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The purpose of this paper is to explore the western developed notion of responsible leadership (RL) from a Singapore context.

Following the qualitative research tradition, face-to-face interviews with 20 influential Singaporean leaders were developed into case studies. Grounded theory methodology was applied to identify similarities and differences within and across cases.

The findings reveal that the interviewed Singaporean leaders projected traits and values consistent with western definitions of responsible and effective leadership. Findings also suggest that contextual factors such as national culture and the ethos of the nation as well as leaders’ relational intelligence influence RL. These factors also help responsible leaders to better manage the tension between responsible and effective leadership.

The small and geographically bound sample size makes it difficult to generalise the findings of this study. As in other ethics studies, interviewees’ desire to present a socially desirable image of themselves could be high in this study. Finally, the methods and analytical techniques applied may be biased and be influenced by the purposive selection of the participants.

Singaporean business leaders may need to consider the importance of retaining and developing the national culture and ethos of the nation, since these are the factors that have been identified in this study as key to influencing RL.

This study identifies the factors that influence RL from a Singapore context. It extends the understanding of the mostly western-based multi-level theory of RL.

Lean Six Sigma (LSS) is a continuous improvement methodology used to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of processes. Although there are several articles published, only two have analyzed the literature from a bibliometrics perspective. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the LSS literature by bibliometrics, identifying its state of the art, scientific gaps and research trends.

Articles published up to 2016 in the database Scopus were investigated to identify the most significant articles, authors, journals, institutions and countries based on citation counting as well as the most frequent keywords and subject areas on LSS. Articles published in 2014, 2015 and 2016 were analyzed to point out scientific gaps and to identify eight main research trends on LSS.

The research trends are: “LSS implementation”, “Healthcare”, “LSS tools”, “Human factors”, “Expansion of results”, “SME”, “LSS combined with other methodologies” and “Education”. The research outcomes also point out the most significant articles, authors, journals, institutions and countries in LSS literature.

This research contributes to develop the state of the art of LSS and helps professionals as well as researchers to identify which issues new studies should address.

The performance of the literature is measured based on the number of citations and not on the number of published papers, and the bibliometric analysis covers the highest number of articles so far (319 articles). Besides, the identification of the main research trends on LSS is exclusively based on the most recent studies.

This paper sets out to analyse and interpret factors which bear upon building components and to explore underlying relationships among the number of building components forming a construction entity. The research hypothesis was set as follows: building surveyors do not agree in assessing the strength of each of design, construction, age, changing standards and vandalism as a causative factor for defects on building components. Previous studies have established the factors pertaining to defects in the building structure. What is in dispute is the extent to which these factors are important in causing defects. The objective of the study presented in this paper is therefore to assess the impact of each of five key factors ‐ design, construction, standards, vandalism and age ‐ on 28 selected building components with the aid of questionnaire information provided by 45 local authority building surveyors involved in the day‐to‐day diagnosis of defects in public housing stock. In so doing, the tangible influence of the factors in terms of how they affect defect causation in building components for the sample is established.

Twenty-first century education has been reconfigured to keep up with growing societal shifts in an effort to support a wide variety of learners. As changes occur, the workload for teachers continues to expand with little to no support and resources within classroom spaces to keep up with the current times. Post pandemic, the expectations and systems have shifted emphasizing the need for more programming around social emotional learning and systems to help mitigate the learning disruption. The insurmountable pressure placed on teachers has led to a robust and persistent departure of the profession causing the entire education system to rethink the policies, structures, and systems that influence teacher burnout.

Purpose – This chapter examines the foundations of community among youth with disabilities.

Methodology – Qualitative data on 52 youth with disabilities were analyzed, based on interviews with the youth and their parents. The sample included youth with intellectual, hidden, physical, and sensory disabilities. Data analysis was guided by grounded theory.

Findings – Four foundations of community were identified: geographic, disability-based, religious, and virtual. Disability-based contexts provided much of the basis of friendship for youth with disabilities. Just under half of youth had community connections within their home towns.

Research limitations – These analyses rely on the self-reported and parent-reported experiences of 52 youth with disabilities in Massachusetts and are not representative of youth with disabilities nationwide. Only youth who were still in high school just before graduation are represented; those who dropped out earlier were not included.

Practical implications – Community connections create opportunities for friendship and for sharing information. Youth enjoyed their connections, whether they were formal (designed and created by adults) or informal (just hanging out with other local youth).

Social implications – Youth's connections with other youth with disabilities may result in bonding social capital, creating friendships, but there are fewer opportunities for bridging social capital, creating connections with typically developing youth.

Originality – This chapter provides an overview of youth's perceptions of their participation in various social and recreational activities and explores and conceptualizes the contexts in which youth with disabilities experience community connections with other youth.

The types of innovation considered to be Schumpeterian can be very broad. What is an innovation? According to The Advanced Learner's Dictionary (Hornby, Gatenby, & Wakefield, 1973, p. 545), an innovation is “something new that is introduced.” This covers both inventions and their introduction. Thus, introducing methods to a new market can certainly be a form of Schumpeterian innovation. Schumpeter, however, distinguished innovations (innovators) from inventions (inventors) (Swedberg, 1991, p. 173). He considered innovations as the prime movers in the capitalist process. Johannessen, Olsen, and Lumpkin (2001) dwell on six measures of the “newness” of an innovation based on his interpretation of Schumpeter and others, but glossed over the distinction between innovations and inventions. What, then, was Schumpeter's original formulation?

Analysis of organizational decline has become central to the study of economy and society. Further advances in this area may fail however, because two major literatures on the topic remain disintegrated and because both lack a sophisticated account of how social structure and interdependencies among organizations affect decline. This paper develops a perspective which tries to overcome these problems. The perspective explains decline through an understanding of how social ties and resource dependencies among firms affect market structure and the resulting behavior of firms within it. Evidence is furnished that supports the assumptions of the perspective and provides a basis for specifying propositions about the effect of network structure on organizational survival. I conclude by discussing the perspective’s implications for organizational theory and economic sociology.

CANADA, until the last generation or two, has been basically a pioneer country but two world wars have changed all this and the economy has moved from an agricultural to a manufacturing community able to provide a standard of living second to that of the United States. (At the present time only 10.8 per cent of Canadians live on farms according to the 1961 census.) Natural resources, such as timber, wheat and mining, continue to play, however, an important role in the life of the nation. As in most developing and pioneer countries, learning has had to assume a secondary role compared with other enterprises and activities. This is gradually beginning to change as more people continue in school and the percentage of individuals attending university increases. Established organizations, like the National Film Board and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, catering to mass culture, have been strengthened and enlarged and new establishments, like the Canada Council and the Stratford Shakespearean Festival, of narrower function and appeal, have been set up. The Library movement, not the least of learning agencies, is gaining strength every day. In this paper some of the interesting new developments of the last ten years in the latter field will be discussed. Of necessity, much is abbreviated; a lot is ignored. Data selected has been based on the most recent sources; hence the variety in dates.

Analysis of organizational decline has become central to the study of economy and society. Further advances in this area may fail however, because two major literatures on the topic remain disintegrated and because both lack a sophisticated account of how social structure and interdependencies among organizations affect decline. This paper develops a perspective which tries to overcome these problems. The perspective explains decline through an understanding of how social ties and resource dependencies among firms affect market structure and the resulting behavior of firms within it. Evidence is furnished that supports the assumptions of the perspective and provides a basis for specifying propositions about the effect of network structure on organizational survival. I conclude by discussing the perspective's implications for organizational theory and economic sociology.