Search results

This paper aims to extend our understanding of the concept of crisis leadership based on perceptions of 48 Australian leaders drawn from various sectors including Australian politics, higher education, not-for-profit and corporate sectors.

This qualitative study employed semi-structured virtual interviews of 48 leaders from Australian politics, higher education, not-for-profit and corporate sectors during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Leximancer text analytics program was used for data analysis.

Participants perceived effective leadership during a crisis as encompassing four macro themes: leadership as power, leadership as emanating from people, leadership as management and leadership as specific to the organization. While these findings reinforced extant literature on facets of effective leadership, leaders from different sectors differed on the relative importance of some leadership themes and their relevance to specific sectors.

While the data were collected from a convenient sample, our findings from multiple sectors in Australia extend our knowledge on crisis leadership by revealing differences in sectorial perspectives of crisis leadership. Further, these findings help refine the extant traditional explanations of leadership and especially offer an enhanced understanding of leadership during a crisis. Consequently, our findings support future research that could help identify specific attributes of leaders navigating organizational crises. Such future research could subsequently help develop a theory on crisis leadership based on a valid and reliable measurement for assessing crisis leadership effectiveness in diverse organizational settings.

Our study is based on multi-sector data and consequently lays a solid foundation for extending the conceptualization of leadership during crisis, and the need to reconceptualize effective leader attributes useful in crisis contexts. Theoretically, the current study extended recent research on crisis leadership, by examining the conceptualizations of crisis leadership within specific Australian sectors.

The study aims to develop a hierarchical model for innovative work behaviour (IWB) that can capture the complex associations among the factors contributing to IWB within the information technology (IT) sector. To accomplish this, the authors rely on an abductive approach using a graph theoretic model, often called interpretive structural modelling (ISM).

After conducting an in-depth literature review and using the Delphi method, the authors identified 12 factors (11 enablers and IWB as an outcome). The authors collected data through the Delphi approach by sending the questionnaire to 11 experts from academia and the IT sector who have extensive experience and knowledge relevant to the study. The authors then used the ISM method to analyse the relationships among these factors and understand their driving forces.

Based on the ISM model and the Matrice d'Impacts Croisés Multiplication Appliquée à un Classement analysis, the authors have identified that inclusive leadership, proactive personality and knowledge creation ability are the variables with strong driving power but weak dependence. Conversely, IWB has strong dependence but weak driving power. These findings suggest that to foster IWB, the organisation should prioritise inclusive leadership, proactive personality and knowledge-creation ability to succeed in challenging times. The study’s findings contribute to the social exchange theory, which explains IWB in a dynamic setting. Additionally, the study helps address the significant concerns that most IT companies face during times of crisis.

The study provides valuable guidance for managers and policymakers who are grappling with the challenges of improving IWB in the IT sector. This study is particularly relevant as the industry is currently navigating an economic recession and facing intense competition from other tech companies launching new products and services.

This research holds great significance for top executives, line managers and policymakers in the IT industry. It sheds light on the relevance and importance of various factors facilitating millennials' IWB.

This chapter explores the role of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly its subfield of machine learning (ML) methods, as a core technology of the fintech revolution in the financial services industry. It simplifies some of the complex concepts related to AI by introducing the main ML paradigms and related techno-methodic aspects. This chapter uses real-world examples to illustrate how next-generation AI powered by ML is transforming the financial services industry. Next, in illustrating the risks associated with AI adoption, this chapter discusses the need for regulation to address the essential facets of AI governance, including transparency, accountability, ethics, and responsible use. Lastly, it looks at emerging regulatory approaches across leading global jurisdictions. The primary goal is to give readers an initial understanding of AI's profound impact on the financial sector.

Big 4 professional services firms increasingly lay claim to recruiting and including staff of diverse genders, cultures, ages and sexualities. Drawing on Foucauldian insights, this study explores how LGBTIQ+ staff navigated shifting technologies of client power, at the time marriage equality was legislated in Australia.

This article explores changing experiences of LGBTIQ+ staff and allies, through 56 semi-structured interviews undertaken through 2018–2019.

Technologies of client power were central to shaping workplace experiences for LGBTIQ+ staff. However, each firm was also keen to carve unique and bold responses to changing societal attitudes regarding sexuality and gender. These progressive moves did not sit comfortably with all clients, and so this article provides insight into the limitations of client privilege within professional services firms. For staff, this increasing complexity of sometimes opaque, contradictory and shifting technologies of client and firm power, enabled agency to explore a sense of self for some, but continued to exclude others.

Little attention has been directed to exploring challenges for staff of sexual and gendered diversity within professional services firms, or to exploring how staff navigate changing perceptions of client power.

This study highlights the crucial significance of stakeholder participation in the creation of a comprehensive energy and electrical master plan for Mozambique. The purpose of this study is to deliver a practical insights that transcend theoretical concerns by digging into the subtleties of stakeholder relationships and strategic collaborations, paving the path for pragmatic and meaningful solutions that connect with real-life conditions. This debate lays the groundwork for educated decision-making, propelling Mozambique’s energy industry towards a more sustainable and prosperous future.

The study used a combined approach of stakeholder analysis (SA) and social network analysis (SNA) to enhance our understanding of the stakeholder landscape in Mozambique’s energy sector. This methodological approach offers a unique vantage point to examine the individual stakeholders’ roles and the intricate web of connections, partnerships, collaborations and information-sharing activities. By integrating SA and SNA, this study aims to provide a more comprehensive and dynamic depiction of stakeholder interactions, contributing methodologically to the existing body of literature.

The findings also highlight the need to develop frameworks that promote private investment and joint endeavours with entities such as Cahora Bassa Dam/Mozambique Transmission Company. A consistent legal framework ensures uniform performance and a robust monitoring system for ongoing projects, improving accountability and progress tracking. Furthermore, the discussion includes enhancing the competence of the regulatory agency regulating the electricity industry. This includes tackling complex concerns with electricity pricing and other regulatory aspects relevant to private investment. A highly empowered regulatory agency is critical to creating an atmosphere conducive to long-term private sector involvement.

While the study emphasises the need to integrate multiple stakeholders, it may not detail specific issues or impediments that may develop during the engagement process. Additional research could look into potential tensions or barriers to effective collaboration. Furthermore, the study emphasises the necessity of addressing environmental impacts; it must thoroughly examine specific environmental concerns such as carbon emissions, deforestation or renewable energy possibilities. Future research could assess the suggested policies’ environmental impact more extensively. Additionally, while the conclusion briefly mentions economic prosperity, a more thorough consideration of the possible economic and social implications of various energy policies could provide a greater understanding of their practicality and potential benefits.

In terms of practical contributions, this study aspires to shed light on how stakeholder interactions can shape energy policy interventions that ensure reliable and affordable energy sources for economic development and societal well-being. By unveiling the complex network of relationships and partnerships, this study seeks to provide actionable insights for policymakers, industry players and other stakeholders involved in Mozambique’s energy sector. By taking this action, this research aims to pave the way for more effective and inclusive energy policies that align with circular economy principles, thus addressing a critical need in scholarly discourse and practical implementation.

The study underscores the critical role of energy stakeholders in shaping energy policies and projects, given their influential positions and impact on decision-making processes. While existing literature acknowledges this influence, a discernible research gap exists in comprehensively understanding how stakeholder interactions and collaborations in the energy sector affect policy interventions within a context such as Mozambique. This study seeks to bridge this gap by delving into the intricacies of stakeholder involvement and its implications for energy policy development in Mozambique.

Both entrepreneurship and technology are significantly gendered, and when combined in technology entrepreneurship, they make up a fundamentally masculine field. This article investigates men tech entrepreneurs' negotiations of gender and gender (in)equality. The purpose is to gain knowledge on masculinity in tech entrepreneurship and to explore what role this might play in any change towards more gender-equal entrepreneurship.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten Swedish and Norwegian male tech entrepreneurs in tech incubators. The interviews dealt with gender (in)equality and masculinity in tech entrepreneurship. The data were coded in NVivo and inductively analysed using thematic analysis. We apply a social constructivist understanding of gender.

We categorise the male entrepreneurs' views of gender equality along “privileged”, “paradoxical” and “potential” articulations of gender (in)equality. Building on these articulations, we discuss the potential entrepreneurial men and masculinities could have for changing gender inequality in the Scandinavian tech entrepreneurship context. The findings are applicable to several entrepreneurial contexts.

The study contributes to further the theoretical understanding of tech entrepreneurship as a gendered phenomenon, its dynamics and its potential for change, particularly in promoting gender equality in tech entrepreneurship. Empirically, it investigates the perceptions about gender (in)equality and gender as negotiated concepts amongst male tech entrepreneurs.

The purpose of this multi-voiced paper is to propose a prosocial paradigm for the field of performance management and management control systems. This new paradigm suggests cultivating prosocial behaviour and prosocial groups in organizations to simultaneously achieve the objectives of economic performance and sustainability.

The authors share a common concern about the future of humanity and nature. The authors challenge the influential assumption of economic man from neoclassical economic theory and build on evolutionary science and the core design principles of prosocial groups to develop a prosocial paradigm.

Findings are based on the premise of the prosocial paradigm that self-interested behaviour may outperform prosocial behaviour within a group but that prosocial groups outperform groups dominated by self-interest. The authors explore various dimensions of performance management from the prosocial perspective in the private and public sectors.

The authors call for theoretical, conceptual and empirical research that explores the prosocial paradigm. They invite any approach, including positivist, interpretive and critical research, as well as those using qualitative, quantitative and interventionist methods.

This paper offers implications from the prosocial paradigm for practitioners, particularly for executives and managers, policymakers and educators.

Adoption of the prosocial paradigm in research and practice shapes what the authors call the prosocial market economy. This is an aspired cultural evolution that functions with market competition yet systematically strengthens prosociality as a cultural norm in organizations, markets and society at large.

This study aims to examine how women entrepreneurs in Kazakhstan's male-dominated sectors utilize the concept of positionality to navigate and redefine gender norms, focusing on their engagement with entrepreneurial masculinities and femininities. It explores the transformative potential of their strategic actions on gender dynamics within the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Employing qualitative research through 27 in-depth interviews, this study adopts constructivist grounded theory to delve into how women entrepreneurs interact with gender norms within their entrepreneurial context. This approach highlights the dynamic interplay between gender norms and the strategies employed by women entrepreneurs to navigate these challenges.

The findings reveal that women entrepreneurs actively employ and navigate entrepreneurial masculinities and femininities as strategies to challenge traditional gender roles. Their approaches vary from conforming to, challenging and creatively redefining the gendered expectations encountered in their entrepreneurial journey. This demonstrates their agency in reshaping gender norms and contributing to the diversity of gender performances within the domain of entrepreneurship.

While focused on Kazakhstan, the study's findings suggest broader implications for understanding gender dynamics in entrepreneurship across different cultural contexts. Future research could extend this inquiry to varied sociocultural settings, employing post-structuralist and ethnographic methodologies to further explore the performance of gender roles and the negotiation of belonging in entrepreneurial contexts.

By foregrounding the concept of positionality, this study enriches the dialogue on gender dynamics within entrepreneurship, offering fresh perspectives on the agency of women entrepreneurs in male-dominated sectors. It illustrates how gender identities and performances are not fixed but are actively constructed and negotiated, contributing to the evolving landscape of entrepreneurial masculinities and femininities.

Drawing on work from home (WFH), job demand-control and street-level bureaucracy literature streams, this paper specifically focuses on the emerging trend of WFH for public sector employees in a developing country context of Egypt.

The empirical sample comprises focus group discussions with a total of 40 public sector employees in Egypt. Thematic analysis was subsequently used on focus group discussion transcripts to bring out main themes linked to this topic.

Our findings show that employee (marginal discretion power, pharaonism, corruption), citizen (unfamiliarity with digital services) and country (lack of proper info-structure, overstaffing in the public sector)- level challenges hinder and/or slow down the potential for WFH in Egyptian public sector.

A major implication of our paper relates to highlighting the criticality of e-governance and WFH for public sector employees, as well as highlighting multilevel challenges associated with those. At the same time, socio-economic and political consequences of offering such options need to be considered in a country like Egypt where most public organisations are overstaffed, and those employees lack modern day employability skills. Hence, there needs to be an open debate in countries such as Egypt on the consequences of e-governance and WFH and whether it may facilitate delivering citizen services digitally. Also, high power distance culture plays a role in this context, and any change cannot be successful unless that specific aspect is confronted.

This study contributes to the emerging WFH literature by being one of the pioneering studies to offer a multilevel (micro, meso and macro) assessment of this phenomenon in the under-researched fragile developing country’s context.