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There has been much debate in the literature regarding whether political pressures are beneficial or detrimental to public agencies’ performance and outcomes. This chapter explores under what conditions, if any, do political pressures have any positive effects.

A survey methodology and multivariate regression models are applied to assess the relationship between political pressures and public agencies’ performance and outcomes, using data from South-America and Europe. The theoretical scope is developed drawing from the public sector, management control, and goal-setting literatures.

The effects of political pressures on public agencies’ performance and public officers’ job satisfaction are moderated by technical certainty. At low levels of technical certainty political pressures have negative effects while at high levels they have positive effects.

All limitations of survey research apply.

Governments, public officers, and politicians should take into account the dynamics described in this study so as to limit the negative effects of political pressures and take advantage of the positive ones.

This is the first study to suggest that the effects of political pressures on public agencies vary depending on the nature of the task public agencies perform. The results reported here bring a new perspective to the literature, helping to clarify prior conflicting results. In addition, the fact that results are consistent for South American and European public agencies suggests that these findings might be generalizable across cultural boundaries.

A core assumption of exclusive talent management is that some employees have more talent than others. Performance data and talent reviews provide some support for this assumption yet there are grounds thinking that a proportion of talent identification is false; average people can be included, talented people can excluded. In an exploration of how talent recognition is exposed to risk, this chapter considers two approaches to talent that are seldom treated together. First, the social construction of talent is developed in ways that highlight the dangers that inevitably arise in talent recognition processes. A social constructionist treatment raises the prospect of ‘empty’ talent pools and the chapter explores the ethical and moral issues arising and questions whether it matters that talent pools might be empty. Second, talent is considered as an innate characteristic of people highlighting that talents are not static and continue evolving up to a point. As such, and if so, it is right that organizations should look periodically for talent across their employee base. The chapter highlights areas for further research into the existence of ‘the talented’ in business contexts and in particular the question of how much talent pools actually contain people with above average talent. The practical implications of appreciating both social and natural bases of talent are considered.

Developing self-awareness as a management instructor and modelling this process for students’ similar awareness has benefits in classroom learning environments. In this chapter, the authors reframe faculty and student traditional roles and responsibilities, providing an iterative, holistic process of embedded interdependent self-awareness development where students experience a sense of empowerment and control over their learning, integral to mutual success. The authors’ experiences draw on aspects of experiential learning, Gestalt psychology, and self-determination theory (SDT). To create an intrinsically motivating, student-centred learning environment in an undergraduate leadership course, the authors reframed teaching to include course design, opportunities for student autonomy, co-creation of psychological safety, and the instructor’s use of self. This evidence-based reflection for self-awareness included examining behavioural patterns, feelings, and thinking. Finally, the authors discuss lessons learned and practical applications, identifying reflexivity, psychological safety, iterative feedback, student autonomy, and modelling as key to the process.

The pandemic forced the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to transition to online video mediation (OVM) in place of its existing in-person mediation (IPM) model. Using measurements from their 2000 evaluation of EEOC IPM, plus new measures related to the elements of OVM, the authors surveyed 2,387 EEOC mediation participants during the pandemic, obtaining responses from 1,234 (53%).

OVM performed as well or better on the four measures of procedural fairness, overall mediation fairness, satisfaction with the results, and willingness to use the process again. Sixty-seven percent of the parties favored OVM over IPM. Responses to a closed-end survey that provided for additional open-end responses indicate that OVM is seen by the parties as having a more convenient location, lower costs, and greater flexibility. The results establish that OVM provides greater access to justice due to safe space and to the willingness of additional employers to engage in OVM.

There is sufficient evidence to prove that the improved health status of a nation’s citizens results in economic growth and development via improved functionality and productivity of labor. It is also commonly accepted that healthcare expenditure significantly influences health status through, for instance, improving life expectancy at birth and reducing morbidity, death, and infant mortality rates. Within healthcare, medicines account for a considerable share of health-related expenditure in both developed and developing countries. Therefore, it seems reasonable to assume that improved access to medicines is likely to contribute not only to the well-being of families and individuals but also to the economic growth and development in all societies. It has been widely advocated that pharmaceutical multinational enterprises (MNEs) can play an important role to address this problem, as they develop and supply a significant proportion of the drugs imported by low- and middle-income countries. This chapter is dedicated to a systematic review of literature in order to identify the strategies implemented by pharmaceutical MNEs to improve access to medicines in the low- and middle-income countries. A total of 76 research articles have been identified, and we have found that the main strategies of pharmaceutical MNEs are related to improving health outcomes through R&D, establishing partnerships for product development, pricing strategies to improve access to medicines, technology transfer, licensing agreements, and nonmarket efforts to improve access to medicines, among other strategies to overcome barriers imposed by intellectual property rights. We have also found that pharmaceutical MNEs’ strategies take place within a complex system and often involve interactions with a wide range of actors, such as international organizations, governments, private not-for-profit sector, universities and research institutes, and generic manufacturers. However, there is still a need for major progress in the field of access to medicines, and pharmaceutical MNEs should be more active in this field in order to avoid potential negative consequences, such as loss of legitimacy and compulsory licensing of their patented medicines.

Children experience toxic stress if there is pronounced activation of their stress-response systems, in situations in which they do not have stable caregiving. Due to their exposure to multiple poverty-related risks, African American children may be more susceptible to exposure to toxic stress. Toxic stress affects young children’s brain and neurophysiologic functioning, which leads to a wide range of deleterious health, developmental, and mental health outcomes. Given the benefits of early care and education (ECE) for African American young children, ECE may represent a compensating experience for this group of children, and promote their positive development.