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As part of a national plan to govern professional and organizational development in Norwegian specialist healthcare, the country’s hospital clinics are tasked with constructing development plans. Using the development plan as a case, the paper analyzes how managers navigate and legitimize the planning process among central actors and deals with the contingency of decisions in such strategy work.

This study applies a qualitative research design using a case study method. The material consists of public documents, observations and single interviews, covering the process of constructing a development plan at the clinical level.

The findings suggest that the development plan was shaped through a multilevel translation process consisting of different contending rationalities. At the clinical level, the management had difficulties in legitimizing the process. The underlying tension between top-down and bottom-up steering challenged involvement and made it difficult to manage the contingency of decisions.

The findings are relevant to public sector managers working on strategy documents and policymakers identifying challenges that might hinder the fulfillment of political intentions.

This paper draws on a case from Norway; however, the findings are of general interest. The study contributes to the academic discussion on how to consider both the health authorities’ perspective and the organizational perspective to understand the manager’s role in handling the contingency of decisions and managing paradoxes in the decision-making process.

In this article, the authors analyse a complex social process affecting historic public paths in rural areas in southern Spain. Despite the fact that urban populations are demanding the enhancement of this type of natural heritage for tourism, sports and recreational use, some parts of the network have been abandoned or usurped.

The study is multidisciplinary, comprising three interlinked studies. The cartographic study comprises an inventory of public paths in rural areas based on administrative sources. The legal study analyses local, regional and national regulations governing agricultural, environmental, heritage, sports and tourism uses of the infrastructure. The sociological study analyses social discourses on the uses of public paths, and identifies conflicts between farmers, landowners, environmentalists, sportspeople and tourists.

The preliminary results identified an important public paths network in Andalusia, approximately 160,000 km. The legal study found that there are laws regulating use, although local authorities do not monitor compliance or provide solutions to enhance management. The sociological study determined the attribution of environmental, cultural and economic value to public paths, but also the existence of conflicts between rural and urban populations.

Given that this is ongoing research, only state of the art and some preliminary albeit sufficiently consistent results are presented.

The results could help to guide public policy and governance of public paths.

Public paths promote rural development and a green/sustainable economy.

The research results and conclusions are original.

This study aims to introduce and evaluate a model of host community support for sustainable tourism development (SSTD) based on the influential factors contributing to community support in a biosphere reserve.

Partial least squares structural equation modeling using SmartPLS 3 software is applied to analyze data collected from 473 residents of the Miankaleh Biosphere Reserve, Iran.

The findings reveal that the locals’ community support is affected by their level of environmental awareness, opportunity and attitudes toward SSTD. However, the results do not reveal an influence of environmental knowledge and community attachment on SSTD. The findings enrich the existing literature on community attitude predictors by showing that locals’ SSTD level is not consistently based on common predictors. Such support strongly depends on host communities’ attitudes toward supporting tourism, which is definitely not the same among residents. It is imperative to know whether people’s attitudes arise from a desire to protect the area or for reasons of self-interest.

The findings provide further support for the tenets of the segmentation approach and challenge existing knowledge on host communities’ attitudes about factors influencing residents toward SSTD. The findings have several practical implications regarding community participation for regional and national authorities and destination policymakers.

采用SmartPLS3软件建立偏最小二乘结构方程模型, 对从伊朗米安卡莱生物圈保护区的473名居民获得的数据进行分析。

本研究旨在介绍和评估基于影响促进生物圈保护内社区支持的可持续旅游发展(SSTD)的东道社区支持模型。

结果表明, 本地社区的环境意识水平、机会和对SSTD的态度影响着社区支持。然而, 研究结果并没有揭示环境知识和社区依恋对SSTD的影响。

这一发现丰富了现有的关于社区态度预测因子的文献, 表明当地人的SSTD并不一致基于共同的预测因子。这种支持很大程度上取决于东道社区对支持旅游的态度, 这在居民中肯定是不一样的。有必要了解人们的态度是出于保护该地区的愿望还是出于自身利益的原因。此外, 研究结果为细分方法的原则提供了进一步的支持, 并挑战了关于东道社区对影响居民SSTD态度的现有认知。

Se aplica un modelo de ecuaciones estructurales por mínimos cuadrados parciales con el programa SmartPLS 3 para analizar los datos recogidos de 473 residentes de la reserva de la biosfera de Miankaleh (Irán).

Esta investigación pretende introducir y evaluar un modelo de apoyo de la comunidad anfitriona al desarrollo del turismo sostenible (SSTD) basado en los factores que contribuyen al apoyo de la comunidad en una reserva de la biosfera.

Los resultados revelan que el apoyo de la comunidad local se ve afectado por su nivel de concienciación medioambiental, sus oportunidades y sus actitudes hacia el desarrollo del turismo sostenible. Sin embargo, los resultados no muestran una influencia del conocimiento medioambiental y el apego de la comunidad sobre el desarrollo turístico sostenible.

Los resultados enriquecen la literatura existente sobre predictores de la actitud de la comunidad al mostrar que el nivel de desarrollo turístico sostenible de los autóctonos no se basa únicamente en factores tradicionales. Dicho apoyo depende en gran medida de las actitudes de las comunidades anfitrionas hacia el apoyo al turismo y éste no es el mismo entre los residentes. Es necesario conocer si la actitud de los individuos surge de un deseo de proteger la zona o por razones de interés propio. Además, los resultados corroboran los principios del enfoque de segmentación y retan los conocimientos existentes sobre las actitudes de las comunidades anfitrionas acerca de los factores de los residentes sobre el desarrollo turístico sostenible.

The purpose of this study is to review the role of knowledge management (KM) in disaster management and crisis. Disaster causes many detrimental impacts on human lives through loss of life and damage to properties. KM has been shown to dampen the impact of the disaster on the utilization of knowledge among agencies involved and the local communities impacted by disasters.

Through a bibliometric methodology (co-citation, bibliographic coupling and co-word analysis), this study presents significant themes in the past, current and future predictions on the role of KM in disaster management. In this review paper, 437 publications were retrieved from the Web of Science and analyzed through VOSviewer software to visualize and explore the knowledge map on the subject domain.

Findings suggest that the significant themes derived are centralized to disaster preparedness during disaster and disaster postrecovery. This review presents a state-of-art bibliometric analysis of the crucial role of KM in building networks and interconnection among relevant players and stakeholders involved in disaster management.

The main implication of this study is how the authorities, stakeholders and local community can integrate the KM system within the three stages of disasters and the crucial role of technologies and social media in facilitating disaster management.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to present a bibliometric analysis in mapping KM’s past, present and future trends in disaster management.

Although the Singapore model of ethnic integration through its public housing programme is well known, the formula for replicating its success elsewhere remains underexplored. This study aims to identify the criteria for successful transplantation, specifically by identifying the housing tenure types that are most amenable to the implementation of the Singapore model.

Through a comparative study of two common law jurisdictions – Singapore and England – this article highlights the differences in their housing landscapes and how such differences impact upon the adoption of ethnic integration policies through housing. The article also unpacks, through a cross-disciplinary lens, the concepts of public housing and housing tenures, drawing heavily on socio-legal and housing literature.

The authors observe that the implementation of ethnic integration policies is best justified and most easily achieved in leasehold estates that exhibit a strong tenurial relationship with the state retaining a more than notional role. Public housing in Singapore being an exemplar of this model, the implementation of its ethnic integration policy is relatively straightforward. By contrast, the shrinking public housing sector in England means that adoption of a similar policy would have limited reach. Even then, the political–legal environment in England that promotes home ownership is potentially hostile to the adoption of such policy as it may be seen as an infringement of private property right.

The cross-jurisdiction comparison is supplemented by an interdisciplinary analysis that seeks to bridge differences in the categorisation of tenure in housing and law literatures so as to promote cross-disciplinary dialogue.

This paper examines how key actors in the UK food system (FS) understand the role of the local food sector in relation to FS resilience.

Discourse analysis was used to assess and compare the framings of the UK FS in 36 publications released during Covid-19 from alternative food networks (AFNs) actors and from other more mainstream FS actors, including the UK government.

The analysis shows that AFNs actors perceive the UK FS as not resilient and identify local FSs as a route towards greater resilience (“systemic” framing). In contrast, other food actors perceive the UK FS as already resilient, with the role of local food limited to specific functions within the existing system (“add-on” framing). The two groups converge on the importance of dynamic public procurement and local abattoir provision, but this convergence does not undermine the fundamental divergence in the understanding of the role of “the local” in resilient UK FSs. The local food sector’s messages appear to have gone largely unheard in mainstream policy.

The paper presents an analysis of public sector reports focused on the UK FS released during the Covid-19 pandemic years 2020–2021. The corpus inclusion criteria mean that publications during this period which focus on other food sector issues, such social injustices, climate change and health, were not included in the analysis, although they may have touched upon local food issues. The authors further recognise that Covid-19 had a longer lasting effect on FSs than the years 2020–2021, and that many other publications on FSs have been published since. The time span chosen targets the time at which FSs were most disrupted and therefore aims to capture emerging issues and solutions for the UK FS. The authors’ insights should be further validated through a more complete review of both public reports and academic papers covering a wider base of food-related issues and sectors as well as a broader timespan.

A comparison of how different FS actors understand the importance of local food, especially in relation to resilience, has not been undertaken to date. The findings raise important questions about the disconnect between AFN actors and other actors in the framing of resilience. Considering the need to ensure resilience of the UK FS, this study's findings raise important insights for UK food policy about the “local food blindspot” and for food movement actors wishing to progress their vision of transformative change.

Establishing a more sustainable built environment is an increasing global concern for the construction industry. Despite the intrinsic and extrinsic obstacles the stakeholders face, huge efforts are required to transition to a smooth, sustainable construction (SC) practice. This study identifies and discusses cogent obstacles to SC in developing nations.

The Preferred Reporting Item for systematic reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) approach was employed to establish research work in SC for developing countries. The databases used were Scopus and Web of Science. Meta-analysis of keywords was analysed thematically. The initial broad search returned 8,420 publications which were filtered and reviewed in-depth to fit the aim of the study, produced only 21 relevant publications from the years 2000–2021.

The four identified themes of obstacles to SC in developing countries are as follows: construction professional training and education, clients' attitudes and awareness, construction industries' culture and capacity and governments' regulation, policies and economy. The key barriers identified from the meta-analysis include inadequate training and education amongst construction professionals, poor execution of sustainability ethics, poor populace attitude towards sustainability, poor awareness and understanding, dearth of precise data and integrated study and inappropriate priorities about sustainability.

The originality in this study are themes drawn from millennium development goals (MDGs) and sustainable development goals (SDGs) publications related to SC. Consequently, the final framework presented a holistic approach to surmounting the established limitations and aided recommendations for future studies. Thus, setting a background for developing strategies to overcome the limitations and further attain sustainable development (SD).

This study aims to identify the street-level approaches of professional workers in complex public social service organisations when attending to social assistance claimants.

The study employed a multifaceted approach comprising documentary analysis, semi-structured individual interviews (17) and focus group discussions (8) with qualified frontline social workers from primary care social services in Tarragona.

Social workers embodied three specific sets of cognitive, normative and emotional dispositions when attending to people with low incomes. First, the compassionate approach conceives clients as defensive regarding social services and emotionally vulnerable because of deprivation. Second, the instructional approach frames clients as being baffled by a new, precarious, institutional and economic context. They also lack information, abilities and the proper mindset to conceive of and attain available welfare and occupational resources. Third, the enforcement approach tends to define clients as suspicious, trying to obtain an excessive and unfair advantage of the welfare system that would eventually hamper their social opportunities.

Research thus far has tended to define public social assistance programmes in Southern welfare state contexts as mostly inefficient and hardly relevant residual social policies. The street-level approach shows that social workers try to resist the mere administrative processing of benefits, which is a professionally troubling and organisationally unsustainable way to proceed. They attempt to help clients by providing inclusive content in order to implement their benefits.

The role of local authorities is crucial in addressing the essential needs of communities, and they possess the right to impose property taxes on all properties within their territory. Property taxes are levied on all properties, contributing to approximately 60% of the local authority’s finances. However, their role in this policy is not frequently understood, primarily in executing property tax reassessment. Hence, this paper aims to reveal property tax reassessment implementation and identify its key challenges.

The latest tone of the list record was extracted from the local government division, Ministry of Housing and Local Government Malaysia, to answer the research objective. The data were received on November 2021 by email. Furthermore, through the literature review, the most significant challenges in property tax reassessment were identified, compared and presented.

The results highlight that property tax reassessment implementation in West Malaysia is at the level of concern where only two councils have the latest tone of the list. However, larger councils have a higher performance compared to smaller councils. The findings also reveal various challenges in property tax reassessment, such as insufficient human resources, inadequate property systems and software and lack of financial capacity. Others include a shortage of competent assessors, lower public education, political interference and socioeconomic uncertainty.

This study offers practical implications to policy and decision-makers in the West Malaysian local authorities. Despite inferior performance by West Malaysian local authorities, there is a need for conducting property tax reassessment activity to ensure the quality and uniformity of the assessment. This study suggests that local government stakeholders and managers should devote more attention to formulating long-term plans and promoting the property tax reassessment practice. The property tax reform could solve the current situation of substandard reassessment activity.

This study explains, compares and interprets the actual statistical data through the figures and summarises the challenges of property tax reassessment activity among local authorities.

This paper investigates to what extent public sector entities (PSEs) in developing countries (DCs) are compliant with IPSAS and examines the impact of the socioeconomic and politico-administrative environment on this compliance during the period 2015–2018.

This research develops a self-constructed checklist consisting of 116 disclosure items from five accrual-based IPSAS (IPSASs, 1, 2, 3, 14 and 24) and applies panel regressions for a sample of 500 entity-year observations of 125 PSEs.

The study results show a high level of disparity in the degree of compliance with IPSAS amongst DCs' governments, with an overall average level of 61%. They reveal that compliance with IPSAS is positively influenced by the level of citizen wealth, government political culture (degree of government openness) and the quality of public administration, whereas jurisdiction size, government financial condition and political competition are non-significant factors.

This research provides researchers and practitioners with a comprehensive framework for understanding the extent of New Public Management reforms in DCs with a focus on International Public Sector Accounting Standards implementation. It might assist policymakers in their accounting strategies and might be a signal for DCs with low compliance to tap lessons from governments with successful experience of IPSAS adoption.

Focusing on DCs' context, this paper brings new insights into the analysis of socioeconomic and politico-administrative incentives for government compliance with IPSAS. It is the first to investigate the impact of citizen wealth and political competition on IPSAS disclosures.