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The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of stakeholder integration and project complexity on information technology (IT) projects in Kenya. The following research question guided our inquiry: what is the influence of project complexity and stakeholder integration on the performance of IT projects in Kenya?

To advance the current understanding of the effect of stakeholder integration and project complexity on IT projects, multiple regressions were used to predict how project complexity and stakeholder integration influence project performance. Both government-funded and privately funded IT projects from a developing country were examined.

The study found that any project’s complexity and stakeholder integration levels offer a distinctive contribution to its success. Theoretically, the study contributes to linkages between stakeholder integration and project complexity concerning IT project performance. Through the adoption of actionable research and theoretical elaboration, we have shown that the successful execution of IT projects is driven by the successful integration of stakeholders and monitoring the level of complexity at each phase of the project.

The findings of this study add to the burgeoning literature on the performance of IT projects and come with several managerial implications as well. It brings to the fore the concept of stakeholder integration as an essential element of project success. The findings suggest that the inclusion of stakeholder integration into corporate decisions, strategies and policies can be an asset to the production of sustainable competitive advantages needed during the implementation of IT projects in government entities and organisations. As shown in this study, all the above require a collaborative platform allowing for data sharing among diverse stakeholders to ameliorate distrust or lack of information.

This research aims to evaluate the status of project management best practices in the road infrastructure sector of Ghana through the inquiry of project managers’ competency.

Based on a thorough literature review on competency and project management best practices, a criterion for measuring best practices based on the competencies was identified. Using closed-ended questionnaires as a survey instrument, data was collected and analyzed using a one-sample t-test, Kendall’s concordance coefficient and simple regression.

The key finding reveals that in achieving project management best practices for the Ghanaian road infrastructure projects, project managers should straighten and strengthen their capability in terms of skills, personal characteristics and knowledge as ranked. An appropriate blend of these characteristics would be a necessary requirement for project managers. Through this, project managers and project-based road infrastructure organizations will be able to win the confidence of their stakeholders and attain improvements in cost-effectiveness, quality and time management.

This study provides project managers in the road infrastructure sector with relevant information on which criteria and variables are critical and are frequently required to manage such projects. This will be helpful for training programs and professional development of project managers in the road infrastructure sector.

The study provides a new direction and focuses for project managers in the road infrastructure industry toward best project management practices in developing countries. It also complements existing studies in this area which deepen the understanding of the subject area.

Following Joseph Schumpeter's conception of innovation as ‘new innovations’, this chapter contends that innovations that transform lives in developing countries of Southern Africa are not radically new and different novelties but rather ‘new combinations’ at the interface of new materialisations (creative expression) and exploitations of new opportunities (entrepreneurship). We argue that this posture is not a contestation of the reality that novelty enter the system through the development of new technologies, processes and new ways of organising, but rather such novelty is a process of recombining existing elements in new ways. I build on this argument to demonstrate that in resource-poor contexts where institutional voids frustrate entrepreneurs' potential to deploy innovation capabilities for generating groundbreaking innovation, innovations and entrepreneurship are outcomes of ‘tinkering’, improvision and refinement of unsophisticated creative ideas. Drawing on exemplars from health, education, finance and poverty alleviation interventions that support sustainable human development, I also demonstrate that high knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship (KIE) and low knowledge-intensive frugal innovations are mutually constitutive and recursive outputs of the interaction of knowledge application and innovation conversion rather than serial processes of cause and effect. Using combinative innovation, internal coupling and combinative capabilities as heuristics for understanding the entrepreneurship–innovation nexus, I provide empirical support to the view that entrepreneurial effectuation, new combinations, bricolage and improvision constitute useful cognitive arena for the conversion of entrepreneurial and innovation behaviours, practices and processes into KIE and frugal innovation outputs.

The 7th decade manager (7DM) is an overlooked and under-researched group in organisation studies. This paper explores the changes which 7DMs experience in later life through the lenses of age, work and identity.

An interpretivist methodology was adopted and data were obtained via semi-structured interviews with 32 managers across 10 different sectors in England and Scotland. These data were analysed thematically.

Change manifested itself in various contradictory ways across three domains of age, work and identity. Age was experienced dichotomously, with these 7DMs identifying as subjectively younger yet openly (if reluctantly) accepting signs of ageing. They appeared more tolerant and kinder but could be impatient and outspoken. Work remained important, providing structure, a sense of purpose and camaraderie; however, career progression was not. Altruistically, the 7DMs exercised generativity by providing their colleagues with counsel in both work and personal matters. Their sense of self and identity work featured prominently, particularly in the liminality associated with the impending cessation of work. Preparation for the psychosocial transition to retirement was lacking.

This project would have benefitted from a larger and broader cohort demographic. Whether there are any significant gender or ethnic differences in attitudes, values or approaches to work cannot be ascertained from the data obtained. Future studies should therefore include a greater diversity of participants. There may also be merit in investigating if any differences exist for the ex-military 7DM manager compared to others.

Organisations can benefit from greater recognition of the value experienced managers in their later working lives can bring. Both the broader community of managers and their employers would benefit from leveraging the experience, knowledge and attributes of older managers in their passage through their 7th decade and better prepare younger people to succeed them.

Different agencies such as government, employers, professional bodies like the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, Trade Unions or consultancies may wish to explore the benefits and practicalities of preparing the individual for the transition to retirement. Importantly, this should address the psychosocial connotations associated with ceasing work. Whilst this applies to all 7th decade workers, we suggest that there are some challenges that are peculiar to being an older manager.

Whilst much is known about older workers, research relating to older managers, especially those in their seventh decade, is largely absent. This paper illustrates the changes and challenges they experience in both their professional and personal lives, some of which seem to be unique to this age group and many of which would benefit from being addressed in organisational policy and practice as well as further research.

This paper aimed to test a proposed framework highlighting strategic green marketing initiatives and how they drive new technology implementation towards green corporate performance, underpinned by institutional isomorphism.

The study used a quantitative method and convenience sampling approach in gathering data using adapted questionnaires to solicit first-hand information from 225 employees of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the tourism and hospitality sector underpinned by the theory of institutional isomorphism.

The study shows that green communication and green strategy alignment have significant predictive effects on new technology implementation. Cultural isomorphism significantly moderated the effects of implementing new technology (i.e. green communication and strategy alignment). In addition, “new technology implementation had a significant predictive effect on green corporate performance”. Meanwhile, the moderation effect of “green creative behaviour on the new technology-green corporate performance dyad was positive but insignificant.”

The study’s novel framework confirms how green communication strategy and green strategy alignment complement cultural isomorphism to explain the impact of new technology implementation on green corporate performance, underpinned by institutional isomorphism.

Answering two questions: What do people believe is the gender makeup of different occupations? If there is a systematic difference between the actual and perceived gender composition what factors predict or mediate this difference?

We integrate three occupation-level datasets: ratings of perceived gender composition and cultural sentiments (EPA ratings) for every 2010 Census occupation collected for this study, occupational characteristics from O*NET, and demographic characteristics from the 2015 to 2019 Current Population Survey. Regression models examine the association between sentiments and objective occupational traits on the perceived gender composition net of the actual gender composition.

While respondents underestimate extreme values, perceptions largely reflect actual composition. Gendered sentiments had a significant independent effect on gender composition perceptions. Examining the relationship between objective occupational features, sentiments, and perceptions allows scholars to better understand the links between structural conditions, gendered beliefs, and social action. If individuals underestimate the extent of gender segregation and view some occupations as more diverse than they are, they may be more willing to consider occupations inconsistent with their gender identity. On the other hand, if they misperceive gender composition because of cultural sentiments, they may choose an occupational course somewhat different from their intentions.

Research on gender composition typically employs either a macro approach based on governmental statistics or a micro approach that examines a limited number of occupations. This is the first study to conduct a complete census of every Census occupation for perceived gender composition and cultural sentiments.

This chapter explores perspectives on the role of leaders in higher education to promote wellbeing that strengthens capabilities and capacities and provides means for sustainable achievement and flourishing. The author discusses perspectives on health and wellness and approaches to wellbeing, flourishing, and thriving to find and create work–life balance and addresses training and development to enhance knowledge on the importance of wellbeing. The chapter is based on a qualitative interview study on practices of wellbeing, flourishing, and thriving in educational organizations with a purposive sample of six higher education leaders in the USA, Canada, and Jamaica. The findings revealed that promoting wellbeing in higher education demands qualities promoted by leaders such as capability, capacity, and sustainability for success. The chapter concludes with a theoretical framework on educational leaders’ wellbeing, flourishing, and sustainability that can create opportunities for leaders’ to understand health and wellness in their institutions effectively.

This chapter presents the findings of an extracurricular online beta test of a competition between students of the University of Wales Trinity Saint David and the International University of Malaya-Wales. The competition is intended to promote the concept of harmonious entrepreneurship and the creation of student-led harmonious enterprises that address the global sustainability challenge and deliver a triple bottom line in which profit, people, and planet are in harmony. It reveals that extracurricular learning can attract students from disciplines other than business and can educate the participants, both staff and students, not just about harmonious entrepreneurship but also how to identify and launch an innovative harmonious enterprise that addresses a sustainability challenge. The test identifies how the competition may be improved prior to its global launch and makes recommendations for students, educators, mentors, providers, and universities as to how it might best be implemented. Once revised and launched the competition will be further tested to better understand how extracurricular learning can help advance the delivery of both entrepreneurship and sustainability education in universities and colleges around the globe.