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The International Integrated Reporting Council introduced the concept of integrated thinking skills to the accounting world overall. This study uses a constructivist approach to address the development of integrated thinking skills for future professional accountants during higher education. This issue is relevant as many professional accounting bodies expect that integrated thinking skills are developed during the higher education of prospective professional accountants. Despite this expectation, there is limited guidance available to academics in the accounting education field to do so. By means of a literature review as well as an empirical study, this chapter develops a constructivist model that can be used by academics to develop integrated thinking skills during the higher education of prospective professional accountants. The model addresses the foundation, appropriate pedagogies, disciplinarity type, and point of introduction of integrated thinking principles in accounting education.

Output from the Irish Dairy Industry has grown rapidly since the abolition of quotas in 2015, with processors investing heavily in capacity expansion to deal with the extra milk volumes. Further capacity gains may be achieved by extending the processing season into the winter, a key enabler for which being the reduction of duration of the winter maintenance overhaul period. This paper aims to investigate if Lean Six Sigma tools and techniques can be used to enhance operational maintenance performance, thereby releasing additional processing capacity.

Combining the Six-Sigma Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, Control (DMAIC) methodology and the structured approach of Turnaround Maintenance (TAM) widely used in process industries creates a novel hybrid model that promises substantial improvement in maintenance overhaul execution. This paper presents a case study applying the DMAIC/TAM model to Ireland’s largest dairy processing site to optimise the annual maintenance shutdown. The objective was to deliver a 30% reduction in the duration of the overhaul, enabling an extension of the processing season.

Application of the DMAIC/TAM hybrid resulted in process enhancements, employee engagement and a clear roadmap for the operations team. Project goals were delivered, and original objectives exceeded, resulting in €8.9m additional value to the business and a reduction of 36% in the duration of the overhaul.

The results demonstrate that the model provides a structure that promotes systematic working and a continuous improvement focus that can have substantial benefits for wider industry. Opportunities for further model refinement were identified and will enhance performance in subsequent overhauls.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first time that the structure and tools of DMAIC and TAM have been combined into a hybrid methodology and applied in an Irish industrial setting.

This study aims to investigate the effects of board cultural diversity (BCD) and board gender diversity (BGD) of the board of directors on environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance in the European banking sector using resource-based view (RBV) theory. In addition, this study analyses the linkages between BCD and BGD and knowledge sharing on the board of directors to improve ESG performance.

This study selected a sample of European-listed banks covering the period 2021. ESG and diversity variables were collected from Refinitiv Eikon and analysed using the ordinary least squares model. This study was conducted in the European context regulated by Directive 95/2014/EU, which requires sustainability disclosure. The original population was represented by 250 banks; after missing data were excluded, the final sample comprised 96 European-listed banks.

The findings highlight the positive linkages between BGD, BCD and ESG scores in the European banking sector. In addition, the findings highlight that diversity contributes to knowledge sharing by improving ESG performance in a regulated sector. Nonetheless, the combined effect of BGD and BCD negatively impacts ESG performance.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to measure and analyse a regulated sector, such as banking, and the relationship between cultural and gender diversity for sharing knowledge under the RBV theory lens in the ESG framework.

This paper explores the Adoption of Technological Innovation (ATI) in the healthcare industry. It investigates how the literature has evolved, and what are the emerging innovation dimensions in the healthcare industry adoption studies.

We followed a mixed-method approach combining bibliometric methods and topic modeling, with 57 papers being deeply analyzed.

Our results identify three latent topics. The first one is related to the digitalization in healthcare with a specific focus on the COVID-19 pandemic. The second one groups up the word combinations dealing with the research models and their constructs. The third one refers to the healthcare systems/professionals and their resistance to ATI.

The study’s sample selection focused on scientific journals included in the Academic Journal Guide and in the FT Research Rank. However, the paper identifies trends that offer managerial insights for stakeholders in the healthcare industry.

ATI has the potential to revolutionize the health service delivery system and to decentralize services traditionally provided in hospitals or medical centers. All this would contribute to a reduction in waiting lists and the provision of proximity services.

The originality of the paper lies in the combination of two methods: bibliometric analysis and topic modeling. This approach allowed us to understand the ATI evolutions in the healthcare industry.

This paper aims to explore the relationship between board composition and a firm’s commitment to combatting climate change. Specifically, this study investigates how various characteristics of the board, namely its size and presence of independent directors, and of the directors themselves, including gender diversity, age, educational background and national homogeneity, affect the corporate-level climate change orientation. From a theoretical standpoint, the authors take a cross-fertilizing perspective, bridging upper echelons theory with agency, resource dependence and critical mass theories.

The study uses ordered probit regression models on a hand-collected multi-country and multi-industry sample of 35 listed firms included in the Global Climate Change Liquid Equity Index (GALPLACC) provided by ECPI. This index is particularly relevant as it focuses on firms that have demonstrated a commitment to climate change, providing a robust dataset for the analysis.

The findings underscore the importance of disentangling various characteristics of corporate boards and directors. Specifically, the orientation toward climate change is negatively influenced by both board size and having a higher number of independent directors, while it is positively affected by reaching a critical mass of women on the board. Conversely, factors such as average age, educational background and the level of national homogeneity do not show significant effects.

This paper has an exploratory nature and contributes to the ongoing debate on the crucial, yet controversial role played by board-level and directors’ sociodemographic characteristics in shaping a firm’s environmental stance. Moreover, this study offers potential recommendations for policymakers regarding board composition to enhance firms’ climate change orientation.