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While multinational corporations appear to understand the importance of talent retention (TR) for maintaining their competitive advantage, they continue to struggle to identify and develop strategies to retain talent. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to explore how talent is identified, and more importantly, how it is retained within the context of a multinational firm in France.

This study is exploratory in nature and capitalizes on a case study methodology through which in-depth, open-ended interviews with partners and managers were conducted.

The findings suggest that TR is approached in an arbitrary and ad hoc manner. They also reveal that TR practices are mostly motivated by the direct costs associated with a failure to retain talent, and less with the indirect costs and loss of tacit knowledge. Of considerable interest is the finding that despite the use of utilitarian power via incentives to promote TR, the focus is mostly on normative power via workplace culture and organizational norms.

This study is the first to explore TR in the context of one of the Big Four accounting firms in France and among the few to extend the use of Etzioni’s (1975) model of compliance to TR research and to a French context. The originality of this study is also derived from its ability to explain the factors impacting TR, how talent is retained in practice, and the gap between the ideals and reality.

While a comparative study of the literature on accounting as a profession and on cooperatives reveals important differences in the values embodied by certified public accountants and by cooperators, the purpose of this study is to explore whether such differences lead to an insurmountable incompatibility or may possibly be mitigated and eventually overcome.

The study focuses on a French public accounting firm’s project to become a worker cooperative. Drawing on methodological insights from actor–network theory (ANT), the study analyses a situation in which the certified public accountants try to convince some cooperators of the merits of their project.

The case studied suggests that accounting as a profession and cooperatives are irreconcilable. It not only confirms that some of their contrasting features (identified in the literature) are indeed too difficult to overcome but also reveals a new, unforeseen source of tension between certified public accountants and cooperators.

The study calls for further research into the so-far-overlooked relationships between accounting as a profession and cooperatives. It also proposes to extend the usage of ANT in accounting research to the study of accounting as a profession.

While ANT-inspired accounting research has to date shown a dominant interest in successful translation processes, the present study looks at an unsuccessful translation stage.

The MoS₂/graphite composite coatings modified by La₂O₃ through spraying technique were successfully prepared on the inner rings of spherical plain bearings. As a comparison, unmodified coatings were also prepared. This paper aims to study the La-modified MoS₂/graphite composite coating experimentally and improve the tribological performance of self-lubricating spherical plain bearings.

The performance of La₂O₃ toward the friction coefficient, temperature rise and wear rate of the coatings was studied by a self-made tribo-tester under different swing cycles. And the texture, surface morphology and element composition of the coatings were characterized by scanning electron microscope, energy dispersive spectroscopy and X-ray diffractometry.

The additives La₂O₃ refined the coatings’ microstructure and improved the tribological properties of the coatings. The oxidation of Mo + 4 to Mo + 6 was effectively inhibited. And the amount of abrasive grains, peeling pits and local cracks on the coatings surface decreased and homogeneous lubricating films formed, which were attributed to the existence of La₂O₃. The wear mechanisms of unmodified coatings were severe abrasive wear, adhesive wear and delamination wear. However, it exhibited superior wear resistance of the La-modified coatings to unmodified coatings, presenting slight abrasive wear and adhesive wear. The service life of bearings was prolonged under the protection of the modified coatings.

The paper proposed a new modified MoS₂/Graphite composite coating for the self-lubricating spherical plain bearings. The investigation on the friction, wear and temperature increase behaviors and the wear mechanisms of the coatings are beneficial to prolonging the service life of the self-lubricating spherical plain bearings.

Innovation intermediaries have become key actors in open innovation (OI) contexts. Research has improved the understanding of the managerial challenges inherent to intermediation in situations in which problems are rather well defined. Yet, in some OI situations, the relevant actor networks may not be known, there may be no clear common interest, or severe problems may exist with no legitimate common place where they can be discussed. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the research on innovation intermediaries by showing how intermediaries address managerial challenges related to a high degree of unknown.

The authors draw upon the extant literature to highlight the common core functions of different types of intermediaries. The authors then introduce the “degree of unknown” as a new contingency variable for the analysis of the role of intermediaries for each of these core functions. The authors illustrate the importance of this new variable with four empirical case studies in different industries and countries in which intermediaries are experiencing situations of high level of unknown.

The authors highlight the specific managerial principles that the four intermediaries applied in creating an environment for collective innovation.

Thereby, the authors clarify what intermediation in the unknown may entail.

To advance the learning of professional practices in teacher education and medical education, this conceptual paper aims to introduce the idea of representational scaffolding for digital simulations in higher education.

This study outlines the ideas of core practices in two important fields of higher education, namely, teacher and medical education. To facilitate future professionals’ learning of relevant practices, using digital simulations for the approximation of practice offers multiple options for selecting and adjusting representations of practice situations. Adjusting the demands of the learning task in simulations by selecting and modifying representations of practice to match relevant learner characteristics can be characterized as representational scaffolding. Building on research on problem-solving and scientific reasoning, this article identifies leverage points for employing representational scaffolding.

The four suggested sets of representational scaffolds that target relevant features of practice situations in simulations are: informational complexity, typicality, required agency and situation dynamics. Representational scaffolds might be implemented in a strategy for approximating practice that involves the media design, sequencing and adaptation of representational scaffolding.

The outlined conceptualization of representational scaffolding can systematize the design and adaptation of digital simulations in higher education and might contribute to the advancement of future professionals’ learning to further engage in professional practices. This conceptual paper offers a necessary foundation and terminology for approaching related future research.

Cyberattacks have become a major threat to small and medium-sized enterprises. Their prevention efforts often prioritize technical solutions over human factors, despite humans posing the greatest risk. This article highlights the importance of developing tailored behavioral interventions. Through qualitative interviews, we identified three persona types with different psychological biases that increase the risk of cyberattacks. These psychological biases are a basis for creating behavioral interventions to strengthen the human factor and, thus, prevent cyberattacks.

We conducted structured, in-depth interviews with 44 employees, decision makers and IT service providers from small and medium-sized Swiss enterprises to understand insecure cyber behavior.

A thematic analysis revealed that, while knowledge about cyber risks is available, no one assumes responsibility for employees’ and decision makers’ behavior. The interview results suggest three personas for employees and decision makers: experts, deportees and repressors. We have derived corresponding biases from these three persona types that help explain the interviewees’ insecure cyber behavior.

This study provides evidence that employees differ in their cognitive biases. This implies that tailored interventions are more effective than one-size-fits7-all interventions. It is inherent in the idea of tailored interventions that they depend on multiple factors, such as cultural, organizational or individual factors. However, even if the segments change somewhat, it is still very likely that there are subgroups of employees that differ in terms of their misleading cognitive biases and risk behavior.

This article discusses behavior directed recommendations for tailored interventions in small and medium-sized enterprises to minimize cyber risks.

The contribution of this study is that it is the first to use personas and cognitive biases to understand insecure cyber behavior, and to explain why small and medium-sized enterprises do not implement behavior-based cybersecurity best practices. The personas and biases provide starting points for future research and interventions in practice.

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize error reporting as a strategy for informal workplace learning and investigate nurses’ error reporting cost/benefit evaluations and associated behaviors.

A longitudinal survey study was carried out in a hospital setting with two measurements (time 1 [t1]: implementation of a critical incident reporting (CIR) system; t2: three months after t1). Correlational and hierarchical cluster analyses were used to interpret the data.

Positive cost-benefit correlations and negative cross-correlations were found, with no substantial changes over time. “Reporters” and “learners” were differentiated regarding error-reporting behaviors. Cost-benefit perceptions predicted membership in the “reporters” group; perception of effort costs negatively predicted an error-reporting preference.

This study was limited, in that only a questionnaire was used to collect data.

Stressing the benefits of CIR systems should contribute to reducing employees’ perception of reporting costs; thus, ease of use is a critical factor in CIR system use.

The study empirically probes a well-established theoretical model, and various ideas for further research are suggested.

In bringing this session into the Online Conference we are approaching a new era perhaps for some of us who are professional online database users. Some of the people on the platform have very clear ideas what they want to do with online technology and may have even relatively little experience of the things that you and I have modestly been doing for a number of years. The idea is to see where the subject matter, the content and the delivery mechanisms are converging, and I hope that by the end of the session you will have a clear idea of what these new consumer services are likely to offer to the wider public, and whether they have an application for us professional online information users. The best way to get started is to have a series of presentations by the panel members in as much detail as they think necessary to describe their products. Not exactly product reviews — I hope that they will share with us some of their fears as well as some of their boasts of what their services can do, what their technical problems have been, and what advantages they see in moving into this market. The first speaker that I have to introduce is Pascal Cusset, who joined Apple Computer France in 1987 and Apple Computer Europe in 1992. In his current position he is managing and developing eWorld in Europe. Before coming to Apple France he worked with Oric International in Paris as a product manager for a line of workstations aimed at creating and running videotex services, using the famous French service based on the Minitel.

A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balance economics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary to man′s finding the good life and society enduring as a civilized instrumentality. Looks for authority to great men of the past and to today′s moral philosopher: man is an ethical animal. The 13 essays are: 1. Evolutionary Economics: The End of It All? which challenges the view that Darwinism destroyed belief in a universe of purpose and design; 2. Schmoller′s Political Economy: Its Psychic, Moral and Legal Foundations, which centres on the belief that time‐honoured ethical values prevail in an economy formed by ties of common sentiment, ideas, customs and laws; 3. Adam Smith by Gustav von Schmoller – Schmoller rejects Smith′s natural law and sees him as simply spreading the message of Calvinism; 4. Pierre‐Joseph Proudhon, Socialist – Karl Marx, Communist: A Comparison; 5. Marxism and the Instauration of Man, which raises the question for Marx: is the flowering of the new man in Communist society the ultimate end to the dialectical movement of history?; 6. Ethical Progress and Economic Growth in Western Civilization; 7. Ethical Principles in American Society: An Appraisal; 8. The Ugent Need for a Consensus on Moral Values, which focuses on the real dangers inherent in there being no consensus on moral values; 9. Human Resources and the Good Society – man is not to be treated as an economic resource; man′s moral and material wellbeing is the goal; 10. The Social Economist on the Modern Dilemma: Ethical Dwarfs and Nuclear Giants, which argues that it is imperative to distinguish good from evil and to act accordingly: existentialism, situation ethics and evolutionary ethics savour of nihilism; 11. Ethical Principles: The Economist′s Quandary, which is the difficulty of balancing the claims of disinterested science and of the urge to better the human condition; 12. The Role of Government in the Advancement of Cultural Values, which discusses censorship and the funding of art against the background of the US Helms Amendment; 13. Man at the Crossroads draws earlier themes together; the author makes the case for rejecting determinism and the “operant conditioning” of the Skinner school in favour of the moral progress of autonomous man through adherence to traditional ethical values.