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The main purpose of the study was to synthesise the role of COVID-19 social media messages and indigenous religious beliefs on public health promotion initiatives among rural consumers in Zimbabwe.

A qualitative approach was adopted. Population consisting of 15 interviews and six focus groups was purposively sampled from Manicaland, Mashonaland Central and Masvingo provinces in Zimbabwe. A thematic approach was used to present and analyse the data.

Rural consumers believed WhatsApp messages posted by people whom they know or influential personnel like health workers. Credibility of WhatsApp messages was enhanced through its ability to send videos and audios. Teachings and indoctrination by indigenous churches and misinformation were found to be an impediment in believing COVID-19 WhatsApp messages and vaccination by rural consumers. Faith healers in indigenous churches used various practices and artefacts like holy water, stone pebbles, clay pots, flags and wooden rods to pray and treat patients suffering from COVID-19 and other ailments.

Social media messages, religious teachings and indoctrination may be a hindrance to rural consumers in adopting government public health promotion initiatives; hence, public health professionals need prior emic understanding and co-option of local leadership in vaccination campaigns.

This study outstretches the theoretical landscape in consumer behaviour and also practical contribution to health practitioners and marketers on breaking indigenous religious barriers and social media misconceptions on vaccination uptake through promotional strategies earmarked for rural consumers.

Burdened by undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies and overweight and obesity as a consequence of both internal conflict and the global nutrition transition, Iraq is in need of adequate public health nutrition education to mitigate nutrition-related outcomes and risks. To address nutrition-related health outcomes, trained nutrition professionals are warranted. This paper examines current nutrition-affiliated programs offered across post-secondary institutions in Iraq.

An electronic review of universities and colleges’ websites, department webpages and academic programs’ homepages and resources of all the private and public universities in Iraq was conducted to find programs related to nutrition, nutrition sciences and dietetics.

All identified programs belonged to the governmental sector, were administered and financed by the Iraqi Government and were under the purview of the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education. The review highlighted a predominant focus on food sciences in agricultural departments rather than public health or clinical nutrition. Advanced education in topics such as human metabolism, medical nutrition therapy and public health nutrition are required to adequately address over- and undernutrition in Iraq.

The current state of public health and nutrition-related postsecondary education in Iraq warrants an increased emphasis on clinical and public health nutrition education. Despite a commendable focus on food science studies, the country’s ongoing challenges with obesity, nutrition-related noncommunicable diseases and conflict-associated food insecurity signal an urgent need for balancing this focus with grounding in postsecondary training in public health nutrition.

Although governments have used social media platforms to interact with the public in an attempt to minimize anxiety and provide a forum for public discussion during the pandemic, governments require sufficient crisis communication skills to engage citizens in taking appropriate action effectively. This study aims to examine how the National Health Commission of China (NHCC) has used TikTok, the leading short video–based platform, to facilitate public engagement during COVID-19.

Building upon dual process theories, this study integrates the activation of information exposure, prosocial interaction theory and social sharing of emotion theory to explore how public engagement is related to message sensation value (MSV), media character, content theme and emotional valence. A total of 354 TikTok videos posted by NHCC were collected during the pandemic to explore the determinants of public engagement in crises.

The findings demonstrate that MSV negatively predicts public engagement with government TikTok, but that instructional information increases engagement. The presence of celebrities and health-care professionals negatively affects public engagement with government TikTok accounts. In addition, emotional valence serves a moderating role between MSV, media characters and public engagement.

Government agencies must be fully aware of the different combinations of MSV and emotion use in the video title when releasing crisis-related videos. Government agencies can also leverage media characters – health professionals in particular – to enhance public engagement. Government agencies are encouraged to solicit public demand for the specific content of instructing information through data mining techniques.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the challenges, interplay and potential directions for future service research to address the first three Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of no poverty, zero hunger and good health and well-being.

This commentary examines how service research has addressed these SDGs in the literature, and through the development of a theory of change, the authors propose an agenda for service research going beyond serving, to enabling and transforming service systems, expanding the current focus on individual to community and population well-being through promotion and prevention.

Service research has increasingly advocated human-centered approaches but requires a shift towards an all of humanity perspective. Individual and collective well-being have gained attention in service research, emphasizing the importance of considering collective well-being.

The commentary underscores the need for a comprehensive approach to develop services that contribute to the well-being of the human species. It calls for research that transcends dyadic interactions, considers systemic dynamics and broadens the focus from individual to collective and population well-being.

This paper discusses important societal issues of poverty, hunger and good health and well-being and the need for integrated and ecosystem approaches to develop equitable and sustainable solutions for collective well-being.

While SDGs 1, 2 and 3 address individual goals, they collectively underpin the well-being of communities and societies.

This study investigates the observed resurgence in religious beliefs seen across many societies during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the economic theory of religious clubs, the author models religious participation during the pandemic as a mechanism for alleviating the financial distress associated with the health distress from the pandemic.

Using data from the COVID-19 National Longitudinal Phone Survey (NLPS) in Nigeria, the author investigates the economic motivation for religious intensity during the COVID-19 pandemic. To address endogeneity concerns, the author exploits geographic variables of temperature and longitudes as sources of COVID-19 risk.

Overall, health distress stimulates religious intensity. Consistent with the economic theory of religious clubs, adverse health shocks stimulate financial distress, and the effect is stronger among religious participants. Similarly, people see God and not the government as a source of protection against COVID-19.

The study’s model sees religious organizations as public goods providers, especially when governments and markets are inefficient.

The study’s recommendations support an expanded role for religious networks in healthcare delivery and more public funding to attenuate the post-pandemic resurgence of social violence in economically distressed regions.

Despite the research interest in the COVID-19 pandemic, the long-term implications, many of which relate to social behavior adjustments that cause individuals to identify more closely with their social group, need greater understanding. Suppose religious intensity is linked to economic distress. In that case, this is a major source of worry for countries whose economies are subject to higher fluctuations and where the governments and markets are inefficiently organized. These regions may be more susceptible to a resurgence in religious fundamentalism associated with the economic shocks from the pandemic. Consequently, these regions would require more public funding to attenuate the potential for costly activities like organized violence, suicide attacks and terrorist activities in the aftermath of the pandemic.

Prompted by the observation of the increase in religious identity through religious intensity during the pandemic, the author contributes by developing theoretically-based hypotheses that are incentive-compatible to provide a rational justification for the observation. The author empirically validates the hypothesis by taking advantage of the COVID-19 National Survey in Nigeria by specifically using survey rounds 4 and 7 which have more comprehensive religious items included.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-11-2022-0719

Anti-racism has been practiced in various ways, with varying degrees of effectiveness. This chapter engages with the body of scholarship that focuses on approaches aimed at promoting anti-racist actions, policies and social change. It discusses some of the main anti-racism strategies that have been deployed across different countries and examines anti-racism practices in interpersonal, intergroup and community settings. These approaches encompass civil rights campaigns, legislative and policy interventions, affirmative action, diversity and inclusion training, prejudice reduction, intergroup contact, organisational development and holistic anti-racism approaches. Some anti-racism practices and policies, such as awareness campaigns, social marketing and diversity training, also extend to digital platforms, with social media and multimedia networks deployed to broaden the reach and impact of anti-racist endeavours. This chapter specifically engages with local anti-racism movements and draws principles for broader implementation of anti-racism policy and practice. It concludes with a brief discussion of the effectiveness of contemporary anti-racism approaches.

Identifying factors that impact workers’ health and performance is extremely important for companies and, in particular, for companies in the construction sector. Despite the evidence, knowledge about the relationship between commuting, health and worker performance is still limited. More specifically on the relationship with work engagement, studies focus on work-related aspects, neglecting individual and behavioral factors. This study aims to verify the relationship between the commuting patterns of workers, their health and their work engagement in a civil construction company located in São José dos Campos, Brazil.

A structured questionnaire was applied to 43 civil construction workers. The participants’ physical and mental health was evaluated using the 12-item short-form health survey. Employees’ work engagement was assessed through the UWES-17 scale. A descriptive statistical analysis was performed on the relationship between physical and mental health, engagement and commuting to work.

The result corroborated the literature showing that the use of active transport positively influenced the mental health of construction workers and negatively affected those who use individual motorized transport. People working from home had the lowest values for total engagement, vigor and dedication.

This study provides evidence and a prior understanding of this relationship, serving as a basis for decision-making processes in the area of transport that contribute to the health and better functioning of companies in the construction sector. This work also contributes to the state of the art on the relationship between commuting, health and worker engagement.

A quantitative study sought to better understand responsible leadership (RL) style in the private security sector. The authors analyzed RL’s mediating role in the relationship between rules climate (RC) and employees' perceived organizational support (POS).

The data were collected through an online questionnaire administered to full-time private guards in Ankara (Turkey). A mediation model was proposed, and research hypotheses were tested with structural equation modeling (SEM).

The results indicate a significant positive relationship between the company’s RC and managers' RL, and a positive significant relationship between managers' RL and employees' POS. RL mediates the relationship between company’s RC and employees' POS.

The theoretical framework draws on conservation of resources (COR) theory to consider RL an effective resource. The organization’s RC was a key factor the affecting leader’s responsible behaviors.

This study explores a thriving leadership style, gaining research attention across fields. To the authors' knowledge, no prior research has studied this leadership style in the security sector. The authors use COR to increase understanding of an important antecedent (company’s RC) and consequence (employees' POS) of RL, highlighting this emerging style’s mediating role.

Este artículo de enfoque cuantitativo favorece una mayor comprensión del liderazgo responsable (RL) en el sector de la seguridad privada. Analiza el papel mediador de este estilo de liderazgo en la relación entre un clima de regulación (RC) y la percepción de los trabajadores del apoyo organizacional (POS).

Los datos fueron recolectados a través de un cuestionario online que se administró a guardas de seguridad privados empleados a tiempo completo en la región de Ankara (Turquía). Se propone un modelo de mediación y se comprueban las hipótesis propuestas a través de ecuaciones estructurales con el software (SEM).

Los resultados obtenidos indican una relación positiva y significativa entre el RC y el liderazgo responsable de los superiores, así como una relación también positiva y significativa entre el RL y la POS de los empleados. Se encuentra que el RL media la relación entre el RC y el POS.

Bajo el marco teórico de la Teoría de Conservación de Recursos (COR) se considera que el RL es un recurso altamente efectivo para las organizaciones. El RC de la organización se perfila como un factor clave que afecta los comportamientos del líder responsable.

El diseño transversal del estudio (datos recogidos en un memento del tiempo) y el uso de una muestra de conveniencia son las principales limitaciones del trabajo.

Este estudio explora un estilo de liderazgo aún desconocido, pero con gran potencial, que está ganando fuerza en el ámbito de la investigación científica en los últimos años. Según nuestro conocimiento, se trata del primer estudio que explora este novedoso estilo de liderazgo en el sector de la seguridad privada. El empleo de la Teoría COR favorece la comprensión del RC como un antecedente de este estilo de liderazgo (RL), y también contribuye a comprender la POS de los empleados como clara consecuencia, destacando el papel mediador de este estilo de liderazgo emergente.

The ecosystem concept has attracted attention in information system research to explain business competition, innovation and many other emerging phenomena. Existing studies focus more on a single ecosystem type or a single ecosystem goal and pay little attention to the ecosystem’s evolution. The objective of the study is to investigate the factors that impact the evolution of the information ecosystem (IE) to gain a better understanding of strategic thinking.

The IE involves many actors, so the multi-case study approach is conducted with purposeful sampling to recruit all the significant ecosystem actors. The collected qualitative data are analyzed by coding data, exploring data relationships and structuring pattern steps; institutional theory is used as a theoretical framework.

The results demonstrate that industry practices, laws and regulations, new actors and the mimetic pressure of outsourcers drive the growth of the ecosystem. Strategy intention, cost pressure and normative pressure all contribute to the IE’s evolution.

The concept of ecosystems has attracted attention in information system research. The study investigates the factors contributing to the evolution of the IE from an institutional theory perspective. Our suggestion is that new players can find a niche in offering information technology (IT)/ information services (IS)-related solutions to survive in the ecosystem; however, they need to pay attention to the normative pressure.

Village health volunteers are community health volunteers in Thailand that have helped the government deliver public health services for many years, particularly during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Though labeled as “volunteers,” the village health volunteers are recruited, trained and supervised in a manner similar to how a government agency recruits, trains and supervises its street-level bureaucrats (SLBs). This study examines the two factors that affect how these street-level quasi-bureaucrats use their professional discretion: transformational leadership and public service motivation (PSM). Transformational leadership means a leadership style that develops, shares and sustains a vision to elevate SLBs to higher levels of performance, while PSM is defined as an SLB’s predisposition to make a difference by working in the public sector with a sense of calling. This study attempts to analyze the mediating role of psychological empowerment in the relationship between transformational leadership, PSM and professional discretion.

The paper uses a three-wave survey-based quantitative method to avoid common method biases. This method provides evidence gathered from 105 subdistrict health promotion hospitals and 798 village health volunteers (VHVs) in five provinces in Thailand.

PSM and transformational leadership influence the village health volunteers' use of professional discretion indirectly through the psychological empowerment mechanisms that make them feel positive toward their village health volunteer role and responsibility. The authors' findings suggest that the hospital directors' transformational leadership induces the village health volunteers' use of professional discretion by making them feel competent to do their work and feel fulfilled and valuable about their work. Similarly, the village health volunteers' PSM leads them to use professional discretion by making them feel fulfilled and valuable and by convincing them of the social and community impact of their work.

While existing research focuses on VHVs' role in alleviating capacity constraints on the health care system, this study revealed an equally important role played by hospital directors. These directors' transformational leadership was instrumental in enhancing VHVs' psychological empowerment – particularly their perceptions of the meaning of their work and their competence – that ultimately enabled them to use professional discretion in their work. This study also highlighted the importance of VHVs' PSM, which leads to their use of professional discretion via the meaning and impact dimensions of psychological empowerment. Based on this study, PSM should also be incorporated into the community health volunteers' recruitment criteria. Also, public health agencies should consider including transformational leadership in the hospital directors' training programs and their promotion criteria.

As VHVs' high-PSM level was found to enhance their professional discretion, the process of recruiting ordinary citizens to serve as community health volunteers should incorporate assessment of the candidates' PSM. Also, the Ministry of Public Health should design and assign tasks that citizen volunteers, particularly VHVs, consider meaningful and at which they feel competent.

Aside from technical training, directors of the subdistrict health promotion hospitals should regularly receive soft skill training (i.e. leadership training) and transformational leadership characteristics should be included in the government criteria for promotion.

While past research has examined the impact of other leadership styles on psychological empowerment, this study took a further step by examining the mediating effects of psychological empowerment on the relationship between transformational leadership and professional discretion among VHVs. The authors analyzed the mechanism linking PSM to the VHVs' professional discretion. In addition, by examining the relative importance of different dimensions of psychological empowerment, this study offers a nuanced understanding of the psychological processes by which transformational leadership and PSM shape the SLBs' use of professional discretion in their work.