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The authors investigate the relationship between instant messenger (IM) use and work performance, mediated by interruptions and two key indicators of the stress associated with technology use: overload and complexity.

The authors validate this research model using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) with data collected through a survey of 416 working professionals.

The data reveal that while IM use contributes minimally to work interruptions and to a greater extent to technological complexity, these two constructs fully mediate the direct influence of IM use at work on technology overload, and meanwhile significantly and directly contribute to work performance.

This research provides theoretical insights into the deployment of IM and its actual impacts in the workplace. To improve the generalisation of the findings, the authors call for more IM-related research in other countries, with more native theories and various methodologies in this domain.

The level of stress generated through IM use is moderate, considering IM is not a significant contributor to work interruptions. Thus, despite the potential negative effects of IM communication, the positive effects of using IM at work prevail. As a result, the technology can be promoted as long as employees, their managers and the organisation as a whole are well prepared. Employees can transfer skills and behaviour from the personal setting to their work environment and thus may find an intrinsic motivation to make better use of the IM technology at work.

The authors argue that this research model is novel for its perspective on evaluating the actual impacts of IM use at work instead of the reasons of using it. The authors conceptualise the process to explain how IM contributes to interruptions and other technostress indicators in the working context, and the impact on performance. Contrary to some prior research, the authors find that overall IM applications do not have a negative impact on work performance, and instead may enhance it.

This paper aims to study the origin story of Harvard Business School’s involvement with the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad to study the reasons for the spread of American management education. It introduces both the explicit influence of Cold War politics and Indian development imaginaries to the export of American management thought in the early 1960s.

This paper relies on archival research for its primary source material, drawing upon rich archives of documents found at the Baker Library of Harvard Business School.

Harvard’s role in Ahmedabad was explicitly influenced by the Cold War anti-communist foreign policy of the USA, but did so opportunistically and contrary to the Ford Foundation’s (FF) original plans. Vikram Sarabhai, who was a key player in the Indian national imaginary of development, invited Harvard on his own initiative and forced the foundation to follow his interests rather than being a mere “subaltern.”

This paper could additionally add to the historical debate about the scope and periodization of the Cold War and the role of non-state actors.

This paper covers new ground in exploring the early connection between the Indian development imaginary and business education. It concludes that the export of hegemonic US management education was not successful during Cold War, and the FF was not as dominant as it was made out to be.

The purpose of this study was to examine how two socio-historical contexts within the United States, the Movement for Black Lives and the COVID-19 pandemic, informed approaches to improving racial climate in science, technology, mathematics and engineering (STEM) graduate education.

The authors used a general qualitative inquiry research study design to conduct focus groups (n = 121) with graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and faculty members from across STEM disciplines as well as administrators whose work involves STEM graduate students. Participants were from two US institutions involved in a National Science Foundation networked improvement community seeking to create inclusive environments for STEM graduate students.

This study demonstrates how these socio-historical contexts illuminated and amplified on-going efforts to address racial climate for graduate students in US-based graduate education. In response to these events, STEM faculty devoted time that otherwise might have gone to purely technical or scientific endeavors to addressing racial climate. However, some faculty members remain hesitant to address racial climate and efforts appear to have further waned over time. While diversity, inclusion and equity efforts came to the forefront of the collective consciousness during this time, participants worry that these efforts are not sustainable, particularly without support from faculty and administrators.

The findings from this study will inform efforts to improve racial climate in STEM graduate programs.

This study fills an identified need to capture how socio-historical contexts, like the US Movement for Black Lives and the COVID-19 pandemic, have influenced approaches to improving racial climate in STEM graduate programs.

This study applies complexity theory to propose and empirically examine asymmetric case conditions of antecedents and outcome models of high (low) willingness-to-engage in workplace romance (WEWR). This study focuses on constructing complex antecedent conditions that accurately indicate which employees, and under what conditions, employees are high in WEWR.

Using an experimental design, 162 employees were assigned one of nine hypothetical vignettes describing different workplace romance contexts including three discrete policies regarding workplace romances (i.e. strictly forbidden, moderate, vs no policy), two motivations for the workplace romance (i.e. job vs love), and two organizational positions of the romance (i.e. hierarchical vs lateral). Participants then reported WEWR responses. Participants also provided demographic, behavioral, and psychological work-related information. This study assesses and supports recipes (i.e. algorithms) of case and organizational structure conditions to identify cases high (low) in WEWR accurately and consistently.

The results provide clarity of which and when employees are willing vs unwilling to engage in workplace romances – and the contextualized impacts of organizational bans on WEWR. The study’s results are useful for estimating for whom specific workplace policies are effective or not by specific workplace contexts.

In highlighting the role of varying antecedent conditions in predicting WEWR, this research will assist organizations and practitioners in understanding the context in which workplace romances are more likely to occur, providing insight as to when employees are likely to comply with workplace romance policies.

This paper is the first in the workplace romance literature to examine unique combinations of antecedent conditions on WEWR, adding nuance to the current understanding of the behavior.

The present study aims to deepen the understanding of the relationship between nostalgic brand positioning, nostalgic brand relationship dimensions and brand love.

This study is based on the data collected from 401 citizens of Tehran aged over 18 years old. Respondents admitted that they have felt love for at least one Iranian brand in their lives. The data collected from a questionnaire and the hypothesized relationships were analyzed using the partial least squares approach using Smart PLS.

The results showed that nostalgic brand positioning positively and significantly impacts nostalgic brand relationship dimensions. Also, there was a positive and significant relationship between nostalgic brand relationship dimensions and brand love. Nostalgic brand positioning has a significant effect on brand love through the mediating role of the nostalgic brand relationship.

The major contribution of this research is that, based on the construal level theory and literature review, the authors developed a conceptual model in which nostalgic brand relationship dimensions, i.e. emotional attachment, brand local iconness, and brand authenticity, explain how nostalgic brand positioning results in brand love.