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Solid, liquid and e-waste pose serious health hazards, environmental pollution and contribute to climate change. To address these issues of solid waste management (SWM), amidst many policy decisions, the Government of India roped in several institutions, including self-help groups (SHGs), into the Swachh Bharat Movement (Clean India Mission). This study aims to illustrate the significant contributions of SHG’s in tackling SWM, particularly the plastic waste menace in India, while fostering socio-economic values and sustainable development goals (SDGs).

Using a from-the-field approach, qualitative data were collected from 30 members of three SHGs to understand their significant contributions in mitigating plastic waste.

This research identifies three major themes: economic value creation, social value creation and SDGs via collection and reduction of plastic waste landfills. Furthermore, several related subthemes are identified.

This study offers pragmatic solutions to deal with plastic waste at personal, community, institutional and governmental levels. Moreover, it recommends engaging SHGs to promote sustainable waste management practices such as segregating wastes at source, regulating plastic bag usage, advocating behavioural change towards waste generation and protecting the environment.

The authors consider a proven case of SHG’s contribution to protect the environment and emphasize the need to involve more such groups in waste management practices.

Microfinance programs across the countries are designed on the self-help and peer pressure model, aim at microentrepreneurship development. Despite of significant studies on microfinance-supported microentrepreneurship (MSM), not a single literature examines it from the systems thinking. In addition to that, the extant literature did not look MSM from the behavioral perspectives. To address the above gaps, the present study aims to examine self-help group (SHG)-based microfinance programs from the systems approach using the Stimulus-Organism-Behavior-Consequence (SOBC) model.

Information gathered from 786 women SHG members from four states of India through a structured interview schedule. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) were conducted to process data. Additional statistical tests were performed to test the reliability and validity.

It was found that the “positive stimulus” (social intermediation, financial intermediation and business development services) positively impacted; and “negative stimulus” (intermediation accountability, and intermediation assumption) negatively impact, to “motive” (attitude, subjective norms, and perceived control) for micro-entrepreneurship in the SHG-based microfinance. Further, “motive” positively predicted “behavioral intention”; the “behavioral intention” positively determined “consequences” of micro-entrepreneurship. Intermediation as stimuli acted as “input”; the motive and behavioral intention acted as the “process”, and the consequence acted as the “output” in the SHG-based microentrepreneurship system.

To the best of the author's knowledge, this paper is the first one to examine the behavioral systems of microentrepreneurship programs through the Stimulus-Organism-Behavior-Consequence (SOBC) model.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-12-2022-0801

The purpose of this paper is to offer an accessible and interdisciplinary research strategy in organisational ethnography, called action ethnography, that acknowledges key concepts from action research and engaged and immersive ethnography. It aims to encourage methodological innovation and an impact turn in ethnographic practice.

A working definition of “action ethnography” is provided first. Then, to illustrate how an action ethnography can be designed by considering impact from the outset, the author draws on a study she is undertaking with a grassroots human rights monitoring group, based in England, and then discusses advantages and limitations to the approach.

The author suggests three main tenets to action ethnography that embrace synergies between action research and ethnography: researcher immersion, intervention leading to change and knowledge contributions that are useful to both practitioners and researchers.

This paper provides researchers who align with aspects of both action research and ethnography with an accessible research strategy to employ, and a better understanding of the interplay between the two approaches when justifying their research designs. It also offers an example of designing an action ethnography in practice.

Whereas “traditional” ethnography has emphasised a contribution to theoretical knowledge, less attention has been on a contribution to practice and to those who ethnographers engage with in the field. Action ethnography challenges researchers to consider the impact of their research from the outset during the research design, rather upon reflection after a study is completed.

This study explores whether targeted microcredit can effectively alleviate households’ multidimensional relative poverty (MdRP) in rural China in the new era following the poverty elimination campaign and discusses it from a gendered perspective.

This study applies a fixed-effects model, propensity score matching (PSM) and two-stage instrumental variable method to two-period panel data collected from 611 households in rural western China in 2018 and 2021 to explore the effects, mechanisms and heterogenous performance of targeted microcredit on households’ MdRP in the new era.

(i) Targeted microcredit can alleviate MdRP among rural households in the new era, mainly by reducing income and opportunity inequality. (ii) Targeted microcredit can promote women’s empowerment, mainly by enhancing their social participation, thereby helping alleviate households’ MdRP. The effect of the targeted microcredit on MdRP is more significant in medium-educated women households and non-left-behind women households. (iii) The MdRP alleviation effect is stronger in villages with a high degree of digitalization.

Learn from the experience of targeted microcredit. Accurately identify poor groups and integrate loan design into financial health and women empowerment. Particularly, pay attention to less-educated and left-behind women households and strengthen coordination between targeted microcredit and digital village strategies.

This study clarifies the effect of targeted microcredit on women’s empowerment and households’ MdRP alleviation in the new era. It also explores its various effects on households with different female characteristics and regional digitalization levels, providing ideas for optimizing microcredit.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) was mandated and institutionalised in India through the Companies Act (2013), a decade ago. It is critical to understand the priorities of the models used by the companies to effectuate their CSR policy. This paper aims to understand the skewing of interest towards Education and Health interventions. The paper then proposes a framework to cross-level and effectuate CSR programme implementation.

The qualitative study conducted in-depth interviews of the stakeholders from the CSR environment. The findings are used to derive a model to effectuate CSR in India.

The findings may be divided into two sub-themes – (a) observations from the field study and (b) integrated solution ecosystem (ISE) framework. The qualitative study and the insights form the first component. The proposed framework which can enhance the efficiency of CSR practices may be found in the second sub-theme.

Operationalisation of the proposed model, if adopted would require integrated efforts from multiple functional departments which could lead to an extended timeframe for implementation. This may eventually lead to a need to revise the model in the making. The research could also include perspectives from governmental stakeholders which is missing here.

The emerging model can present an opportunity for corporates and policymakers to revisit the CSR structure and frameworks. It can also be used to evaluate and audit the CSR practices of companies.

The ISE posits a bunch of actionable themes which can deliver an impactful transition from the existing approach to CSR to a more far reaching one. While the ground rules are revisited, the approach also allows a critical departure from a corporate-driven model of engagement with the community. The modifications or corrections in this model would also mean a more inclusive layering of developmental interventions. The diversity which could potentially be brought in to designing interventions can be another key impact.

This paper presents insights for some of the pivotal stakeholders of CSR in countries like India. It presents a possible model of effective and optimal utilisation of CSR spending.

The purpose of this paper is to explore teacher candidates’ response to young adult literature (prose and comics) featuring fat identified protagonists. The paper considers the textual and embodied resources readers use and reject when imagining and interpreting a character’s body. This paper explores how readers’ meaning making was influenced when reading prose versus comics. This paper adds to a corpus of scholarship about the relationships between young adult literature, comics, bodies and reader response theory.

At the time of the study, participants were enrolled in a teacher education program at a Midwestern University, meeting monthly for a voluntary book club dedicated to reading and discussing young adult literature. To examine readers’ responses to comics and prose featuring fat-identified protagonists, the author used descriptive qualitative methodologies to conduct a thematic analysis of meeting transcripts, written participant reflections and researcher memos. Analysis was grounded in theories of reader response, critical fat studies and multimodality.

Analyses indicated many readers reject textual clues indicating a character’s body size and weight were different from their own. Readers read their bodies into the stories, regarding them as self-help narratives instead of radical counternarratives. Some readers were not able to read against their assumptions of thinness (and whiteness) until prompted by the researcher and other participants.

Although many reader response scholars have demonstrated readers’ tendencies toward personal identification in the face of racial and class differences, there is less research regarding classroom practices around the entanglement of physical bodies, body image and texts. Analyzing reader’s responses to the constructions of fat bodies in prose versus comics may help English Language Arts (ELA) educators and students identify and deconstruct ideologies of thin-thinking and fatphobia. This study, which demonstrates thin readers’ tendencies to overidentify with protagonists, suggests ELA classrooms might encourage readers to engage in critical literacies that support them in reading both with and against their identities.

This study aims to evaluate and summarize the effectiveness of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and internet-based CBT (ICBT) interventions on relapse prevention and severity of symptoms among individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD). CBT is one of the most used and suggested interventions to manage MDD, whereas ICBT is a novel effective proposed approach.

The review was conducted following the preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta-analysis protocol. A comprehensive and extensive search was performed to identify and evaluate the relevant studies about the effectiveness of CBT and ICBT on relapse prevention and severity of symptoms among patients with MDD.

A total of eight research studies met the inclusion criteria and were included in this systematic review. RCT studies were conducted to assess and evaluate the effectiveness of CBT and ICBT on relapse prevention and severity of symptoms among patients with MDD. It has been found that CBT is a well-supported and evidently based effective psychotherapy for managing depressive symptoms and reducing the relapse and readmission rate among patients diagnosed with MDD. The ICBT demonstrated greater improvements in depressive symptoms during major depressive episodes among patients with MDDS. The ICBT program had good acceptability and satisfaction among participants in different countries.

Despite the significant findings from this systematic review, certain limitations should be acknowledged. First, it is important to note that all the studies included in this review were exclusively conducted in the English language, potentially limiting the generalizability of the findings to non-English speaking populations. Second, the number of research studies incorporated in this systematic review was relatively limited, which may have resulted in a narrower scope of analysis. Finally, a few studies within the selected research had small sample sizes, which could potentially impact the precision and reliability of the overall conclusions drawn from this review. The authors recommend that nurses working in psychiatric units should use CBT interventions with patients with MDD.

This paper, a review of the literature gives an overview of CBT and ICBT interventions to reduce the severity of depressive symptoms and prevent patients’ relapse and rehospitalization and shows that CBT interventions are effective on relapse prevention among patients with MDD. In addition, there is still no standardized protocol to apply the CBT intervention in the scope of reducing the severity of depressive symptoms and preventing depression relapse among patients with major depressive disorder. Further research is needed to confirm the findings of this review. Future research is also needed to find out the most effective form and contents of CBT and ICBT interventions for MDD.

CBT is a psychological intervention that has been recommended by the literature for the treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD). It is a widely recognized and accepted approach that combines cognitive and behavioral techniques to assist individuals overcome their depressive symptoms and improve their overall mental well-being. This would speculate that effectiveness associated with several aspects and combinations of different approaches in CBT interventions and the impact of different delivery models are essential for clinical practice and appropriate selection of the interventional combinations.

This systematic review focuses on the various studies that explore the effectiveness of face-to-face CBT and ICBT in reducing depressive symptoms among patients with major depressive disorder. These studies were conducted in different countries such as Iran, Australia, Pennsylvania and the USA.

The purpose of this study is to identify and synthesise the best evidence on health-care leaders’ and professionals’ experiences and perceptions of compassionate leadership.

A mixed-methods systematic review was conducted in accordance with the Joanna Briggs Institute methodology for mixed-methods systematic reviews using a convergent integrated approach. A systematic search was done in January 2023 in PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus, Medic and MedNar databases. The results were reported based on Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses. The data was analysed using thematic analysis.

Ten studies were included in the review (five qualitative and five quantitative). The thematic analysis identified seven analytical themes as follows: treating professionals as individuals with an empathetic and understanding approach; building a culture for open and safe communication; being there for professionals; giving all-encompassing support; showing the way as a leader and as a strong professional; building circumstances for efficient work and better well-being; and growing into a compassionate leader.

Compassionate leadership can possibly address human resource-related challenges, such as health-care professionals’ burnout, turnover and the lack of patient safety. It should be taken into consideration by health-care leaders, their education and health-care organisations when developing their effectiveness.

This review synthesised the knowledge of compassionate leadership in health care and its benefits by providing seven core elements of health-care leaders’ and professionals’ experiences and perceptions of compassionate leadership.

This paper explores the context within which experimental, pedagogically progressive schools were established in Australia during the first decades of the 20th century.

The paper presents a case study of the establishment of Rosbercon Girls’ Grammar School. It draws on educator accounts, archival documents and contemporary literature to provide a brief narrative of the events leading to the opening of the school; to sketch the family of educators who were pivotal in making it a reality; and to identify key aspects of the social and legislative context that made such an initiative possible.

Rosbercon was established at a time when a modest school could be established relatively easily by a small group of educators with a shared vision. The early 20th century was a moment of national optimism in Australia, where an appetite for new educational ideas created a climate in which innovative educators found fertile soil for their pedagogical experiments and adaptation of emerging ideas from around the world. Their efforts were facilitated by an emerging global network of personal interactions, professional learning, professional associations and educational literature.

This paper addresses the relative lack of scholarly examination of the origins of Rosbercon Girls’ Grammar School, an institution that previous authors have identified as Australia’s oldest experimental school. The case study also contributes to a broader appreciation of the trajectory of progressive education during the early 20th century.

This study aims to assess the alignment of South Korea’s government-certified social enterprises (GCSEs) with prevailing social enterprise (SE) models, notably the entrepreneurial nonprofit, social cooperative and social business models delineated in the “Emergence of Social Enterprises in Europe” (Defourny and Nyssens, 2012, 2017a, 2017b) and the “principle of interest” frameworks (Defourny et al., 2021). Thereby, it seeks to situate these enterprises within recognized frameworks and elucidate their hybrid identities.

Analyzing panel data from 2016 to 2020 for 259 GCSEs, this study uses tslearn for k-means clustering with dynamic time warping to assess their developmental trajectories and alignment with established SE models, which echoes the approach of Defourny et al. (2021). We probe the “fluid” identities of semi-public sector SEs, integrating Gordon’s (2013) notion that they tend to blend various SE traditions as opposed to existing in isolation.

Results indicate that GCSEs do align with prevalent SE frameworks. Furthermore, they represent a spectrum of SE models, suggesting the versatility of the public sector in fostering diverse types of SEs.

The concept of a semi-public sector SE model has been relatively uncharted, even though it holds significance for research on SE typologies and public sector entrepreneurship literature. This study bridges this gap by presenting empirical evidence of semi-public SEs and delineating the potential paths these enterprises might take as they amalgamate various SE traditions.