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Gamification unlocks unprecedented opportunities in healthcare, wellness and lifestyle context. In this scenario, by leveraging on such an approach, information technologies now enabled gamification-based mobile applications primarily employed in health and wellness contexts, focusing on areas such as disease prevention, self-management, medication adherence and telehealth programs. The synergistic integration of gamification-based methodologies in conjunction with the utilization of digital tools, (e.g. as for Internet of Things, mobile applications) for the realm of digital therapeutics (DTx), thus unveiled powerful approaches and paradigms, yielding innovative applications that, through the harnessing of sensors and software-based systems, transform healthcare maintenance, wellness and lifestyle into an engaging pursuit, as a game. This paper explores the factors influencing individuals' intention to autonomously utilize mobile gamification-based apps for self-care and wellness maintenance.

Through explorative research designs an experiment has been conducted among a sample of 376 participants regarding the use of a fictitious gamification-based DTx solution, consisting in a mobile app namely “Health'n’Fit”.

Findings from an experiment conducted with a sample of 460 participants shed light on the possible antecedents and consequents of gamification. Results of the SEM model indicate that customization (CU), trust (TR), mobility (MO) and social value (SV) are the main determinants, although at a different extent of the playful experience; Moreover, gamification positively impacts attitudes and, in turn, perceived usefulness, intention to use and behavioral intentions.

This paper offers a dual-pronged approach that holds practical significance in the realm of healthcare innovation. First, the authors delve into the antecedents shaping individuals' intention to engage with gamification-based DTx, unraveling the factors that influence user adoption. Beyond this, the authors extend their focus to the realm of healthcare service design. By harnessing the potential of gamification and technology, the authors illuminate pathways to conceptualize and create novel healthcare services. This work not only identifies the building blocks of user engagement but also serves as a guide to innovatively craft healthcare solutions that leverage this amalgamation of technology and gamification, contributing to the evolution of modern healthcare paradigms.

In a social context, the paper introduces pioneering technological synergies that merge gamification and DTx to enhance individuals' health and wellness maintenance. By proposing innovative combinations, the authors present novel avenues for promoting healthier lifestyles and behavior change. This not only underscores the potential of technology to positively impact individuals but also highlights the significance of aligning technological advancements with societal well-being. As the research advocates for these innovative solutions, it reinforces the importance of collaborative technological and marketing endeavors, ultimately contributing to the betterment of society as a whole.

This is the first paper exploring the combined effect of gamification and DTx, by shedding light on the peculiarities of both the antecedents of individuals' intention to use such combined technologies.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether healthcare leaders use evidence-based management (EBMgt) when facing major decisions and what types of evidence healthcare administrators consult during their decision-making. This study also intends to identify any relationship that might exist among adoption of EBMgt in healthcare management, attitudes towards EBMgt, demographic characteristics and organizational characteristics.

A cross-sectional study was conducted among US healthcare leaders. Spearman’s correlation and logistic regression were performed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 23.0.

One hundred and fifty-four healthcare leaders completed the survey. The study results indicated that 90 per cent of the participants self-reported having used an EBMgt approach for decision-making. Professional experiences (87 per cent), organizational data (84 per cent) and stakeholders’ values (63 per cent) were the top three types of evidence consulted daily and weekly for decision-making. Case study (75 per cent) and scientific research findings (75 per cent) were the top two types of evidence consulted monthly or less than once a month. An exploratory, stepwise logistic regression model correctly classified 75.3 per cent of all observations for a dichotomous “use of EBMgt” response variable using three independent variables: attitude towards EBMgt, number of employees in the organization and the job position. Spearman’s correlation indicated statistically significant relationships between healthcare leaders’ use of EBMgt and healthcare organization bed size (r_s = 0.217, n = 152, p < 0.01), attitude towards EBMgt (r_s = 0.517, n = 152, p < 0.01), and the number of organization employees (r_s = 0.195, n = 152, p = 0.016).

This study generated new research findings on the practice of EBMgt in US healthcare administration decision-making.

Internet has changed radically in the way people interact in the virtual world, in their careers or social relationships. IoT technology has added a new vision to this process by enabling connections between smart objects and humans, and also between smart objects themselves, which leads to anything, anytime, anywhere, and any media communications. IoT allows objects to physically see, hear, think, and perform tasks by making them talk to each other, share information and coordinate decisions. To enable the vision of IoT, it utilizes technologies such as ubiquitous computing, context awareness, RFID, WSN, embedded devices, CPS, communication technologies, and internet protocols. IoT is considered to be the future internet, which is significantly different from the Internet we use today. The purpose of this paper is to provide up-to-date literature on trends of IoT research which is driven by the need for convergence of several interdisciplinary technologies and new applications.

A comprehensive IoT literature review has been performed in this paper as a survey. The survey starts by providing an overview of IoT concepts, visions and evolutions. IoT architectures are also explored. Then, the most important components of IoT are discussed including a thorough discussion of IoT operating systems such as Tiny OS, Contiki OS, FreeRTOS, and RIOT. A review of IoT applications is also presented in this paper and finally, IoT challenges that can be recently encountered by researchers are introduced.

Studies of IoT literature and projects show the disproportionate importance of technology in IoT projects, which are often driven by technological interventions rather than innovation in the business model. There are a number of serious concerns about the dangers of IoT growth, particularly in the areas of privacy and security; hence, industry and government began addressing these concerns. At the end, what makes IoT exciting is that we do not yet know the exact use cases which would have the ability to significantly influence our lives.

This survey provides a comprehensive literature review on IoT techniques, operating systems and trends.

This paper reviews the Lean Healthcare and Productive Ward: releasing time to care (RTC) literature and extracts the reported effects and impacts experienced by employees who implement it. The purpose of this paper is to identify and investigate the strength of the connection between the two models and explores the implications for leadership and implementation.

This study reviewed the Lean Healthcare and Productive Ward: RTC literature using strict systematic inclusion criteria. A qualitative content analysis was used to identify key characteristics of reported employee experience, effect or impact. Themes and categories were ranked by the number of citations and presented.

This study outlines the similar employee effects and impacts that exist between Lean-type improvement initiatives and the Productive Ward: RTC programme. It discusses the three top themes of: Empowerment, Leadership and Engagement and explores the opportunities for leadership. It also identifies one key difference between the two initiatives, the socio-cultural effect and impact which is strongly reported with Lean-type improvement initiatives. The socio-cultural element is discussed and presented as one of the fundamental aspects of Lean and the original Toyota production system.

This study brings new insights for leaders involved in Lean-type improvement initiatives which are currently being imported into healthcare and provides a comprehensive list of reported employee impacts and effects of value to healthcare leaders attempting to establish an environment and culture of improvement.

Literature reviews in the field of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) are often substantially less stringently portrayed than other empirical research. The purpose of this paper is to lucubrate on clarifying emerging aspects, trends and importance of LSS through reviewing the published literature over multiple parameters for a ameliorating and trenchant view.

In the present study, a literature review of LSS articles is carried out over the time horizon of 14 years from referred peer-reviewed journals in business and management disciplines, information systems and computer science, engineering, healthcare, etc. While carrying out the literature review, various distinct dimensions are considered, such as publication years and journals, countries, research design, research type and application sector within industries. A descriptive evaluation of the literature body is followed by gap identification and future research opportunities.

LSS research is growing rapidly, covering various disciplines and domains with a great focus on LSS tools and techniques; empirical research is dominant with more emphasis on case study approach; and growing gap between manufacturing- and service-focused articles implies return of LSS to manufacturing as its initial base.

The review analysis entirely focuses on descriptive statistics of empirical research in LSS. The sample size includes 189 shortlisted articles in 58 journals published over a time span of 14 years (2001-2014). The paper provides both academicians and practitioners a better panorama to understand the present status of LSS for pursuing rigorous LSS research through explicating chronological emergence, challenging themes, dominating research types and application areas in LSS.

This study aims to analyze the managerial levers previously considered in literature in the setting of the provision of primary care and community services (in particular for patients with long-term conditions being treated also at home) as well as those scarcely explored that could potentially be adopted in the future.

This study was a structured literature review. The authors retrieved papers, published from 2005–2020, from electronic databases (i.e. ABI/INFORM Complete, Jstor, PubMed and Scopus). Each selected paper was assigned to a framework category, and a thematic analysis was performed.

Topics scarcely explored in literature were related to logistics/supply chain, economic evaluations, performance management and customer satisfaction. Some papers embraced more than one management topic, confirming the multidisciplinary nature of territorial healthcare services. The majority of research, however, focused on only one aspect of primary care services, and a lack of an integrated view regarding the provision of those services emerged.

This study represents a first attempt to rationalize the fragmented body of knowledge on the topic of the provision of primary and community care services. This study enabled some light to be shed on the managerial levers already explored previously in literature and also identifies a number of trajectories for future research.

The relationship between organization strategy and a high-involvement work system (HIWS) in the accumulation of social capital is investigated in nursing subunits in a large sample of Canadian long-term care organizations. Results suggest that strategic orientation of nursing homes has a differential impact on the ability of these organizations to accumulate social capital in its nursing staff. Using a competing values framework to characterize strategic orientation, long-term care establishments pursuing an employee-focused strategy are able to accumulate higher levels of social capital in their nursing units through the adoption of a high-involvement human resource management (HRM) work system. By contrast, long-term care organizations pursuing an operational efficiency strategy, in tandem with the adoption of a high-involvement HRM system, produce no additional accumulation in nursing unit social capital.

This paper develops a new model of policy development for the creative industries in a transitional economy setting. These sectors could potentially make a significant contribution to the continuing growth of the Vietnamese economy; however, they are currently held back by a lack of policies designed to support them

The paper uses data collected from a mixed-methods study of the creative and cultural sectors in Vietnam. The paper combines quantitative results from a mapping project with ethnographic observations and several qualitative interviews to identify the policy needs of the sector.

The paper develops the INCITE model of policy development composed of four parts: education and human resources, infrastructure, intellectual property rights and freedom of speech.

The paper contributes to our understanding of the kinds of policies needed to support the creative industries by exploring their development in an economy transitioning from a state planned economy to a market-driven one.

This study focuses on country branding indices. The main purpose of this study is to build an objective country brand strength index using secondary data. The new index, the Modified Country Brand Strength Index (MCBSI), builds on Fetscherin's (2010) Country Brand Strength Index (CBSI) but uses more rigorous methods and design to create a complementary index to be used together with the survey-based Anholt–GfK Nation Brands Index (NBI). The MCBSI also utilized human development, which is an important dimension of country brands not captured by CBSI.

The MCBSI addresses three significant limitations of the CBSI by using an alternative methodology in constructing the index: specifically, it uses weights for the dimensions, longitudinal data, and relative values by dividing each factor by its cross-country maximum.

Our index ranks 131 countries based on the strength of their country brand. A stronger correlation was found between the MCBSI and NBI than between the CBSI and NBI.

Our contribution has strong implications for both policymakers and academic researchers as it provides a tool for assessing the strength of country brands through accurate but less costly data compared to primary data collected by consultancies for country brand strength indices. The MCBSI informs country brand managers regarding how well their country brand performs across a range of critical dimensions, including export, tourism, foreign direct investments, immigration, government environment and human development.

This study contributes to the emerging academic literature on country brand indices. Currently, there is a lack of objective measurement instruments for assessing country brands. The MCBSI is designed for this purpose to complement the NBI by measuring country brands with objective secondary data. Viewed together, the NBI and our index overcome the obvious shortcomings inherent in each method by providing objective, factual data on country brand equity while providing insight into how people socially construct and evaluate nation brands.