Angela Martin, Megan Woods and Sarah Dawkins
Mental health conditions such as depression are prevalent in working adults, costly to employers, and have implications for legal liability and corporate social responsibility…
Abstract
Purpose
Mental health conditions such as depression are prevalent in working adults, costly to employers, and have implications for legal liability and corporate social responsibility. Managers play an important role in determining how employees’ and organizations’ interests are reconciled in situations involving employee mental ill-health issues. The purpose of this paper is to explore these situations from the perspective of managers in order to develop theory and inform practice in workplace mental health promotion.
Design/methodology/approach
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 24 Australian managers who had supervised an employee with a mental health issue. Interview transcripts were content analyzed to explore themes in managers’ experiences.
Findings
Managing an employee with a mental health issue involves becoming aware of the issue, taking action to understand the situation and develop an action response, implementing the response and managing the ongoing situation. Each of these tasks had a range of positive and negative aspects to them, e.g., managing the situation can be experienced as both a source of stress for the manager but also as an opportunity to develop greater management skills.
Practical implications
Understanding line managers’ experiences is critical to successful implementation of HR policies regarding employee health and well-being. HR strategies for dealing with employee mental health issues need to consider implementation support for managers, including promotion of guiding policies, training, emotional support and creating a psychosocial safety climate in their work units or teams.
Originality/value
The insights gained from this study contribute to the body of knowledge regarding psychosocial safety climate, an emergent theoretical framework concerned with values, attitudes and philosophy regarding worker psychological health. The findings also have important implications for strategic human resource management approaches to managing mental health in the workplace.
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Quality has been widely recognised as an important source of competitive edge in the tourism industry. Much of the focus of research to date has been on the individual firm…
Abstract
Quality has been widely recognised as an important source of competitive edge in the tourism industry. Much of the focus of research to date has been on the individual firm. However, there has been a shift from interfirm competition to interdestination competition, resulting in a lacuna in the research and a need for more attention to be afforded to management of quality at the destination level. Given the fragmented and diverse nature of the tourism destination, many researchers have underlined the need for co-operation in any effort to improve quality at the destination. However, there is often a reluctance among tourism businesses, particularly small- and medium-sized tourism enterprises (SMTEs) to cooperate. This paper sheds light on the impact of training on interfirm dynamics within a destination quality management network. The findings revealed that training of network members influenced the development of a referral system, which in turn helped to create a tourism quality value chain for the visitor.
Gemma Lewis, Stuart Crispin, Laurie Bonney, Megan Woods, Jiangang Fei, Sarah Ayala and Morgan Miles
The purpose of this paper is to explore how traditional agribusiness firms can differentiate their product through innovation and branding at the value chain level, through the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how traditional agribusiness firms can differentiate their product through innovation and branding at the value chain level, through the application of entrepreneurial marketing (EM). Traditionally, fresh vegetable products have been marketed as unbranded commodities.
Design/methodology/approach
To address the research aim, this paper used a case study, which included semi-structured interviews with managers and personnel and unstructured observation of supply chain processes.
Findings
The findings are based on a Tasmanian fresh broccoli value chain and suggest that EM could be effectively integrated at a multi-firm level. Clear communication, knowledge sharing, and trusting relationships are necessary to create a shared vision and a sustainable value chain.
Research limitations/implications
An increasing number of firms in the agribusiness sector are looking for strategies that can enhance value for themselves and members of their chain. EM as a strategy can help an entire value chain achieve product differentiation and co-innovation, with flow on benefits to the consumer.
Originality/value
There is limited research at the entrepreneurial and marketing interface that explores the application of EM at an inter-organizational level. This paper is one of the first to investigate EM in context of a supply chain management, using a value chain innovation framework.
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Megan Woods and Morgan Parker Miles
The aim of this paper is to integrate an augmented version of the Thompson et al. model of enterprise policy, delivery, practice and research with services marketing models…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to integrate an augmented version of the Thompson et al. model of enterprise policy, delivery, practice and research with services marketing models including SERVQUAL and strategic conversations; and demonstrate a practical application of the analysed through the application of N-Vivo qualitative data classification software to create more satisfying enterprise policy recommendations that better reflect the voices of SMEs and other stakeholders.
Design/methodology/approach
A five-stage iterative process model to integrate stakeholder input into enterprise policy recommendations is developed through integrating services marketing theory and the Thompson et al. model into a field study of community conversations hosted by the Tasmanian Department of Economic Development, Tourism and the Arts, Regional Development Australia's Tasmanian committee, and local governments.
Findings
The five-stage iterative model leverages strategic conversations, analysis (through N-Vivo), comments and revisions, recommendation co-creation, and policy assessment using SERQUAL to craft more satisfying policy recommendations.
Research limitations/implications
The first limitation was the time and costs associated with conducting the community consultation workshops and analysing the data. The second limitation was the inability to craft policy quickly in response to a changing environment due to the time taken to collect and transcribe the data, undertake the analysis, and develop and report policy recommendations. The third limitation was the complexity of coordinating three levels of government, which took time and effort because each level had different interests and time frames and were at times distracted by other priorities.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to better enterprise policy by providing a process model developed using both theory and a field study to illustrate how policy makers can co-develop policy that is more satisfying to policy stakeholders.
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Camillia Matuk, Ralph Vacca, Anna Amato, Megan Silander, Kayla DesPortes, Peter J. Woods and Marian Tes
Arts-integration is a promising approach to building students’ abilities to create and critique arguments with data, also known as informal inferential reasoning (IIR). However…
Abstract
Purpose
Arts-integration is a promising approach to building students’ abilities to create and critique arguments with data, also known as informal inferential reasoning (IIR). However, differences in disciplinary practices and routines, as well as school organization and culture, can pose barriers to subject integration. The purpose of this study is to describe synergies and tensions between data science and the arts, and how these can create or constrain opportunities for learners to engage in IIR.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors co-designed and implemented four arts-integrated data literacy units with 10 teachers of arts and mathematics in middle school classrooms from four different schools in the USA. The data include student-generated artwork and their written rationales, and interviews with teachers and students. Through maximum variation sampling, the authors identified examples from the data to illustrate disciplinary synergies and tensions that appeared to support different IIR processes among students.
Findings
Aspects of artistic representation, including embodiment, narrative and visual image; and aspects of the culture of arts, including an emphasis on personal experience, the acknowledgement of subjectivity and considerations for the audience’s perspective, created synergies and tensions that both offered and hindered opportunities for IIR (i.e. going beyond data, using data as evidence and expressing uncertainty).
Originality/value
This study answers calls for humanistic approaches to data literacy education. It contributes an interdisciplinary perspective on data literacy that complements other context-oriented perspectives on data science. This study also offers recommendations for how designers and educators can capitalize on synergies and mitigate tensions between domains to promote successful IIR in arts-integrated data literacy education.
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Matthew Russell Scobie, Markus J. Milne and Tyron Rakeiora Love
This paper explores diverse practices of the giving and demanding of democratic accountability within a case of conflict around deep-sea petroleum exploration in Aotearoa New…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper explores diverse practices of the giving and demanding of democratic accountability within a case of conflict around deep-sea petroleum exploration in Aotearoa New Zealand. These practices include submissions and consultations, partnership between Indigenous Peoples and a settler-colonial government and dissensus. These are theorised through the political thought of Jacques Rancière.
Design/methodology/approach
A single case study approach is employed that seeks to particularise and draws on interview, documentary and media materials.
Findings
By examining a case of conflict, the authors find that as opportunities for participation in democratic accountability processes are eroded, political dissensus emerges to demand parts in the accountability process. Dissensus creates counter forums within a wider understanding of democratic accountability. In this case, individuals and organisations move between police (where hierarchy counts those with a part) and politics (exercised when this hierarchy is disrupted by dissensus) to demand parts as police logics become more and less democratic. These parts are then utilised towards particular interests, but in this case to also create additional parts for those with none.
Originality/value
This study privileges demands for accountability through dissensus as fundamental to democratic accountability, rather than just account giving and receiving. That is, who is or who is not included – who has a stake or a part – is crucial in a broader understanding of democratic accountability. This provides democratic accountability with a radical potential for creating change. The study also advances thinking on democratic accountability by drawing from Indigenous perspectives and experiences in a settler-colonial context.
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Sungho Cho, Minyong Lee and Taewoo Kim
While studies have highlighted the benefits of athlete endorsement as a means of strategic marketing communication and public relations, there are risk factors associated with…
Abstract
Purpose
While studies have highlighted the benefits of athlete endorsement as a means of strategic marketing communication and public relations, there are risk factors associated with the practice, especially when a celebrity endorser is involved in immoral incidents or social activism. This study examined the impacts of athlete endorsers’ controversial behavior on sponsors. It scrutinized the change in publicly traded corporations’ shareholder value when their athlete endorsers were implicated in either immoral conduct or social activism.
Design/methodology/approach
Using the event study analysis, this study investigated the sponsored corporations’ abnormal returns around athlete endorsers’ involvement in immoral incidents and social activism. Total 34 cases (18 immoral scandals and 16 social activism) were collected from 2009 to 2019.
Findings
The data analysis revealed a significant difference in abnormal returns between the two different types of incidents for the four different windows (2, 4, 8 and 15 days) after the date of the focal event. While scandals of immoral conduct did not cause significant loss in shareholder value, cases of social activism showed negative abnormal returns for sponsoring corporations.
Originality/value
This study presented the first comparative analysis of how endorsers’ immoral behavior and social activism impacted on the shareholders’ value of sponsoring firms. Using stock performance data, the findings provided the empirical evidence in stock markets’ different reactions regarding scandals and social activism. The study contributes to the relevant body of literature by comparing the different contexts in celebrity endorsement.