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Yi Jing is one of the most archaic works among the Chinese classics. Various schools of thought developed their philosophies from the philosophical perspectives in this book and its influence is wide ranging and far reaching. This paper attempts to show how leaders can approach the Yi Jing beneficially by identifying the principles, values and virtues in each of the 64 scenarios, deriving insights about change and leadership. It also aims to show how the Yi Jing compares with Western management literature.

This paper provides an analysis of Qian Gua of Yi Jing as an example of how leaders can draw insights from Yi Jing about change and leadership.

Qian Gua, which is the first scenario in the Yi Jing, offers us powerful insights about change and leadership by offering: a framework of understanding change and human enterprises, considering the aspects of beginning, process, benefit and sustainability; a framework to understand the leadership development process; and leadership principles of conscientious self‐cultivation, transformational leadership through virtues and riding the tides of change.

A change and leadership model inspired by the Yi Jing should interest business leaders both in the east and the west, and help Westerners gain success in doing business in China or collaborating with the Chinese on a joint venture.

This is the first paper to draw insights about change and leadership through an analysis of Qian Gua of Yi Jing.

The purpose of this paper is to show how images and videos of search strategies can enhance student experiences in reference interactions by providing a visual and/or auditory explanation, rather than written step‐by‐step instructions. This paper explores how online screencasting tools, such as Jing, can be used to quickly create and share on‐the‐fly videos and images.

A literature review briefly discusses uses of screencasting in higher education and the implications for Millennial students, followed by a discussion of how librarians at California State University, San Marcos are creating screencasting videos and images to enhance chat/instant messaging, e‐mail, and in‐person reference interactions.

Based on chat transcripts and anecdotal evidence, students find librarians' use of screencasting helpful in illustrating complex search strategies to find information resources.

Further research is needed to determine if screencasting is an effective learning tool for Millennial students, as well as, other library users in both reference interactions and instructional settings.

Online screencasting tools are easy‐to‐use, low‐cost, and can be used in any type of library, specifically for reference services. In virtual reference, librarians can quickly create and share instructional videos rather than type detailed instructions for accessing library and information resources.

While screencasting tools such as Captivate and Camtasia are widely used in library instruction, they are new to reference delivery. Since many reference interactions include instructional components, on‐the‐fly screencasting can be a useful tool to enhance the user's reference and learning experience.

Researchers rarely present accounts of their awkward encounters in ethnographies. Awkwardness, however, does matter and affects the ethnographic accounts we write and our understanding of social situations. The purpose is to bring these hidden sides of organizational ethnography to the fore, to discuss the consequences of ignoring awkward encounters, and to improve our understanding of organizational realities.

This paper presents awkward ethnographic encounters in the field: encounters with evangelizing ethnic Chinese business people in Indonesia (Koning), and visiting an artist village in China (Ooi). Based on analysing their awkwardness, and in the context of a critical assessment of the reflexive turn in ethnography, the authors propose a more inclusive reflexivity. The paper ends with formulating several points supportive of reaching inclusive reflexivity.

By investigating awkward encounters, the authors show that these experiences have been left out for political (publishing culture in academia, unwritten rules of ethnography), as well as personal (feelings of failure, unwelcome self‐revelations) reasons, while there is much to discover from these encounters. Un‐paralyzing reflexivity means to include the awkward, the emotional, and admit the non‐rational aspects of our ethnographic experiences; such inclusive reflexivity is incredibly insightful.

Inclusive reflexivity not only allows room for the imperfectness of the researcher, but also enables a fuller and deeper representation of the groups and communities we aim to understand and, thus, will enhance the trustworthiness and quality of our ethnographic work.

Awkwardness is rarely acknowledged, not to mention discussed, in organizational ethnography.

The purpose of this paper is to concern the community festival of a Jing minority village in the China–Vietnam border area. Since it was designated as a national-level Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2006, the festival has undergone many changes. The festival has steadily expanded and evolved, assuming characteristics of globalization. How is the globalized character of the Wanwei festival manifested? What are the forces behind the elevation of this local festival onto the register of national events and how did it turn into an event organized by the township?

The paper is based on the results of the author’s research on the culture of Kinh people in Wanwei from 2000 to the present. From the anthropological approach, the author mainly uses method of participant observation and in-depth interviews. The author has observed the Wanwei communal festival from 2000 to the present, interviewing about 40 villagers in Wanwei in depth, they can be leaders, intellectuals, civil servants, officials or working people.

The paper is a case study of the new aspect of globalization of a village festival. The author argues that globalization can lead to a spread of global flows but in this process of globalization, villagers also want to define the local identity, they reinvent the tradition, rewrite history, create new nuances for the gods with many different purposes. Practicing the current Wanwei village festival is a vivid example of globalization from below and the politics of tradition.

The paper adds a theoretical dimension to current globalization research. The paper also points out the political, economic and social dynamics that govern the transformation of a village festival in particular and the village culture in general in the border areas. The paper is a testament to the dynamism and flexibility of villagers when participating in the current globalization process.

Extant research documents the importance of lean thinking for organizations, however, as prior research has largely focused on hard lean practices, but little is known about the effects or the significance of soft lean practices. This research attempts to address this issue by examining how soft lean practices enhance organizational lean readiness, and in turn increase the success of lean implementation.

This research adopts a single case study design in a small-medium enterprise livestock feed manufacturing organization, and investigates the period from late 2011 through the end of 2019 covering two attempts at lean implementation – an initial failed attempt followed by a successful introduction of lean within the case organization. The research analyzes interviews with 29 managers and employees from all organizational levels and departments within the case organization. Secondary data including organizational documents and performance measures and metrics were also incorporated into the research design.

Drawing on agency theory, the authors advance a principal-agent interaction perspective to conceptualize organizational lean readiness – specifically, the authors consider the “state or condition” of four agency factors (goal conflict, information asymmetry, risk aversion and length of relationship), and explore if these four agency factors can be utilized as proxies for organizational readiness for lean implementation. The authors identify the formation of a shared vision and identity within the organization as an effective mechanism through which soft lean practices enhance organizational lean readiness. Finally, the analysis offers an understanding of how the long-term success of lean implementation is improved by the introduction of soft lean practices as a prerequisite to create organizational readiness for the implementation of hard lean practices.

The study is unique in the sense that it empirically links agency theory and the role of soft lean practices in developing organizational lean readiness in a small-medium enterprise context by defining the ideal state of four agency factors as proxies for organizational readiness.

Collectivism in service research is so bound with Asian cultures as to risk being overly deterministic. Contesting this stereotype, this paper surfaces the individualistic consumption facets of consumers within a collectivist cultural setting, describing the compensating role servicescapes may play and the service marketing opportunities they present.

Within a Chinese cultural research frame, a qualitative grounded approach is adopted that surfaces subconscious metaphors of private consumption through photo elicitation, deep psychological metaphor elicitation and triangulated with field observation.

Individuals within a collectivist culture do actively seek private psychic space to regenerate the self and prepare for social obligations heavily influenced by Confucian norms. Servicescapes play an important role in private consumption as they provide both a physical and mental oasis of privacy not easily obtainable in regular life and work.

Service providers could offer East Asian consumers a package that includes the individual aspect of their value system, whenever and however they see suitable. More specifically, servicescapes can be designed to provide services that facilitate consumer restoration by implementing the mental metaphors consumers of have this process.

A stereotype of a consumption has grown around Chinese consumers that while not totally false, misses a vital aspect of human values and risks missing profitable market niches. Consideration of the whole person's collective-individualistic cycle benefits both the consumer and the business.

Moving beyond a one-dimensional description of East Asian consumer behavior, focused on collective values, we show the key role servicescapes play in private consumption. A psychological renewal of the self, in preparation to re-enter the collective, show the multiple aspects of Asian consumers.

The positive psychology movement suggests organisational behaviourists should accentuate the positive by increasing the attention paid to the enhancement of employee wellness. This fits comfortably with the ethos of human resource management which is rooted in notions of social exchange, reciprocity and mutual gain. The purpose of this paper is to inject some positivity into HRM research by examining the mediating role of positive emotions in the HRM–performance relationship.

To examine the role played by positive emotions in the relationship between HRM and citizenship behaviours, the authors surveyed a sample of 250 employees from 14 organisations in New Zealand service industries. Sobel and bootstrapping tests were used to examine the mediation model.

Results show positive emotional states, both personal and job-related, to positively and partially mediate the HRM–contextual performance relationship.

Theoretically, this finding opens up HRM’s black box affording support for the inclusion of a wider range of psychological states than those presently studied.

Support is provided for HRM approaches which are more progressive than remedial in nature.

Emotions are malleable and this study suggests that fostering positive emotional states might hold the key to performance, unlocking desirable employee behaviours.

Drawing on the dynamic model of ability, motivation, opportunity (AMO) for human resource research, this study aims to examine how organizational system-level (i.e. the high-performance work system (HPWS)) and individual-level AMO affect employees' performance. Specifically, this paper proposes that employee task performance is resultant from the integration of system- and individual-level AMO factors with employee contextual performance.

A survey design is employed with data collected from 250 employees working in New Zealand's service sector.

This study finds both organizational system (HPWS) and individual AMO dimensions have positive associations with employees' performance. At the system level, the supportive role played by contextual performance is highlighted with pro-social behaviors fully mediating the relationship between the HPWS and task performance. At the individual level, contextual performance is found to partially mediate the relationship between ability and task performance and fully mediate the relationship between motivation and task performance. Opportunity, on the other hand, is significantly associated with task but not contextual performance.

In acknowledging there are a plurality of factors that impact performance, this study enriches our understanding of AMO's influence in the context of people management.

Project managers bear the responsibility of selecting and developing resource scheduling methods that align with project requirements and organizational circumstances. This study focuses on resource-constrained project scheduling in multi-project environments. The research simplifies the problem by adopting a single-project perspective using gain coefficients.

It employs uncertainty theory and multi-objective programming to construct a model. The optimal solution is identified using Matlab, while LINGO determines satisfactory alternatives. By combining these methods and considering actual construction project situations, a compromise solution closely approximating the optimal one is derived.

The study provides fresh insights into modeling and resolving resource-constrained project scheduling issues, supported by real-world examples that effectively illustrate its practical significance.

The research highlights three main contributions: effective resource utilization, project prioritization and conflict management, and addressing uncertainty. It offers decision support for project managers to balance resource allocation, resolve conflicts, and adapt to changing project demands.

Consumer satisfaction towards a brand is one of a firm’s important performance outcomes. However, building a strong green brand to foster consumers’ satisfaction is often challenging for firms. Drawing on the dynamic capability and mechanism-enabling perspectives of ambidexterity. The purpose of this research is to explore mechanisms of perceived brand performance and green trust through which green brand ambidexterity acts as a facilitator of consumer satisfaction.

The hypothesized relationships were tested by both partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM; symmetric approach) and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA; asymmetric approach) with data collected from a green consumer questionnaire survey in Hong Kong.

The results from PLS-SEM indicate that green brand ambidexterity affects consumer satisfaction through multiple mediating paths of perceived brand performance, green trust-consumer and the sequential integration of perceived brand performance and green trust. Results from fsQCA further reinforced these findings.

The present research provides a nuanced understanding of how ambidexterity enhances consumer satisfaction in the context of a green brand by identifying multiple mechanisms.

There is a lack of research on how green brand ambidexterity affects green brand outcomes from the perspective of value creation for consumers. The present research fills this gap by providing more comprehensive explanations of mechanisms for green brand ambidexterity to facilitate consumer satisfaction. It also offers a better understanding of how the effects of green brand ambidexterity are viewed on a path-dependency that is aligned with the dynamic capability perspective of ambidexterity and how green trust forms a critical path to enable green brand ambidexterity and perceived brand performance to enhance consumer satisfaction.