that retailers can exploit more of the ones that benefit their sales revenue levels. Theoretically, the study supports the stakeholder theory’s influence on firms’ obligation to charitable cause, community investment and environmental-friendly responsibility as CSR activities that make retailers morally responsible to their customers and society in general, whereas the sustainable development model was instrumental in retailers’ CSR activities relating to environmental protection.

The purpose of this study is to expand the existing knowledge on fashion consumption in general and age/gender effects on clothing choice in particular. This study was undertaken to empirically examine the importance of various sustainable and non-sustainable apparel cues, as well as the functional, aesthetic, symbolic, financial, environmental and social/ethical aspects of clothing. Although Poland's economy has been transformed remarkably over the last decade, there is still a paucity of empirical research focusing on this area has been conducted.

A self-administered online survey was employed for this study. Twenty product cues (10 non-sustainable cues and 10 sustainable), eight items of ‘environmental commitment and behaviour’ measuring scale and demographic questions were used for data collection and empirical testing.

A total of 288 useable surveys were collected for analysis. The results revealed that many Polish consumers would not purchase a sustainable or ‘green’ product if it did not provide enough aesthetic, functional and financial benefits to satisfy their needs and aspirations. Women were more reliant on garment fit and style than men. Our findings underscore several meaningful implications and useful information. Sustainable fashion is not merely about environmental, social and ethical benefits, but their aesthetic, functional, symbolic and financial values must be factored in as well.

There is limited empirical research examining the age and gender effects in relation to sustainable and non-sustainable apparel cues. Unlike many previous research that only focused on one dimension or single aspect of clothing (e.g. aesthetic/hedonic attribute or functional/utilitarian attribute).

The Ghanaian banking industry has over the last 20 years witnessed tremendous growth to the extent that rural banks are now expanding their activities into urban centres. Hitherto, rural banks operated in rural and peri-urban areas in Ghana, but nowadays, there is an upsurge of rural banks activities in the urban centres of Ghana; and, they operate from rented premises, most of which are existing buildings in the urban areas. To meet the banking demands and the urban banking competitions such as the introduction of new technologies and regulations, the rural banks endeavour to expand (refurbish) the old/existing buildings with inherent adaptation and retrofitting challenges. Even though, adaptation and retrofit projects may not be popular in Ghana at large scales, this paper through combined methodology of constructive dialogue, case studies and condition survey approaches presents rural banks projects in Ghana as case studies of refurbishment and maintenance to “unearth” and resonate some key challenges of managing adaptation and retrofits in Ghana for future effective projects management solutions during their conception and execution. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Through combined methodology of constructive dialogue, case studies and condition survey approaches this paper presents rural banks projects in Ghana as case studies of refurbishment and maintenance to “unearth” and resonate some key challenges of adaptation and retrofit projects.

The condition survey revealed unprecedented infrastructural drive by rural banks throughout Ghana and their desire to penetrate the urban areas as well. However, this drive unfortunately as it appeared, is not informed and carried out within the confines and dictates of existing legislations in Ghana. Again, it was found that adaptations and retrofitting will improve and integrate the rural banks in the urban economy through prudent project management practices.

Availability of local researches and literature on adaptations and retrofitting as project management practices in Ghana.

Retrofitting and adaptation projects in Ghana is crucial for project management practices on low-impact building as Ghana faces energy challenges.

This research brings to bear realistic programme to build capacity of personnel to strategically integrate the rural banks into the central banking system of Ghana as well as project management practices through better and effective monitoring for social, ethical and equity impacts of their project managers.

Apparently, adaptation and retrofit projects are not be popular in Ghana at large scales and this is the first time an academic paper of a kind has been written to guide and manage future adaptation and retrofit projects during their conception and execution as well as project management practices in general.

Global investors demand, regulators require, and companies disclose their sustainability performance information, and scholars have started to conduct research on sustainability performance, reporting and assurance. The goal of firm value creation can be achieved when management considers the interests of all stakeholders and integrates all five economic, governance, social, ethical, and environmental (EGSEE) dimensions of sustainability performance into managerial strategies, actions and reporting. This paper provides a synthesis of research on sustainability and presents a theoretical framework consisting of theories and standards relevant to all five EGSEE dimensions of sustainability performance and risks and their integration into corporate culture, business models and reporting in creating stakeholder value.

COVID-19 hits every country’s health-care system and economy. There is a trend toward using automation technology in response to the COVID-19 crisis not only in developed countries but also in those with lower levels of technology development. However, current studies mainly focus on the world level, and only a few ones report deployments at the country level. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the use of automation solutions in Vietnam with locally available materials mainly in the first wave from January to July 2020.

The authors collected COVID-related automation solutions during the first wave of COVID-19 in Vietnam from January to July 2020 through a search process. The analysis and insights of a panel consisting of various disciplines (i.e. academia, health care, government, entrepreneur and media) aim at providing a clear picture of how and to what extent these solutions have been deployed.

The authors found seven groups of solutions from low to high research and development (R&D) levels deployed across the country with various funding sources. Low R&D solutions were widely spread owing to simplicity and affordability. High R&D solutions were mainly deployed in big cities. Most of the solutions were deployed during the first phases when international supply chains were limited with a significant contribution of the media. Higher R&D solutions have opportunities to be deployed in the reopening phase. However, challenges can be listed as limited interdisciplinary research teams, market demand, the local supporting industry, end-user validation and social-ethical issues.

To the authors’ best knowledge, this is the first study analyzing the use of automation technology in response to COVID-19 in Vietnam and also in a country in Southeast Asia. Lessons learned from these current deployments are useful for future emerging infectious diseases. The reality of Vietnam’s automation solutions in response to COVID-19 might be a reference for other developing countries with similar social-economic circumstances and contributes to the global picture of how different countries adopt technology to combat COVID-19.