Margot Hurlbert, Harry Diaz, Darrell R. Corkal and Jim Warren
The purpose of this paper is to assess the successes and challenges of adaptation to climate change focusing on water governance institutions in Saskatchewan, a province located…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to assess the successes and challenges of adaptation to climate change focusing on water governance institutions in Saskatchewan, a province located in the western Canadian prairies.
Design/methodology/approach
A framework of vulnerability and adaptive capacity to the effects of climate change is employed. Data are obtained through qualitative research conducted through interviews and focus groups with stakeholders and people playing a role in water governance in Saskatchewan.
Findings
There have been many positive institutional developments which have improved Saskatchewan's adaptive capacity. The most promising is the creation of local watershed advisory committees that are poised to implement on‐the‐ground water management decisions. What is lacking, however, is a long‐term comprehensive climate change and adaptation plan, with built‐in flexibility to address present and future climate variability. Without a long‐term baseline plan and vision, Saskatchewan rural communities and the agricultural sector will remain vulnerable to present and future climate‐induced water stress.
Practical implications
The research shows a need for an increased inter‐disciplinary approach addressing environmental issues, and an increased need for academic‐government‐industry partnerships working towards capacity‐building for sustainable climate change adaptation responses.
Originality/value
This inter‐disciplinary research study is the first of its kind conducted in this region of Canada, and blends contributions from physical and social scientists, government and rural stakeholders.
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This chapter discusses issues and strategies on engaging first generation immigrant parents of young children with exceptionalities. It describes challenges and obstacles faced by…
Abstract
This chapter discusses issues and strategies on engaging first generation immigrant parents of young children with exceptionalities. It describes challenges and obstacles faced by immigrant families and the professionals who serve them with a focus on Latino and Chinese immigrant families, given that Latino and Chinese are two largest immigrant groups to the United States. Available literature in early childhood education and nursing suggests that communication, financial stress, and cultural values are critical issues faced by immigrant families of young children with exceptionalities, regardless their immigrant status. Effective engagement with these families can only be achieved through positive attitudes, care, empathy, and sincere communication. Building the cultural competence, collaboration skills, and repertoire of early childhood professionals on assisting these parents access school and community resources will make the work of engaging these parents more fruitful. Most importantly, early childhood professionals must recognize and capitalize on the strengths of immigrant parents of young children with exceptionalities and encourage their participation as an equal partner to support their child’s education. The chapter is concluded with a list of practical strategies for early childhood educators to better collaborate with immigrant parents of young children with disabilities.
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Co-creation of knowledge offers significant opportunities for innovation. This chapter seeks to gain understanding of the process of co-creation of knowledge for innovation and…
Abstract
Co-creation of knowledge offers significant opportunities for innovation. This chapter seeks to gain understanding of the process of co-creation of knowledge for innovation and public relations in multi-stakeholder projects by exploring current insights in academic literature. The research questions look at how co-creation of knowledge for innovation has been investigated in the scholarly literature; the roles of end-users; and the modes and challenges of end-user participation and in collaboration relating to communication.
The method of this chapter is a structured literature review, following a series of rigorous steps: a search of databases, analysis of 33 articles found, summarising relevant content using a data extraction table and a data extraction continuum as analysis tools to show the range of projects discussed in the literature to create a comprehensive overview.
The findings indicate that multi-stakeholder networks can be structured for different aims. In the articles found different types of projects were investigated. Four categories of projects were found: (1) co-creation projects benefiting one company; (2) co-creation projects benefiting business-to-business value chain networks; (3) co-creation projects benefiting public entities; and (4) co-creation projects benefiting innovation network stakeholders.
Complexity is highest for multiple stakeholder co-creation projects benefiting innovation network stakeholders, where the roles between stakeholders are fluid and changing constantly. Solving common issues motivates the stakeholders to collaborate and build trust. Open innovation environments may facilitate communication and interaction.
Co-creation of knowledge requires intensive collaboration. Knowing the main challenges to address will help the functioning of co-creation collaboration networks and their public relations.
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Current publication practices in the scholarly (International) Business and Management community are overwhelmingly anti-Popperian, which fundamentally frustrates the production…
Abstract
Purpose
Current publication practices in the scholarly (International) Business and Management community are overwhelmingly anti-Popperian, which fundamentally frustrates the production of scientific progress. This is the result of at least five related biases: the verification, novelty, normal science, evidence, and market biases. As a result, no one is really interested in replicating anything. In this essay, the author extensively argues what he believes is wrong, why that is so, and what we might do about this. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
This is an essay, combining a literature review with polemic argumentation.
Findings
Only a tiny fraction of published studies involve a replication effort. Moreover, journal authors, editors, reviewers and readers are not interested in seeing nulls and negatives in print. This replication crisis implies that Popper’s critical falsification principle is actually thrown into the scientific community’s dustbin. Behind the façade of all these so-called new discoveries, false positives abound, as do questionable research practices meant to produce all this allegedly cutting-edge and groundbreaking significant findings. If this dismal state of affairs does not change for the good, (International) Business and Management research is ending up in a deadlock.
Research limitations/implications
A radical cultural change in the scientific community, including (International) Business and Management, is badly needed. It should be in the community’s DNA to engage in the quest for the “truth” – nothing more, nothing less. Such a change must involve all stakeholders: scholars, editors, reviewers, and students, but also funding agencies, research institutes, university presidents, faculty deans, department chairs, journalists, policymakers, and publishers. In the words of Ioannidis (2012, p. 647): “Safeguarding scientific principles is not something to be done once and for all. It is a challenge that needs to be met successfully on a daily basis both by single scientists and the whole scientific establishment.”
Practical implications
Publication practices have to change radically. For instance, editorial policies should dispose of their current overly dominant pro-novelty and pro-positives biases, and explicitly encourage the publication of replication studies, including failed and unsuccessful ones that report null and negative findings.
Originality/value
This is an explicit plea to change the way the scientific research community operates, offering a series of concrete recommendations what to do before it is too late.
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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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Bridgie A. Ford, Shernavaz Vakil and Rachel J. Boit
The essentiality of family involvement in the schooling process is evident from the vast directives embedded within federal mandates, professional standards for teachers and…
Abstract
The essentiality of family involvement in the schooling process is evident from the vast directives embedded within federal mandates, professional standards for teachers and administrators, parent organizations, and advocacy groups. Yet, as explicit as legislative mandates and professional standards are regarding parental rights and involvement, they do not require definitive roles of the family. Several factors influence the lack of a decisive definition regarding the role of the family in the schooling process. Those include the different perspectives on what constitutes a family structurally and functionally, the socio-cultural and political diversity within and among populations, the move to an inclusive education framework, the various terms used to describe parental involvement, the realization that no one family model fits the demographic diversity existing in today’s school districts, and the rights of family members to select their level of involvement. Given the importance of family engagement and student outcomes, three fundamental questions addressed in this chapter are, “How can inclusive schools enhance productive collaborative family engagement networks?” “How can the family be empowered to voluntarily participate within those networks?” and “How can inclusive schools connect with teacher preparation programs to promote the competency of educators for those collaborative family/school engagement networks?” In this chapter we delineate an interactive triad conceptual model with the school as the “connecting agent” to build relationships with families and teacher preparation, setting the stage for productive family engagement as partners in inclusive settings.
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The impact of inclusion programs on children goes beyond the classroom. It reflects families’ and children’s experiences with school systems and communities. Inclusion is more…
Abstract
The impact of inclusion programs on children goes beyond the classroom. It reflects families’ and children’s experiences with school systems and communities. Inclusion is more than an issue of disability, a set of strategies, or a placement. It involves the need for all children to be a part of the classroom (Odom, Schwartz, & ECRII Investigators, 2002) and for their families to be a part of their educational experiences (Soodak & Erwin, 1995). The purpose of this chapter is to identify the barriers to and facilitators of inclusion in early childhood programs through listening to the voices of parents and analyzing effective inclusive practices in the literature. The chapter is organized around five themes derived from the voices of parents about their children with disabilities in preschool placements. These themes are then connected to the findings in the literature including the key characteristics of early childhood inclusion programs. The reader is encouraged to identify the barriers to and facilitators of inclusion that the parents share through their lived experiences for each theme as well as reflect on the ways in which schools can include and collaborate with parents to foster a partnership that supports all children.
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Ivana Kovačević, Denisa Abrudan and Jelena Anđelković Labrović
Purpose: The research explores the awareness of career changes based on the current career perception, value-based impression, and expectations for the candidates’ careers in the…
Abstract
Purpose: The research explores the awareness of career changes based on the current career perception, value-based impression, and expectations for the candidates’ careers in the selection process.
Methodology: These opinions are supposed to provide an overview of the content definition of the sustainable career notion and the readiness to see a career as a sustainable paradigm among 159 Romanian (53.46%) and Serbian (46.54%) HR managers. The survey is based on three subscale instruments assessing the respondents agreement with the statements implying sustainability in defining a career.
Findings: Results show that not all aspects of a sustainable career are emphasised, with the issues of environmental protection being slightly neglected, especially in the Serbian subsample. The environmental aspect of the sustainable career is based on the hybrid perception of the career that values restoration of the natural environment while preserving health through social justice and can be recognised among candidates’ consciousness.
Implications: The sociological domain implies career complexity, expecting continuous learning and valuing adaptability, which is visible in the candidate’s responsiveness in the selection process. Governance is covered by disruptiveness that requires new, more individually focused legislative approaches, along with valuing personal accountability and expectations of candidates to be ethically conducting trustworthy partners.
Limitations: The sample consists of not ‘naïve’ subjects but rather affected by current sustainable career discourse.
Future Research: Incorporate various occupational profiles to understand these differences and insight into their circumstances and the spread of research among other economies to understand their big picture and particularities better.
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Carolina Lopez-Nicolas, Shahrokh Nikou, Francisco-Jose Molina-Castillo and Harry Bouwman
By drawing on various theoretical approaches and a gender perspective, this paper aims to examine business model (BM) experimentation as a step towards BM experimentation…
Abstract
Purpose
By drawing on various theoretical approaches and a gender perspective, this paper aims to examine business model (BM) experimentation as a step towards BM experimentation capabilities as an outcome and, as such, a key antecedent to firm performance.
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, using a unique data set of 444 European small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the authors draw on various theoretical perspectives to devise a structural equation model that examines BM experimentation as a step towards business model innovation (BMI) as an outcome and, as such, a key antecedent to firm performance. Potential differences are examined between female-owned and non-female-owned businesses with regard to hypothesized relations.
Findings
Multi-group analysis results reveal that drivers of BM experimentation and the paths linking BM experimentation to overall firm performance are different for female owners in comparison to male owners.
Research limitations/implications
Theoretical and practical implications are various. For SME entrepreneurs, experimenting with their BMs does lead to improved performance.
Practical implications
Theoretical and practical implications are various. For SME entrepreneurs, experimenting with their BMs does lead to improved performance.
Originality/value
Despite the increasing number of papers focussing on the relationship between BM and firm performance, the focus on female entrepreneurship, gender differences and BMI, more specifically the process of BMI as BM experimentation, is relatively rare.
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The purpose of this paper is to advance a conceptualization of sustainable HRM that builds on scholarship focusing on the pluralistic nature of human resource management. The…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to advance a conceptualization of sustainable HRM that builds on scholarship focusing on the pluralistic nature of human resource management. The paper seeks to advance the promise of sustainable HRM as an alternative to HRM scholarship that adopts a unitarist frame of reference.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper draws on a variety of HRM-related literatures to offer new insights about what a pluralist perspective on sustainable HRM from the perspective of employees would look like and what it would accomplish, and in so doing allow sustainable HRM to become socially sustainable.
Findings
Taking a pluralistic perspective is essential for making the concept of sustainable HRM more distinct and robust. Sustainable HRM can offer a challenge to the dominant unitarist perspective on the employment relationship, focusing the attention of researchers on the extent to which employment practices benefit both employers and employees while contributing to social sustainability outside of the employment context.
Originality/value
This paper adds analyses of pluralism and unitarism to the current literature on sustainable HRM while also focusing attention on how sustainable HRM might be more robustly conceptualized and also more normative in its orientation.