Search results

This chapter describes the MASK concept model as a hierarchical taxonomy and an ontology developed for knowledge-based systems. The authors differentiate concepts from terms and explain the value of a concept map. Everyday examples of concept models are described. A step-by-step methodology for constructing a concept model is provided.

Crises have been common occurrences in African communities, both in the past and in present times. These disturbances are, however, preceded by peace and reconciliation initiatives among the disputing parties. In the pursuit of peace, dialogue has often played a significant role, but another factor that has been instrumental in the promotion of peace is the use of photographs and videos (products of the camera). This chapter highlights the benefits obtainable through the lens of the camera from the perspective of cultural troupe performance (CTP) in Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria whereby artists make use of the cogency of meaningful songs, dances, costumes, oral poetry, and icons as mediums of communication. This chapter focusses on how the camera has been engaged songs, dances, and costumes in CTP in Benin City to restore emotions and express cultural and historical allegiance towards the promotion of peace. Findings show that reviews of scenes captured in real or virtual time by the camera during the growth and development of the kingdom indicate that they promoted peace in the community, including contemporary society.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, labour movements across the world fragmented along racial lines. Across the English-speaking world, and especially in the colonies and metropole of the British Empire, a tradition which scholars term ‘white labourism’ became important and then, in the first half of the 20th century, dominant as a political and ideological trend within the labour movements of white British countries. This article concerns the prehistory of white labourism as a dominant strain in three of these British-ruled white settler states, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, by looking at the activities there of the American-based working-class movement, the Knights of Labor. As the Knights expanded into these countries in the 1880s and 1890s, they brought with them an emphasis on the exclusion of Chinese immigration and other racial exclusionary practices later associated with white labourism; on the other, their racial egalitarianism with respect to African-American workers in the United States, tens of thousands of whom became members of the movement, placed them as an alternative to later white labourist currents. This chapter addresses these contradictory contributions of the Knights as a global movement to the way that later workers understood the connections between race and class, empire and whiteness.

This study aims to explore the strategies for implementing research data management (RDM) services in Tanzania’s higher education institutions (HEIs).

The study drew upon the technology, organization, people and environment (TOPE) framework. Using a qualitative case study approach, data was collected through semistructured interviews with librarians, lecturers, information and communication technologies (ICT) and research and innovation staff. Data was thematically analyzed.

Numerous participants recognized the importance of RDM services, such as creating data management plans, enhancing the retrieval and reuse of research data and offering support for data curation and preservation. The study also identified organizational support, including developing policies and guidelines, providing financial assistance and ensuring data security. Furthermore, the study highlighted the importance of ICT infrastructure, including servers, software and hardware. A lack of ICT infrastructure and limited skills and knowledge among those responsible for implementing RDM services were among the challenges identified.

This study used the TOPE framework, along with relevant literature, to guide the formulation of research objectives and questions. While the TOPE framework offers a comprehensive view through its four dimensions, there is a need to integrate additional models, such as data curation, to achieve a more holistic understanding.

This study provides valuable insights into strategies for implementing RDM services in HEIs. It highlights the importance of professional development for stakeholders, enabling them to develop and enforce effective strategies supporting a data-driven research agenda.

This study contributes original insights by outlining the necessary strategies for HEIs to consider when implementing RDM services. The study adds value to understanding effective RDM implementation requirements in an academic setting by identifying various strategies for developing RDM activities.

Directors’ human capital has long been recognised as vital to ensuring effective corporate governance. While previous studies have sought to link director human capital with specific firm-level outcomes, there are persistent challenges facing researchers who seek to understand better what kind of human capital makes a difference to effective board role execution. This study aims to understand whether the way directors fulfil their roles and contribute to boardroom dynamics is shaped by any human capital they gain via senior executive experience.

We draw insights from 30 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with Indian directors to capture their perceptions and experiences of how a specific kind of human capital, namely the C-suite experience, affects directors' boardroom dynamics and board role execution.

We highlight how directors with executive experience appear to have a more salient set of human capital to draw on. Specifically, they report navigating governance processes differently, displaying a more contextualised understanding of boardroom dynamics and having a broader understanding of the firm’s problems. Doing so enables them to foster constructive board-management relationships and improve their service role execution.

Our qualitative data are drawn from a purposively sampled group in a specific governance system (India). While this does not threaten the key theoretical insights, it does raise questions about their generalisability to other governance contexts.

Directors with executive experience build trust through their orientation towards and understanding of management without diminishing their capacity to scrutinise management decisions. The human capital of these directors appears to engender a more effective and contextualised boardroom dynamic that facilitates the execution of socialised accountability through balancing the control and service roles.

Our findings highlight the potential importance of a shared understanding of the communication and collaboration processes of corporate governance (i.e. a common transactional memory framework) between directors and management. Directors who share this understanding with management are more likely to effectively engage in the service role while not compromising the control role. This shared understanding appears to allow these directors and executives to encode, store and retrieve relevant information they need more effectively, engendering the trust between them that seems to foster socialised accountability.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of board gender diversity (BGD) on firm financial stability during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the pre-pandemic period.

Difference-in-differences method was used for a sample of 891 US companies observed from 2018 to 2021.

The results indicate significant negative relationships between BGD and financial stability. The authors put in evidence a nonlinear relationship between BGD and financial stability. Also, the authors found that internal women directors as well as external ones decrease financial stability.

The results emphasize the beneficial effect of having more women on corporate boards during health crises and suggest that policymakers should take measures to promote BGD.

This paper highlights the impact of BGD on financial stability and provides additional evidence on the usefulness of BGD as an effective tool for crisis management.

The empirical study aims to examine the impact of board diversity with respect to gender and nationality on firm performance in an emerging economy. This research further splits the sample into family and non-family domains and investigates the diversity–performance nexus in isolation.

The sample consists of 183 listed companies in Bangladesh over the period 2007 to 2017. This study employed the generalised method of moments (GMM) technique to address the possible endogeneity issue in the governance–performance connection. To underscore the strength of diversity, three distinctive assessment measures were used: percentage representation of females and foreign directors, the Blau index and the Shannon index.

The results for the full sample models reveal that board heterogeneity regarding both female and foreign directors positively and significantly influences firm performance as measured by return on assets (ROA). Further to this, female directors in family-owned businesses have a positive association with profitability, whereas foreign nationals demonstrate a significant positive association with performance in non-family firms. Additionally, at least three women directors are needed to make a positive difference in profitability; however, a sole director with foreign nationality is capable of demonstrating a similar impact on performance.

The findings are significant for policymakers and organisations that advocate diversity on corporate boards of directors, and the minimum number of diverse board members needs to be considered depending on the identity to bring about a significant change in organisational outcome. Therefore, the findings of this study may be applied to other emerging economies with similar institutional characteristics.

This study reinforces the existing stock of knowledge on the impact of board diversity on the profitability of firms, especially in the context of an emerging economy – Bangladesh. Irrespective of the given backdrop, this study finds that both gender and nationality diversity in the case of Bangladesh is found to have a positive and significant effect on financial performance with respect to all the diversity metrics, i.e. the proportionate number of female and foreign directors on the boards, the Blau index and the Shannon index.

This study aims to identify current trends in flourishing-at-work (FAW) research, highlight significant gaps in the literature and guide future research directions in this important area.

This study adopts a framework-based systematic literature review (SLR) approach, focusing on established theories, contexts and methods and antecedents, decisions and outcomes framework. The utilization of Web of Science and Scopus databases ensures the inclusion of high-quality, peer-reviewed articles, adhering to the Scientific Procedures and Rationales for Systematic Literature Reviews framework.

This study found significant gaps in the literature of FAW. The summarized research gaps are reported using the Miles taxonomy of research gaps.

Organizations can enhance employee well-being by addressing identified gaps, implementing tailored practices and fostering supportive cultures.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to represent the first framework-based SLR on the holistic well-being construct, FAW. Using a rigorous methodology and comprehensive databases, our research offers valuable and unique insights, significantly enhancing the scholarly understanding of FAW.

This study aims to examine the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance records management practices at the Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) in South Africa.

The study used a convergent mixed-methods research approach, employing interviews and questionnaires for data collection. Analysis of the collected data involved both verbatim and statistical methods, and the results were presented through tables and figures.

The study revealed that AI can proficiently and effectively execute all records management practices across the entire records lifecycle.

Consequently, the study proposed a framework that can be used as a guiding tool for the implementation and use of AI. This framework aims to enhance records management processes, not only within the GDE but also within the broader archives and records management industry.

This study aims to provide empirical insights into the role of communities of practice (CoPs) and associated technologies in fostering organisational sustainability (OS), particularly social and environmental sustainability within the oil and gas (O&G) sector in the Middle East. It explores how these mechanisms contribute to the enhancement of these sustainability through knowledge management (KM) and innovation.

This quantitative study examines the causal relationships among the key variables. A survey of 330 engineers from six O&G firms across three northern governorates in Iraq was conducted using a structured questionnaire. The collected data were analysed through Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling to validate the research model.

The study highlights that knowledge is a fundamental resource for driving innovation and sustainable organisational practices. CoPs serve as a dynamic KM framework, facilitating efficient knowledge exchange, dissemination and application. This, in turn, enhances employees’ ability to address daily professional challenges while reinforcing social and environmental sustainability initiatives. The findings also reveal that CoPs and associated technologies significantly contribute to the economic, social and environmental dimensions of OS, demonstrating a moderate to substantial effect.

The findings provide actionable insights for O&G companies aiming to integrate sustainability through technology-driven CoPs. By institutionalising CoPs and leveraging digital technologies, organisations can enhance collaborative learning, knowledge retention and sustainable innovation. This research also underscores the need for leaders and managers within O&G firms to prioritise technological advancements and knowledge-sharing strategies to drive social and environmental sustainability efforts.

The study highlights how technology-driven CoPs can foster knowledge-sharing, collaboration and social sustainability within organisations, particularly in the O&G sector. By leveraging digital platforms, virtual knowledge-sharing tools and AI-driven analytics, organisations can enhance workplace inclusivity, cross-disciplinary collaboration and employee engagement in sustainability initiatives. Furthermore, the adoption of CoPs and emerging digital technologies promotes a culture of collective learning and professional development, ensuring that employees at all levels contribute to and benefit from sustainable business practices. This research also underscores the role of technology-enhanced CoPs in bridging knowledge gaps, improving social equity in professional settings and strengthening corporate social responsibility efforts.

While existing studies have demonstrated a link between KM and sustainable performance, this research uniquely examines CoPs and related technologies as enablers of social and environmental sustainability in the O&G sector. It provides a novel perspective on how organisations can leverage technological tools and knowledge-sharing platforms to enhance OS, bridging a critical gap in sustainability research.