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This paper aims to examine the effect of self-reflection on employee creativity in China. The authors identify individual intellectual capital (IIC) as a mediator and concerns for face as a moderator for this relationship.

A sample of 351 dyads of full-time employees and their immediate supervisors from various Chinese companies were surveyed. Regression analysis and structural equation modeling were used to test the research model.

Three dimensions of self-reflection significantly affect IIC and subsequently lead to employee creativity; IIC mediates the relationship between three dimensions of self-reflection and employee creativity; concern for face negatively moderates the effect of IIC on employee creativity.

Managers can facilitate employees’ creativity by motivating them to conduct self-reflection and develop IIC, and by nurturing a safe atmosphere that allows individuals to take risks without losing face.

This is one of the first empirical studies to investigate the mediating effects of IIC and the moderating effects of concerns for face on the relationship between self-reflection and creativity.

This paper introduces a cognitive coaching and reflection tool to help school leaders build self-efficacy at a time when schools are facing a crisis in leadership. Key themes emerged from the data generated as part of a larger study of PK-12 administrators' leadership during the coronavirus pandemic.

This qualitative study is based on phenomenological research methods and uses naturalistic inquiry design.

The findings consider the building of school leaders' efficacy in crisis management during a pandemic. A total of seven data-driven reflection themes are identified: self-care, professional development (PD), communication, school climate, instruction, parent resources and advocacy.

Investigated using a purposeful, nonrepresentative sample were the perceptions and experiences of PK-12 administrators as they served in their leadership role during the pandemic. Therefore, the results are not generalizable beyond the scope and context for which the research was conducted. An implication of this study is that this tool can be used by coaches working with school leaders and by leaders themselves to increase self-efficacy.

The cognitive coaching and reflection tool could be beneficial in developing leaders' self-awareness and reflection skills, in turn building self-efficacy. Although there are other tools to support leaders' self-awareness and reflection, the effects of the pandemic represent a unique opportunity for examining leader practices to adjust to, prepare for and deal with the impacts of a crisis.

Paramedics play important roles in healthcare, yet little is known about their decision-making. There is evidence that thinking style is associated with individual preference for intuitive or deliberative decision-making.

Australian and New Zealand paramedics (n = 103; mean age: 38.7; mean 12 years’ experience; 44% female) and paramedic students (n = 101; mean age: 25.7; 59% female) completed a thinking style survey measuring active open-mindedness (AOT), close mindedness (CMT), preference for intuitive thinking (PIT) and preference for effortful thinking (PET). Participants also completed the 7-item Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) to assess ability to override an attractive but incorrect intuition.

With prior exposure to the CRT controlled, regression analysis found increasing AOT and decreasing age predicted cognitive reflection across all participants (R2/R2 adjusted: 0.198/0.157; F(10, 192) = 4.752, p < 0.001). There were moderate correlations between CMT, age and paramedic experience. There was no difference between paramedics and student performance on the CRT, though more students reported prior exposure to the items (33.7 vs 16.5%; Chi-square (2) = 8.02, p = 0.02). Those who reported prior exposure to the CRT scored significantly higher than those who had not (5.08 [1.44] vs 3.87 [1.70]; F(2, 201) = 14.34, p < 0.001).

Self-reported AOT was associated with cognitive reflection and indicates a role for open-mindedness in paramedics to support decision-making.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether analysts’ personal cognitive traits mitigate the efficacy of graphical impression management.

Three experiments are conducted wherein 525 professional accountants working as financial analysts rate a hypothetical company’s performance graph depicting its net income trend. The manipulation is the presence (absence) of impression management techniques. Hypotheses test whether different techniques are effective and whether analysts’ cognitive reflection ability mitigates manipulation efficacy.

Presentation enhancement is effective only with impulsive analysts, showing the weakness of this technique through the use of colors. Measurement distortion and selectivity techniques are effective for reflective and impulsive analysts; however, reflective analysts are more critical about graphs prepared via selectivity that emphasize profit recovery following crises.

Each impression management technique is investigated in isolation and in controlled conditions. Further research could consider how personal cognitive traits impact the efficacy of combined techniques and whether imbedding manipulated graphs with other information mitigates impression management efficacy.

Research on impression management is mostly “task-oriented;” few “people-oriented” studies focus on decision making by those using financial reports. Users’ cognitive reflection ability is shown to undermine the efficacy of some impression management techniques.

Financial analysts, auditors and regulators could develop mechanisms to avoid pervasive usage of (or enhance skepticism regarding) techniques not mitigated by users’ reflectiveness.

Evidence from financial analysts with an accounting background provides insights on individual characteristics’ influence on graphical impression management efficacy.

How does self-efficacy affect employee well-being? The purpose of this paper is to increase insight in the underlying process between employee self-efficacy and well-being at work (i.e. emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction) by investigating the mediating role of employees’ engagement in reflection and rumination.

A representative sample of the Dutch working population (n=506) filled out an online questionnaire. Structural equation modeling was used to test the measurement model and research model.

As predicted, self-efficacy was significantly related to emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction. Rumination mediated the self-efficacy-exhaustion relationship. Reflection did not serve as a mediator; although reflection was predicted by self-efficacy, it was unrelated to exhaustion and job satisfaction.

This cross-sectional study was restricted to self-report measures. Longitudinal research is needed to validate the findings and to further investigate the relationship between reflection and rumination.

Organizations might try to support their employees’ well-being through interventions that strengthen employees’ self-efficacy, and prevent or decrease rumination.

This study increases the understanding of the role of reflection and rumination at work. The findings indicate that self-reflection can have positive as well as negative outcomes.

The aim of this paper is to develop a tool measuring individual intellectual capital (IIC) and investigate the relationship between self-reflection and IIC.

This study developed a theoretical model based on social cognitive theory and the literature of self-reflection and intellectual capital (IC). This research collected responses from 502 dyads of employees and their direct supervisors in 150 firms in China, and the study tested the research model using structural equation modeling (SEM).

The results indicate that three components of self-reflection, namely, need for self-reflection, engagement in self-reflection and insight, significantly contribute to all the three components of IIC, such as individual human capital, individual structural capital and individual relational capital. The findings suggest that need for self-reflection is the weakest component to impact individual human capital and individual relationship capital, while insight is the one that mostly enhances individual structural capital.

This paper suggests that managers can enhance employees' IIC by facilitating their self-reflection. Managers can develop appropriate strategies based on findings of this study, to achieve their specific goals.

First, this study develops a tool for measuring IIC. Second, this study provides an enriched theoretical explanation on the relationship between self-reflection and IIC – by showing that the three subdimensions of self-reflection, such as need, engagement and insight, influence the three subdimensions of IIC, such as individual human capital, individual structural capital and individual relational capital.

Failure plays a pivotal role in entrepreneurial learning. Knowledge of the learning process that enables an entrepreneur to re-emerge stronger after a failure, though considerable, is fragmented. This paper systematically collects relevant literature, assigns it to the stages of the experiential learning process (concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, active experimentation; Kolb, 1984), evaluates the research coverage of each stage and identifies promising avenues for future research.

This systematic literature review follows the guidelines articulated by Short (2009) and Tranfield et al. (2003), using Web of Science and EBSCO as primary data sources. Kolb’s (1984) experiential learning theory provides a basis for organizing the identified material into a framework of entrepreneurial learning from failure.

The literature provides insights on all stages of the process of entrepreneurial learning from failure. Particularly well elaborated are the nature of failure and its triggering effect for reflection, the factors influencing reflection, the contents of the resulting learning and their application in entrepreneurial re-emergence. Other topics remain under-researched, including alternative modes of recovery, the impact of personal attributes upon reflection, the cognitive processes underlying reflection, the transformation of failure-based observations into logically sound concepts and the application of this learning in non-entrepreneurial contexts.

This review provides the most complete overview of research into the process of entrepreneurial learning from failure. The systematic, theory-based mapping of this literature takes stock of current knowledge and proposes areas for future research.

Introducing technology at work presents a special challenge as learning is tightly integrated with workplace practices. Current design-based research (DBR) methods are focused on formal learning context and often questioned for a lack of yielding traceable research insights. This paper aims to propose a method that extends DBR by understanding tools as sociocultural artefacts, co-designing affordances and systematically studying their adoption in practice.

The iterative practice-centred method allows the co-design of cognitive tools in DBR, makes assumptions and design decisions traceable and builds convergent evidence by consistently analysing how affordances are appropriated. This is demonstrated in the context of health-care professionals’ informal learning, and how they make sense of their experiences. The authors report an 18-month DBR case study of using various prototypes and testing the designs with practitioners through various data collection means.

By considering the cognitive level in the analysis of appropriation, the authors came to an understanding of how professionals cope with pressure in the health-care domain (domain insight); a prototype with concrete design decisions (design insight); and an understanding of how memory and sensemaking processes interact when cognitive tools are used to elaborate representations of informal learning needs (theory insight).

The method is validated in one long-term and in-depth case study. While this was necessary to gain an understanding of stakeholder concerns, build trust and apply methods over several iterations, it also potentially limits this.

Besides generating traceable research insights, the proposed DBR method allows to design technology-enhanced learning support for working domains and practices. The method is applicable in other domains and in formal learning.

This research investigated the creative representations and written reflections of 74 pre-service teachers in two teacher education courses from two large public research universities. Using qualitative methodology, this study examined images of teaching in conjunction with written reflections as a measure of the developmental level of learning to teach. As the representations were analyzed, the very personal nature in which these representations were constructed became apparent, along with the importance of the students’ own past personal experiences. Moreover, sophistication of reflective comments also differed across groups. Differences between the two groups are discussed and implications for future research are offered.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate ways to gain deeper understanding of the evaluation challenge by reporting on insights about the impact of a leadership development program. It focusses on participants’ reflective post-course analysis of their learning, comparing this to a traditional evaluative analysis. Recently there has been a greater focus on programs to develop leaders who have the requisite cognitive and behavioral complexity to lead in challenging environments. However models for the evaluation of such programs often rely on methodologies that assume learning of specific skills rather than assessment of how well participants are able to cognitively and behaviorally adapt to uncertain and complex environments.

The leadership development program was evaluated in two stages and the findings compared. Stage 1 elicited responses to the program using a traditional evaluation approach. Stage 2 involved 30 semi-structured interviews with the participants exploring the connections made between their development experience, work environment and approach to challenge.

Evaluation approaches which focus on assessing reflection about personal learning provide greater detail on learning experience than traditional approaches to evaluation and can increase our understanding of the broader impact of leadership development programs. Current evaluation practices are mostly traditional despite dissatisfaction with outcomes. There are functional and financial benefits flowing from this practice suggesting collusion with denial between the suppliers and purchasers of leadership development and posing a question of causation.

This study supports the use of qualitative evaluation techniques and in particular a focus on post-learning reflection to increase understanding of the impact of leadership development programs. The increased understanding provided by this type of evaluation can play a significant role in both the design of leader development programs and the creation of strategic alignment between business strategy, the purpose of leadership development interventions, learning objectives, program design and program evaluation.