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This paper examined a tiered leadership development program (LDP) designed to optimize natural organizational learning.

The heuristic design of the tiered LDP linked learning pragmatic to the leaders’ workplace to the LDP content instructed in real-time.

The longitudinal study showed that real-time connected natural learning and LDP instruction fortified the participants’ competencies systemically throughout the organization easily measured through continuous assessment and feedback from multiple sources.

The study relied on assessment data perceived by workplace observers. Though perception bias is prevalent in studies dependent on qualitative feedback, the feedback in this study was useful to determine the heuristic value of the study parameters. Future research focused on identifying specific elements of natural learning influencing leadership development would enrich the customized content of the tiered LDP. Organizations considering a tiered LDP are cautioned to contemplate if their organization has the internal expertise to implement and facilitate such a program or require external affordable consultancies for the LDP.

This paper introduces a unique and comprehensive tiered leadership development program that promotes stackable and transferable learning symbiotic of leaders’ relationships and organizational tasks at a variety of organizational levels.

Employee engagement studies are popular in contemporary research because of the complexity organizations face in nurturing the performance and productivity of multi-generations of workers. The purpose of this paper is to assess association of age and dimensions of work engagement.

In total, 181 participants completed the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES) to measure work engagement including the dimensions of absorption, vigor and dedication as well as demographics. One-way ANOVA and post hoc tests were conducted to examine the relationship between age and work engagement.

Employees 50 years of age and older were found to have statistically significant higher work engagement scores than the employees under the age of 50. Statistically significant scores were also found to be higher in absorption and dedication.

The workforce is aging with older employees becoming larger populations in organizations. Understanding how age influences employee work engagement supports human capital management strategy within organizations. HR professionals can also use the findings to develop targeted employee engagement to leverage the dedication and talents of older employees.

Most global organizations have a diversity and inclusion (D&I) statement and initiatives to advance equity within their organizations though minimal traction is evidenced by what is espoused. This paper aims to demonstrate how to make progress in D&I generalizable to global workplaces.

Approaching D&I initiatives as collectivist working society bridges gaps in resourcing, powering and actualizing D&I organizationally unlike being demonstrated in companies where D&I is facilitated by majority groups.

Qualitative studies show that though people believe they are behaving morally toward others, they mostly have hidden concerns about infringing on discrimination laws.

This paper provides human resource practitioners with a systemic method of advancing D&I equitably while promoting organizational citizenship comparable to thriving workplaces.

Accounting researchers have performed many studies related to public sector budgeting and financial management. Public sector accounting research seeks to explain the role of accounting and auditing in the public sector. For example, researchers examine issues such as (1) the use of accounting information by elected officials, (2) the demand for auditing, and (3) the determination of bond ratings. This review of the public sector accounting literature describes some of the theoretical foundations utilized in public sector accounting research and reviews a sample of selected empirical studies.

This study aims to examine the effect of country of origin (COO) on customers' value expectation and willingness to pay by employing signalling theory and cue utilisation.

The data were collected from 386 customers via an online survey in the context of Australian food retail franchise stores in China.

The findings indicate that COO origin is an important determinant of customer expectations including service quality, social value, emotional value, monetary price, behavioural price and reputation. Furthermore, the only social value was a significant predictor of willingness to pay. Although the direct effect of COO on willingness to purchase was not significant, the COO had a significant indirect effect on willingness to pay via social value. Finally, the COO has a stronger effect on monetary price expectation among customers who were aware of the country brands than those who were unaware.

The study extends the body of knowledge related to the effect of COO during the pre-purchase process and provides important implications for retailers who are looking to enter an overseas market such as China.

Adopting exchange theory and social orientation of loyalty, this research investigates the antecedents of customer loyalty consisting of (1) loyalty layers (i.e. personal loyalty, relationship with consumption communities and local network effects) and (2) loyalty expectations (i.e. service quality, reciprocity and firm innovativeness) and how these relationships are moderated by customer knowledge.

The data were collected from 4,208 customers in the mobile services industry using mall intercept technique.

The findings reveal that loyalty layers, including personal loyalty and relationship with consumption communities, can influence customers' expectations of service providers. The degree to which the firm is able to handle and meet customers' expectations over time would result in the strength of customer loyalty. Customer expectations also mediate the relationships between different loyalty layers and customer loyalty. In addition, customer knowledge significantly moderates the effects of loyalty layers and expectations on both attitudinal loyalty and behavioural loyalty.

The study extends the current body of knowledge by incorporating a sociological perspective to examine the relationships between loyalty layers and customer expectations and customer loyalty. This research enables service operators to establish strategies to sustain customer loyalty across different customer segments with various levels of knowledge.

Technological advances, globalization, network complexity, and social complexity complicate almost every aspect of our organizations and environments. Leadership educators are challenged with developing leaders who can sense environmental cues, adapt to rapidly changing contexts, and thrive in uncertainty while adhering to their values systems. In a complex leadership context, inadequate leader responses can result in devastating organizational impacts akin to the butterfly effect from chaos theory. This paper advances a simple model for leadership education based on a program we designed to develop leaders who understand the nature of complex systems, reliably use their ethical value systems, are emotionally intelligent and resilient, and can adapt to emergent situations.

Researchers have investigated best practices for forming groups capable of completing projects cohesively for years. Online group formation has increased in recent years, peaking scientific interest in the sentiment that characterizes group cohesion from the point when the group is established to the stage where specific outcomes are produced. This research contributes to understanding online group dynamics by analyzing the sentiment of university students completing multiple nine-week group course projects with implications for workplaces.

Over eight nine-week terms, sentiment analyses were conducted on students' online reflection assignments, targeting their views on group interactions during group project completion. The assignment's context was to assess individual sentiment about the group experience that could build group sentiment implications for workplaces. Adult students from diverse academic and industry disciplines at a single university were participants. Four group models were considered possible drivers of student sentiment about their group experiences.

Punctuated Equilibrium, a classic group model, defined influences like remote distances and external obligations steering student sentiment outcomes. Instructors' active facilitation of group formation and development motivated students’ positive sentiments. Findings are akin to online organizational groups’ attempts to manage remote work and other responsibilities.

This study reinforced the importance of leveraging online students' collective sentiment to inform group dynamics in professional settings. Few studies have focused on the latter directly and exclusively. The results highlighted the sentiment kinship of online academic and organizational groups, validating the focused investigation of this study.

Despite the availability of new buyers and the possibility to receive higher prices, still large numbers of smallholder farmers do not participate in the modern supply chains. This study aims to understand the factors that affect smallholder farmers' participation in a newly emerging modern supply chain context.

Data were collected from 6 focus groups of farmers (67 farmers in total) and 14 interviews with market actors and key informants such as government officials and donor organisations.

Influential factors of farmers' participation in the modern chain include buyer attributes and transaction conditions. High prices and prompt payment are the key motivators, with the main inhibitors being personal relationships with buyers and strict market requirements related to quality and quantity supplied.

In order to encourage smallholder farmer participation in modern chains, an expansion of the marketing of high-quality vegetables by implementing quality control mechanisms and the encouragement to adopt safe marketing practices is needed. These results are particularly relevant for practitioners and policymakers.

Most research to date concentrates on farmers' socioeconomic characteristics and are based in countries with advanced modern chains, and rarely focus on farmer participation in countries where modern chains are relatively new. This study addresses this gap by analysing farmer preferences to engage in the context of a country experiencing the emergence of trade through modern vegetable supply chain system.

We examine the content of auditors’ going concern opinions (GCOs) to investigate how the market reacts to particular explanations and to the overall number of reasons presented by auditors. We investigate whether the market reacts differentially to explanatory paragraphs alluding to specific financial concerns emphasized in the finance literature: reductions in expected future cash flows, difficulties with short-term liquidity and violations of debt covenants. Finally, we examine whether GCOs that are ex-post accurate, as indicated by a subsequent bankruptcy, are accompanied by more negative reactions.

We regress cumulative abnormal returns on the number of reasons cited by auditors and indicator variables for whether auditors cited concerns pertaining to future cash flows, debt covenant violations or short-term cash holdings. We include an indicator for subsequent bankruptcy and control variables.

The market reaction to GCOs is significantly more negative when auditors offer more reasons or specifically cite a decrease in expected future cashflows or a violation of debt covenants and when GCOs are ex-post accurate.

The results indicate that auditors’ explanations for GCOs contain incremental information content that is useful to investors.

We find that more detailed GCO reports are more informative to investors, supporting the need for regulations requiring auditors to provide detailed justifications when issuing GCOs.

This study is the first to examine how the number of reasons given by auditors affects market reactions to GCOs and to specifically examine how investors react to GCOs that cite violations of debt covenants or reductions in future cash flows as justifications for the GCO.