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The main purpose of this paper is to outline the antecedents of patient satisfaction in the field of medical tourism (MT) applying extant literature and to develop a conceptual model based on the review.

This paper presents a thorough review of prior studies related to the antecedents of patient satisfaction in the MT sector. Moreover, it provides the theoretical base that helped the researcher to identify significant relationship between the patient satisfaction and its antecedents.

The researchers identified the prominent antecedents of patient satisfaction and present the potential interrelationships between different antecedents of patient satisfaction such as treatment quality, cost attractiveness, destination image and service quality with patient satisfaction based on the review.

The results have momentous practical implications as they will help researchers to better understand the antecedents of patient satisfaction and their potential inter linkages with patient satisfaction in MT sector. The conceptual model derived from the review may guide the actions of researchers as well as practitioners in the MT industry as a whole. The present study provides insights for further research in the MT sector and thereby helps to further enrich the existing theoretical base of the MT.

The study brings together the scattered knowledge from the broad and extensive range of medical or health tourism and cognate literature which indicate ideological differences among various aspects of MT as well as potential factors determining patient satisfaction in MT sector (antecedents of satisfaction). The newly developed model incorporates a new construct called “treatment quality” as different from “service quality,” which is a widely used construct to explain customer satisfaction. The antecedents of patient satisfaction and their inter-linkages with patient satisfaction provide a sound theoretical foundation for the future studies.

Built upon customer engagement marketing theory and uses and gratification theory, this study examines the link between individual social media marketing (SMM) performance indicators and restaurant sales performance at the firm level. Moreover, the study investigates the moderating effect of advertising expenditure on this proposed relationship.

Random effect regression models were developed in Stata to examine the associations between SMM performance indicators, advertising expenditure, and restaurant firm revenue. Twelve years of SMM data from brands' Facebook pages were collected with a web scraper built in Python. Natural language processing was used to analyze the sentiment of user-generated content (UGC).

The results suggest that restaurant annual sales revenue increases as the volume of brand posts, “like”s, “share”s and positive comments on restaurants' Facebook pages increase. However, the total number of comments and the number of negative comments show non-significant associations with revenue. Firm advertising expenditure negatively moderates the relationships between sales revenue and the number of “like”s, “share”s, total comments and positive comments.

Restaurants benefit from making frequent posts on SNSs. Promotions that motivate online users to “like”, share, and comment on brand posts should be implemented. Firms with limited advertising budgets are encouraged to actively create buzz on SNSs due to evidenced stronger effects of UGC on sales performance than large advertisers.

This research bridges the gap by studying the effects of individual SMM performance indicators on restaurant financial outcomes. The findings support the effectiveness of SMM; and, for the first time, demonstrate that SMM could generate a more profound impact for firms with low advertising budgets.

This study aims to investigate whether the changes in gender composition of bank board affects Vietnamese bank stability efficiency.

This research covers a panel of 27 commercial banks in Vietnam over a 14-year period from 2007 to 2020. The two-step system generalized method of moments is used to estimate the gender diversity–Vietnamese bank stability efficiency nexus.

The authors find that a greater degree of board gender diversification enhances bank stability efficiency and reduces bank risk-taking in Vietnam. The relationship between gender diversity and the stability efficiency of Vietnamese banks is still valid under the influence of regulatory capital sufficiency and during the financial crisis. These findings are robust to alternative proxies for risk indicators and consistent with the perspectives of stakeholder and behavior theory.

Although this research revisits the relationship between gender diversity and bank risk-taking, it is the first attempt to explore the role of women on board in enhancing the stability efficiency of banks, using the stochastic frontier approach. These findings shed light on the function of gender diversity as a governance instrument for mitigating risk in an emerging market context.

Patient safety is a top priority globally. A robust healthcare system requires strategic collaboration between research and development. The author analysed over 300 cases from seven hospitals using the failure modes, effects, and criticality analysis (FMECA) tool to understand the underlying causes of medical errors.

The author studied seven hospitals and 300 cases using FMECA to prioritise activities. The findings showed that high-priority events occurred less frequently but had the potential to cause the most harm. Team members evaluated independently to ensure unbiased evaluations. This approach is useful for setting priorities or assessing difficulties.

Poor communication and lack of coordination among staff in a healthcare organisation caused misunderstandings, ineffective decision-making, delays in patient care, and medical errors. Implementation of effective communication and coordination protocols can help avoid these problems.

The study recommends using FMECA to identify and prioritise failures and conducting in-depth analyses to understand their root causes. It also highlights the importance of interdisciplinary knowledge and soft skills for healthcare staff.

This study reveals the significance of FMECA in healthcare risk management and benchmarking. FMECA helps identify system failures, develop prevention strategies, and evaluate effectiveness against industry benchmarks. It offers healthcare professionals a valuable tool to enhance patient safety and improve healthcare quality.

This study aims to analyse the political connections of Portuguese companies through the members of the board of directors, exploring how these connections influence, in particular, the composition and characteristics of the boards.

The research used a strategy based on analysing the financial statements and curriculum vitae of the directors of Portuguese companies listed on Euronext Lisbon from 2014 to 2019. The political connections of board members were examined, considering the variables identified in the existing literature.

The results indicate that companies with political connections maintain these relationships for long periods and have a greater number of members on the board of directors compared to companies without such connections. Directors with political experience tend to occupy non-executive positions, suggesting that companies may value political contacts more than the management skills of these directors. It was also found that there are politically connected directors who belong to multiple boards and that women appointed to the board are less likely to have a political background, reflecting male dominance in Portuguese politics.

The main limitations of this study include the small number of listed companies in the sample, which may affect the statistical robustness of the results, as well as the use of secondary sources, which may not capture all relevant policy linkages. In addition, the results are specific to the Portuguese context and may not be generalisable to other countries or other regions of the world.

This study contributes to the understanding of political connections in Portuguese companies, offering valuable insights into how these connections influence board composition and can impact corporate strategy and governance. The findings of this study can be especially useful for business leaders looking to optimise the formation of their boards of directors.