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Family business sustainability is a critical issue. This study considers if adopting a strategic entrepreneurship orientation can support the sustainability of a family business.

A qualitative approach is used, in which semi-structured interviews were conducted with twelve family business owners. Data collected during the interviews provides insights into understanding, practices, motivations, behaviours and attitudes relating to sustainability.

Although awareness of sustainability processes and procedures is found to be low, sustainability is important to the family business. However, sustainability is not managed or implemented systematically.

The paper presents a new model to describe the sustainability practices of family businesses. Adoption of strategic entrepreneurship is advocated as mechanism for improving sustainability. Practical and policy implications are suggested to enhance the effectiveness of sustainability initiatives in family business settings.

Nuclear power is being promoted by a segment of the environmental community as an acceptable energy source to fight man-made climate change because it does not emit greenhouse gases. Missing in the literature is a discussion and analysis of the impact of electricity deregulation on the ability of nuclear power to obtain the requisite debt and equity financing within deregulated electricity markets, and in turn, on the potential number of new nuclear power plants that could help fight global warming. The purpose of this paper is to provide timely and salient policy guidance for the efficient allocation of resources to reduce greenhouse gases based on a new model linking debt and equity financing with a change in power plant revenue risk.

A theoretical model is put forth that links the availability of debt and equity financing to the change in revenue risk created by electricity deregulation and then tests this model by performing a qualitative phenomenological analysis.

The analysis supports a conclusion that electricity deregulation has a negative effect on the ability to attract nuclear plant debt and equity financing. As such, nuclear power may not be a viable option to reduce greenhouse gases within deregulated markets.

This paper fills certain gaps in the literature by creating a theory-based model that links debt and equity financing with a change in power plant revenue risk, performing a qualitative phenomenological analysis that finds support for the negative relationship between electricity deregulation and an increase in power plant revenue risk and establishing that this increase in revenue risk affects some types of power plants such as nuclear power more than others.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of perceived usefulness of online reviews and crowd cues on restaurant selection. In addition, the authors also examine the moderating role of perceived crowding and gender in this process.

The proposed hypotheses were tested with survey data (N = 200) collected from customers visiting full-service restaurants in Malaysia. The data were analyzed using SEM through Smart PLS.

The findings supported that the perceived usefulness of online reviews and perceived crowding have a positive effect on a consumer's purchase intentions, i.e. their decision of restaurant selection. Besides, a higher level of perceived crowding strengthens the relationship between the perceived usefulness of online reviews and their purchase intentions. This finding delineates that consumers prefer to dine in a crowded place with useful online reviews in an unfamiliar place. Finally, the results show that the effect of the usefulness of online reviews on purchase intentions does not vary with respect to gender (no significant contingent effect). However, the effect of perceived crowding varies with respect to gender – male customers have higher intentions to join crowded restaurants as compared to females.

Limitation of this study is its cross-sectional research design; data were collected in a single time frame. Longitudinal research design can be used to get in-depth knowledge of this phenomenon. Secondly, a non-probability sampling technique was used in this study, future research can used probability sampling technique to enhance generalizability of the study. Moreover, this study focused on the human crowding aspect, future studies can cover both aspects of crowding (human crowding and spatial crowding) in retailing or other service sectors (Blut and Iyer, 2020).

This study has multiple practical implications.

This study extends the current research on usefulness of online reviews and perceived crowding by investigating its direct and conditional effects. Specifically, the authors contribute in extant research by explaining its differential effects for male and female customers, when they select which restaurants to dine.

In developing countries, banks play a major role by acting as a conduit for the effective mobilization of funds from the surplus sectors of an economy for onward lending to the deficit sectors for productive investments that will in turn increase the level of employment and economic growth. There has being a rising trend in unemployment rate in Nigeria and South Africa and hence, the need for the study to assess the effectiveness of banking system credit in curbing unemployment rate by making a comparative analysis of Nigeria and South Africa covering the period of 1991–2018.

The study employed the unit root test, Johansen cointegration test, vector error correction model and VAR impulse response function in determining the relationship between the variables.

The major findings revealed that banking system credit matters in curbing unemployment rate in South Africa than in Nigeria. Also, other macroeconomic factors such as lending rate, inflation rate, Government expenditure and population growth were significant enough in influencing unemployment rate in South Africa than in Nigeria. Foreign direct investment was a significant factor in reducing unemployment rate in Nigeria than in South Africa. The cointegration test showed a long-term relationship between the variables in both countries while the speed of adjustment coefficient of the vector error correction model is faster in South Africa than in Nigeria.

Previous empirical studies on the relationship between banking system credit and unemployment rate have focused much on other regions such as Asia and Europe. Thus, the study is unique as it focused on the African region and also made a comparative analysis by testing the Keynesian theory of employment, interest and money on two emerging African economies which are Nigeria and South Africa.

Delay in housing adaptation is a major problem, especially in assessing if homes are suitable for the occupants and in determining if the occupants are qualified for the Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG). This paper describes the development of two self-administered intelligent integrated assessment tools from the DFG Adapt-ABLE system: (1) The Home Suitability Assessment Platform, which is a preventive mechanism that allows assessment of the suitability of homes based on occupants’ mobility status and (2) an indicative assessment platform that determines if the applicants are qualified for the DFG to prevent lengthy delays.

The adopted method aligned with a development study approach: a grounded literature review, a severity measurement approach, two stakeholder engagement workshops, four brainstorming sessions and four focus group exercises. The system development relied on Entity–Relationship Diagram (ERD) technique for data structures and database systems design. It uses DFG context sensitivity with alignment with DFG guidance, interlinkages and interoperability between the assessment tools and other platforms of the integrated Adapt-ABLE system.

The assessment tools are client-level outcomes related to accessibility, usability and activity based on the assessment process. The home suitability platform shows the percentage of the suitability of a home with assessment results that suggest appropriate action plans based on individual mobility status. The indicative assessment combines the function of referral, allocation, assessment and test of resources into an integrated platform. This enables timely assessment, decision-making and case-escalation by Occupational Therapists based on needs criteria and the eligibility threshold.

These assessment tools are useful for understanding occupants’ perception of their physical housing environment in terms of accessibility, suitability and usability based on basic activities of daily living and their mobility status. The indicative self-assessment tool will substantially cut down the application journey. The developed tools have been recommended for use in the CSJ Disability Commission report and the UK government Guidance on DFGs for local authorities in England.

This chapter responds to recent calls for a more in-depth examination of the crucial role played by non-managerial employees, including those in various strata such as blue and gray collars, from an alternative neo-human relations perspective. By exploring recent initiatives aimed at developing a new theory of management or extending existing ones, the goal is to broaden the conceptualization of management to include non-managerial perspectives, thereby contributing to the advancement of management theory. From this, the recent efforts in management theory—universalistic, strategic/contingent, and value-based—are evaluated for their potential. Utilizing the method of synthesizing, the aim is to introduce a significantly reconceptualizing of existing efforts toward a candidate explanation that leads to default theory enabling to generate and solve problems concerning the phenomenon of non-managerial employees in management processes. Toward this end, two arguments are put forward. First, the constrictions inherent in current management theories devalue and underestimate the significance of blue- and gray-collar employees in the overarching management processes. Second, the future trajectory of management will involve three integral dimensions: the universal dimension of cooperation and coordination inherent in management, the strategic responses to continuously evolving environmental changes as the management of contingencies, and the normative dimension of value-creation to address the specific needs of blue- and gray-collar employees. By synthesizing these three dimensions, we provide insightful signposts for the prospective evolution of management theories.

This project represents an exploratory qualitative investigation of the connection between undergraduate students’ experiences of positive emotions in academic leadership courses and their self-reports of leadership learning.

Our research team conducted a qualitative analysis of 298 post-course survey comments from students in academic courses focused on leader development over three academic years. These surveys included prompts inviting students to report dominant emotions they repeatedly felt within the classroom environment and how these salient emotions helped or hindered their learning over the course of the semester.

Our results suggest a complex interplay between the ways students’ self-reported experience of positive emotions during a leadership class influenced their leadership learning and course engagement. Overall, student responses revealed positive emotions through their course engagement, with interest, joy and serenity/contentment being the most frequently reported positive emotions. Participants attributed these emotions to influencing their willingness to attend class, participate in class activities, deepen their learning about leadership topics and apply their leadership learning beyond the class.

Educational research has long shown that emotions are relevant to specific learning processes. However, this research has not yet been applied to leadership-focused classrooms. Our novel study focused on the connections between emotional reactions to leadership courses and student learning and was designed to help unlock the primary mechanisms by which young people learn to lead through formal academic coursework.

In the era of rapid urbanization, fostering an inclusive housing market system for most low-income urban residents remains a challenge in Sub-Saharan African countries. This study aims to investigate the realities of housing markets in Hawassa City, Ethiopia, and interrogate whether these markets foster social inclusion for households at the lower end of the market in the post-1990s.

The study used a mixed research approach. Primary data was generated using household surveys and key-informant interviews administered to residents and officers. The study also reviewed the municipality’s policy documents and reports. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and theme-based qualitative interpretation.

Hawassa City exhibited formal and informal housing market patterns guided by national, regional and city-wide policy and regulatory frameworks. Nevertheless, trends in these markets do not seem to capture the realities of residents’ ability to pay for housing and demonstrate social exclusions. The yawning gaps between demand and supply of housing largely necessitated the black market and the subsequent commercialization of housing by visible and invisible actors.

The study suggests further research on ethnographic understanding of the visible and invisible actors operating in the housing markets and adverse impacts on peri-urban farmers. The present study did not address rental housing markets adequately, and this could be open for further research.

The study has implications for revisiting housing policy-making, especially for understanding the policy and practical gaps and thus promoting a socially inclusive housing market system targeting low-income people.

The study provides a comprehensive analysis of housing markets in Hawassa City through the lens of operational values of social inclusivity (Elsinga et al., 2020). The findings provide baseline data on policy and implementation gaps for promoting a socially inclusive housing market system, especially for low-income people. In this regard, the contribution is empirical. In addition, this manuscript renders a conceptual framework for analyzing housing markets in other similar contexts of sub-Saharan Africa.

This study aims to investigate how disclosures through different communication media were used by the Australian mining company Rio Tinto to manage its reputation after the Juukan Gorge Cave Blast.

Case study research was used with a focus on a single case, Rio Tinto and the Juukan Gorge incident. Data on sustainability disclosures were collected from Rio Tinto’s website, corporate reports and social media platforms (Facebook, X and LinkedIn) for the 2020 and 2021 periods. Gioia methodology was applied to analyse disclosure strategies and an extended Reputation Risk Management (RRM) framework was used as a conceptual lens.

The findings reveal a slow and inappropriate initial response from the company resulting in negative reputational consequences for the company’s senior executives. Although the company’s initial response was to avoid responsibility and mitigate offensiveness, it gradually accepted full responsibility and adopted reparation strategies such as corrective action, mortification and stakeholder engagement to rebuild its reputation. The temporal analysis suggests that Rio Tinto was “left behind” as a result of its initial response, limiting the effectiveness of its subsequent RRM strategies.

The findings of this study contribute to an improved understanding of communication strategies for managing a reputation crisis. The extended RRM framework developed in this study provides a comprehensive list of various disclosure strategies that can be used in future studies that analyse disclosure post an environmental or social incident.

The findings of the study provide insights into the effectiveness of different communication strategies when communicating to stakeholders with varied interests. This study highlights that the timing of the response is critical to restoring lost reputation and a slow response which emphasises financial stakeholders at the expense of the affected communities can be detrimental to RRM, no matter how well-intentioned subsequent strategies are.

This research focuses on a marginal stakeholder group, Indigenous people and communities. The findings offer insights to society into whether corporate strategies to manage a reputation crisis promote and support equity and inclusivity.

This study focuses on a community-based stakeholder, Indigenous groups, a context that has unique cultural intricacies and requires a transition beyond a corporate perspective on RRM.