bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Organizational culture and leadership as antecedents to organizational flexibility: implications for SME competitiveness
Authors: Anning-Dorson Thomas 
Published: February 2021

PurposeThis study aims to assess how innovative organizational culture and innovative leadership generate market flexibility for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the service sector to enhance their competitiveness. Both organizational culture and leadership are seen as firm-level resources capable of influencing the flexibility of the firm in periods of market turbulence. The study argues that SME service firms must use their internal resources to develop their flexibility capability which is more valuable, rare, inimitable and not substitutable.Design/methodology/approachSME service firms from Ghana are used to test the study’s hypotheses through robust standard regression analysis. A sampling frame was developed from an online database of small and medium enterprises operating in the service sector.FindingsThe findings suggest that although organizational culture and leadership may influence a service firm’s competitiveness, it is more viable to use these firm-level resources to create market flexibility capability to amplify the effect. This means, when culture and leadership propel the flexibility drive, the service firm is able to connect, coordinate and synchronize functional units to take advantage of new product and market opportunities. Additionally, market flexibility emanating from organizational culture and leadership wields enough power and resource support to tackle the turbulent market conditions better than firms with less support.Practical implicationsThe managerial implication from this study is that firms should use their organizational culture and leadership to create flexible organizations that afford them the opportunity to adapt to the environmental dynamics. If both leadership and culture work together, they are able to create strong market capabilities such as flexibility which determines how well the firm will respond to the competition, customer demand and all other external pressures. It is, therefore, the view of this paper that SMEs should use their organizational culture and leadership to build a market-flexible organization to create a competitive advantage.Originality/valueThis paper shows how internal resources/assets such as culture and leadership generate the needed flexibility to create a competitive advantage for SMEs. This paper explains the two dimensions of Volberda’s flexibility from a firm-level resource perspective and highlights flexibility as a second-order capability whose cultivation and effectiveness are dependent on a firm’s culture and leadership. Evidence of how a firm’s market flexibility is fuelled by organizational leadership and culture is demonstrated. Finally, this paper shows how resource-poor SMEs in emerging African economies can enhance their market competitiveness through internal systems and processes.
Suicide prevention across the UK criminal justice system: an overview of current provision and future directions
Authors: Oliveira Antunes Stefanie , Wainwright Verity , Gredecki Neil 
Published: February 2021

Purpose
This paper aims to provide an overview of current suicide prevention across the UK criminal justice system (CJS). It considers shortcomings in current provision and how improvements could be made by drawing on international practice. Recommendations for practice going forward and suggestions for future research are made based on the literature.

Design/methodology/approach
This paper provides an overview of suicide prevention research to date. Relevant literature was identified through a basic journal article search, including terms such as “probation”, “criminal justice system”, “suicide”, “suicide prevention”, “UK” and “suicide theory”.

Findings
This paper highlights opportunities to improve practice based on the current evidence base, making several recommendations and suggestions for practice, including improving multi-agency cooperation through clearer distribution of responsibilities, simplifying data sharing and investing in trauma-focussed suicide training for staff.

Practical implications
This paper considers how research and psychological theory has informed suicide prevention practice in the UK. Limitations and challenges in applying theory to practice are explored, in the context of research with frontline staff who use such policies. This review proposes potential improvements to suicide prevention implementation to reduce suicide across the wider CJS.

Originality/value
This article represents an overview of the existing literature as well as possible future ideas for policy. It is therefore a piece that represents the viewpoint of all involved authors.
Developing business students’ intercultural competence through intercultural virtual collaboration: a task sequence implementation
Authors: Ferreira-Lopes Luana , Elexpuru-Albizuri Iciar , Bezanilla María José 
Published: February 2021

Purpose
Allowing for interaction with foreign cultures without the need to travel, intercultural virtual collaboration represents a potential tool to develop business students’ intercultural competence. This study aims to explore students’ perceptions towards the implementation of a research-based task sequence in a project in which undergraduate Business students from Spain collaborated virtually with undergraduate business students from The Netherlands during a semester. More specifically, this paper investigates what intercultural competence indicators were mostly developed by the sequence implemented; how much each task from the sequence in question developed different intercultural competence indicators; and how much students enjoyed participating in each task.

Design/methodology/approach
Data was collected through after-task reflection questionnaires. A quantitative analysis of Likert-type questions was carried out and open-ended responses were used to illustrate findings.

Findings
Results reveal that the task sequence developed different dimensions of students’ intercultural competence and, particularly, fostered a positive attitude towards intercultural relationships, increased students’ cultural knowledge and awareness and equipped students with skills to work in diverse teams. It also showed that as complexity grew along the sequence, the average students’ perception of their intercultural competence development tended to decrease. The majority of students’ very much liked participating in the different tasks.

Originality/value
Designing telecollaborative projects can be very challenging and understanding the learning potential of different pedagogical strategies for virtual collaborative environments can help teachers to take better-informed decisions.
Strategic orientation toward digitalization to improve innovation capability: why knowledge acquisition and exploitation through external embeddedness matter
Authors: Arias-Pérez José , Velez-Ocampo Juan , Cepeda-Cardona Juan 
Published: February 2021

Purpose
This study aims to analyze the mediating effect of the open innovation processes of knowledge acquisition and exploitation as external embeddedness strategy on the relationships between strategic orientation toward digitalization and the three dimensions of the innovation capability: client, marketing and technology.

Design/methodology/approach
The research model was tested using a structural equation modeling design based on survey data from a financial and insurance sector multinational enterprise with direct operations in seven emerging countries. This sector is classified as being highly digitalized.

Findings
The results show that strategic orientation toward digitalization has an effect on innovation capability, with a greater impact on the client and technology dimensions than on the marketing dimension. However, the relationships with clients and technology are partially mediated by acquisition, while the one with marketing is mediated by exploitation.

Originality/value
This finding widens the current purpose and theoretical sense of external embeddedness as a type of inter-organizational arrangement key for digitalization in the literature, which is focused on the adaptation of digital technology of the head office to the needs of the subsidiaries and the systems of their local allies. By contrast, the study results show that external embeddedness is key for the multinational to be able, from its global way of creating value through digital technologies, not only to improve operating efficiency, but also to meet costumer experience expectations in each host country and innovate in local commercialization strategies, on account of the knowledge transfer between the multinational and the local players on customer preferences and technology uses in local markets.
Postulation of India-Japan Vedic-Buddhist cross-cultural management cluster: conceptualizing a spiritual philosophy-based explanation for emerging theory
Authors: Ashta Ashok 
Published: February 2021

PurposeThough there is emerging research that induces a postulation for a Vedic–Buddhist (V–B) cultural cluster, good theory development requires not only generalizability but also strong explanation. This paper aims to address the explanation gap to strengthen emerging theory development.Design/methodology/approachReligion-derived spiritual philosophy travel is traced from historical origins in India to contemporary Japanese management practice and its underpinning values.FindingsThe enhanced explanation developed in this paper finds a clear trace of spiritual values with roots in India surfacing in contemporary Japanese management as identified in extant cross-cultural management (CCM) literature.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper offers important explanation to strengthen emerging theory on the novel idea of a V–B CCM cluster.Practical implicationsThe strengthening of explanation for emerging theory adds to the case for modification of the traditional CCM meta-narrative that has positioned India and Japan in separate cultural clusters.Social implicationsStrengthening the postulation of a V–B cultural cluster potentially lubricates foreign investment from Japan to India contributing to achievement of United Nations Sustainable Development Goal no. 17 that pertains to international partnerships. Additionally, the findings raise questions for public policymakers who in modern times occlude religion from the public sphere.Originality/valueThis paper offers novel explanatory perspectives for emerging CCM theory, potentially expanding the spiritual philosophy avenue of management research.
Predicting employee engagement with micro-level corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices in the public accounting firms
Authors: Low Mei Peng , Spong Heath 
Published: February 2021

Purpose
This research aims to examines the impact of micro-level corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices on employee engagement within the public accounting firm setting.

Design/methodology/approach
This research uses a quantitative approach with a survey instrument as the data collection tool. A total of 269 complete responses were collected from employees working in the public accounting firms. Micro-level CSR practices were analysed with a hierarchical component model (HCM) in partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to examine the influence of such practices on employee engagement. A predictive performance metric was applied to assess the out-of-sample prediction.

Findings
This study uncovers a positive and significant relationship between micro-level CSR practices and employee engagement. Furthermore, the PLSpredict results indicate that the current model possesses high predictive power with all indicators in the PLS-SEM analysis demonstrating lower root mean squared error (RMSE) values compared to the naïve linear regression model benchmark.

Research limitations/implications
While the methods applied in this analysis are at the frontier of CSR research, the present study has not explored the heterogeneity amongst groups of respondents and size of accounting firms. Sampling weight adjustment for the purposes of representativeness was not used in the current research. These could be the subject of future work in this area.

Practical implications
These research findings shed light on the positive manifestation effect of micro-level CSR practices at firm level as well as individual level. Through micro-level CSR practices, firms can reap the benefits of enhanced employee engagement, which leads to productive workforce while also facilitating increased employees’ intrinsic job satisfaction.

Social implications
Micro-level CSR practices address the needs of the millennium workforce, whereby employees are no longer solely focussed on pay checks as their compensation. Employees are seeking out employers whose CSR practices appeal to their social conscience. Micro-level CSR practices meet the needs of the contemporary workforce yet enable companies to attract and retain skilled employees.

Originality/value
The originality of this research is attributed to the vigorous statistical analysis by the use of HCMs and PLSpredict in PLS-SEM context for the assessment of predictive performance. Also, micro-level CSR practices are conceptualised in HCM for parsimonious purpose.
Spatial patterns of weed dispersal by wintering gulls within and beyond an agricultural landscape
Authors: Martín‐Vélez Víctor , van Leeuwen Casper H. A. , Sánchez Marta I. , Hortas Francisco , Shamoun‐Baranes Judy , Thaxter Chris B. , Lens Luc , Camphuysen Cornelis J. , Green Andy J. 
Published: February 2021

Abstract

Non‐frugivorous waterbirds disperse a wide variety of plants by endozoochory, providing longer‐dispersal distances than other mechanisms. Many waterbirds visit both agricultural and natural landscapes during their daily movements, but potential bird‐mediated dispersal of weed plants within and from agricultural landscapes to other habitats is commonly overlooked. Gulls (Laridae) are expanding in numbers and increasingly exploiting anthropogenic habitats worldwide, with possible growing implications for the spread of weeds. Yet, to date, there are no studies on the spatial distribution of weed dispersal by waterbirds.

We developed a plant dispersal model based on movements of 19 Larus fuscus using ricefields, via GPS telemetry. We combined daily movements with two curves estimating the retention times of plant seeds in their guts: (a) an experimental curve based on retention time in captivity for four weeds with dry fruits known to be dispersed by gulls: Juncus bufonius, Cyperus difformis, Polypogon monspeliensis and the alien Amaranthus retroflexus; (b) a theoretical curve based on the interspecific scaling relationship between body mass and mean retention time.

Median dispersal distances of weed plant seeds by gulls ranged between 690 and 940 m, but maximum distances exceeded 150 km. The theoretical retention time model showed higher median dispersal distances than the experimental retention time model. Spatial patterns of weed deposition were very similar between retention time methods, and most strongly depended on gull movements. Variation between individual gulls had little influence on seed shadows. About 92% of all seeds (>10,000 intact seeds per day) were dispersed within the ricefield area of 370 km2. The remaining 8% of seeds were deposited beyond ricefields into other habitats, 42% of which reached moist environments (other irrigated agriculture, rivers and natural wetlands) presumably suitable for weed establishment.

Synthesis. Gulls can disperse weed plants over long distances across a mosaic of habitats. This implies exchange of weed plant species between human‐dominated and natural areas by waterbirds as dispersal vectors. This spatial study highlights the importance of non‐frugivorous birds for long‐distance plant dispersal, which is generally an overlooked mechanism in studies aiming to predict and manage expansion of weed plants.
Effect of escitalopram on an acetic acid‐induced ulcerative colitis model
Authors: Firouzabadi Negar , Alimoradi Nahid , Najafizadeh Mohammad , Najafizadeh Parvaneh 
Published: February 2021

AbstractUlcerative colitis (UC) is a chronic and recurrent gastrointestinal (GI) disorder with an unknown aetiology and pathogenesis. Regarding the effectiveness of antidepressants on UC in animal models of depression and the known anti‐inflammatory effects of escitalopram this study was conducted to evaluate the beneficial effects of escitalopram on an acetic acid‐induced UC model without depression. UC model was induced by intra rectal (i.r.) administration of 4% acetic acid in rats after 24 hours of fasting. Animals were treated with three doses of escitalopram (5, 10 and 20 mg/kg). Prednisolone (4 mg/kg) was used as a reference drug in UC. Histological and oxidative stress markers were measured in all groups. Results showed significant increase in superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity and glutathione (GSH) levels, as well as significant decrease in myeloperoxidase (MPO) activity, malondialdehyde (MDA) levels, macroscopic factors (ulcer surface area, ulcer severity and weight‐to‐colon ratio) and microscopic and histological parameters (severity and extent of inflammation, cryptic destruction and severity of tissue involvement) in escitalopram treated rats (10, 20 mg/kg) compared to the UC group. In conclusion, the results of our study are in support of beneficial anti‐inflammatory and antioxidant effects of escitalopram in UC.
Transient systemic inflammation in adult male mice results in underweight progeny
Authors: Rokade Sushama , Upadhya Manoj , Bhat Dattatray S. , Subhedar Nishikant , Yajnik Chittaranjan S. , Ghose Aurnab , Rath Satyajit , Bal Vineeta 
Published: February 2021

AbstractProblemWhile the testes represent an immune‐privileged organ, there is evidence that systemic inflammation is accompanied by local inflammatory responses. We therefore examined whether transient systemic inflammation caused any inflammatory and functional consequences in murine testes.Method of StudyUsing a single systemic administration of Toll‐like receptor (TLR) agonists [lipopolysaccharide (LPS) or peptidoglycan (PG) or polyinosinic‐polycytidylic acid (polyIC)] in young adult male mice, we assessed testicular immune‐inflammatory landscape and reproductive functionality.ResultsOur findings demonstrated a significant induction of testicular TNF‐α, IL‐1β and IL‐6 transcripts within 24 h of TLR agonist injection. By day 6, these cytokine levels returned to baseline. While there was no change in caudal sperm counts at early time points, eight weeks later, twofold decrease in sperm count and reduced testicular testosterone levels were evident. When these mice were subjected to mating studies, no differences in mating efficiencies or litter sizes were observed compared with controls. Nonetheless, the neonatal weights of progeny from LPS/PG/polyIC‐treated sires were significantly lower than controls. Postnatal weight gain up to three weeks was also slower in the progeny of LPS/polyIC‐treated sires. Placental weights at 17.5 days post‐coitum were significantly lower in females mated to LPS‐ and polyIC‐treated males. Given this likelihood of an epigenetic effect, we found lower testicular levels of histone methyltransferase enzyme, mixed‐lineage leukaemia‐1, in mice given LPS/PG/polyIC 8 weeks earlier.ConclusionExposure to transient systemic inflammation leads to transient local inflammation in the testes, with persistent sperm‐mediated consequences for foetal development.
Skewed inflammation is associated with aberrant interleukin‐37 signaling pathway in atopic dermatitis
Authors: Hou Tianheng , Tsang Miranda Sin‐Man , Chu Ida Miu‐Ting , Kan Lea Ling‐Yu , Hon Kam‐Lun , Leung Ting‐Fan , Lam Christopher Wai‐Kei , Wong Chun‐Kwok 
Published: February 2021

AbstractBackgroundAtopic dermatitis (AD) is a severe global burden on physical, physiological, and mental health. The role of IL‐37, a fundamental inhibitor of immunity, in AD was herein explored.MethodSerum levels of IL‐37 and T helper (Th) 2‐related inflammatory mediators were quantified in subjects with or without AD. The expression of IL‐37 receptors was determined by flow cytometry. Proteomics was employed to explore the serum protein profile and novel biomarkers. In vitro cell model, 3D‐keratinocytes mimicking skin model, and the serum of subjects with or without AD were investigated to verify the proteomic results.ResultsAD patients were found to present with higher levels of total and specific IgE as well as Th2 inflammatory mediators compared with healthy controls (HC). IL‐37 level and its receptor IL18Rɑ expression in AD patients were significantly decreased, together with increased population of eosinophils, indicating that the signaling of IL37/IL18Rɑ was dampened. In addition, proteomic analysis revealed a significantly differential protein profile of AD patients compared with HC. IL‐37 showed the strongest negative correlation with involucrin, a keratinizing epithelia protein. IL‐37 was verified to suppress induced involucrin expression in in vitro skin cell models. AD patients show a significantly higher serum concentration of involucrin compared with HC. Together, our results demonstrated that IL‐37 plays a regulatory role in AD. Its deficiency may lead to the aberrant involucrin expression in AD.ConclusionsThe dysregulation of serum protein and skin disruption in AD is related to the insufficiency of IL‐37 and its attenuated anti‐inflammatory signaling.
Concurrent screen use and cross‐sectional association with lifestyle behaviours and psychosocial health in adolescent females
Authors: Harrington Deirdre M. , Ioannidou Ekaterini , Davies Melanie J. , Edwardson Charlotte L. , Gorely Trish , Rowlands Alex V. , Sherar Lauren B. , Staiano Amanda E. 
Published: February 2021

AbstractAimTo describe concurrent screen use and any relationships with lifestyle behaviours and psychosocial health.MethodsParticipants wore an accelerometer for seven days to calculate physical activity sleep and sedentary time. Screen ownership and use and psychosocial variables were self‐reported. Body mass index (BMI) was measured. Relationships were explored using mixed models accounting for school clustering and confounders.ResultsIn 816 adolescent females (age: 12.8 SD 0.8 years; 20.4% non‐white European) use of ≥2 screens concurrently was: 59% after school, 65% in evenings, 36% in bed and 68% at weekends. Compared to no screens those using: ≥1 screens at weekends had lower physical activity; ≥2 screens at the weekend or one/two screen at bed had lower weekend moderate‐to‐vigorous physical activity; one screen in the evening had lower moderate‐to‐vigorous physical activity in the after‐school and evening period; ≥1 screens after school had higher BMI; and ≥3 screens at the weekend had higher weekend sedentary time. Compared to no screens those using: 1–3 after‐school screens had shorter weekday sleep; ≥1 screens after‐school had lower time in bed.ConclusionScreen use is linked to lower physical activity, higher BMI and less sleep. These results can inform screen use guidelines.