Carlos Diaz Ruiz and Angela Gracia B. Cruz
This study conceptualizes a form of luxury consumption in which luxury brands collaborate with unconventional non-luxury partners. These unconventional luxury brand collaborations…
Abstract
Purpose
This study conceptualizes a form of luxury consumption in which luxury brands collaborate with unconventional non-luxury partners. These unconventional luxury brand collaborations are growing in popularity among Chinese luxury consumers of the post-1990s generation. Luxury brands are exploring new branding strategies due to the growing commercial importance of Chinese luxury consumers.
Design/methodology/approach
An in-depth qualitative study informs this paper. Interviews with young adult luxury consumers self-identifying as Chinese reveal a growing interest for luxury brands that collaborate with odd partners in social media and online culture.
Findings
Unconventional collaborations between luxury brands and non-luxury partners catalyze shifting meanings of luxury through the following juxtapositions: ephemeral instead of timeless, trendy rather than inaccessible, and playful in contrast with traditional. First, young Chinese consumers construct luxury meanings through ephemerality, like digital possessions, social media fame and fleeting experiences. Second, luxury meanings emerge in trendiness among social media influencers and online culture rather than in the seemingly inaccessible taste regimes of the upper class. Third, younger consumers appreciate fun, rebellious and over-the-top aesthetics in luxury brands.
Originality/value
The study contributes to the nascent field of unconventional luxury by conceptualizing how unusual, odd and unexpected collaborations constitute new forms of luxury consumption. The shifting meanings of luxury consumption that this study conceptualizes raise new opportunities and challenges for luxury brands. One of such is the release of limited collections with non-luxury partners seemingly at the opposite spectrum of design, image and values. Moreover, the study adds nuance to the understanding of luxury consumption among young Chinese consumers.
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Ana Paula Castelo Branco, Maria Teresa Bianchi and Manuel Castelo Branco
This paper aims to examine the relationship between board demographic diversity and human rights reporting for a sample of large Western European companies.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the relationship between board demographic diversity and human rights reporting for a sample of large Western European companies.
Design/methodology/approach
Grounded on resource dependence theory, the authors hypothesize that greater gender, age and nationality diversities will translate into enhanced levels of human rights reporting. The authors use ordinal logistic regression analysis to analyze the association between these types of board diversity and such reporting.
Findings
The findings suggest that the companies in the sample attribute little importance to the reporting of information pertaining to the issue of human rights. They also suggest that only the diversity of nations represented in the board of directors is significant in explaining this type of reporting.
Research limitations/implications
The sample includes only large companies from Western Europe and the analysis covers only one year.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study provides the first empirical analysis of factors influencing human rights reporting conducted on a multiple-country setting. It is also the first investigating the association between boards of directors’ demographic diversity and such reporting.
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Paula Marcelo-Martínez, Carmen Yot-Domínguez and Ingrid Mosquera Gende
Social networks (SNs) play a significant role as environments supporting teacher professional development. The purpose of this to analyze the motivation and participation roles…
Abstract
Purpose
Social networks (SNs) play a significant role as environments supporting teacher professional development. The purpose of this to analyze the motivation and participation roles that Spanish teachers have when participating in SNs for their professional development in three professional stages: preservice teachers, beginning teachers and experienced teachers.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses a mixed-method approach, combining two validated surveys, one applied to 217 preservice teachers and other to 68 beginning teachers and 384 experienced teachers, with 15 interviews. A qualitative exploratory sequential strategy has been followed along with an ex post facto quantitative survey-type study of a descriptive and inferential nature.
Findings
Preservice and beginning teachers use SNs to access materials and resources with which to learn, presenting an observer and passive role in their interaction on SNs. Experienced teachers log in to learn about experiences but begin to participate more actively in SNs for searching for specific resources, establishing contacts with other teachers, contributing with their own educational materials and helping other teachers with their doubts or even forming their own communities.
Originality/value
These findings help understand how the evolution in teacher expertise accompanies the level of involvement in their social network interactions. The results allow us to better understand how different levels of teaching experience influence the way Spanish teachers access and participate in SNs, in some cases consuming and in others producing digital content.
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Carolina Machado Dias Ramalho Luz, Sílvio Luiz de Paula and Lúcia Maria Barbosa de Oliveira
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which the organizational commitment and job satisfaction influence intent to turnover.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which the organizational commitment and job satisfaction influence intent to turnover.
Design/methodology/approach
Following a quantitative approach regarding methodological aspects of this research, a case study was carried out in a company of information technology and communication located in Porto Digital, in the Northeast of Brazil. A data collection technique with 172 forms, a self-administered form with 18 closed questions with a Likert-type scale and an open questionnaire were used. In this analysis, Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software was used as the technique; besides the descriptive statistics, a correlation was made between dependent variables (intention of rotation) and independent variables (affective, normative, instrumental and work satisfaction). The level of organizational commitment in its three dimensions (affective, normative and instrumental), the job satisfaction in its five dimensions (satisfaction with nature of the task, with leadership, with colleagues, with salary and promotions) and the level of intent to turnover from the respondents were investigated.
Findings
The results suggest that affective and normative commitments and satisfaction with pay, satisfaction with promotions and satisfaction with the nature of the work are correlated with the intention of negative turnover significantly. Among the demographic factors, only the age showed a negative correlation with intent to turnover. By performing multiple regression analysis, we identified that the variables that most impacted the turnover intention are affective commitment, satisfaction with salary and normative commitment. The qualitative portion of this study was accomplished through a content analysis of the open question of the form. Finally, one of the main considerations is the findings that revealed variables other than those adopted in the study, which influence the permanence of the respondents.
Research limitations/implications
Among the limitations of the research a single case study is highlighted that replicates the experience in other ICT companies to verify if the results found are similar in other organizations and in other segments. The findings direct the construction and validation of new scales, the creation of qualitative protocols to identify the variables that influence the retention of a specific group of individuals to serve as a guide for the elaboration of a questionnaire, as well as creation of surveys of longitudinal nature to correlate the data of intention of rotation with the effective turnover.
Practical implications
Based on the results, organizations can reduce voluntary evasion by adjusting actions, policies and practices, directing those responsible for People Management to attract and retain good employees. It should be emphasized that voluntary turnover should be treated as one of the management indicators of greater relevance by organizations, representing a thermometer of all human capital management.
Social implications
The monitoring of employment and unemployment levels is part of the public policy agenda for generating employment and income in Brazil. For organizations, employee turnover can and should be managed and monitored so that appropriate levels are found and their consequences are minimized through effective solutions. The results are important both for technology-based organizations and for all stakeholders interested in the subject as the public power.
Originality/value
Although in the international literature turnover is a topic of study for many years, in the Brazilian context, there is a shortage of research on the subject, specifically in the sector of advanced technology where there is a great lack of skilled labor, a fierce competition and where to keep employees standard high becomes a survival factor. This study may contribute to the exploration in the local literature, as it will help locate the academy on the Brazilian reality and open the doors to new research works on turnover and its possible correlations with other variables besides organizational commitment and job satisfaction.
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This paper critically examines how female students at a Finnish business school understand gender in management.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper critically examines how female students at a Finnish business school understand gender in management.
Design/methodology/approach
The analysis is based on female students' learning diaries from a basic management course.
Findings
The findings show how students respond to the topic of gender inequality through a neoliberal postfeminist discourse. The students' discourse is structured around three discursive moves: (1) rejecting “excessive” feminism, (2) articulating self-reliant professional futures and (3) producing idealized role models through successfully integrating masculinity and femininity.
Originality/value
This article contributes to current understanding of the role of postfeminist sensibilities in shaping student participation in the management profession. Awareness of students' responses to gender-equality initiatives offers management educators insight into the inclusion of equality topics in teaching in ways that support equal gender socialization in the management profession.
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Cherise McBride, Anna Smith and Jeremiah Holden Kalir
The purpose of this paper is to re-center playfulness as a humanizing approach in teacher education. As teachers navigate the current moment of heightened control, surveillance…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to re-center playfulness as a humanizing approach in teacher education. As teachers navigate the current moment of heightened control, surveillance, and systemic inequity, these proposed moves in teacher education can be transgressive. Rather than play as relegated to childhood or infancy, what does it look like to continue to be “playful” in teaching and teacher education?
Design/methodology/approach
To examine how teacher educators may design for teachers’ critical playful literacies, the authors offer three “worked examples” (Gee, 2009) of preservice teachers’ playful practices in an English literacies teacher education course.
Findings
The authors highlight instructional design elements pertinent to co-designing for teachers’ play and playful literacies in teacher education: generative constraints to practice everyday ingenuity, figuring it out to foster teacher agency and debriefs to interrupt the teaching’s perpetual performance.
Originality/value
The term “playful,” as a descriptor of practice and qualifier of activity appears frequently in educational literature across domains. The relationship of play to critical literacies – and, more specifically, educators’ literacies and learning – is less frequently explored.
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Jane Strawhecker, Christopher Knoell, Paula Thompson, Nicole Shundoff and Angela Bardell
This mixed-method, collaborative study investigated parents’ perceptions of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) learning through use of STEM kits specifically…
Abstract
Purpose
This mixed-method, collaborative study investigated parents’ perceptions of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) learning through use of STEM kits specifically designed for in-home use by parents and preschool-age children.
Design/methodology/approach
Parents with a child attending a community-based childhood development center and ranging in age from three to four were invited to participate. Data were analyzed for the participants’ surveys, which were completed at two different times (pre and post) for this study.
Findings
After utilizing the STEM materials with their child over a two-week period, the parents’ perceptions of STEM content changed. The results indicate that regardless of the at-home STEM materials, positive outcomes for their child occurred, including the likelihood that their child would pursue additional STEM opportunities.
Research limitations/implications
With a small sample size and a short timeframe for conducting the study, the results lack generalizability. The findings add information about the effectiveness of STEM materials for preschoolers while providing insight into educational opportunities in home environments.
Originality/value
As the nation addresses workforce shortages in many areas, including STEM, rethinking STEM education during the first five years is important. The more opportunities for young children to engage in meaningful STEM, the greater the potential to pique interest and develop critical thinking skills.