Understanding drivers of deforestation is essential for developing any successful intervention to reduce forest degradation or loss, yet there remains relatively little consensus or clarity on how drivers should be identified and classified. To capture the full range of values and mediating factors that may contribute to land-use behaviours, an approach derived from a shared values perspective that includes a range of values associated with whole landscapes and ecosystems is required. We developed a model that combines behavioural theory with the Capability Approach as a conceptual framework through which to investigate the value–action gap. We used exploratory factor analysis (EFA) of Likert-scale responses to belief statements in order to identify land users’ shared values in the Sarstún Motagua region of Guatemala. We then qualify and quantify the role of capabilities in mediating between the shared values of different cultural groups of land users (Q’eqchi Maya and Ladinos) by comparing their factor scores with their self-reported forest cover change behaviours. Our results indicate that Maya and Ladinos share a set of values, but hold different value orientations that predict their behavioural intentions. We find that their different value orientations reflect behavioural intentions, but an understanding of the capabilities available to different groups is also necessary to fill the value–action gap. These findings have implications for behavioural theory, providing empirical links between shared values, capabilities and behaviour and identification of the role of value orientations, as well as demonstrating a useful approach for decision-makers seeking to understand drivers of change at landscape and whole-ecosystem levels.

Social scientists and political theorists often claim that shared values are conducive to social cohesion, and trust and solidarity in particular. Furthermore, this idea is at the heart of what has been labeled the ‘national identity argument’, according to which religious and/or cultural diversity is a threat to the shared (national) values underpinning social cohesion and redistributive justice. However, there is no consensus among political theorists about what values we need to share to foster social cohesion and indeed, for example, nationalists, liberals, and multiculturalists provide different answers to this question. On the basis of a survey conducted in Denmark in 2014, this study empirically investigates the relation between, on the one hand, commitments to the community values of respectively conservative nationalism, liberal nationalism, liberal citizenship, and multiculturalism, and on the other, trust and solidarity. First, we investigate in what ways commitments to these four sets of values are correlated to trust and solidarity at the individual level and, then, whether the belief that others share one’s values is correlated to these aspects of social cohesion for individuals committed to these four sets of values. We find that conservative and liberal nationalism are negatively correlated to our different measures of trust and solidarity, whereas liberal citizenship and (in particular) multiculturalism are positively correlated. In broad terms, this picture remains when we control for a number of socio-economic factors and ideology (on a left-right scale). Finally, individuals who believe that others share their values do not, in general, have higher levels of trust and solidarity. Rather, this belief works in different ways when associated with different sets of community values.

Although it is unremarkable to hear a corporate culture described as ethical or unethical, it remains quite unclear what such a claim means or how it may be justified. I begin by addressing these two questions by offering an account of corporate culture as the intrinsic values that are shared by organisation members and that underpin organisational goals. I then employ this analysis to offer a new account of how moral responsibility is generated and distributed in business organisations. Since certain corporate values, or culture, will predictably promote wrongdoing by members, all those who participated in that culture will acquire a degree of moral responsibility for the wrongdoing that results. They are, we may say, complicit in the wrongdoing because they helped facilitate it. This is because, by sharing values in the way that creates corporate culture, organisation members give each other reasons for acting in line with those values.

Based on social exchange theory, we propose and test the mediating role of formal and informal contracts in linking cooperation characteristics of prior ties and shared values among partners to cooperation success in the public—private partnership context. Results from a survey of 244 partners in public—private partnerships in the medical and healthcare fields in China revealed that both formal and informal contracts mediate the relationship between cooperation characteristics and cooperation success. We discuss the theoretical and managerial implications for public-private partnership research and practice with a specific focus on the Chinese context.

Previous scholars considered competence a ‘fuzzy concept’ and addressed confusions such as ‘competency vs. competence’ and ‘competence vs. core competence’. However, the issue ‘What is the essence of employee competence?’ remains unclear. By inference, the essence of competence is addressed in adoption of an organization's sustained competitive advantage viewpoint different from the traditional viewpoint of enhancing individual employability. This paper contends that employee competence is strategically driven by organizational core competence. Psychologically, employee competence and organizational core competence are similar and linked in terms of person–organization fit and person–job fit. A contextual competence framework is established enlightening the essence of employee competence and redefines competence as a ‘temporary asset’ rooted in the interactively organizational context. Contextual variables including shared values, mutual trust and mutual investment bolster the alignment between employee competence and organizational core competence and develop employee competence as firm-specific, thus becoming a source for sustained organizational competitive advantage.

We use Zalcman’s lemma to study a uniqueness question for meromorphic functions where certain associated nonlinear differential polynomials share a nonzero value. The results in this paper extend Theorem 1 in Yang and Hua [‘Uniqueness and value-sharing of meromorphic functions’, Ann. Acad. Sci. Fenn. Math. 22 (1997), 395–406] and Theorem 1 in Fang [‘Uniqueness and value sharing of entire functions’, Comput. Math. Appl. 44 (2002), 823–831]. Our reasoning in this paper also corrects a defect in the reasoning in the proof of Theorem 4 in Bhoosnurmath and Dyavanal [‘Uniqueness and value sharing of meromorphic functions’, Comput. Math. Appl. 53 (2007), 1191–1205].