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For a public servant (PS) to be innovative, he or she needs to gather and process enough vital information from budget setting processes. However, research addressing how budgetary participation (BP) can trigger innovative behaviour (IB) in PSs and eventually foster task performance (TP) is rare, which is why the authors conduct this research. The purpose of this study is to understand how BP shapes TP through the IB of PSs.

The authors develop and test a mediation model with 860 responses from public sector workers across 25 government agencies using the PLS-SEM technique of Smart PLS 4. Possible control factors were addressed for both the mediator and target-independent construct. In particular, the authors use sex, age and tenure as control factors for IB. Also, the authors use job satisfaction, job engagement and perceived fairness in the budgetary system as control factors for TP.

The authors find a favourable and significant relationship between BP and TP; BP and IB; and IB and TP. The authors also find that IB partially mediates the relationship between BP and TP, such that BP fosters TP through the innovativeness of PSs. This finding suggests that PSs who participate in budget preparation are able to innovate, which, in turn enable them to perform tasks effectively.

The authors call on forthcoming researchers to test the mediation model in other public sector settings worldwide. They may also consider other variables that can possibly mediate the positive impacts of BP on TP.

Lessons are discussed for governments, human resources directors and managers, management accountants, budget officers, procurement officers and other public sector workers and consultants.

The authors show how BP fosters TP through the innovativeness of PSs, since there is much more to know in this regard. The authors also help to resolve the paradox of inconsistency in the BP–TP literature by using IB as a mediator.

Guided by several of the 9 essentials of what it means to be a PDS (NAPDS, 2021), authors share a plea to rethink the teacher burnout-attrition-staffing crisis with a call toward a moral imperative of recentering an ethic of care. Many schools are operating under anti-care practices which directly undermine teacher wellness in part due to secondary traumatic stress, rising workload demands and intensive student needs.

Reflecting a compilation of teacher voices, including participants from three research studies and the collective decades-worth experience of educator scholars, this paper presents a synthesis of educator burnout and the role of educator wellness within trauma-informed social emotional learning initiatives.

The practical model of educator resilience offers a potential solution to burnout and attrition by prioritizing care for teachers individually and collectively prior to addressing care for students.

The model articulates educator resilience as the motivational force of life within a school community focused on an ethic of care that drives the collective and individuals within the collective to be their best. This aligns with foundation principles of PDS schools and Goodlad and colleagues’ decades-old call to foreground the moral dimensions of teaching in school reform (1990).

The purpose of this paper is to explore the phenomenon of organizational unlearning with a focus on challenging path dependence and its implications on the organizational change field. By generating a taxonomy of unlearning definitions and examining the dimensions, actors and processes involved, the authors aim to offer a holistic understanding of organizational unlearning and its potential applications for organizations facing ambiguity and uncertainty.

This conceptual paper draws the literature on organizational unlearning to map existing definitions and categorize them into a comprehensive taxonomy to propose a model focused on the outcomes.

The findings highlight that organizational unlearning involves the three main organizational dimensions (micro: individuals; meso: groups; macro: organizations) and that the macro-organizational perspective represents the best fit for the concept. Furthermore, the authors’ argue that the most appropriate process for understanding the unlearning phenomenon is through challenge, as it allows the questioning of the present and facilitates critical reflection. Finally, applying organizational unlearning to path dependence concept, the authors’ posit that organizations can overcome negative transfer effects and build new awareness to reinterpret their dependencies in light of environmental changes.

This study contributes to the literature on organizational unlearning by providing a comprehensive taxonomy of definitions, clarifying the dimensions, constructs and processes involved. The integration of challenging path dependence with organizational unlearning offers a novel perspective on the potential for organizational change field. The paper’s findings have practical implications for organizations striving to survive and develop in uncertain environments.

This study delves into 17th-century colonial port cities – Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta – examining the impact of British imperialism on urban sustainability and heritage conservation. It explores historical development, spatial organization, and connectivity.

This study intricately explores the interplay among urban sustainability, morphology, and heritage conservation using space syntax analysis. It focuses on examining White and Black Town dispersion during British imperialism.

The investigation reveals varying degrees of dispersion of White and Black Towns, with Calcutta exhibiting the most consistent distribution among the three cities. These findings underscore the profound influence of British imperialism on the spatial organization of colonial port cities, offering valuable insights into their historical evolution and layout.

While this study provides valuable insights, it is limited by its focus on the colonial period and the specific cities of Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta. The findings may not be directly generalizable to other contexts or time periods. Additionally, the study’s reliance on historical data sources may present data accuracy and completeness challenges.

This study contributes to understanding colonial port cities, guiding sustainable urban development, heritage preservation, and equitable resource access for global sustainability. By focusing on the historical impact of British imperialism, the research provides original insights into the spatial dynamics of these cities, contributing to the broader discourse on urban sustainability and heritage conservation.

Based on the reception of the principle of self-organization, the core of Heinz von Foerster's operational theories, I hypothesize how Heinz von Foerster's theory can be an orientation model for the epistemological problem of complexity. I have chosen this study to demonstrate complexity as an epistemological problem. This is because the question of how order arises - the core problem of complexity - is an epistemological question for which Heinz von Foerster developed an epistemology of self-organization. I do not present new research because HvF already had the complex organization of systems in mind. Rather, I build a critical approach to complexity on the research and work on operational epistemology in HvF.

This article aims to provide an orientation for a philosophical and epistemological understanding of complexity through a reading of Heinz von Foerster's operational theory. The article attempts to establish complexity as an epistemological phenomenon through the following method: (1) a conceptual description of the science of complexity based on the turn to thermodynamic time, (2) a genealogy of complexity going back to the systemic method, and (3) Heinz von Foerster's cybernetic approach to self-organization.

Based on the reception of the principle of self-organization, the core of Heinz von Foerster's operational theories, the conclusion is drawn that complexity as a description is based on language games.

The results present complexity not as an object of science, but as a description that stands for the understanding of complex description.

The hypothesis that complexity is a question of description or observation, i.e. of description for what language serves, has enormous social implications, in that the description of complexes and the recognition of their orders (patterns) cannot be left to algorithmic governmentality, but must be carried out by a social agency.

HvF's operational epistemology can serve as an epistemological model for critical complexity theory.

The present research focuses on improving the awareness related to soft total quality management (TQM) practices by looking from the viewpoint of strategic human resources (HR). In addition, it is intended to reflect on the resulting soft TQM-HR outcomes and determine the mediating effect between soft TQM-HR strategies and organizational effectiveness (OE).

An exploratory research methodology with an online survey technique was adopted for the study. Three hundred and three managerial-level personnel from nine large Indian manufacturing organizations participated in the research. A theoretical model is projected and verified using correlation and mediation analysis.

The results show that commitment, reduced turnover intentions and satisfaction levels of employees mediate the relationship between resources, development and retention strategies and OE. However, the retention strategy has the strongest association with the OE of the three strategies. Also, of the three HR outcomes, satisfaction was strongly associated with OE. The analysis proved that the proposed model is an acceptable fit.

Implementing HR-related TQM strategies will likely impact OE since it elicits positive HR outcomes such as commitment, reduced turnover intention and satisfaction. Recognizing human resources as a unique strategic asset will help HR managers devise adequate resourcing, development and retention strategies instrumental in executing TQM.

The present micro study is unique in scrutinizing the influence of soft TQM-HR practices on organizational effectiveness by analysing the mediating effects of commitment, reduced turnover intention and satisfaction in Indian large-scale manufacturing organizations. The study is unique since no literature deciphers the linkages between HR strategies and organizational effectiveness in the Indian manufacturing sector.

Although organizations are investing heavily in digital transformation (DT) of the sales function, implementation and exploitation at the sales force level are ongoing challenges. As sales managers serve as conduits of influence between top management and the sales force, the success of strategic initiatives, such as DT, hinges heavily on leveraging their influence to promote change adoption at the sales force level. Accordingly, this research is guided by the research question: how can sales organizations secure the buy-in of sales managers and induce their championing behaviors directed toward the sales force?. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how organizational and psychological resources influence sales managers' DT change champion through their change readiness.

Construing DT in sales as an organizational change that creates contextual job demands, the theoretical framework offers several hypotheses linking organizational and personal resources with sales managers’ change readiness and championing behaviors. The perceived impact of change is included as a moderating variable. Using data from a sample of 176 business-to-business sales managers, the hypotheses are tested using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The authors demonstrate that two change-related organizational resources (change communication and change mobilization) and a personal psychological resource (psychological capital) facilitate sales managers’ emotional and cognitive change readiness, which, in turn, enhances their championing behaviors toward DT initiatives. Further, the authors find that perceived change impact augments the effects of organizational and psychological resources on change readiness, thus highlighting the importance of effective positioning of the outcomes of change.

This study provides practitioners with actionable guidance on securing the buy-in of sales managers for change initiatives such as DT. Specifically, communication and mobilization are critical inducements. Managers who score high on psychological capital can be targeted as change agents. Further, the impact of change needs to be framed positively, as the resultant perceptions magnify the effects of organizational resources.

While prior research has examined salespeople’s response to change, very little is known about the antecedents of change readiness and championing behavior among sales managers. Based on the results, the authors identify theoretical and managerial implications as well as future research directions.

This study aims to validate the content of an instrument which identifies the organizational, sociocultural and technological characteristics that foster digital transformation (DT) in higher education institutions (HEIs) through the Delphi method.

The methodology is quantitative, non-experimental, and descriptive in scope. First, expert judges were selected; Second, Aiken's V coefficients were obtained. Nine experts were considered for the validation.

This study’s findings show that the instrument has content validity and there was strong consensus among the judges. The instrument consists of 29 questions; 13 items adjusted and 2 merged.

A novel instrument for measuring the DT at HEIs was designed and has content validity, evidenced by Aiken's V coefficients of 0.91 with a 0.05 significance, and consensus among judges evidenced by consensus coefficient of 0.81.

This article approaches the possibilities of photo elicitation as a technique for social research in the landscape of technology-mediated instantaneous interpersonal communication.

This case study, which involved persons with prison experience in the process of returning to the community, demonstrates how participant-generated photographs made with mobile handheld electronic devices and the meanings participants have attached to them allowed the research to take a co-creative turn.

The data analyzed show the potential of photo elicitation to build a link between researcher and researched that empowers the latter with agency in designing the results and also throughout the research process as a whole, thus allowing the former to reach a deeper level of understanding of the research participants' social reality.

The research conducted showcases the possibilities of this technique to approach the field of emotions from the ethnography and how they can build knowledge – especially in the work with vulnerable populations in vulnerable contexts – and generate new categories of analysis.

The purpose of this article is twofold. Its first objective is to bring to the fore the unexplored and neglected origins of social exchange theory (SET) to critique this body of conjecture. This unearthing is illustrated through focusing on the way the theory was developed and how this development was mischaracterised in literature. Its second objective is to invoke the methodological assemblage of ANTi-History and the “close reading” notion using multiple archival sources to demonstrate their usefulness within the critical qualitative method debate.

The historic character of management and organization studies is exemplified through utilizing a combination of textual sources to examine how SET emerged from within the human relations school of thought throughout much of the twentieth century. Specifically, an array of sources (including archival data) is deployed and closely examined to trace how SET formed and became prevalent in organizational studies over the last decades.

SET is not only indebted to the human relations movement in general and to Elton Mayo’s work in particular (as is well-known), but also to logical positivism and behavioralist-school psychology. As such, Homans’ work marked the beginning of a new era in organizational behavior research.

The article highlights the role of historical analyses in interpreting mainstream constructs in organizational behavior. In doing so, it reveals how critical qualitative research leads to understanding some shortcomings of a theory and indicates potential remedies.