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This article shares an academic library's transition from traditional reference services to a peer support model during a campus reopening post-COVID-19 closure. It examines the conception, implementation and implications of the Peer Mentor program amidst shifts in campus priorities, Library research and reference paradigms and the Library workforce, from the perspectives of library faculty and staff, alongside feedback from student workers.

The article uses a case study approach to detail the Library's Peer Mentor Program by authors involved in various stages of the program's lifespan and discusses the beginnings, implementations and challenges of the program and introduces the unique curriculum used to train student Peer Mentors.

The authors chronicle their own experience after two semesters of the Peer Mentor program alongside qualitative feedback from the first cohort of Peer Mentors. The Peer Mentor feedback points to positive impacts in other academic pursuits and in gaining a greater understanding of the information landscape and the library field.

The case study presented is a valuable example for academic librarians considering beginning peer-to-peer learning models within their own research and reference services units, especially those who may be creating these peer learning networks in the wake of library service disruption or restructure (such as due to the COVID-19 pandemic).

The purpose of this article is to clarify what is meant by talent management and why it is important (particularly with respect to its affect on employee recruitment, retention and engagement), as well as to identify factors that are critical to its effective implementation.

This article is based on a review of the academic and popular talent management literatures.

Talent management is an espoused and enacted commitment to implementing an integrated, strategic and technology enabled approach to human resource management (HRM). This commitment stems in part from the widely shared belief that human resources are the organization's primary source of competitive advantage; an essential asset that is becoming in increasingly short supply. The benefits of an effectively implemented talent management strategy include improved employee recruitment and retention rates, and enhanced employee engagement. These outcomes in turn have been associated with improved operational and financial performance. The external and internal drivers and restraints for talent management are many. Of particular importance is senior management understanding and commitment.

Hospitality organizations interested in implementing a talent management strategy would be well advised to: define what is meant by talent management; ensure CEO commitment; align talent management with the strategic goals of the organization; establish talent assessment, data management and analysis systems; ensure clear line management accountability; and conduct an audit of all HRM practices in relation to evidence‐based best practices.

This article will be of value to anyone seeking to better understand talent management or to improve employee recruitment, retention and engagement.

Many industries are increasingly affected by or even invite the participation of external stakeholders in the innovation process. The concepts of open innovation use the ideas of external stakeholders to foster innovation and make the firms more competitive. However, little research has considered whether evaluations from external stakeholders also serve as a source for open innovation and, and if so, in which way they are integrated into the innovation process. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to explore how external evaluations influence the innovation process in the creative industries.

The authors conducted an explorative qualitative study using a mixture of an inductive and deductive research design. The authors interviewed 14 artists in order to understand how external evaluations are integrated in the innovation process.

The paper formulates propositions on factors that influence whether and how external evaluations are a resource for the innovation process in micro-firms. The factors are the situation of the individual that is evaluated, the external evaluator’s credibility, the content of the evaluation, and the potential impact of the evaluation on the individual evaluated.

This paper provides exploratory insights into a so far neglected source of open innovation and its external evaluations in micro-firms in the creative industries.

Relying on an international panel data set, the purpose of this paper is to quantify the economic impact of labor unionization on corporate financial performance.

Static panel regression analysis is performed for a firm-level multinational data set to elucidate the postulated empirical relationships between employee unionization and corporate performance. The transmission mechanisms intermediating the studied effects are discussed and operationalized.

The empirical evidence demonstrates that firms with a higher level of employee unionization spend more on wages and labor-related expenses. The concomitant downside of higher resource extraction by unions is a lower rate of net employment creation and a higher possibility of redundancy layoffs.

Overall, the authors demonstrate that by creating a credible threat of employee disobedience manifested through strikes and internal wage disputes, labor unions remain an effective mechanism of increasing employees’ bargaining power. Despite the discovered weak negative associative link between the degree of unionization and corporate financial performance, the authors perceive the overall evidence to be inconclusive on this matter.

The purpose of this paper is to explore UK consumer perceptions of trust, risk and perceived usefulness of mobile payments through the use of sequential mixed methods.

A post-positivist philosophy is used with a social constructionist ontology with a questionnaire as the first survey instrument using an empirical sequential mixed methods approach. Summary quantitative analysis of the questionnaire data is undertaken followed by semi-structured interviews that produce qualitative data on which content analysis is undertaken to assess and explore UK consumer perspectives. The technology acceptance model is used as the underlying framework on which a conceptual model is developed.

UK consumers have significant risk and trust concerns with mobile payments, although these concerns can be overcome when clear consumer benefits are identified whilst bank supported mobile payments have an increased level of trust compared to new market entrants and other established companies. Furthermore, perceived trust positively influences perceived usefulness and mitigates perceived risk, whilst perceived risk negatively influences perceived usefulness. In addition, perceived usefulness significantly and positively influences UK consumer attitude which can lead to adoption.

Whilst 120 completed questionnaire responses are received, only 101 questionnaires are used for analysis. In addition, ten semi-structured interviews are undertaken using a purposeful sample to minimise any imbalance (Oakley, 1981) which increases the reliability of the research findings (Hackley, 2003). This mobile payments research does not have a statistically secure universalisation of the findings, which negates the application of these research findings to other groups and to different social settings (Lincoln and Guba, 1985).

Mobile payment organisations will need to focus on identifying the specific benefits of mobile payments to UK consumers as mitigating risk and increasing trust do not compensate for the absence of usefulness.

UK consumers indicate a lack of awareness of existing contactless payment guarantees provided by UK banks, although these payment guarantees significantly increase UK consumer trust.

Both quantitative and qualitative empirical data are obtained on UK consumer perspectives of risk, trust and perceived usefulness of mobile payments using sequential mixed methods.

Looks at the 2000 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference held at the University of Cardiff in Wales on 6/7 September 2000. Spotlights the 76 or so presentations within and shows that these are in many, differing, areas across management research from: retail finance; precarious jobs and decisions; methodological lessons from feminism; call centre experience and disability discrimination. These and all points east and west are covered and laid out in a simple, abstract style, including, where applicable, references, endnotes and bibliography in an easy‐to‐follow manner. Summarizes each paper and also gives conclusions where needed, in a comfortable modern format.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the moderating role of pay in the relationship between employee ambition and taking charge behavior, and its subsequent effects on employee career satisfaction.

A two-wave quantitative investigation was conducted among alumni of a large public university in the Netherlands.

The results show that taking charge behavior mediates the positive relationship between employee ambition and career satisfaction. They also show that pay positively moderates this mediation, such that the relationship between employee ambition and taking charge behavior is stronger when ambitious employees receive an increase in pay, leading to increased career satisfaction. Conversely, a decrease in pay does not moderate ambitious employees’ taking charge behavior and the impact on their career satisfaction.

The study draws on self-report data collected in one country: the Netherlands.

The study highlights the importance of pay for higher job involvement, demonstrating its impact on taking charge behavior among employees with higher levels of ambition.

This is the first empirical study to examine the impact of pay on employees’ taking charge behavior and the subsequent implications for career satisfaction.

The paper represents a starting point of a broader research project in strategic start-up communication. The main purpose of this study is to demonstrate the current state of research in this area and to compare those insights with an explorative study on the start-up ecosystem.

A neo-institutional framework is combined with the dual narrative framework of strategic communication and emergence to explain the emergence of strategic communication in this organizational field (start-up ecosystems). Research questions are derived from a systematic literature review and subjected to exploratory testing in two different qualitative surveys, with experts and investors, reflecting an external perspective, and with start-ups themselves.

Results from the literature review and the explorative interviews with expert external actors indicate eight areas in which start-ups face strategic communication challenges: the basic orientation of strategic communication, branding, external image, stakeholder relations, allocation of financial resources, owner centricity, human resources and internal communication. External consultants and funders recommend highly planned approaches like target group-oriented communication, well thought-out positioning with uniform messages and precisely applied communication channels. However, the internal perspective of start-ups presents a contrary picture based on emergent products of strategic communication.

The study indicates the importance of both the emergence in strategic start-up communication and the demonstration of planned strategic communication. Investigating a whole start-up ecosystem in a country regarding the emergence of strategic communication forms, practices and products offers potential for cross-country comparative research.

The findings indicate key challenges of strategic communication of start-ups. Bearing in mind these key challenges when founding a start-up can make a difference in the success of the start-up.

The article presents the first systematic literature review in the area of strategic start-up communication and a theoretical framework for further investigation. Moreover, the results of the explorative study demonstrate the importance of the different forms of planning and emergence in strategic start-up communication. Hence, this paper provides practical implications for practitioners working and investing in the start-up ecosystem.

Anger responding to government-imposed COVID-19 pandemic mandates is examined in relation to 2021 international reports of street protests in cities, with a focus on Perth, Western Australia. Angry protestors displayed a variety of signs and symbols, united under banners demanding freedom. A multi-disciplinary analysis attends to distrust in public health mandates in the global context of an insecure biosphere. Mandates can signify symbolic death, and anger an ‘immune’ response to lifeworld constraints. Anger among nurses and vaccine-hesitant protestors signifies ethical rejection of super-imposed mandates, and fear of alleged vaccine harms. Official pandemic communications are held to be ill-timed, lacking information meaningful to diverse citizens' needs, and offset by poorly contextualised data and unreliable pre-packaged interpretations communicated via digital technologies. A novel hypothesis proposes semiotic misrecognition of the global nature of communications from intersecting ecosocial crises may underlie protestors' anger. Modelling of a management system to validate broad contextual knowledges may restore meaningful balance and public solidarity, to creatively respond to future human crises.