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Strengthening the nation’s technological workforce, competing and expanding its relevance in the global economy, and maintaining personal as well as homeland security will be highly dependent on the quantity, quality, and diversity of the next generations of scientists, engineers, technologists, and mathematicians. Production of a diverse generation of human resources with relevant, competitive skills is critical. However, so too is the need to raise an enlightened citizenry with cross-cultural experience and cultural awareness competency, with a broad worldview and global perspectives. These requirements are critical to understanding the challenges and opportunities of scholarly activity in a pluralistic global environment and positioning ourselves to capitalize upon them. Scholars with cross-cultural experience and competency are empowered to adapt and work collaboratively, nationally and globally, with scholars of different races, geopolitical, socioeconomic, and cultural backgrounds. Development of effective strategies to transform science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) departments for inclusion and to broaden the participation in STEM across cultures, socioeconomic standing, race, and gender in higher education has been a dominant topic of pedagogical interest of national priority in the last several decades. However, success in these endeavors is achievable only through systemic change and a cultural shift to address the underlying root causes of socioeconomic disparity, gender, and racial disparities and a paucity of cultural awareness among all educational stakeholders. STEM departments can only be truly transformed for inclusion through the development of sensitive, creative, and student-engaging curricula and targeted recruitment and retention of underrepresented minorities in STEM. Formation of well-coordinated alliances spanning educational sectors, governmental and non-governmental organizations, and community engagement and outreach are also critical to promoting inclusive and broad participation in STEM education.

The first section of the chapter gives an introduction to various challenges, obstacles, and hindrances that prevent a successful transformation of K–12 science education as well as STEM departments in higher education for inclusion. The second section discusses historical perspectives of the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith (UAFS) – the institutional profile, missions, and visions of UAFS as a regional university. Policies and strategies for addressing the socioeconomic disparity, faculty gender, and racial disparities and cultural competency awareness at UAFS are also highlighted in this section. Other approaches including targeted efforts to recruit and retain underrepresented minority students, provision of financial assistance for students from low-income families, and a creative “Math-up” curriculum innovation to promote inclusive and broad participation in STEM at UAFS are highlighted in the latter section of the chapter. Formation of alliances between UAFS, local K–12 school districts, and governmental and non-governmental agencies to promote broad participation in STEM at UAFS are discussed. The last section of the chapter provides recommendations for adaptation and sustainability of strategies and efforts aimed at transforming national STEM departments for inclusion.

This study aims to assess current academic library services to theater students through an examination of online research guides.

This study uses a representative sample of 100 universities that offer theater degrees; the library website at each of these institutions is examined for the existence of a theater research guide. Each research guide was analyzed in depth.

The vast majority of the universities in the sample did create research guides for theater students, though the contents of these guides varied greatly. The study highlights findings including popular databases and journals for theater students, as well as media resources and common subjects for subsections or course guides.

This study only examined a sample of 100 institutions; many theater research guides were not examined for this study. Additionally, analysis of online content is a time-specific endeavor: a guide may look significantly different from one month to the next, though the recommendations in this article might prove useful even if the sites at these institutions have since been updated.

Through an examination of a great number of guides, a few practical suggestions emerge for librarians looking to create theater research guides, such as highlighting playscripts and other print materials and including hyperlocal information (such as university production history).

Though several studies have been performed on research guides in various disciplines, this article is the first on those to theater students.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the performance of the agricultural banking industry using both traditional and risk‐adjusted non‐parametric efficiency measurement techniques. In addition to computing efficiency scores, the risk preference structure of the agricultural banking industry is examined.

The paper used data envelopment analysis (DEA) to examine the efficiency of agricultural banks in the year 2001. Standard cost efficiency is computed and compared to both profit and risk‐adjusted profit efficiency scores. The risk‐adjustment is a modification of traditional DEA wherein firm preferences are represented via a mean‐variance criterion. The risk‐adjusted technique also provides estimates of firm level risk aversion.

Results from the traditional approach that does not account for risk indicate a low degree of efficiency in the banking industry, while the risk‐adjusted approach indicates banks are much more efficient. On average, 77 percent of the inefficiency identified by the standard DEA formulation is actually attributable to risk averse behavior by the firm. In addition, most banks appear to be substantially risk averse.

The risk‐adjusted DEA technique used in this study should be applied to other, diverse data sets to examine its performance in a broader context.

Results from this study support the idea that traditional DEA methods may mischaracterize the level of efficiency in the data if agents are risk averse. In addition, the paper outlines a practical method for deriving firm level risk aversion coefficients.

This paper sheds light on the agricultural banking industry and illustrates the power of a new efficiency and risk analysis technique.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent to which the firm-specific advantages (FSAs) which underlie international expansion have proved resilient for European multinational enterprises (MNEs) operating in a key emerging market – China.

The authors adopt a qualitative, case study approach, using interview data to explore the companies’ FSAs on market entry, how they evolved over time and the strategies adopted to defend them. They undertook 15 in-depth interviews with decision makers in six companies addressing their experience since market entry. To control for sector-level effects, the authors focus on companies in the environmental protection sector.

The authors found examples of significant erosion of the FSAs among the case study companies, which undermined their position on the host market and their long-term competitiveness. The key sources of erosion were limitations in market access, exclusion from local networks and the emergence and upgrading of local competitors, often firms with whom the MNEs had collaborated in the past.

The relatively small number of cases (six) limits the generalisability of the findings by the authors. However, the authors are convinced that, given that the case companies are generally large and have long experience in China, the conclusions made are well grounded. In addition, there was the high level of coherence in the reported experiences of the interviewees, providing further support for the findings.

The experience of these case study companies highlights that MNEs have difficulty retaining their unique FSAs when faced with rapidly evolving local competition in a key emerging market. Key strategies mobilised included focussing on a sub-sector of the market and localising both the company and their supply chains. The difficulties experiencing by these case study companies in retaining their FSAs underline the need for MNEs in emerging markets to avoid complacency and constantly innovate, but they also raise questions about their capacity to extend their international reach in the long term.

Very few studies have explored the FSAs of firms and how they evolve over time using a case study-based qualitative approach, especially in emerging markets.

There is a tacit understanding among social studies teachers and educators that incorporating primary source documents in planning and teaching is desirable for many reasons, most prominent among them the ways in which it challenges students to think at higher levels. This study is a descriptive study of public school teachers’ uses of primary source documents in social studies planning, in which we review lesson activities of various grade level teachers to evaluate their use of primary documents for higher order cognitive purposes. Given the salient theme of critical thinking in the literature, we established a baseline continuum of uses that served as our framework for evaluating these activities. We asked the following questions: When history teachers incorporate the use of primary source documents in their planning, to what degree do they promote development of higher level critical thinking? What might a planned activity look like when they do? We found that the majority of the activities examined here employ primary source documents for lower order purposes but held the promise of easy transition to higher order uses.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has led to drastic changes in the lives of customers. Social isolation, financial difficulties, fear of being infected and many other factors have caused the psychological well-being of customers to deteriorate. By taking up the role of online reviews in the regulation of consumers’ moods, this study aims to examine the changes that have occurred in online product ratings, as well as the negative tone and word counts of product reviews during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study examines the online reviews of 321 products in the pre-COVID, immediate COVID and extended COVID periods. This paper compares the changes that have taken place in product evaluations via various analysis of variance analyses. The authors also test the effect of COVID-related deaths on product evaluations via regression analyses.

The results indicate that online product ratings decreased sharply just after the outbreak of COVID-19. The study also found that the tone of reviews was found to be more negative and the length of reviews appeared to be longer in comparison to the pre-COVID-19 period. The results also revealed that the product type (experience vs search) moderated the effect of the pandemic in online reviews and the impact of COVID-19 on online product reviews diminished in the later stages of the ongoing pandemic.

Managers should be aware of the detrimental impact of pandemics on online product reviews and be more responsive to customer problems during the early stages of pandemics.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that analyzes the effects of a pandemic on online product ratings and review content. As such, this study offers a timely contribution to the marketing literature.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of a specific set of management practices and policies and policies (organizational behavior modification, the management principles, and the management process) on human resource outcomes and on individual employee performance. A comprehensive management practices and policies performance model is theorized and empirically assessed.

Data collected from a sample of full-time employees working in the Southern USA are analyzed using a partial least squares/structural equation modeling methodology.

Considering the direct and indirect links among the constructs the authors conclude the following: organizational behavior modification, the management principles, and the management process combine to improve organizational commitment and job satisfaction; organizational commitment and job satisfaction combine to improve employee engagement and workplace optimism; and employee engagement and workplace optimism combine to enhance individual performance.

The model tested reflects the synergy created though the implementation of the management practices and policies and policies and the impact of that synergy on human resource outcomes and individual employee performance. This is the first assessment of this comprehensive model. Replication and verification of the model are suggested.

Practitioners are provided with a framework for assessing the synergistic impact of the management practices and policies on human resource outcomes and individual employee performance. The theorized model and results provide practicing managers with a blueprint for the systematic implementation of the management practices and policies.

A comprehensive management practices and policies performance model is proposed and empirically assessed. The results support the proposition that implementation of the management practices and policies leads to improved human resource outcomes and individual employee performance.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships among goal setting, employee engagement, workplace optimism, and individual performance constructs. Goal setting is hypothesized as positively impacting employee engagement, employee engagement as positively impacting workplace optimism, and workplace optimism as positively impacting individual performance.

Data collected from a sample of 426 full‐ and part‐time employees are analyzed following a structural equation modeling methodology.

The measurement and structural models fit the data relatively well. Goal setting positively impacts employee engagement, employee engagement positively impacts optimism, and optimism positively impacts individual performance, as hypothesized.

Although data are collected from a relatively diverse group of respondents, the ability to generalize the findings is limited because the results are derived from a non‐random sample. All measures are based on the perceptions of the respondents. Job performance is reported by each respondent may not reflect the supervisor's performance rating and is not necessarily consistent with objective performance indicators such as sales generated by a marketing employee.

Results indicate that formal, structured goal setting processes lead to higher levels of employee engagement, that higher levels of engagement lead to improved workplace optimism, and that improved optimism in turn leads to higher levels of individual performance.

The paper provides empirical support for the implementation of management programs that foster goal setting, employee engagement, and workplace optimism for the purpose of enhancing the performance levels of individual employees.

Consumers often encounter issues of perceived ambiguity and performance risk when attempting to evaluate experience goods being offered online. Sellers try to alleviate this knowledge gap often seen in a medium of low naturalness by engaging in effective compensatory adaptation. This research theoretically looks into three primary aspects of compensatory adaption and their potential in securing communication of high-quality information between the online seller and consumer.

Utilizing survey data and structural equation modeling, this study tests the effectiveness of different aspects of compensatory adaption to alleviate the knowledge gap in a medium of low naturalness.

Drawing on media naturalness theory and the tripartite model of attitude, this paper identifies three theoretical components that significantly affect the effectiveness of compensatory adaption. They are information retrieval capability from the cognitive/logical aspect, information richness from the affective/audiovisual aspect and interactivity from the behavioral aspect. The effectiveness of compensatory adaptation proves to have a positive impact on perceived information quality.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper in the information systems literature to examine the compensatory adaptation tools for effective transfer of information. This study contributes to the academics by providing three handles to improve effectiveness of compensatory adaptation toward information quality. We focus on three compensatory adaptation tools in cognitive/logical, affective/audiovisual and behavioral aspects, and this compensation perspective leads to three practical factors that affect effective transfer of information between online sellers and consumers. The result of this study complements the nomological network of the enablers and impediments of e-commerce.