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This case study delves into the evolving landscape of equity, inclusion and diversity (EID) initiatives within the health-care sector, with a specific focus on the “EverybodyIN” program implemented at the Mayo Clinic, a large academic Medical Center in the USA. Against the backdrop of growing awareness catalyzed by societal events, this case study aims to explore the multifaceted aspects of workplace conversations aimed at addressing racial disparities and fostering a more inclusive environment.

The case study relies on the application of critical race theory and a social constructionist approach to investigate the impact of a subset of voluntary educational conversations that were centered on the Black/African-American experience, on staff members’ racial understanding and allyship within the health-care organization. Through thematic analysis of postevent surveys and participant sentiments, three overarching themes emerged: appreciation, education and validation.

Through thematic analysis of postevent surveys and participant sentiments, three overarching themes emerged: appreciation, education and validation. The findings underscore the pivotal role of leadership buy-in, evidence-based practices, health equity and an ongoing commitment to “the journey” in successful EID efforts. The results highlight the significance of integrating EID into health-care organizations as a continuous endeavor that aligns with organizational values and mission.

The findings underscore the pivotal role that theory and practice play through a newly described framework that includes leadership buy-in, evidence-based practices, health equity and an ongoing commitment to “the journey” for successful EID efforts.

The results highlight the significance of integrating EID into health-care organizations as a continuous endeavor that aligns with organizational values and mission.

By fostering a safe and informed space for dialogue, organizations can empower staff to engage authentically and acquire cultural competence that may contribute to advancing health equity.

Body weight has a long history of functioning as a symbol of one’s beauty, social status, morality, discipline, and health. It has also been a standard inflicted much more intensely on women than men. While US culture has long idealized thinness for women, even at risky extremes, there is growing evidence that weight standards are broadening. Larger bodies are becoming more visible and accepted, while desire for and approval of a thin ideal has diminished. However, the continued widespread prevalence of anti-fat attitudes and stigma leaves uncertainty about just how much weight standards are changing. This study used an online survey (n = 320) to directly compare evaluations of thin, fat, and average size women through measures of negative stereotypes, prejudicial attitudes, and perceptions about quality of life. Results indicated that, as hypothesized, thin women were perceived less favorably than average weight women. However, fat women were perceived less favorably than both average and thin women. Men were harsher than women in their evaluations of only fat women. Additionally, participants being underweight or overweight did not produce an ingroup bias in their evaluations of underweight and overweight targets, respectively. That is, participants did not rate their own group more favorably, with the exception of overweight participants having lower prejudice toward overweight targets. These findings add to the emerging evidence that women’s weight standards are in transition, marked by an increasingly negative perception of thin women, though not necessarily growing positivity toward fat women. This evidence further points toward the need for more extensive research on attitudes of people across the entire weight spectrum.

Although large-scale construction projects can stimulate economic development, they can also cause unanticipated environmental stress. In addition, there are indications that such projects can collide with local cultural structures and create negative social impacts. With a focus on Building with Nature – an initiative towards sustainable hydraulic engineering – this chapter illustrates how nature conservation can be integrated into the daily operation of large-scale construction projects. Also, some insights are presented on the effects of voluntary green behaviour, particularly about challenges and benefits associated with enforcing corporate responsibility. The chapter concludes with a discussion on the role of integrative systematic approaches in analysing the complexity related to multi-stakeholder involvement for the embodiment of SDG14 Life Below Water. Also, some arguments are provided on the value of intergenerational knowledge exchange – linking expertise and experience of industry representatives with innovative concepts from higher education actors – for realising goals linked to sustainable development embracing future generations.

The objective of the study is to shed light on the notion of quality investing in the Indian stock market. The study also attempts to combine the value and quality metrics to test their ability to generate a higher risk-adjusted return.

The paper employs asset pricing models to examine the excess risk-adjusted returns and panel regression model (random estimates) to determine the price of quality in the cross-section of Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) listed stocks from 2003 to 2020.

The results indicate that the quality-only strategy failed to produce substantial risk-adjusted returns in the Indian stock market. The returns to long/short hedging strategy quality-minus-junk (QMJ) are significantly positive with the majority of the returns attributable to the short leg of the stock portfolio. The findings further discovered that the explanatory effect of quality on prices is limited. In particular, a strategy that combines value and quality investing generated positive and significant alphas as well as a higher Sharpe ratio.

The study provides investors and portfolio managers with valuable insights for navigating undervalued high-quality equities in the Indian stock market.

This is the first research of its kind to examine the performance of quality (Q score indicator) combined with value investing in the Indian stock market. As majority of research have concentrated on developed economies, this study offers out-of-sample evidence to validate the strategy’s success in an emerging market.

The COVID-19 pandemic found deliberate and idiosyncratic adoption of telecommuting and other flexibility practices across industries. With the pandemic waning, many organizations adopted various models for employee work locations. Based on Self-Determination Theory and Social Comparison Theory, the authors examine the impact of the dissonance between employee preference for their work location and enforced work location norms and its impact on general well-being and organizational commitment.

The authors’ empirical study is based on a sample of 881 respondents across multiple industries in India over six months of the COVID pandemic. The authors use PLS-SEM for data analysis to examine the model and the moderating influence of individual resilience on control at work.

The authors find that increased dissonance between work locations reduces general well-being, control and work. Further, higher individual resilience reduces the impact of this dissonance on control at work.

The study informs policy and practices that choice of work location is important for employees to feel a higher sense of control, impacting their affective commitment and general well-being. While implementation of policies across an organization for varying job roles and complexities presents a challenge, practitioners may ignore this need of employees at their peril, as employees are likely to demonstrate lower well-being, engagement and organizational commitment and eventually leave.

This study is significant as it provides relevant scholarship based on the COVID-19 pandemic, guiding practice on future ways of working. This study further supports the impact of an individual's sense of control on where work is done. The authors build a strong theoretical foundation to justify the impact of the lack of autonomy in the emerging working norms on employees' general well-being and organizational commitment.

This study aims to develop a modelling framework of housing supply dynamics within the context of urban microsimulation systems. Housing markets have witnessed substantial investigation over recent decades, predominantly concerning residential demand. However, comparatively limited attention has been directed towards comprehending the housing supply dynamics. Housing policy disconnects with the developers’ market behaviours, which leads to significant mismatch between the housing construction and affordable housing needs of the population. Research attention should be made in comprehending the residential construction market activities. To address this gap, this study developed an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model and analyzed the temporal evolution of housing construction.

An ARDL model was developed to address the issue of temporal modelling of the housing supply. An empirical study was conducted in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) based on a longitudinal housing starts data set from 1998 to 2020. The model integrates diverse variables, including macroeconomic conditions, property development costs, dwelling prices and opportunity costs. Notably, the model captures both the path-dependent effects stemming from supply market fluctuations and the temporal lag effect of influential factors.

The findings reveal that the supply-side’s responsiveness to market condition alterations may span up to 18 months. The model has reasonable and satisfying performance in fitting the observed starts. The methodological foundations laid will facilitate future modelling of housing supply dynamics.

This study innovatively separated the modelling of housing supply within the context of urban microsimulation, into two parts, the modelling of housing starts and completion. The housing starts are determined in a complex and regressive process influenced by both the micro-economic environment and the construction cost and housing market trends. Through the temporal modelling method, this study captures how long it would take for the housing supply to respond to multiple factors and provides insight for urban planners in regulating the housing market and leveraging various policies to influence the housing supply.

The purpose of this study is to examine how informational faultlines on a board affect the management of knowledge owned by directors and the consequences on organizational performance. In this study, informational faultlines are defined as hypothetical lines that divide a group into relatively homogeneous subgroups based on the alignment of several informational attributes among board members.

The study uses unique hand-collected panel data covering 7,247 board members at 106 publicly traded firms to provide strong support for the hypothesized U-shaped relationship. The authors use a fixed effects approach and a system generalized method of moments approach to test the hypothesis.

The study finds that the relationship between informational faultlines on a board and organizational performance is U shaped, with the least optimal organizational performance experienced when boards have moderate informational faultlines. More specifically, informational faultlines within boards are negatively related to organizational performance across the weak-to-moderate range of informational faultlines and positively related to organizational performance across the moderate-to-strong range.

By explaining the mechanisms through which informational faultlines are related to organizational performance, the authors contribute to the literature in a number of ways. By conceptualizing how the management of knowledge plays an important role in the particular setting of corporate boards, the authors add not only to literature on knowledge management but also to the faultline and corporate governance literature.

This study offers a rationale for prior mixed findings by providing an alternative theoretical basis to explain the effect of informational faultlines within boards on organizational performance. To advance the field, the authors build on the concept of knowledge demonstrability to illuminate how informational faultlines affect the management of knowledge within boards, which will translate to organizational performance.

Previous studies on housing affordability in China were concentrated in China’s coastal and central regions. The purpose of this paper is to investigate housing affordability of urban residents in Northwest China. Moreover, this paper attempts to understand the consistency and influencing factors of various indicators on the evaluation of housing affordability.

This paper uses multiyear data on house sales, residents’ incomes and living expenses from 2011 to 2022. House price-to-income ratio, housing affordability index and residual income approach were calculated by using these data and used as the measure of housing affordability.

The results show that there are obvious differences in the housing affordability among the Xi’an, Lanzhou and Yinchuan during 2011–2022, and the housing affordability of residents in cities with small population and economic scale is better. The ability of most urban residents to afford suitable housing is still poor, and the ability to afford small-sized housing is better. Most families with below-middle income have poor housing affordability. It is also observed that although various indicators had similarities in the evaluation of residents’ housing affordability, the comprehensive evaluation results of multiple indicators were more reliable.

The research results provide a basis for the decision-making of the government’s urban housing policy and improvement of residents’ housing conditions.

The results have a clear understanding of the housing affordability of urban residents in Northwest China. The study found that the geographical location and topography of the city is also a factor affecting the housing affordability.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant mortality and morbidity worldwide. However, the role of dietary patterns as a potential risk factor for COVID-19 has not been well established, especially in studies with large samples. Therefore, this study aims to identify and evaluate the association between major dietary patterns and COVID-19 among adults from Iran.

In this cross-sectional study, the authors included 9,189 participants aged 20–70 who participated in the Yazd Health Study (YaHS) and Taghzieh Mardom-e-Yazd study (TAMIZ). They used factor analysis to extract dietary patterns based on a food frequency questionnaire (FFQ). Then, they assessed the relationship between these dietary patterns and the odds of COVID-19.

This study identified two major dietary patterns: “high protein and high fiber” and “transitional”. Participants in the highest tertile of the “high protein and high fiber” dietary pattern, which included vegetables, fruits, dairy and various kinds of meats such as red meat, fish and poultry, had a lower odds of COVID-19 compared with those in the lowest tertile. However, the “transitional” dietary pattern did not affect the risk of COVID-19.

In conclusion, a “high protein, high fiber” diet may lower the odds of COVID-19. This study suggests that dietary patterns may influence the severity and spread of future similar pandemics.

Some BIM implementation strategies are critical, while others are insignificant and ineffective in terms of lowering BIM adoption obstacles and promoting widespread acceptance of BIM in projects. The BIM literature has not provided evidence to support this claim or identify the fundamental BIM implementation strategies. This study filled this gap by identifying and investigating the effect of fundamental BIM implementation methodologies on the occurrence of proportional impacts between stages.

The findings indicate a positive and crucial relationship between the stages of the BIM implementation strategies and the reduction of barriers (r = 1.79, z = 2.15), preliminary and sustained BIM adoption barriers (r = 1.53, z = 60.83), BIM adoption on projects and BIM-enabled integration and collaboration (r = 0.7, z = 2.74). This validates the model's hypotheses and demonstrates that the fundamental BIM implementation strategies will accelerate the reduction of BIM adoption hurdles. The impact, however, will be the same for both sustained and preliminary barriers. This implies that lowering the obstacles alone will not secure BIM adoption.

The validation of the model's hypotheses demonstrated that the fundamental BIM implementation strategies will accelerate the reduction of BIM adoption hurdles. The impact, however, will be the same for both sustained and preliminary barriers. This implies that lowering BIM adoption obstacles alone will not secure BIM adoption. This study proposes that BIM deployment tactics be carefully chosen in order to remove preliminary impediments, reduce barriers and energise BIM acceptance.

In line with the findings of this study, BIM adoption must be consistent and long-term before the benefits in project execution become evident and substantiated. The BIM abilities of project participants, the feasibility of BIM conventions and the proficiency of BIM supervisors may all play a role in this.

This research implies a few approaches and tactics for implementing BIM in an efficient and beneficial manner. The study's findings imply that BIM deployment tactics should be carefully chosen in order to remove preliminary impediments, reduce barriers and energise BIM acceptance. It also explains how to structure BIM implementation strategies in developing countries. Another significant practical implication is the model's conclusion on the benefits of BIM adoption.

This study emphasises the significance of understanding the interrelatedness between the stages of the BIM implementation process in order to promote unavoidable and high-quality BIM adoption, as well as identifying the essential strategies that will guide policymakers and industry players in improving and pursuing successful BIM implementation. This study adds to BIM implementation theories by providing new information on the models, stages and interconnections of the BIM implementation process. However, the study could not identify the factors that impede BIM adoption despite the reduction in barriers and use of fundamental BIM implementation strategies.