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1 – 10 of 14Nichola Booth, Tracey McConnell, Mark Tully, Ryan Hamill and Paul Best
This paper aims to reflect on the outcomes of a community-based video-conferencing intervention for depression, predating the COVID-19 pandemic. The study investigates the…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to reflect on the outcomes of a community-based video-conferencing intervention for depression, predating the COVID-19 pandemic. The study investigates the potential implications of its findings for enhancing adherence to digital mental health interventions. The primary objective is to present considerations for researchers aimed at minimising the intention-behaviour gap frequently encountered in digital mental health interventions.
Design/methodology/approach
A randomised control feasibility trial design was used to implement a telehealth model adapted from an established face-to-face community-based intervention for individuals clinically diagnosed with depression. In total, 60 participants were initially recruited in association with a local mental health charity offering traditional talking-based therapies with only eight opting to continue through all phases of the project. Modifications aligning with technological advancements were introduced.
Findings
However, the study faced challenges, with low uptake observed after an initial surge in recruitment interest. The behaviour-intention gap highlighted technology as a barrier to service accessibility, exacerbated by participant age. Furthermore, the clinical diagnosis of depression, characterised by low mood and reduced interest in activities, emerged as a potential influencing factor.
Research limitations/implications
The limitations of the research include its pre-pandemic execution, during a nascent stage of technological mental health interventions when participants were less familiar with online developments.
Practical implications
Despite these limitations, this study's reflections offer valuable insights for researchers aiming to design and implement telehealth services. Addressing the intention-behaviour gap necessitates a nuanced understanding of participant demographics, diagnosis and technological familiarity.
Social implications
The study's relevance extends to post-pandemic society, urging researchers to reassess assumptions about technology availability to ensure engagement. This paper contributes to the mental health research landscape by raising awareness of critical considerations in the design and implementation of digital mental health interventions.
Originality/value
Reflections from a pre-pandemic intervention in line with the developments of a post-pandemic society will allow for research to consider that because the technology is available does not necessarily result in engagement.
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Vandana Madhavan and Murale Venugopalan
Employee training and learning have transformed over the years. The movement from classroom training to the blended format represents the magnitude of this evolution. This has…
Abstract
Purpose
Employee training and learning have transformed over the years. The movement from classroom training to the blended format represents the magnitude of this evolution. This has placed much attention on self-regulated learning. This study aimed to understand the individual and organizational mechanisms that sustain the formal learning process in organizations. It explored the goals the organizations and employees strive to achieve by investing in learning. Through this, the authors investigated how technology assistance makes learning more goal-oriented, despite the possibility of different goals for different stakeholders. They also examined how person-job fit can be achieved in employee training.
Design/methodology/approach
The study adopted a grounded theory-based inductive approach using a qualitative inquiry that used in-depth interviews of employees working in the Indian IT/ITES sector. This sector is knowledge-intensive and engages in constant skill development. A content analysis of the interview transcripts unraveled the most relevant themes from the participants' discussion.
Findings
Individual learners use dimensions of self-regulated learning to set and achieve goals such as better performance and career development. On the other hand, organizations use learning support mechanisms such as better access and flexibility to direct employee learning behavior to achieve organizational goals. Focusing on goal congruence leads to better achievement of results. Goal congruence also implies good person-organization fit.
Originality/value
This research established how aligning individual and organizational mechanisms can help achieve training goals that ultimately contribute to organizational performance. The study differentiated itself by investigating training goal setting and goal achievement at two levels – organizational and individual – using a qualitative approach. It also showed how goal congruence is vital in improving organizational performance and how technology-enabled training practices rely on self-regulated learning and help achieve goal congruence.
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Zheyuan Wang, Yuxiang Luan and Lihua Zhang
Despite the detrimental effects of supervisor knowledge hiding on employees and organizations, little research has focused on how subordinates cope with it. Drawing on the…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite the detrimental effects of supervisor knowledge hiding on employees and organizations, little research has focused on how subordinates cope with it. Drawing on the impression management theory, this study proposes a mediated moderation model to explain who and how cope with supervisor knowledge hiding.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a sample of 340 full-time participants in various organizations and industries in China, the proposed model was tested using ordinary least squares regression with the PROCESS 3.5.
Findings
The results support the mediated moderation model, indicating that proactive subordinates are motivated to manage their impression towards supervisors and engage in upward ingratiation to cope with supervisor knowledge hiding. In contrast, subordinates with low level of proactive personality trait have less impression management motive and engage in fewer upward ingratiatory behaviors.
Originality/value
Based on the impression management theory, the current paper contributes to the literature on supervisor knowledge hiding by expanding the consequences of supervisor knowledge hiding, identifying a boundary condition of supervisor knowledge hiding on subordinate’s subsequent behaviors and enriching the mechanism underlying the effect of supervisor knowledge hiding with proactive personality.
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Nur Nadia Adjrina Kamarruddin and Mahmut Sami Islek
This paper aims to conceptually extend the religious aspect of consumption beyond the intrinsic motivation, i.e. religiosity, to a broader consideration of its social and cultural…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to conceptually extend the religious aspect of consumption beyond the intrinsic motivation, i.e. religiosity, to a broader consideration of its social and cultural surroundings by highlighting the concept of “religiocentrism”.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is conceptual and qualitative. It explores the concept of religiocentrism in several disciplines, including theology, politics, sociology, marketing and consumption.
Findings
The paper introduces the concept of religiocentrism in understanding religious consumption and marketing among consumers within a religious context. This paper further discusses the origin of the term religiocentrism; religiocentrism as looking beyond the intrinsic motivation, i.e. religiosity, religiocentrism from the social identity theory; past research on religiocentrism in theology, politics, sociology, education, marketing and consumption, as well as suggesting potential future research in religiocentrism within marketing and consumption studies.
Research limitations/implications
The lack of research relating to religiocentrism in marketing makes the depth of the discussion rather limited. This paper, however, does not discuss the term religiocentrism from the theology roots but focuses more on the marketing and consumption aspects of religiocentrism.
Originality/value
Several research papers exist within the different disciplines about religiocentrism. However, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, it can be argued that this paper is one of its kind to highlight the concept of “religiocentrism” in consumption and marketing that considers the social and cultural surroundings.
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Julie Napoli and Robyn Ouschan
This study aims to examine how veganism is “seen” by young adult non-vegan consumers and how prevailing attitudes reinforce or challenge stigmas around veganism.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine how veganism is “seen” by young adult non-vegan consumers and how prevailing attitudes reinforce or challenge stigmas around veganism.
Design/methodology/approach
Photovoice methodology was used to explore young non-vegan consumers’ attitudes and beliefs towards veganism. Data was collected from students studying advertising at a major university in Australia, who produced images and narratives reflective of their own attitudes towards veganism. Polytextual thematic analysis of the resulting visual data was then undertaken to reveal the dominant themes underpinning participants’ attitudes. Participant narratives were then reviewed to confirm whether the ascribed meaning aligned with participants’ intended meaning.
Findings
Participant images were reflective of first, how they saw their world and their place within it, which showed the interplay and interconnectedness between humans, animals and nature, and second, how they saw vegans within this world, with both positive and negative attitudes expressed. Interestingly, vegans were simultaneously admired and condemned. By situating these attitudes along a spectrum of moral evaluation, bounded by stigmatisation and moral legitimacy, participants saw vegans as being either Radicals, Pretenders, Virtuous or Pragmatists. For veganism to become more widely accepted by non-vegans, there is an important role to be played by each vegan type.
Originality/value
This study offers a more nuanced understanding of how and why dissociative groups, such as vegans, become stigmatised, which has implications for messaging and marketing practices around veganism and associated products/services. Future research could use a similar methodology to understand why other minority groups in society are stereotyped and stigmatised, which has broader social implications.
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Charles D.T. Macaulay and Ajhanai C.I. Keaton
This paper explores organization-level racialized work strategies for maintaining racialized organizations (Ray, 2019). It focuses on intentional actions to maintain dominant…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper explores organization-level racialized work strategies for maintaining racialized organizations (Ray, 2019). It focuses on intentional actions to maintain dominant racial norms, demonstrating how work strategies are informed by dominant racial structures that maintain racial inequities.
Design/methodology/approach
We compiled a chronological case study (Yin, 2012) based on 168 news media articles and various organizational documents to examine responses to athlete protests at the University of Texas at Austin following the death of George Floyd. Gioia et al.’s (2013) method uncovered how dominant racial norms inform organizational behaviors.
Findings
The paper challenges institutional theory neutrality and identifies several racialized work strategies that organizations employ to maintain racialized norms and practices. The findings provide a framework for organizations to interrogate their strategies and their role in reproducing dominant racial norms and inequities.
Originality/value
In 2020, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement was reinvigorated within sporting and corporate domains. However, many organizations engaged in performativity, sparking criticism about meaningful change in organizational contexts. Our case study examines how one organization responded to athlete activists’ BLM-fueled demands, revealing specific racialized work strategies that maintain structures of racism. As organizations worldwide disrupt and discuss oppressive structures such as racism, we demonstrate how organizational leadership, while aware of policies and practices of racism, may choose not to act and actively maintain such structures.
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Edoardo Trincanato and Emidia Vagnoni
The lean startup approach (LSA) is extensively utilized by early-stage entrepreneurs, with “pivot” serving as a key pillar. However, there is a research gap concerning the…
Abstract
Purpose
The lean startup approach (LSA) is extensively utilized by early-stage entrepreneurs, with “pivot” serving as a key pillar. However, there is a research gap concerning the boundary conditions impacting LSA and pivot decisions, especially when addressing societal challenges, as in the context of transformational entrepreneurship. In this regard, the healthcare sector, further compounded by a lack of research on startups and scale-ups, presents an embraced opportunity to provide multiple contributions for both theory and practice.
Design/methodology/approach
The present investigation employs a grounded approach to explore the experiences of the co-founders of a fast-growing Italian e-health startup. A narrative strategy was employed to organize conditions and evolving strategic action/interactions into three different pivoting phases of the startup – before the pivot, its enactment and aftermath – with primary and secondary data collected over a period of one year.
Findings
Pivoting in digital healthcare unfolded as a liminal experience marked by factors such as high regulation, multiple stakeholders, technological and symbolic ambivalence, resource-intensive demands and institutional actors acting as pathway pioneers, leading to an information overload and unforeseeable uncertainty to manage. These factors challenge entrepreneurs' ability to attain optimal distinctiveness, presenting the paradoxical need for vertical flexibility for scaling up.
Social implications
By uniquely illuminating the sector’s constraints on entrepreneurial phenomena, this study provides a valuable guide for entrepreneurs and institutional actors in addressing societal challenges.
Originality/value
This study introduces a process model of transformational information crafting when pivoting, highlighting the role of entrepreneurs' transformational stance and platform-mediated solutions as engines behind strategies involving information breaking and transition, preceding knowledge-driven integration strategies.
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Cristian Gregori-Faus, David Parra-Camacho and Ferran Calabuig
This study aims to analyse a new model to assess the sustainable behaviours, sustainable attitudes and sustainable knowledge on sport practitioners.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to analyse a new model to assess the sustainable behaviours, sustainable attitudes and sustainable knowledge on sport practitioners.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper employs a scale of 44 items divided into three different dimensions to analyse the knowledge, attitudes and behaviours towards sustainable development on 227 sport participants.
Findings
Through this study the authors have been able to obtain a reliable scale that allows us to analyse and the knowledge, attitudes and sustainable behaviours of physical and sports education practitioners.
Research limitations/implications
Both psychometric properties of the initial scale and the differences between studies contexts may affect the results of the present analysis. Therefore, new studies are needed in order to analyse how sport physical activities influence sustainable behaviours among physical activity and sport practitioners.
Practical implications
In this work the authors present a valid and reliable tool for the study of the environmental knowledge, attitudes and behaviours of physical activity and sport practitioners.
Originality/value
Regarding the importance of sport in relation to sustainable development, this work is the first to adapt a scale to the context of practitioners of physical activity and sport in order to improve the understanding of how physical activity and sport affect sustainable behaviours, serving as a starting point for future research in sustainable development sports field.
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The purpose of this study is to understand how executives in technology companies relate to targets for gender equality, especially pertaining to top management.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to understand how executives in technology companies relate to targets for gender equality, especially pertaining to top management.
Design/methodology/approach
The study draws on 19 interviews of CEOs, senior line managers and HR directors in ten technology companies operating in Finland. The method is (reflexive) thematic analysis.
Findings
Previous studies on the role of executives in promoting gender equality provide somewhat mixed results: while their role is vital, senior leaders may not be inclined to support gender equality targets and measures. Drawing on critical feminist theorizing, this study identifies three ways in which the executives in technology companies related to gender equality targets: endorsing, negotiating and resisting. However, all these responses were constrained by the executives’ assumption that their companies are meritocratic. The study illustrates how executives’ narrow understanding of gender equality and reliance on the presumably well-working systems, combined with underlying doubts about the competence of women, hinder the advancement of women to top management.
Originality/value
While previous studies have evaluated targets to increase the number/percentage of women, both in certain “ideal case” companies and in terms of their effectiveness more broadly, this study discusses how technology company executives navigate these targets in relation to women's assumed “competence”.
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M. Dominic Jayakumar, Aiswarya Ramasundaram and Arokiyadass Vanathayan
Solid, liquid and e-waste pose serious health hazards, environmental pollution and contribute to climate change. To address these issues of solid waste management (SWM), amidst…
Abstract
Purpose
Solid, liquid and e-waste pose serious health hazards, environmental pollution and contribute to climate change. To address these issues of solid waste management (SWM), amidst many policy decisions, the Government of India roped in several institutions, including self-help groups (SHGs), into the Swachh Bharat Movement (Clean India Mission). This study aims to illustrate the significant contributions of SHG’s in tackling SWM, particularly the plastic waste menace in India, while fostering socio-economic values and sustainable development goals (SDGs).
Design/methodology/approach
Using a from-the-field approach, qualitative data were collected from 30 members of three SHGs to understand their significant contributions in mitigating plastic waste.
Findings
This research identifies three major themes: economic value creation, social value creation and SDGs via collection and reduction of plastic waste landfills. Furthermore, several related subthemes are identified.
Practical implications
This study offers pragmatic solutions to deal with plastic waste at personal, community, institutional and governmental levels. Moreover, it recommends engaging SHGs to promote sustainable waste management practices such as segregating wastes at source, regulating plastic bag usage, advocating behavioural change towards waste generation and protecting the environment.
Originality/value
The authors consider a proven case of SHG’s contribution to protect the environment and emphasize the need to involve more such groups in waste management practices.
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