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Albeit gradual and uneven, the emergence of social and environmental reporting by publicly held corporations has been a major development in the last few decades. This paper aims to explore patterns of the emergence of these disclosures. Using an institutional theory lens, this paper considers mimetic, normative and coercive possibilities.

US publicly traded company data from 2013 to 2019 is used to test the hypotheses. Mimetic forces are proxied with corporate board interlock frequency. Normative ones use the extent of gender diversity on corporate boards. Measures of business climate and industry regulatory sensitivity proxy coercive potentiality.

Studied in isolation, each of the three forces through which organizations pursue the heightened legitimacy of enhanced environmental and social disclosures has credibility. The strongest support exists for mimetic and normative mechanisms, perhaps because the US government has been reluctant to make these expanded disclosures mandatory.

In the world of voluntary action, more attention to diffusion is needed. For these purposes, better proxies will be needed to study change. Social and environmental information should be separated for individual analysis.

At least in the USA, companies are attentive to what other companies are doing. There is something to be said for the ethical dimension of corporate transparency.

Governmental action in this area has not been effective, at current levels. Corporate leadership is essential. Critical information is shared about disclosure by board members.

Although institutional theory makes several appearances in this area, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the current study is the first empirical archival study to examine the three forces simultaneously, providing evidence as to the relative magnitude of each institutional force on environmental and social disclosures. Should these disclosures not be mandated by government, this study shows pathways for enhanced disclosures to continue to spread.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the structural career barriers in project-based construction and property development organizations in Australia, and explore how these affect women and their project careers. It applies the insights of the institutional theory to explain how the process of normative isomorphism continues to reproduce female underrepresentation in those organizations.

Based on an exploratory interpretive approach, this study consisted of 16 in-depth interviews with female project managers from the Australian construction and property industry.

The research shows that organizational practices may contribute to the ongoing female underrepresentation in the Australian construction and property development industries. The structural career barriers unique to project organizations include work practice, presenteeism, reliance on career self-management and the “filtering of personnel” in recruitment and promotion practices.

The results support the institutional theory as an explanation for the factors that influence women’s’ perceptions of their project management careers. Addressing inequity between men and women is perceived as an organizational choice.

To achieve a substantive change in the numbers of women in project management, organizational leaders in male dominated industries such as construction and property development are encouraged to think strategically about how to overcome the access and opportunity that affect women’s career progress.

Drawing on the institutional theory, this study explores how the process of normative isomorphism may reproduce female underrepresentation and gender segregation in traditional project-based organizations.

The disparities of COVID-19 vaccination rates between the rural and urban areas have become apparent during this pandemic. There is a need to understand the root causes of vaccine hesitancy demonstrated by the rural population to increase coverage and to contain the disease spread throughout the United States. This study aimed to explore other factors influencing vaccine hesitancy among rural dwellers besides the geography-related barriers such as poor health care access and individuals having no or suboptimal insurance coverage.

By reviewing existing data and literature about vaccination, health literacy, and behaviors, and prevailing ideologies, we discuss the potential causes of vaccine hesitancy in rural areas that could create barriers for successful public health efforts related to vaccine coverage and provide suggestions to ameliorate the situation.

Geography-related barriers, health literacy, and preconceived notions are key determinants of adopting healthy behaviors and complying with public health authorities' recommendations among rural individuals during a public-health crisis. We argue that ideology, which is much deeper than preconception or misconception on vaccination, should be incorporated as a key factor to redefine the term “vulnerable populations” in public health research.

The limitation of our study is that we have not found an effective way to encourage the populations who hold conservative religious and political ideologies to join the efforts for public health. Even though geography-related barriers may strongly impact the rural dwellers in achieving optimal health, the various forms of ideologies they have toward certain health behaviors cannot be discounted to understand and address vaccine-related disparities in rural areas. There is a need to redefine the term “vulnerable population” particularly as it relates to rural areas in the United States. During large-scale public health disasters, scholars and public health authorities should consider the ideologies of individuals, in addition to other factors such as race/ethnicity, area of residence (rural vs. urban), and socioeconomic factors influencing the existing vulnerabilities and health disparities.

This paper aims to consider the legitimacy challenges faced by hybrid organizations, examining the narrative strategies hybrids use in responding to these challenges and offering a framework for managers to consider in their choice of narratives.

A narrative analysis of texts addressing the legitimacy of the business models used by four hybrid organizations is conducted.

The results of the analysis suggest that the nature of conflicting stakeholder demands – centered on goals or means – is an integral factor influencing hybrids’ choice of narrative strategies to emphasize distinctiveness or conformity.

This paper adds to extant research examining the challenges hybrid organizations face and emphasizes that the choice of narrative strategies is an important factor hybrids must consider when managing legitimacy. Generalizability is a notable limitation of the case approach; the authors suggest areas for future research to address this limitation.

The research offers a practical framework for hybrids’ leaders, as they manage legitimacy, choosing to emphasize distinctiveness or conformity in the face of conflicts regarding goals or means.

By studying the legitimacy challenges faced by hybrid organizations, this study can form a more complete view of legitimation, encompassing different types of enterprises offering distinct value propositions.

The purpose of this paper is to examine employee satisfaction with an employer-imposed compressed workweek (CWW) schedule within a US municipality (City).

The study utilizes an employee survey (n=779) to test factors related to employee satisfaction with the CWW, a four-day, ten-hours/day workweek (4/10 schedule).

Employee satisfaction with the schedule is influenced by previous 4/10 pilot experience, work schedule preference, and happiness with the 4/10 schedule’s implementation. Additionally, sick leave figures and survey results regarding informal substitute work schedules suggest that worker fatigue may limit the overall organizational value of the 4/10 schedule.

The study is opportunistic in nature and therefore constrained by the City’s HR Department concerns for survey length and respondent anonymity. This meant an inability to collect demographic data or to utilize validated scales.

Analysis suggests that the potential work-life benefits of flexible work schedules may not apply equally to employer-imposed vs employee-chosen compressed work schedules. Further, CWWs engender greater fatigue despite employee satisfaction, an issue managers should consider when weighing schedule costs and benefits.

The study highlights the importance of employee choice in conceptualizing flexibility and for capturing CWW benefits, namely: an initiative’s voluntary or involuntary nature should be considered when determining whether it is likely to be beneficial for employees.

American Community colleges are vital to the country's economic mobility and are leaders in developing and facilitating career, technical, and workforce education. This study explored employer perspectives on employees' common and specialized skills across industries in the United States.

Employers were profiled for one year using a case study and content analysis method. They submitted performance records for at least three employees who graduated from community college career, technical, or workforce programs.

Data revealed that overall, employees were successful at work, but employers focused on employability skills across disciplines (common skills); specialized skills employers focused on were associated with business operations and processes and seemed to be something other than industry-specific technical knowledge.

This article and the research it refers to constitute original work that has not been reproduced or published. The value of this article is premised on new longitudinal data, which could be used to improve and progress institutional CTE and WD programs.

This study aims to capture a sense of place by analysing the physical attributes of the traditional shopping streets located in Indonesia and Malaysia through Instagram posts.

This study adopted a direct content analysis using visual images of 400 posts of Indonesian and Malaysian respondents. The Instagram Application Programming Interface (API) was used to extract data from Instagram posts. It is then followed by the quantitative analysis to determine the frequencies of visual and narrative representations of physical attributes defining the sense of place.

Five visual and narrative categories, namely architectural style, store design, special focal points, and the varieties of products and services that represent the physical attributes of shopping streets, were investigated. The findings would benefit the urban preservation initiatives so that the sense of place as authentic tourism destinations can be secured.

The awareness of the traditional shopping street as a place of character, especially from social media users, is able to create local values that lead to place imageability and promote national tourism.

This study captured the sense of traditional places based on the people’s identifications that were shared on social media platforms. The posts’ preferences confirmed the significance of traditional shopping streets as a place of attraction and identity. The findings addressed the functions of physical attributes in sustaining the historical and authentic values of traditional shopping streets.