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There is evidence that both hypnotherapy and virtual reality (VR) can be helpful in reducing perceived stress in the general population. This is a feasibility and acceptability trial of an intervention combining hypnotherapy and VR to establish its acceptability in students. This study aims to establish whether students found the experience acceptable, described any adverse effects and whether they reported feeling calmer after the experience.

The study was testing the hypothesis that students would attend the sessions and find the experience acceptable. A secondary hypothesis was that preliminary qualitative and quantitative evaluation of measures of stress and wellbeing would signal potential improvements.

All participants completed all three sessions. No side effects were reported. Visual analogue scales recorded each day assessing the immediate effect improved. At the end of the intervention, there was an increase in wellbeing of 2.40 (95% CI: 1.33, 3.53, p = 0.006), and a decrease in depression of 0.73 (95% CI: 0.40, 1.07, p = 0.010), reflecting large effect sizes of 0.76 and 0.83, respectively. Qualitative feedback was generally very positive.

This study is small with just 15 students and was over a short period of time. The recruitment method meant there was no way to establish whether the volunteer students were representative of the general student population in terms of mental wellbeing. There was no control arm.

The preliminary results suggest that a larger controlled trial is justified.

This VR experience may have benefit to university students and to the wider population.

This described the evaluation of a novel intervention for perceived stress combining hypnotherapy and virtual reality in a group of healthcare students, with promising results suggesting further evaluation is needed.

This paper aims to discuss the effect of Canada’s regulatory framework on the strategies of entrepreneurial businesses during the first phase of legalization of the recreational cannabis industry. Decriminalization of cannabis required a host of regulatory changes at the federal, provincial and municipal levels. Each province developed legal markets independently, differentially impacting entrepreneurial strategies. This paper describes the value chain that emerged in the first phase of the nascent industry, focusing on the actions of the businesses.

The authors develop a qualitative narrative analysis using government publications, press articles (especially from the business press) and personal communications of industry insiders speaking in public settings. The paper includes four short case studies to illustrate the emerging value chain of the nascent industry.

The study’s findings highlight the effect of regulatory frameworks on entrepreneurial strategies. We find that public policies had a significant impact on entrepreneurs and startup strategies. Inter-jurisdictional differences limited expansion into different provinces, with implications for regional economic development. Achieving public policy goals was delayed as a result of regulatory challenges that impacted industry development.

The authors’ findings show enterprises may develop growth strategies that comply with regulations when participating in nascent industries, but they must cope with extra risks, capital costs and uncertainty. The analysis also illustrates the value of engaging in government-industry collaboration to improve emerging regulatory frameworks.

The originality of this research consists of the detailed description of the first phase of Canada’s legalized recreational cannabis industry and the insight gained into the dynamics of nascent industries.

Business schools play a significant role in providing individuals with the ability to adapt to constantly changing environments. Such agile organizations require deans who, as leaders, possess the knowledge and attributes of astute and responsible executives. In this regard, the measurement of the attributes of leadership paves the way for evaluating a leader’s options process. In this study, we measure the attributes of leadership to pave the way for evaluating a leader’s decision-making process.

The rich data included the opinions of 93 university professors from seven countries: Iran, India, China, France, the UK, Canada and the USA. In appraising the responses, the authors considered the nationality and the development level of each participant’s country and continent. In this study, the authors developed an online questionnaire based on the best-worst method (BWM). By performing a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), the authors also determined the significant statistical differences of the scientific communities through the lenses of authentic leadership, leader-member exchange and social identity and leadership.

The results provide evidence of transparency, measured as the most important criterion for leading a business school, i.e. knowledgeable deanship. Furthermore, the findings reveal a meaningful difference between developed and developing countries in the context of an authentic leadership pillar.

This paper contributed to the literature in five major ways as follows: The authors investigated the attitudes of scientific communities from different countries, business schools, BWM, dean selection and leadership evaluation.By means of the BWM, the authors measured the criteria culminating in the selection of a knowledgeable leader for a business school.The authors compared and contrasted the attitudes of scientific communities in developing countries vis-à-vis those in developed ones.The authors addressed the differences and similarities among countries in relation to the selection of a knowledgeable business school leader.The authors provided beneficial insights by addressing the different perspectives of researchers on the weights of the criteria involved in the selection procedure for a business school dean.

The main purpose of our study is to investigate the impact of daily leader humor behaviors on healthcare workers’ daily psychological state and behavioral outcomes.

Based on the conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study proposes that daily leader humor behaviors are positively related to healthcare workers’ daily positive affect, which in turn affects their next-day helping behaviors towards patients. These predictions hinge on healthcare workers’ difficulty in maintaining display rules. We conducted a lagged experience sampling methodology (ESM) survey of 621 complete daily observations from 93 healthcare workers who work in direct contact with patients at a large public hospital in China across consecutive 10 working days.

Results of multilevel path analysis demonstrate that daily leader humor behaviors are positively related to healthcare workers’ same-day positive affect, and this positive affect enhances their next-day helping behaviors towards patients. Furthermore, healthcare workers’ higher difficulty in maintaining display rules attenuates the benefits of daily leader humor behaviors.

Building on the COR theory and adopting a diary research design, this study shows daily fluctuations in leader humor behaviors and proposes a mechanism through which daily leader humor behaviors indirectly affect healthcare workers’ next-day helping behaviors. Thus, our study disclosed possible means for healthcare organizations to improve service quality.

This study aims to evaluate the suitability of Ferrock as a green construction material by analysing its engineering properties, environmental impact, economic viability and adoption challenges. It also aims to bridge knowledge gaps and provide guidance for integrating Ferrock into mainstream construction to support the decarbonisation of the built environment.

It presents a systematic and holistic review of existing literature on Ferrock, comprehensively analysing its mechanical properties, environmental and socio-economic impact and adoption challenges. The approach includes evaluating both quantitative and qualitative data to assess Ferrock’s potential in the construction sector.

Key findings highlight Ferrock’s superior mechanical properties, such as higher compressive and tensile strength, and enhanced durability compared to traditional Portland cement. Ferrock offers significant environmental benefits by capturing more CO₂ during curing than it emits, contributing to carbon sequestration and reducing energy consumption due to the absence of high-temperature processing. However, the material faces economic and technical challenges, including higher initial costs, scalability issues, lack of industry standards and variability in production quality.

This review provides a comprehensive and up-to-date analysis of Ferrock. Despite being discussed for a decade, Ferrock research has been overlooked, with existing studies often limited and published in poor-quality sources. By synthesising current research and identifying future study areas, the paper enhances understanding of Ferrock’s potential benefits and challenges. The originality lies in the holistic evaluation of Ferrock’s properties and its implications for the construction industry, offering insights that could drive collaborative research and policy support to facilitate its integration into mainstream use.

Whenever social injustice tackled by social movements receives heightened media attention, charitable crowdfunding platforms offer an opportunity to proactively advocate for equality by donating money to affected people. This research examines how the Black Lives Matter movement and the associated social protest cycle after the death of George Floyd have influenced donation behavior for campaigns with a personal goal and those with a societal goal supporting the black community.

This paper follows a quantitative research approach by applying a quasi-experimental research design on a GoFundMe dataset. In total, 67,905 campaigns and 1,362,499 individual donations were analyzed.

We uncover a rise in donations for campaigns supporting the black community, which lasts substantially longer for campaigns with a societal than with a personal funding goal. Informed by construal level theory, we attribute this heterogeneity to changes in the level of abstractness of the problems that social movements aim to tackle.

This research advances the knowledge of individual donation behavior in charitable crowdfunding. Our results highlight the important role that charitable crowdfunding campaigns play in promoting social justice and anti-discrimination as part of social protest cycles.

Quality management practitioners have yet to cease the potential of digitalisation. Furthermore, there is a lack of tools such as frameworks guiding practitioners in the digital transformation of their organisations. The purpose of this study is to provide a framework to guide quality practitioners with the implementation of digitalisation in their existing practices.

A review of literature assessed how quality management and digitalisation have been integrated. Findings from the literature review highlighted the success of the integration of Lean manufacturing with digitalisation. A comprehensive list of Lean Six Sigma tools were then reviewed in terms of their effectiveness and relevance for the hybrid digitisation approach to process improvement (HyDAPI) framework.

The implementation of the proposed HyDAPI framework in an industrial case study led to increased efficiency, reduction of waste, standardised work, mistake proofing and the ability to root cause non-conformance products.

The activities and tools in the HyDAPI framework are not inclusive of all techniques from Lean Six Sigma.

The HyDAPI framework is a flexible guide for quality practitioners to digitalise key information from manufacturing processes. The framework allows organisations to select the appropriate tools as needed. This is required because of the varying and complex nature of organisation processes and the challenge of adapting to the continually evolving Industry 4.0.

This research proposes the HyDAPI framework as a flexible and adaptable approach for quality management practitioners to implement digitalisation. This was developed because of the gap in research regarding the lack of procedures guiding organisations in their digital transition to Industry 4.0.

There are significant challenges facing academics and senior leaders in higher education (HE) institutions internationally. These challenges have led to increasing levels of metrification and managerialism, which has fostered work intensification, reduced professional autonomy, stress and burnout amongst faculty staff. Traditional approaches for supporting and developing staff, such as mentoring and training, do not provide the resources faculty staff need to meet the challenges they face. In contrast, experiences in various other educational and professional settings have demonstrated the effectiveness of workplace coaching in fostering well-being, adaptability, flexibility and sustainable performance. This review argues that workplace coaching could similarly support academics.

A critical literature review evaluates coaching interventions across educational and comparable sectors to identify positive well-being and performance-based outcomes.

While there is limited research into the efficacy of coaching interventions for faculty staff in HE, research in other educational, as well as comparable professional contexts, identifies significant sustainable improvements in well-being and performance for professional staff.

The evidence that identifies positive outcomes of coaching in professional workplace contexts is compelling. This critical review uses some of that evidence base to propose an agenda to implement coaching programmes that support faculty staff to improve their well-being and performance.

While there are published research studies on the positive outcomes of coaching in primary and secondary educational contexts, as well as for postgraduate research students, there is very limited knowledge, practice and research about coaching faculty staff in HE. This article addresses this by critically reviewing a broad range of literature to identify coaching and research initiatives for faculty staff in HE institutions.

The 2020 murder of George Floyd resulted in challenges to policing in the United States of America, but little is known about how police chiefs perceive them. At the same time, chiefs of police wield great influence over public perceptions of crime and disorder, the state of their profession, the laws and policies that govern the conduct of police officers and municipal public safety budgets. It is therefore critical to understand how police perceive the changes to their profession post-Floyd.

This study surveyed a randomly selected national sample of 276 municipal chiefs of police. Items probed resignations, recruitment, efforts to defund departments, community support, officer morale, suspects’ likelihood of obeying lawful orders and career risks that could inhibit proactive police work. It examined associations between perceptions and Census Bureau region, length of tenure as chief, size of police department, population served and the urban or rural designation of the jurisdiction.

Chiefs overwhelmingly reported recruiting qualified candidates had become much harder, and the present risks of proactive police work encourage inaction. Chiefs of agencies in the Northeast perceived more challenges than those in the South. Respondents with more years of experience were less likely to perceive the current situation as dire. Approximately 13.5% reported an attempt to defund their department, 56.8% of which yielded some success. Our study suggests an increase in the number and scope of challenges perceived by chiefs of police. Results vary by region and police chief years of experience.

This study provides researchers and practitioners with the perspectives of chiefs about the post-Floyd era that influence their decisions, policies and initiatives.

This paper aims to explore the role of multi-national enterprises in addressing grand societal challenges, emphasising the need for integrating environmental and social aspects into business models. Drawing on the books of Geoffrey Jones (2023) “Deeply Responsible Business” and Rob van Tulder and Eveline van Mil (2023) “Principles of Sustainable Business”, the paper provides comments and analysis of how principles and values can guide engaged international business (IB) scholarship and responsible leadership to effectuate meaningful change.

The paper adopts a dialogical review, as a curated discussion of the books whereby the authors attempt to co-construct a research and teaching agenda for responsible and engaged IB scholarship.

The paper highlights the critical importance of aligning business strategies with societal needs. Companies that adopt ethical principles, or adopt the sustainable development goals (SDGs) via principles-based frameworks, can achieve significant positive impacts.

The paper follows a viewpoint/perspective format. It relies on underpinning historical case studies and selected theoretical frameworks, which may not capture the full complexity of contemporary business environments. Scholars should conduct future research to study the underpinning principles and frameworks deployed in various industries and regions.

The paper suggests that business leaders should learn from the past to adopt a values and principles-based approach to integrate sustainability into their core strategies. It also highlights the importance of transforming the higher education teaching experience towards a value and principles-based one.

This paper underscores the potential of businesses to drive positive societal change by addressing environmental and social challenges. By adopting ethics-based value systems and aligning organisations with the SDGs, companies can help mitigate pressing issues, such as poverty, inequality and climate change. The authors suggest reading “Deeply responsible business” and “Principles of Sustainable Business” to influence public attitudes towards corporate social responsibility and foster a more sustainable and equitable global economy.

The paper offers a curated discussion and synthesis of historical and contemporary perspectives on sustainable business practices. It bridges the gap between theory and practice by providing actionable frameworks and tools for business leaders and scholars.