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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of financial constraints on innovation in developing countries. It also examines how the effect of financial constraints varies by sector and with main firm characteristics such as size and age.

The study utilizes matched firm-level data from two sources; the World Bank Enterprise Survey and the Innovation Follow-Up Survey. From 11 African countries, 4,720 firms have been included in the sample. A recursive bivariate probit model is used.

The result shows that financial constraints adversely affect a firm’s decision to engage in innovative activities and the likelihood to have product innovation and process innovation. The results point out that the extent of the adverse effect of financial constraints on innovation differs across the sectors, firm size and age groups. A firm’s innovation is also explained by firm size, R&D, cooperation/alliance, the human capital of the firm, staff training, public financial support and export. At last, the probability of encountering financial constraints is explained by firms’ ex ante financing structure, amount of collateral, accounting and auditing practices and group membership.

Managers should strengthen the internal and external financing capacity to reduce financing constraints and their adverse effect on innovation.

A pending policy task for African leaders is to design and evaluate reforms that reduce the adverse effects of financial constraints on innovation.

This study contributes to the existing literature on financing of innovation by examining how and to what extent financial constraints affect innovation across various sectors, size and age groups.

Antipsychotic drugs are frequently prescribed to people with intellectual disabilities (ID) to ameliorate psychotic symptoms and behavioural symptoms with and without mental condition. Guidelines recommend systematic evaluation of treatment effects and adverse effects, and limiting the treatment duration. Studies have shown that adherence to prescription guidelines is beneficial for clients’ outcomes. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the adherence to antipsychotic drug prescription guidelines in two treatment settings.

A checklist, based on existing antipsychotic drug prescription guidelines, was used to evaluate the adherence of prescribers to guidelines in two settings in the Netherlands, i.e., in specialized intellectual disability (ID) care organizations and mental health care organizations. Data from medical records of clients who used antipsychotic drugs (n=299) were compared to the items of the checklist.

Treatment effects were measured with validated scales in both settings in only 2.7 per cent of cases. Prescriptions were for problem behaviour in the absence of a psychotic disorder or psychotic symptoms in 90 per cent (specialized ID care) and in 79 per cent (mental health care) of cases. In specialized ID care pipamperone (31.9 per cent) and in mental health care risperidone (48.5 per cent) was most often prescribed. Adverse effects were monitored more frequently in specialized ID care.

The adherence to guidelines for prescribing antipsychotic drug to people with ID is insufficient in the Netherlands, because of shortcomings in the evaluation of treatment and adverse effects.

Heritability studies attempt to estimate the contribution of genes (vs. environments) to variation in phenotypes (or outcomes of interest) in a given population at a given time. This chapter scrutinizes heritability studies of adverse health phenotypes, emphasizing flaws that have become more glaring in light of recent advances in the life sciences and manifest most visibly in epigenetics.

Drawing on a diverse body of research and critical scholarship, this chapter examines the veracity of methodological and conceptual assumptions of heritability studies.

The chapter argues that heritability studies are futile for two reasons: (1) heritability studies suffer from serious methodological flaws with the overall effect of making estimates inaccurate and likely biased toward inflated heritability, and, more importantly (2) the conceptual (biological) model on which heritability studies depend – that of identifiably separate effects of genes versus the environment on phenotype variance – is unsound. As discussed, contemporary bioscientific work indicates that genes and environments are enmeshed in a complex (bidirectional, interactional), dynamic relationship that defies any attempt to demarcate separate contributions to phenotype variance. Thus, heritability studies attempt the biologically impossible. The emerging research on the importance of microbiota is also discussed, including how the commensal relationship between microbial and human cells further stymies heritability studies.

Understandably, few sociologists have the time or interest to be informed about the methodological and theoretical underpinnings of heritability studies or to keep pace with the incredible advances in genetics and epigenetics over the last several years. The present chapter aims to provide interested scholars with information about heritability and heritability estimates of adverse health outcomes in light of recent advances in the biosciences.

Patient safety is gaining prominence in health professional curricula. Patient safety must be complemented by teaching and skill development in practice settings. The purpose of this paper is to explore how experienced pharmacists identify, prioritize and communicate adverse drug effects to patients.

A focus group discussion was conducted with cardiology pharmacy specialists working in a Doha hospital, Qatar. The topic guide sought to explore participants’ views, experiences and approaches to educating patients regarding specific cardiovascular therapy safety and tolerability. Discussions were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data were coded and organized around identified themes and sub-themes. Working theories were developed by the three authors based on relevant topic characteristics associated with the means in which pharmacists prioritize and choose adverse effect information to communicate to patients.

Nine pharmacists participated in the discussion. The specific adverse effects prioritized were consistent with the reported highest prevalence. Concepts and connections to three main themes described how pharmacists further tailored patient counseling: potential adverse effects and their perceived importance; patient encounter; and cultural factors. Pharmacists relied on initial patient dialogue to judge an individual’s needs and capabilities to digest safety information, and drew heavily upon experience with other counseling encounters to further prioritize this information, processes dependent upon development and accessing exemplar cases.

The findings underscore practical experience as a critical instructional element of undergraduate health professional patient safety curricula and for developing associated clinical reasoning.

This study anchoring on the theory of conservation of resources examines the relationship between family incivility, negative rumination and service delivery. This study also analyses the mediating role of negative rumination in the relationship between family incivility and service delivery. This study also examines psychological capital and perceived organisational support (POS) as boundary conditions influencing the relationships postulated in the study.

To test the relationships among the variables, responses were drawn from 419 frontline hotel employees at two-time points and the hypothesised relationships were tested using structural equation modelling.

The structural equation modelling analysis proved that family incivility is negatively related to service delivery. It was also found that family incivility is positively associated with negative rumination and an inverse relationship between negative rumination and service delivery. This study also found support for the mediating role of negative rumination and the moderating roles of psychological capital and perceived organisational support.

This study findings extend the theory and provide guidelines for managers to mitigate the adverse effect of family incivility on employees and their service delivery. Employees and managers can use psychological capital and POS as strategies to prevent the spill-over effect of family incivility on service delivery.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no prior studies have examined the effect of family incivility on service delivery. By establishing the mediating mechanism and boundary conditions, this study adds value to the theory and practice.

Anchoring on the Conservation of Resource Theory (Hobfoll, 1989), the study aims to examine the relationship between student bullying, helplessness and student well-being. Further, the study also examines the mediating role of helplessness and the conditional role of students' psychological capital in the model.

Drawing responses from 397 students in the business management program in various B Schools in India, the hypothesized relationships were tested using IBM SPSS version 23 and AMOS 23, and moderation was checked with Hayes Process Macros.

The results revealed that bullying among students poses a severe threat to their well-being. Further, the study found that bullying increases feelings of helplessness, and such feelings impair well-being. The study also found a significant moderating effect of psychological capital in the relationship between feelings of helplessness and student well-being.

The study findings provide students and educational administrators valuable insights into how student bullying deteriorates their well-being and how it can be tackled effectively using their psychological capital.

The study made a unique attempt to understand the effect of student bullying on their well-being. The study also provides valuable understanding about the roles of helplessness and psychological capital in the model, which will enrich the theory and practice alike.

Since the 2008 financial crisis, the UK workforce in general has experienced a period of stagnant and falling wages in both nominal and real terms. The main parties involved remain unsure of the consequences from such a historically unusual phenomenon. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to explore the main effect on job satisfaction and organizational commitment of those employees who had experienced pay reductions (nominal wage cuts or pay freezes under a positive inflation rate) as compared with those who experienced nominal pay rises during the recent recession; and second, to examine the moderating effect of employee involvement (EI) practices on that relationship. This was done by using aggregated employee perception data to measure organizational EI practices.

Employee-employer matched data were used, involving 8,489 employees and their associated 497 organizations (medium or large sized). The number of employees from each organization was between 15 and 25. The data used were extracted from the 2011 Workplace Employment Relations Study in the UK to which the authors applied hierarchical linear regression in STATA 13.

The results indicate that when compared with those employees who had nominal pay rises during the recession, employees who had wage cuts or freezes (with 5 percent inflation rate) are significantly and negatively associated with their job satisfaction and organizational commitment, even when controlling for important variables such as perception of job insecurity and the degree of adverse impact caused by recession on the organization studied. That is to say, facing the same perception of job loss, those who experienced pay reductions are significantly unhappier and less committed than those who had pay rises. However, the adverse effect of pay reductions on employees’ work attitudes is much less in workplaces characterized by a high, as opposed to a low level, of EI practices.

Implications, limitations, and further research issues are discussed in light of current employment relations’ practices.

The intention is to extend the current debate on employment relations under adverse changes such as pay reductions. Thus, the unique contribution of this study is to examine the value of EI in modifying extreme employee reactions to adverse changes.

This paper aims to investigate whether close auditor-client relationships affect audit quality over the tenure of the audit partner and the potential role of partner rotation in mitigating this effect.

Using the Chinese mandatory audit partner rotation setting, the authors identify the existence of a close auditor-client relationship if the audit partner tenure with a client is larger than the audit firm tenure with that client. The sample period (1998–2009) is divided into voluntary and mandatory rotation periods when examining the effects of audit partner tenure on audit quality for the normal and close auditor-client relationship subsamples, respectively. The authors also conduct a propensity score matching analysis to address a selection issue.

The paper finds that under the voluntary partner rotation regime, audit quality decreases with audit partner tenure for the subsample with close auditor-client relationships, whereas this effect is not shown in the normal relationship subsample. However, audit quality no longer declines with audit partner tenure under the mandatory partner rotation regime.

This is the first study that directly examines the effect of audit partner tenure on audit quality associated with close auditor-client relationships under the voluntary and mandatory partner rotation regimes.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the association between the marriage among blood relatives and resulting adverse pregnancy outcomes.

This study uses data from India Human Development Survey in 2005. The methods of analyses include bivariate, trivariate estimates and Cox proportional hazard regression model.

The results reveal that the occurrence of consanguineous marriages is more predominant in southern India and among socioeconomically disadvantageous groups. Moreover, women in consanguineous unions are more likely to have adverse pregnancy outcomes including stillbirths (RR=1.59, p‐value<0.01), abortions (RR=3.03, p‐value<0.01), miscarriages (RR=1.94, p‐value<0.01) and spontaneous miscarriages (RR=1.70, p‐value<0.01). Consanguineous marriages continue to be a critical predictor of adverse pregnancy outcomes in India.

In order to avoid loss of pregnancy and related reproductive health problems in India, it is imperative to create awareness regarding the adverse effects of consanguineous marriages, focusing on the regions with high prevalence.

This unique study comprehensively examines the occurrence of consanguineous marriages and their association with adverse pregnancy outcomes by using advanced statistical analyses and nationally representative data.