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During the lengthy process of PhD studies, supervisory changes commonly occur for several different reasons, but their most frequent trigger is a poor supervisory relationship. Even though a change in supervisors is a formal bureaucratic process and not least the students’ rights, in practice it can be experienced as challenging. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore how doctoral students experience a change in supervisory arrangements.

This study highlights the voices of 19 doctoral students who experienced at least one supervisory change during their doctoral studies.

The findings were structured chronologically, revealing the students’ experiences prior, during and after the changes. In total, 12 main themes were identified. Most of the interviewed students experienced the long decision-making processes as stressful, difficult and exhausting, sometimes causing a lack of mental well-being. However, once the change was complete, they felt renewed, energized and capable of continuing with their studies. It was common to go through more than one change in supervisory arrangements. Further, the students described both the advantages of making a change yet also the long-lasting consequences of this change that could affect them long after they had completed their PhD programs.

The study fulfills an identified need to investigate the understudied perspective of doctoral students in the context of change in supervisory arrangements. A change in the academic culture is needed to make any changes in supervisory arrangements more acceptable thus making PhD studies more sustainable.

This paper aims to explore the support experiences of 381 PhD students within the humanities and social sciences from three research-intensive universities in Denmark (n = 145) and Finland (n = 236). The study investigates the cross-cultural variation in the researcher community support and supervisory support experiences, factors associated with their support experienced and the perceived support fit.

The study used a mixed methods design, both quantitative analyses and qualitative analyses (open-ended descriptions) were used.

The results showed that students in both Danish and Finnish programs emphasized researcher community support over supervisory support. The Danish students, however, reported slightly higher levels of researcher community support and experienced lower levels of friction than their Finnish counter partners. The results also indicated that the only form of support in which the students expressed more matched support than mismatched support was informational support.

The results imply investing in a stronger integration of PhD students into the research community is beneficial for the students’ progress. Building network-based and collaborative learning activities that enhance both instrumental and emotional support and a collective form of supervision could be further developed. The possibility of Phd student integration in the scholarly community is likely to lead to more efficient use of finacial and intellectual resources in academia and society more broadly.

This study offer a unique contribution on doctoral students’ academic and socialization experiences in terms of explicationg the sources of support, support forms and support fit among Danish and Finnish doctoral students. Both invariants and socio-culturally embedded aspects of support experience among the students were detected.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had its impact on research and researchers, potentially influencing the future of academia. Yet, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, there are no empirical studies on the alignment between supervisors’ and supervisees’ estimates of the impact of COVID-19. This study aims to contribute to bridging this gap by exploring PhD candidates’ and supervisors’ perceptions of the impact of COVID-19 on candidates’ study progress and study well-being, and whether the estimates were related to supervisors’ and supervisees’ well-being.

A total of 768 PhD candidates and 561 doctoral supervisors from a large multifield research-intensive university in Finland participated in this quantitative study. Data were collected with the doctoral experience survey and the supervisory experience survey.

In general, the results show that both supervisors and supervisees recognised the negative impact of the pandemic on candidates’ well-being and progress, and their perceptions were quite well aligned. However, supervisors estimated that the impact had been more detrimental than the supervisees did. The results also show that the supervisors’ perceptions of the negative impact of COVID-19 on candidates’ progress and well-being were related to reduced levels of their own well-being.

Results can be used in developing effective support means for both the supervisors and supervisees to overcome the hardships caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and to avoid long-term negative consequences for the candidates in degree completion, career trajectories and the future of the academy.

The article is to review recent literature studies of employee turnover to identify antecedents of employee turnover in the hospitality sector to reduce the literature gaps and present a wider scope of turnover factor and understanding of employee motivational factors in their job decision.

The recent literature studies published over the last two decades were reviewed and structured into the three levels of employee turnover factors, including individual, team and organizational level.

The antecedents on organizational levels were frequently studied and suggested as strong predictors to employee turnover in the hospitality sectors. The team and organizational factors also influence employee turnover, yet the factors on the team level may not have a significant direct impact but rather an indirect impact through the organizational or individual level. The factors of the individual level may not explain the fundamental reasons behind the turnover. Yet, it might be a more reliable predictor of employee turnover as factors on the other levels are often mediated by individual factors.

The article contributes to the knowledge base by articulating a wide range of updated employee turnover factors in the hospitality that brings an updated insight into employee motivational factors in the hospitality sector.

The paper aims to provide a comprehensive investigation of the relationship between corporate governance (CG) structure and firm performance in Chinese listed firms from 2001 to 2015. The authors’ motivation derives from the fact that the CG system in China is different from those in the US, the UK, Germany, Japan and other countries.

A large unbalanced sample, covering more than 22,700 observations in Chinese listed firms, was used to explore, by means of a system-generalized method-of-moments (GMM) estimator, the relationship between CG structure and firm performance to remove potential sources of endogeneity.

Results show that Chinese CG structure is endogenously determined by the CG mechanisms investigated: there is no relationship between board size (including independent directors) and firm performance; CEO duality has a significantly negative effect on firm performance; concentration of ownership has a significantly positive influence on firm performance; managerial ownership is negatively correlated with firm performance; state ownership has a significantly positive effect on firm performance; and a supervisory board is positively correlated with firm performance.

The findings provide policymakers and firm managers with useful empirical guidance concerning CG in China.

Few integrative studies have examined the impact of CG structure on firm performance in China. This study adds new empirical evidence that the relation between CG structure and performance in China is endogenous and dynamic when controlling for unobserved heterogeneity, simultaneity, and dynamic endogeneity.

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between the composition of Sharīʿah supervisory boards (independence and frequency of meetings) and the performance of Islamic banks in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.

The study developed a multiple linear regression model, and data were collected from the annual reports of 48 standalone Islamic banks listed in the GCC countries covering the period between 2013 and 2017.

The results showed a statistically significant and negative relationship between the composition of the Sharīʿah supervisory boards and the performance of Islamic banks.

As the current study used only one indicator, that is Return on Assets to measure performance, it is recommended to expand the framework of this study, through the addition of market-based performance indicators such as Tobin’s Q.

This study recommends the GCC countries to follow a more proactive Sharīʿah governance model to strengthen their frameworks from both regulatory and non-regulatory aspects.

The study contributes to the Sharīʿah governance and Islamic banking literature relating to the GCC countries as previous studies gave no attention to the composition of Sharīʿah supervisory boards.

The current paper aims to analyse the antecedents of leader–member exchange relationships (LMX) by specifically focusing on the influence of the supervisor’s feedback delivery tactic.

This study uses qualitative research methods with primary interviews as the main data source. Primary interviews with 40 managers from top supermarkets in Nigeria, South Africa and the UK were undertaken.

The authors found that both high-quality positive feedback and constructive criticisms produced the same feelings – more positive interpersonal relationships with their supervisors, higher levels of commitment to their organisations, higher job satisfaction and thus, high-quality LMX relationships. Where criticisms were delivered without greater interpersonal treatment, feedback was perceived as negative, and participants revealed lack of job satisfaction, lack of commitment to their organisations, poor interpersonal relationship with their supervisors, high turnover intent and thus low-quality LMX relationship.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the current paper is one of the first studies to highlight the consequences of different feedback delivery tactics on subsequent LMX quality particularly in African context. The authors specifically develop a process-based model of enhancing high-quality LMX, which shows the role of the supervisor’s feedback delivery tactic in the process. The authors also develop a process-based model that illustrates how negative/unconstructive feedback could result in a low-quality LMX. Finally, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is also one of the first to offer a comparative assessment between African and British (the UK) empirical settings and highlight some interesting dynamics concerning LMX quality and role of supervisor’s feedback delivery tactic.

In a bid to enhance the stability of banks, supervisory authorities in sub-Sahara Africa (SSA) have also adopted international bank regulatory standards based on the Basel core principles. This paper aims to investigate the effectiveness of these regulations in mitigating Bank risk (instability) in SSA. The focus of empirical analysis is on examining the implications of four regulations (capital, activity restrictions, supervisory power and market discipline) on risk-taking behaviour of banks.

This paper uses two dimensions of financial stability in relation to two different sources of bank risk: solvency risk and liquidity risk. This paper uses information from the World Bank Regulatory Survey database to construct regulation indices on activity restrictions and the three regulations pertaining to the three pillars of Basel II, i.e. capital, supervisory power and market discipline. The paper then uses a two-step system generalised method of moments estimator to estimate the impact of each regulation on solvency and liquidity risk.

The overall results show that: regulations pertaining to capital (Pillar 1) and market discipline (Pillar 3) are effective in reducing solvency risk; and regulations pertaining to supervisory power (Pillar 2) and activity restrictions increase liquidity risk (i.e. reduce bank stability).

Given some evidence from other studies which show that market power (competition) tends to condition the effect of regulations on bank stability, it would have been more informative to examine whether this is really the case in SSA, given the low levels of competition in some countries. This study is limited in this regard.

The key policy implications from the study findings are three-fold: bank supervisory agencies in SSA should prioritise the adoption of Pillars 1 and 3 of the Basel II framework as an effective policy response to enhance the stability of the banking system; a universal banking model is more stability enhancing; and there is a trade-off between stronger supervisory power and liquidity stability that needs to be properly managed every time regulatory agencies increase their supervisory mandate.

This paper provides new evidence on which Pillars of the Basel II regulatory framework are more effective in reducing bank risk in SSA. This paper also shows that the way regulations affect solvency risk is different from that of liquidity risk – an approach that allows for case specific policy interventions based on the type of bank risk under consideration. Ignoring this dual dimension of bank stability can thus lead to erroneous policy inferences.

Given declining tuition funds and government grants, Kenyan universities need to develop strategies, including increased research grants and collaborations, to diversify their income sources. Well-managed doctoral students can boost a university’s teaching and research outputs. However, numbers of students enrolled in doctoral programmes at Kenyan universities are low, and graduation rates and time-to-graduate statistics are disturbing. Research undertaken elsewhere underline the important role played by supervisors and peers in facilitating students’ sense of belonging and their success. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the influence of supervisory and peer support on PhD students’ sense of belonging and their success at Kenyan universities.

In this cross-sectional study, data were gathered through an online questionnaire from 614 students admitted to doctoral programmes at Kenyan universities between 2010 and 2018. We used multi-item scales to collect data on PhD students’ self-efficacy, supervisory and peer support and a sense of belonging.

Structural equation modelling results revealed that PhD students’ modes of study and self-efficacy were significantly associated with the quality of supervision, peer support and a sense of belonging. However, only age, a sense of belonging and the quality of supervision were directly linked to their success.

This study contributes to the literature on doctoral-level education, responding to the need for research on the influence of relationships with supervisors and peers on PhD students’ sense of belonging and their success, especially in developing countries.