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This study aims to investigate stakeholders' perception of the most prevalent unethical practices in the Ghanaian construction industry.

Data used for this study came from a cross-sectional survey (questionnaire), which was administered to 273 stakeholders in the construction industry using convenience sampling technique. The data were analyzed using statistical software package SPSSv17 to determine the most prevalent unethical practices. The ranking factor was calculated based on relative importance index (RII) value.

The results of this study reveal that corruption was perceived by major stakeholders as the most prevalent unethical behavior (RII = 0.82) followed by bribery (RII = 0.79). Political interference and kickback came third (RII = 0.77) and fourth (RII = 0.74), respectively. However, the least prevalent unethical behaviors were extortion (RII = 0.56), workplace violence (RII = 0.57), alcohol abuse (RII = 0.59) and harassment (RII = 0.59). The findings suggest that when the various groupings were taken into consideration separately, the differences in their perceptions were obvious.

Data for this study were collected from construction stakeholders in Ghana who were conveniently sampled. As a result, in reference to the sampling framework which focused on major stakeholders in only two regions of Ghana does not sufficiently ensure full generalization of the results.

The findings of the study provide significant information for construction organizations and practitioners regarding unethical practices, which are most prevalent in the Ghanaian construction industry. Construction organizations and practitioners seeking to mitigate the negative effect of unethical practices on their performance should focus on educating construction workers on how to avoid corrupt practices and report same to the authorities. Also, ethics training programs must be instituted for staff coupled with constant and random inspection and checking of ethical compliance, verbal promotion and praise for ethical conduct and in some cases increase in employees pay.

This paper is one of the first to have accessed the views of broader stakeholders, i.e. consultants, contractors, professionals, suppliers, regulators, clients and construction workers in the construction industry regarding the most prevalent unethical practices in the Ghanaian construction industry in one study. This study, therefore, enriches the current literature by providing additional dimension to the understanding of unethical practices in the Ghanaian construction industry.

Most small- and medium-sized high-tech companies lack resources compared to large corporations, making it challenging to fully develop an employer brand. Therefore, identifying the subdimensions of employer branding that are important to talent in startup tech companies is crucial. Additionally, startups have higher organisational agility. Integrating this agility into an employer’s brand can enhance the unique value of startups, which is vital for employee retention.

Taiwan has many high-technology companies, and the competition to acquire talent is fierce. Hierarchical linear modelling is used. Data are collected from 219 employees of 51 high-technology startup companies.

The subcomponents of employer brand, “healthy work atmosphere”, “training and development” and “compensation and benefits”, significantly influence employee retention in high-tech startups. Additionally, agile values positively influence employee retention and positively moderate the relationship between the employer brand’s “healthy working atmosphere” and “training and development” with employee retention.

This study expands the theoretical content of employer branding. In resource-constrained small startup tech companies, greater focus should be placed on developing the three sub-dimensions. Although employee growth needs can compensate for some of the shortcomings of employer brands, employees still expect high salaries and benefits. Additionally, this study discusses agile values through empirical research, filling the gap in past research on agile values, which primarily focused on qualitative studies. We use the organisational culture perspective to determine whether agile values can enhance employee retention in rapidly changing environments. Agile values positively affect work environments.

Faculty play a unique role in universities performing duties along the three fronts of teaching, research and service. While it might be teaching that contributes most to the bottom line of a small university, it is often research by which faculty merit is judged. This study explores the relationships between role ambiguity, role conflict and commitment (affective, normative and continuance) as mediated by job satisfaction among faculty members.

A sample of 133 faculty members at a US-accredited university in Lebanon served as the basis for this study. The faculty members completed a survey covering scales on role ambiguity, role conflict, commitment and job satisfaction in addition to demographic variables.

We find that a decrease in role ambiguity strengthens affective and normative commitment but weakens continuance commitment. Structural equation modeling indicates that job satisfaction partially mediates the relationship between role ambiguity and affective commitment, while not mediating the relationship between role ambiguity and normative and continuance commitments. Similar findings hold for job satisfaction as a mediator in the relationship between role conflict and commitment.

Based on statistical modeling, this work (1) puts forth a revised scale for organizational commitment tailored to academia and (2) provides guidance to higher education institutions in terms of the differential impacts on faculty commitment that stem from reducing role-ambiguity versus role-conflict. Managerial recommendations focus on improving normative and affective commitment through the design of policies to reduce role conflict among faculty.

This study examined the role of communications professionals as cultural intermediaries within the UK cancer charity sector. It aimed to reposition politics within cultural and economic spheres in order to explore how these forces collectively shape the strategies and practices of communications professionals.

A qualitative method was employed by conducting 20 in-depth, semi-structured interviews to gain a deeper understanding of the experiences, perspectives and insights of various communications professionals in UK cancer charities.

The results showed that cultural intermediation has become increasingly complex in a cancer charity sector affected by changes in government leadership, increased competition and budget cuts. This evolution in communications practices has had an impact on relations with government and on the politicisation of cultural intermediaries’ strategies. Further, the infusion of neoliberalism and commercialisation underlines the central role of cultural intermediaries in navigating market relations and acting as neoliberal subjects.

Politics has been analytically excluded to the detriment of culture and economics in the external forces shaping the work of communications professionals as cultural intermediaries. This study seeks to reposition politics alongside other spheres of life in the analysis of cultural intermediation by utilizing concepts such as political economy, cultural intermediation and neoliberal subjects. It specifically focuses on the cancer charity sector, which has received less scholarly attention in the literature on cultural intermediaries.

State-owned enterprises (SOEs) play an immense role throughout the world. Historically lacking in innovativeness, SOEs are now compelled to be more innovative. This study aims to explore the innovative tendencies of SOEs and non-SOEs as they strive to be preferred suppliers to their key accounts. This study also examines the effects of top management involvement (TMI) and customer knowledge utilization on suppliers’ tendencies to provide innovative solutions to key customers. In addition, this study examines the moderating effects of state ownership on these relationships.

Following institutional theory and dynamic capabilities logic to guide expectations, this study collected survey responses from 185 managers at SOEs and non-SOEs in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen in China. Using partial least squares structural equation modeling, this study examined main and moderating effects of variables on innovation.

Results indicate that state ownership does not have a significant effect on innovation, suggesting Chinese SOEs may no longer be innovation-disadvantaged vis-à-vis non-SOEs. In addition, both TMI and customer knowledge utilization have positive effects on innovation. The hypothesized magnifying effect of state ownership on TMI’s main effect is not present. Data support our expectation that state ownership amplifies the positive effect of customer knowledge utilization on innovation.

Our research provides evidence that China’s SOEs are closing the competitive gap in innovation and mechanisms for this occurrence. The relatively small sample from limited geographies necessitates research in more regions of China. Also, research should investigate not just the ownership type of suppliers, but also of buyers.

This study offers unique insights into factors affecting the innovative tendencies of Chinese SOEs and non-SOEs. Until now, little research has addressed what practices SOEs use to provide more innovative solutions to customers.

Drawing on the need–supply fit perspective, this study aims to examine how (mis)alignment between customer orientation (CO) and the service climate (SC) influences the affective organizational commitment and indirectly impacts employees’ customer-oriented behavior (COB) and customers’ word-of-mouth (WOM).

This paper used data from three different sources. The data set comprises 1,420 time-lagged observations from 725 employees surveyed at multiple time points, a total of 19,630 customers from 34 retail stores across multiple time points and the managers of the 34 stores, surveyed multiple times.

Employees’ affective commitment was found to be higher when CO and SC were both high. In case of misalignment, commitment is higher when the SC is stronger than the CO (compared to when the CO is stronger than SC). Employees’ commitment was positively related to subsequent store-level COBs, which in turn boosted customers’ WOM.

Very few studies have looked for impact of (mis)alignment of frontline employee characteristics with business unit features and how it relates to employees and customers responses.

This study replicates and extends prior research on principal hiring preferences and conceptualizations of teacher “fit.” We investigate the specific fit dimensions principals value, the contextual factors informing their fit conceptualizations, and the implications of fit-based hiring for schools and candidates. By shedding light on these critical issues, our research advances theory and practice related to teacher selection and organizational fit in education.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with principals, teachers and central office administrators in a mid-sized, collaborative-oriented US suburban school district to explore their perceptions of fit and experiences with hiring practices, with a focus on principal perceptions.

Principals prioritized candidates’ alignment with school values and work group compatibility over job-specific skills when assessing fit. They sought candidates who could both assimilate into and add value to the school culture. As key decision-makers, principals interpreted fit in ways that matched organizational and community expectations, translating these expectations into hiring decisions.

The study’s small, homogeneous sample from a single district limits generalizability. Additionally, the teacher applicant pool in the district studied was large enough that principals could base some hiring decisions on fit.

Departing from previous studies, this research finds that principals prioritize school culture and team fit over job qualifications when hiring. The study provides fresh perspectives on how principals perceive candidate fit and makes a unique contribution by examining fit perceptions through a novel application of a theoretical framework.

To argue current calls to address grand challenges like income inequality are unlikely to succeed until the academy acknowledges how accounting is constitutive of these problems. We demonstrate how accounting is part of the problem because of its adherence to a legal model of the corporation erected on false suppositions.

Using multiple disciplines, e.g. history, economics, law and philosophy, pertaining to the nature of the corporate form, we present a logical argument that the official telos of accounting obstructs any fruitful effort to address grand challenges.

The global legal concept governing corporations (an aggregate of members) makes corporations a major cause of the grand challenges humans face. Adherence to a legal theory of the corporation leads accounting policy to rationalize income and wealth inequality by subsuming the legal powers of corporations to expropriate wealth into a singular maximand labeled “earnings.”

Though accounting is essentially “of” law, scholarly efforts to understand accounting’s social role are based on an information metaphor. We provide reasons for skepticism of any efforts addressing grand challenges until accounting acknowledges the legal nature of its social role as a regulator of business conduct. There are no accounting solutions to grand challenges without acknowledging how the accepted legal nature of the corporate form makes the corporation the cause of the grand challenges we face.

In social marketplaces, follower ego networks are integral social capital assets for online sellers. While previous research has underscored the positive impact of the follower number on seller performance, little attention has been given to the structure of follower networks and their value implications. This research investigates two structural properties of follower networks—network centralization and density—and examines their main and contingent effects on sellers’ sales performance.

A 13-month panel dataset of 1,150 sellers in Etsy, a social marketplace for handmade and vintage products, was collected and analyzed. A fixed effects model was adopted to validate the hypotheses on the main effect of centralization and density, as well as the moderating effects of two store attributes: store age and product diversification.

We find that both network centralization and density negatively impact sellers’ sales performance, and these effects vary across store age and product diversification levels. Specifically, the negative effect of network centralization is less pronounced for older stores than young ones, whereas the negative effect of density is more severe for stores with high product diversification.

This research contributes to social commerce research by highlighting the significance of network structure, alongside network size, in assessing the value of followers and offers practical guidance for sellers in social marketplaces seeking to optimize their follower networks.