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As national governments and international organizations strive to combat climate change and limit greenhouse gas emissions, the energy transition is at the center of the global agenda. Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7 of the UN 2030 Agenda calls for affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all, but there is ample ambiguity on what is to be considered “sustainable” as opposed to “renewable.” This chapter discusses the role of nuclear power in this context, and more specifically the thorny issue of nuclear waste: unless a sustainable strategy for the disposal of nuclear waste is found, the inclusion of nuclear power as a legitimate recipient of Green Deal and other aid will be contested. The cases of Italy, Germany, and France are discussed, showing how these countries have struggled over decades to solve the “wicked problem” of nuclear waste and have dealt with conflict through different mixes of stakeholder engagement, procrastination, or use of scientific expertise for legitimation.

Through the comparative analysis of the three cases, conclusions are drawn on relevant factors that contribute to the policy capacity needed to tackle complex, integrated, super-wicked problems of sustainability policy: issues of problem definition, multilevel coordination, time management, and the engagement of community and science are described and identified as critical.

Human resources (HR) are undoubtedly one of the most important factors of any organization. That is why making decisions on the HR policy is becoming a very sensitive issue, both when hiring adequate candidates for the job and during the process work, i.e., during training and development of employees who work in the organization. The purpose of this study was to investigate the importance of HR and decisions on the HR policy as the premise for generating the organization’s expected business excellence. The starting assumption of this chapter is that appropriate decisions on the HR policy are predictors of engaging adequate employees and managing their potentials on the right way. The research is directed toward identifying differences in decisions on the personnel policy in organizations from Serbia that have different decision-makers and different management styles, which are directly related to their business success. Apart from the decision-maker, a significant role in profiling an organization’s personnel should also be done by the Human Resource Department, who take part in recruiting, selecting for education, building, and motivating personnel. In order to confirm the starting assumption, the comparative analysis method, the synthesis method, and the multiple comparison and statistical test methods are used.

Engineering knowledge continuity is crucial for the life cycle management of long-lived and complex assets, such as nuclear plants, locks and storm surge barriers. At the storm surge barriers in the Netherlands, engineering knowledge continuity is not yet fully assured, despite long-standing efforts. This study aims to explore the relationship between system characteristics, the organizational demarcation of maintenance and operation and the challenges in achieving engineering knowledge continuity and provides suggestions for improvement of theory and policy.

Ten semi-structured interviews were conducted with professionals from various backgrounds in construction, engineering and asset management of the Dutch storm surge barriers, augmented with visits to barriers and barrier teams. A thematic analysis was used to identify and describe the challenges to engineering continuity, their origins and potential solutions. We reviewed knowledge management policy documents and asset management consultancy reports to validate the findings. Additionally, we engaged in frequent interactions with professionals at the barriers. We achieved saturation and validation once no new issues were raised during these discussions.

The thematic analysis developed multiple themes describing the challenges to engineering continuity, their origins and potential solutions. The key findings are that expert engineers are critically important to deal with redesigns induced by obsolescence. Moreover, due to barrier uniqueness, long redesign cycles and reliability requirements, conventional knowledge continuity tools are insufficient to enable new engineers to reach expert level. Finally, the thematic analysis shows that, in some cases, outsourcing should be reduced to facilitate internal learning.

The study introduces the application of the knowledge-based view of the firm and the concept of requisite knowledge redundancy to the long-term management of complex assets. It calls for more attention to long gaps in the use of unique knowledge and the effect on knowledge continuity.

This research aims to analyze the factors affecting the people's performance working in the health sector to improve the services the health sector provide to society and increase the efficiency of their institutions.

Conceptual model covering paternalistic leadership, employee creativity and psychological safety as an intermediary role has been suggested. A questionnaire was applied to 600 employees of three hospitals in Izmir voluntarily and 531 questionnaire data were obtained to test the proposed model. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences-23 and Amos-18 were the statistical software used to analyze the data.

The results suggest that paternalistic leadership positively affects employee creativity and psychological safety plays a mediating role in this relationship. While the effects of paternalistic leadership on employee resourcefulness are readily available, paternalistic leadership's mechanisms need elucidation.

Previous studies have addressed issues, such as employees' job satisfaction and organizational commitment, covering Far East countries. Yet, the present research's findings enhance the cultural understanding of the conditions, where the paternalistic leader affects employee creativity. Moreover, leader affects must have managerial contributions to institutions.

This paper aims to assess the influence of nursing leadership style on error management culture (EMC).

This scoping review was conducted following the integrative review methodology of the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus, Web of Science, Embase and EBSCO databases were systematically searched to identify studies on nursing leadership, error management and measurement, and error management culture. The studies’ methodological quality was then assessed using the JBI Critical Appraisal Checklist for Analytical Cross-Sectional Studies.

Thirteen manuscripts were included for review. The analysis confirmed that nursing leadership plays an important role in EMC and nurses’ intention to report errors. Three emerging themes were identified: 1) leadership and EMC; 2) leadership and the intention to report errors; and 3) leadership and error rate.

A major limitation of the studies is that errors are often analyzed in a transversal way and associated with patient safety, and not as a single concept.

Healthcare managers should promote training dedicated to head nurses and their leadership style, for creating a good work environment in which nurses feel free and empowered to report errors, learn from them and prevent their reoccurrence in the future.

There is a positive relationship between nursing leadership and error management in terms of reduced errors and increased benefits. Positive nursing leadership leads to improvements in the caring quality.

Mentoring has been shown to positively affect student engagement, confidence, leadership, and skills. It is through the development of relationships, knowledge sharing, increased engagement, and a sense of belonging that mentors gain confidence and build leadership skills. However, little is known about the types of leadership, practices, and behaviors that mentors develop when undertaking the mentorship role. The purpose of this study is to examine the development of exemplary leadership practices that the mentoring role nurtures in undergraduate female student mentors. In particular, this study adopted the Kouzes and Posner (2002) transformational and servant leadership practices model to collect data from undergraduate female mentors (n = 94) and mentees (n =142). Results demonstrated significant correlations among all Student Leadership Practices Inventory Scale (S-LPI) subscales – Inspite a shared vision, Model the way, Challenge the process, Enable others to act, and Encourage the heart – and provided evidence for the association of the mentoring role with the development of transformational and servant practices. However, among the five transformational leadership practices, Inspire a shared vision was not correlated with the mentoring role. Based on the findings of this study, it is recommended that curriculum developers of undergraduate programs create curricula containing an array of peer teaching/mentoring experiences based on clear roles and job descriptions for mentors. Further research is recommended to explore the impact of mentoring programs with a wider sample of students from diverse backgrounds.

The Afghan construction industry faces resource shortages and heavily relies on foreign aid to fund public projects on the path to recovery and reconstruction. While the resource constraints demand cost-efficient delivery of construction projects, many Afghan public projects experience delays and cost overruns. This study aims to evaluate various attributes and factors influencing cost performance in public construction projects in Afghanistan.

The literature review and Delphi method identified 30 cost performance attributes relevant to the context of Afghanistan. Next, a questionnaire survey was conducted with construction management professionals working in the public sector in the Afghan construction industry to evaluate these attributes.

This study found that the lack of resources, poor project management skills and corruption in procurement are the leading causes behind cost overruns in Afghan public projects. This study also identified five latent factors influencing cost performance in public projects in Afghanistan: competency of the project team, socioeconomic and political support, governance and public procurement, planning and risk management and project characteristics.

The exploratory factor analysis did not reveal the relative significance of different cost performance success factors. Moreover, the ranking of cost performance attributes is based on the responses from the public sector construction professionals only.

The construction industry in Afghanistan significantly contributes to the country’s social and economic growth and employment. This study’s findings will help researchers, project sponsors, government departments and industry practitioners interested in improving the cost performance in Afghan public projects.

Given the scarcity of research in war-affected and conflict-sensitive regions, this study fills a research gap on project cost performance by providing insights into the cost performance success factors in public projects in Afghanistan.

The main goal of the article is to determine the mediating role of human resources management (HRM) outcomes in the relationships between shaping employee work engagement and job satisfaction (SEWE&JS) and company performance results and to establish whether there are any identifiable regularities in this scope in the pre-pandemic and pandemic period in the headquarters (HQs) and foreign subsidiaries of multinational companies (MNCs).

The empirical research included 200 MNCs headquartered in Central Europe. The raw data in the variables were adjusted with the efficiency index (EI) to capture the actual relations between the variables under study. The partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to verify the research hypotheses and assess the mediating effects.

The research findings show that the HRM outcomes positively mediate the relationships between SEWE&JS and the company performance results. HRM outcomes turned out to be a stronger mediator between SEWE&JS and company performance results in finance and quality in the HQs during the pandemic. By contrast, in the local subsidiaries, they were a stronger mediator of the relationships between the results in innovativeness and quality during the pandemic.

In addition to confirming the results of some other researchers, the research findings also provide new knowledge. They determine the mediating role of HRM outcomes in the relationship between SEWE&JS and the three categories of company performance results, namely finance, innovativeness and quality. In addition, they identify certain regularities in the four studied contexts, which is a novelty in this type of research. A novelty is also the use of employee key performance indicators (KPIs) in the data analysis as the efficiency index in analyzing the effect of the variables under study. The value of the research is also the fact that it covers HRM in MNCs established in Central Europe, which, compared to MNCs from the Western world, is not a frequent subject of research.

Like a well-designed procurement strategy, a well-designed rolling stock strategy promotes the development of a railroad company and contributes to its competitive advantage. Effective implementation of the rolling stock strategy enhances the likelihood of enjoying the benefits of the strategy’s design. A successful implementation relies on the strategy being known, understood, controlled and communicated to the entire organization.

The research consists of an extensive literature review as well as a series of workshops with rolling stock suppliers, railway authorities and representatives and rail users.

This paper presents a collection of solutions for passenger rail rolling stock procurement. The authors offer guidance to the strategic procurement of rolling stock in the European Union (EU) and propose key performance indicators to measure the effectiveness of a rolling stock strategy.

While this study presents a thorough evaluation of rolling stock procurement practices, it is limited by its geographic isolation. Future studies should compare the procurement practices discussed here to others in the EU, as well as in North America, South America and Asia. Additionally, this study focused on the passenger rail segment. Passenger transport is an important function of the rail network in the EU, but future research should expand the assessment of rolling stock procurement strategies to freight rail as well.

Overall, this work provides visibility into common rolling stock procurement practices in complex EU railway markets. This work expands the literature through a review of these practices and through enabling research into best practices or a commonly accepted procurement model.

This paper (Part 2 of 2) aims to expand the previously developed performance assessment model (PAM) into a decision support system (DSS) to produce optimized decisions on rehabilitation of facilities.

The research includes a comprehensive PAM that integrates analytical hierarchy process-multi attribute utility theory methods for the physical, operational, and environmental aspects of the mosque, as described in Part 1 of the study. An optimized intervention tool is added to the PAM to complete the DSS development. The tool determines the optimum maintenance decisions that are in line with the budget and condition criticality. The deterioration measures are created using a deterministic straight-line extrapolation technique, and the intervention actions used in the optimization are specified through literature review and in-depth interviews with 11 experts. The optimization model was simplified into a user-friendly visual basic application and applied to an existing facility case study depicting its useful functionality.

The optimization model recommendation of interventions recovered the overall condition rating index (CRI) of the facility while maintaining budget constraints. The CRI in the first approach (minimum budget to achieve acceptable overall performance) was improved from 6.5 to 7.76, costing 275,850 SAR. While the second approach (Maximum recovery with a selected budget constraint, 300,000 SAR in this case) CRI was improved from 6.5 to 8.3, costing 299,850 SAR.

The presented DSS in this paper offers a tool that enables the rehabilitation and overall management of any facility by its managers. The DSS can also be further customized to fit the facility manager’s specific strategies and achieve desired objectives.