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Positive organizational scholars define positivity as “elevating processes and outcomes” (Cameron & Caza, 2004, p. 731). Thus, a better understanding of positive processes requires the investigation of the explanatory mechanisms that can account for the manifestation of “intentional behaviors that depart from the norm of a reference group in honorable ways” (Spreitzer & Sonenshein, 2003, p. 209). Positivity also focuses on outcomes that “dramatically exceed common or expected performance…spectacular results, surprising outcomes, extraordinary achievements…exceptional performance” (Cameron, 2008, p. 8). This “positive deviance” clearly goes beyond ordinary success or effectiveness.

This study aims to explore the relationship between students' happiness, stress and emotional closeness to others to help move toward evidence-based practices in the United Arab Emirates' (UAE) higher education. Therefore, the primary purpose of this study is to examine whether college students' perceived happiness differed significantly based on stress, frequency of stress management techniques and emotional closeness to others (social support).

An increasing number of studies suggest that the relationship between higher education and happiness is either significant or positive. However, most of these studies use life satisfaction as a proxy for happiness. The survey was conducted during the academic semester whilst students were studying, to measure happiness during the performance of different duties and to avoid the impact of having free time on raising the ratio of happiness. “This period of time was chosen to depict the study-related happiness elements during experiencing these factors by the students.” The sampling technique used in this research is the simple random sampling technique to enable the researchers to use the probability sampling techniques in testing the research hypotheses and for the purpose of generalizing the research results. The sampling unit is the student who is enrolled in the population of Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT) students during the academic year 2020–2021. The sample is randomly representing all levels of students as well as all faculties and campuses of the HCT. The 400 HCT participants represented both male and female local UAE students with differing GPAs. The reason to have only one nationality is the policy of HCT that accepts only local students to be enrolled in the fall and spring semesters, which are the semesters of the data collection period of the academic year 2020–2021. Prior to completion of the survey, students were interviewed in a class environment to explain the research and to gain their consent for participation in the research. The data collection has been supported by discussions and interpretations with two focus groups including 20 students to validate the research results.

The research has statistical evidence on the relationship between the positivity of expectations and happiness with achievement. Each one of these two main factors is measured by sub-constructs like positivity about the career, conformance between expectations and reality, believing in the kindness of people, strong English language skills and feeling the fairness and similarity with other students in the same context.

The regression analysis results of this study reveal a strong positive impact of the positivity of expectations in students' perception on the level of happiness with achievements. The model is capable to predict the future behavior of the students' happiness with achievement and that it is determined by the level of positivity of expectations. This paper investigates the relationship between higher education happiness with achievements and the positivity of expectations of an undergraduate student.

Recognising the value of positive organisational behaviour at the workplace, this paper aims to provide a major review of the current state of research on positivity, and subsequently proposes new pathways for more theory building relating to important constructs conceptually related to positivity. Following the integration of emerging but disparate research on workplace positivity and related concepts, the paper develops a conceptual framework depicting the relationships amongst authentic leader behaviours, organisational virtuousness, psychological capital, thriving and job performance.

The paper offers a systematic critical review of published studies representing the literature addressing authentic leadership, organisational virtuousness, thriving, psychological capital and job performance. The paper relied on computerised keyword searches in the main business source databases of Emerald, ProQuest, ScienceDirect, EBSCOhost and SpringerLink.

This paper leads to a conceptual framework proposing direct relationships between authentic leadership, psychological capital, organisational virtuousness and job performance. Further, authentic leadership is proposed to potentially nurture organisational virtuousness, psychological capital, employee thriving and job performance, given the theoretical linkages between these conceptually relevant variables related to positivity. Additionally, organisational virtuousness and psychological capital are projected to mediate the relationship between authentic leadership and employee thriving. Finally, organisational virtuousness, psychological capital and employee thriving are designated as mediators of the relationship between authentic leadership and job performance.

This paper proposes a conceptual framework focusing on one form of positive leader behaviour and also assumes specific causal pathways using a positivistic research approach to understanding the leadership–performance relationship. The paper did not examine all possible antecedents of positivity at the workplace.

The proposed conceptual framework should form the basis of many organisational interventions, especially in relation to boosting authentic leadership, organisational virtuousness, psychological capital, employee thriving and job performance. By suggesting the association between authentic leadership, psychological capital and organisational virtuousness, this paper highlights potential benefits from effective leaders’ commitment to enhancing psychological capital and organisational virtuousness and engendering thriving behaviour and job performance.

This novel paper has the potential to stimulate the empirical studies on workplace positivity through the association of authentic leadership, psychological capital, organisational virtuousness and thriving.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse how dialogue can be used to promote post-acquisition socio-cultural integration. Specifically, it addresses questions regarding when and how companies can utilise dialogue to generate positivity regarding socio-cultural integration.

A single case study approach was adopted owing to its suitability for creating in-depth understanding in the context of socio-cultural integration. Primary data were collected via interviews, an employee satisfaction survey, and participant observation. Secondary data were obtained from the case company’s internal materials, such as strategies, integration workflows, and employee magazines. Analysis methods included descriptive statistics and thematic qualitative analysis.

The findings suggest that dialogue can be used to create positivity regarding socio-cultural integration throughout the stages of unfreezing, moving, and refreezing by actively engaging employees in voicing, listening, respecting, and suspending. It is proposed that cultural conflict during post-acquisition socio-cultural integration can be overcome through the generation of positivity; dialogue enables the collective management of emotions during post-acquisition integration by offering a platform for creating positivity and social cohesion; and due to its collaborative and engaging nature, dialogue provides an especially effective means of communication for overcoming cross-cultural conflict.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first attempt to showcase dialogue as a specific means of communication for creating positivity during cross-border socio-cultural integration. This study reached beyond comparative cultural research to offer views on positivity, emotion during socio-cultural integration, and dialogue as means for overcoming cross-cultural conflict.

This paper aims to analyze the convergence of the testing and positivity rates for the COVID-19 pandemic focusing on Germany and Italy.

The authors employ the two-regime threshold autoregressive (TAR) panel unit root test by using the weekly data in the period of 2020:03-2021:04.

Following finding out that the testing and positivity rates are nonlinear, the authors determine that the transition country between the two regimes is Italy for the testing rates and Germany for the positivity rates. Their findings support the partial convergence for the testing rates for Germany and Italy. On the other hand, the authors could not find any convergence for the positivity rates of these two countries.

This paper contributes to academic literature in several ways. Firstly, to the best of their knowledge, this paper is the first study that analyzes the convergence of testing and positivity data. This paper further focuses on two Euro-Area countries which have suffered significantly from the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, the authors employ the two-regime threshold autoregressive (TAR) panel unit root proposed by Beyaert and Camacho (2008) in their empirical analysis. This recent panel data methodology aims to test real convergence in a nonlinear framework by incorporating the threshold model, panel data unit root test and the calculation of critical values by bootstrap simulation.

Purpose – This chapter critically engages with a positively oriented emotional reflexivity with the aim of improving inclusivity in bereavement research.

Methodology/Approach – The heartfelt positivity methodology intentionally creates positivity through the everyday practices of academic research. In this chapter, emotional reflexivity is guided by the heartfelt positivity methodology to identify and learn from collaborators’ emotions. It focuses on collaborators whose involvement in the academic community falls beyond that of the immediate research team at different stages of bereavement research.

Findings – The emotions of collaborators involved in bereavement research have been overlooked, yet their inclusion reveals a significant potential for the sanctioning of bereaved mothers’ potential participation in bereavement-focused research or breastmilk donation programmes. Key learnings that may be applied to conducting future bereavement research are (i) the potential for collaborators to also be bereaved parents (ii) the continued need to strive for the inclusion of bereaved parents in research and (iii) to extend the methodological principle of emotional reflexivity to include research collaborators when researching emotionally sensitive topics.

Originality/Value – This chapter argues that bereaved mothers’ knowledge and practices of thriving in hard times can either be fostered or derailed at different stages of the research cycle depending on which narratives frame human suffering. For researchers and collaborators, emotional reflexivity is crucial to inclusive research practices and knowledge translation.

The explosion in the number of touchpoints is putting pressure on companies to design omnichannel customer experiences aimed at achieving long-term customer loyalty. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relative importance of 24 touchpoints in contributing to customer loyalty intentions.

Data were collected by means of a survey on almost 6,000 subjects belonging to the Nielsen consumer panel. Two ordinary least squares regression models with clustered standard errors estimate the relationship between touchpoint exposure – measured in terms of reach, frequency and positivity – and customer loyalty intentions in the mobile service sector.

Reach has a significant relationship with customer loyalty intentions as far as eight touchpoints are concerned. Positivity, when controlling for frequency of exposure, is related to customer loyalty intentions as far as nine touchpoints are concerned.

Results provide guidance for mobile service providers on customer experience management strategies and specifically on touchpoint prioritization, adaptation, monitoring and design.

This study addresses two relevant research gaps. First, most studies focus on single or a few touchpoints without considering the variety of touchpoints within the customer journey (Lemon and Verhoef, 2016). Second, no studies focus on the relative contribution of touchpoints to customer loyalty intentions (Homburg et al., 2017).

The purpose of this paper is to investigate, theoretically and empirically, the role of the six dimensions of reconceptualized ethnocentrism in consumer ethnocentrism. The paper investigates both direct and indirect effects of the six dimensions on consumer ethnocentrism, through four theoretically meaningful mediators: nationalism, ethnic ingroup positivity, national ingroup positivity and prejudice against foreigners.

This study has used primary data collected from 304 US citizens through online surveys, including measures of demographics, ethnocentrism, consumer ethnocentrism, nationalism and attitudes toward ethnic ingroups, national ingroups and foreigners. Correlational, sequential multiple regression and parallel multiple mediation analyses were conducted to investigate effects of the dimensions of ethnocentrism on consumer ethnocentrism.

Regression and mediation analyses, covarying age, education, gender, ethnicity and socio-economic status, showed that ethnocentric purity had a direct effect on consumer ethnocentrism, whereas ethnocentric devotion and exploitativeness had indirect effects, entirely mediated by nationalism. There were no significant effects of the other dimensions of ethnocentrism, ethnic ingroup positivity, national ingroup positivity or prejudice against foreigners. In addition, two demographic variables (white/Anglo Americans and lower socio-economic status) had a direct effect on consumer ethnocentrism, whereas three other variables (gender, education and age) did not.

This study is first to explore how the dimensions of ethnocentrism relate to consumer ethnocentrism. Although consumer ethnocentrism has often been linked to ethnocentrism, the relationship has never been explicitly studied. Ethnocentrism, defined as ethnic group self-centeredness and self-importance, in which the main role is to ensure ethnic group strength and survival, plays a substantial but mainly indirect role via nationalism in consumer ethnocentrism. This study shows that both direct and indirect processes concerned with ethnic groups play a substantial role in the development of consumer ethnocentrism. Implications of the findings for consumer ethnocentrism and global consumer culture are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the properties of transparency and excitability of positive linear time‐invariant systems under internal point delays.

The problem is solved by combining the algebraic conditions for positivity, excitability, and transparency for the case of linear and time‐invariant dynamic systems in the presence of discrete lags.

It is shown that the excitability independent of delay is guaranteed if an auxiliary delay‐free system is excitable. Necessary and sufficient conditions for excitability and transparency are formulated in terms of the parameterization of the dynamics and control matrices, and equivalently, in terms of strict positivity of a matrix of an associate system obtained from the influence graph of the original system. Such conditions are testable through simple algebraic tests involving moderate computational effort.

The practical implications mainly rely on some biological and medical problems where delays are present by nature, excitability means the activation of all the state components under positive controls after a short time in the sense that it cannot remain identically zero. In the same way, it relays on the activation of all the output components under zero controls and non‐negative initial conditions.

The paper extends the concepts of excitability and transparency to dynamic systems with point time‐lags which are very common in nature and some practical problems.