This research examines how digital communities reshape consumption, identity formation, and marketplace participation through an analytic-inductive qualitative design combining netnography, immersive journaling, and in-depth interviews. This research explores how engagement in online communities fosters offline participation and consumer behavior, revealing how creativity, mentorship, and shared identity are collectively constructed across digital and physical spaces. While research on consumer tribes and social identity has examined brand communities and fan cultures, little attention has been paid to digital collectives where leisure, artistry and commerce intertwine. Grounded in consumer culture theory (Arnould & Thompson, 2005; Arnould et al., 2019; Schau et al., 2009) and consumer tribes (Cova & Cova, 2002; Kozinets, 2020), this research investigates how digital engagement within groups translates into real-world behaviors. Methodologically, the project employs an analytic-inductive qualitative design (Tracy, 2024), combining a netnography of online needlepoint communities and in-depth interviews with active participants. Preliminary analysis suggests that online participation functions as both creative apprenticeship and social belonging, reinforcing participants’ sense of legitimacy within the community. Initial findings show that digital sociability revitalizes analog practices while influencing purchasing behavior and community-driven innovation. The findings are expected to extend conceptualizations of digital collectivism by demonstrating how online practices are revitalized through digital sociability.

Financial literacy is widely promoted as essential for improving financial outcomes, yet a persistent gap remains between knowledge and behavior—especially during adolescence. This study examines how neurodevelopmental processes shape financial decision-making beyond financial literacy, emphasizing cognitive engagement, perceived relevance, and emotional regulation. Using survey data from first-year college students, we analyze relationships among financial education, teaching methods, financial behavior, financial stress, and academic performance. Results show that financial education alone does not significantly predict behavior; instead, behavioral engagement and financial stress are key mechanisms. These findings challenge knowledge-based approaches and highlight the need for developmentally aligned, behaviorally informed financial education interventions.

This paper explores the integration of coaching into sales management education, emphasizing the need to equip future sales managers with essential leadership and interpersonal skills. It reviews existing literature using the Critically Appraised Topic (CAT) methodology and the PICO framework to assess the benefits of incorporating coaching modules into sales management courses.

Using the Job Demands-Resources model, this study examines the interplay between job-related stressors and meaningful work and their impact on work-family conflict (WFC) and family-work conflict (FWC). The findings highlight job stress and certain employee attitudes influencing WFC, mediated by meaningful work, and suggest actionable managerial strategies for improving employee well-being.

This research proposes a carbon-aware AI computing framework that integrates workload telemetry, real-time environmental conditions and grid carbon intensity to optimise power consumption and reduce the carbon footprint of AI workloads in high-performance data centers. Drawing on information theory and sustainable computing, it uses a quantitative design combining the MIT Supercloud job dataset, Weather Underground historical weather data and WattTime grid emissions data across three phases: statistical analysis, predictive machine learning modelling, and simulation of carbon-aware scheduling policies. The study aims to help data center operators anticipate energy use, manage costs and shift workloads to periods of cleaner energy.

As organizations shift from traditional office settings to virtual work environments, attitudes toward virtual teams have become increasingly varied. This transition has sparked significant academic debate over how to best assess virtual team effectiveness. While existing research highlights strategies for optimizing global virtual teams, the attitudes of the managers who lead them remain a critical missing piece. This study examines those attitudes, laying the groundwork for future research on how managerial perspectives influence the performance of global virtual teams within the pharmaceutical industry. We apply cognitive-based attitude theories to explore the feelings, emotions and perceptions of managers working on global virtual teams. Our findings reveal that positive attitudes influence perceived virtual team effectiveness. To thrive, virtual teams require clarity of goals, trust, communication, and accountability. By addressing these areas, organizations can build stronger, more resilient teams that support long term success. This research also provides actionable guidance for improving team structures, organizational practices, and value creation.

This study examines how CEO leadership style shapes decisions to hire, or not hire, highly qualified professionals over 50 into management committees in Spain. Drawing on leadership styles theory, upper echelons theory, research on ageism and cognitive bias, and social capital perspectives, it adopts a qualitative, interpretive design with in-depth interviews of 15–20 Spanish CEOs, deliberately including those who have and have not incorporated senior talent, complemented by documentary review. It aims to integrate ageism scholarship into executive leadership research and identify conditions that make inclusive hiring decisions more likely.

This research explores the historical strategic role of Human Resource Management (HRM) practitioners in influencing corporate strategies at Royal Dutch Shell and Ford Motor Company during 1910-1950. Using archival data and grounded in Structuration Theory, the study examines HRM’s role in critical corporate events and its long-term strategic impacts, offering insights into HRM’s evolution and its potential crisis of identity in modern times.

This poster investigates how Human Resource Management (HRM) practitioners influenced corporate strategy at Royal Dutch Shell and Ford Motor Company between 1910 and 1950. By applying Strategy-as-Practice management theory and analyzing historical case studies, the research explores HRM actions during critical organizational junctures. It aims to establish a new narrative of HRM’s strategic value and identify actionable practices to enhance HRM’s role in corporate strategy.

This study compares Kuwait’s Shuwaikh Port and Dubai’s Jebel Ali Port in terms of operational efficiency, service quality, infrastructure, and financial performance. The research provides actionable recommendations to enhance Shuwaikh Port’s performance, offering insights for stakeholders and policymakers.