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This chapter discusses the care experiences of a group of parents and a grandparent working at a Higher Education Institution in England and homeschooling during the pandemic. The group established an informal, work-based, online peer support group during and beyond the first COVID-19 lockdown. This chapter analyses a survey of group members and the group's online chat data to explore experiences of homeschooling and participating in the group. It represents a pioneering case study in how a group of parent-workers coped with the conditions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that the group was underpinned by an ethic of care, based on reciprocal care relationships. The group developed ways of caring together and sought to influence and create more caring working practices and cultures. Whilst it is possible to create small pockets of more inclusive, supportive and caring spaces within education workplaces, we conclude that the challenge to create supportive family-friendly working environments remains.

This article shows how qualitative interventions can engender both an immediate impact and the possibility of sustained change at the research site. We investigate this by assessing the impact generated from a research project that utilized the GenderLAB method. In doing so, we expand the notion of impact to include the changes that intervention-based research can initiate at a research site.

We illustrate the impact of qualitative intervention-based research by exploring GenderLAB, which is a diversity and inclusion (D&I) intervention method that combines norm-critical approaches with design thinking to change norms and attitudes and to produce hands-on local solutions.

The GenderLAB intervention had immediate, medium-term and long-term impact in different participating organizations. As the intervention was aimed at participants’ attitudes and norms, the local impact it created resists numerical measurements. Nevertheless, we note how the organization’s leaders recreated exercises with their own staff and utilized ideas generated during the intervention to, for example, foster more inclusive working conditions for working parents, accommodate a broader spectrum of religious groups and cater to a larger variety of dietary needs. While we are currently in the process of publishing our theoretical findings from the research project to create research impact, the intervention itself has already had – and continues to have – practical impact on the D&I practices of the organizations in which we applied this methodology.

The intervention-based research method that we report on distinguishes itself from traditional qualitative methods, as it is designed to impact the research site as much as possible while gathering data. In contrast to quantitative approaches to interventions, it does not aim to generate quantifiable impact. Instead, we show how this research method pushes our definition of impact from a researcher-centered perspective to a perspective that emphasizes sustained change at the research site. Thus, we contribute to the growing literature on participatory methods, particularly the streams arguing for non-extractive methods that not only aim to take data but also to give knowledge to research sites.

Biology is broadly speaking a colonised subject and as such exemplification of the material to a non-white non-western centric narrative can elicit deep thought, debate, and analysis of the subject. Recent curriculum changes in England (post 2015) present little time for non-curricular content and staff can struggle to engage students in meaningful debate, analysis, and social-scientific thinking. Staff at City and Islington College took radical and long-term change to exemplify biology within a decolonisation narrative, using various methods to ensure that critical topics were covered while looking at the colonisation and colonialism of the subject. The staff ensured that decolonisation was a key agenda item in curriculum development to maintain an interwoven approach to the subject. Structured student interviews provided student feedback and student voice. Early discussion with students suggests the use of context has allowed students to be more confident in expressing their views and analysing unfamiliar contexts.

An effective firm strategy is key to sustained financial performance, while interactions between strategy, employee retention and top talent retention have been seldom explored. We test hypotheses using New Zealand SMEs which are defined as having up to 250 employees. We initially explore firm strategy using Porters competitive advantage model predicting employee retention (including top talent), with study 1 (n = 208) using firm size as a moderator, finding a direct significant relationship from firm strategy toward employee retention. Next, we explore firm strategy predicting firm performance with employee retention mediating and include firm size as a moderator, testing a moderated mediation model in study 2 (n = 474) and study 3 (n = 300, with time-lagged performance).

There are no open databases holding NZ firms’ performance data and thus data was sourced from a Qualtrics survey panel. Such panels have become more common (e.g. Haar et al., 2021a, b) and a recent meta-analysis by Walter et al. (2019) showed that this type of panel data was no different from data sourced through conventional means (i.e. mail survey). We focused on NZ private sector SMEs using senior managers across a range of industries and geographic locations. Because the influence of firm strategy on employee retention remains unknown in the literature, we conducted study 1 (n = 208) to test the initial part of our overall model. Study 2 (n = 474) and study 3 (n = 300) tested the full model (with organizational performance), with study 3 having organizational performance time-lagged by one month.

All direct effect hypotheses are supported, although firm size interacted significantly with firm strategy showing smaller not larger-sized firms leverage firm strategy to achieve superior retention benefits. This was against hypothesis 5a in all three studies. Studies 2 and 3 supported the moderated mediation hypothesis, with firms of larger size having a stronger indirect effect from firm strategy on firm performance while employee retention mediated the influence of firm strategy on firm performance. Finally, dominance analysis found that a quality differentiation strategy was the key strategy across all studies and outcomes. We discuss the implications for organizations.

The first managerial implication from the study is that small and medium sized firms would benefit both from developing a deeper understanding of the strategic alternatives open to them and placing a greater emphasis on the implementation of their selected strategic approach. A second managerial implication relates to findings indicating that retention generally, and top talent retention specifically, is positively related to firm strategy and firm performance. Given the importance and challenges of staff retention, particularly in the current environment where there are significant skill shortages, these results suggest that small and medium sized business would benefit from considering how strategy can create an organizational environment that is attractive to employees and support stronger retention outcomes as a mechanism for driving both retention and performance.

The study makes three major contributions. First, it examines firm strategy and extends the focus on firm performance by including not only employee retention but also top talent retention, responding in part to the call to develop and refine performance measures (Lieberman, 2021). Second, beyond using retention as a mediator, firm size is included as a moderator and a moderated mediation model is ultimately tested. Third, we conduct dominance analysis to identify the key firm strategy that influences firm performance and retention. Ultimately, this paper asks: what is the role of firm strategy on New Zealand SME performance, and what influence does retention and relative firm-size play.

The purpose of this conceptual paper is to define and explore the roles of mentors, the responsibilities and even misconceptions of their position in partnership schools, the characteristics of effective mentors, the gaps that exist in current mentor training and the need for updated and forward-thinking flexible and accessible mentor training as it relates to improvements in University Teacher Preparation Programs and their partnership schools.

The authors detail the process of interviewing a diverse population of mentors and teacher candidates (TCs) who have participated in our professional development (partnership) schools. See Appendices A and B for parallel questions posed during each interview process. Following the interviews, data were gathered in both text and video-based formats to create mentor training video modules to improve the current state of mentor training in our program. Themes were identified following an analysis of both interview intakes, and modules were created to align with these themes.

Following the first rounds of implementation, the authors have reflected and noted that a need for an even more diverse population of both mentors and interns to be interviewed is necessary moving forward. The authors do note an appreciation by mentors and university partners in the quality, flexibility and accessibility that this new video module-based mentor training program provides.

The video-based mentor training modules that the authors detail honor the needs of both new and returning mentors. Via the interviews with teacher candidates, mentors are able to empathize and understand how to be better mentors to their future TCs. Via the scenarios and questions that follow each thematically driven module, mentors are able to independently reflect on their current practices and ways to improve their roles. At any point in the internship year, mentors can return to the video training modules to review and thus improve their practice.

Mentors, university supervisors, teacher candidates and site coordinators (those individuals who identify mentors in their buildings) note improvement in their ability to communicate effectively as a result of being presented with video modules and reflections about the role of mentors from both mentors and TCs.

The authors were called on by leadership in the College of Education at the University to create this original mentor training video module. It is unique to the College of Education at the University. Great value exists in its accessibility, adaptability (we can upload new videos at any time) and representation of both the mentor and TC perceptions, suggestions and experiences in our program.

This chapter provides a mapping of the so-called couple apps, i.e. apps that generically promise to promote connectivity in several areas among the members of a romantic relationship. We focus on Apple's App Store offering and analyse all the available relevant apps: their year of release, the different categories, the apps' developers, the apps' presentation through its icon and description and the profile creation process. If couples' communication and behaviours have an impact on romantic relationship satisfaction and users' well-being, we question how such apps are characterised. We reveal that these apps try to respond to couples' needs related to several romantic relationship topics through a variety of approaches and methods. Nevertheless, such apps are governed by private companies with a commercial objective and through their design and affordances promote behaviours of a one-size-fits-all approach. As such, they seem not to promote diversity or spontaneity. Among these apps, heteronormativity regarding gender, roles, sexual orientation and romantic relationship format is to be assumed as the norm. As an effect, traditional views of what a couple is and related behaviours are transmitted, impacting how apps are understood and appropriated by users and having consequences on practices.

The purpose of this paper is to present the learnings of a broker organization that started a new Population Health Management initiative in two regions in the Netherlands. The research focusses on the role of the broker organization itself in supporting stakeholders in the region to adopt a new implementation strategy designed by the broker organisation itself. The basis of this model was to organize, finance and monitor differently to improve the overall health of the population.

An action research approach was chosen to support the endeavours of the broker organization and to acquire practical knowledge on the role of a third-party in PHM implementation. Qualitative data were collected from documentary analysis, focus groups, logbooks and observational data from team meetings.

The main result is that the role of the broker organization to implement PHM was subject to change during the more than two years of the research. Several themes emerged that influenced these role changes, both internal and external, showing the complexity of providing PHM implementation support as a third-party to regional stakeholders.

We hypothesize that the role of a third-party changes depending on the maturity of the regional collaboration. The complexity of the transition in healthcare calls for constant adaptations, and thus learning and reflection, from all involved. Action research is a strong tool for this.

This paper is one of the first to report on the role of a third-party in PHM implementation. The action research methodology offered the right amount of flexibility to adhere to the complexity of the context and provided rich insights.

Since the withdrawal of IFRIC 3 in 2005, there has been a regulatory freeze in accounting for emission rights that contrasts with the international momentum of climate-related financial disclosures. This paper explores how different narratives and institutional dynamics explain the failure to produce guidance on accounting for emission rights.

This paper mobilises the notion of field-configuring events to examine a sequence of six events between 2003 and 2016, including four public consultations and two dialogues between standard setters. The paper presents a qualitative analysis of documents produced in this space that investigates how different practices and narratives configured the field's positions, agenda, and meaning systems.

Accounting for emission rights was gradually decoupled from climate change and carbon markets, relegated to the research pipeline, and forgotten. The obstacles that the IASB and EFRAG found in presenting themselves as central in the recurring events, the excess of representations, and the increasingly technical and abstract debates eroded the 2003 momentum for regulation, making the different initiatives to revitalise the project vulnerable and open to scrutiny. Lukes (2021) refers to nondecision-making to express that some issues are suffocated before they are expressed.

The regulation of accounting for emission rights, an area that has received scant attention in the literature, provides some insights into the different narrative mechanisms that, materialising in specific times and spaces, draw regulatory attention to particular accounting issues, which are problematised and, eventually, forgotten. This study also illustrates that identifying interests is problematic as actors shift from alternative positions over a long period. The case examined also raises some doubts about the previous effectiveness of international standard setters in dealing with matters of connectivity between the environment and finance, as is the case for accounting for emissions rights.

This study investigated how the financial expertise of the board of directors, risk management committee (RMC), audit committee (AC) and Shariá Supervisory Board (SSB) influences the risk-taking of Islamic banks.

The study utilized unbalanced panel data for a sample of 43 full-fledged Islamic banks from 15 countries over 12 years (2010–2021). We employed feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) and heteroskedastic panels corrected standard errors (HPCSE) regression regressions as the primary estimation methods and used a two-step system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator for robustness checks.

The results indicate that board financial expertise decreases insolvency and credit risks. Similarly, AC financial expertise and SSB financial expertise reduce insolvency and portfolio risks but increase credit risk. In contrast, RMC financial expertise raises insolvency risk. The remaining relationships are statistically insignificant.

Due to the lack of disclosure regarding the educational and professional background of the board and committee members in the annual reports of some Islamic banks, this research used a sample of only 43 full-fledged Islamic banks operating in fifteen countries from 2010 to 2021.

The findings can assist both local and international regulators in revising corporate governance codes and risk management guidelines in such a way as to ensure that the financial experts appointed to the board, AC, RMC and SSB, are capable of controlling excessive risk-taking behavior in Islamic banks.

This study contributes to the literature by providing comprehensive empirical evidence that corporate governance financial expertise influences the risk-taking behavior of Islamic banks.