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The Covid-19 pandemic generated significant changes in the operating methods of hospital logistics departments. The objective of this research is to understand how these changes took place, what collaboration mechanisms were developed with clinical authorities and, to what extent, logistics and clinical care activities should be decoupled to maximize each area's contribution?

The case study is selected to investigate practices implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic in hospitals in Canada. The pandemic presented an opportunity to contrast practices implemented in response to this crisis with those historically used in this environment.

The strategy of decoupling logistical tasks of an operational nature from clinical activities is well-founded and helps free clinical staff from tasks for which they are not trained. However, the decoupling of operational tasks should be combined with an integration of the clinical information flow to the logistics hub players. With this clinical information, the logistics hub can generate its full potential enabling better inventory management decisions to be made.

The concept of decoupling is studied to identify configurations that offer the best benefits for clinical staff.

This study aims to investigate the relationships between big data analytics, management accounting practices and corporate sustainability and, more precisely, the impact of the integration between big data analytics and management accounting on corporate sustainability performance development.

A qualitative case study approach is used in this study with multiple collecting data tools as in-depth interviews and observations, in addition to the content analysis used of the annual reports for the year 2021, of Almarai manufacturing corporate (one of the leaders of food and beverage manufacturing corporates in Saudi Arabia and other countries).

Research findings provide good insights about the significant impact of the effective integration between big data analytics and management accounting on corporate sustainability performance development, big data can assist management accounting to form corporate value-added strategies and activities.

The study is limitedly applied to one manufacturing corporate as a study case; therefore, the findings cannot be generalized. Thus, future research can examine the association between the current study variables with wide-scale applications and with different approaches and in different contexts to enrich the findings. Moreover, future research may focus on the integration between big data analytics and management accounting reports in the meta-verse environment to explore the benefits that corporates could gain from the features and capabilities of meta-verse technology.

There is a research gap regarding the impact of the integration between big data analytics and management accounting practices on corporate sustainability development, as most of the previous studies focused on two variables only of the current study variables; therefore, this study tries to investigate and give important insights about it.

This study aimed at exploring the differential effects of different corporate governance (CG) indicators on risk management practices in Islamic financial institutions (IFIs) and conventional financial institutions (CFIs) of Pakistan. It also investigated the moderating role of institutional quality (IQ) in shaping the effects of CG practices on financial institutions of Pakistan.

A sample of 57 financial institutions including commercial banks, insurance companies and Modarba companies over the period 2006–2017 is used to carry out the empirical analysis. The authors applied the robust two-step system-generalized method of moments estimator, which is also called the dynamic panel data estimator. They also built the PCA-based composite index of CG and IQ by using different indicators to investigate the moderating role of IQ. They used three proxies for risk taking, five for CG and one for Shari’ah governance. To test the validity of the instruments, they applied the Arellano and Bond’s (1991) AR (1) and AR (2) tests and the J-statistic of Hansen (1982).

The results provided strong evidence that several individual characteristics of CG and the composite index are significantly related to the operational risk, the liquidity risk and the Z-score (a proxy for solvency risk). The results also revealed that IQ significantly and substantially contributes in reducing the level of risks. Finally, the estimation results indicated that the effects of CG on risk management are significantly different at IFIs and CFIs. This differential impact is mainly attributed to the fundamental differences in business models, operational strategies and contractual obligations of both types of institutions.

The findings of this study are important for enhancing our understanding of how CG relates to risk taking in Islamic and conventional financial services industries and how good quality institutions are important for formulating the governance effects on the risk-taking behavior of financial institutions. The findings suggest that a suitable size of board should be chosen to manage the risk effectively. As the findings show that the risk-taking behavior of IFIs differs from that of CFIs, the regulators and international standard setting bodies should tailor the regulatory frameworks accordingly.

This paper is different from the existing studies in four aspects. First, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first empirical investigation in Pakistan, which does the comparison of IFIs and CFIs while examining the impacts of CG on risk management. Second, the paper constructs the composite index of CG by considering several different indicators of governance and examines the combined effect of governance indicators on risk management process. Third, this paper adds to the growing literature on the role of IQ by investigating whether it acts as a moderator between CG structures and risk management and if yes, then whether this moderating role is different for IFIs and CFIs. Finally, the paper builds upon the existing research work on the CG effects for different types of financial institutions by proposing a single regression based analytical framework for comparing the effects across two different types of institutions, harvesting the benefits of higher degrees of freedom and avoiding/minimizing the measurement error.

There is evidence that quality improvement projects developed with the participation of patients and family members are more likely to result in a sustainable change. To identify the intervening factors is an important step in promoting and supporting patient and family members’ engagement.

A survey was carried out with 90 hospitals. A total of 35 intervening factors were evaluated by the healthcare professionals from the quality area using a Likert scale. Factor analysis was applied to identify the relationship among the factors and cluster analysis and the standardized scores for each new latent variable were obtained to observe the association between them and hospitals profile. Cluster analysis allowed to group the hospitals with similar responses and to analyze whether there was any association with the profile of the institutions.

A total of ten intervening factors are identified: two in the financial dimension, five in the structural and three in the personal and cultural. The standardized scores of latent variables suggest that the financial factors could be affected by the hospital capacity. The structural factors could be impacted by the accreditation status, location (region) and administrative control (ownership). And the personal and cultural factors could be by the location and dominant organizational culture. All of factors are influenced by the performed quality management activities. The cluster analysis allowed the identification of three groups in the financial dimension, and four in the other two dimensions. Except for the accreditation status in the personal and cultural dimension, no evidence of association between the groups and the variables raised to characterize the profile of the hospitals was found.

The study contributed to identify the relationship among the intervening factors turning possible to simplify and reduce them more comprehensively than those originally identified in the literature and at the same time maintaining the representativeness of the original variables.

Major maintenance projects are often regarded as maintenance activities regardless of the projects' complexity and scale. Consequently, very scarce research attention has hitherto been paid to the critical skills required when undertaking these projects. More specifically, the body of relevant knowledge is deprived of a study focusing on maintenance projects within the energy sector. In view of this shortcoming, this research aims to examine the critical project management (PM) skills required to deliver major maintenance projects within the energy sector.

Based on a quantitative research strategy, this study addressed the knowledge gap through a cross-sectional survey of professionals involved in the delivery of major maintenance projects in the United Kingdom's (UK) energy sector. Data obtained were analyzed via descriptive (e.g. frequencies, mean and standard deviation [SD]) and inferential statistical analyses (One sample t-test and exploratory factor analysis (EFA)).

Out of the 45 PM skills identified in the literature and examined by the respondents, the results obtained from the One sample t-test (based on p (1-tailed) = 0.05) showed that 37 were considered to be at least “important,” accounting for 80.4% of all the skills identified. EFA revealed a clustering of the PM skills items into seven components: “skills related to work scheduling and coordination”; “communication, risk, safety and stakeholder management skills”; “quality assurance skills”; “people management skills”; “skills related to forecasting scope and duration of outage”; “implementation of processes and time management skills” and “technical/engineering skills and experience pertaining to the outage and local site knowledge.”

This study has identified and contributed to the limited state-of-the-art skills project managers must possess to manage major maintenance projects in the energy sector successfully. The findings would be useful to organizations within the energy sector in ensuring that the organizations have suitable personnel in place to deliver major maintenance projects on the organizations' assets.

The study aims to examine whether board gender diversity and corporate social responsibility (CSR) affect real earnings management (REM) practices of public companies in Nigeria.

The study analyzes data of public companies for the period of 2011 through 2020. Data on board gender diversity, CSR and REM were collected from audited financial statements.

The empirical findings show that companies with greater diverse board are effective in restraining REM, thus supporting the theoretical framework of the study. Also, the result provides strong evidence of association between CSR performance and REM for policy management decision.

The study is constrained by not considering all public companies in the country. Furthermore, it considered only gender among numerous important board attributes and environmental, social and governance (ESG) among numerous CSR attributes. Hence, future studies should consider other important attributes on REM and important attributes of board diversity and CSR on real earnings management.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to investigate the relationship between heterogeneous board gender diversity, CSR via ESG and REM in emerging markets such as Nigeria. Therefore, it provides appropriate treatment of CSR with science and technology via EGS viewpoint of organizational operations and behavior of managing earnings. Therefore, developing better policy management for sustainable development

The “United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal” 9 seeks to “… foster innovation” in all sectors of an economy. Thus, this conceptual piece addresses the indirect effect of innovative behaviour (INB) between total quality management (TQM) and innovation performance (INP). It further explores the context-contingent effect of four external factors [government regulation (GOV), market dynamism (MKD), competitive intensity (CMP) and technological turbulence (TUR)] on the TQM–INB linkage.

By incorporating both theoretical and empirical works in the fields of strategic management, innovation and business performance, this conceptual piece constructs a conceptual model, using a systematic literature review, alongside suppositions that can be tested in further studies.

This conceptual piece puts forward that TQM will be favourably connected to INP, and this favourable association will be mediated by INB. Moreover, GOV, MKD, CMP and TUR will have a favourable context-contingent effect on the favourable direct connection between TQM and INB.

This conceptual piece affords suggestions for both practitioners and researchers alike in the areas of innovative and strategic decision-making in banking establishments for reinforcing INP by introducing TQM, INB, GOV, MKD, CMP and TUR as innovative-strategic tools. It also delivers suggestions for forthcoming academics to examine this conceptual piece, empirically, in diverse banking sites worldwide.

Practical lessons for managers, employees, customers and consultants within the banking sector for the superior advantage of all key stakeholders are deliberated.

This study provides a new model to demonstrate how TQM leads to INP by passing through INB of employees, and how TQM fosters INB under diverse degrees of GOV, MKD, CMP and TUR. It shows how internal factors (7 TQM dimensions) and external factors (GOV, MKD, CMP and TUR) interact to foster employee INB. It also underscores the theoretical authority of three theories utilised, both individually and in combination, by using them to explain new relationships.

This study examines whether country-level financial integration affects firms' accounting choices and the quality of financial information.

This study employs Propensity Score Matching (PSM), and panel regressions of a large sample of data from 20 emerging markets over the period 1987–2018.

This study finds evidence that increased level of financial integration is significantly positively associated with firms' accruals earnings management (AEM) and real earnings management (REM).

Findings in the study have implications for standard-setting bodies that aim to enhance the usefulness of financial reporting quality. The study also has implications for various initiatives by governments in emerging markets aimed at raising investor confidence and fostering stock market development through greater financial integration.

Findings in the study have implications for standard-setting bodies that aim to enhance the usefulness and quality of financial reporting. The findings can be of interest to analysts, auditors and other monitoring institutions who play a crucial role in detecting earnings management and reducing information asymmetry. Finally, the study has implications for various initiatives by governments in emerging markets aimed at raising investor confidence and fostering stock market development through greater financial integration.

Findings in the study reveal how country-level financial integration affects accruals and real earnings management in a sample of firms from 20 emerging markets. Further, the study adds to the growing body of literature on emerging markets where capital markets mechanisms, regulatory environment and firm's corporate governance are distinct to developed markets.

The purpose of this study is to examine the association between carbon emissions and earnings management (EM). This study also considers the effect of female CEOs on the association between carbon emissions and EM.

This study uses the carbon disclosure project (CDP) for carbon emissions data, the Compustat database for financial information and the ExecuComp database for female CEOs. The empirical sample of this study consists of 1,692 firm-year observations in the USA that voluntarily participated in the CDP survey from 2007 to 2015. Regression analysis and robustness tests are conducted for this study and both accrual and real EM are considered.

This study provides evidence that firms with female CEOs who voluntarily disclose their carbon emissions information engage in less real EM. Thus, the presence of female CEOs moderates the association between carbon emissions and EM. This study/paper also finds a positive association between carbon emissions and real EM, although there is an insignificant association between carbon emissions and accruals EM.

The association between carbon emissions and EM has important implications for investors, regulators and policymakers. This study suggests that policymakers should improve the conditions that promote inclusion of females in the top management positions to constrain EM.

This study focuses on the USA, which is one of the major contributors to carbon emissions in the world. The presence of female CEOs moderates the association between carbon emissions and EM and firms with female CEOs show a greater impact on EM.

This study aims to examine how different uses of performance measurement systems (PMS) enable or hinder organizational ambidexterity (OA), intended as the simultaneous pursuit of exploitation and exploration.

Following a qualitative research design, we gathered data through semi-structured interviews, observations and reviews of documents at four departments of an automotive firm.

We contribute to operations management research and practice by demonstrating how PMS, which are typically associated with exploitation, can also foster exploration and enable organizations to become ambidextrous. Specifically, we show how PMS can be structured and used in more agile ways and, in relation to innovation, we identify which PM practices should be introduced and with what effects and those that should be avoided. We also contribute to organization theory by highlighting how a single management tool can promote the achievement of both exploration and exploitation.

In investigating PMS uses and their effects, we identify several positive practices. For example, we show how managers can use PMS more effectively and how targets could be deployed to stimulate creativity and innovation. We also emphasize the need for managers to opt more often for team incentives rather than individual ones to encourage the collaboration needed for OA.

We provide in-depth insight into how PM tools affect an organization’s ability to pursue exploitation and exploration, thus contributing to research in operations, innovation and organization theory.