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Pursue Gregory Bateson’s observation that human consciousness as we see it today is tightly focussed on finding and pursuing purposes. Taken too far, the wider world of nature suffers from imbalance. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Bateson’s cybernetic speculation suggests that strategies to avoid ecological catastrophe need to take human consciousness into account. The author searches for cases of consciousness better aligned with reality and consider current possibilities for developing such consciousness.

Findings from the literature of philosophical anthropology are reviewed, showing that consciousness that is better aligned with reality has occurred in history, including with the San Bushmen and in the Greek polis. Yet these cases are rare and quite different from today’s culture. In addition, there are several distinct features of current culture that prevent the development of aligned consciousness.

Philosophical anthropology is outside the normal constraints of social science but points in the direction of further holistic cybernetics inquiry that can produce a different diagnosis and strategy for the global ecological challenge.

This issue is a selected bibliography covering the subject of leadership.

In this chapter, the author has described the nexus between climate change and the evolution of refugee problems. The concept of climate refugee and the controversy between refugee and climate refugee were extensively elaborated. The estimates of climate refugees under various dimensions in different parts of the world were exemplified with statistical figures. The solutions of the refugee problems, funding, directions of estimates and social responsibilities towards refugees are described in the activities of international institutions like UNHCR, CCDO, UNFCCC, IPCC, the Red Cross and many others. The chapter also highlights some important policy issues such as charters, funds, response strategy to disaster and disaster recovery plans, support capacity building and climate change adaptation and so on and also cited policies taken by the G20 summit to care for refugees. Besides, the recommendations of COP23 were also included. In conclusion, ‘no climate change, no climate refugees’ slogan is incorporated with suggestions of taking care of sizable percentage shares of refugees by the rich nations.

This study aims to examine the relationship between auditor tenure and conservatism for firms in Greece. Greece not only has a high incidence of earnings management but is also required under the new European Commission (EC) regulation to comply with mandatory auditor rotation. Therefore, Greece is an ideal setting in which to study the association between auditor tenure and accounting conservatism.

Similar to Jenkins and Velury (2008), this paper uses Basu’s (1997) asymmetrical timeliness of earnings as a measure of conservatism. Following Li (2010), the regression is re-estimated for subsamples based on client importance as measured by the ranking of client sales among all clients audited by the firm.

In contrast to Li (2010), the results of this study, which used a sample of firms in Greece, indicate that conservatism decreases as the auditor–client relationship lengthens. Client importance does not appear to affect the relationship between auditor tenure and conservatism, as measured by asymmetric timeliness of earnings. However, when using the accrual–cash flow measure of conservatism (Ball and Shivakumar, 2005), it is found that auditor tenure is positively (negatively) associated with conservatism for less (more) important clients. The results suggest that longer auditor tenure may have a negative impact on audit quality in certain countries where accounting quality has been found to be poor. Therefore, the new EC regulation requiring mandatory auditor rotation may in fact improve audit quality for firms in Greece.

This study’s sample consists of firms on the Athens Stock Exchange for the period of 1998-2011. This sample was purposely selected because of the unique conditions of rampant earnings management and low incentive in Greece for the auditors to exert effort to detect such practices. Moreover, Greece is subject to the new EC regulations requiring mandatory auditor rotation beginning in 2014. Future studies could examine this issue in alternate settings and over different time periods. Also, other cross-sectional variations among firms which affect the association between auditor–client tenure and audit quality may exist.

The findings are important to regulators such as the EC and indicate that Greece may be an appropriate setting in which to require mandatory auditor rotation. These results are also useful to auditors who wish to improve the audit quality and the public’s perception of their work.

Auditor tenure has been the subject of considerable debate, and regulators contend that long auditor tenure reduces audit quality. There may be a valid argument in favor of mandatory auditor rotation in countries particularly susceptible to low accounting quality due to issues such as rampant earnings management. Greece appears to be one such example, and this study provides support in favor of that argument by demonstrating that longer auditor tenure may lead to lower accounting quality in terms of conservatism. Therefore, the recent EC regulation may result in improved audit quality for firms in Greece.

Over the last few years, impacts of environmental variability on population migration have been an increasing concern over the world. Estimates have suggested that between 25 million and 1 billion people could be displaced by climate change over the next 40 years. Though it is very difficult to delineate the specific drivers behind human migration, an attempt has been made in this chapter to discuss various reported cases across the world and more specifically, India where environment has played a major role in population movement. The chapter begins by outlining important definitions of migration and environmentally induced migration. It focuses on how environmental change and environmental hazards, especially water scarcity, contribute to human migration by exploring the mechanisms through which vulnerability and migration are linked. The process of movement and migration is usually subject to a complex set of push and pull forces, where push forces relate to the source area while pull factors relate to the destination. Emphasizing water scarcity as one of the prime push factors behind migration, various instances of population movement have been discussed from various parts of India. Understanding the importance of migration in development of a sustainable society, the chapter identifies various gaps that need to be addressed, which, in turn, will help in incorporating environment-induced migration into the decision-making process.

Web 2.0 and the social networks have changed how organizations interact with their publics. They enable organizations to engage in symmetric dialogic communications with individuals. Various organizations are increasingly ­using different social media to enhance their visibility and relationships with their publics. They allow them to disseminate information, to participate, listen and actively engage in online conversations with different stakeholders. Some social networks have become a key instrument for corporate communication. Therefore, this chapter presents a critical review on the organizations’ dialogic communications with the publics via social networks. It puts forward a conceptual framework that comprises five key dimensions including ­“active presence,” “interactive attitude,” “interactive resources,” “responsiveness” and “conversation.” This contribution examines each dimension and explains their effect on the organizations’ dialogic communication with the publics. Hence, this contribution has resulted in important implications for corporate communication practitioners as well as for academia. Moreover, it opens future research avenues to academia.

There are many studies of personality and leadership and gender and leadership, but only few leadership studies have taken into account both personality and gender. That may partly be due to the fact that there are relatively few female leaders, however, the aim of this paper is to discover if similar personality types exhibit the same kind of leadership behavior irrespective of gender.

The quantitative analysis involves 459 leaders (283 men and 176 women) and 378 subordinates working in various fields. Leaders rated their leadership behavior and subordinates also appraised them.

Results indicated differences in leadership behavior by gender, in that women exhibited more enabling behavior, and men more challenging behavior. Further, gender and personality had an impact on leadership behavior, as viewed by both leaders and subordinates. For example, extraverted and intuitive male leaders along with those exhibiting the perceiving dimension regarded themselves as more challenging than their introverted, sensing and judging male counterparts, a view confirmed by subordinates in the case of perceiving male leaders.

As limitations, the Myers‐Briggs Type Indicator offers only one view of the personality, and future studies would be needed with different methods. Also the study did not control confounding factors, and it should be taken into account with the study.

From a practical view point, this study offers specific knowledge for people seeking to develop themselves as leaders.

Very few studies have concentrated on the relationship between personality and gender in the transformational leadership context, and this study provides a new perspective on this area.