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This paper aims to illustrate the scope and challenges of using computer-aided content analysis in international marketing with the aim to capture consumer sentiments about COVID-19 from multi-lingual tweets.

The study is based on some 35 million original COVID-19-related tweets. The study methodology illustrates the use of supervised machine learning and artificial neural network techniques to conduct extensive information extraction.

The authors identified more than two million tweets from six countries and categorized them into PESTEL (i.e. Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental and Legal) dimensions. The extracted consumer sentiments and associated emotions show substantial differences across countries. Our analyses highlight opportunities and challenges inherent in using multi-lingual online sentiment analysis in international marketing. Based on these insights, several future research directions are proposed.

First, the authors contribute to methodology development in international marketing by providing a “use-case” for computer-aided text mining in a multi-lingual context. Second, the authors add to the knowledge on differences in COVID-19-related consumer sentiments in different countries. Third, the authors provide avenues for future research on the analysis of unstructured multi-media posts.

In a supply-constrained region like Asia, promoting exports has always been a challenge particularly at a time when Asia’s trade has been severely affected by lack of external demand. This paper argues that price barriers have taken a new shape during the global financial crisis period which may generate differential impacts on trade flows as we proceed toward recovery. The size and shape of price barriers would be higher if NTBs, applied by the countries during the crisis period, were counted. One of the conclusions of this paper is that ‘price’ barrier is still more important than ‘non-price’ barrier in enhancing Asia’s trade and integration. The higher the price barrier between countries in a pair, the less they trade. In other words, a 10 percent increase in the ad-valorem price (transport and tariff) lowered trade by 6 percent. Tariff and transport costs, each considered separately, also influence the trade flow in the same direction, to more or less the same extent. There are indications of huge domestic infrastructure bottlenecks in countries in Asia. Based on direct and indirect evidence related to trade barriers, this paper concludes that complementary trade policies focusing on price and non-price barriers have immense importance in enhancing international trade and integration in the post-crisis period.

Under the Directive 2011/24/EU, medical tourism and cross-border health are interrelated terms regarding the freedom to move to get the most accessible medical treatment into EU Member State within the defined procedures for reimbursement. Little known empirically regarding the efficiency of the cross-border health/medical tourism industry. This study aims to measure its efficiency in Europe for the years 2010-2014, by using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA).

Data obtained from OECD and the European Core Health Indicators (ECHI), which is collecting the data through Eurostat. Eurostat collects data on health-care activities and provides data on hospital discharges, including the hospital discharges of non-residents and these include hospital discharges of in-patients and day care patients. The analysis uses “DEA.P, 2.1 for windows” by Coelli (1996).

The results show that the Members States health systems were very efficient in handling non-residents in-patients; however, when managing day cases/outpatients, the efficiency scores dropped.

The findings would have significant associations affecting intentions to revisit clinics and the destination country. In addition, will be useful to those seeking a better understanding of the cross-border health and medical tourism industry efficiency.

Extending the findings of the European Commission report (2015c) by examining how well medical tourists are informed about the decision they are making, would be of perceived value. These are important indicators at European level by helping each Member State to measure its medical tourism services.

This paper aims to analyze the impact of COVID-19 on the trade of goods and services in Spain.

This paper uses monthly trade data at the product, region and firm level.

The COVID-19 crisis has led to the sharpest collapse in the Spanish trade of goods and services in recent decades. The containment measures adopted to arrest the spread of the virus have caused an especially intense fall of trade in services. The large share of transport equipment, capital goods, products that are consumed outdoors (i.e., outdoor goods) and tourism in Spanish exports has made the COVID-19 trade crisis more intense in Spain than in the rest of the European Union.

The nature of the collapse suggests that trade in goods can recover swiftly when the health crisis ends. However, COVID-19 may have a long-term negative impact on the trade of services that rely on the movement of people.

It contributes to understand how COVID-19 has affected the trade in goods and services in Spain.

In order to meet the increasingly demanding needs of international markets, quality and food safety systems have become widespread among companies in the agri-food sector. This has led to a transformation of the agri-food sector that has also been detrimental for companies seeking to adopt such standards. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to define the determining factors that affect the process of adopting quality and food safety standards in agri–food companies, from the implementation of standards in company quality management systems to the process of certification of these standards.

To this end, a literature review is carried out in which the motivations, benefits, barriers and contingency factors are identified, analyzing and delimiting the scope and contribution of each of them to the company’s quality management.

The results show that the most important benefits and motivations are access to new markets and compliance with legislation, while the most important barrier is the high cost of adopting QFS systems within the company. Finally, the most relevant contingency factor when adopting these systems is the size of the company. Furthermore, the analysis shows that the results are closely interrelated. In conclusion, the consideration of the determinants identified in the paper contributes to a better implementation of agri-food quality and safety standards by companies.

This paper combines an analysis of the determining factors for the adoption of quality systems in the agri-food industry with the identification of contingency factors that, despite their importance throughout the process, are scarcely analysed in the rest of the literature. Finally, the work points out future lines of research that are still underexplored, such as the relationship between quality assurance and financial development; the role of contingency factors in the process of adopting these systems and the analysis of HACCP systems in the agri-food sector.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a Clarke-Groves Tax (CGT) type as a remedy to the criticism that the implementation of Eurobonds has raised regarding the risk of undermining fiscal discipline. In this model, a government minimizes its sovereign debt-to-GDP ratio in a given period and decides whether to join a common sovereign debt club. In doing so, it exposes itself to a positive or negative tax burden while benefiting from the liquidity premium involved in creating a secure asset. The authors found that the introduction of this tax may prevent free riding behaviours if Eurobonds were to be implemented. To illustrate this, the authors provide some numerical simulations for the Eurozone.

In the model presented, a government which optimizes a social utility function decides whether to join the common debt club.

The adoption of the proposed tax could prevent free-riding behaviours and, therefore, encourages participation by those countries with lower debt levels that would have not otherwise taken part in this common debt mechanism. Under certain circumstances, we can expect the utility of all members of this club to improve. The bias in the distribution of gains might be mitigated by regulating the tax rule determining the magnitude of payment/reward. The proportion of the liquidity premium, arising from the implementation of a sovereign safe asset, has a decisive impact on the degree of the governments’ utility enhancement.

The adoption of a CGT would require Eurobonds club members to reach an agreement on “the” theoretical model for determining the sovereign debt yield. One of the limitations of this model is considering the debt-to-GDP ratio as the sole determinant of public debt yields. Moreover, the authors assumed the relationship between the debt-to-GDP ratio and funding costs to be identical for all countries. Any progress in the implementation of the proposed transfer scheme would require a more realistic and in-depth analysis.

A new fiscal rule based on compensating countries with lower public debt levels could be a way to mitigate free-riding problems if a Eurobond mechanism is to be established.

This fiscal rule has not been proposed or analysed before in a context such as that considered by this paper.

This paper aims to explore how the scientific literature and company reports have addressed inclusive workplace design and strategies to date.

This paper adopts a scoping review to answer the following question: To what extent is inclusion present in workplace design and related strategies? An analysis of 27 scientific papers and 25 corporate social responsibility reports of the highest-ranked companies in the Great Place to Work global ranking disentangles the main aspects related to workplace design and strategies for promoting inclusion.

This paper opens avenues for four macro-categories of diversity (psycho-physical aspects; cultural aspects; socio-economic conditions; and ability, experience and strengths) to support the development of inclusive workplace design and strategy. Besides, multiple spatial scales emerged as material and immaterial elements of the workplace encountering inclusion and diversity.

Nowadays, the workforce is becoming more diverse. Although diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) has become key to many organizations, it remains unclear how DE&I principles are applied in workspace design and strategies. This scoping review provides a novel perspective on the topic by integrating scientific knowledge and practice-based approaches which still address this matter independently.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role that the sociocultural, family and university environment play in the entrepreneurial intention of young people in a peripheral and less innovative region.

The authors adopted the perspective of the theory of planned behavior and made an empirical study with a sample of 1,064 Spanish university students who voluntarily participated in the GUESSS Project answering an online questionnaire. A methodology based on structural equations was used employing the partial least squares structural equation modeling estimation technique.

The results show that the university environment directly influences attitude, self-confidence and motivation, and indirectly the students’ entrepreneurial intention. The social context also exerts a weak direct influence on the perceived attitudes or desires toward the option to start a business and indirectly on the intention.

The main contribution of this paper seems to confirm what previous literature highlighted in the terms of regional specificities on the link between innovation systems, the impact of entrepreneurial potential and economic development. In this sense, the university context can play an important role in generating improvements in the entrepreneurial intention’s antecedents of young people with greater potential for innovation in peripheral regions. Therefore, when it comes to defining policies to improve entrepreneurship in these regions, it seems that the establishment of entrepreneurship education and motivation programs in universities is a very effective tool to increase perceived attitude toward the option to start a new business.

This study aims to identify the countries’ innovation factors that are determinant for them to achieve higher levels of development. In addition, the research identified which of these factors should be prioritized so the countries can move up in the rank of the most competitive.

The study used the indicators of innovation and the stage of development of 137 countries proposed by the Global Competitiveness Report published by the World Economic Forum and techniques of multivariate data analysis.

The results indicated that all the factors tested are determinant to lead the countries throughout their stages of development. The research highlights that the factors “Quality of scientific research institutions” and “Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) patent applications” should be equally prioritized for the countries’ development.

The results suggested that the factors Capacity for Innovation, Quality of Scientific Research Institutions, Company Spending on Research and Development (R&D), University–Industry Collaboration in R&D, Government Procurement of Advanced Technology Products, Availability of Scientists and Engineers and PCT Patent Applications are decisive for positioning countries in terms of their stage of development and should be part of their public policy and enterprises’ strategic planning.

The findings show that countries should prioritize the factors Quality of Scientific Research Institutions and PCT Patent Applications, as these factors, when acting together, predict the evolution to higher stages of development.

The WHO Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office has emphasized health system strengthening among the top five strategic priorities. One of the integral elements of health systems are the hospitals. The purpose of this paper is to review the need for formalized training in hospital management to improve the quality of care.

Literature review and hands on experience of conducting a regional training in hospital management for Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR) countries.

Majority of patients in EMR bypass Primary Health Care facilities due to inadequate quality of services and prefer seeking specialized care at a tertiary level. There is mounting evidence of mediocre to poor patient satisfaction due to inefficient health care practices in hospitals of EMR. Strengthening the management capacity of the hospitals through a formal training programme is therefore necessary for improving the performance of health care delivery and the overall health system. Hospital management encompasses hospital planning and operational activities including development and implementation of organizational strategies to ensure adequate numbers and quality of trained human resources and effective financial management, disaster management, health management information system utilization, support services, biomedical engineering, transport and waste management. Such training will prepare health care professionals with leadership skills to deliver quality hospital services.

This is one of the first papers emphasizing the need for a formal structured regional training in hospital management for the countries of EMR. A modular incremental training approach developing an EMR Credit Transfer and Accumulation system is proposed.