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Organizational pursuit of sustainability in multi-tier supply chain systems operating in unpredictable environments is often associated with the emergence of paradoxical tensions. This study aims to summarize and synthesize existing literature on managing various paradoxical tensions in supply chains (i.e. sourcing, making, delivering and reverse logistics) as organizations pursue sustainability transformation. It also strives to motivate new academic research inquiry into developing responses to sustainability paradoxes.

The study draws on a systematic literature review of 73 papers from the Web of Science database selected at the intersection of paradox, sustainability and logistics/ supply chain management (SCM). Applying paradox theory as a guiding lens, we investigate organizational strategies, practices and capabilities described in the literature to navigate sustainability paradoxes in supply chains.

The results assert that the success of sustainability transformation will depend on an organizational ability to recognize, accept and navigate paradoxical tensions in one's supply chain. This requires developing the dynamic capabilities of paradoxical leadership, strategic agility, innovativeness, collaboration with contextualization and governance. Successful sustainability transformation is not reliant on finding an optimal, final design but rather the continuous balancing of tensions inherent within or across the organizations that make up one's supply chain.

The research offers an integrative conceptual framework to guide organizations in navigating sustainability paradoxes in supply chains, embracing strategic, practice and capability levels. It also outlines opportunities for future research inquiries connected to this framework that are needed to build additional insight for addressing paradoxical tensions related to the pursuit of sustainable supply chain management.

This study takes a dynamic capabilities approach to navigating paradoxical tensions in pursuit of sustainable supply chain management.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the psychosocial factors that impact the academic performance of nursing students.

A cross-sectional study was conducted with 767 nursing students from three nursing colleges in Thailand. Instruments included Counseling Center Assessment for Psychological Symptoms and Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. Path model analyses with the maximum likelihood method were utilized to examine the proposed model. Model fit was estimated using multiple indexes, including chi-square/df ratio (χ²/df), comparative fit index (CFI), Tucker-Lewis index (TLI) and the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA).

Results indicated that family distress, emotional negativity, self-esteem and substance use were factors that related to nursing students' academic performance. Findings of path analyses indicated that the model demonstrated good fit: χ² (2, N = 767) = 3.11, p = 0.48; χ²/df = 1.56; CFI = 1.00; TLI = 0.99; RMSEA = 0.027, (90% CI = [0.000, 0.082], PCLOSE = 0.68).

While prior research has examined some facets leading to academic success for nursing students, psychosocial factors have not received adequate attention. This study presents a model of family and individual psychosocial factors that impact academic performance of nursing students along with recommendations to help improve their well-being.

In many security domains, the ‘human in the system’ is often a critical line of defence in identifying, preventing and responding to any threats (Saikayasit, Stedmon, & Lawson, 2015). Traditionally, such security domains are often focussed on mainstream public safety within crowded spaces and border controls, through to identifying suspicious behaviours, hostile reconnaissance and implementing counter-terrorism initiatives. More recently, with growing insecurity around the world, organisations have looked to improve their security risk management frameworks, developing concepts which originated in the health and safety field to deal with more pressing risks such as terrorist acts, abduction and piracy (Paul, 2018). In these instances, security is usually the specific responsibility of frontline personnel with defined roles and responsibilities operating in accordance with organisational protocols (Saikayasit, Stedmon, Lawson, & Fussey, 2012; Stedmon, Saikayasit, Lawson, & Fussey, 2013). However, understanding the knowledge that frontline security workers might possess and use requires sensitive investigation in equally sensitive security domains.

This chapter considers how to investigate knowledge elicitation in these sensitive security domains and underlying ethics in research design that supports and protects the nature of investigation and end-users alike. This chapter also discusses the criteria used for ensuring trustworthiness as well as assessing the relative merits of the range of methods adopted.

People with intellectual disabilities are high users of acute hospital care. Given their varied and often complex health-care needs, they often experience health inequalities and inequities, contributing to poorer health outcomes. As nurses are the largest health-care workforce with a patient-facing role, they have an important responsibility in meeting this populations health needs. The purpose of this paper is to explore key issues relating to the role nurses play in providing equitable health care for people with intellectual disabilities.

This service feature draws upon relevant literature to examine key contextual issues highlighting the importance of nurses in providing equitable health care for people with intellectual disabilities.

The findings from this service feature highlight the importance of nurses taking a leadership role in advocating for, and actively supporting the health needs of people with intellectual disabilities. Nurses’ leadership role, along with implementing reasonable adjustments, should be underpinned by education and training relating to the bespoke health needs of people with intellectual disabilities. This should help nurses promote the health and well-being of this population.

Addressing this populations health needs is a collective responsibility of all nurses. There are many examples of how nurses can be supported through policy, education, training and advocacy and this needs to be considered by key stakeholders and addressed as a matter of priority.

The purpose of this paper was to develop deeper insights into the practices enacted by entrepreneurial healthcare managers to enhance the implementation of a partnership logic in integrated care models for older adults.

A multiple case study design in two urban centres in two jurisdictions in Canada, Ontario and Quebec. Data collection included 65 semi-structured interviews with policymakers, managers and providers and analysis of key policy documents. The institutional entrepreneur theory provided the theoretical lens and informed a reflexive iterative data analysis.

While each case faced unique challenges, there were similarities and differences in how managers enhanced a partnership’s institutional logic. In both cases, entrepreneurial healthcare managers created new roles, negotiated mutually beneficial agreements and co-located staff to foster inter-organisational partnerships between public, private and community organisations in the continuum of care for older adults. In addition, managers in Ontario secured additional funding, while managers in Quebec organised biannual meetings and joint training to enhance inter-organisational partnerships.

This study has two main implications. First, efforts to enhance inter-organisational partnerships should strategically include institutional entrepreneurs. Second, successful institutional changes may be supported by investing in integrated implementation strategies that target roles of staff, co-location and inter-organisational agreements.

Digital transformation (DT) is a major challenge for incumbent organisations, as research on this phenomenon has revealed a high failure rate. Given this consideration, this paper reviews the literature on DT in incumbent organisations to identify the main themes and research directions to be undertaken.

The authors adopt a systematic literature review (SLR) and computational literature review (CLR) employing a machine learning algorithm for topic modelling (LDA) to surface the themes discussed in 103 peer-reviewed studies published between 2010 and 2022 in a multidisciplinary article sample.

The authors identify and discuss the five main themes emerging from the studies, offering the state-of-the-art of DT in established firms' literature. The authors find that the most discussed topics revolve around the DT of healthcare, the process of renewal and change, the project management, the changes in value performances and capabilities and the consequences on the products of DT. Accordingly, the authors identify the topics overlooked by literature that future studies could tackle, which concern sustainability and contextualisation of the DT phenomenon.

The authors further propose managerial insights which equip managers with a revolutionary mindset that is not constraining but, rather, integration-seeking. DT is not only about technology (Tabrizi B et al., 2019). Successful DT initiatives require managerial capabilities that foster a sustainable departure from the current organising logic (Markus, 2004). This study pinpoints and prioritises the role that paradox-informed thinking can have to sustain an effective digital mindset (Eden et al., 2018) that allows for the building of momentum in DT initiatives and facilitates the renewal process. Indeed, managers lagging behind DT could shift from an “either-or” solutions mindset where one pole is preferred over the other (e.g. digital or physical) to embracing a “both-and-with” thinking balancing between poles (e.g. digital and physical) to successfully fuse the digital and the legacy (Lewis and Smith, 2022b; Smith, Lewis and Edmondson, 2022), enact the renewal, and build and maintain momentum for DTs. The outcomes of adopting a paradox mindset in managerial practice are enabling learning and creativity, fostering flexibility and resilience and, finally, unleashing human potential (Lewis and Smith, 2014).

The authors propose insight that will equip managers with a mindset that will allow DT to fail less often than current reported rates, which failure may imply potential organisational collapse, financial bankrupt and social crisis.

The authors offer a multidisciplinary review of the DT complementing existing reviews due to the focus on the organisational context of established organisations. Moreover, the authors advance paradoxical thinking as a novel lens through which to study DT in incumbent organisations by proposing an array of potential research questions and new avenues for research. Finally, the authors offer insights for managers to help them thrive in DT by adopting a paradoxical mindset.

We are facing a number of concurrent human-induced crises which, it might be claimed, are the result of entangled processes which flow between and through the issues of climate change, environmental degradation, political instability, global health problems and economic inequalities. These crises are now posing existential threats to ecosystems, habitats, lifeforms and humans. One reaction to these crises has been the instigation of the sustainable development goals (SDGs). Their influence can be argued to have met varied levels of impact and success, but in a complex, interconnected world, perhaps, it is too much to expect that they would, by themselves, act as a management tool which would solve all our ills as they focus on the large scale, not the individual. This leaves a gap for a framework which supports individual growth towards supporting sustainability. The inner development goals (IDGs, 2021) framework is a recent innovation, initially suggested by three Swedish organisations with the express intent of fostering capacities and perspectives at the individual level which will encourage populations to engage with the crises we face in more informed, motivated and practical ways. Through an engagement with the literature, this chapter considers the need for the IDGs in education as a process through which the SDGs can be engaged with at an individual level. This debate is both current and important as it suggests a way in which individual agency can be brought to bear on the global crises we all face.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the key drivers and challenges to supply chain collaboration in the humanitarian sector; to appraise the relationships between international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) and local non-governmental organizations (LNGOs) during disaster relief; and to explore the humanitarian context in regard to supply chain collaboration.

Literature from both the commercial and humanitarian sectors is discussed in the context of vertical partnerships. A Jordanian study spanning a network of 26 international and LNGOs is explored via semi-structured interviews.

The research provides valuable insights on the challenges facing LNGOs and INGOs when developing partnerships. Contextual factors, including host governmental policies and the social-economic setting of a disaster directly affect the motivations for supply chain collaboration between LNGOs and INGOs.

The research is built on interviewees with 30 humanitarian professionals working in one country during an extended crisis. The majority of the empirical data are only from one actor’s perspective, thus further research into dyadic and network relationships is required. Approaches to addressing the diverse cultural and decision-making perspectives of LNGOs and INGOs warrant further investigation.

Recognizing the motives and challenges to vertical partnerships between LNGOs and INGOs will assist the managers, both at the strategic and operational levels, to find solutions and evolve strategies to build effective partnerships. Compromise and consideration for partner’s drivers and cultural views are essential for effective joint humanitarian relief initiatives.

This paper extends supply chain collaboration to a humanitarian context. Overcoming the challenges facing collaborative efforts and complementary nature of the drivers provide a means to achieve effective partnerships. Despite the uniqueness of the humanitarian context, such as the secondary nature of cost and dynamic demand, the core principles of collaboration still hold.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of role playing as an applied learning technique for enhanced classroom experiences as compared to traditional lecture methods.

This study uses the pre-test/post-test design to conduct experiments with several control and experimental groups. Subjects are graduate students in an MBA program at a private, non-profit university in a traditional classroom setting.

Students in the experimental group gained significantly more knowledge (post-test minus pre-test scores) – 45 percent higher – through participation in the role playing exercise as compared to the control group.

This study represents only a single educational discipline explored using a single role playing learning activity. Impacts on the long-term retention of the knowledge should be studied further.

Educators should enhance their classroom experience with more applied learning activities such as role playing in order to increase knowledge gain and potentially longer knowledge retention.

This study uses a customized role playing activity within a business curriculum as one of many applied learning techniques. The value to students was shown by significantly higher gain in knowledge while simultaneously enhancing their enjoyment of the classroom experience to potentially encourage further lifelong learning.

The purpose of this paper is to interrogate the nature and relevance of debates around the existence of, and ramifications arising from, the Anthropocene for accounting scholarship.

The paper’s aim is achieved through an in-depth analysis of the Anthropocene, paying attention to cross-disciplinary contributions, interpretations and contestations. Possible points of connection between the Anthropocene and accounting scholarship are then proposed and illuminated through a case study drawn from the seafood sector.

This paper develops findings in two areas. First, possible pathways for further development of how accounting scholarship might evolve by the provocation that thinking about the Anthropocene is outlined. Second, and through engagement with the case study, the authors highlight that the concept of stewardship may re-emerge in discussions about accountability in the Anthropocene.

The paper argues that accounting scholarship focused on social, environmental and sustainability concerns may be further developed by engagement with Anthropocene debates.

While accounting practice might have to change to deal with Anthropocene induced effects, this paper focuses on implications for accounting scholarship.

Human well-being is likely to be impacted if environmental impacts accelerate. In addition, an Anthropocene framing alters the understanding of nature–human interactions and how this affects accounting thought.

This is the first paper in accounting to seek to establish connections between accounting, accountability and the Anthropocene.