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The examination of contextual factors that enhance or stifle employees’ creative performance is a new but rapidly growing research area. Theory and research in this area have focused on antecedents of employee creativity. In this paper, we review and discuss the major theoretical frameworks that have served as conceptual foundations for empirical studies. We then provide a review and critical appraisal of these empirical studies. Based on this review, we propose exciting possibilities for future research directions. Finally, we discuss implications of this body of work for human resource management.

The purpose of this chapter is to combine research findings around gender bias and the challenges women face in academia, and to present a unified conceptual framework. Ample research indicates that the issue is far from sufficiently addressed. Even in cases where policies are in place, mediocre outcomes are observed. Fewer women climb the ladder of academic progression all the way up to senior positions, especially in certain institutions and certain disciplines.

After thoroughly reviewing the literature, the authors integrate and organize the different multifaceted causes that appear to obstruct women in academia. They propose a scheme that divides between contextual and non-contextual factors, emphasizing their interplay.

Even when policies are in place, they appear to have limited results, because they mainly address isolated factors rather than taking a multifaceted, integrative approach.

Future research should further examine the interplay of contextual and non-contextual factors by combining multiple variables that contribute to gender bias in academia.

Policy-making should consider both contextual and non-contextual factors, thus providing more integrative solutions and taking a broader perspective on the issue.

Despite the ample and rising amount of research findings, there is no coherent framework to adequately include all the factors that contribute to gender bias in academia. By integrating and organizing the different, multifaceted causes already pointed out by previous findings, the authors hope to contribute to future research with specific variables to test and correlate, as well as to the formulation of more sophisticated policies.

Understanding and predicting the emergence of venture initiation entails research to explore the antecedents of entrepreneurial intention (EI) and behavior. This book chapter aims to provide an overview on the role of exogenous factors (entrepreneurship education), contextual and environmental factors (perceived entrepreneurial motivators and barriers) in developing EIs and behavior among the university graduates. It also highlights the different strands of opinion and research on the role that formal entrepreneurship programs may (or may not) play in developing EI and action. This book chapter further provides some developments on the factors mentioned above among the different Asian countries while using Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM). Since 1999 GEM reports have been a key source of comparable data across a large variety of countries on attitudes toward entrepreneurship, start-up, established business activities, and aspirations of entrepreneurs for their businesses.

This study uses structural equation modeling to investigate the impact of ABC implementation factors (management support, clarity and consensus of ABC objectives, non-accounting ownership, and training) on quality, cost, and cycle time improvements, the relations among quality, cost, and cycle time improvements and, the influence of quality, cost, and cycle time improvement on financial performance at the business unit level. Overall, the results of the structural analyses support the theoretical model indicating that ABC implementation factors influence quality, cost, and cycle time, and partial support for the relations among quality, cost, and cycle time improvement and their effect on financial performance. When these relationships are further analyzed within the context of ABC implementation stage, adoption of advanced manufacturing practices, industry characteristics and plant size to determine if these contextual factors impact the model constructs and the relationships between the variables in the theoretical model, the results show that these contextual factors do not affect the model constructs, however, they affect the model relations.

This opening chapter sets a frame for the chapters of this volume, dealing with how the dynamic dialectic interplay between forceful global societal forces and context shape humanity’s education response in various parts of the world. “Context” as a perennial threshold concept in Comparative and International Education is explicated. It will then be explained how, during its long historical evolution, scholars in the field each time had to contend new contexts, or reconceived the notion of “context” in a new way. Subsequently the problems of an overly fixation on the historical and the present, to the detriment of the future, and inertia are extant in the field, will be explained. The unprecedented, seismic changes currently impacting on the societal context worldwide, will then be enumerated. These changes can be subsumed under the collective name of globalization. The concept globalization is then clarified, and the take of the scholarly community on the impact of globalization on education is then mapped and interrogated. The authors’ stance on this is stated, namely that a dynamic interplay between global focus and contextual realities shape education in various parts of the world. It is in this theoretical frame that the remainder of the chapters of the volume is presented, combing out the main features of education development in each part of the world, as a dialectic between global forces and contextual imperatives.

Work experience is increasingly seen as an important complement to traditional higher education. There are a variety of forms of these educational programs, such as internships, sandwich programs, field work, and cooperative education, that are referred to generically as Work-Integrated Learning (WIL). As yet, however, there is relatively little research on the concept of work experience and considerable inconsistency in its definition and measurement. This chapter describes some of the research and writing from the industrial and organizational psychology field and its relevance to WIL. Based on the previous work, a model of work experience, specifically developed to aid our understanding of the role of work experience in WIL, is proposed. Three dimensions are suggested: level of specificity (task, job, organization, and career), measurement mode (number, time, relation to program, density, timing, and type), and version of WIL (cooperative education, sandwich, etc.). The model also includes individual factors and contextual factors as influences on work experience. Both immediate and secondary outcomes are described. Finally, the applicability of the model to several examples of WIL research are discussed and suggestions for future research are offered.

Multidimensional fit (MDF) has been coined as “elusive” and relevant to an individual’s social identity and self-concept, unfolding over time as individuals assess their fit relative to Person-Organization, Person-Vocation, Person-Job, and Person-Team Fit. In this chapter, the literature as it relates to the refugee employment journey, MDF, and HRM practices that facilitate or inhibit MDF is reviewed. Furthermore, in this study, the process-oriented view of the refuge path highlights the complexity of their experience, noting an array of antecedents as they relate to country, host country and individual differences, interventions through NGOs, refugee resettlement agencies, and organizations, as well as the less explored entrepreneurial path. These diverse paths and the process of finding fit, and the obstacles refugees face, are viewed through the lens of shocks and reassessment of MDF throughout their journey. Finally, the study’s outcomes illustrate individual wellbeing factors, organizational level benefits, as well as community level benefits to MDF.

Although employee helping behaviors have been widely examined by organizational and human resource management scholars, relatively little is known about the antecedents and consequences of help-seeking in the workplace. Seeking to fill this gap, I draw from the social and counseling psychology literatures, as well as from research in epidemiology and health sociology to first conceptualize the notion of employee help-seeking and then to identify the variables and mechanisms potentially driving such behavior in work organizations. My critical review of this literature suggests that the application of existing models of help-seeking may offer limited predictive utility when applied to the workplace unless help-seeking is conceived as the outcome of a multi-level process. That in mind, I propose a model of employee help-seeking that takes into account the potential direct and cross-level moderating effects of a variety of situational factors (e.g., the nature of the particular problem, organizational norms, support climate) that might have differential influences on help-seeking behavior depending on the particular phase of the help-seeking process examined. Following this, I focus on two sets of help-seeking outcomes, namely, the implications of employee help-seeking on individual and group performance, and the impact of help-seeking on employee well-being. The chapter concludes with a brief examination of some of the more critical issues in employee help-seeking that remain to be explored (e.g., the timing of help solicitation) as well as the methodological challenges likely to be faced by those seeking to engage in such exploration.