How to Promote the Agricultural Company Through Environmental Social Responsibility to Achieve Sustainable Production?

This survey employs the multilevel growth curve model to demonstrate how to promote the development of the company’s environmental innovation in agricultural companies specializing in the agricultural production and export of agricultural products to achieve sustainable production through environmental social responsibility and environmental engagement according to the engagement theory. The empirical data are collected 30 chief executive officers and their 90 supervisors of top management teams (TMTs) of Taiwanese agricultural companies in 2 months. The empirical results demonstrate that environmental social responsibility significantly influences the top management teams’ environmental engagement development, which in turn significantly influences the agricultural company’s environmental innovation. These empirical results can not only promote the sustainable production literature in the agricultural field but also help these agricultural companies implement environmental innovation to realize sustainable production of agricultural exports.

Examining the cohesiveness and nestedness entrepreneurial ecosystems: evidence from British FinTechs

It is not clear if entrepreneurial ecosystems are cohesive wholes within a region that support high-growth entrepreneurship across a variety of sectors or if ecosystems are made up of several, nested sectoral-specific sub-ecosystems. This debate speaks to larger disagreements about what entrepreneurial ecosystems are and how they work. This paper addresses this research gap by using a novel methodology based on career history data of founders and top management teams of high-growth FinTech ventures. This method is used to classify the backgrounds of 1,570 individuals in 380 British FinTech firms based on their prior job histories and employers into categories such as technology or finance. The paper finds substantial evidence of nestedness in the ecosystems, but rather than FinTech ecosystems being specialized finance or technology clusters, more generic forms of managerial know-how remain crucial to firm innovation and growth. This suggests that even very advanced ecosystems remain nested, with few cross-over points between different communities.

Perceptions of School Management on the Relationship between School Nutrition and Development of Non-Communicable Diseases in a Rural South African District: A Qualitative Study

Globally, noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) were responsible for 41 million deaths in 2016, with the majority of these occurring in low- and middle-income countries. These diseases are on the rise as a result of unhealthy, low-quality, and unbalanced diets, which have resulted in overweight and obesity. The National School Nutrition Program (NSNP) was created to regulate the foods sold to schoolchildren. The aim of this study was to ascertain school management teams’ perspectives on the relationship between the NSNP and the development of lifestyle diseases. A phenomenological qualitative study using focus group discussions among 16 purposively selected members of the school management teams were conducted in Mt Frere, Eastern Cape in 2016. The narrative data were analyzed using Tesch’s eight-phase thematic analysis approach. The data analysis revealed two themes (NSNP and the vendor system) and six sub-themes. The NSNP was viewed as making a significant contribution to children’s food security, thereby improving academic output. However, reengineering of the NSNP was needed through improved budgeting and inclusion of breakfast in the menu to control NCDs risk factors. The current implementation of the vendor system did not support reduction of NCDs risk factors. Improved implementation of the guide to the vendor system is needed.

Defence mechanisms as predictors of trust and positive relationships in top management teams

BACKGROUND: Top managers are heavily exposed to strong negative emotions due to the difficult decisive situations that they experience and the persistent pressure of time and uncertainty. At the same time, the relationships they build within TMTs shape their decisions, experiences and reactions at work. The paper refers to defence mechanisms as relatively persistent means of individual response to unwanted emotions and affects. OBJECTIVE: The aim of the paper is to examine the defence mechanisms of TMT members as antecedents of perceived trustworthiness of other team members and positive relationships in the team. METHODS: The empirical study was conducted in a sample of 123 members of top management teams representing furniture industry companies in Poland. RESULTS: The results show that defence mechanisms determine TMT members’ perception of trustworthiness of other team-members and that perceived trustworthiness mediates the relation between the defence mechanisms of TMT members and their evaluation of relationships within a team. CONCLUSIONS: The study explains links between individual characteristics of TMT members and processes within the teams. It contributes to upper echelon theory and literature on trust and positive relationships at work. It also contributes to the line of research introducing unconscious processes and emotions to management studies.

Perceptions of School Management on the Relationship between School Nutrition and Development of Non-communicable Diseases in a Rural South African District: A Qualitative Study

Globally, noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) were responsible for 41 million deaths in 2016, with the majority of these occurring in low and middle-income countries. These diseases were on the rise as a result of unhealthy, low-quality, and unbalanced diets, which resulted in overweight and obesity. The National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP) was created to regulate the foods sold to schoolchildren. To ascertain school management teams' perspectives on the relationship between the NSNP and the development of lifestyle diseases. A phenomenological qualitative study using Focus Group Discussions among 16 purposively selected members of the School Management Teams were conducted in Mt Frere, Eastern Cape in 2016. The narrative data was analyzed using Tesch's eight-phase thematic analysis approach. The data analysis revealed two themes (NSNP and the vendor system) and six sub-themes. The NSNP was viewed as making a significant contribution to children's food security, thereby improving academic output. However, reengineering of the NSNP was need through improved budgeting and inclusion of breakfast in the menu to control NCDs risk factors. The current implementation of the vendor system did not support reduction of NCDs risk factors. Improved implementation of the guide to vendor system is needed.

Liderazgo directivo en escuelas y proyectos no formales en centros de menores y carcelarios de la Región Metropolita de Chile

La educación en contextos encierro es un tema poco estudiado e incluso invisibilizado, los/as docentes y los equipos directivos no cuentan con apoyos específicos suficientes para llevar a cabo su labor, la que está sujeta a una serie de condiciones y demandas muy diferentes a la del medio libre. Una investigación cualitativa en curso, en que se han recogido datos del 70% de los participantes, cuyo propósito es cartografiar el sentido los proyectos formativos con jóvenes y adultos en contextos de encierro en la R.M de Chile, arroja información relevante en torno al liderazgo directivo. En todos los casos los principios que guían los proyectos educativos constituyen parte del “sueño pedagógico” de los equipos que conducen las escuelas o programas, quienes se caracterizan por un fuerte compromiso ético y por una toma de decisiones que privilegia el desarrollo de las capacidades de los/as internos/as. Consecuentemente, los equipos directivos no dudan en ir más allá de lo que les corresponde y buscar alternativas autogestionadas para realizar su labor. Lo anterior posibilita que los proyectos no formales y las escuelas se constituyan en un espacio simbólico muy diferente al espacio carcelario, alejándose de la lógica de vigilar y castigar. Education in confinement contexts is a little studied and even invisibilized topic; teachers and management teams do not have enough specific support to carry out their work, which is subject to a series of conditions and demands very different from those of the free environment. A qualitative research in progress, in which data have been collected from 70% of the participants, whose purpose is to map the meaning of educational projects with young people and adults in confinement contexts in the R.M. of Chile, yields relevant information on managerial leadership. In all cases, the principles guiding the educational projects are part of the "pedagogical dream" of the teams leading the schools or programs, who are characterized by a strong ethical commitment and by decision-making that favors the development of the inmates' capacities. Consequently, the management teams do not hesitate to go beyond their responsibilities and seek self-managed alternatives to carry out their work. This makes it possible for non-formal projects and schools to become a symbolic space that is very different from the prison space, moving away from the logic of surveillance and punishment.