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The sustainability of the construction industry is associated with the productivity, profitability and competitiveness of the firms, which are significantly affected by inefficient site supervision and labour management approaches. This study aims to use a case study with mixed methods to evaluate the site supervisory characteristics in labour management, labour performance assessment and labour productivity measurement towards developing meaningful guidelines in polishing construction supervision attributes.

Well-developed modern apprenticeship elements were applied to 62 construction supervisors who were selected using the snowball sampling method, and their relevant competency characteristics were assessed using a comprehensively developed grading mechanism connected with useful training manuals/tools. Academic reviews, experts’ consultations and other meticulous mixed approaches were applied at different stages of the research plan’s sequential layout.

The mean performance scores of supervisors indicate proficient-level grades in the competency characteristics related to applying efficient labour management procedures and developing-level grades in designing productivity measurement tools, performing assessments on efficiency and productivity and proposing enhancement practices on efficiency and productivity for site operations. The findings point to a modern generalised guideline that establishes the ranges of supervisory attributes within the scope of the study. The validity, reliability, adaptability and generalisability of the findings were assured by using pertinent statistical tests and professional assessments.

Though the study’s conclusions/findings are primarily applicable to the construction environment of a developing country comparable to the Sri Lankan context, they will considerably impact current/future industrial practices in various other countries and emerging industries.

The research has produced a conceptualised modern tool that guides determining the capacity levels of supervisory attributes for carrying out labour management, labour performance assessment and labour productivity measurement aspects in construction. The research has opened a pump that inflows new values of highly workable supervision features for strengthening the site management structures and filling the industry’s knowledge vacuum in the methodical execution of apprenticeships.

The purpose of this study is to identify and synthesise the best evidence on health-care leaders’ and professionals’ experiences and perceptions of compassionate leadership.

A mixed-methods systematic review was conducted in accordance with the Joanna Briggs Institute methodology for mixed-methods systematic reviews using a convergent integrated approach. A systematic search was done in January 2023 in PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus, Medic and MedNar databases. The results were reported based on Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses. The data was analysed using thematic analysis.

Ten studies were included in the review (five qualitative and five quantitative). The thematic analysis identified seven analytical themes as follows: treating professionals as individuals with an empathetic and understanding approach; building a culture for open and safe communication; being there for professionals; giving all-encompassing support; showing the way as a leader and as a strong professional; building circumstances for efficient work and better well-being; and growing into a compassionate leader.

Compassionate leadership can possibly address human resource-related challenges, such as health-care professionals’ burnout, turnover and the lack of patient safety. It should be taken into consideration by health-care leaders, their education and health-care organisations when developing their effectiveness.

This review synthesised the knowledge of compassionate leadership in health care and its benefits by providing seven core elements of health-care leaders’ and professionals’ experiences and perceptions of compassionate leadership.

The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to explore how medical secretaries experience digital transformation in a Swedish healthcare organisation, with a focus on workplace climate and health.

Data were collected using a sequential exploratory mixed-methods design based on grounded theory, with qualitative data collection (a Quality Café and individual interviews) followed by quantitative data collection (a questionnaire).

Four categories with seven underlying factors were identified, emphasising the crucial need for effective organisation of digital transformation. This is vital due to the increased knowledge and skills in utilising technology. The evolving roles and responsibilities of medical secretaries in dynamic healthcare settings should be clearly defined and acknowledged, highlighting the importance of professionality. Ensuring proper training for medical secretaries and other occupations in emerging techniques is crucial, emphasising equal value and knowledge across each role. Associations were found between some factors and the health of medical secretaries.

This study adds to the knowledge on digital transformation in healthcare by examining an important occupation. Most data were collected online, which may be a limitation of this study.

Several aspects of the medical secretaries’ experiences were identified. Knowledge of these is valuable for healthcare managers to make digital transformation more effective while avoiding excessive strain on medical secretaries.

Medical secretaries are expected to contribute to the digitalisation of healthcare. However, minimal research has been conducted on the role of medical secretaries in workplace digitalisation, focusing on workplace roles and its dynamics.

This study aims to explore and empirically test variables influencing material delivery schedule inaccuracies?

A mixed-method case approach is applied. Explanatory variables are identified from the literature and explored in a qualitative analysis at an automotive original equipment manufacturer. Using logistic regression and random forest classification models, quantitative data (historical schedule transactions and internal data) enables the testing of the predictive difference of variables under various planning horizons and inaccuracy levels.

The effects on delivery schedule inaccuracies are contingent on a decoupling point, and a variable may have a combined amplifying (complexity generating) and stabilizing (complexity absorbing) moderating effect. Product complexity variables are significant regardless of the time horizon, and the item’s order life cycle is a significant variable with predictive differences that vary. Decoupling management is identified as a mechanism for generating complexity absorption capabilities contributing to delivery schedule accuracy.

The findings provide guidelines for exploring and finding patterns in specific variables to improve material delivery schedule inaccuracies and input into predictive forecasting models.

The findings contribute to explaining material delivery schedule variations, identifying potential root causes and moderators, empirically testing and validating effects and conceptualizing features that cause and moderate inaccuracies in relation to decoupling management and complexity theory literature?

Many researchers partner with schools but may be unfamiliar with practices for initiating contact and sustaining relationships with school leaders. Partnering with schools requires significant effort from the researcher to nurture communication and trust. This can pose challenges for researchers who are new to the field, have relocated to a new university or need to rebuild relationships due to transitions in school staffing.

In this mixed-methods study, we interviewed and surveyed school and district leaders in Delaware to learn how researchers can best communicate and form relationships with schools and districts.

We found no singular best method exists to initiate contact with schools and districts. Rather, researchers should consider the unique needs of the local context. Leaders’ decision to participate in research was most influenced by their own interest in the research topic, alignment with schools’ needs and researchers’ willingness to build a relationship with the local education agency.

Despite broad acknowledgment about the importance of school–university partnerships, few studies directly engage educators in discussing their goals, preferences and needs when working with researchers. We sought to formalize an understanding of best practices researchers can consider when initiating contact and building relationships with schools, directly from the perspective of school and district leaders. Developing these understandings from practitioners ensures the information authentically represents the perspectives of those who researchers seek to connect with, rather than assumptions of the researcher.

Effective use of data across public health organisations (PHOs) is essential for the provision of health services. While health technology and data use in clinical practice have been investigated, interactions with data in non-clinical practice have been largely neglected. The purpose of this paper is to consider what constitutes data, and how people in non-clinical roles in a PHO interact with data in their practice.

This mixed methods study involved a qualitative exploration of how employees of a large PHO interact with data in their non-clinical work roles. A quantitative survey was administered to complement insights gained through qualitative investigation.

Organisational boundaries emerged as a defining issue in interactions with data. The results explain how data work happens through observing, spanning and shifting of boundaries. The paper identifies five key issues that shape data work in relation to boundaries. Boundary objects and processes are considered, as well as the roles of boundary spanners and shifters.

The study was conducted in a large Australian PHO, which is not completely representative of the unique contexts of similar organisations. The study has implications for research in information and organisational studies, opening fields of inquiry for further investigation.

Effective systems-wide data use can improve health service efficiencies and outcomes. There are also implications for the provision of services by other health and public sectors.

The study contributes to closing a significant research gap in understanding interactions with data in the workplace, particularly in non-clinical roles in health. Research analysis connects concepts of knowledge boundaries, boundary spanning and boundary objects with insights into information behaviours in the health workplace. Boundary processes emerge as an important concept to understand interactions with data. The result is a novel typology of interactions with data in relation to organisational boundaries.

Although there is a growing body of work on immigrants' information behavior, little is known about the pre-arrival information experiences of immigrants who consult formal information sources such as immigration agents. Drawn from a larger study on the information behavior of immigrants, this paper mainly reports the semi-structured interview findings on the pre-arrival information experiences of Bangladeshi immigrants who used formal information sources with discussion on how that affected their post-arrival settlement into Canada.

The study used a mixed method approach with semi-structured interviews (n = 60) and surveys (n = 205) with participants who arrived in Canada between the years of 1971 and 2017. Data were collected from May 2017 to February 2018.

Although the overall scope of the original study is much larger, this paper features findings on the pre-arrival information experiences derived mainly from an analysis of interview data. This study provides insights into the pre-arrival information experiences of Bangladeshi immigrants consulting formal information sources such as immigration firms, individual immigration consultants and more formal government agencies. The author introduces a new concept of “information crafting” by exploring the negative consequences of selective information sharing by immigration consultants/agents in newcomers' settlements in Canada, primarily positive information about life in Canada, sometimes with exaggeration and falsification. The interview participants shared story after the story of the settlement challenges they faced after arriving in Canada and how the expectations they built through the information received from immigration consultants and government agencies did not match after arrival. This study emphasizes the importance of providing comprehensive information about life in Canada to potential newcomers so that they can make informed decisions even before they apply.

The findings of this study have theoretical and practical implications for policy and research. This study provides insights into the complicated culturally situated pre-arrival information experiences of Bangladeshi immigrants. Moreover, the study findings encourage researchers in various disciplines, including psychology, migration studies and geography, to delve more deeply into newcomers' information experiences using an informational lens to examine the information newcomers receive from diverse sources and their effects on their post-arrival settlement in a new country. The study challenges the general assumptions that formal information sources are always reputable, useful, and comprehensive, and it provides some future directions for research that seeks to understand the culturally situated information behavior of diverse immigrant groups.

This paper explores Lean Six Sigma principles and the DMAIC (define, measure, analyze, improve, control) methodology to propose a new Lean Six Sigma 4.0 (LSS 4.0) framework for employee occupational exams and address the real-world issue of high-variability exams that may arise.

This study uses mixed methods, combining qualitative and quantitative data collection. A detailed case study assesses the impact of LSS interventions on the exam management process and tests the applicability of the proposed LSS 4.0 framework for employee occupational exams.

The results reveal that changing the health service supplier in the explored organization caused a substantial raise in occupational exams, leading to increased costs. By using syntactic interoperability, lean, six sigma and DMAIC approaches, improvements were identified, addressing process deviations and information requirements. Implementing corrective actions improved the exam process, reducing the number of exams and associated expenses.

It is important to acknowledge certain limitations, such as the specific context of the case study and the exclusion of certain exam categories.

The practical implications of this research are substantial, providing organizations with valuable managerial insights into improving efficiency, reducing costs and ensuring regulatory compliance while managing occupational exams.

This study fills a research gap by applying LSS 4.0 to occupational exam management, offering a practical framework for organizations. It contributes to the existing knowledge base by addressing a relatively novel context and providing a detailed roadmap for process optimization.

Supply chains need to be made viable in this volatile and competitive market, which could be possible through digitalization. This study is an attempt to explore the role of Industry 4.0, smart supply chain, supply chain agility and supply chain resilience on sustainable business performance from the lens of natural resource-based view.

The study tests the proposed model using a covariance-based structural equation modelling and further investigates the ranking of each construct using the artificial neural networks approach in AMOS and SPSS respectively. A total of 234 respondents selected using purposive sampling aided in capturing the industry practices across supply chains in the UK. The full collinearity test was carried out to study the common method bias and the content validity was carried out using the item content validity index and scale content validity index. The convergent and discriminant validity of the constructs and mediation study was carried out in SPSS and AMOS V.23.

The results are overtly inferring the significant impact of Industry 4.0 practices on creating smart and ultimately sustainable supply chains. A partial relationship is established between Industry 4.0 and supply chain agility through a smart supply chain. This work empirically reinstates the combined significance of green practices, Industry 4.0, smart supply chain, supply chain agility and supply chain resilience on sustainable business value. The study also uses the ANN approach to determine the relative importance of each significant variable found in SEM analysis. ANN determines the ranking among the significant variables, i.e. supply chain resilience > green practices > Industry 4.0> smart supply chain > supply chain agility presented in descending order.

This study is a novel attempt to establish the role of digitalization in SCs for attaining sustainable business value, providing empirical support to the mediating role of supply chain agility, supply chain resilience and smart supply chain and manifests a significant integrated framework. This work reinforces the integrated model that combines all the constructs dealt with in silos so far in prior literature.

With the growing need for employees to be innovative, public-sector organizations are investing in employee training. This study aims to examine the effects of a combined Lean Six Sigma and innovation training, using action learning, on public-sector employees’ creative role identity and innovative work behavior.

The authors studied a public service agency in Singapore in which a five-day Lean Innovation Training was implemented, using a combination of Lean Six Sigma and Creative Problem-Solving tools, with a simulation on day one and subsequent team-based project coaching, spread over six months. The authors administered pre- and postintervention surveys among all the employees, and initiated group interviews and observations before, during and after the intervention.

Creative role identity and innovative work behavior had significantly improved six months after the intervention, enabled through senior management’s transformational leadership. The training induced managers to role-model innovative work behaviors while cocreating, with their employees, a renewal of their agency’s core processes. The three completed improvement projects contributed to an innovative work culture and reduced service turnaround time.

Starting with a role-playing simulation on the first day, during which leaders and followers swapped roles, the action-learning type training taught all the organizational members to use various Lean Six Sigma and Creative Problem-Solving tools. This nimble Lean Innovation Training, and subsequent team-based project coaching, exemplifies how advancing the staff’s creative role identity can have a positive impact.