Search results

The use of the concept of “agency,” in the sense of action that is to some extent free of “structural” constraints, has enjoyed enormous and growing popularity in the sociological literature over the past several decades. In a previous paper, we examined the range of theoretical rationales offered by sociologists for the inclusion of the notion of “agency” in sociological explanations. Having found these rationales seriously wanting, in this paper we attempt to determine empirically what role “agency” actually plays in the recent sociological literature. We examine a random sample of 147 articles in sociology journals that use the concept of “agency” with the aim of identifying the ways in which the term is used and what function the concept serves in the sociological explanations offered. We identify four principal (often overlapping) uses of “agency”: (1) purely descriptive; (2) as a synonym for “power”; (3) as a way to identify resistance to “structural” pressures; and (4) as a way to describe intelligible human actions. We find that in none of these cases the notion of “agency” adds anything of analytical or explanatory value. These different uses have one thing in common, however: they all tend to use the term “agency” in a strongly normative sense to mark the actions the authors approve of. We conclude that “agency” seems to serve the purpose of registering the authors' moral or political preferences under the guise of a seemingly analytical concept.

Interest in using popular movies in higher education has flourished, but determining their actual impact remains tricky. Some studies suggest these movies can positively affect student satisfaction, yet many criticize this method as ineffective or lazy. Our study compared two ways of using popular movies – watching them in class versus a flipped approach – for an advanced finance module. We aim to examine the best teaching delivery of watching popular movies in an advanced module.

This study compares two teaching methods during movie screenings: a didactic flipped classroom (Group 01) and in-class viewing (Group 02). The sampling frame was final-year finance students from a public university. It was conducted over two academic years and involved 190 students aged 20–23. These students were split into two groups: G01, with 93 students, and G02, with 97 students. The study focused on the movie “Big Short,” chosen for its relevance to the Fixed-Income Securities course (the advanced module).

Our findings indicate both methods led to high student satisfaction, with no significant difference between in-class viewing and the flipped approach. However, the understanding of the advanced module significantly increased overall. Importantly, using popular movies as flipped material resulted in better student grades compared to in-class viewing. This suggests that while using popular movies is a beneficial teaching method, employing a didactic flipped classroom approach yields superior outcomes for students.

This research offers practical insights for instructors, highlighting the value of utilizing popular movies in advanced education. It suggests incorporating movies as learning materials can enhance student satisfaction, particularly when employed within a flipped classroom framework. Importantly, the study reveals that adopting the flipped classroom approach yields superior academic outcomes compared to traditional in-class viewing. Thus, instructors teaching advanced modules should consider integrating popular movies within flipped classrooms to not only enhance student satisfaction but also improve academic performance.

Our research investigates popular movies' efficacy, particularly in advanced finance education. While previous studies have explored using movies to enhance student satisfaction, this study investigates it further by comparing two delivery methods: the didactic flipped classroom and traditional in-class viewing. While both methods effectively increase student satisfaction, the didactic flipped classroom significantly improves academic performance. This highlights the innovative potential of the flipped approach in promoting deeper learning and suggests practical implications for instructors seeking to enhance both satisfaction and academic outcomes in advanced courses.

The growing cost and difficulty related to “finding someone” suggests that the role of service organisations in explicitly supporting and designing opportunities for love between customers merits further attention. This study employs a multidisciplinary approach of both services marketing and the economics of mate choice to understand how service organisations can exercise the third place effect and facilitate human mate choice (love) opportunities for consumers in extended service encounters.

Three qualitative co-design workshops were conducted with actors (students, casual and professional staff) from the Australian university ecosystem (n = 36) to identify consumer expectations related to mate selection in third place service contexts. A quantitative online survey of (n = 1207) current Australian university students was used to rank the importance of core and enhancing service elements.

The authors find that love holds a status in the minds of some consumers as an implicitly expected by-product of participation within the core service consumption experience in third places. For service providers to facilitate mate choice opportunities in third places, the results suggest that the design of the connective mechanism(s) should maximise opportunities for informal consumer-to-consumer interaction to allow prospective partners to ascertain compatibility. Further, consumers expect the organisational facilitation of engagement in order to clarify expected etiquette and support goal congruence. In the tertiary education marketplace for love, there is an increased preference for interpersonal engagement by those studying on campus (compared to externally), and a positive relationship between duration of enrolment and increased priority for mate choice service provision.

This research makes a novel theoretical and empirical contribution by being the first exploration of the economics of third place love in the tertiary education sector, also being a research primer for the field of services marketing to consider service design in third places to support mate choice.

This study is based on the enforcement record from Canada’s natural mutual fund regulator. This record documented a small subset of mutual fund dealers who had been disciplined for their misconduct from 2007 to 2014. The purpose of this paper is to determine what factors contribute to mutual fund dealers’ time to first financial fraud offense. The longer the time to fraud, the healthier the mutual fund industry and the better a mutual fund dealer’s career.

Based on the belief that adversity reveals true character, the study approaches a mutual dealer’s career success from human capital, socio-demographic and organizational sponsorship points of view by measuring dealers’ success as their time from career beginning to first instance of financial fraud. Ordinary least square regression analysis was used to identify if those factors, including provision of supervisor reminders, gender, position and penalties, are related to career success within the Canadian mutual fund regulatory framework. The research is based on a small sample of mutual fund dealers who had been disciplined for their misconduct from 2007 to 2014.

The study finds that a supervisor’s reminders positively contribute to the career success of a mutual fund dealer in the form of extending their time to fraud. As well, being female is an adverse factor to career success even when both female and male dealers received about the same level of supervisor reminders. It also finds that being in a management position has no association with time to fraud.

The study establishes the statistically significant positive relationship between time to fraud and supervisor’s reminders for mutual fund dealers. At the same time, it shows that human capital and access to organizational resources, measured by being in a management position, have no significant relation to when fraud is committed. This result indicates the value of continuing education for all mutual fund dealers, both inexperienced and experienced.

The transition to a circular economy (CE) is a known concern in the context of the textile industry, in which business actors attempt to facilitate circular activities such as textile recycling. However, a lack of established business relationships and networks creates uncertainty for textile circulation. In such business environments, managerial decisions regarding CE may depend not only on normative behaviour but also on heuristics that guide their choices. Since business relationships for textile circularity require interactions between business actors, this study explores how managerial heuristics are shaped in the CE transition within the textile industry and their impact on actors’ interactions within business relationships and networks.

Empirically, this qualitative study is based on interviews with managers representing companies and organisations engaged in business relationships and networks aimed at a CE transition in the textile industry, as well as on publicly available secondary data.

The findings indicate that managerial decisions promoting circularity can be influenced by, besides normative information assessment, factors predominant in (1) the business and regulatory environment, (2) managers’ experience and knowledge obtained during interactions within business networks and (3) the internal strategic approaches of business organisations. This study identifies adaptation, experience, interaction and strategy heuristics that may be utilised by managers in making decisions in the context of uncertainty, such as the industrial transition to a CE.

This study expands the knowledge of heuristics applied to managerial decision making in interacting business firms and institutional organisations aiming to facilitate textile recycling and proposes a heuristics toolbox. The study provides an insight into business actors’ interactions, as well as various factors inside and outside the organisations shaping the managerial decisions. By doing this, the study adds to the literature, highlighting the importance of contextualisation and the interrelation between the individual and business environment levels in business-to-business management.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of blended working (BW) on individual payoffs like psychological ownership (PO), affective organizational commitment (AOC) and digital stress (DS). Additionally, the study also examines the moderating role of organizational optimism (OO) on the relationships stated to determine the boundary condition of the relationship between BW and the individual payoffs.

A longitudinal field survey based on executives employed in the Indian service industries (comprised of state-owned banks, three healthcare and four MNCs) was conducted. Levels of BW, AOC, PO, DS and OO were measured through a validated scale, and the relationships' significance was explored.

The result indicated that BW positively influences AOC and DS, while OO influences PO positively and DS negatively. OO also moderates the influence of BW on PO and DS.

This research extends its contribution to the extant literature by (1) exploring the unique context of research in work conditions (BW) across India, (2) examining macro level factor (OO) in the linkage between BW and psychosocial factors, (3) investigating the moderating effect of OO and (4) considering a relatively large sample for empirical analysis in several waves to study BW and its individual pay-offs.

Lacking lecturers in higher education is an international issue where society faces insufficient educational services to enlighten one’s future, and lecturer work satisfaction also merits higher attention. Work satisfaction is closely associated with turnover rates, lecturer retention, overall university cohesion, lecturers’ well-being, professional teaching improvement and research and publication performances. This study aims to explore how causes of actions (work–family conflict [WFC] and workload) influence consequences (stress and burnout) which affect the overall attitude (lecturer work satisfaction).

Researchers collected data from 450 Thai lecturers from different universities via survey questionnaires. Furthermore, a structural equation model method was used to analyze the data.

Results showed that lecturer stress was significantly influenced by WFC and workload. Next, stress, workload and WFC were the main predictors of lecturer burnout. Then, lecturer work satisfaction was significantly influenced by burnout, except stress. Finally, a relationship between lecturer stress and work satisfaction was mediated by burnout.

This research proposes a theoretical mechanism to analyze how causes of actions (WFC and workload) influence consequences (stress and burnout) which lead to a development of lecturer attitude (work satisfaction) in higher education.

This study aims to make a distinction between actualized and claimed affordances of blockchain by examining how a specified user group interprets and translates the actualized affordances from a known use context into their existing practices. This allows us to develop and advance the concept of affordances-in-practice as an enactment of action possibilities through practices in a specified use context.

We focus on the field of sustainable investment (SI) and its relation to emerging blockchain technologies in the pursuit of sustainable development goals (SDGs). We used a field study involving 29 interviews with SI practitioners and blockchain entrepreneurs in South Africa, supplemented with an analysis of 91 practitioner and industry documents.

Our findings show that when there is a lack of actual use cases in the field of SI, the claimed affordances of blockchain are subject to a sensemaking process, which considers how action possibilities can be enacted and transformed through practices and how institutional constraints and socio-cognitive barriers can determine the available action possibilities.

A notable limitation relates to the relative novelty and emerging status of blockchain. As affordances are based on available information and experience, this leaves room for claimed affordances. We discuss the implications of the interplay of the actualized and claimed affordances in blockchain applications in the field of SI.

We discuss the practical implications of addressing claimed affordances and field opacity in the SI field.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine blockchain affordances for good in the context of achieving SDGs through SI. Our affordances-in-practice framework holds theoretical promise to pinpoint and explain how practices can shape action possibilities despite having difficulties in evaluating the underlying technological potentialities.