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This practice paper describes how leadership education faculty and students at Virginia Tech have facilitated change through the use of appreciative inquiry (Ai) at the departmental level, program level, and project level. Appreciative inquiry has been found to be a useful tool for leadership educators, as its foundation in social constructionist philosophy aligns with contemporary leadership and learning theories. This paper outlines (a) the philosophy of Ai as it applies to organizational development (b) illustrates Ai practices associated with a five-stage model, and (c) highlights three examples that can be used as models for leading change in a variety of organizational situations. The authors suggest that leadership educators are uniquely positioned to serve academic communities as facilitators of change by bridging theory and practice in pursuit of new ways of knowing and working together.

This study aims to fill a distinct gap in the literature on disability-assistance animals (disability-AAs) and inclusive employment by investigating human resource (HR) practitioners’ perceptions of disability-AAs in the staffing process and workplace. HR practitioners play a critical role in accommodation and inclusion, yet their experiences and insights have been largely ignored in prior research.

This study used a phenomenological approach, drawing on signaling theory and employability constructs, to explore insights from 17 HR practitioners’ experiences with assistance animals in the workplace.

The potential for unconscious bias in employment practices was found, as well as a significant percentage of practitioners who were unprepared to handle animal accommodations. First, the potential development of a positive stereotype bias suggests all genuine assistance animals are high functioning. Second, the assumption that employees’ assistance animal requests for invisible disabilities without previous disclosure are presumed fraudulent until proven valid.

As a qualitative study, findings from this study are not generalizable to a larger population but may be transferable to similar employment contexts.

This study extends knowledge from previous studies, which focused predominately on insights from disabled individuals, animal trainers and therapists, to the HR practitioner domain in creating a more inclusive work environment. Findings from this study suggest the need to improve education about disability-AAs and the potential for unconscious bias for HR practitioners and hiring managers when accommodating requests, particularly when those assistance animals are not described as high functioning.

The current paper aims to discuss the implementation of Green Lean Six Sigma (GLSS) in the food industry to improve sustainable practices. The focus is more specifically on dairy processors to ascertain the current state of the literature and aid future research direction.

Utilising a systematic literature review (SLR), the paper addresses various terms and different written forms in the literature. The study characterises the current deployment of GLSS in the food industry and explains the reported benefits of this approach.

GLSS, a concept that has yet to be fully explored in the food industry, as in other sectors, holds significant potential to enhance the food industry’s sustainability practices. The dairy sector, a subsector of the food industry known for its high greenhouse gas emissions, is a prime candidate for the application of GLSS. In instances where it has been applied, GLSS has demonstrated its effectiveness in improving sustainability, reducing waste, lowering greenhouse gas emissions and minimising water usage. However, the specific tools used and the model for GLSS implementation are areas that require further study, as they have the potential to revolutionise food industry operations and reduce their environmental impacts.

Benchmarking of this research by the food industry sector and by academics can aid understanding of the practical application of GLSS tools and aid implementation of these practices to evolve the dairy processing sector in the next decade as sustainability champions in the sector.

This study extensively analyses GLSS in the food industry, with a particular focus on dairy processors.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on all facets of civilisation around the world, including food safety, this study aimed to determine and compare the pre-COVID and post-COVID food safety knowledge of Bangladeshi consumers and their association with sociodemographic variables.

The current study performed a cross-sectional survey of 503 consumers who prepared food at least 2–4 times per week through a validated questionnaire, selected through convenience sampling from two metropolitan cities and two rural districts in Bangladesh. The non-parametric Wilcoxon signed-rank test, Mann–Whitney U tests, Kruskal–Wallis H and binary logistic regression were used for statistical analysis.

Although an increased percentage of consumers showed a better level of overall food safety knowledge in the post-pandemic (38.2%) than the pre-pandemic (28.8%), there is a low level of awareness of the appropriate duration of handwashing, foodborne pathogens, consuming raw milk or eggs, safe storage and temperature control of food. University graduates, families with few children and urban consumers had a good understanding of food safety both pre- and post-pandemic.

This study compares consumers’ pre- and post-COVID-19 food safety knowledge previously unknown in Bangladesh. The findings have significantly contributed to existing food safety knowledge in Bangladesh to adopt policies and structure training programmes for consumers in the country.