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This special issue reveals how lesson study in China continues to serve as a powerful platform to support change in teaching. The papers included in this issue explore how university faculty members and researchers support teachers to cross boundaries resulting from the introduction of key competencies-based (hexin suyang 核心素养) curriculum reform (KCR).

The theme of continuity and change is examined against the backdrop of Chinese lesson study's (CLS's) consistent supporting role in enabling curriculum reform. These analyses make use of concepts involved in understanding boundary crossing, such as using boundary objects and their roles, to help make sense of the new theories, tools, and resources as well as relationships engendered in responding to the reform's demand. While recognizing the continuity at play in Chinese LS, the authors use the lens of learning at the boundary of research-practice partnerships (RPPs) (Farrell et al., 2022) to contemplate the future of CLS.

The papers touch on three major themes: (1) the role of university-school partnerships in meeting the new demands of key competencies reform; (2) resourceful tools, strategies and structures to support boundary crossing for teachers; and (3) roles and relationships for mutual learning in university-school partnerships. Together these three themes, considered across the papers in this issue, point to the need to redefine CLS to engender versatility and hybridity and to enlist mutual learning relationships in future university-school partnerships. Such redefinition positions lesson study to both continue and change.

The papers in this issue are expected to promote mutualist learning in future CLS research-practice partnerships. To do so, research needs to move from focusing on change of a single case teacher to clarifying what experts and teachers each learn from the LS and from each other. Attention also needs to focus on the collaborative discourse and ways such discourse is able to promote mutual learning, emotional support in facing change as well as critical and constructive problem solving.

Practically, to better support boundary crossing, this special issue encourages academics and teachers to identify and work around boundary objects and their enabling features to enhance knowledge and identity of both university and teacher participants for more effective research-practice partnerships.

This special issue offers a pioneering set of studies that contributes to an in-depth understanding of how CLS is supporting the current competencies-based reform in China. It also provides concrete future directions for research and practice to enhance university-school partnerships' response to reform.

In this article the authors discuss the utility of value‐based management on the basis of the case of value‐based management in the Mayor’s office of the administration of the Municipal of Aalborg, Northern Denmark. This was done in response to the pressure on public organizations in complex Scandinavian welfare states. They argue that value‐based management was introduced as an efficient way to make the organization more open to stakeholder expectations and demands, in particular the increasing request for efficiency of public organizations by citizens. Accordingly, value‐based management is a way to make public organizations less bureaucratic and more service‐oriented in a welfare state which is more open to management strategies from private firms. In particular they emphasize the significance of middle managers for the success of the process in organizations. Middle managers are requested to internalize values in their daily work. If this is done value‐based management is an efficient way to improve boths the ethics and the utility of public organizations without transforming them totally in to private market‐driven organizations.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: First, to provide an overview of the COVID-19 pandemic and its holistic impacts and implications for organizations and management. Second, to report what organizations have been doing via their corporate social responsibilities about the pandemic. Research implications for academics are offered.

The approach taken in this article was to survey the literature and news reports about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and to summarize results. Further, the approach was to analyze these findings using my four-part CSR construct examining economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic impacts, implications, and responsibilities.

It was found that the COVID-19 pandemic has had important impacts and implications for most spheres or sectors of the business world. Employees, consumers and communities have been the most significantly affected, but other stakeholder groups in societies are being impacted as well. The global pandemic is putting CSR to the test, and the emerging evidence supports the idea that many companies are striving to reset their CSR thinking and initiatives to accommodate this crisis and to meet what the public expects of them.

Much of this paper involved reporting findings that have appeared in the literature and news. The originality involved interpreting and analyzing stakeholders affected, and how managers have been responding to these challenges. Strategic recommendations are offered.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the relationship between authentic leadership and the ethic of care (EoC) and to propose that leadership is characterized by the commitment of others that is represented by EoC’s moral perspective.

This paper is a conceptual paper that compares authentic leadership characteristics with the moral and ethical elements of EoC.

This paper proposes that authentic leadership is closely tied to the commitment of others which characterizes the leader’s moral responsibility and shows how EoC fits with 11 other ethical perspectives in enabling leaders to serve others

The contribution of this paper lies on its focus on the importance of EoC as a guiding moral perspective in the actions of authentic leaders. Although authentic leadership has been written about extensively, very little has been written to link authentic leadership with the EoC.

The purpose of this paper is to explain the importance of virtuous leadership and identify six characteristics that are necessary for the modern leader to be effective in an increasingly challenging and competitive world market.

Theory development.

The authors suggest that virtuous leaders possess an uncommon level of commitment to those employees whom they serve, to their customers, to their shareholders, and to society at large, the authors extend the concept of the moral continuum and identify the importance of a virtuous perspective in honoring the obligation to optimize wealth creation and enriching outcomes and relationships, and the authors suggest ten propositions about virtuous leadership that may be empirically tested by both scholars and practitioners who are interested in studying and/or applying virtuous leadership to improve relationships and build organizations.

Original article.

The article outlines the arguments by the proponents and opponents of maximizing shareholder value and identifies the true threat the concept poses to U.S. businesses.

The author quotes authorities on both side of the debate over the validity of maximizing shareholder value as a driving principle of management and points out the risks and the alternatives. He notes that many long-established public corporations in the U.S. have chosen to bow to the power of shareholders and reward them instead of attempting risky initiatives that might create new customers or enhance customer value.

Maximizing shareholder value is either the guiding principle of business success that provides a rightful reward for investors or a corrupting influence that thwarts investment in employee talent, sustaining innovation, product quality and customer loyalty.

Since the C-suite is hugely compensated for increases in the current stock price, decisions based on “shareholder value” tend to be decisions that boost the current stock price.

As evidence the problem is being recognized, some CEOs have already spoken out against preferentially rewarding stockholders instead of investing to sustain the organization.

The author concludes that shareholder value theory has not only failed on its own narrow terms of making money for shareholders. It has been steadily destroying the productive capacity and dynamism of the entire economy.

Stakeholder capitalism has gained attention among business practitioners and academia, often discussed within the context of corporate social responsibility, ethical practices and values-based leadership. Many societal institutions, including businesses and higher education institutions, have a role to play in the transition toward stakeholder capitalism. This study aims to discuss insights gained from a multiyear research and pedagogical project coordinated among a group of academics and an Israel-based holding company to study the implementation of a values-based leadership process focused on establishing a stakeholder-oriented model in a variety of organizations.

Conducted over a decadal period, this project relied on a qualitative case study methodology. The project was conceived as an exploratory and inductive study examining organizations that implemented a values-based leadership model and a university that used this model for curriculum and pedagogy. Semi-structured interviews, observations of leadership practices and operations, and substantive reviews of organizational documents informed the study’s iterative methodology.

The case studies presented explore the benefits of a stakeholder capitalism and values-based leadership transformation in organizations and highlight the importance of senior leadership engagement at the outset to set the tone and direction of implementation while also role modeling values-based behaviors for the organization. The utility of aligning the new values-based approach with existing elements of the organizational culture and priorities was also identified in addition to the benefit of individuals linking the new values initiative to their personal values and life. These practices, and a broader stakeholder dialogue on values, helped establish a transition that was inclusive within the organizational hierarchy and in its connections to the larger society. The cases also explored how stakeholder principles and values-based leadership models can be integrated into management education based on the outcomes of the organizational investigations.

These case studies offer insight into the implementation of a values-based leadership framework, which draws on stakeholder theory, in diverse organizations across a for-profit to non-profit spectrum. These studies also provide a unique opportunity to evaluate the implementation of a common values framework in different sectors. The cases further highlight the potential role of business-education sectoral partnerships in educating a workforce that is dedicated to business for good.

Today’s businesses consist of diverse employees, many of whom are in a state of cognitive moral confusion. Some have trouble distinguishing right from wrong. Others question whether such standards even exist. Many businesses need a constant presence that reminds everyone to do the right thing. The name of that ethical conscience is the “ethics office.” Some companies have moved beyond compliance to an integrity‐based approach to ethics management, building a culture that embraces core values and an uncompromising implementation of legal and ethical principles. These guiding principles are embodied in the strategic planning process and evidenced in the daily decision making and actions of the firm. In integrity‐based companies, the ethics office truly serves as the organizational conscience, gently reminding management and employees alike to remember their ethical compass.