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Impairments in social cognitions in schizophrenia are increasingly reported in the last decade but only a few studies have come from Asia. The objective of the study was to evaluated emotion perception, theory of mind and social knowledge in people with schizophrenia compared to healthy controls. Participants were 36 clinically stable outpatients with schizophrenia and 36 normal controls with comparable age and level of education. We administered general neurocognition test (the Addenbrooke's Cognitive Examination), emotion perception (the Faces Test), theory of mind (the Eyes Test) and social knowledge (the Situational Features Recognition Test; SFRT). Schizophrenia patients displayed obvious impairment in all three social cognition domains i.e. the Faces Test [13.7 (2.9) vs 15.7 (1.9), P=0.001], the Eyes Test [18.9 (4.4) vs 23.5 (4.4), P<0.001] and SFRT [0.85 (0.09) vs 0.9 (0.05), P=0.002]. The performances on three social cognition tests did not correlate with positive symptoms. Only the Faces Test seemed to be related to negative symptoms. The results demonstrated that there are deficits of social cognitions in schizophrenia even in a clinically stable population.

Extant research mainly focused on potentially negative customer responses to service robots. In contrast, this study is one of the first to explore a service context where service robots are likely to be the preferred service delivery mechanism over human frontline employees. Specifically, the authors examine how customers respond to service robots in the context of embarrassing service encounters.

This study employs a mixed-method approach, whereby an in-depth qualitative study (study 1) is followed by two lab experiments (studies 2 and 3).

Results show that interactions with service robots attenuated customers' anticipated embarrassment. Study 1 identifies a number of factors that can reduce embarrassment. These include the perception that service robots have reduced agency (e.g. are not able to make moral or social judgements) and emotions (e.g. are not able to have feelings). Study 2 tests the base model and shows that people feel less embarrassed during a potentially embarrassing encounter when interacting with service robots compared to frontline employees. Finally, Study 3 confirms that perceived agency, but not emotion, fully mediates frontline counterparty (employee vs robot) effects on anticipated embarrassment.

Service robots can add value by reducing potential customer embarrassment because they are perceived to have less agency than service employees. This makes service robots the preferred service delivery mechanism for at least some customers in potentially embarrassing service encounters (e.g. in certain medical contexts).

This study is one of the first to examine a context where service robots are the preferred service delivery mechanism over human employees.

Firms have begun to introduce virtual agents (VAs) in service encounters, both in online and offline environments. Such VAs typically resemble human frontline employees in several ways (e.g. the VAs may have a gender and a name), which indicates the presence of an assumption by VA designers – and by firms that employ them – that VA humanness is a positively charged characteristic. This study aims to address this assumption by examining antecedents to perceived humanness in terms of attribution of agency, emotionality and morality, and the impact of perceived humanness on customer satisfaction.

A questionnaire was distributed online to participants who had been interacting with existing VAs, and they were asked to focus on one of them for this study. The questionnaire comprised measures of antecedents to perceived humanness of VAs, perceived humanness per se and customer satisfaction. A structural equation modeling approach was used to assess associations between the variables.

Attributions of agency, emotionality and morality to VAs contributed positively to the perceived humanness of the VAs, and perceived humanness was positively associated with customer satisfaction.

Additional humanness capabilities should be explored in further research.

Firms using VAs in service encounters should make attempts to maximize perceived VA humanness, and this study shows that it may be beneficial if such attempts comprise signals that VAs have agency, emotionality and morality.

By examining VAs in terms of a set of fundamental human capabilities, the present study contributes to existing research on human–VA service encounters, which to date has focused on more superficial VA characteristics (such as if the VA has a face and gender).

Empathy is part of what makes us human and humane, and it has become a core component of the Social Awareness competency of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) (CASEL, 2019). SEL fosters the understanding of others’ emotions, is the basis of Theory of Mind skills and frames the development of empathy. The purpose of this paper is to trace the links between empathy development and social and emotional learning when using real versus virtual environments. Empathy is a uniquely human emotion facilitated by abstract thinking and language. Virtual play is a teaching tool for acquiring prosocial behaviors. And finally, human-mediated (traditional and virtual) play is most favorable for SEL growth. Recognition of emotions such as empathy and other socio-communication skills have been taught to children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Therefore, technology can be a venue for acquiring empathy.

This paper uses a qualitative interpretive methodology to advocate for the use of technology with human mediation to teach Social and Emotional Learning skills, based on the premise that cognitive and social-emotional development occurs synergistically and mediated by speech and interaction with the environment.

Technology is best seen as an instrument of assessing and teaching socio-emotional skills, but not as the only means to an end, because what makes us human can only be taught within an ecology of human interaction in real-life situations.

This paper reviews previous research works (both empirical and theoretical) that bring to light the connection between socio-emotional development, specifically empathy development, and virtual environments.

Studies of entrepreneurial intentions (EIs) have become increasingly common, informed usually by Ajzen’s (1991) theory of planned behaviour (TPB). Although the TPB postulates that beliefs determine EIs, the contents of the beliefs have not been properly studied, leaving EIs’ cognitive underpinnings and cognitive approaches to influencing EIs unclear. To clarify the TPB/EI-belief nexus, the study examines the conceptual background of entrepreneurial cognitions and elicits the beliefs of a group of nascent micro entrepreneurs (NMEs) to compare them with their TPB attitudes and EIs, facilitating assessing their mutual consistency as implied by the TBP.

The respondents are entrepreneurial novice clients of a micro business advisory organisation. Their TPB attitudes and EIs were measured using standard TPB/EI methods. Comparative causal mapping (CCM) combined with semi-structured interviewing was used to reveal the NMEs’ typical belief systems, presented as aggregated cause maps.

The NMEs have uniform, relatively detailed belief systems about entrepreneurship and micro business. The belief systems are consistent with theory- and context-based expectations and logically aligned with the NMEs’ expressed TPB attitudes and EIs. CCM provides an accessible method for studying contents of entrepreneurial cognitions.

It was not possible to study “entrepreneurship-negative” respondents or the intensity or origins of some specific beliefs.

Diagnosing and better understanding beliefs can benefit entrepreneurship education and development, in general or connected with TPB/EI studies.

The study reveals entrepreneurial belief systems systematically, evidently not done before generally or in terms of “everyday” micro entrepreneurship or TPB. It clarifies and supports the TPB notion that beliefs underpin actors’ attitudes and intentions.

The purpose of this study is to explore the role of employees’ underlying implicit person theories in the relationship with innovative work climate and proactive behaviour at work. First, the authors study how an employee’s implicit person theory (IPT), or the domain-general implicit belief about the development potential of people’s attributes, relates to learning goal orientation and proactive learning and entrepreneurial behaviour at work. Second, the authors investigate how employees’ perception of their work climate is associated with this IPT.

The authors set up an exploratory study relying on survey data from a sample of 498 professionally active Flemish adults and analysed a correlational path through SEM.

The authors found that holding an incremental IPT (i.e. believing in the development potential of people’s attributes) positively relates to proactive learning and entrepreneurial behaviour. Moreover, the authors found that employees working in an innovative work climate are more likely to hold an incremental IPT.

This study offers indications that IPT is a relevant explanatory variable in the relationship between innovative work climate on the one hand and learning goal orientation, learning work behaviour and entrepreneurial work behaviour on the other hand. As such, this study suggests that IPT is a promising concept that can be actively endorsed as a relevant underlying psychological process variable for fostering learning and entrepreneurial behaviour in organizations.

The purpose of this study is to understand how neuroscientific tools are used and discussed in ongoing research on strategy in organizations.

The authors used a bibliometric study of bibliographic pairing to answer the research question. They collected data from the Web of Science and Scopus databases using the keywords “neuroscience*,” “neurostrategy*” and “neuroscientific*.”

This study presents a framework that relates fundamental aspects discussed in current research using neuroscientific tools: Neuroscience and its research tools in organizations; emotions and information processing; interdisciplinary application of neuroscientific tools; and moral and ethical influences in the leaders' decision-making process.

The inclusion of neuroscientific tools in Strategic Management research is still under development. There are criticisms and challenges related to the limitations and potential to support future research.

Despite recognizing the potential of neuroscientific tools in the mind and brain relationship, this study suggests that at this stage, because of criticisms and challenges, they should be used as support and in addition to other traditional research techniques to assess constructs and mechanisms related to strategic decisions and choices in organizations.

Neuroscientific methods in organizational studies can provide insights into individual reactions to ethical issues and raise challenging normative questions about the nature of moral responsibility, autonomy, intention and free will, offering multiple perspectives in the field of business ethics.

In addition to presenting the potential and challenges of using scientific tools in strategic management studies, this study helps create methodological paths for studies in strategic management.

Learning styles based education is becoming influential at higher education institutions around the world. Learning styles are characteristics of how students prefer to learn; they draw their origin from both biological and experiential conditions that make each student unique in the way he/she learns. An important first step in improving learning is to identify or assess students’ learning styles, and there are several instruments that can be used for this purpose. This is necessary for teachers and students who wish to improve learning and study strategies. Students who perform poorly in a conventional educational setting may suffer from a mismatch of learning and teaching styles; for example kinesthetic learners may not adapt to learning by listening or by reading. When we teach tactual and/or kinesthetic students by talking, they focus for only a brief amount of time and then wander off into their own thoughts and quickly forget (Burke & Dunn, 2002). We can improve students’ academic performance by providing them with alternative strategies and activities that respond to their learning style needs (Dunn & Dunn, 1993). In spring 2008, the learning styles of over 700 Zayed University students were assessed using the BE (Building Excellence) survey developed by Rundle & Dunn. The data collected is being analyzed with a view to making recommendations for teachers, students and parents to improve students’ learning. This paper represents the first in a series of publications on this subject; it reviews the survey process, and focuses on the nature and learning preferences of ZU students in perceptual elements (e.g. visual, auditory) and cognitive elements (e.g. Analytic-sequential (left-brain) vs. Global-simultaneous (right-brain) preferences).

The assessment of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) in childhood has two essential aspects: the identification of the risk (under 30 months of age) and the definition of a diagnosis that takes into account its core areas as well as further non-specific aspects. The purpose of this paper is to present an approach that considers the combination of clinical evaluation with the use of tools that analyse the various levels of the child’s functioning as fundamental.

The comprehensive assessment at the Institute of Ortofonologia in Rome provides the ADOS-2 and the Leiter-R for the evaluation of the symptomatology, the severity level, the non-verbal cognitive functioning and the fluid reasoning; the TCE and the UOI are used to identify, respectively, the child’s emotional skills and the ability to understand the intentions of others, as precursors of the theory of mind. Within this assessment, the Brief-P, the Short Sensory Profile and the RBS are also included for the evaluation of executive functions, sensory pattern and of restricted and repetitive behaviours, as observed by parents.

How to define a reliable development profile, which allows to plan a specific intervention calibrated on the potential of the child and on his development trajectory, is described. Two clinical cases are also presented.

The entire process is aimed both at a detailed assessment of the child’s functioning and at identifying a specific therapeutic project and predictive factors for achieving an optimal outcome.

The purpose of this paper is to describe an online faculty development pilot course on how to engage students online. A framework was used, referred to as the Trifecta of Student Engagement, for the design of the course. The Trifecta of Student Engagement proposes that students, in order to be fully engaged in a course, need to be engaged with their course content, with their peers and with their instructor. The course has three units of content that each correspond to the Trifecta of Student Engagement. This course has gone through one pilot with faculty and has impacted students and faculty positively.

An online faculty development course was piloted with eight faculty members across a range of disciplines who participated in the program. After taking the course, they had to apply the Trifecta of Student Engagement framework to a course they taught and share what they did via written report, webinar, or web presentation. This study summarized the faculty participants’ written reports and presentations as well as provided a qualitative evaluation on the impact this course had on students and faculty.

After faculty applied the Trifecta of Student Engagement framework to courses taught, faculty saw an improvement in student engagement, satisfaction, learning and achievement. Three faculty surveyed students to determine their engagement and satisfaction and found students to respond positively to the use of tools and activities for student-to-content engagement, student-to-student engagement and student-to-instructor engagement. Two faculty examined student grades to determine if there were changes in student outcomes. One professor saw average grades increase by 11 percent. Another professor saw grades improve by 8 percent. She also found that student assessment of learning increased by 0.57. Both faculty attributed the improvement to the effectiveness of the teaching strategies employed.

This research is limited to the eight faculty who participated in the pilot. Some faculty used methods to attempt to measure the impacts of their teaching practices by surveying students and looking at student performance data. A second pilot is needed for additional faculty to take the course and apply the Trifecta of Engagement framework to generate more data for impact.

Institutions looking to create an online teaching professional development course for faculty can utilize the Trifecta of Student Engagement framework for their course design. Additionally, faculty can read about tools and strategies that they can immediately apply to create more student-to-content engagement, student-to-student engagement and student-to-instructor engagement.

Faculty can be more intentional in how they engage students in their online course experience.

This paper adds to the literature on faculty development regarding student-centered teaching practices. Other institutions looking to create a faculty development course or program that utilizes a student-centered framework may find aspects of this paper useful for their own online teaching professional development initiatives.