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This viewpoint paper investigates the changing role of leadership in a dynamic, technologically driven society, and the vital requirement for leaders to engage in continuous self-upskilling to remain effective. It emphasizes the importance of generative artificial intelligence (GAI) in transforming personalized learning experiences for leaders and allowing them to adapt to an ever-changing world.

A review of current research papers, articles, and case studies is conducted to evaluate the integration of generative AI in leadership self-upskilling. It examines the possibilities and possible benefits of generative AI, and the issues it offers regarding data privacy, algorithmic bias, and learning requirements.

The findings highlight the transformational potential of GAI in self-upskilling for leaders. It demonstrates how GAI can build personalized learning materials, provide real-time feedback, and adapt content to individual learning styles. It identifies notable executives who have effectively embraced GAI for their self-upskilling journeys, resulting in increased productivity and competitiveness.

The paper investigates the application of GAI for self-improvement, addressing challenges such as data privacy and algorithmic bias while suggesting responsible AI use tactics.

This study investigates the relationship between leadership and AI, emphasizing the importance of leaders in self-improvement as well as the possibility of AI-powered self-upskilling to democratize leadership development while also promoting ethical use.

The purpose of this study is to explore the intersection of mindfulness practices and ethical decision-making within organisational leadership. Drawing from ancient Buddhist principles and contemporary neuroscience, this study aims to illuminate how mindfulness can enhance cognitive and emotional regulation, thereby fostering ethical behaviour and improved decision-making among leaders and employees. By examining the theoretical and practical implications of mindfulness in the context of organisational behaviour, this research seeks to contribute to the development of more compassionate, ethical and effective leadership practices, ultimately promoting a more mindful and sustainable business environment.

This concept paper explores the integration of mindfulness meditation practices with decision-making, particularly its influence on ethical choices, through a comparative study of modern techniques and the ancient teachings of the Tripitaka. Using a methodology that spans literature review in organisational behaviour and leadership, alongside in-depth analysis of the Tripitaka and contributions from scholars like Bhikkhu Bodhi, the paper examines the potential of mindfulness in enhancing ethical decision-making. It incorporates a range of sources, including peer-reviewed journals and seminal books across various disciplines, to underscore the transformative potential of mindfulness in addressing contemporary challenges and guiding leadership practices.

This discussion explores how mindfulness, rooted in ancient Buddhist philosophy and aligned with modern neuroscience, can significantly enhance managerial decision-making by fostering a balance between cognitive and emotional factors. It delves into the transformative potential of mindfulness in refining thought processes, promoting ethical decision-making and mitigating cognitive biases. By bridging traditional wisdom with contemporary scientific insights, the analysis underscores mindfulness as an active, dynamic process crucial for personal growth and effective leadership in complex environments.

One limitation of this research is its reliance on theoretical frameworks and literature reviews, which may not capture the full range of practical challenges in implementing mindfulness practices within organisations. Additionally, the diversity in mindfulness methodologies and the subjective nature of mindfulness experiences may affect the generalisability of the findings. Future research should include empirical studies to validate the proposed benefits of mindfulness in organisational settings and explore the most effective strategies for integrating mindfulness practices into leadership and decision-making processes. This would help in understanding how mindfulness can be tailored to suit different organisational cultures and individual preferences.

The practical implications of applying mindfulness in organisational settings include enhanced decision-making abilities, improved leadership effectiveness and increased employee well-being. Mindfulness training can equip leaders and employees with the skills to manage stress, navigate complex ethical decisions and maintain focus amidst distractions, leading to more thoughtful and responsible business practices. Organisations might see a reduction in conflict, enhanced creativity and better teamwork, contributing to a more harmonious and productive workplace. Implementing mindfulness programmes could also support talent retention and attraction by promoting a workplace culture that values mental health and ethical behaviour.

The social implications of integrating mindfulness into organisational decision-making and leadership, as suggested by the document, include promoting ethical behaviour, enhancing emotional regulation and improving team dynamics. Mindfulness practices can lead to more informed and conscious decision-making, reducing cognitive biases and fostering a culture of ethical awareness within organisations. This shift towards mindful leadership could potentially transform organisational cultures, encouraging greater compassion, ethical responsibility and collective well-being, thereby contributing positively to broader societal values and norms.

The originality and value of this research lie in its novel integration of mindfulness concepts derived from ancient Buddhist teachings with contemporary neuroscience and organisational behaviour studies. By exploring the deep-rooted philosophical underpinnings of mindfulness and their applicability to modern ethical decision-making and leadership practices, this work offers a unique perspective that bridges historical wisdom with current scientific understanding. It provides a comprehensive framework for understanding the transformative potential of mindfulness in organisational settings, highlighting its capacity to foster ethical leadership, enhance decision-making processes and contribute to a more mindful, compassionate and sustainable business environment.

The learning objectives of this case study are based on Bloom’s taxonomy. Upon completion of the case study discussion and exercises, successful students will be able to design a leadership transition and succession plan for non-profit organisations; identify and evaluate critical skills and competencies required in leadership positions; and frame expectations and responsibilities for new and departing executives.

Apar Gupta co-founded Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), a digital rights organisation born out of SaveTheInternet – Net Neutrality movement of 2015, credited for urging the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India to uphold net neutrality in India. And ban zero-cost internet services that promoted data discrimination in the country. After working on and winning the net neutrality movement, Gupta identified many areas in technology where democratic rights had not been identified or were yet to be clearly defined (like in the case of net neutrality). There was also a service gap between the existing internet volunteer groups and digital rights organisations, which could IFF fill. This was to provide objective clarity, stakeholder identification, handle policy discussions and, most importantly, arrange resources to support movements over the long term. This prompted him to co-found IFF in 2017, which he later joined as a full-time executive director in 2018. IFF worked at the intersection of technology, democratic rights and government policies and was comparable to some global organisations, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation in the USA and the Open Rights Group in the UK. Still, none existed in India at the time. After four years as a full-time executive director in 2022, he was convinced that it was finally time for him to act on the pre-defined strategic departure plan and work towards succession for the executive director position. While there were visible gaps in the system, Gupta’s leadership design and plans had helped IFF overcome existential challenges in the past. Also, while digital rights were still at a nascent stage in emerging economies, under Gupta’s leadership, IFF had delivered unmatched value to its beneficiaries in the world’s biggest digital consumer market. However, constant changes in regulations and continuing financial constraints made him nervous about the outcomes of the succession and the overall sustainability of IFF. Gupta wanted to ensure that this phased transition from executive director after two years and then trustee manager after the next four years are carefully communicated to reduce the likelihood of attrition and loss of trust.

Being the co-founder and the first and only executive director IFF had seen, the organisation would also require significant skill and competency mapping to identify the new executive leadership. But with no clear internal successor in sight, the non-profit trust would also need a successor who not only was competent but also would share a passion for the type of work done by IFF, its unique delivery mode, and also would openly inherit its position in society. The other alternative strategic routes present were to look for dual leadership or interim leadership, but then there could be concerns about Gupta’s influence overshadowing any such alternative.

In the case scenario, IFF is planning for succession while navigating the organisation through financial constraints and constant regulatory changes to ensure long- and short-term sustainability.

The case study has been written to gain insights into departure-defined successive planning in non-profit organisations. The case study can also be used to gain insights into innovative start-ups and innovative non-profit start-ups, as digital rights are still at nascent stages in emerging markets. The case study will be valuable for courses such as human resource management, strategic human resource management, social entrepreneurial leadership, leadership development, start-up environment, innovation and entrepreneurship, public policy, development studies, cyber security and information technology. The case study also allows students and young professionals to take the perspective of an innovative start-up founder and design a departure-defined succession plan. The case study can also be useful for senior students wanting to undertake an entrepreneurial career by starting or joining a non-profit organisation. While the case study is suitable for postgraduate- and executive-level courses, it can also be used for conducting entrepreneurial workshops and skill training.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

Exponential organizations (ExOs) are purpose-driven companies that leverage exponential technologies and exponential business practices to grow and scale rapidly, transform industries and create massive value and impact. In contrast, non-ExOs follow a linear approach to business and organizational strategy design and execution. This study aims to validate the hypothesis, based on financial metrics, that ExOs outperform their competitors and linear counterparts. Furthermore, it also brings a new understanding of the gap raised in the past eight years about how ExOs can achieve significantly better performance, measured with financial metrics.

For measuring how exponential an organization is, this study elaborated a completely new assessment tool called Exponential Quotient (ExQ). This study applied ExQ to the 100 largest US headquartered companies as ranked by Fortune magazine in 2014. Calculating the ExQ enabled this study to rank these Fortune 100 companies and identify the most and the least exponential firms. This study tracked these companies as to how they performed on different financial metrics over the eight years of 2014–2021 and analyzed the results.

Through the analysis, this study revealed that the top 10 ExOs have significantly outperformed their bottom 10 non-exponential peers, delivering 40x higher shareholder returns, 2.6x better revenue growth, 6.8x higher profitability and 11.7x better asset turnover. Furthermore, this study could identify commonalities and similarities between the two groups. This means that ExOs can thrive even in tough times and that accelerating technologies unlock abundance and allow every organization to become a disruptive innovator and stay ahead of the competition. These are novel results in the research focusing on the gap between exponential and traditional organizations.

Using the ExQ diagnostics tool, every organization can see how flexible, scalable and agile they are, which is the starting point for an exponential transformation program. Although this approach has already found its way into practice and is applied globally by thousands of organizations (startups, scaleups and incumbents), so far, the academic establishment is in its nascent phase. With this research, the authors wanted to extend this field of science. On the other hand, because of its novelty, no appropriate previous studies existed to compare the results.

The possible implications showed that there is a plannable way for significantly increasing an organization’s ExQ and advance it from a linear toward an exponential organizational model.

The results validated the robustness of the ExO framework and philosophy and shed light on the importance of exponential transformation – a proven method to increase an organization’s ExQ. This framework is not a “how to be successful” guide. Instead, it uncovered some of the previously unknown and universal mechanisms of scalability – which, in turbulent times, make companies successful (based on financial metrics). To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study was among the first kind of in-depth analyses to validate the whole ExO model.

This paper aims to analyze the implications of orality for management practices in a developing country such as Iran.

This paper relies on the seminal theory of Walter Ong (1982) and a leading line of anthropological research to analyze the implications of orality/literacy for management practices in Iran. The authors first define orality and literacy as distinct modes of communication and examine their conceptual properties. Then, the authors draw on the existing literature to analyze the five main management functions impacted by orality.

The analyses suggest that the predominance of orality in Iran is associated with a wide range of management practices, including short-term or unstructured planning, spontaneous decision-making, fluid organizational structure, the prevalence of interpersonal relations, authoritarian and traditional leadership and behavior-based controlling mechanisms.

While most studies have focused on the impacts of cultural dimensions and economic variables, this paper offers a novel approach to analyzing management practices. More specifically, the paper suggests that in addition to the implications of cultural dimensions and economic variables, the mode of communication, namely, orality/literacy, could have significant implications for management practices.

Education 4.0 (E 4.0) represents a new paradigm in the field of education, which emphasizes a student-centric approach that allows learners to access education anytime, anywhere, tailored to their individual needs through modern-day technologies. The purpose of the study was to unearth the critical success factors (CSFs) essential for the successful implementation of E 4.0.

The CSFs were unearthed using a literature review and further the interrelationships were analysed using multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) approach.

The study unearthed 15 CSFs for the successful implementation of E 4.0. The most important factor for the successful implementation of E 4.0 was personalized learning which was found to be the casual factor. The other causal CSFs were clear vision and leadership for E 4.0, stakeholder involvement, data analytics in teaching and learning, inter-disciplinary learning and blended learning environments. The effect factors were digital citizenship-based education, teacher training and development for E 4.0, supportive environment, curriculum redesign for E 4.0, open educational resources, digital technologies, formative assessments, infrastructure for E 4.0 and sustainability in education.

This is the first study which unearthed the CSFs and found the interrelationships among them, thus contributing to the theory of technology organization environment.

This study represented a pioneering effort in understanding the CSFs underpinning the successful adoption of E 4.0, paving the way for a more personalized, tech-savvy and effective education system.

This study aims to explore the intellectual connections of mission statement research to identify the influential domains of source knowledge and emergent areas of research for future studies.

The authors deployed bibliometric methods, namely, citation, co-citation and network analysis. The authors collected data from the Scopus and Web of Science databases and analyzed the connections of the most influential articles.

The authors identified four knowledge domains that informed the mission statements literature: guidance on mission statement development, the value of mission statements, mission statements and organizational issues, mission statement content and communication. And the authors spotted four opportunities for knowledge advancement based on theoretical frameworks, performance measures, content and context.

Practitioners should think beyond the immediate benefits of mission statements, such as performance and legitimacy improvement. Instead, they should focus on long-term benefits, information advantages and democratizing the development phase of mission statements.

Mission statements have attracted scholarly attention over the past 40 years. Despite the formation of a considerable body of knowledge, intellectual connections of mission statement research have been largely neglected. Previous studies had a narrow focus or insufficient coverage of the literature. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first full-scale bibliometric study on the intellectual connections of the mission statements literature.

Saudi Arabia’s government’s dedication to modernizing and improving the country’s educational system has resulted in profound changes to the country’s educational environment. A key component of societal development, economic prosperity, and preparing the next generation for a changing environment is education. This chapter charts the historical development, emphasizing significant events and difficulties encountered at every educational level. The chapter describes the significant increase starting in the 1950s, focusing on worldwide standards while upholding moral principles, from its origins in Islamic studies to King Abdulaziz Al-Saud’s creation of a formal education system. Significant progress persisted into the 2000s, especially in the area of women’s education. This chapter also discusses the implication of Vision 2030 in Education and Research skills and provides significant insights for the elevation of the quality and the impact of education toward resilient social inclusive economic development in Saudi Arabia.

This study aims to analyze the evolution and current state of talent management in learning organizations and the design of managerial curricula, highlighting the challenges and opportunities in the context of a rapidly changing global business environment.

A narrative literature review was conducted, tracing the conceptual evolution of learning organizations. Seminal works emphasizing continuous learning and transformation were highlighted, and the progression of managerial education was analyzed, from its early focus on ethics and soft skills to its current emphasis on sustainability, digital literacy and experiential learning.

The research reveals challenges in balancing foundational knowledge with emerging competencies in curriculum design. Tensions are evident in maintaining relevance in rapidly changing, globally interconnected environments. Notable limitations include the trade-offs in innovation and the need to cater to diverse student demographics.

This review uniquely synthesizes developments at the intersection of curriculum innovation, organizational learning and curriculum design, offering valuable insights for institutions aiming to nurture talent for modern learning organizations.