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This article reports the results of a randomized field experiment that tested the effects of a new business intervention among managers of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in England.

Individual managers (learners) were randomly assigned in clusters (companies) to either an intervention group (265 learners; 40 SMEs) receiving a novel virtual, blended training program designed to stimulate a change in management behavior or a no-intervention group (118 learners; 22 SMEs).

The results show that the primary objective of changing management behavior to use more of an Operational Coaching™ style of management has been achieved (to a statistically significant level), and this is against the backdrop of the devastating COVID-19 pandemic. Positive trends in SME productivity metrics were also observed in the intervention group companies.

These important results could be indicative of the economic and productivity impact that a change in management behavior could have, and they warrant serious further investigation.

This paper aims to demonstrate how commercially effective business coaching can and should be implemented.

Drawing on both external sources and personal experience both as a coach herself and as the Director of Coaching for a specialist coaching company, the author discusses the main obstacles to successful coaching and how they should be overcome to maximise the return on investment for the sponsoring organization.

The piece delivers accessible suggestions for increasing the return on investment of coaching programmes.

With these suggestions in mind, the common pitfalls can be avoided, allowing companies access to the best, and most profitable, coaching.

Where other authors examine the benefits of coaching in terms of productivity and personal benefit for employees, the author brings into play the often‐forgotten commercial element, explaining how to ensure that the coaching implemented is a success in every sense.

This paper explores four works of contemporary fiction to illuminate formal and informal regulation of sex. The paper’s co-authors frame analysis with the story of their creation of a transdisciplinary course, entitled “Regulating Sex: Historical and Cultural Encounters,” in which students mined literature for social critique, became immersed in the study of law and its limits, and developed increased sensitivity to power, its uses, and abuses. The paper demonstrates the value theoretically and pedagogically of third-wave feminisms, wild zones, and contact zones as analytic constructs and contends that including sex and sexualities in conversations transforms personal experience, education, society, and culture, including law.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the relevance of the intersections between work and personal life. Measures introduced to slow the spread of COVID-19 have included an increase of working from home and the temporary closure of schools and child-care facilities, leading to a lighter workload for some and a heavier workload for others. These consequences are likely to affect employees’ work–life balance (WLB), although the impact may differ across groups of employees depending on the nature of their work, family and personal demands and resources. This mixed-method study examined how Dutch government employees perceive their WLB during the pandemic and how differences in what employees are experiencing can be explained. In May/June 2020, an online survey (N = 827) and an interview study (N = 17) were conducted at a government organization whose employees were obliged to work from home partly or exclusively. Results indicate that demands changed when working entirely from home and resources became more important to maintain WLB satisfaction. Being able to manage boundaries across life domains and find a new routine also appeared to be crucial for WLB satisfaction.

This chapter investigates two different uses of social networking sites (SNSs) within the same higher education institution. One was used as a means of communicating with students while they were still making their study choices, whereas the other aimed to create a medium for student interaction before they arrived at university. While both attempts had some degree of success in the setting up of the SNSs, dissemination, and control of content were not without their difficulties. Having outlined the theory behind SNSs, the chapter then highlights both the rationale behind the decision to use them and the experience of both users. It then describes how lessons learnt led to changes being made in the following year, before concluding by providing some recommendations for others looking to try similar techniques.

The number of women choosing entrepreneurship as an occupation continues to grow. However, there are very few start‐up high‐growth ventures in traditionally non‐feminine industries, such as manufacturing or technology. The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to the potential impact of implicit and explicit gender stereotypes on women's high‐growth entrepreneurial intention, and to examine the role of entrepreneurial self‐efficacy in this process. The authors aim to argue that there is a dual stereotype associated with high‐growth entrepreneurship (HGE), which negatively impacts on women's intention and self‐efficacy, thereby limiting their behavior in this arena.

This is a conceptual paper. Through the lens of stereotype activation theory the authors call for researchers to begin examining these phenomena and to utilize more generalizable samples of entrepreneurial students in future research.

The paper finds that by decreasing the masculine stereotype‐related barriers associated with HGE and increasing women's HGE self‐efficacy it should be possible to increase women's intention to engage in high‐growth venture creation.

The paper has valuable implications for entrepreneurship educators and trainers.

The paper offers specific and practical suggestions on how entrepreneurship educators and trainers can build women's entrepreneurial self‐efficacy.

In this paper, the authors bring together prior theory and research on entrepreneurship, gender stereotyping and social cognitive theory to provide a research agenda on the relationship between stereotype threat, entrepreneurial self‐efficacy and high‐growth entrepreneurial intention.

This study investigates work and non-work antecedents for the work–life balance (WLB) development of remote employees during the COVID-19 pandemic. Longitudinal data (N = 1,146, T1; N = 737, T2) was collected in May–June 2020 and December 2020 in one multinational company (MNC) in Finland. In data analysis, structural equation modeling (SEM) with a cross-lagged panel model was utilized. The results revealed that during the pandemic, WLB slightly decreased. The quantitative job demands increased and predicted a decreased WLB at T2. Job autonomy decreased but did not have an effect on WLB development or buffer the negative effect of quantitative job demands on WLB. Time saved from commuting was positively related to WLB development, but the number of children living at home and the age of the youngest child had no statistically significant link to WLB development over time (similar finding for men and women). Although care responsibilities from the gender perspective is not the focus of our study, the additional analysis show that WLB at T1 was more challenging for women the more children they had, or the younger the youngest child was. For men, children did not make a difference for their WLB at T1. This finding indicates that WLB has been more challenging for mothers compared to fathers already when our first data had been collected, and the continuance of the pandemic did not change the situation in any direction. This research contributes to the knowledge about work and non-work related demands and resources as antecedents for WLB development during the pandemic. As a practical implication during the pandemic, the authors suggest that employers should follow development for employees’ WLB as a measure of well-being in remote work. In addition, the workload of remote employees should be followed, and time saved from commuting should be preserved as employees’ non-work time and protected from work-related tasks.