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Pressures from non-profit sport organizations’ (NPSOs) external environment influence governance structures and processes. Thus, this study explores the impact of external factors on NPSO board decision making.

Using a sample of six NPSO boards (two national, four provincial/territorial), data were collected via 36 observations, 18 interviews, and over 900 documents. A thematic analysis was conducted via NVivo 12.

Results identified two external factors impacting NPSO board decision making: the sport system structure and general environment conditions. External factors impacted NPSO board decision making in terms of duration, flow, interaction, and scrutiny.

Results demonstrate the need for NPSO boards to engage in boundary-spanning activities whereby external information sources from stakeholders are incorporated to make informed decisions. Practically, NPSO boards should harness virtual meetings to continue their operations while incorporating risk management analyses to assess threats and opportunities.

This study aims to evaluate the quality of a speech and language therapy (SLT) swallow service provided to adults with intellectual disability (ID) by exploring the process and outcome factors; to explore the process of what is done to and for the patient including identifying dysphagia, choking and pneumonia risk, typical interventions and management; examine clinical outcomes; and explore the relationship of outcomes with risk factors, satisfaction with the service and the impact of the service on the number of choking incidents and admissions to acute hospital with swallow concerns.

There were three specific work packages: (1) collecting and scrutinising patient data from the clinical record for adults with ID referred to the SLT swallow service over a six-month period. The researcher created aims, defined the limits to achieve the aims, designed a standardised data collection form, set out where data was in the clinical record, piloted, set limits for collection and trained reviewers; (2) gathering experience and satisfaction surveys from patients, caregivers and referrers over the six-month study period; and (3) monitoring choking adverse incident reports and hospital admission with swallow concerns for the whole ID population.

Choking and hospital admission were the main reasons for referral, and pneumonia risk significantly predicted dysphagia impairment. The research highlighted common dysphagia risk factors, interventions and recommendations for this population. The SLT swallow service is a quality service that is highly valued by patients, their caregivers and referrers. The service achieves significant clinical improvements, helps identify dysphagia and provides management to reduce associated risks.

This study found common dysphagia risk factors, interventions and recommendations; it also found that the therapy outcome measures/Royal College of Speech and Language Therapy online outcome tool was a meaningful outcome measure, and that pneumonia risk significantly predicted dysphagia impairment, all of which could inform the identified dysphagia research priorities for this population.

Naming usual care in treatment and recommendations could help ensure a fair service and could help form quality indicators. People with ID, their caregivers and staff generated valuable ideas for improvement, and further involvement work could create a logic model for the service. Other future work could explore the use of screening tools, increase multidisciplinary team working, improve access to instrumental assessments, raise awareness of swallowing and promote important oral health and medication reviews. By using this information to shape quality improvement work and policies, one can work toward addressing high health-related inequalities and preventable deaths associated with dysphagia in this vulnerable population.

It may be useful to raise awareness that adults with ID age earlier and that one should not exclude them from older people’s services because of an age threshold, often set higher than their life expectancy. This study highlighted a possible inequality of access issue for adults with ID who do not have direct care or day care staff. There is a need to increase access to awareness training so caregivers and general practitioners can recognise swallow difficulties and know how to make a referral for a swallow assessment.

Overall, the evaluation of the swallow service to adults with ID suggests that SLT have a quality service for adults with ID that is highly valued and provides significant clinical improvements. By building on these strengths, SLT could extend the reach, influence and impact of their services to help those adults with ID who have emerging swallow difficulties or who do not access the service.

This study examines the relationship between the innovation ecosystem and performance measurement models. Although the innovation ecosystem and measurement models are widely recognized, the existing literature lacks a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between the proposed themes. Furthermore, it does not reveal how studies can be grouped to propose a thematic typology of the relationship.

The authors present a systematic literature review conducted in the Web of Science and Scopus databases, from a textual corpus that aided the proposition of the typology that aims to provide answers regarding the addressed themes.

The results of this review are based on a total of sixty peer-reviewed articles from the innovation ecosystem literature and performance measurement models between 1995 and 2020. The results make several contributions to the literature. First, by integrating evidence from empirical studies, the authors identified a typology formed by three classes: (1) ecosystem agents (2) analytical focus and (3) structured measurement tools. Second, the authors verified the relationship between the themes and discovered the existence of gaps to be filled, with the proposition of three drivers. Third, the authors presented a comprehensive mapping of field studies with a descriptive analysis of the textual corpus.

The results of the research provide important implications for researchers, managers and policy makers. Furthermore, the authors suggest directions for future research, including the need to examine the performance of the entire innovation ecosystem, integrating the different agents that exist for performance measurement.

Manufacturing industries are facing dynamic challenges in today’s highly competitive world. In the recent past, integrating Industry 4.0 with the lean six sigma improvement methodologies has emerged as a popular approach for organizational excellence. The research aims to explore and analyze critical success factors of lean six sigma integrated Industry 4.0 (LSSI).

This research study explores and analyzes the critical success factors (CSFs) of LSSI. A three-phase study framework is employed. At first, the CSFs are identified through an extensive literature review and validated through experts’ feedback. Then, in the second phase, the initial list of CSFs is finalized using the fuzzy DELPHI technique. In the third phase, the cause-effect relationship among CFSs is established using the fuzzy DEMATEL technique.

A dyadic relationship among cause-and-effect category CSFs is established. Under the cause category, top management commitment toward integrating LSSI, systematic methodology for LSSI and organizational culture for adopting changes while adopting LSSI are found to be topmost CSFs. Also, under the effect category, organizational readiness toward LSSI and adaptability and agility are found to be the uppermost CSFs.

The study offers a framework to understand the significant CSFs for LSSI implementation. Insights from the study will help industry managers and practitioners to implement LSSI and achieve organizational excellence.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, CSFs of LSSI are not much explored in the past by researchers. Findings will be of great value for professionals in developing long-term operations strategies.

Throughout human history, the occurrence of disasters has been inevitable, leading to significant human, financial and emotional consequences. Therefore, it is crucial to establish a well-designed plan to efficiently manage such situations when disaster strikes. The purpose of this study is to develop a comprehensive program that encompasses multiple aspects of postdisaster relief.

A multiobjective model has been developed for postdisaster relief, with the aim of minimizing social dissatisfaction, economic costs and environmental damage. The model has been solved using exact methods for different scenarios. The objective is to achieve the most optimal outcomes in the context of postdisaster relief operations.

A real case study of an earthquake in Haiti has been conducted. The acquired results and subsequent management analysis have effectively assessed the logic of the model. As a result, the model’s performance has been validated and deemed reliable based on the findings and insights obtained.

Ultimately, the model provides the optimal quantities of each product to be shipped and determines the appropriate mode of transportation. Additionally, the application of the epsilon constraint method results in a set of Pareto optimal solutions. Through a comprehensive examination of the presented solutions, valuable insights and analyses can be obtained, contributing to a better understanding of the model’s effectiveness.

This study analyzes the static and dynamic risk spillover between US/Chinese stock markets, cryptocurrencies and gold using daily data from August 24, 2018, to January 29, 2021. This study provides practical policy implications for investors and portfolio managers.

The authors use the Diebold and Yilmaz (2012) spillover indices based on the forecast error variance decomposition from vector autoregression framework. This approach allows the authors to examine both return and volatility spillover before and after the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. First, the authors used a static analysis to calculate the return and volatility spillover indices. Second, the authors make a dynamic analysis based on the 30-day moving window spillover index estimation.

Generally, results show evidence of significant spillovers between markets, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, cryptocurrencies and gold markets are net receivers of risk. This study provides also practical policy implications for investors and portfolio managers. The reached findings suggest that the mix of Bitcoin (or Ethereum), gold and equities could offer diversification opportunities for US and Chinese investors. Gold, Bitcoin and Ethereum can be considered as safe havens or as hedging instruments during the COVID-19 crisis. In contrast, Stablecoins (Tether and TrueUSD) do not offer hedging opportunities for US and Chinese investors.

The paper's empirical contribution lies in examining both return and volatility spillover between the US and Chinese stock market indices, gold and cryptocurrencies before and after the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. This contribution goes a long way in helping investors to identify optimal diversification and hedging strategies during a crisis.

Cloud computing promises dependable services offered through next-generation data centres based on virtualization technologies for computation, network and storage. Big Data Applications have been made viable by cloud computing technologies due to the tremendous expansion of data. Disaster management is one of the areas where big data applications are rapidly being deployed. This study looks at how big data is being used in conjunction with cloud computing to increase disaster risk reduction (DRR). This paper aims to explore and review the existing framework for big data used in disaster management and to provide an insightful view of how cloud-based big data platform toward DRR is applied.

A systematic mapping study is conducted to answer four research questions with papers related to Big Data Analytics, cloud computing and disaster management ranging from the year 2013 to 2019. A total of 26 papers were finalised after going through five steps of systematic mapping.

Findings are based on each research question.

A specific study on big data platforms on the application of disaster management, in general is still limited. The lack of study in this field is opened for further research sources.

In terms of technology, research in DRR leverage on existing big data platform is still lacking. In terms of data, many disaster data are available, but scientists still struggle to learn and listen to the data and take more proactive disaster preparedness.

This study shows that a very famous platform selected by researchers is central processing unit based processing, namely, Apache Hadoop. Apache Spark which uses memory processing requires a big capacity of memory, therefore this is less preferred in the world of research.

This study aims to analyze the business process management (BPM) applicability to a destination country-brand of a Latin American developing country and present a new process model for it.

This is a qualitative exploratory study whose unit of analysis is the BPM applicability to the destination country-brand of a Latin American developing country. Primary data were obtained through in-depth interview with the developing country's tourism international promotion agency. The secondary data were government reports and research papers on country-brand studies. Data analysis was carried out using stakeholder business context model, architecture processes, pain/gain matrix and BPMN for modelling.

The results present a new process model for country-brand management to reduce existing barriers. Three steps were carried out: analysis and modelling of the current processes of country-brand management; presentation of the current processes' problems and analysis and modelling of future processes country-brand management.

A theoretical contribution is provided in the literature on processes and country-brands since no previous studies relate these concepts and present a process-oriented management analysis for country-brands.

The main practical contribution was to identify the country-brand management problems, propose solutions to them and generate a new process model for country-brands that can be used as a managerial tool for national tourism organizations to improve their brands.

The present study is original as it approaches the first analysis of country-brand development with an emphasis on its process management.