Candace Bloomquist, Carly Speranza, Daneen Bergland and Kerry K. Fierke
The purpose of this article is to share with leadership educators a writing exercise designed to provide doctoral students enrolled in an Administrative and Policy Leadership…
Abstract
The purpose of this article is to share with leadership educators a writing exercise designed to provide doctoral students enrolled in an Administrative and Policy Leadership course an opportunity to gain experience with building collective will for policy advocacy on a social justice issue. This article describes the use of a letter writing assignment including the background and justification for using letter writing rather than other forms of writing across the curriculum, instructions for students to complete the assignment, and examples and ideas for grading and providing constructive and instructive feedback to leadership students. The article concludes with recommendations and potential assignment modifications for leadership educators that choose to adopt this type of writing assignment within their leadership training curriculum.
Details
Keywords
Rosina Wanyama, Theda Gödecke, Matthias Jager and Matin Qaim
Micronutrient malnutrition is a public health problem in many developing countries, especially in the poorest population segments. Fortification and other food-based approaches…
Abstract
Purpose
Micronutrient malnutrition is a public health problem in many developing countries, especially in the poorest population segments. Fortification and other food-based approaches, such as using more nutritious ingredients in processing, could help to address this problem, but little is known about poor consumers’ attitudes toward nutritionally enhanced foods. The purpose of this paper is to analyze whether poor consumers in Africa would purchase foods with more nutritious ingredients and the related willingness and ability to pay.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey and choice experiment were conducted with 600 randomly selected households in the poorest neighborhoods of Nairobi (Kenya) and Kampala (Uganda). Participants were asked to choose between various alternatives of porridge flour with different types of nutritional attributes. The data were analyzed with mixed logit models. Porridge flour is widely consumed among the urban poor, so that the example can also provide interesting broader lessons.
Findings
Poor consumers welcome foods that are micronutrient-fortified or include new types of nutritious ingredients. However, willingness to pay for nutritional attributes is small. New ingredients that are perceived to have little effect on taste and appearance are seen more positively than ingredients that may change food products more notably.
Practical implications
New nutritionally enhanced foods have good potential in markets for the poor, if they build on local consumption habits and are not associated with significant price increases.
Originality/value
This is among the first studies to explicitly analyze poor consumers’ preferences for nutritionally enhanced foods.
Details
Keywords
Massimo Sargiacomo, Laura Corazza, Antonio D'Andreamatteo, John Dumay and James Guthrie
This paper shows the accounting, accountability and calculative practices associated with emergency food allocations by the City of Turin through a program to feed the vulnerable…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper shows the accounting, accountability and calculative practices associated with emergency food allocations by the City of Turin through a program to feed the vulnerable during COVID-19.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a single case study framed by Foucault's governmentality concept. The data was collected through interviews with key institutional actors and triangulated against decrees, circulars, ordinances and other publicly available documents.
Findings
The accounting tools of governmentality are always incomplete. Sometimes unique situations and crises help us to revise and improve the tools we have. Other times, they demand entirely new tools.
Research limitations/implications
Accounting needs both things to count and a context to count them. In the case of food assistance, what is counted is people. In Turin's case, many people had never been counted – either because there was no need or because they were unaccounted for by choice. Now, the government was accountable for the welfare of both. Thus, new classification systems emerged, as did organisational and accounting solutions.
Originality/value
Although the accounting-for-disasters literature is diverse, studies too often favour the macro social, economic and political issues surrounding crises, neglecting the micro issues associated with governmentality and calculative practices.
Details
Keywords
S. J. Oswald A. J. Mascarenhas
Ethics is fundamentally a science of social and collective responsibility. Ethics concerns human behavior as responsible or accountable. Because of the nature of social…
Abstract
Executive Summary
Ethics is fundamentally a science of social and collective responsibility. Ethics concerns human behavior as responsible or accountable. Because of the nature of social interaction, certain members of the society will bear greater authority, and hence, greater individual and social responsibility than others. In our world, personal responsibility and social responsibility are hardly separable. Personal responsibility becomes responsibility for the world because the person and the world are inseparable. In this chapter, we use the term responsibility from a legal, ethical, moral, and spiritual (LEMS) standpoint as some promise, commitment, obligation, sanctioned by self, morals, law, or society, to do good, and if harm results, to repair harm done on another. Hence, responsibility from a moral perspective is trustworthiness and dependability of the agent in some enterprise. Its inverse is exoneration – the extent to which one is excused from commitment and repairing the harm done to others by one’s actions. We apply the theories and constructs of executive responsibility to two contemporary cases: (1) India’s Super Rich in 2014 and (2) the Fall and Rise of Starbucks. After exploring the basic notion of responsibility, we present a discussion on the nature and obligation of corporate responsibility into three parts: Part I: Classical Understanding and Discussion on Corporate Responsibility; Part II: Contemporary Understanding and Discussion on Corporate Responsibility, and Part III: A synthesis of classical and contemporary views of responsibility and their applications to corporate executive responsibility.
Daryl Watkins, Matthew Earnhardt, Linda Pittenger, Robin Roberts, Kees Rietsema and Janet Cosman-Ross
Technological advances, globalization, network complexity, and social complexity complicate almost every aspect of our organizations and environments. Leadership educators are…
Abstract
Technological advances, globalization, network complexity, and social complexity complicate almost every aspect of our organizations and environments. Leadership educators are challenged with developing leaders who can sense environmental cues, adapt to rapidly changing contexts, and thrive in uncertainty while adhering to their values systems. In a complex leadership context, inadequate leader responses can result in devastating organizational impacts akin to the butterfly effect from chaos theory. This paper advances a simple model for leadership education based on a program we designed to develop leaders who understand the nature of complex systems, reliably use their ethical value systems, are emotionally intelligent and resilient, and can adapt to emergent situations.
Kwadwo Owusu, Ayisi Kofi Emmanuel, Issah Justice Musah-Surugu and Paul William Kojo Yankson
This paper aims to provide empirical evidence on the El Nino and its effects on maize production in three municipalities: Ejura, Techiman and Wenchi in the transitional zone of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to provide empirical evidence on the El Nino and its effects on maize production in three municipalities: Ejura, Techiman and Wenchi in the transitional zone of Ghana. Using a mixed approach, the study details the effects of the El Nino on rainy season characteristics, particularly, rainfall amounts and distribution, onset and cessation of rains, duration of the rainy season and total seasonal rainfall and how it impacted smallholder maize production.
Design/methodology/approach
The study used a mixed method approach in collecting and analyzing data. For stronger evidence building, (Creswell, 2013) the authors combined interviews and focus group discussions (FGD) to collect the qualitative data. Semi-structured questionnaires were administered to extension officers, management information system officers and other relevant personnel of the Ministry of Agriculture in the three municipalities. Six FGD’s were held for maize farmers in six communities in all three municipalities.
Findings
The study shows that the 2015 El Nino had dire consequences on farm yields, subsequently affecting farmer’s incomes and livelihoods. The study further finds that complex socio-cultural factors, some unrelated to the El Nino, aggravated the effects on maize farmers. These include the lack of adequate climatic information, predominance of rain-fed farming, a lack of capacity to adapt and existing levels of poverty.
Originality/value
The study recommends inter alia, appropriate use of seasonal rainfall forecasting to enhance better farming decision-making and the development of elaborate climate variability interventions by national and local agencies.
Details
Keywords
Laura M. Oliver and Kae Reynolds
The recent financial crisis has brought business ethics issues to the forefront. While most colleges have formal training in business ethics, a person’s ethical standards have…
Abstract
The recent financial crisis has brought business ethics issues to the forefront. While most colleges have formal training in business ethics, a person’s ethical standards have often developed before college age. This application brief proposes using digital popular media to teach servant-leadership principles to public school adolescents. The purpose is to illustrate the advantage of using secular content from the television series Merlin (Wilkie, 2008) to demonstrate an ethics-based leadership perspective through a medium that is accessible to the virtual/video generation.
Although numerous women have contributed essays and research on servant-leadership there is still a considerable gap in literature addressing feminist perspectives and issues of…
Abstract
Although numerous women have contributed essays and research on servant-leadership there is still a considerable gap in literature addressing feminist perspectives and issues of gender in servant-leadership. This theoretical paper attempts to fill that gap by presenting a discussion of servant-leadership that is informed through feminist scholarship. The intent is to build a theoretical foundation for conceiving servant-leadership as a gender-integrative approach to leadership. A further purpose is to propose gender-integrative discernment in leadership education programs and suggest using servant-leadership as a framework for discussing gender in leadership and organizations. Examples of implications for leadership education programs are discussed in terms of outcomes and assessment. Suggestions for course content are made.
Beatrice Ietto, Federica Pascucci and Gian Luca Gregori
This paper aims to develop a theoretical framework for the conceptualization of customer experiential knowledge (CEK) by logically combining its different dimensions into one…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to develop a theoretical framework for the conceptualization of customer experiential knowledge (CEK) by logically combining its different dimensions into one coherent explanatory concept. Drawing on the integration of the literature on customer experience, customer knowledge management and customer insights acquisition, supported by adequate empirical evidence, the framework provides a systematic, comprehensive and accurate understanding of CEK which, could contribute to the identification of relevant customer experience insights useful for customer knowledge management.
Design/methodology/approach
The analysis follows an inductive/deductive interpretative approach and it is based on a netnography of specialty coffee bloggers’ narratives in relation to their sustainability practices.
Findings
The paper identifies the following six types of CEK: normative, subcultural, epicurean, transcendental, subcultural and symbolic. Accordingly, CEK is defined as the knowledge tacitly possessed by customers in relation to how they live their consumption experiences according to a body of heterogeneous socio-cultural contextual factors (ethos, norms and symbols) and subjective influences (emotions, ingenuity, instincts and senses) deeply embedded into the narrative of a consumption experience.
Originality/value
While CEK has been largely observed and acknowledged, it has not been yet adequately addressed by existing research. The provision of a conceptual definition of CEK which emphasizes its different dimensions will be of use to both academics and practitioners to better identify and categorize the different manifestations of CEK when undertaking empirical observations or managerial decisions.