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As innovation has been recognised as important in improving construction company performances, this study aims to determine the effects of client focus and company type on innovation and company financial performances.

A self-administered questionnaire was sent to 300 architectural and contractor companies and 163 (54.3%) were returned. The questionnaire data were analysed using a partial least squares structural equation modelling.

Client focus was found to have a complementary partial mediation effect on the relationships between innovation and company financial performance and that innovation independently affected company financial performance with the influence being stronger in the architecture companies than in the contractor companies.

The study adopted a broad definition for innovation without considering the innovation types. As different types of innovation require distinct knowledge, skills, capabilities and management practices, future studies could investigate the various types of innovation and their effects on financial performance.

The findings provide valuable suggestions for principals, top management and policymakers on the importance of client focus when developing and disseminating innovation within the company. Also, architecture companies should focus on implementing innovation to stay competitive.

The mediating effects of client focus and the moderating effects of company type were simultaneously analysed on the relationship between innovation and financial performance.

Mentoring postdocs is a shared responsibility and dynamic process that requires a mutual commitment between the faculty mentor and postdoc. The purpose of this study is to understand how minoritized science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) postdocs view and engage in mentoring exchanges with their faculty mentors. In the context of this study, minoritized postdocs include women, people of color, and individuals with international status; faculty mentors include postdocs’ Principal Investigators (PIs).

Three researchers and 31 data sources (i.e., interview transcripts) were used to construct the case. Researchers first deductively and independently coded the data sources using Molm’s (2006) social exchange framework to identify examples of direct, generalized, and productive mentoring exchanges. Researchers then used thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006) to identify emergent themes among coded examples of direct, generalized, and productive mentoring exchanges.

Data analyses revealed three emergent themes: (1.1) postdocs valued regular meetings and communication with mentors to clarify responsibilities and role expectations, (1.2) postdocs found more value in their interactions with junior faculty PIs who were flexible and open to innovative ideas, and (1.3) postdocs appreciated conversations about short- and long-term career goals and advice with mentors.

Findings offer implications for faculty and postdocs’ approaches to mentoring relationships, and for approaches to cultivating supportive scholarly communities in STEM higher education. Recommendations include flexibility in research assignments, increased awareness of non-academic careers, and opportunities for informal interactions and intra/interdepartmental community building.

The purpose of this paper is to report on the Fall 2015 MARAC Conference.

This paper focuses on the use of technology in archives, libraries and museums, as presented in various sessions at the Fall 2015 MARAC Conference.

Archives, libraries and museums are harnessing technology to archive Twitter feeds, digitize obsolete media, provide better online access to collections, automate workflows for patron-driven requests, conduct forensic recovery of born-digital objects and manage long-term access and preservation of diverse digital collections.

The paper condenses the authors’ notes from various sessions.

Controversy has long swirled over the claim that Donald Trump's base has deeply rooted authoritarian tendencies, but Trump himself seems to have few doubts. Asked whether his stated wish to be dictator “on day one” of second term in office would repel voters, Trump said “I think a lot of people like it.” It is one of his invariable talking points that 74 million voters supported him in 2020, and he remains the unrivaled leader of the Republican Party, even as his rhetoric escalates to levels that cautious observers now routinely call fascistic.

Is Trump right that many people “like” his talk of dictatorship? If so, what does that mean empirically? Part of the answer to these questions was apparent early, in the results of the 2016 American National Election Study (ANES), which included survey questions that we had proposed which we drew from the aptly-named “Right-Wing Authoritarianism” scale. Posed to voters in 2012–2013 and again in 2016, those questions elicited striking responses.

In this chapter, we revisit those responses. We begin by exploring Trump's escalating anti-democratic rhetoric in the light of themes drawn from Max Weber and Theodor W. Adorno. We follow this with the text of the 2017 conference paper in which we first reported that 75% of Trump's voters supported him enthusiastically, mainly because they shared his prejudices, not because they were hurting economically. They hoped to “get rid” of troublemakers and “crush evil.” That wish, as we show in our conclusion, remains central to Trump's appeal.

Begins with a brief overview of how public administration emerged as the positivist theory and technocratic practice of the modern administrative state. The question then becomes: To what extent has public administration been affected by the societal shift toward postmodernism? The author argues that public administration has moved some distance away from its positivist origins; however, the transformation of public administration is still incomplete. The author concludes that public administration should pay more attention to the recent developments of post‐positivist methods of analysis rather than attempting to adopt all the tenets of postmodernism. Large bureaucratic organizations remain typically modern, but they should not be either conceptualized or managed as small machines.

The questions posed for the national reporters for this International Seminar demonstrate the wide range of issues that can be included as part of an analysis of corporate social responsibility. Even limiting the discussion of corporate social responsibility to employment issues covers a broad scope, represented by the three general questions posed for this Seminar: (1) hiring policy; (2) personnel management policy; and social protection policy. Before entering this discussion of the three questions, though, it may be useful to step back to an even broader question of the meaning of the term, “corporate social responsibility” (CSR). The term, itself, carries an underlying assumption of the legitimacy of a particular economic system and its central actors; that is, corporations are central, legitimate, and functional actors in social relations within a capitalist economic structure. The concept of CSR does not question the existence of corporations and their role in maintaining a system of private ownership and control over capital. The fundamental goal of capitalism and corporations to maximize market control and profits remains intact. Policies favoring CSR, rather, seek to shape the conduct of corporations to increase socially responsible corporate practices, but do not challenge the legitimacy of corporate power. Such social responsibility may range from curbing human rights violations by corporations, such as violence against union organizers, to influencing corporations to provide decent wages to employees, to pressuring corporations to carry out business with out harming the environment. The recent attention to CSR may be understood as an expression of concern over the reduced effectiveness of individual nations to maintain the integrity of social welfare policy within current conditions of global power exercised by transnational corporations (TNC).