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This paper aims to investigate whether managerial overconfidence has an impact on investment inefficiency beyond its influence on the use of internal financing or whether internal financing behaves as a full intermediary.

The study employed three dependent variables, namely business investment scale, overinvestment and underinvestment, and analyzed data from 282 firms across five different industries listed in 11 Middle East/North Africa (MENA) countries between 2013 and 2019 using regression analysis via least square dummy variable (LSDV).

The findings indicate that while internal financing can provide funding for investment opportunities and address capital shortages, it may also result in overinvestment, particularly in companies led by overconfident managers.

Stakeholders, including shareholders and board of directors, should pay attention to the chief executive officer (CEO)'s behavioral aspects such as overconfidence in decision-making while undertaking new investment projects. Additionally, regulators and policymakers in emerging markets like MENA should re-evaluate the corporate governance framework, devise a corporate governance index and promote boardroom gender diversity as it can significantly reduce risk.

This study adds to the limited research on the impact of managerial overconfidence on investment efficiency in the MENA region. By focusing on this region, which has unique economic, political and social characteristics, the study provides new insights into the role of behavioral biases in investment decision-making in emerging markets.

This study aims to analyze how cultural variations impact the relationship between long-term debt use and managerial overconfidence. Investigate into how the relationship between growth prospects and the utilization of long-term debt is moderated by managerial overconfidence. In addition, the research explores the moderating effect of managerial overconfidence on cash flow levels.

The study used long-term debt as the dependent variable and used generalized method of moments–instrumental variables regression analysis to examine data from 356 firms across 11 Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries and 5 industries between 2013 and 2021.

CEO overconfidence moderately boosts the link between long-term debt maturity and growth potential, particularly for firms with limited internal funding. Cultural factors, such as masculinity and uncertainty avoidance, play a significant role in moderating the relationship between managerial overconfidence and debt maturity choices.

To understand the impact of managerial overconfidence on a company’s debt maturity decision, it is essential for boards and shareholders to consider and monitor the CEO’s behavioral traits, particularly for growing companies. Regulators and policymakers must also be wary of the risk of internal control weakening due to overconfident managers, especially in MENA markets.

The authors’ contribution to the literature lies in exploring how managerial overconfidence moderates the agency conflict between shareholders and debtholders in MENA region firms, which has received minimal attention in previous studies. This study expands the knowledge of the impact of managerial overconfidence on emerging economies and provides evidence that national culture plays a vital role in determining debt financing decisions.

The purpose of this paper is to critically explore why a diversity agenda in favor of equal opportunities failed despite apparent organizational support and commitment to diversity.

Drawing on data from a municipal center, this study inquire into how organizational dynamics of power and hierarchy influence change efforts to alter practices of inequality. The study is positioned within critical diversity research and structured around an analysis of the researcher’s fieldwork experiences.

The analysis examines into why change efforts failed despite organizational approval of a diversity agenda, open-mindedness toward change and legitimacy in regard to diversity. Paradoxically, change efforts designed to alter the status quo were, in practice, derailed and circumvented through power dynamics reproducing organizational inequality.

A single case study in a particular type of organization constrains the generalizability but point to new directions for future research.

This study aims at sensitizing researchers and diversity practitioners alike to the organizational embeddedness of diversity initiatives. Accordingly, change efforts must necessarily address diversity in a situated perspective and as intersecting with key organizational power dynamics gaining impetus from macro discourses on diversity and difference.

Few critical diversity scholars engage with practitioners and reflect on the impact of their studies. In doing so, this paper contributes by developing diversity research, exploring the limitations and possibilities for increasing its relevance and impact.

Within digital innovation, there are two significant consequences of the pervasiveness of digital technology: (1) the increasing connectivity is enabling a wider reach and scope of innovation structures, such as innovation networks and (2) the unprecedented availability of digital data is creating new opportunities for innovation. Accordingly, there is a growing domain for studying data-driven innovation (DDI), especially in contemporary contexts of innovation networks. The purpose of this study is to explore how DDI processes take form in a specific type of innovation networks, namely federated networks.

A multiple case study design is applied in this paper. We draw our analysis from data collected over six months from four cases of DDI. The within-analysis is aimed at constructing the DDI process instance in each case, while the crosscase analysis focuses on pattern matching and cross-case synthesis of common and unique characteristics in the constructed processes.

Evidence from the crosscase analysis suggests that the widely accepted four-phase digital innovation process (including discovery, development, diffusion and post-diffusion) does not account for the explorative nature of data analytics and DDI. We propose an extended process comprising an explicit exploration phase before development, where refinement of the innovation concept and exploring social relationships are essential. Our analysis also suggests two modes of DDI: (1) asynchronous, i.e. data acquired before development and (2) synchronous, i.e. data acquired after (or during) development. We discuss the implications of these modes on the DDI process and the participants in the innovation network.

The paper proposes an extended version of the digital innovation process that is more specifically suited for DDI. We also provide an early explanation to the variation in DDI process complexities by highlighting the different modes of DDI processes. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first empirical investigation of DDI following the process from early stages of discovery till postdiffusion.

The research aimed to clarify how supervisors in the Arab education system act to close the achievement gaps and to introduce learning programs that can empower students and improve their achievements. Qualitative research employed in-depth interviews with supervisors in the Arab education system, which constitutes a substantial element of the schools’ governance. The research attempted to answer the following questions: (1) Which steps do education administrators in the Arab education system take to reduce students’ underachievement, widen circles of cooperation and empower change agents during crises that deepen achievement gaps between Arab and Jewish students? (2) Do Arab school supervisors understand their interplay with government policies as empowering or disempowering them to improve students’ achievements and ensure the curriculum’s cultural relevance? (3) To what extent do the supervisors believe that cultural change is required to enable them to empower school communities to become societal innovators for equity, peace and renewal within existing administrative structures?

Research findings were interpreted through the lens of Turbulence Theory (Gross, 2014). Findings indicated that the supervisors strive to improve students’ achievements. A major challenge is to ensure the relevance of learning programs to the school community, while mediating between local community demands and the technocratic accountability imposed by the Ministry of Education for the implementation of its policies. This leadership is isolated in its efforts to establish fairness and education for empowerment and coexistence in a divided society. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

The urban population in the developing world will double by the year 2030 increasing the pressure in the housing sector that already suffers from the lack of adequate and affordable housing. Egypt, similar to most countries in the developing world, witnesses a huge deficit in the housing units needed for low-income groups. Since the mid Nineteen Seventies, the Egyptian government adopted and implemented a variety of low-cost housing development strategies including: site and services schemes, core housing projects, partially completed housing units in apartment blocks, and totally finished housing projects. The huge informal housing sector in Egypt has proved the ability of the low-income groups to build for their own-selves. Thus, the incremental housing approach was one of the approaches that were adopted by the Egyptian government to solve the housing problem. Ebny Baitak or “Build Your House” is an incremental housing approach and one of the approaches undertaken by the Ministry of Housing, Utilities, and Urban Development within the National Housing Program to solve the housing problems of low-income groups in Egypt. This paper discusses the recent Egyptian experience in encouraging the participation of low-income groups in the construction process of their own houses through an incremental housing program “Ebny Baitak project”. The paper also derives the implications that could be learned from this experience towards better application in the future.

The COVID 19 pandemic has brought into sharp focus the importance of leadership and the ethics of health-care leadership. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of COVID 19 on ethical leadership principles using a validated quantitative survey of NHS leaders to compare pre- and post-pandemic ethical leadership principles.

This study involved a quantitative survey of NHS “leaders”. Inclusion criteria included consultants and registrars leading clinical teams, or NHS managers, senior nurses and matrons. The survey was designed as a modification of the Ethical Leadership Questionnaire proposed by Langlois et al. (2013). A modification was made to ask questions from the questionnaire pertaining to before the pandemic and presently. This allowed a comparison of responses and measures of ethical leadership qualities before and after the pandemic. Twenty-three questions were on attitudes pre-pandemic, and 23 were post-pandemic.

A total of 79 responses were received. Responses were divided for analysis into those related to an ethics of care dimension, those related to ethics of justice and those related to the ethics of critique. This study has found significant changes in attitudes of health-care leaders with regards to the ethics of critique. Leaders were more likely post-pandemic to speak out against injustice and unfair practices. Leaders were also more concerned with matters of human dignity as well as understanding how some groups may be privileged. Other ethical principles showed no statistical difference.

This paper highlights the changes the COVID-19 pandemic has had on leaders’ attitudes to ethics.

This study aims to explore the innovation deployment of construction contracting firms through exploratory–exploitative learning and organisational ambidexterity.

Firstly, a literature-based conceptual framework was developed to explain innovation implementation through exploratory–exploitative learning and organisational ambidexterity. A prominent Hong Kong construction contracting firm was then selected as the case study to explore its innovation deployment at different organisational levels (i.e. firm and project levels). Qualitative data were attained by conducting 12 semi-structured interviews with industry experts and document analysis. The thematic analysis using NVivo 12 software was adopted to analyse data.

Findings reveal that the case study firm successfully fosters innovation when ambidexterity is achieved through the balance between exploratory (i.e. radical innovation) and exploitative learnings (i.e. incremental innovation).

Establishing uniform ambidexterity (i.e. 50:50) at the firm or project level is not mandatory to deploy innovation successfully. The ratio can vary based on the characteristics and requirements of construction firms.

This paper shall motivate construction practitioners to adopt radical–incremental innovation ambidexterity in firms and ultimately enhance the productivity and efficiency of the construction industry.

Previous construction innovation research has frequently explored firm or project-level innovation separately. This study identified a multi-level focus on innovation. Through the lens of exploratory–exploitative theory, different forms of innovation ambidexterity for different levels are suggested rather than one specific ambidexterity.

This paper aims to investigate the ability of traditional biopolymers, such as funori or the nanoscale form of cellulose nanocrystals, to consolidate fragile paper and preserve it for as long as possible.

Degraded papers dating back two centuries were separated into paper samples for consolidation processes. Funori – a marine spleen – was used as a traditional consolidation material and a mixture with ZnO NPs compared with modern materials, such as cellulose nanocrystals. The samples were aged for 25 years, examinations and analyses were performed using scanning electron microscopy and color change was assessed using the CIELAB system, X-ray diffraction and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy.

According to the results, using traditional materials to consolidate damage, such as funori, after aging resulted in glossiness on the surface, a color change and increased water content and oxidation. Furthermore, samples treated with a mixture of ZnO NPs and funori revealed that the mixture improved the sample properties and increased the degree of crystallization. Cellulose nanocrystals improved the surface, filled gaps, formed bridges between the fibers and acted as a protector from aging effects.

This paper highlights the ability of nanomaterials to enhance the properties of materials as additives and treat the paper manuscripts from weaknesses.