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The small-scale artisanal fishers in coastal Bangladesh are comparatively more vulnerable to climate risks than any other communities in Bangladesh. Based on practicality, this paper aims to explain the local level climate change perception, its impact and adaptation strategies of the fisher in southeast coastal villages in Bangladesh.

To achieve the above objective, this study used structural, semi-structured interviews and focus group discussion in two coastal communities, namely, at Salimpur in the Sitakund coast and Sarikait Sandwip Island, Bangladesh. It reviews and applies secondary data sources to compare and contrast the findings presented in this study.

Results show that the fishers perceived an increase in temperature, frequency of tropical cyclones and an increase in sea level. They also perceived a decrease in monsoon rainfall. Such changes impact the decreasing amount of fish in the Bay of Bengal and the fishers’ livelihood options. Analysing seasonal calendar of fishing, findings suggest that fishers’ well-being is highly associated with the amount of fish yield, rather than climatic stress, certain non-climatic factors (such as the governmental rules, less profit, bank erosion and commercial fishing) also affected their livelihood. The major adaptation strategies undertaken include, but are not limited to, installation of tube well or rainwater harvesting plant for safe drinking water, raising plinth of the house to cope with inundation and use of solar panel/biogas for electricity.

Despite experiencing social stress and extreme climatic events and disasters, the majority of the fishing community expressed that they would not change their profession in future. The research suggests implementing risk reduction strategies in the coastal region of Bangladesh that supports the small-scale fishers to sustain their livelihood despite climate change consequences.

Parental feeding practice (PFP) plays an important role in child’s eating behavior and weight status, but less information is available about its role in the Thai family setting. The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of PFP on child’s gender and body mass index (BMI).

Participants included 227 parents-child dyads from the suburban area of Nakhon Pathom province, Thailand. Children aged 9-12 years and parents who were either child’s mother, father or grandfather/grandmother were enrolled in the study. Body weight, height, waist circumference and body fat were measured in all children. Eating behavior of each child was assessed by using child’s eating questionnaire. Parents also provided their feeding practices in child feeding questionnaires. Information on household food security was also obtained from children’s parents.

There was significant difference in eating behaviors and home environment between child’s genders. For child’s eating behavior, mean total eating scores of girls were significantly greater (p=0.002) than that of boys and that the inappropriate home environment was more found in families of boys than girls. Regarding feeding practice, parents used more food restriction (p=0.008) and monitoring on child’s eating (p=0.042) in girls than boys. Parents put more pressure to eat on the normal weight than obese children (p=0.001). Regression analysis revealed that, apart from parental BMI and household income, PFPs have a significant impact (15.6 percent explained variance) on child’s BMI.

This study highlights the importance of being aware of child’s gender and weight status when feeding practices were provided to them. Nutrition education for parents should take account for parents’ perceptions and concerns as well as the modification of feeding practices to improve children’s eating behaviors.

While localized small-series production is a significant opportunity, various tensions challenge implementation in high-cost contexts. This paper explores how managers view and respond to different tensions in small-series production implementation by adopting a paradox-based perspective.

The paper presents a multiple case study addressing small-series production within EU's apparel industry, as key context to address managerial awareness, and responses to tensions regarding location and supply network configuration decisions. Seven cases were selected for variation in customization and implementation (early/established), ownership, location and company size, to identity commonalities.

The study highlights performing tensions related to sustainability, and risk, in addition to confirming traditional goal-related tensions predominantly impacting small volume production. With on-demand/custom production, tensions include costs in conflict with process scale, and several process-related tensions (flexibility, expansion/development, risk management). Identified multidimensional responses do not include location or structural decisions, instead focusing on synthesis, through product-operations efficiency, knowledge development and process innovation and supply chain collaboration. Temporal separation is found with customization, including reducing product/process complexity short-term with enhancing process development, which suggests latent learning tensions and limited awareness.

Future research should address the extent to which tensions can be resolved or remain paradoxical, as well as dynamic decision-making and latent tensions.

The paper shows how paradox theory facilitates a deeper understanding of complex network configuration decisions, including reshoring/localization. The findings identify organizing tensions/elements and elaborate upon performing/performing-organizing tensions suggested with small-series production, location decisions and supply chain management.

This study focused on identifying measurable constructs of a restorative classroom and appropriate metrics to measure those constructs through content validity analysis of a direct observation tool. The tool was designed to assess restorative practices implementation in the classroom in the context of professional development supporting teachers in a fundamental reorientation towards non-punitive discipline.

The authors administered a 30-item survey to a panel of 14 experts in restorative practices implementation in schools asking them to provide quantitative and qualitative feedback on the tool's content, metrics, and utility for building teachers' skill and confidence in promoting a restorative classroom. The authors calculated item-level content validity indices and scale-level content validity indices. To interpret findings, the authors applied acceptability criteria recommended in the literature. The authors used qualitative coding to analyze qualitative responses and contextualize quantitative findings.

Quantitative results indicated that the tool's structure and measures of teacher behavior were acceptable. The student behavior scale did not meet the acceptability criterion. Qualitative feedback indicated that observation and later co-reflection on teachers' use of specific restorative skills was deemed helpful to teacher implementation of restorative practices. Observations of student behaviors, however, needed to be broadened to emphasize student voice and agency and the quality of student interactions.

Novel approaches to measurement are needed to facilitate teacher implementation of restorative practices as schools adopt those practices to promote equitable student agency, engagement and belonging in a pivotal shift from existing punitive discipline systems.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the optimal inflation targets for an appropriate exchange rate policy in 15 major oil exporting countries in Sub-Saharan African (SSA).

Dynamic heterogeneous panel threshold techniques are used via threshold-effect test and threshold regression. This procedure is achieved through a grid search and bootstrapping replications method to stimulate the asymptotic distribution of the likelihood ratio test of the null hypothesis on no-threshold as against the alternative hypothesis. The p-values validate the threshold estimates.

Findings revealed that the optimal inflation target has a turning point and its impact on the real exchange rate is up to a threshold level of 14.47 per cent. Furthermore, the inflation rate above the threshold level overwhelmingly revealed its effect on real exchange regimes.

It would have been a good idea to investigate optimal inflation targets for all African countries but due to inadequate data the selection criteria was narrowed to oil-exporting countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Inflation targeting beyond the threshold level would have serious implications on the monetary policy.

To the best of the knowledge, this is the first study to look at optimal inflation targets for 15 major oil exporting countries in general and SSA countries in particular. The findings provide a critical analysis of an inflation regime for a typical oil-producing country that oil exports being their source of revenue.

This article investigates the relationship between family ownership and export performance in the context of SMEs while also considering the moderating role of the financial dimension and, in particular, financial constraints and financial flexibility.

We select a sample of 1,132 Italian SMEs to examine through an econometric analysis the role and impact of family ownership and the financial moderating variables being used on their export performance.

The results indicate that there is a U-shaped relationship between family ownership and export performance: the highest levels of export performance correspond to the lowest and highest family ownership levels, whereas when a mixture of family and nonfamily ownership exists, the performance suffers because of “conflicting voices” dominating strategic visions and approaches, harming the firm's export commitment. Moreover, the findings show that lower financial constraints and/or stronger financial flexibility improve the relationship between family ownership and export performance.

Our findings show that the ownership structure is important for export performance; in particular, firms should avoid a mixture between family and nonfamily ownership because it is detrimental to export performance. Moreover, Italian SMEs need to develop sources of financing other than the banking channel, and policy makers should favour this process to overcome financial constraint problems and improve financial flexibility. Limitations concern the use of other econometric approaches and measurement variables to further investigate the connection between family ownership and export performance.

The present study enhances the comprehension of the complex relationship between family ownership and export performance by documenting the relevance of the level of family ownership and considering the moderating role of financial constraints and flexibility.

This paper aims to assess the impact of digital financial innovation on financial system development in Common Market for eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA). This paper evaluates the dynamic relationship between digital financial innovation measures and financial system development using time series data from COMESA countries for the period 1997–2019.

A dynamic autoregressive distributed lag model (ARDL) was adopted and the mean group (MG), pooled mean group (PMG) and dynamic fixed effect (DFE) of the model were estimated to evaluate the short- and long-run impact. In addition, the dynamic generalized method of moments (DGMM) was adopted for a robustness check. The Hausman test results show PMG to be the most consistent and efficient estimator, while the coefficient of lagged dependent variable of different GMM is less than the fixed effect coefficient, and, as such, suggests system GMM is the most suitable estimator. Data for the study were sourced from World Bank Development Indicator (WDI, 2020), World Governance Indicator (WGI, 2020) and World Bank Global Financial Development Database (GFD, 2020).

The result shows that digital financial innovation significantly impacts financial system development in the long run. As such, the evidence revealed that automated teller machines (ATMs), point of sale (POS), mobile payments (MP) and mobile banking are significant and contribute positively to financial system development in the long run, while mobile money (MM) and Internet banking (INB) are insignificant but exhibit positive and inverse relationship with financial development respectively. Further investigation revealed that institutional quality and a stable macroeconomic environment including their interactive term are significantly imperative in predicting financial system development in the COMESA region.

Researchers recommend a cohesive and conscious policy that would checkmate the divergence in the short run and suggest a common regional innovative financial strategy that could be pursued to incentivize technology transfer needed to promote financial system development in the long run. More so, plausible product and process innovations may be adapted to complement innovative institutions in the different components of the COMESA financial system.

Digital financial innovation services if well managed increase the inherent benefits in financial system development.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper presents new background information on digital financial innovation that may stimulate the development of the financial system, particularly in the COMESA region. It also exposes the relevance of digital financial innovation, institutional quality and stable macroeconomic environment as well as their interactive effect on COMESA financial system development.

After deciding to become agile, many information technology (IT) units struggle; they underestimate the needed managerial expertise to alter their current culture toward an agile one, particularly when cross-cultural (f)actors are involved. Given that work values are the key to an organizational culture, the study derived a set of agile work values of culturally diverse IT professionals together with a set of well-known generic work values. Consequently, the authors illustrate that managers in charge of the transition to an effective agile culture must pay serious attention to the specific value constellations of its often highly diverse workforce.

A literature review resulted in an initial list of agile work values. Then, mainly through a Delphi round, 12 agile-specific work values were established. These were survey rated, along with the validated set of 18 generic work values, by 102 British and Indian IT professionals in a digital service and consulting firm that was requested by its client to become agile. The observations made in 14 feedback group-interview-type dialogs enriched the surveyed data further.

In the current exploratory study, four generic value dimensions were complemented by two agile-specific ones: team communication and shared responsibility. Among the British and Indian (on-site and offshore) workers, only 2 of the 30 current work values were shared while 7 significant value differences were found, explaining the noted employee bitterness, productivity losses and client disengagement. This situation was reflected in the many discrepancies between the professionals' ideal agile way of working and how their unit was currently functioning.

The multi-method study shows an over-optimistic approach to becoming agile in a common cross-cultural context; insights are gained on how to optimize agile ways of organizing IT work when British IT workers collaborate with Indian IT workers. It may benefit many agile practitioners and managers working with(in) cross-culturally mixed and partly remote teams.