Linda M. Lyons, Amy M. Buddie and Jennifer W. Purcell
There are many studies regarding the value of gaining cultural awareness, but limited empirical evidence has been shared on programs that use integrated learning and capacity…
Abstract
There are many studies regarding the value of gaining cultural awareness, but limited empirical evidence has been shared on programs that use integrated learning and capacity building interventions to specifically build cultural competence in aspiring undergraduate leaders. This qualitative case study examined the effects of interventions designed to build intercultural competence in first-year honors students participating in a leadership development program using co-curricular activities, undergraduate research, and a short-term education abroad. Data collected from two cohorts who completed the first year of the program revealed students’ perceptions of their short-term education abroad experience’s impact on their intercultural competence and leadership development. The study demonstrates the value of integrated leadership and intercultural competence development among undergraduate students.
Amy M. C. Brown, Matthew Sowcik, Nicole L. P. Stedman and James C. Bunch
This study was the first to examine two related constructs within the context of leadership. Stoicism is an ancient philosophy offering practical advice for a virtuous and…
Abstract
This study was the first to examine two related constructs within the context of leadership. Stoicism is an ancient philosophy offering practical advice for a virtuous and eudaemonic life. As a method to examine one’s emotional experiences (Sellars, 2006), leaders such as Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius and Teddy Roosevelt (Aurelius, ca. 160 A.D., 2002) practiced Stoicism, yet mentions of it within the field of leadership research have been scant. Leadership academics contrast desirable emotional intelligence behaviors with Stoicism (Grewal & Salovey, 2005; Mayer et al., 2008). Regardless, these two constructs are both concerned with effectively managing emotions, practicing self-awareness, high levels of motivation, and sensitivity to the expression of emotion in others (Goleman, 2005; Pigliucci, 2017; Salzgeber, 2019)
Undergraduate students in a leadership minor (_N_ = 445) at a public university completed the Emotional and Social Competency Inventory - University and the Liverpool Stoicism Scale. Analysis included a description of assessment results, an examination or the relationship between variables and differences in participant’s scores based on race, gender, and age. Stoicism and emotional self-awareness showed a moderate, statistically significant negative correlation (_r_ = - 0.391, _p_ = .05). A low, statistically significant negative relationship was reported between stoicism and the relationship management competency of teamwork (p = .003, r = -.018), and a low statistically significant positive relationship between self-management competencies, adaptability (p = .043, r = .189) and emotional self-control (p = .039, r = .192). Student’s Stoicism scores were significantly correlated with gender (_t_(113) = 2.479; _p_ = .015, _d_ = .564)
The research findings provided baseline statistics for continued exploration of Stoicism within the context of leadership. Future research that better aligns with the original doctrines of the philosophy is recommended, particularly in the interest of leadership development.
Emma Audrey Adams, Desmond Hunter, Joanne Kennedy, Tony Jablonski, Jeff Parker, Fiona Tasker, Emily Widnall, Amy Jane O'Donnell, Eileen Kaner and Sheena E. Ramsay
This study aims to explore the experiences of living through the COVID-19 pandemic for people who faced homelessness and dealt with mental health and/or substance use challenges.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the experiences of living through the COVID-19 pandemic for people who faced homelessness and dealt with mental health and/or substance use challenges.
Design/methodology/approach
This qualitative study was comprised of 26 1:1 interviews (16 men and 10 women), conducted between February and May 2021 with people who experienced homelessness in North East England during the COVID-19 pandemic. An inductive reflexive thematic analysis was undertaken, with input from individuals with lived experience who were involved throughout the study.
Findings
Four themes were developed. The first theme, lack of support and exacerbation of mental health and substance use difficulties, highlighted how the lack of in-person support and increased isolation and loneliness led to relapses or new challenges for many people’s mental health and substance use. The second theme, uncertainty and fear during the pandemic, explored how the “surreal” experience of the pandemic led to many people feeling uncertain about the future and when things would return to normal. The third theme, isolation and impacts on social networks, discussed how isolation and changes to relationships also played a role in mental health and substance use. Finally, opportunity for reflection and self-improvement for mental health and substance use, explored how some people used the isolated time to re-evaluate their recovery journey and focus on self-improvement.
Practical implications
The experiences shared within this study have important implications for planning the future delivery and commissioning of health and social care services for people facing homelessness, such as sharing information accessibly through clear, consistent and simple language.
Originality/value
As one of the few papers to involve people with lived experience as part of the research, the findings reflect the unique narratives of this population with a focus on improving services.
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Amy B.C. Tan, Desirée H. van Dun and Celeste P.M. Wilderom
With the growing need for employees to be innovative, public-sector organizations are investing in employee training. This study aims to examine the effects of a combined Lean Six…
Abstract
Purpose
With the growing need for employees to be innovative, public-sector organizations are investing in employee training. This study aims to examine the effects of a combined Lean Six Sigma and innovation training, using action learning, on public-sector employees’ creative role identity and innovative work behavior.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors studied a public service agency in Singapore in which a five-day Lean Innovation Training was implemented, using a combination of Lean Six Sigma and Creative Problem-Solving tools, with a simulation on day one and subsequent team-based project coaching, spread over six months. The authors administered pre- and postintervention surveys among all the employees, and initiated group interviews and observations before, during and after the intervention.
Findings
Creative role identity and innovative work behavior had significantly improved six months after the intervention, enabled through senior management’s transformational leadership. The training induced managers to role-model innovative work behaviors while cocreating, with their employees, a renewal of their agency’s core processes. The three completed improvement projects contributed to an innovative work culture and reduced service turnaround time.
Originality/value
Starting with a role-playing simulation on the first day, during which leaders and followers swapped roles, the action-learning type training taught all the organizational members to use various Lean Six Sigma and Creative Problem-Solving tools. This nimble Lean Innovation Training, and subsequent team-based project coaching, exemplifies how advancing the staff’s creative role identity can have a positive impact.
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Amy E. Boren and Sarahi Morales
The purpose of this study was to explore how team members identify the social loafers on their teams and how they explain and manage social loafers’ behavior. The participants…
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to explore how team members identify the social loafers on their teams and how they explain and manage social loafers’ behavior. The participants (n=49) in the study included members of student teams participating in a service project as a part of their coursework. We collected multiple sources of information: in-depth interviews, reflection journals, peer evaluations, and observations of team members interacting. Using attribution theory and status characteristics theory we describe how team members identify social loafer and explain the causes of their behavior. We also explore how those attributions affect team members’ interactions with the social loafers. The status of social loafers in the eyes of their teammates affects teammates’ willingness to accommodate or reject the social loafer. We identify strategies used by team members to manage the behavior of social loafers. We conclude with recommendations for practice and future research on social loafing.
Grace McQuilten, Deborah Warr, Kim Humphery and Amy Spiers
The purpose of this paper is to consider the social turn in contemporary capitalism and contemporary art through the lens of art-based social enterprises (ASEs) that aim to create…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to consider the social turn in contemporary capitalism and contemporary art through the lens of art-based social enterprises (ASEs) that aim to create positive social benefits for young people experiencing forms of marginalisation, and which trade creative products or services to help fulfil that mission. A growth in ASEs demonstrates a growing interest in how the arts can support social and economic development, and the ways new economic models can generate employment for individuals excluded from the labour market; extend opportunities for more people to participate in art markets; and challenge dominant market models of cultural production and consumption.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper considers a number of challenges and complexities faced by ASEs that embrace a co-dependence of three goals, which are often in tension and competition – artistic practice, social purpose and economic activity. It does so by analysing interviews from staff working with 12 ASE organisation’s across Australia.
Findings
While the external forces that shape ASEs – including government policy, markets, investors and philanthropy – are interested in the “self-sufficient” economic potential of ASEs, those working in ASEs tend to prioritise social values and ethical business over large financial returns and are often ambivalent about their roles as entrepreneurs. This ambivalence is symptomatic of a position that is simultaneously critical and affirmative, of the conditions of contemporary capitalism and neoliberalism.
Originality/value
This paper addresses a gap in social enterprise literature presenting empirical research focussing on the lived experience of those managing and leading ASEs in Australia.
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Amy DeLorenzo, Kate Parizeau and Mike von Massow
Ontario’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change seeks to legislate diverse waste streams (including food waste) by implementing Bill 151, known colloquially as the Waste Free…
Abstract
Purpose
Ontario’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change seeks to legislate diverse waste streams (including food waste) by implementing Bill 151, known colloquially as the Waste Free Ontario Act. The purpose of this study is to investigate how stakeholders in Ontario’s food and waste systems perceive the prospective legislation.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on interviews with stakeholders across the food value chain in Ontario, as well as an analysis of legislation and related documents.
Findings
The paper argues that Bill 151 represents the Province’s commitment to an ecological modernization paradigm. This research uncovers the lines of tension that may exist in the implementation of food waste policy. These lines of tension represent stakeholders’ ideological perspectives on food waste, including whether it signals an efficient or inefficient economy, whether legislation should prioritize economic or environmental goals and whether it is more appropriate for legislation to incentivize desired food waste treatments or penalize/prohibit undesired activities.
Originality/value
The analysis reveals potential allies in the regulatory process, likely points of contention and areas where greater consensus may be forged, depending on government efforts to reframe the issues at stake.
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Thomas Borup Kristensen, Henrik Saabye and Amy Edmondson
The purpose of this study is to empirically test how problem-solving lean practices, along with leaders as learning facilitators in an action learning approach, can be transferred…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to empirically test how problem-solving lean practices, along with leaders as learning facilitators in an action learning approach, can be transferred from a production context to a knowledge work context for the purpose of becoming a learning organization while enhancing performance. This is important to study because many organizations struggle to enhance efficiency in the short term while still trying to be long-term learning oriented (i.e. learning organization development).
Design/methodology/approach
The authors draw on theory on learning interventions to show how lean practices for problem-solving can foster learning and help an organization to become adaptive. This study’s subject is a non-production department of 100 employees at the LEGO corporation. The authors applied survey results from a natural experiment lasting 18 months between a pre-measurement survey and a post-measurement survey. The results were compared to a control department of 50 employees who were not exposed to the lean practices intervention. The authors’ focus was on the individual level as individuals have different perceptions of lean practices, performance, and learning.
Findings
Using repeated-measures tests, difference-in-difference regressions analyses, and structural equation models, the authors find that a package of contemporary lean practices for problem-solving, along with leaders who function as learning facilitators, significantly improved learning organization dimensions while also enhancing efficiency and quality and that learning organizations positively mediate the relationship between the lean intervention and quality-related performance, while efficiency is directly affected by the lean interventions. Data from LEGO's key performance indicators (KPIs), benefit trackers, on-site observations and more than 40 interviews with managers provided results that were consistent with the survey data. A detailed description of the lean practices implemented is provided to inspire future implementations in non-operations environments and to assist educators.
Research limitations/implications
The authors contribute to the learning literature by showing that a learning-to-learn approach to lean management can serve as an active and deliberate intervention in helping an organization becoming a learning organization as perceived by the individual organizational members. The authors also add to the lean literature by showing how a learning approach to lean, as used by LEGO, can positively affect short-term efficiency and quality and create a foundation for a longer-term competitive advantage (i.e. a learning organization) in a non-production context. By contrast, most of the lean literature streams treat efficiency separately from a learning organization and mainly examine lean in a production context.
Originality/value
The extant literature shows three research streams on lean, learning, and performance. The authors built on these streams by trying to emphasize both learning and efficiency. Prior research has not empirically tested whether and how the application of problem-solving lean practices combined with leaders as learning facilitators helps to create a comprehensive learning organization while enhancing performance in a non-production context.
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Amy D. Wolfe and Sara L. Hartman
This study offers implications for remote mentoring within school university partnerships based on a qualitative study focused on how three experienced mentor teachers within a…
Abstract
Purpose
This study offers implications for remote mentoring within school university partnerships based on a qualitative study focused on how three experienced mentor teachers within a long-standing Professional Development School (PDS) partnership adapted to remote mentoring during emergency remote teaching in the 2020–2021 school year.
Design/methodology/approach
Data was collected through interviews with three teachers and analyzed following qualitative methods to identify themes. Data is presented in case studies describing their remote mentoring practices.
Findings
Findings indicate that in the context of strong school–university partnerships, these mentor teachers were successful in adapting their mentoring of teacher candidates to a remote modality and that the benefits to collaborators within the partnership were like those documented in traditional, in-person mentorship. The challenges these teachers overcame include establishing relationships and providing adequate supervision.
Research limitations/implications
The results offer rich insights into the experiences of mentor teachers when conditions necessitate a change in instructional modality and create implications for innovation in mentorship of teacher candidates, particularly in remote mentorship settings.
Practical implications
School–university partnerships should be maintained during emergencies because of the benefits to all partners, most notably to prek-5 students. We recommend that articulated agreements be revisited and modified to address potential future emergencies. The value of establishing and maintaining strong PDS partnerships should not be undervalued during times of emergency.
Social implications
Teacher preparation programs can sustain the important work of educating teachers through challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic most effectively when they work in partnership with prek-12 schools. Use of technology in innovative ways, such as remote mentoring, can support teacher preparation when in-person clinical experiences are limited.
Originality/value
This study offers initial data on remote mentoring, an innovative mentoring approach which has, to this point, been the subject of limited empirical investigation. Additionally, as remote educational opportunities for prek-5 learners increase, teacher preparation programs may choose to utilize remote mentoring in PDS programming, making this data of particular value.
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The purpose of this paper is to discuss findings from an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)-funded research project into the heritage culture of British folk tales. The…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss findings from an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)-funded research project into the heritage culture of British folk tales. The project investigated how such archival source material might be made relevant to contemporary audience via processes of artistic remediation. The research considered artists as “cultural intermediaries”, i.e. as actors occupying the conceptual space between production and consumption in an artistic process.
Design/methodology/approach
Interview data is drawn from a range of 1‐2‐1 and group interviews with the artists. These interviews took place throughout the duration of the project.
Findings
When artists are engaged in a process of remediation which has a distinct arts marketing/audience development focus, they begin to intermediate between themselves and the audience/consumer. Artist perceptions of their role as “professionals of qualification” is determined by the subjective disposition required by the market context in operation at the time (in the case of this project, as commissioned artists working to a brief). Artists’ ability (and indeed willingness) to engage in this process is to a great extent proscribed by their “sense-of-self-as-artist” and an engagement with Romantic ideas of artistic autonomy.
Originality/value
A consideration of the relationship between cultural intermediation and both cultural policy and arts marketing. The artist-as-intermediary role, undertaking creative processes to mediate how goods are perceived by others, enables value-adding processes to be undertaken at the point of remediation, rather than at the stage of intermediation.