Managing Global Virtual Teams Across Classrooms,Students and Faculty

Virtual teams are becoming commonplace in business today so our business school students should have experience in effectively working in virtual teams. Based on a month-long virtual team project conducted by the authors between classes in South Africa and the United States, this paper discusses the opportunities and challenges of using global virtual teams as part of a business school curriculum. The authors describe the use of a virtual team life cycle to assess the month long project to identify key elements to retain and to change for the next time the virtual project is implemented.     

The public disclosure of environmental performance information—a dual test of media agenda setting theory and legitimacy theory

This paper documents the results of an empirical study undertaken within Australia of the relationship between the print media coverage given to various industries' environmental effects, and the levels of annual report environmental disclosures made by a sample of firms within those industries. The paper draws upon previous studies in media agenda setting theory and legitimacy theory to develop two testable hypotheses. Nine industries are reviewed across the period from 1981–1994. Drawing upon two theories, it is argued that the media can be particularly effective in driving the community's concern about the environmental performance of particular organisations (from media agenda setting theory). Where such concern is raised, organisations will respond by increasing the extent of disclosure of environmental information within the annual report (from legitimacy theory). The results indicate that for the majority of the industries studied, higher levels of media attention (as determined by a review of a number of print media newspapers and journals) are significantly associated with higher levels of annual report environmental disclosures.     

Warfarin monitoring economic evaluation of point of care self-monitoring compared to clinic settings

Objective:

To determine the cost-effectiveness of home-based point-of-care self-monitoring compared to clinic-based care for patients managed on long-term warfarin medication. Current evidence is inconsistent; results should reduce uncertainty and inform service delivery.

Methods:

A Markov model compared self-testing and self-management, using point-of-care devices to usual care in patients with atrial fibrillation and mechanical heart valves. The primary clinical end-points were stroke and mortality avoided; costs and utilities were associated with these events. The costs of warfarin monitoring were included in the model.

Results:

Over 10 years, self-monitoring saved £1187 per person compared to usual care. Patients who self-monitored had notably fewer strokes and deaths. The results were sensitive to life-years gained and cost of the device. If the NHS purchased the device, financial break-even was achieved at the end of the second year; if the patient bought the device the NHS saved money every year. If 10% of the current 950,000 patients switched to point-of-care devices for 10 years, the NHS could save over £112million.

Limitations:

Clinical studies had a relatively short duration and only data on composite end-points were reported.

Conclusions:

With training, self-testing and self-management are safe, reliable, and cost-effective for a sizable proportion of patients receiving long-term warfarin. Compared to clinic-based services, self-monitoring offers the NHS the potential to make cost savings and release bed-days by reducing the number of strokes experienced by these high-risk patients.     

The leadership disease. . .and its potential cures

Leadership development and executive education have taken on increased prominence in recent years. The natural tendency is to approach the subject of leadership as a hierarchically-based process that is focused on higher-level individual leaders influencing lower-level followers. This tendency is consistent with myths surrounding charismatic and heroic visionary leaders who are often portrayed as single-handedly inspiring and directing their organizations to new heights. Unfortunately, these simplistic portrayals of leadership are promulgated by the media and desired by the consuming public. However, this kind of framing of leadership is dangerous: it lays the seeds of centralization of power, which can have innumerable detrimental outcomes. Accordingly, we explore two potent antidotes to this simplistic hierarchical formulation of leadership that have become an increasing focus of leadership research: self-leadership and shared leadership.     

Employee Reactions to Supervisory Direction in Four Types of Firms in Taiwan: The Effects of Company Policy, Peer Consensus and Independent Assessment

Employees in four firms in Taiwan—a small family business (A), a state-owned enterprise (B), a large private corporation (C), and a U.S.-owned venture (D)—and one firm in the U.S. (E) responded to supervisory directions. A's employees were the most compliant, followed by B's, then by C's, D's, and E's. In A and B, employee compliance was impacted by company policy. In C, D and E, employee compliance was influenced by peer consensus. Except for those in A, employees' tendency to accept supervisory direction was enhanced when they assessed the direction as beneficial to their organization.     

The great Canadian recovery: The impact of COVID-19 on Canada's labour market

The Canadian labour market experienced a period of unprecedented turmoil following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyze the main changes using standard labour force statistics and new data on job postings. Envisaging a phase of temporary severing of employment relationships followed by a phase of more standard labour market search and matching, we use stock and flow data to understand key developments. We find dramatic changes in employment, unemployment and labour market attachment in the first few months of the pandemic and a broad though gradual recovery through to the end of 2021.     

Paying for ecological services in Ecuador: The political economy of structural inequality

Paying Indigenous communities to conserve land for carbon sequestration is a controversial way of tackling climate change. Critics argue that paying for ecological services (or ‘PES’) in the form of carbon offset programmes reduces land and social relations to an economic transaction that devalues Indigenous livelihoods and communities. At the same time, empirical studies have shown that Indigenous communities have accepted and even embraced the idea of being paid to conserve land for climate change mitigation. This paper explores this apparent contradiction by investigating the implementation of Programa Socio Bosque (PSB), a PES carbon sequestration programme in Ecuador. Drawing upon primary fieldwork in the highland province of Chimborazo, it makes the case that PES programmes need to be understood as form of state power that reconfigures and reinforces the ways in which Indigenous peoples engage with the state. Particularly important in this regard is the role of the state in reinforcing the agrarian conditions under which Indigenous communities use and interpret PES payments while at the same time reconfiguring new forms of land conservation. Empirically, the research reveals important complementarities between the goals of carbon sequestration PES programmes and Indigenous land-use practices. Methodologically, it highlights the importance of situating the study of PES programmes in a context of land struggles, community–state relations and agrarian change.