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Our research takes inspiration from stories of kindness in the context of the COVID-19 global pandemic and investigates what generational entrants, namely those entering the workforce in large numbers, dubbed emerging leaders (ages 19–39) think of the phenomenon of kindness and its potential role in organizations. Guiding the study is the question: “What can emerging leaders tell us about kindness and work?”

Adopting discourse analysis fused with kindness as research praxis, we conducted 66 qualitative interviews with young leaders (born between 1981 and 2001) across North America, Europe and Africa. Interviews were conducted in the summer and fall of 2020.

Our research sets out to expand theorizing related to kindness as a phenomenon, illustrates implications relevant to management and organizational studies and offers insights into the value of kindness as research praxis. This paper makes three related contributions and one methodological one: (1) it contributes to the literature on kindness and how it can be theorized in management and organizational studies, (2) it explores emerging leaders perceptions of kindness in a pandemic context, (3) it offers insights into how kindness might be leveraged as a model of moral and ethical behaviour valued in organizational environments, and (4) the paper promotes epistemic properties of kindness when fused with research praxis.

Authored during a rapidly unfolding scholarly conversation on the influences of the pandemic on organizational life, our research draws insights from experiences of kindness during COVID-19. This paper applies discourse analysis fused with kindness as research praxis to an understudied area of human behaviour (kindness) which has implications for management and organizational theory and practice. These implications include: (1) individual kindness capacity or inclination towards kindness behaviour that may be depleted by stressors such as the pandemic, (2) that kindness has socially contagious qualities, (3) and kindness as praxis has material benefits in the context of research methods, benefiting the research team and the research outputs.

The purpose of this paper is to explore a novel storytelling approach that investigates lived experience at the intersection of motherhood/caregiving and Ph.D. pursuits. The paper contributes to the feminist tradition of writing differently through the process of care that emerges from shared stories.

Using a process called heartful-communal storytelling, the authors evoke personal and embodied stories and transgressive narratives. The authors present a composite process drawing on heartful-autoethnography, dialogic writing and communal storytelling.

The paper makes two key contributions: (1) the paper illustrates a novel feminist process in action and (2) the paper contributes six discrete stories of lived experience at the intersection of parenthood and Ph.D. studies. The paper also contributes to the development of the feminist tradition of writing differently. Three themes emerged through the storytelling experience, and these include (1) creating boundaries and transgressing boundaries, (2) giving and receiving care and (3) neoliberal conformity and resistance. These themes, like the stories, also became entangled.

The paper demonstrates how heartful-communal storytelling can lead to individual and collective meaning making. While the Ph.D. is a solitary path, the authors' heartful-communal storytelling experience teaches that holding it separate from other relationships can impoverish what is learnt and constrain the production of good knowledge; the epistemic properties of care became self-evident.

The patient flow performance achievable by care pathways is constrained by competing flow and resource efficiency, which can negatively impact improvements. This paper probes the divergence between resource and flow efficiency and how care pathways can lead to improved patient flow. By framing the problem through the lens of paradox theory, a set of design principles is proposed to assist decision-makers in care pathway implementation. Implications are derived for research and practice.

The authors used conceptual research to develop design principles for care pathways based on a systematic review of relevant care pathway research. The initial search contained 515 unique articles, resulting in a final sample of 56 studies.

When applying care pathways, patient flow may be negatively affected in relation to the dimensions of bottlenecks, non-value-adding activities, and variability. However, the findings also indicate methods that can be applied to manage organizational paradoxes, which can contribute to more efficient patient flow along each of the three dimensions.

The study is limited to care pathways and therefore could have missed relevant studies in similar fields, such as care coordination.

Health care managers, politicians, and IT developers can apply the proposed design principles when developing, implementing, and improving care pathways and supporting technologies.

While existing research has studied care pathways from a medical perspective, this is the first paper to the author’s knowledge that addresses care pathways directly by considering paradox theory and in light of the operations management literature.

Secondary research

Victoria’s Secret, a lingerie retailer founded by Roy Raymond in 1977, is the largest retailer in women’s intimate apparel in North America. Nevertheless, the business has been under fire in the recent past for failing to be inclusive and diverse, declining revenues and engaging in high-profile controversies. Victoria's Secret has experienced competition from emerging lingerie brands including Savage X Fenty, which Rihanna established in 2018, ThirdLove and Aerie by American Eagle & Knix. Victoria's Secret tried to reinvent itself in reaction to these difficulties by altering its marketing approach, switching out its “angels” for more diversified models, and launching a new range of cozy, informal loungewear. However, there were conflicting reactions to these initiatives, and the company's sales have been declining.

Executive training programs, upper level undergraduate and graduate MBA students in strategic, marketing and general management. Students should understand the basics of strategic management and marketing before undertaking to analyse this case.

This study investigates and explores sustainable fashion based on social attitudes toward culture and sustainable fashion effects in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), based on environmental knowledge and consumer satisfaction initiatives. It explicates sustainable fashion on the sustainable development agenda in addressing the gap of cultural value, environmental knowledge and sustainable fashion in SSA.

Using a quantitative approach, the study employed a web-based online cross-sectional survey to extract tangible information from 620 participants from SSA. The study integrated theory of planned behaviors (TPB) model and hypotheses. A structural equation model (SEM) was used to test all proposed hypotheses.

The results show that low environmental knowledge, influenced by geographical and cultural differences, affected fashion value, as which is predictively significant for sustainable fashion. However, attitude and cultural value results found statistical significance for consumer satisfaction in sustainable fashion. Furthermore, mediation was attained between consumer behavioral and environmental knowledge of sustainable fashion. The study recommends government policies on educational awareness and textile regulations for environmental garbage disposal possible harmful effects of climate change and finally, designing innovative initiatives for environmentally friendly fashion.

This study examines the environmental and social attitudes as well as behavioral effects, of an ecosystem that would most likely have a short life period, eliminate disposal dumps and foster an environmental control policy. Consequently, the study’s conceptual model and extended TPB contribute to how sustainable fashion supports environmental knowledge, consumer attitudes and cultural behaviors in fashion among Sub-Saharan Africans.

A content validation process of an institutional leadership framework is described for leadership educators in higher education. We created this process to further integrate our leadership framework across campus, maintain alignment with advancements in leadership research and ensure it is broadly inclusive and culturally responsive.

Our approach included seven essential design elements and was informed by a review of leadership frameworks in practice and the literature, validation studies and a comprehensive document review.

Our approach yielded a validated leadership framework with modifications to its principles, values, competencies and outcomes. Modifications addressed pre-determined criteria and were deemed relevant to leadership research and our institutional context.

The external content validation process of our leadership framework is novel and serves as a valuable guide for those considering opportunities to strengthen their own institutional approaches to leadership education.