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This article explores brand positioning and authenticity within the global-local continuum, utilizing the evolution of the Italian rock band, Måneskin, as a case study.

Employing Greimas’s (1987) semiotic framework, I analyze social media and media articles on Måneskin’s success, unveiling consumer perceptions of global, local and intermediate brand positionings and related authenticity dimensions. I particularly uncover a narrative centered on “global” versus “local” brand positioning and their counterparts (i.e. “not global” and “not local”), forming a semiotic square.

In the “global” perception, the band is evaluated in terms of conforming to global standards, while, in the “local” understanding, the emphasis shifts to connections to local roots. In the “glocalization” perspective (global and local), the band’s activities are assessed concerning an integration between global conformity and local connections. The “glalienation” viewpoint (neither global nor local) is related to consistency, in the sense of being unique and avoiding a commitment to either global or local values. The data also highlight issues of inconsistency regarding brand positioning’s contradictions, such as the band’s incoherently merging local and non-local elements.

The proposed structural semiotics approach enriches previous theories by examining authenticity within global-local dynamics, offering insights into various authenticity dimensions and their interplay. It underlines shifts in authenticity perceptions and challenges binary brand positioning, advocating for strategic placement across the global-local continuum. Moreover, it emphasizes leveraging cultural elements and semiotics to effectively communicate authenticity.

This study aims to explore the experiences of peers working in a range of roles within a single NHS mental health service. This study also aims to provide evidence of the impact of existing support, organisational structure and culture around peer working and provide recommendations for a Good Practice Guide for Peer Working. Peer roles require lived experience of mental health conditions and/or services. While the impact on them of using their own lived experience is not fully understood, anecdotal evidence suggests that peer workers may experience a greater emotional impact than other mental health workers. Burnout and retention are particular concerns.

This was a two-stage study using focus groups and reflexive thematic analysis in Stage 1. The key themes formed the basis of the Stage 2 workshop, which provided recommendations for a Good Practice Guide. The study team consisted of peer researchers with lived experience, supported by a Lived Experience Advisory Panel.

There is a perceived lack of support and an increased peer burden for peer workers. Recommendations included relevant ongoing training and development; support and supervision; and organisational cultural change.

Working within a peer-led co-production framework, this study contributes to the development of the evidence base for peer emotional labour. Based on the findings, a Good Practice Guide for Peer Working is being developed to promote good practice for the development of future peer worker roles.

The US central government enactment of the 1866 Post Roads Act preempted state and municipal telegraph franchise entry barriers. Like present-day telecommunication companies, local franchise regulations were an entry barrier to US telegraph companies. These pre-1866 state and municipal telegraph laws were barriers of both entry and trade between states. Barriers that would of reduced the benefits of a common market if the barriers had not been preempted by the 1866 Post Roads Act. I document what laws were preempted by the 1866 Post Roads Act, explain how these laws increased entry barriers, provide evidence that preemption was enforced, and use two counterfactuals to calculate rough estimates of the decrease in entry costs from enforcement of the act.

The purpose of this paper is to systematically review authenticity in the branding context and suggest avenues for future research.

This study applies a systematic literature review process and analyzes a total of 171 articles published from 1988 to 2021 and three items that are books or book chapters.

Brand authenticity has several definitions and dimensions. Although some common ground can be found among researchers, the study of authenticity is very fragmented. Even so, brand authenticity is often associated with a brand being genuine, real, true to itself and its consumers, and with consistent behavior, reflecting its values. A growing number of studies about the topic have been published, most of them empirical, applied in different industries and different geographical contexts. The authors also present several constructs associated with the topic (antecedents and consequences). Finally, this study shows paths for scholars to build on.

The main limitations are associated with the inherent subjectivity related to the inclusion and exclusion criteria defined to select articles for the analysis.

This systematic review maps the past, structures existing knowledge about authenticity in the branding context, and sheds light on what could be future research in this field.

The aim of this study was to conduct a scoping review of a global body of scholarly and industry (grey) literature for evidence of implemented and evaluated interventions to identify best practice workforce retention strategies for organisations providing health services in rural and remote areas.

A scoping review was conducted of the scholarly and grey literature by two independent researchers. This comprised a search of four scholarly databases, and a Google and website search for grey literature. Quality checks were conducted, and a total of 15 documents were included in the literature review. Using the World Health Organisation’s categories of workforce intervention (regulatory, education, financial incentives, personal and professional support), the documents were analysed to identify effective workforce interventions.

The literature review found evidence of regulatory impacts as well as organisation-level evaluated workforce interventions for education-to-employment pathways (education), remuneration programs (financial incentives) and working and living conditions (personal and professional support) but seldom provided insight into how successful interventions were implemented or evaluated at the organisational level. Further, there was an absence of scholarship contributing to the development of empirical evidence to inform organisations about designing, implementing and evaluating workforce strategies to improve health workforce retention in rural and remote communities.

Few studies have focused on evidence-based organisation-level interventions to improve rural and remote workforce sustainability. This article offers insights to shape future intervention implementation and evaluation research for rural and remote health workforce sustainability.

The purpose of this study is to enrich the literature on employee relations with a new model focusing on the effect of institutional structure and that of employees’ organizational identification on the relationship between institutional structure in an organization and employees’ pro-environmental behaviors, which represents an alternative approach for understanding employees’ pro-environmental performance.

We collect multi-level and multi-source data from 52 four- or five-star hotels in China (N = 963). For data analysis, we adopt the approach of multilevel structural equation modeling.

The results suggest that organizations’ green institutional structure (G-structure) can significantly influence employees’ organizational identification, which in turn can increase their pro-environmental performance.

We propose a new multi-level theoretical perspective to explain employees’ pro-environmental behaviors. While prior studies on the issue mainly consider only the effects of such micro-level variables as ability, motivation and personality, we focus on the effect of organizational institution and its interaction with micro-level variables so that we can evaluate the effect a commonly-studied contextual variable, i.e. green institutions, on the behaviors. Moreover, in this new theoretical model, we also take into account the effect of another insufficiently-tested micro-level variable, i.e. employees’ identification, which has not been considered as frequently as other micro-level variables in studying employees’ pro-environmental performance. Our results highlight the importance of all these variables and suggest a valuable alternative model for more comprehensive research of employees’ green performance.

With the launch of the Feminist International Assistance Policy (FIAP), the Canadian government named solidarity as a shared value and a driving motivation behind the FIAP. This paper explores how development workers understand and apply solidarity to their work, uncovering the opportunities and constraints they face.

In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 42 development workers from Canada’s federal development agency between 2019 and 2020. Transcribed data were coded by the author to identify how workers made sense of solidarity within the development industry.

The majority of workers were unsure of how to define or operationalize solidarity, demonstrating confusion. Commonality was routinely mentioned as a facet of solidarity, but workers understood this term in diverse ways, with some considering commonality as a precondition that inhibited a sense of solidarity with development partners in the global South due to differences in living conditions. About a quarter identified power and privilege as necessary considerations in the process of building solidarity, showing potential for bonds across the inequalities that define development. About 40% of workers identified the institutional structure of the organization as an obstacle to solidarity.

This paper presents original data from Canadian development workers, providing the first study of their understanding of solidarity as a development ethic. It shows the gaps between rhetoric and practice while recommending ways for development organizations to meaningfully engage with solidarity in their work.

English social work policies and regulatory bodies propel critical reflection as a professional requirement and a worthwhile activity. The purpose of this paper is to report on the current international and UK evidence that informs the understanding and use of critical reflection and associated terms – reflection, reflective practice and reflective supervision – in one-to-one practitioner supervision in local authority children and families social work in England.

A review of the evidence was undertaken using documentary policy analysis and a scholastic literature review to examine the history and current knowledge available as of December 2022.

The historical policy and professional context of critical reflection in one-to-one supervision in England is discussed. The current evidence review identified three themes – the role of critical reflection in models of supervision, the influences of national, organisational and professional cultures and the supervisor practitioner relationship. The nuanced nature of the presence of critical reflection in supervision and a lack of clarity when theorising and describing critical reflection has implications for policy, supervisory practice and research design.

Critical reflection in one-to-one social work supervision is under researched. This review draws on the evidence from international research and local policy to offer an understanding of the complexity of theorising, practicing and researching critical reflection in one-to-one supervision in local authority children and families social work in England.

The current body of research has separately examined ethics education design and evaluation, as well as the development of ethical identity in managers. However, a notable deficiency in the literature lies in the absence of a comprehensive investigation into the interconnections between these two areas. This conceptual paper aims to address this lacuna.

Building on the theoretical foundations of identity control theory, this paper presents a conceptual model that outlines the dynamics of ethics education for managers, whether outside the organization or as a human resource development (HRD) initiative. Drawing upon a diverse range of literature sources, the model places significant emphasis on the interactive nature of identity formation, taking into account both individual agency and the educational context.

The conceptual model developed based on identity control theory illuminates the functioning of ethics education and its impact. The model illustrates the multifaceted nature of the relationship between ethics education and the development and sustenance of ethical identity in managers. It underscores the iterative process of identity control, wherein managers continuously navigate their ethical identities in response to internal and external influences.

While ethics education in management and HRD studies is widely acknowledged, there is a significant gap in understanding the psychological mechanisms that explain the maintenance of self-identity and the dynamic interplay between individuals and their social environment. This gap is particularly relevant to educational programs, which not only shape the social environment for trainees but also aim to foster the development and preservation of their individual identities.

This study seeks to examine unions’ influence on employees’ access to paid holiday/leave, paid pension and social security payment by employers in Ghana. The study also finds out whether unions are potent at minimizing gender inequality of access to these benefits.

Data for the analysis are extracted from the 5th and 6th rounds of the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS), 2005/2006 and 2012/2013, respectively, as well as the 2015 Ghana Labour Force Survey (GLFS). The study employs binary probit model with a selectivity-correction term as an estimation technique.

The findings indicate that trade unions significantly increase employees’ likelihood of having access to paid holidays/leave, paid pension and social security contributions. We also find that trade unions minimize gender inequality of access to these non-wage benefits.

The findings imply that trade unionism in Ghana is an effective mechanism for enforcing employers’ compliance with the provision of legal benefits to employees. It is also an effective tool for minimizing gender inequality of access to these benefits.

This research paper adds value to the literature by examining the role that unions play in minimizing gender discrimination with regard to access to non-wage benefits.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-03-2024-0234