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This study explores the integration of corporate reporting by Mitsubishi, a large Japanese company, using a culturally sensitive narrative that combines and reconciles Japanese and Western corporate values in one story.

We use an analytical framework drawing on insights borrowed from narratology and the notion of wrapping – the traditional art of packaging as communication.

We find that Mitsubishi is a survivor company that uses different corporate reporting frameworks during its reporting journey to construct a bespoke narrative of its value creation and cultural values. It emplots narratives to convey a story presenting the impression that Mitsubishi is a Japanese corporation but is compatible with Western neo-liberal ideology, making bad news palatable to its stakeholders and instilling confidence in the future.

Wrapping is a culturally sensitive form of impression management used in the integration of corporate reporting. Therefore, rather than assuming that companies blatantly manipulate their image in corporate reports, we suggest that future research should focus on how narratives are constructed and made sense of, situating them in the context of local culture and traditions.

The findings should interest scholars, report preparers, policymakers, and the IFRS, considering the recent release of the IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards designed to reduce the so-called alphabet soup of corporate reporting. By following Mitsubishi’s journey, we learn how and why the notion of integrated reporting was adopted and integrated with other reporting frameworks to create narratives that together convey a story of a global corporation compliant with Western neoliberal ideology. It highlights how Mitsubishi used integrated reporting to tell its story rather than as a rigid reporting framework, and the same fate may apply to the new IFRS Sustainability Reporting Standards that now include integrated reporting.

The study offers a new perspective on corporate reporting, showing how the local societal discourses of cultural heritage and modernity can shape the journey of the integration of corporate reporting over time.

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.

Demanding and highly competitive business environment has stimulated small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to restructure their manufacturing practices. Lean manufacturing (LM), a comprehensive alternative, is now being adopted, notably by manufacturing organizations, to increase business effectiveness and performance through a variety of lean approaches. Lean implementation, however, ran into a number of difficulties, which showed that non-technical factors such as human-related practices must also be integrated if lean is to be successful. This study aims to examine a thorough overview of the various human-related lean practices (HRLP) mentioned in recent literature and to determine which of them is more pertinent to a successful LM implementation in SMEs.

A total of 193 publications published in 45 journals between 2013 and 2023 and based on the 4 reputable publishers, namely, Science Direct, Emerald Online, Taylor and Francis and Springer Link, were gathered based on a systematic literature review of peer-reviewed journal articles in LM.

The amount of research on human resource management and lean management that has been conducted has increased dramatically during the past few years. The outcome of this study will offer a thorough analysis of soft lean practices found in the LM literature that manufacturing SMEs should take into account while implementing lean.

The scope of this research is restricted to a survey of scholarly works using the terms “Lean manufacturing” or “Lean production” as well as “human” or “people” or “soft-lean practices” in the title. Furthermore, only works published in scholarly publications that have undergone peer review were included. Also, due to the authors’ linguistic restrictions, only English articles were used. The HRLP linked to a smooth lean transition are described in this research. Thus, it can be used to assist the production and human resource departments in raising an organization’s long-term performance.

The study gives researchers a better grasp of the direction the subject is taking and what gaps still exist, which aids them in focusing their research on HRLP in small- and medium-sized businesses.

In response to the challenges posed by the social environment, numerous individuals with autism use coping strategies, engaging in a phenomenon known as “camouflaging” to mask their distinctive traits. Despite the growing attention directed toward this area of study, to date, there are no bibliometric studies delineating the evolution of this research theme. This study aims to analyze scientific research on camouflage and the autistic spectrum published in Web of Science (WoS).

Articles on camouflage and autism were retrieved from the WoS. The advanced search interface used was “Title, Abstract, Keywords (autistic OR asperger syndrome OR Autism OR ASD AND camouflage OR camouflaging AND Masking).” The analysis and visualization of the selected records and their data were carried out using MS Excel (v16.0) and Biblioshiny (v2.0, R package).

Following the selection process, a total of 70 articles were included. Notably, the UK emerged as the leading contributor in terms of the number of published articles. Prominent authors in this domain included William Mandy, Laura Hull and Meng-Chuan Lai, who exhibited the highest number of published articles and citations. The Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders stood out as the most prolific journal. Predominant research themes encompassed camouflage (and its synonyms, masking or compensation), gender differences and mental health.

This study contributes to existing knowledge on this topic, as well as identifying new areas of research related to autism and camouflage. Moreover, it serves as a valuable resource for health-care professionals, including physicians and clinical psychologists, who may seek to augment their understanding and proficiency in the field.

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).

This study examines the impact of digital corporate social responsibility (CSR) on social entrepreneurship, organizational resilience and competitive intelligence during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis. It also examines the impact of competitive intelligence on social entrepreneurship and organizational resilience.

Data were collected from telecommunication companies in Jordan with a sample of 223 managers, using Smart-PLS for analysis and testing the research model and hypotheses.

The results reveal a significant impact of digital CSR on social entrepreneurship. They show that digital CSR significantly impacts organizational resilience. The findings also indicate a significant role of digital CSR in competitive intelligence. This study shows that social entrepreneurship significantly impacts organizational resilience. The results also confirm the impact of competitive intelligence on social entrepreneurship. Finally, the results confirm that competitive intelligence significantly impacts organizational resilience.

This study provides valuable academic and practical insights into digital CSR practices, social entrepreneurship and how to support organizational resilience during crises.

This study investigates the factors that lead to the adoption of blockchain technology through payment transactions and how this not only affects real estate (RE) and blockchain transparency but also RE performance.

Data gathered across RE firms in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) were employed to test the model. The measurement model and structural equation modeling (SEM) were used to test the items and the hypotheses illustrated in the proposed model.

Perceived financial benefits, competitive pressure and top manager support were demonstrated to successfully influence blockchain adoption (BA). Despite blockchain’s early stages of development, its impact on RE operations cannot be ignored and should be more objectively examined in order to gain a better understanding of it. UAE blockchain-based companies could be seen as having a competitive advantage that maximizes resource consumption.

This study introduces the positive influence of blockchain technology on RE payment transactions and may advance information on how blockchain technology has the potential to change the RE sector. The paper finds its significance in exploring how RE payment systems must change to remain competitive in the market amid emerging digitalization trends.

Mental health champions (MHCs) and young health ambassadors (YHAs) are two innovative public health interventions. MHCs are practitioners who work in schools and other youth settings and aim to be the “go to” person for mental health in these settings. YHAs are a linked parallel network of young people, who champion mental health and advocate for youth involvement, which was co-produced with young people across all stages of development implementation. This paper aims to identify the potential benefits, barriers and facilitators of these interventions.

Semi-structured qualitative interviews (n = 19) were undertaken with a purposive sample of n = 13 MHCs, and n = 6 YHAs, between June 2021 and March 2022. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, anonymised and then analysed following a thematic approach. Ethical approval was granted by Newcastle University’s Faculty of Medical Sciences Ethics Committee.

The findings are organised under five key themes: motivating factors and rewards for MHCs and YHAs; outcomes for children and young people (CYP) and others; impact on youth settings and culture; facilitators of successful implementation; and implementation challenges and opportunities.

These findings are intended to be of relevance to practice and policy, particularly to those exploring the design, commissioning or implementation of similar novel and low-cost interventions, which aim to improve mental health outcomes for CYP, within the context of youth settings.

The interventions reported on in the present paper are novel and innovative. Little research has previously been undertaken to explore similar approaches, and the individual experiences of those involved in the delivery of these types of interventions.

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.