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For many predominantly white arts institutions in the United States, the murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd in the summer of 2020 prompted externally initiated calls for equity work. Many of these organizations crafted equity statements, engaged in trainings, and made public displays of their intent to do different and better – however, many did not follow through on those promises (Heidelberg, 2020). While many organizations have indeed engaged in fakequity or “equity talk with no action” (Okuno Consulting, 2017), this may not explain every instance of stalled or incomplete equity action within the arts sector. In the case of fakequity, the remedy is to actually do the work of creating a more inclusive and equitable organization, rather than simply talk about it. However, if there are root causes for stalled equity action aside from fakequity, then organizations are left without guidance on how to identify and address that cause/those causes and move forward. This case examines the primary research question: what organizational practices contribute to stalled equity efforts other than fakequity? Investigating this question led to a secondary research question: what conditions help organizations move beyond stalled equity efforts? In order to address this question, I conducted a single-case study (Yin, 2014) of a midwestern museum to offer a contextualized understanding of identifying and addressing organizational elements that contribute to false starts in equity work within predominantly white arts institutions.

Chapter 4, ‘Plan–Act–Observe–Review’ focuses specifically on the need to understand and develop teacher collaboration prompted by the introduction of new shared learning environments. The chapter talks about three key school strategies which were developed through a process of school inquiry and why it was felt they were needed. It highlights the need for coherence and consistency across school and includes lots of useful takeaways for readers.

The first intervention, Collaborative Teaching Models, focusses on the structures that help teachers and support staff understand how to work together. The second intervention, Communication Strategies, investigates the cultural changes required because of the elevated human interactions involved in collaborative teaching. The third intervention, Strategic Meetings, is a combination of structural and cultural change, found to be advantageous due to collaborative teaching.

Since the withdrawal of IFRIC 3 in 2005, there has been a regulatory freeze in accounting for emission rights that contrasts with the international momentum of climate-related financial disclosures. This paper explores how different narratives and institutional dynamics explain the failure to produce guidance on accounting for emission rights.

This paper mobilises the notion of field-configuring events to examine a sequence of six events between 2003 and 2016, including four public consultations and two dialogues between standard setters. The paper presents a qualitative analysis of documents produced in this space that investigates how different practices and narratives configured the field's positions, agenda, and meaning systems.

Accounting for emission rights was gradually decoupled from climate change and carbon markets, relegated to the research pipeline, and forgotten. The obstacles that the IASB and EFRAG found in presenting themselves as central in the recurring events, the excess of representations, and the increasingly technical and abstract debates eroded the 2003 momentum for regulation, making the different initiatives to revitalise the project vulnerable and open to scrutiny. Lukes (2021) refers to nondecision-making to express that some issues are suffocated before they are expressed.

The regulation of accounting for emission rights, an area that has received scant attention in the literature, provides some insights into the different narrative mechanisms that, materialising in specific times and spaces, draw regulatory attention to particular accounting issues, which are problematised and, eventually, forgotten. This study also illustrates that identifying interests is problematic as actors shift from alternative positions over a long period. The case examined also raises some doubts about the previous effectiveness of international standard setters in dealing with matters of connectivity between the environment and finance, as is the case for accounting for emissions rights.

This paper presents findings from an exploration of the experiences of staff employed on sessional, part-time or fixed-term contracts (termed contingent staff), focusing on their perceptions and experiences of identity within a UK higher education context.

A comparative case study approach was adopted within a qualitative, interpretivist framework. Semi-structured interviews were used to facilitate an in-depth comparative analysis of the experiences of 11 contingent staff. Thematic analysis was employed to compare identity and practice across two settings to uncover distinct and shared factors.

Participants highlight several critical issues within the study units, including identity and perceived value, team dynamics, clarity of roles and the sense of inclusion within the broader academic community. The findings also reveal that the boundaries between educational roles – including educator, facilitator, coach, mentor and those associated with pastoral care – are increasingly indistinct, suggesting a convergence of pedagogical approaches and holistic practice.

This study provides insights into the underexplored area of pedagogic practice and identity among contingent staff in the UK higher education sector. Unlike previous research, which may broadly examine mentoring roles or apprenticeship outcomes, this study specifically highlights educators' identity perceptions and experiences on contingent contracts, providing a lens on their professional landscape. Employing a comparative case study design enhances the findings by allowing an in-depth juxtaposition of experiences across two distinct higher education institutions.

The main data used to develop this case were remote, synchronous interviews with the three characters in the case. The authors conducted two interviews with the main character in the case, Geoff Brown, specifically: (1) an initial 30 min interview to determine the fit and focus of the case and to help create the interview protocol for the full case interview (this initial interview was conducted on March 12, 2024); and (2) an hour-long interview to ask targeted questions to fully develop the case narrative (this interview was conducted on March 28, 2024). Geoff Brown was also involved in reviewing drafts of the case, approving the final version of the case and reviewing the assignment questions in this instructors’ manual (IM).

This case focuses on Geoff Brown, Executive Director at Alberta Chicken Producers (ACP), which is a not-for-profit organization in Alberta, Canada, that is responsible for representing 250 regulated chicken producers. Brown is grappling with what to do with the remote/hybrid work policy at ACP. Part of the impetus for reconsidering this policy was the comments from ACP’s long-tenured Office Manager and Executive Assistant, who had been asking Brown to bring this policy forward to a staff meeting for discussion throughout the past year. Brown now feels ready to move these discussions forward but is unsure of how to proceed and what the best practices would be to ensure that the policy in place for remote work is beneficial for work engagement, individual and organizational work performance, work–life balance, employee relationships and fairness perceptions.

The target audience for this case is undergraduate and graduate students taking a course in the disciplines of human resources management or organizational behavior. This case will be especially relevant for a human resources management course when studying the topics of employee benefits (e.g. work–life balance), health and safety (e.g. stress) and work design (e.g. telecommuting), and this case will be especially relevant for an organizational behavior course when studying the topics of motivation (e.g. fairness), communication, organizational culture and decision-making.

The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal of ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for people of all ages underscores the vital role of public healthcare facilities (PHFs) in delivering essential healthcare services. However, these facilities often suffer from inadequate maintenance, exacerbated by the insufficient implementation of maintenance strategies. Recognizing the importance of PHFs in enhancing healthcare services, this paper investigates the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) in the maintenance strategies of PHFs in South Africa.

Through semi-structured interviews with nineteen purposively selected maintenance personnel from the Limpopo Department of Health (DoH), this study identified and analyzed the CSFs to enhance maintenance operations in PHFs. Thematic content analysis was employed to derive key insights from the collected data.

The study's findings highlight adequate maintenance planning and effective leadership as the two overarching CSFs in the maintenance of PHFs. These factors play a pivotal role in addressing challenges that hinder the current maintenance team from meeting maintenance requirements to the satisfaction of both staff and patients within PHFs.

The study offers valuable insights for policymakers to improve the effectiveness of maintenance operations in PHFs. By addressing the identified CSFs, policymakers can enhance maintenance operations in PHFs, positively impacting healthcare service delivery and the well-being of both staff and patients.

Given epidemiological data highlighting poor health outcomes for prison staff and correctional workers, this systematic review aims to understand what health promotion interventions, delivered in prison settings, are effective for prison staff health.

A systematic review was undertaken, with search parameters encompassing papers published over a ten-year period (2013–2023). Health promotion programmes; well-being programmes; and occupational health interventions to support prison staff health as part of a targeted approach or as part of a whole-prison approach were included in the review.

The review identified 354 studies, of which 157 were duplicates and 187 did not meet the inclusion criteria. This left ten studies in the review from five countries. Reducing the impact of tobacco smoke was the commonly cited intervention, with four studies focusing on smoke-free prison legislation, but other studies focused on stress reduction for staff and supporting holistic health. The papers were of poor methodological quality, with the exception of three included studies that had robust designs. Most studies showed limited or no impact of interventions to support prison staff health, the exception being policy interventions to reduce second-hand smoke exposure.

Prison staff have poor health outcomes and yet limited attention has been paid to interventions to support their health. This review suggests a number of considerations for future policy and practice and direction for further research to improve prison staff health.

In this paper we explore the gendered ways in which academic staff resistance and compliance is configured in a post-1992 University in England, including the emotions implicated in the navigation of neo-liberalisation and research intensification of their academic institution and its associated disciplinarian mechanisms.

We draw on data from an interview study of a diverse sample of 32 academics of different gender, discipline and academic grade. Analysis informed by a feminist post-structuralist framework of power and discourse explored different forms of academic resistance and compliance; how the embodied academic subject was (re)negotiated within gendered discourses of neo-liberal research excellence and managerialism and the gendered emotions generated in processes of resistance and compliance.

Institutional change and expectations to engage with research performativity generated fear, anxiety and anger. Female staff appeared to actively resist the masculinized research subject performing all hours work and individualism in the context of private and institutional gendered relations and labour. Male staff though actively resisted the feminization of higher education and the neo-liberal instrumentalization of caring and therapeutic cultures and ideologically resisted the surveillance mechanisms of higher education including the REF.

Our work contributes to scholarship problematizing the assumed neutrality of resistance and compliance and highlighting women’s symbolic struggle to (dis)identify with a masculine professional norm. In terms of theorising academic resistance to neo-liberalism and identity construction, further attention should be given to the mobilization and symbolic capital of academics and emotions positioned differently due to their gender and intersecting differences.

Our study addresses a gap in the scholarship of academic resistance and compliance by advancing the understanding of gender inequalities and emotions implicated in the process of resistance and compliance against neo-liberalism.

This study aims to investigate the unique cultural attributes of a particular association. The research focuses on a single case study involving a civil society organization whose activities are focused within the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Specifically, the association under examination is a religious voluntary organization engaged in social activities within the Israeli Defense Forces.

Data collection employed a qualitative approach using the case study method, with twenty in-depth ethnographic interviews conducted. The research questions guiding the study are: What are the hybrid structural characteristics of the religious association? How has this hybrid structure influenced the organizational culture?

The study identifies a hybrid structure comprising community, familial, and bureaucratic features. It reveals a blend of clan and bureaucratic cultural elements within the organization, demonstrating adaptability to the ideology of the Israeli Defense Forces.

The research uncovers an innovative hybrid structure that successfully navigates bureaucratic challenges and fosters a familial atmosphere contributing to communal benefits.

As part of a national plan to govern professional and organizational development in Norwegian specialist healthcare, the country’s hospital clinics are tasked with constructing development plans. Using the development plan as a case, the paper analyzes how managers navigate and legitimize the planning process among central actors and deals with the contingency of decisions in such strategy work.

This study applies a qualitative research design using a case study method. The material consists of public documents, observations and single interviews, covering the process of constructing a development plan at the clinical level.

The findings suggest that the development plan was shaped through a multilevel translation process consisting of different contending rationalities. At the clinical level, the management had difficulties in legitimizing the process. The underlying tension between top-down and bottom-up steering challenged involvement and made it difficult to manage the contingency of decisions.

The findings are relevant to public sector managers working on strategy documents and policymakers identifying challenges that might hinder the fulfillment of political intentions.

This paper draws on a case from Norway; however, the findings are of general interest. The study contributes to the academic discussion on how to consider both the health authorities’ perspective and the organizational perspective to understand the manager’s role in handling the contingency of decisions and managing paradoxes in the decision-making process.