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Temidayo O. Akenroye, Adegboyega Oyedijo, Vishnu C. Rajan, George A. Zsidisin, Marcia Mkansi and Jamal El Baz
This study aims to develop a hierarchical model that uncovers the relationships between challenges confronting Africa's organ transplant supply chain systems.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to develop a hierarchical model that uncovers the relationships between challenges confronting Africa's organ transplant supply chain systems.
Design/methodology/approach
Eleven challenges (variables) were identified after a comprehensive review of the existing literature. The contextual interactions among these variables were analysed from the perspectives of health-care stakeholders in two sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries (Nigeria and Uganda), using Delphi-interpretive structural modelling-cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification (MICMAC) techniques.
Findings
The findings reveal that weak regulatory frameworks, insufficient information systems and a lack of necessary skills make it challenging for critical actors to perform the tasks effectively. The interaction effects of these challenges weaken organ supply chains and make it less efficient, giving rise to negative externalities such as black markets for donated organs and organ tourism/trafficking.
Research limitations/implications
This paper establishes a solid foundation for a critical topic that could significantly impact human health and life once the government or non-profit ecosystem matures. The MICMAC analysis in this paper provides a methodological approach for future studies wishing to further develop the organ supply chain structural models.
Practical implications
The study provides valuable insights for experts and policymakers on where to prioritise efforts in designing interventions to strengthen organ transplantation supply chains in developing countries.
Originality/value
This study is one of the first to empirically examine the challenges of organ transplant supply chains from an SSA perspective, including theoretically grounded explanations from data collected in two developing countries.
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Daniel William Mackenzie Wright and Santa Zascerinska
Is humanity heading to immortal living? If so, what areas of society are playing an active role in achieving this? In order to understand this, the study explores the relationship…
Abstract
Purpose
Is humanity heading to immortal living? If so, what areas of society are playing an active role in achieving this? In order to understand this, the study explores the relationship between immortality and the wellness and medical tourism industry to seek potential relationships between them and ultimately, asks difficult questions about the growth of these tourism sectors and the potential need for greater regulation of them.
Design/methodology/approach
Taking a pragmatic philosophical approach and through the examination of refined information from secondary sources and published material and reports, the study presents original theoretical knowledge and a model exploring tourism and human immortality.
Findings
This paper argues that continued growth in the wellness and medical markets today could lead to a world where transhumanists and cyborgs are present in our world, even taking over from Homo sapiens. The study presents a model highlighting the potential role of wellness and medical tourism markets, illustrating the potential for future consumer services that could further fuel the search for immortality. Thus, how such markets and consumer desires are (in)directly supporting humanities desire for (non-human) immortal existence.
Originality/value
Today, individuals are driven by wellness practices and medical and cosmetic desires and are willing to travel the globe in search of companies who are either capable of carrying out the desired procedures or seeking prices more affordable to them. This research offers novel insights into these complex relationships and maps the affiliation between wellness and medical practices and the concept of immortality.
S. J. Oswald A. J. Mascarenhas
Every human being is spiritual and has spirituality, whether it is existential and subconscious or reflective and explicitly conscious. The existential subconscious level of…
Abstract
Executive Summary
Every human being is spiritual and has spirituality, whether it is existential and subconscious or reflective and explicitly conscious. The existential subconscious level of spirituality informs and empowers our conscious decisions, choices, and actions. In this sense, spirituality is the continuous line of action that fashions our personal and collective human and cosmic identity. Despite our native spirituality that unites and harmonizes humanity, we also experience the fallen nature of the human heart and the resulting brokenness of human relations as the major cause of crises in our lives, families, corporations and nations, and now the life-threatening ecosystems that form our common planetary home. Hitherto, we have falsely presumed that the earth and the universe are for the use of mankind – an anthropocentric concept of ecology and sustainability. Hence, we are on the verge of destroying the planet. We need planetary ethics and cosmic spirituality to change our mind-set – from anthropocentricism to cosmocentricism and from being the conqueror of nature to being a caring partner of nature. This is the essence of corporate cosmic spirituality. Human spirituality in general and corporate executive spirituality in particular seem to be the best way to understand and offer a way out of the personal, communal, and planetary disorders of our age. This concluding note of this book is a summons to all corporate executives to rise to the call of cosmic spirituality.
Steve Gillard, Rhiannon Foster, Sarah Gibson, Lucy Goldsmith, Jacqueline Marks and Sarah White
Peer support is increasingly being introduced into mainstream mental health services internationally. The distinctiveness of peer support, compared to other mental health support…
Abstract
Purpose
Peer support is increasingly being introduced into mainstream mental health services internationally. The distinctiveness of peer support, compared to other mental health support, has been linked to values underpinning peer support. Evidence suggests that there are challenges to maintaining those values in the context of highly standardised organisational environments. The purpose of this paper is to describe a “principles-based” approach to developing and evaluating a new peer worker role in mental health services.
Design/methodology/approach
A set of peer support values was generated through systematic review of research about one-to-one peer support, and a second set produced by a UK National Expert Panel of people sharing, leading or researching peer support from a lived experience perspective. Value sets were integrated by the research team – including researchers working from a lived experience perspective – to produce a principles framework for developing and evaluating new peer worker roles.
Findings
Five principles referred in detail to: relationships based on shared lived experience; reciprocity and mutuality; validating experiential knowledge; leadership, choice and control; discovering strengths and making connections. Supporting the diversity of lived experience that people bring to peer support applied across principles.
Research limitations/implications
The principles framework underpinned development of a handbook for a new peer worker role, and informed a fidelity index designed to measure the extent to which peer support values are maintained in practice. Given the diversity of peer support, the authors caution against prescriptive frameworks that might “codify” peer support and note that lived experience should be central to shaping and leading evaluation of peer support.
Originality/value
This paper adds to the literature on peer support in mental health by describing a systematic approach to understanding how principles and values underpin peer worker roles in the context of mental health services. This paper informs an innovative, principles-based approach to developing a handbook and fidelity index for a randomised controlled trial. Lived experiences of mental distress brought to the research by members of the research team and the expert advisors shaped the way this research was undertaken.
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