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Recent years have brought significant advances in research on behavioral ethics. However, research on ethical decision making is still in a nascent stage. Our objective in this paper is twofold: First, we argue that the practice of mindfulness may have significant positive effects on ethical decision making in organizations. More specifically, we will discuss the benefits of “reperceiving” – a meta-mechanism in the practice of mindfulness for ethical decision making and we provide an overview of mindfulness research pertaining to ethical decision making. Subsequently, we explore areas in which neuroscience research may inform research on ethics in organizations. We conclude that both neuroscience and mindfulness offer considerable promise to the field of ethical decision making.

Interest in employee mindfulness has increased dramatically in recent years, fueled by several important conceptual articles, numerous studies documenting the benefits of mindfulness for employee outcomes, and the adoption of mindfulness-based practices in many Fortune 500 organizations. Despite this growing interest, the vast majority of research on employee mindfulness has taken an intrapersonal focus, failing to appreciate the ways in which mindfulness may enhance work-related relational processes and outcomes. The authors explore possible associations between mindfulness and relationally oriented workplace phenomena, drawing from interdisciplinary scholarship examining mindfulness in romantic relationships, child–parent relationships, patient–healthcare provider relationships, and student–teacher relationships. A framework is proposed that links mindfulness to three distinct relationally oriented processes, which are expected to have downstream effects on work-related relational outcomes. The authors then take the proposed framework and discuss possible extensions to a variety of unique workplace relationships and discuss critical next steps in advancing the relational science of mindfulness.

The present situation is marked by the threat of COVID-19 pandemic on entire humankind and researchers across the globe are looking forward to vaccines or medicines to tackle COVID-19. However, according to the scholars and health-care agencies, vaccines alone would not be of much help and in the longer run adhering to the physical distancing policy along with sanitation could be the only solution. Moreover, extant studies across different areas have noted a positive association between various human psychological factors and prosocial behaviours. Additionally, an empirical study undertaken in the western context has tried exploring the association between human psychological factors and physical distancing behaviour (a kind of prosocial behaviour) in the COVID-19 context. The results of the extant study seem intriguing and encouraging enough to undertake a more robust exploratory study in this developing area. Against this background, this study aims to explore the relationship between individuals’ mindfulness and physical distancing behaviour, along with the mediating role of empathy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

To achieve the study objectives, this study has used an online survey method and has collected responses from the general adult population in India spread across all six regions. The survey was conducted during May 2020 when India was under a nationwide lockdown to mitigate the risk of COVID-19 pandemic. The respondents were identified based on convenience and snowball sampling techniques. Using social media platforms, the prospective respondents were contacted through WhatsApp, LinkedIn and Facebook or e-mails. Post data cleaning, a total of 315 responses were found to be suitable for analysis. For analysis, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to establish the validity and reliability of the conceptual model, whereas Pearson correlation was undertaken to study the relationship between variables and mediation was examined using the PROCESS macro of Hayes.

The findings were encouraging and could become the foundation stone for further research and a practical guide for policymakers, agencies working in the health-care areas and even corporate leaders. As expected, an individual’s mindfulness was noted to be positively-related and influencing physical distancing behaviour. The mediation analysis indicated the intervening role of empathy in the association between an individual’s mindfulness and physical distancing behaviour.

The findings of the present could be a game-changer in restricting the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. As espoused by various scholars, as well as health-care organizations about the use of physical distancing in mitigating the risk of COVID-19, policymakers, health-care authorities and even corporate leaders could look forward to strategizing and execute the dissemination of various mindfulness-based programs among the individuals. These mindfulness-based programs, which could be disseminated offline and online through smartphones, could, in turn, help in positively influence physical distancing behaviour among the individuals leading to the success of physical distancing policy.

This study relates and extends the mechanism of mindfulness in influencing individuals’ physical distancing behaviour in the pandemic situation, notably the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, based on the “empathy-altruism hypothesis”, as well as Schwartz’s theory of fundamental values, the intervening role of empathy has been explored and the findings further helped in extended these two theories in the domain of pandemic.

This study could be the first to conceptualize and examine the human psychological factors, particularly the relationship and role of an individual’s mindfulness with physical distancing behaviour among the general public during the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, this could also be the first study to conceptualize and explore the intervening role of empathy in the relationship between an individual’s mindfulness and physical distancing behaviour. Moreover, in conceptualizing and exploring the relationship between an individual’s mindfulness and physical distancing behaviour, this study explored and extended the “reperceiving” mechanism of mindfulness and the “empathy-altruism hypothesis” along with Schwartz’s theory of fundamental values in the domain of pandemic.

Two completely different views on data distribution – the lockbox versus the chatty network – pose a dilemma that strategic planners must address and resolve. How do organizations make sense of conflicting possibilities for the future of information networks?

Recently the author participated in a discussion with privacy and security professionals attending an annual privacy and security conference titled “Seeking the middle path.” They explored four scenarios for the future of privacy and security.

The experts explored a future called Aikido – a scenario where the value proposition of networking takes precedence over privacy. Some of the elements of this scenario can be discerned from examining the offerings of companies that operate on the Internet today.

Other companies need to explore these four scenarios in the light of their own security and privacy concerns as well as the possibilities of developing network business models.

The next step for CEOs struggling with issues of privacy and security: figure out the connection between sense making (expanding your view of new possibilities like networks and reperceiving what they mean to the industry and your organization) and business judgment (making concrete decisions that exploit that knowledge).

The author introduces a scenario called Aikido – a possible future where the value proposition of networking takes precedence over privacy. He shows how several existing companies are pioneering this value proposition.

At the nexus of mindfulness and parenting lies the fusion of two influential yet contradictory epistemologies, the Eastern contemplative practices with the Western parenting research. Mindful parenting is a parenting style, which has grown in popularity in recent times to support parents during pregnancy, birth and beyond. The current study is the third stage of a mixed methods study on mindful parenting. The first stage of the study design conducted a systematic review of mindful parenting. The second stage summarized the change processes identified in the systematic review. The aim of this pilot study is to clarify four clinicians’ perceptions of cognitive change processes associated with mindful parenting, particularly how theory is translated to practice. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used to analyze semi-structured interviews. The six higher-order change processes were conceptualized as an anchor. Cognitive processes included intention, attention, attitude, and reflective functioning. Given its methodological limitations, the next future work needs is to survey a large sample of both clinicians and parents to verify the model. This paper makes an important contribution to the development of a more comprehensive theoretical model of mindful parenting.

Despite increasing research interest in the psychological contract, little is known about how employees’ contractual beliefs alter during major organizational changes. Using a sample of air traffic control workers who have been used to stable work roles over long periods, examines employees’ contractual responses to enforced job change. As job change approached, contractual acceptance or violation was engendered by sensemaking appraisals of management decisions, the meaning given to premove uncertainties, and perceptions of victimization. Following job change, sense‐making continued and eventually yielded either a calculative assessment of the employment relationship or feelings of sustained violation. While sustained violation was accompanied by visible expressions of resistance against management, such acts represented a desire to reinstate the established employment relationship. Conversely, workers who accommodated the personal outcomes of management breaches became less committed to a contractual relationship, and resolved to exploit management weaknesses and omissions. These divergencies reflected how the contractual meanings given to single breach events were kept separate from panoptic assessments of management’s entire body of behaviour during the reorganization.

This systematic literature review investigates the contribution of design thinking (DT) as a process and tool to drive innovation in a sustainable built environment (SBE) and develops a new model for sustainability research integrating DT and future thinking approaches toward achieving a unified DT and foresight notion for future research and applications.

This review was based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement. Open-access English articles published between 2000 and 2022 identified using the EBSCOhost, Emerald Insight, DOJA, JSTOR, Scopus and Taylor and Francis database searches were reviewed. The review framework deploys a previously proposed modified Ansoff matrix with an integrated innovation matrix to identify and analyze the challenges and opportunities for innovation growth in SBE. Additionally, a citation analysis was conducted to explore the impact of DT for innovation in SBE, and a proposed framework based on design by drawing on foresight theory was developed.

Research on DT for innovation in SBE faces the challenge of unanticipated impacts. According to the average number of citations per document, innovation associated with new solutions within a new context seems to become highly influential. Additionally, research gaps exist in the integration of foresight and DT into sustainability research to identify new contexts and solutions to SBE. A model of foresight design thinking (FDT) is proposed to guide future research and support the practical application of DT in sustainability.

This analysis was limited by the selection criteria as only certain keywords were used and English-only articles were selected. Future research should consider the use of DT for innovation in SBE using various important keywords, which would improve research findings and expand the contribution of DT to SBE.

The FDT model offers a new holistic framework for the iterative process of reframing and reperception, focusing on divergent and convergent thinking with the goal of contributing to SBE practices.

The integrated framework of DT and foresight can contribute to the study and development of sustainable innovation and a strategic shift toward a sustainable society.

The integration of DT, foresight and sustainability can broaden the horizons of sustainability research by systematically addressing future challenges related to SBE, which can be translated into feasible and innovative solutions. Thus, the FDT model complements the application of DT in sustainable innovation in this research field.

The purpose of this paper is to describe an experiment that asked what kinds of scenarios are perceived as more informative to managers in light of current decisions: scenarios that describe how critical uncertainties might develop; or, scenarios that describe what might happen if the critical uncertainties did, indeed, develop.

Using a commonly identified set of opinions (pending decisions, actors of influence, persistent trends, a surprise‐free scenario, and two critical uncertainties), participants were divided into two sub‐groups, each of which developed a set of scenarios. Sub‐group A articulated futures that described how the critical uncertainties might emerge. Sub‐group B articulated futures that described what might follow if the same critical uncertainties developed.

Sub‐group A believed their individual scenarios were slightly more logically comprehensible and that their set of scenarios better captured the range of concerns relevant to their pending decisions. Additionally, Sub‐group B scored the jointly created surprise‐free scenario to be less logically comprehensible than Sub‐group A.

This article suggests that some managers may find it challenging to see the relevance in temporally distant and uncertain futures into their decision‐making activities. Therefore, those involved in strategic planning may find it productive to connect these uncertain futures to the present.

This experiment contributes empirical support to the importance of connecting future events to the present day for engaging scenario users.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has forced organisations to change the way they work to maintain viability, even though change is not always successfully implemented. Multiple scholars have identified employees' readiness for change as an important factor of successful organisational change, but research focussed on psychological factors that facilitate change readiness is scarce. The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether employee dispositional mindfulness contributes to readiness for change.

Employees (n = 301) from various industries in New Zealand participated in an online survey shortly after the local COVID-19 lockdown ended. The employees' levels of mindfulness, readiness for change, well-being and distress were assessed using well-validated psychometric scales. Multiple regression analyses tested the effect of mindfulness on readiness for change, with well-being and distress as moderating variables.

The results show that the effect of mindfulness on readiness for change is moderated by both well-being and distress. Mindfulness has a positive, significant effect on readiness for change when levels of well-being are high and levels of distress are low.

These findings have important implications for organisations who aim to promote readiness for change in their employees. Even though mindfulness has been shown to be beneficial, organisations also have to consider the mental states of their employees when managing change.

This study provides empirical evidence that dispositional mindfulness may facilitate the employees' readiness for change, but only when levels of well-being are high and distress are low.