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Recent research suggests that more than two-thirds of people use online reviews to find a new primary care physician (PCP). However, it is unclear what role review content plays when a patient uses online reviews to decide about a new PCP. This paper aims to understand how a review's content, related to competence (communication and technical skills) and benevolence (fidelity and fairness), impacts patients’ trusting intentions to select a PCP. The authors build the model around information diagnosticity, construal level theory and valence asymmetries and use review helpfulness as a mediator and review valence as a moderator in this process.

The authors use two experimental studies to test their hypotheses and collect data through prolific.

The authors find that people have a harder time making inferences about the technical and communication skills of a PCP. Reviews about fidelity are perceived as more helpful and influential in building trust than reviews about fairness. Overall, reviews about the communication skills of a PCP have stronger effects on trusting intentions than other types of reviews. The authors also find that positive reviews are perceived as more helpful for the readers than negative reviews, but negative reviews have a stronger impact on patients' trust intentions than positive ones.

The authors identify how online reviews about a PCP’s competency and benevolence affect patients’ trusting intentions to choose the PCP. The implication of findings of this study for primary medical practice and physician review websites is discussed.

The purpose of this paper can be encapsulated in the following points: identify the research papers published on the topic: competencies and skills necessary for critical infrastructure (CI) cyber-security (CS) protection; determine main focus areas within the identified literature and evaluate the dependency or lack thereof between them: make recommendations for future research.

This study is based on a systematic literature review conducted to identify scientific papers discussing and evaluating competencies, skills and essential attributes needed by the CI workforce for CS and preparedness to attacks and incidents.

After a comparative analysis of the articles reviewed in this study, a variety of skills and competencies was found to be necessary for CS assurance in CIs. These skills have been grouped into four categories, namely, technical, managerial, implementation and soft skills. Nonetheless, there is still a lack of agreement on which skills are the most critical and further research should be conducted on the relation between specific soft skills and CS assurance.

Investigation of which skills are required by industry for specific CS roles, by conducting interviews and sending questionnaire\surveys, would allow consolidating whether literature and industry requirements are equivalent.

Findings from this literature review suggest that more effort should be taken to conciliate current CS curricula in academia with the skills and competencies required for CS roles in the industry.

This study provides a previously lacking current mapping and review of literature discussing skills and competencies evidenced as critical for CS assurance for CI. The findings of this research are useful for the development of comprehensive solutions for CS awareness and training.

During the 1990s the value to an intending professional accountant of undertaking a period of liberal (general) studies was promoted internationally by a number of individuals and organisations, including the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) and the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants (the “Institute”). The Institute significantly changed its admissions policy for Chartered Accountants in 1996 and one change was to require four years of degree level study with a compulsory liberal studies component. This study surveys the perceptions of New Zealand accounting practitioners on the impact of this compulsory liberal component. The results of this study demonstrate that there is little support from accounting practitioners for IFAC’s claim that liberal education “can contribute significantly to the acquisition of professional skills”, including intellectual, personal and communication skills. In addition, the majority of respondents did not perceive any improvements in the professional skills of the staff that had qualified under the Institute’s current admissions policy. However, any perceived improvements were mainly attributed to the Institute’s admissions policy change. Notwithstanding the lack of support for the assertion that liberal education develops professional skills, there is a strong belief by respondents in the value of liberal education for intending professional accountants.

Research on purchasing managers and their skills requirements supports the training and education of purchasing professionals. This paper offers an in-depth analytical review of the purchasing skills reported in the supply chain management (SCM) literature. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the most important skills and factors that influence these skills.

This paper employs a systematic literature review methodology. Two databases, Scopus and Web of Science, are searched for relevant articles. The selected journal articles are used as sources to obtain a view not only on the relevant purchasing and supply management (P/SM) skills, but also on factors that emphasize certain P/SM skills. This paper also summarizes the ten skills ranked as most important (often described as the “top ten”) among the sample articles.

The paper highlights the essential skills for purchasing professionals, verified both by their frequent appearances in rankings and by citation frequency in the literature. Generic managerial skills, such as communication, cost analysis, teamwork, problem-solving, negotiation, influencing, and persuasion, as well as information technology skills, received the most attention in the literature and rankings of the “top ten” P/SM skills. This paper provides a refined categorization of purchasing skills, which have merged recently with other discussed skills, such as political and entrepreneurial ones, into this categorization. This paper identifies factors that affect purchasing managers’ skills requirements.

This paper presents a structured overview of 57 peer-reviewed articles from high-quality journals about purchasing skills. The review contributes to the purchasing skills literature by showing the most relevant skills and the factors that influence skills requirements. These factors also provide arenas for further research related to purchasing skills.

The aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive literature review on information and communication skills (ICT) of library and information science (LIS) students in worldwide LIS education and compare them with those skills needed by the job market in Kuwait.

Published literature – articles that may describe the LIS education situation in Kuwait – on the subject were reviewed and compared. In addition, content analysis of relevant web sites, reports, and LIS syllabus were used to provide further documentation and interpretation. The paper reviews ICT skills from the published research perspective; curricula review; professional association guidelines; employers' ICT skills needs; barriers and challenges of ICT adaption; and the ICT situation in Kuwait.

ICT skills have been recognised as essential qualities for LIS graduates’ employment. Various authors have stressed this in different publications. Few reviews on ICT skills were conducted, especially in developing countries such as Kuwait. A more comprehensive literature review on the importance of ICT skills and the job market needs is attempted.

This review will help professionals in reviewing/adding to their curriculum and collaborating with employers to know their ICT skills needs. It will help employers and stakeholders to understand the ICT skills needed for LIS employability. It will also help students and graduates to improve their ICT skills to meet the needs of the job market.

The paper was built upon previous articles, reviews of literature, and has identified certain gaps that have set the ground for further research in ICT skills, curriculum review, and employers’ skills needs.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and evaluate a credit-bearing taught module in literature review skills (broadly conceived, to include literature search, avoidance of plagiarism, analysis, synthesis, writing literature reviews, formulation of research proposals). The module provides training in skills with high transferability to employment, other areas of education and research.

The structure of the module is informed by considerations from learning theory and instructional design. Training is by participation in tasks in an active learning framework (“learning-by-doing”). Students work both individually and in small work-groups, on tasks based on specially prepared reading sets. Tutorial presentations are followed by verbal and video feedback. Dedicated English language support is provided. The module is evaluated by analysing responses to an open-ended questionnaire.

Students respond very favourably to the module and are aware of the transferability of the skills they practice. However, there is no real evidence of the acquisition of meta-cognitive skills. There is demand for enhanced feedback, particularly verbal feedback.

The results of the evaluation and the instructional design of the module suggest many areas for experiments in pedagogy.

There is no other published account of extensive training in literature review skills that we have been able to find. The paper addresses a gap in both the provision of training and its dissemination.

The benefits of trade liberalization on upskilling and skill-based wage premiums for high-skilled workers have recently been questioned in policy circles, in part because of rising income inequality and populist movements in developed economies such as the USA. The purpose of this paper is to determine the effects of trade liberalization on the relative supply and demand for skills.

Through the systematic review of the literature on trade and skill acquisition, this paper isolates a total of 25 articles published over the past two decades.

Key findings demonstrate the importance of the relative development of the trading partner, with more developed countries experiencing higher upskilling, while less developed countries experience deskilling. Technology, geographic level of analysis, sector and gender were also found to be important influences on human capital acquisition associated with international trade.

Overall, the authors find support for the idea that trade with developing countries places pressure on low-skill jobs in developed countries but increases the demand for educated workers. The implications of shifts in skills for public policy-making and in terms of the skill premium on wages are discussed.

Due to rapid changes in the future labor market, transferable skills are recognized as a vital learning outcome for students in undergraduate higher education. However, ambiguities surrounding the concept and content of transferable skills hamper the actual teaching and learning of transferable skills. Consequently, there is a great need for an overview of the literature on transferable skills to qualify and develop the approaches to transferrable skills in higher education. This study aims to outline a typology of how transferable skills are conceptualized in health sciences education, that is, medicine, nursing and related health professionals’ education.

The study was a mixed studies literature review, which included quantitative, qualitative and mixed-methods studies. A seven-stage sequential exploratory synthesis of the included studies was conducted.

This review showed that transferable skills reflected three main conceptualizations: Program Requirements, Employability and Holistic Development. Overall, the global methodological quality of the empirical studies of interventions to further transferable skills development in health science education was weak.

This study aids clear conceptualization in future empirical studies.

By distinguishing between three main conceptualizations of transferable skills, this study's typology supports alignment in transferable skills curricula because conceptually sound learning objectives provide teachers and students in health sciences education with a clear purpose and direct educators' choice of relevant teaching and assessment strategies.

This review – the first of its kind – contributes to conceptualization of transferable skills as the basis for curriculum development and research.

Skills audits represent an important vehicle for analysing and monitoring skills coverage across organisations and nations and identifying skills gaps and mismatches that exist. In so doing, they provide valuable data on the competitive positioning of organisations and nations and help determine priorities for investment. The purpose of this paper is to examine the use and prevalence of skills audits to improve individual, organisational and societal outcomes.

Following the guidance of Torraco (2016), this paper takes the form of an integrative literature review. The authors conducted a series of keyword searches using databases such as Google Scholar, ABI Inform, Science Direct and Emerald. Title word searches used the terms: “skills audit”, “skills analysis”, “skills inventory”, “skills mapping” and the authors reviewed articles that were published between the period: 1990 to 2020.

Skills audits remain a useful tool to assess skill attainment and progression on university and college programmes, giving individuals a better understanding of their particular strengths and allowing them to develop realistic career plans and goals. From an organisational perspective, skill audits add value where they are strategically linked to job design, recruitment and training initiatives. They are also useful in helping organisations identify skill shortages, particularly if they relate skills outages to future growth areas. Finally, skills audits can sustain career counselling, but need to remain flexible in categorising skills in relation to the gig economy and remote working.

The topic of skills audits remains an under-researched topic in the training and human resource development literature. To date, limited studies have been carried out examining their use and effectiveness. This paper sheds light on a topic worthy of exploration in the field.

As the role of the public sector manager adapts to the demands of increased organisational responsiveness and accountability, there is a need for appropriate development programmes. The preliminary phase of a research project is reviewed which focuses on the developmental needs of a particular group of managers – namely, auditors and management analysts – whose responsibilities are likely to impinge increasingly upon the area of programme and organisational evaluation.