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Recognizing the environmental changes and challenges that have impacted academics over the past 20 years, we develop a model of academic career success from a job demands-resources perspective. We ...

Accumulating evidence indicates that time spent in natural environments promotes creativity, but few researchers have considered how this occurs. We evaluate two candidate mechanisms, attention restoration and mind wandering. We compare the accounts in terms of attentional focus, brain network activation, cognitive effects, and the temporal progression of these processes across the stages of creativity. Based on this analysis, we propose that (1) gentle shifts between externally oriented soft fascination and internally oriented mind wandering can occur during nature experience; (2) this provides the basis for mutually reinforcing pathways that enhance attention control following nature experience; and (3) mind wandering might support additional benefits for creativity, including flexibility and new associations of ideas. We propose research to test the proposed pathways, including the conditions under which environments influence creativity, the ebb and flow of attention orientation during environmental experience, and the links between attentional focus, brain network activation and creativity.

Australian cities have been slow to implement green roofs. This is because there are many potential barriers to their widely acceptance as a nature based solution that can make cities more liveable and help them adapt to, and mitigate, climate change. Due to significant differences in rainfall, temperature, available substrates and suitable vegetation relying on northern hemisphere research and experience is problematic as many of the environmental and economic benefits of green roofs are location specific. This paper aims to 1. Synthesise a decade of Australian green roof research that has sought to overcome these barriers, 2. Assess the current status of the Australian green roof industry and remaining knowledge gaps, and 3. Provide a roadmap for future progress developed in multidisciplinary industry workshops. Many of these insights will be applicable to areas with similar seasonally hot and dry climates or emerging green roof markets. We identified that significant progress has been made in addressing the barriers to green roofs in Australia. Research has focused on developing green roofs for local conditions and quantifying their benefits. Substrate research has investigated the suitability of locally available materials with a focus on how water retention additives and organic waste materials can increase plant available water and therefore survival. By taking a plant physiology approach Australian researchers have gained a strong functional understanding of suitable green roof plants and the benefits they provide, considerably expanding the available palette beyond the succulents commonly used internationally. Research has quantified green roofs’ stormwater retention and building insulation and energy benefits and provided evidence that they benefit well-being and performance, important for employee productivity.

We developed and tested a model linking developmental experiences to leadership effectiveness and promotability through 2 mediating processes based on social cognitive and social capital theories. We hypothesized that a manager's exposure to 3 types of developmental experiences (formal development programs, developmental job challenges, and developmental supervision) would positively relate to supervisor's assessment of the manager's leadership effectiveness in the current job role and promotability within the organization through the manager's leadership self-efficacy and size and quality of the manager's mentor network. Results based on a sample of 235 retail managers showed that leadership self-efficacy and mentor network fully mediated the relationship between job challenges and promotability, whereas leadership self-efficacy also fully mediated the relationship between job challenges and leadership effectiveness. Developmental supervision was indirectly related to promotability through mentor network. In addition, a 3-way interaction analysis revealed that participation in formal development activities had a positive indirect relationship with leadership effectiveness and promotability mediated by leadership self-efficacy when a manager experienced either lower levels of job challenge and developmental supervision, or higher levels of both. Our findings contribute to leadership knowledge by examining how both formal and informal developmental experiences relate to leadership effectiveness and promotability through social processes.

Academia has changed over the last decades and so have academic careers. In a 2019 special issue of the journal Academy of Management Learning and Education, we have brought together a set of paper...

Based on attention restoration theory we proposed that micro-breaks spent viewing a city scene with a flowering meadow green roof would boost sustained attention. Sustained attention is crucial in daily life and underlies successful cognitive functioning. We compared the effects of 40-s views of two different city scenes on 150 university students' sustained attention. Participants completed the task at baseline, were randomly assigned to view a flowering meadow green roof or a bare concrete roof, and completed the task again at post-treatment. Participants who briefly viewed the green roof made significantly lower omission errors, and showed more consistent responding to the task compared to participants who viewed the concrete roof. We argue that this reflects boosts to sub-cortical arousal and cortical attention control. Our results extend attention restoration theory by providing direct experimental evidence for the benefits of micro-breaks and for city green roofs.

While a relatively small body of research links green roofs to psychological benefits such as aesthetic enjoyment and improved concentration, these outcomes are becoming important objectives in green roof design. Claims regarding benefits of green roofs are therefore often derived from research on psychological benefits of ground-level urban greenspaces. Compared with other urban landscapes, green roofs have limited space and accessibility, reducing the opportunity for physical exercise and the opportunity for larger masses of vegetation, particularly trees. Given these differences, there is a risk that the psychological benefits of green roofs are overstated or may only apply to a subset of green roof designs. Guidance for designing green roofs for psychological benefits may also be misleading if it fails to consider the unique green roof context. To address these challenges, we review research on psychological benefits of green roofs through a social-ecological lens on human-environment interactions. We consider how experiences of green roofs arise from an interaction between characteristics of the physical environment (including characteristics of green roof vegetation, wind patterns, and surrounding buildings), social climate (including social factors influencing access and use, and social norms for nature in cities), activities that can be undertaken on a green roof (such as exercise, socialisation, rest and relaxation), and individual resources and adaptation (for example, prior mood and opportunities to change environments to support individual needs). We explore how these factors interact with each other and with broader natural, built and socio-cultural systems that might encourage or inhibit opportunities to view, access, and enjoy green roofs. We conclude with recommendations regarding how green roofs can be designed to promote psychological benefits and identify future research needs.

The role of nature is rarely considered in research on work breaks. We drew on conservation of resources and attention restoration theories to examine how green micro-breaks, brief breaks spent vie...

We developed and tested a model linking organizational embeddedness with two indicators of career advancement one year later (promotions and career satisfaction), via the mediating role of firm-spe...

This qualitative study examines the patterns in human resource (HR) approaches to retirement across 24 organizations to explore innovative practices as well as gain understanding of the differences in how firms are dealing with major changes surrounding retirement and workforce demographics. Using organizational adaptation theory and carrying out a thorough analysis of in-depth interviews with HR managers, we identify three dimensions that differentiate organizations’ approaches to retirement: (1) actions and interactions of key stakeholders in the retirement process; (2) HR information gathering focus regarding workforce issues; and (3) HR posture around changes needed in retirement policies and practices. Based on organizational profiles on these dimensions, four distinct approaches to retirement emerge and are described in some detail: gatekeeping, improvising, orchestrating, and partnering. These different approaches also provide insight into how organizations differ in their adaptation to change. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Using a mixed-methods design, we developed a model of antecedents and outcomes of professional identification. Based on a sample of 1,807 academics working in the management field from a large prof...