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Increasing the need for education for sustainable development in universities requires an understanding of the predictors of students’ environmental concern (EC). In this paper, the authors focus on the EC of business students because of their future responsibility for business operations regarding the exploitation of natural resources. The aim of the study is to examine the predictors of business students’ environmental concern.

Based on the Norm Activation Model as the theoretical framework, this study hypothesizes the model of EC with two main predictors: ascription of responsibility for the environment (AOR), driven by locus of control and self-efficacy (LC/SE), and awareness of positive consequences of consumption reduction on the environment (AOC), driven by perceived environmental knowledge. Structural equation modelling was applied to confirm the conceptual model based on the responses of business students from six countries (Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Spain) collected through an online survey.

The environmental concern of business students is predicted both by the ascription of responsibility and by awareness of consequences; however, the ascription of responsibility is a stronger predictor of EC. A strong impact was found for internal locus of control and self-efficacy on AOR, as well as a weaker influence of perceived environmental knowledge on AOC.

Sustainability education dedicated to business students should provide environmental knowledge and strengthen their internal locus of control and self-efficacy in an environmental context.

Based on stakeholder, agency and institutional theory, this study aims to examine the role of institutional ownership in the relationship between environmental, social and governance practices and CEO compensation.

Utilizing a fixed-effect panel regression analysis, this research utilized a panel data approach, analyzing data spanning from 2014 to 2021, focusing on US companies listed on the S&P500 stock market index. The dataset encompassed 219 companies, leading to a total of 1,533 observations.

The analysis identified that environmental scores significantly impact CEO equity-linked compensation, unlike social and governance scores. Additionally, it was found that institutional ownership acts as a moderating factor in the relationship between the environmental score and CEO equity-linked compensation, as well as the association between the social score and CEO equity-linked compensation. Interestingly, the direction of these moderating effects varied between the two relationships, suggesting a nuanced role of institutional ownership.

This research makes a unique contribution to the field of corporate governance by exploring the relatively understudied area of institutional ownership's influence on the ESG practices–CEO compensation nexus.

This study explores the integration of corporate reporting by Mitsubishi, a large Japanese company, using a culturally sensitive narrative that combines and reconciles Japanese and Western corporate values in one story.

We use an analytical framework drawing on insights borrowed from narratology and the notion of wrapping – the traditional art of packaging as communication.

We find that Mitsubishi is a survivor company that uses different corporate reporting frameworks during its reporting journey to construct a bespoke narrative of its value creation and cultural values. It emplots narratives to convey a story presenting the impression that Mitsubishi is a Japanese corporation but is compatible with Western neo-liberal ideology, making bad news palatable to its stakeholders and instilling confidence in the future.

Wrapping is a culturally sensitive form of impression management used in the integration of corporate reporting. Therefore, rather than assuming that companies blatantly manipulate their image in corporate reports, we suggest that future research should focus on how narratives are constructed and made sense of, situating them in the context of local culture and traditions.

The findings should interest scholars, report preparers, policymakers, and the IFRS, considering the recent release of the IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards designed to reduce the so-called alphabet soup of corporate reporting. By following Mitsubishi’s journey, we learn how and why the notion of integrated reporting was adopted and integrated with other reporting frameworks to create narratives that together convey a story of a global corporation compliant with Western neoliberal ideology. It highlights how Mitsubishi used integrated reporting to tell its story rather than as a rigid reporting framework, and the same fate may apply to the new IFRS Sustainability Reporting Standards that now include integrated reporting.

The study offers a new perspective on corporate reporting, showing how the local societal discourses of cultural heritage and modernity can shape the journey of the integration of corporate reporting over time.

This chapter analyses social innovation in early childhood education and care (ECEC) services in Venice. The city of Venice has traditionally had a relatively high level of public expenditure on ECEC (compared to the rest of its region), with only a limited number of ECEC services being provided by private suppliers. In the wake of privatisation and innovative social policies, local public authorities have pushed social innovation, fostering public–private partnerships as well as service flexibilisation and expansion, while attempting to contain costs. This article presents two case studies of ECEC innovation, which show how the history of ECEC in Venice, the local and regional regulation of the services and the level of available public resources have structured social innovation experiences and have limited their institutionalisation and expansion.

This empirical study investigates the direct and indirect effects on managers’ perceptions of cyber risks, the implementation of cyber resilience strategies and the perceived effectiveness of these strategies for supply chains. Cyber risks pose significant threats to organisations and supply chains. Yet they remain insufficiently addressed and managed.

Primary data were collected from a sample of Italian organisations using a survey. The structural equation modelling methodology was employed to empirically investigate cyber resilience strategies in supply chains.

Results indicate that effective cyber resilience is linked to awareness of the negative impacts of cyber risks, particularly supply chain disruptions. This awareness leads to the adoption of various cyber resilience strategies. According to managers' perceptions, several strategies are identified in the study as the most effective in enhancing the cyber resilience supply chains. The findings offer insights for managers regarding the relationship between cyber risk perceptions, supply chain cyber resilience strategies and their effectiveness. These relationships are studied using the theory of perceived risk and the dynamic capabilities theory.

This study advances knowledge for academics and practitioners in the fields of supply chain resilience and supply chain risk management. It contributes to the development of a risk-based thinking model in organisations and supply chains by drawing upon a dual theoretical perspective.

Diplomats are often considered to be masters of informality. Scholars and practitioners alike have long suggested that the real work of diplomacy happens in the corridor, during the coffee break and cocktail parties. But while everyone agrees that informality is a key ingredient of diplomatic work, few have explicitly explored it, and we lack a conceptualisation of how informality becomes meaningful. In this chapter, we unpack the question: through which spaces and practices is informality performed in diplomacy? Based on thick descriptions generated through ethnographic research in and around the institutions of the European Union (EU), we make two key contributions. First, we map local understandings of the term and give a grounded account of how diplomats use informality and interpret its functions. Second, we take these ‘tales from the field’ (van Maanen, 2011[1988]) and consider them in the light of theoretical debates on informality, particularly through the concept of boundary. Where and how is the boundary between the formal and informal constituted? Who has the power to draw and move these boundaries? How does it matter, politically, if something is ‘formal’ or ‘informal’? Based on our analysis, we find that informality comes in many forms and can be both politically productive and disruptive. In diplomacy, handling informality is a key diplomatic skill that is learned over time to be, eventually, mastered.

The first-aid courses organized by the Youth Red Cross Carinthia (Austria) had a quality problem, necessitating a professionalization in teaching and time structure. This research aimed to enhance the quality and effectiveness of these courses by implementing modified lesson studies with non-professional trainers. The paper presents the realization process, empirical research and results obtained by applying the first-aid curriculum.

Around 22 lesson study first-aid courses (14 classes with 2 cycles, 8 with 3 cycles) were conducted and evaluated in different Austrian school types. An observation sheet was created to evaluate attention and competencies. Interviews were conducted with both teachers and students to validate the results.

The research findings demonstrate that lesson studies can significantly enhance the quality and effectiveness of first-aid courses. Inexperienced and experienced first-aid teachers significantly improved their teaching skills. Newly educated first-aid teachers showed substantial improvement, leading to the introduction of an induction period and coaching opportunity within the Youth Red Cross Carinthia.

This is the first lesson study conducted in a non-academic context. It highlights the adaptation process of Carinthian first-aid courses. It illustrates how lesson studies impact lesson clarity, instructional variety, student engagement in the learning process, student outcome, student feedback and teaching effectiveness in a non-academic context. It contributes to the literature on the application of lesson study in first-aid education and provides insight into the benefits of this approach in enhancing the quality of first-aid training.

The aim of this research is twofold: first, to get more insights on digital maturity to face the emerging 4.0 augmented scenario by identifying artificial intelligence (AI) competencies for becoming hybrid employees and leaders; and second, to investigate digital maturity, training and development support and HR satisfaction with the organization as valuable predictors of AI competency enhancement.

A survey was conducted on 123 participants coming from different industries and involved in functions dealing with the ramifications of Industry 4.0 technologies. The sample has included predominately small-to-medium organizations. A quantitative analysis based on both exploratory factor analysis and multiple linear regression was used to test the research hypotheses.

Three main competency clusters emerge as facilitators of AI–human interaction, i.e. leadership, technical and cognitive. The interplay among these clusters gives rise to plastic knowledge, a kind of moldable knowledge possessed by a particular human agent, here called hybrid. Moreover, organizational digital maturity, training and development support and satisfaction with the organization were significant predictors of AI competency enhancement.

The size of the sample, the convenience sampling method and the geographical context of analysis (i.e. California) required prudence in generalizing results.

Hybrids’ plastic knowledge conceptualized and operationalized in the overall quantitative analysis allows them to fill in the knowledge gaps that an AI agent-human interplay may imply, generating alternative solutions and foreseeing possible outcomes.

The paper follows Jason Cope's (2011) vision of a holistic perspective on the failure-based learning process. By analyzing the research since Cope's first attempt, which is often fragmentary in nature, and providing novel empirical insights, the paper aims to draw a new comprehensive picture of all five phases of entrepreneurial learning and their interplay.

The study features an interpretative phenomenological analysis of in-depth interviews with 18 failed entrepreneurs. Findings are presented and discussed in line with experiential learning theory and Cope's conceptual framework of five interrelated learning timeframes spanning from the descent into failure until re-emergence.

The study reveals different patterns of how entrepreneurs experience failure, ranging from abrupt to gradual descent paths, different management and coping behaviors, and varying learning effects depending on the new professional setting (entrepreneurial vs non-entrepreneurial). Analyzing the entrepreneurs' experiences throughout the process shows different paths and connections between individual phases. Findings indicate that the learning timeframes may overlap, appear in different orders, loop, or (partly) stay absent, indicating that the individual learning process is even more dynamic and heterogeneous than hitherto known.

The paper contributes to the field of entrepreneurial learning from failure, advancing Cope's seminal work on the learning process and -contents by providing novel empirical insights and discussing them in the light of recent scientific findings. Since entrepreneurial learning from failure is a complex and dynamic process, using a holistic lens in the analysis contributes to a better understanding of this phenomenon as an integrated whole.

This paper investigates how a firm’s organizational culture profile (configuration of organizational culture types) influences the effectiveness of operations management (OM) practices in improving their targeted outcomes.

We developed alternative hypotheses based on contingency and paradox perspectives to predict the effectiveness of OM practices in dominant (one prevalent organizational culture type) vs eclectic (opposing organizational culture types at a similar level) organizational culture profiles. They were tested using data from over 7,000 respondents across 330 manufacturing plants in 15 countries.

Consistent with contingency theory, OM practices oriented toward innovation are more efficacious in plants with an adhocracy-dominant organizational culture profile and practices targeting supply chain (SC) control are less effective in a clan-dominant organizational culture profile. Consistent with paradox theory, OM practices oriented toward efficiency or SC control are more effective in plants with an eclectic organizational culture profile.

This study offers relevant practical implications regarding the effectiveness of various OM practices, whether they are used in an aligned dominant organizational culture profile or in an eclectic organizational culture profile.

Previous research on organizational culture provides a limited understanding of the effectiveness of OM practices in the presence of strategic tensions, such as opposing organizational cultures or opposing targeted outcomes. This research concludes that the validity of the contingency or paradox perspective depends on strategic tensions faced, with important implications for research and practice.