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This paper aims to consider decisions by administrators about how to open US campuses for the 2020–2021 academic year during the COVID-19 pandemic. Proposed course delivery method is considered in relation to the political environment of the respective university/college’s state.

Data were collected on 451 public institutions. H1 and H3 were tested using multinomial logistic regressions. H2 and H4 were tested using moderated binary logistic regressions with Hayes’s PROCESS model.

Results suggest that states with liberal governments were more likely to promote online openings for fall 2020, with the strength of the voting electorate moderating the relationship. Further, state appropriations moderated the relationship between the political party in control of the state legislature and method of opening.

This paper advances work on the relationship between politics and administration by considering political pressures exerted on decision makers.

Results suggest that political forces may influence university administrators’ decisions for how higher education institutions may open for the fall 2020 semester.

This paper addresses one of the numerous social changes caused by COVID-19. It considers the short-term practical implications as well as the long-term theoretical ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic on decision-making in higher education.

Nonprofit organizations rely on earned income, government funding, charitable donations and investment income to support numerous programs and services for the public good. During times of crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, some nonprofits become even more critical to provide for those in need, but the funding streams to support activities may be even more stressed. The purpose of this article is to understand how COVID-19 might affect the financial stability of nonprofits in the US.

The article reviews historical financing patterns for US nonprofits and then uses reports and secondary data to understand how COVID-19 might change nonprofit financing in the US.

Earned revenues, the largest source of revenues for nonprofits historically, are down significantly as venues remain closed or at reduced capacity. Federal government grants and contracts have not been aimed specifically at the nonprofit sector and state and local budgets are stressed, suggesting government funding may be at risk. Charitable contributions from large foundations, corporations, and individual givers have increased, with some added flexibility, but this may not be a viable source for many smaller or community-based organizations. Nonprofit leaders may need to find new ways to collaborate to overcome the pandemic and researchers should seek to understand the impacts on different types of nonprofits and their revenues.

The value of this article lies in understanding COVID-19's early financial impacts on nonprofits to suggest research and operating paths for academics and practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the linkage between agricultural sector and macroeconomic factors with farm financial health. It considers whether agricultural lenders can more accurately anticipate changes in the credit quality of their portfolios by considering broad economic indicators outside the agriculture sector.

This paper examines firm, sector, and macroeconomic drivers of probability of default (PD) migrations from a sample of 153 grain farms of actual lender data from Farm Credit Mid-America’s portfolio. A series of ordered logit models are developed.

Farm-level and sector-level variables have the most significant impact on PD migrations. Equity to asset ratios, working capital to gross farm income ratios, and gross corn income per acre are found to be the most significant drivers of PD migrations. Macroeconomic variables are shown to unreliably forecast PD migrations, suggesting that agricultural lenders should emphasize firm and sector variables over macroeconomic factors in credit risk models.

This paper builds the literature on agricultural credit risk by testing a broader set of sector and macroeconomic variables than previous articles. Also, prior articles measured the direction but not magnitude of PD migrations; the ordered model in the analysis measures both.

This paper aims to establish an appropriate annealing method, which is necessary for shape stability and to evaluate their potential degradation performance of 1-, 3- and 5-layer material extruded polylactic-acid specimens by enhancing their thermal and mechanical properties.

The distortion of each layered printed specimen subjected to degradation was calculated in x- and y-direction. Each layered specimen was subjected to annealing at 70°C, 80°C and 90°C for 2 h and at 80°C for 1, 4, 8 and 16 h. Thermal, molecular weight and mechanical properties were calculated using, differential scanning calorimetry, gel permeation chromatography and tensile testing machine, respectively.

In the x-direction, distortion was 16.08 mm for one-layer non-annealed printed specimens and decreased by 73% and 83% for 3- and 5-layer, respectively, while each layered non-annealed specimen subjected to degradation at 37°C for one month. Within the outlined study, annealing treatment enhances properties such as the degree of crystallinity (%χ) up to 34%, Young’s modulus (E) by 30% and ultimate tensile strength by 20% compared to the non-annealed specimens.

The future research accomplishments will be concentrated on the design, development and optimisation of degraded biomedical implants using material extrusion thin films including drug delivery system and fixation plates.

The printed thin specimens subjected to degradation were investigated. This research developed a new understanding of the effect of the annealing temperature and time on the mechanical, thermal and molecular weight properties for each layered specimen.

The purpose of this paper is to establish the minimum thickness required to provide stab protection in accordance with the United Kingdom Home Office Scientific Development Branch (HOSDB) standards while testing a series of laser sintered (LS) planar specimens using instrumented test apparatus.

Planar test specimens were LS in single-layer thicknesses ranging from 1.00 to 15.00 mm in four material powder categories – DuraForm® virgin, DuraForm 50/50 mix, DuraForm EX® virgin and DuraForm EX 50/50 mix. All specimens were tested using instrumented drop test apparatus and were impacted with established Stanley Tools 1992 trimming blades to the UK HOSDB KR1-E1 stab impact energy level.

The research demonstrated that a minimum single planar specimen thickness of 11.00 mm, manufactured from DuraForm EX 50/50 mix powder, was required to provide protection against the HOSDB KR1-E1 level of stab impact energy. The alternative powder mixes tested within this experiment demonstrated poor levels of stab protection, with virgin powder specimens demonstrating no protection up to 15.00 mm, whereas DuraForm 50/50 mix specimens demonstrating inconsistent performances.

This paper enhances on existing literature surrounding the manufacturing and testing of additive manufacturing (AM) stab-resistant armour by adding further rigour to the testing of AM body armour specimens. In addition, this research establishes key foundation characteristics which could be utilised for the future development of bespoke AM body armour garments.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of negotiation training delivered to senior clinicians, managers and executives, by exploring whether staff members implemented negotiation skills in their workplace following the training, and if so, how and when.

This is a qualitative study involving face-to-face interviews with 18 senior clinicians, managers and executives who completed a two-day intensive negotiation skills training course. Interviews were transcribed verbatim, and inductive interpretive analysis techniques were used to identify common themes. Research setting was a large tertiary care hospital and health service in regional Australia.

Participants generally reported positive affective and utility reactions to the training, and attempted to implement at least some of the skills in the workplace. The main enabler was provision of a Negotiation Toolkit to assist in preparing and conducting negotiations. The main barrier was lack of time to reflect on the principles and prepare for upcoming negotiations. Participants reported that ongoing skill development and retention were not adequately addressed; suggestions for improving sustainability included provision of refresher training and mentoring.

Limitations include self-reported data, and interview questions positively elicited examples of training translation.

The training was well matched to participant needs, with negotiation a common and daily activity for most healthcare professionals. Implementation of the skills showed potential for improving collaboration and problem solving in the workplace. Practical examples of how the skills were used in the workplace are provided.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first international study aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of an integrative bargaining negotiation training program targeting executives, senior clinicians and management staff in a large healthcare organization.

The complex and occasionally chaotic nature of health care has been previously described in the literature, as has the broadening recognition that different management approaches are required for different types of problems rather than a “one size fits all” approach. The CYNEFIN framework from Snowden outlines a consistent cognitive approach that offers the leader and leadership team an ability to urgently apply the correct actions to a given situation. This paper proposes a variant CYNEFIN approach for healthcare.

Consistent and accurate decision-making within health care is the hallmark of an effective and pragmatic leader and leadership team. An awareness of how one’s cognitive biases and heuristics may adversely impact on this cognitive process is paramount, as is an understanding of the calibration between fast and slow thinking.

The authors propose a variant CYNEFIN approach for health care of “act-probe-sense-respond” to resolve complex and time-critical emergency scenarios, using the differing contexts of a cardiac arrest and an evolving crisis management problem as examples. The variant serves as a pragmatic sense-making framework for the health-care leader and leadership team that can be adopted for many time-critical crisis situations.

The variant serves as a pragmatic sense-making framework for the health-care leader that can be adopted for many crisis situations.

The social media (SM) engagement framework consists of dimensions of employee privacy expectations and organizations' social media orientation. Further, the social media privacy orientation model provides better understanding of complexities of selection and retention created by the social media landscape.

Organizations are increasingly seeking talent to support burgeoning social media strategies. Qualified employees may be expected to have related professional experience and an active personal social media presence. In contrast to this evolving demand, prevailing guidelines suggest applicants minimize their social media activity altogether. These restrictive guidelines may be better suited for organizations that prefer or require high levels of discretion on social media given the differing engagement expectations across firms and among individuals.

How the congruence between an employee's expectations of privacy on SM and the organization's expectation of employees' SM usage affects applicant attraction to organizations and employee retention is outlined. Propositions are offered to foster research in this area.

Social media congruence is an important consideration for human resource (HR) policies and associated training.

Public policies toward the use of social media in recruitment and privacy should consider social media congruence.

The model advanced in the paper provides organizations and applicants with a stronger understanding of the complexities surrounding the use of SM in selection and retention decisions.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-05-2021-0260

New assembly system for ICL's DRS300 computers, with ISM rotary workstations, SKF Flex‐link conveyors and new computer control, has reduced the work‐in‐progress buffer by about 90% and increased labour efficiency by about 30%. Jack Hollingum learned the details from Peter Wright and Andrew Johnson.