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The extra-low minimum wage for US restaurant workers has remained unchanged for over 30 years. Periodic campaigns have brought this wage, and its connection to the perpetuation of inequality and exploitative work, to public attention, but these campaigns have met resistance from both employers and restaurant workers. This article draws on a workplace ethnography in a restaurant front-of-house, and in-depth interviews with tipped food service workers, to examine the tipped labour process and begin to answer a central question: why would any workers oppose a wage increase? It argues that the constituting of tips as a formal wage created for workers a two-employer problem, wherein customers assume the role of secondary, unregulated, employers in the workplace. Ultimately, the tipped wage poses a longer-term strategic obstacle for workers in their position relative to management and ability to organize to shape the terms and conditions of their work.

Collective entrepreneurship is the synergism that emerges from a collective and that propels it beyond the current state by seizing opportunities without regard to resources under its control (Stevenson and Jarrillo 1990). This study provides a conceptual model of collective entrepreneurship and its relationship with leadership and team dynamics in the context of a small family business. It proposes two types of prerequisites for collective entrepreneurship: attitudinal and behavioral. The attitudinal prerequisite is family business members’ commitment to the family business. The behavioral prerequisite includes collaboration and task conflict among family business members. Further, the article argues that leadership behaviors directly affect the attitudinal and behavioral prerequisites, and indirectly affect collective entrepreneurship. Specifically, relations- oriented and participative leadership have positive, indirect effects on collective entrepreneurship. Task-oriented leadership has both positive and negative, indirect effects on collective entrepreneurship. An empirical study of 271 small family businesses in the United States confirmed most of the hypotheses.

The purpose of this quantitative study was to assess the relationship between volunteer leadership competencies and stewardship action-taking experiences among Master Gardener (MG) and Master Watershed (MW) volunteers during the COVID-19 pandemic. We collected data from 1196 Penn State Extension MG and MW respondents. The mean summative score for the volunteer stewardship action-taking experience was 2.32 (SD = .79), and volunteer leadership competencies was 3.45 (SD = .60). The results of this study showed a significant moderate association between volunteer stewardship action-taking experiences and volunteer leader competencies (r = .34, p ≤ .001). Volunteer leadership competencies can explain approximately 11 % of the variation in volunteer stewardship action-taking experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. The new knowledge that our research brings can significantly contribute to the practice in leadership teaching and learning of Extension organizations’ volunteers. Future leadership trainings on the enhancement of the MG and MW volunteer leaders’ stewardship action-taking capacity can help contribute to the greater good in their communities in a more confident and efficient manner. Further research should focus on identifying other factors that can affect MG and MW stewardship action-taking experiences, including the impact of the demographics and motivation.

The purpose of this study is to develop a novel general mathematical model to find the optimal product mix of commercial graphite products, which has a complex production process with alternative sub-processes in the graphite mining production process.

The network optimization was adopted to model the complex graphite mining production process through the optimal allocation of raw graphite, byproducts, and saleable products with comparable sub-processes, which has different processing capacities and costs. The model was tested on a selected graphite manufacturing company, and the optimal graphite product mix was determined through the selection of the optimal production process. In addition, sensitivity and scenario analyses were carried out to accommodate uncertainties and to facilitate further managerial decisions.

The selected graphite mining company mines approximately 400 metric tons of raw graphite per month to produce ten types of graphite products. According to the optimum solution obtained, the company should produce only six graphite products to maximize its total profit. In addition, the study demonstrated how to reveal optimum managerial decisions based on optimum solutions.

This study has made a significant contribution to the graphite manufacturing industry by modeling the complex graphite mining production process with a network optimization technique that has yet to be addressed at this level of detail. The sensitivity and scenario analyses support for further managerial decisions.