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The Agents of Change program is a two-year, project-based learning program to develop Extension Professionals’ capacity to engage in Adaptive and Transformative Leadership. Its primary goal is to develop the capacity of Extension Professionals to engage in leadership to create more diverse, equitable, inclusive and just Extension programs and community change initiatives. This manuscript describes the program and an initial evaluation and results.

Results of an evaluation of the first year of the program indicate that regular training sessions and support are appropriate for leadership development and that Extension Professionals are using the learning, awareness and tools from this program to address challenges with Adaptive and Transformative Leadership elements. Also, Extension professionals demonstrated commitment to personal growth, community engagement and understanding of their multifaceted roles as change agents.

Participants are sharing resources from the program with colleagues, leading meetings differently, questioning the status quo and pushing others to try new ways forward.

Based on the transformative learning theory, this paper analyses a French women-only training programme (WOTP) that aims to develop women’s soft skills in their professional contexts. This paper aims to focus on the process of personal transformation, the collective dimensions and the unexpected effects of the transformation.

This paper used a mixed qualitative design that mainly combines a qualitative two-step study of 47 women to assess their personal changes in terms of self-confidence, self-efficacy and assertiveness. This paper used 13 semi-structured interviews to explore the perceived changes in-depth.

The analysis shows that beyond “fixing their lack of skills” – including self-limiting behaviours, low feelings of self-efficacy and difficulty claiming one’s place – a WOTP can trigger a transformational learning experience at the individual level and can modify the surveyed women’s attitudes and behaviours at work. The results also highlight the collective dimension of transformation and, to some extent, an avenue for a societal transformation.

One can state that these WOTPs may positively contribute to human resources development in organisations, and that they may be considered a relevant practice in the move to promote women and gender diversity in organisations.

The findings reveal that, at their individual levels, these women may become agents of change by influencing and acting in their professional lives. The results stress that training women may contribute to organisational changes in terms of gender diversity. These findings contribute to the enrichment of the transformative learning theory by developing the collective and societal dimensions.

Given the important role of change capability for organizational development and competitive advantage, the purpose of this study is to clarify the influences of transformational leadership (TL) on organizational change capability (OCC) via mediating roles of two specific aspects of trust in leadership namely disclosure-based trust and reliance-based trust.

Structural equation modeling is applied to test the degree of influences of TL and employee trust on OCC via empirical data collected from 376 participants in 115 small and medium firms in China.

The results show the positive and significant impacts of TL and aspects of employee trust in leadership on OCC. It indicated that disclosure-based trust in leadership has a greater influence on change capability in comparison with the effect of reliance-based trust in leadership. Especially, the findings have shown the evidence supporting the mediating mechanism of aspects of employee trust in leadership between TL and OCC.

This study provides the practical initiatives that highlight the importance of applying TL style to build and improve the trust of employees in their leadership for fostering OCC.

The paper has significantly advanced and deepened insight of how transformational leaders nurture employee’s specific shades of trust in leadership for fostering OCC. The valuable findings of this study contribute to enriching the theoretical basis of organizational behavior and change management, and can be used to analyze and explain the relationships between TL, employee’s trust in leadership and organizational capability for change.

How does the interaction between time and knowledge affect the evolution of organizations? Past research in organizational evolution has mostly investigated time and knowledge as two separate variables. In contrast, theoretical perspectives integrating these variables are still seemingly scant. The authors believe that filling this literature gap needs attention. Thus, this study aims to contribute by developing a conceptual framework.

This is a conceptual study. The framework is centred on the concept of “co-evolutionary time”, which the authors explain through a business example from the tourism industry. Supported by a narrative-based style, from a methodological point of view the framework is featured by the attempt to synthesize specific, extant literature into new theoretical development.

As its main theoretical contribution, the co-evolutionary time suggests how firms can adapt in a way that, from an evolutionary perspective, proves fitting both in terms of contents and methods, thus opening possibilities for new long-term social construction and reconstruction. As its main practical contribution, co-evolutionary time can constitute not only a temporary source of organizational success and competitive advantage but also an agent of enduring change and long-term business survival.

As its main novelty, the framework is developed through merging two literature streams. In particular, the authors first consider the literature about time, with a focus on its objective and subjective dimensions. The authors then consider the literature about organizational evolution, with a focus on the co-evolutionary nature of the firm/environment relationship.

Organisations are investing in systems such as product lifecycle management (PLM) to support product development, collaboration across complex supply chains and to provide a framework for digital transformation. Graduates of apparel programmes would benefit from a knowledge of PLM to help realise the opportunities that PLM offers. The purpose of this paper is to report on an educational research project that used PLM as a context for practice-based learning and as a mechanism to update the learning experience and stimulate the development of future practice.

This paper reports on the experiences, critical reflections and data from an action research study to establish a learning community through an educational partnership for PLM software within an undergraduate fashion business course. The cohort of the first year of the intervention (n = 28) is the main study population.

The findings indicate that PLM provided a stimulating learning context supportive of a detailed understanding of current industry practice, critical and innovative thinking and the development of a professional identity.

The opportunity for the development of both industry and educational practice is outlined.

A general introduction to PLM provides important information to support and advance Fashion Industry 4.0. Educational partnerships can reduce barriers to the integration of advanced technologies into the higher education curriculum.

Applications of PLM are under researched in textiles and apparel. The paper contributes to the broadening of the knowledge base of PLM and its potential to achieve strategic transformation of the sector.

Individuals develop and perform and process their identities in relationships with others as well as with the environment in which they find themselves, Many of these relationships with others are characterized by fundamental inequalities. In finding their identities, the subordinate in the relationship develops an identity that typically take steps – by vocal and non-vocal gestures – to perform this particularized identity. The identification of self is not only related to the others, with eachindividual in reflective communication, but also reflections characterized by inequality. In continuing to do so, he or she will experience a certain powerlessness, indeed what Marx called alienation.

Investors often utilize brokers to assist them in property acquisitions. These brokers are compensated through a cooperative commission, or bonus, that is publicized on the listing service. The purpose of this paper is to determine the relationship between advertised compensation packages and selling price, time-on-market and listing characteristics.

To examine variables likely to influence earnings of the buyers' broker, this study utilizes multiple and logistic regressions. Given the range of prices found in the 196,276 listings, the data was sorted on listing price and then split into ten, approximately equal, deciles.

The explanatory power of models with cooperative commission as the dependent variable was highest in the lowest deciles with type of financing, size and distressed status being highly significant. When comparing list- to selling price the average was 96.1%. As cooperative commission increased, the higher priced parcels sold at a higher price relative to list price. This potentially justifies higher cooperative commissions or exemplifies the principal-agent problem where effort is based on potential earnings. Fixed bonuses were used predominately for parcels under $62,234, likely to provide a minimum earnings amount. However, surrounding the median, it seems they may differentiate a property.

This research provides insight for practitioners on the impact of different variables, including cooperative commissions, on sale price and time-on-market. For example, cooperative commission increased for properties in the outer deciles implying that agents may be compensating for suspected difficulty. Additionally, the seasonality findings imply that agents can determine when to list and when to provide a fixed bonus to solicit attention. Results also suggest that practitioners will find it beneficial to market at an appropriate price rather than list high to create negotiating room.

This paper follows only one paper that covered a similar topic. However, this paper uses twenty years of multi-unit property listings from a major US city from 1996 to 2015. The focus on multi-unit properties is an effort to focus on a more sophisticated group of buyers that may be more experienced and make decisions more rationally.

The shift toward a circular economy (CE) represents a collaborative endeavor necessitating the presence of efficient frameworks, conducive contexts and a common comprehension. This research serves as a pivotal stride towards this goal, presenting an exclusive prospect for the investigation and fusion of these frameworks, with particular emphasis on the Quintuple Helix Model (5HM), into a unified theoretical framework that underscores the core principles of the CE. This study is centered on three pivotal questions aimed at decoding the CE transition in specific regional settings.

Adopting an abductive approach firmly anchored in a two-stage qualitative process, this study specifically merges the foundational principles from institutional theory, entrepreneurship literature and CE frameworks to provide insights into the dynamics of circular ecosystems, with a specific focus on the Huelva region in Spain.

The findings demonstrate significant potential in the CE, ranging from the integration of product and service systems to innovations in eco-industrial practices. Yet, a notable deficiency exists: the absence of institutional entrepreneurs, highlighting the essential role that universities can play. As recognized centers of innovation, universities are suggested to be key contributors to the transformation toward a CE, aligning with their societal and economic responsibilities.

This study highlights the importance of managing relationships with entities like SMEs and policymakers or academia for effective CE adoption. Policymakers can refine strategies based on the research’s insights, while the impact of university-driven circular ecosystems on sustainable societies is another crucial area for research.

The sustainability models cited in CE literature may not be comprehensive enough to prevent problem shifting, and it can be argued that they lack a sound theoretical and conceptual basis. Furthermore, the connections between sustainability objectives and the three levels of the CE operating system remain vague. Additionally, there is insufficient information on how regions foster the involvement of the environment in fivefold helix cooperation and how this impacts the CE.

The purpose of this study is to contribute to the discussion surrounding the definition of accounting proposed by Carnegie et al. (2021a, 2021b) and further elaborated by Carnegie et al. (2023) from/under an institutionalist political-economy (IPE) based foundation and to specifically extend this approach to the arena of social and environmental accounting (SEA).

By adopting an IPE approach to SEA, this study offers a critique of the use of the notion of capital to refer to nature and people in SEA frameworks and standards.

A SEA framework based on the capabilities approach is proposed based on the concepts of human capabilities and global commons for the purpose of preserving the commons and enabling the flourishing of present and future generations.

The proposed framework allows the engagement of accounting community, in particular SEA researchers, with and contribution to such well-established initiatives as the Planetary Boundaries framework and the human development reports initiative of the United Nations Development Programme.

Based on the capability approach, this study applies Carnegie et al.’s (2023) framework to SEA. This new approach more attuned to the pursuit of sustainable human development and the sustainable development goals, may contribute to turning accounting into a major positive force through its impacts on the world, expressly upon organisations, people and nature.

This paper aims to fill gap in the literature and explore policy options for resolving the problems of accountability by framing three research questions. The research questions are (i) whether certain elements of Scott’s (2014) institutional pillars attenuate (accentuate) corporate and public accountability; (ii) whether the presence of ruling party-affiliated enterprises (RPAEs) create an increase (decrease) in the degree of corporate (public) accountability; and (iii) whether there is a particular form of ownership change that transforms RPAEs into public investment companies.

Using a qualitative research methodology that involves term frequency and thematic analysis of publicly available textual information, the paper examines Mechkova et al.’s (2019 forms of government accountability. The paper analyzes the gaps between the de jure and de facto accountability using the institutional pillars framework.

The findings of the paper are three. First, there are gaps between de jure and de facto in all three (vertical, horizontal and diagonal) forms of government (public) accountability. Second, the study finds that more than three fourth of the parties that contested the June 2021 election did have regional focus. They did not advocate for accountability. Third, Ethiopia’s RPAEs are unique. They have regional focus and are characterized by severe forms of agency and information asymmetry problems.

The main limitation of the paper is its exploratory nature. Extending this research by using cross-country data could provide a more complete picture of the link between corporate (public) accountability and a country’s institutional pillars.

Academic research documents that instilling modern corporate (public) governance standards in the Sub Sahara Africa (SSA) region has shown mixed results. The analysis made in this paper is likely to inform researchers and policymakers about the type of change that leads to better corporate (and public) accountability outcomes.

The institutional change proposed in the paper is likely to advance the public interest by mitigating agency and information asymmetry problems and enhancing government accountability. The changes make the enterprises investable, save scarce jobs, enhance diversity and put the assets in RPAEs to better use.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper that uses the institutional pillars analytical framework to examine an SSA country's corporate (public) accountability problem. It demonstrates that accountability is a domestic and a (novel) traveling theory. The paper identifies the complexity of resolving the interlock between political institutions and business enterprises. It theorizes that it is impossible to instill modern corporate (public) accountability standards without changing regulatory, normative and cultural cognitive pillars of institutions. The paper contributes to the change management and public interest literature.