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The purpose of this paper is to examine how and why individuals involved in executive remuneration (top pay) decision-making consider quantum as being appropriate rather than excessive, theorised under the rubric of accountability.

In-depth interviews were conducted with non-executive directors (NEDs) serving on remuneration committees (Remcos), institutional investors, their external advisers and internal HR reward experts. Transcripts were analysed using NVivo and the Gioia qualitative methodology.

Defining, measuring and applying performance conditionality in the determination of top pay quantum such that it aligns with company strategy/culture and values, as well as individual recipient motivations, is difficult. While creative approaches to setting top pay so as to attract, retain and motivate key personnel are welcomed, these risk Remco members' personal/organisational reputations. Members recognise disconnection between top pay quantum and general pay levels and how the media highlights social inequality leading to public distrust. They believe they can contribute to more socially acceptable quantum by applying their own values in top pay decision-making.

Sanctions-based, trust-based and selection/peer networks/felt-based accountability theory is used to explain decision-makers’ actions when determining top pay quantum. This paper extends felt accountability theory to encompass public/societal accountability in the context of the appropriateness of top pay quantum decisions.

This study aims to explore how transformational leaders enhance public service employees’ growth satisfaction in the job and mitigate job stress and burnout, incorporating follower interpersonal communication satisfaction with the leader (IPCSL) as a mediator.

On the basis of the survey data collected from the Indian public service employees, regression analysis, bootstrapping and SOBEL test are used to test the proposed research model.

The findings highlighted a partial mediation of follower interpersonal communication satisfaction with leader between transformational leadership (TL) and public service employees’ growth satisfaction in the job. Although there was no significant direct effect of TL on job stress and burnout, the results underlined a significant indirect effect of follower IPCSL.

By examining the important role of follower IPCSL, this study unravels the precise intervening mechanism between TL and follower affective outcomes like growth satisfaction in job, job stress and burnout among public service employees.

In this chapter, we examine the role that business school accreditation agencies play in influencing attitudes to gender, exploring the documentation of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB); Association of MBAs (AMBA) and European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) Quality Improvement System (EQUIS) to develop an understanding of their stake in promoting greater gender equality or inadvertently encouraging gender washing. These agencies are powerful stakeholders who, arguably, set the recognized global standards. We focus on the organizational rhetoric espoused by them and have found that they are using practices we have defined as genderspinning: presenting a favorable impression to stakeholders; and moving in endless circles.

This study attempts to identify the drivers for change in Public Relations education and what assumptions are made about professional practice. The authors suggest signature pedagogy has the potential to deepen our understanding of the teaching and learning of Public Relations and what this means as the Public Relations curriculum adapts. The paper has theoretical and practical value. It forefronts the concept of signature pedagogy as a fresh way to look at Public Relations teaching and learning that can be developed.

This paper aims to explore the historical and contemporary context of teaching Public Relations within a university setting, how it has evolved and the assumptions that underpin it both nationally and internationally. Using a mixed methods approach, the paper investigates how the curriculum has changed since 2000, how it interacts with industry and how it reflects educational historical and contemporary frameworks. It also explores the assumptions on which Public Relations education was and is based and whether signature pedagogy is evidenced.

This study concludes that, from a signature pedagogy perspective, many current Public Relations curricula emphasise surface structures of learning. Deep structures, focusing on critical engagement and conceptual approaches to problem solving, are more variable, disconnected and contested. The data indicate the existence of an Anglo-American, skills-based approach to Public Relations knowledge, alongside international nuances around multi-culturalism. From a practical viewpoint, the paper contributes to how Public Relations programmes can be designed, taught and adapted in the future.

The paper evidences fully unique, primary research.

This paper aims to explore the impact of social segregation and exclusionary workplace hazing during lunch breaks on newcomers’ relational quality during the early socialisation phase.

This study draws on data from a qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews with recently employed nurses (n = 19) and nursing students (n = 42) about their workplace hazing experiences. The data was analysed using reflexive thematic analysis.

The analysis revealed two main themes: “feeling isolated” and “justifying self-exclusion.” Newcomers reported feeling humiliated when subjected to exclusionary hazing by experienced colleagues, leading to feelings of alienation and impacting their relationships with their new colleagues. Newcomers tended to distance themselves in various ways and justified this behaviour as a means of self-care.

This paper adds to the limited knowledge about the effects of newcomers’ exposure to workplace hazing during their early socialisation. It provides a relational perspective on the consequences of workplace hazing and explains how the social context influences the normative expectations of newcomers.

This paper seeks to provide a multi-theoretical explanation of the living practice of a public entity found in Uganda, an African developing country, which successfully enhanced public accountability.

A qualitative narrative enquiry through storytelling was used to portray the practices of public accountability. The perceptions of various individuals were obtained using in-depth interviews, from which a coherent story structured under the themes of context, actions, results and lessons was obtained.

Findings show that public entities that put in place oversight mechanisms and management structures, involve stakeholders and create an ethical work climate enhance public accountability. The results further show that the integration of theories (agency, stewardship, stakeholder and ethical work climate) promotes public accountability.

In terms of limitations and areas for future research, the study has been conducted on a single city authority to explain public accountability. Perhaps there is a need to conduct similar studies with other city authorities or a combination of organizations. The study has used a qualitative methodology through narrative enquiry to explain public accountability. Future studies can use a quantitative methodology, more so to test the proposed conceptual model of public accountability. Despite the study limitations, the results of this study remain relevant.

This study uses the positive story of a public entity from a developing country that successfully practiced public accountability. Consequently, from a practical perspective, the findings of this study can be used as a benchmark for promoting effective public accountability practices, especially in developing countries across the globe, where public accountability has proven to be a challenge. Furthermore, governments in developing countries can also use the study findings to strengthen public accountability policies in their respective countries.

The study suggests that enhancement in public accountability practice requires an approach that brings together a multiplicity of factors. The study affords public accountability practitioners an opportunity to replicate the successful accountability practices from the story. When public accountability is enhanced, service delivery in terms of social services by the public organizations is likely to improve, leading to better quality of life in the communities served.

The study is novel in its use of a positive story that depicts an entity from a developing country that successfully enhanced public accountability. To explain this phenomenon, the study uses a multi-theoretical approach, unlike prior studies.

This study aims to explore the relationship between promoter share pledging and the company’s dividend payout policy in India. Furthermore, this study also analyses the moderating impact of family involvement in business on the association between share pledging and dividend payout.

A sample of 236 companies from the S&P Bombay Stock Exchange Sensitive (BSE) 500 Index (2014–2023) has been analysed through fixed-effects panel data regression. For additional testing, robustness checks include alternative measures of dividend payout and promoter share pledging, as well as alternative methodologies such as Bayesian regression. Lastly, to address potential endogeneity, instrumental variables with a two-stage least squares (IV-2SLS) methodology have been implemented.

Upholding the agency perspective, a significantly negative impact of promoter share pledging on corporate dividend payouts in India has been uncovered. Moreover, family involvement in business moderates this relationship, highlighting that the negative association between promoter share pledging and dividend payouts is more pronounced in family companies. The findings are consistent throughout the robustness testing.

The present study represents a pioneering endeavour to empirically analyse the link between promoter share pledging and dividend payouts in India. It enhances the theoretical underpinnings of the agency relationship, particularly by substantiating the existence of Type II agency conflicts between majority and minority shareholders. The findings of this research bear significant implications for investors, researchers and policymakers, particularly in light of the widespread prevalence of promoter-controlled entities in India.

This study investigates the empirical association between environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) performance and top executive compensation in the US financial services industry. Considering that financial firms can inflict systemic shocks across the economy, it has been argued that they must conduct ethical and sustainable business in accordance with ESG principles. This study examines whether ESG efforts are beneficial to managers.

The authors use CEO compensation and ESG performance ratings data for all US financial firms (SIC 6000–6799) from 2015 to 2019. Employing fixed effects regressions, the authors test whether lagged ESG performance is related to CEO compensation, after controlling for other firm characteristics such as size, financial performance, leverage and CEO stock ownership.

The authors find that lagged ESG ratings are strongly associated with all forms of compensation. An increase of one standard deviation in the composite ESG rating is associated with a 14%–16% increase in the total pay. Among the three ESG pillars, only S (social) and G (governance) exhibit persistent and significant associations with both short- and long-term executive pay. The authors also document the significant moderating effects of ESG on the relationships among firm performance, size, leverage, ownership and executive pay, identifying how ESG is associated with compensation.

The authors conclude that managers receive ESG incentives implicitly and explicitly. The novel finding of direct and indirect associations between ESG and top executive compensation contributes to the growing ESG literature on the financial sector and ongoing debate about the explicit inclusion of ESG targets in compensation design.

This study attempts to encapsulate the idea of influencer marketing in the food sector and the vital role played by food influencers in shaping the dietary preferences, tastes and decisions of their social media followers and turning them into brand advocates.

An online survey of 383 social media users, utilizing a self-administered questionnaire, was undertaken to validate the proposed research design. The partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) methodology was used to analyze the data and test the relationships between the constructs.

The results confirm the validity and reliability of the research model. The research revealed the positive influence of influencer–follower demographics and attitude congruence on followers’ food choices, which in turn leads to followers’ delight and significantly impacts their brand advocacy. It also depicts how followers’ perceived trust in an influencer mediates the relationship between their similarity with the influencers, their food choices and brand advocacy.

The study proposes a new theoretical framework and empirically tests the effectiveness of influencer marketing in influencing social media users’ food choice behavior and brand advocacy through the medium of followers’ congruence with social media influencers. The findings offer noteworthy theoretical and managerial implications for academicians as well as marketing practitioners.

In this article, we outline our views on the appropriateness and utility of Return on Investment (ROI) for the evaluation of the value of healthcare quality improvement (QI) programmes.

Our recent research explored the ROI concept and became the genesis of our viewpoint. We reflect on our findings from an extensive research project on the concept of ROI, involving a multidisciplinary global systematic literature review, a qualitative and Delphi study with mental healthcare leaders from the United Kingdom National Health Service. Research participants included board members, clinical directors and QI leaders. Our findings led to our conclusions and interpretation of ROI against the broad QI governance. We discuss our views against the predominant governance frameworks and wider literature.

ROI is in-line with top-down control governance frameworks based in politics and economics. However, there is evidence that to be of better utility, a tool for the assessment of the value of QI benefits must include comprehensive benefits that reflect broad monetary and non-monetary benefits. This is in-line with bottom-up and collaborative governance approaches. ROI has several challenges that may limit it as a QI governance tool. This is supported by wider literature on ROI, QI as well as modern governance theories and models. As such, we question whether ROI is the appropriate tool for QI governance. A more pragmatic governance framework that accommodates various healthcare objectives is advised.

This article highlights some of the challenges in adopting ROI as a QI governance tool. We signal a need for the exploration of a suitable QI governance approach. Particularly, are healthcare leaders to be perceived as “agents”, “stewards” or both. The evidence from our research and wider literature indicates that both are crucial. Better QI governance through an appropriate value assessment tool could improve clarity on QI value, and thus investment allocation decision-making. Constructive discussion about the utility and appropriateness of ROI in the evaluation of healthcare QI programmes may help safeguard investment in effective and efficient health systems.

The article raises awareness of QI governance and encourages discussions about the challenges of using ROI as a tool for healthcare QI governance.