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The purpose of this study is to explore the continuity and stability of the impact of accounting information quality on cash holdings, and the moderating effect of this relationship on state ownerships and local appointments.

Based on China's companies from 2011 to 2019, the authors divided cross-section and panel samples, adopted a linear and classification model and performed grouping regression.

The authors find that: first, the quality of corporate accounting information can significantly improve the level of cash holding, giving play to the strategic value effect of cash holding. But that boost is based on economies being able to solve agency problems. Second, the reduction of earnings management and the improvement of accounting information quality of NSOEs improve the level of cash holdings, while SOEs are on the contrary. Third, local appointments can play to the emotional strengths of their hometowns and play a synergistic role in this relationship, but the supervision effect of remote appointments is not obvious.

Through endogeneity and other tests, the conclusion is robust. Based on the agency and information asymmetry theory, the authors considered China's institutional and cultural factors, optimized accounting information's measurement and expanded the research boundary of the accounting field. The authors believe that applicable scenarios should be fully considered in the concluding relationship between accounting information quality and cash holdings. Enterprises should give full play to the advantages of cash holdings in strategic decision-making and financial efficiency, improve the quality of accounting information and also consider state ownerships and the differences in directors' emotions to reduce internal agency costs.

Outpatient care delivery is one of the key revenue sources of a hospital which plays a salient role in timely care delivery. The key purpose of the study is to propose a multi-objective simulation-based decision support model that considers the cost of care delivery and patient dissatisfaction as its two key conflicting objectives. Patient dissatisfaction considers service fairness. Patient idiosyncrasies such as no-show, unpunctuality and balking have been considered in the model involving multiple classes of patients.

A model has been designed using data collected from field investigations. In the first stage, queuing theory based discrete event simulation model has been developed. Genetic algorithm has been used to solve the scalarized problem and obtain actionable insights. In the second stage, non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II) has been involved to achieve the Pareto optimal fronts considering equal priority of the two objectives.

The computational results considering various parameter settings can help in efficient resource planning while ensuring better care delivery. The model proposed in the study provides structural insights on the business strategy of healthcare service providers on optimizing the dual goals of care delivery cost and service fairness.

The study is one of the early works that helps to improve the care delivery process by taking into consideration the environmental factors as well as service fairness. The study demonstrates the usage of simulation-based multi-objective optimization to provide a more sustainable patient centric care delivery.

The authors examine the influence of powerful political corporate appointments on the usage of firm bribery channels. Party Secretaries within Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) may simultaneously hold top management positions, thereby endowing powerful firm-level decision rights on those appointees, hereafter referred to as powerful dual role Party Secretaries.

This study employs panel data analysis with industry and year fixed effects. The authors use a sample of 1,143 Chinese SOEs listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges from 2004 to 2015.

The authors find that powerful dual role Party Secretaries are associated with greater bribery channel usage. Following the ongoing anticorruption campaign, SOEs with the powerful appointments significantly reduce their usage of both transparent (entertainment and travel costs) and opaque bribery (abnormal management expenses) channels. However, in general, Chinese SOEs respond to the anticorruption shock by switching from the more transparent to the opaquer bribery channel.

The authors contribute to the ongoing debate of politicians on corporate boards by examining the relatively unexplored area of government appointed top management and their influence on bribery at the firm level.

Efficient delivery of integrated healthcare requires solid alliances and collaboration with stakeholders on a regular basis. Due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), it has become necessary to explore new ways of delivering integrated healthcare, and virtual clinics have offered one solution and are likely to continue due to the uncertainty with COVID-19. This study aims to explore clinicians’ experiences of how efficient virtual elective knee clinics (VEKC) are in an orthopaedic setting in comparison to traditional face-to-face clinics.

The study utilised a mixed-methods study to obtain qualitative and quantitative data. This involved an anonymous online survey in addition to in-depth qualitative interviews conducted with a purposive sample of multidisciplinary colleagues who work with the VEKC in an acute hospital.

Three overarching themes and nine sub-themes emerged in the qualitative analysis. Overall, clinicians in both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the study highlighted several ways that virtual clinics are efficient from both the patient and health service perspective. However, participants also highlighted barriers in relation to virtual clinics not being suitable for certain cohorts of patients and pathologies.

This is the first study in Ireland to provide valuable insights into the experiences of multidisciplinary clinicians using VEKC and their efficiency compared to traditional face-to-face clinics.

This paper examines how “strategic” chief financial officers (CFOs) with an elite MBA (i.e. elite CFOs) influence (1) stock market reaction to CFO hiring announcements (ex ante measure) and (2) post-hiring firm performance (ex-post measure).

This paper utilizes a comprehensive, proprietary database with information about the educational qualifications and prior professional experience of 1,340 CFOs hired during the period 1994–2014. For each CFO, the authors hand-collected data on the CFO's prior experience as well as CFO's educational profile. The authors also identified the date of CFO hiring from financial press articles. To evaluate performance, the authors consider two different, yet complementary performance measures: (1) the stock market reaction, a priori measure and (2) a traditional measure of performance, which is a post-facto metric related to firm performance.

The results show that hiring CFOs with scarce and strategic human capital elicits a positive market response and leads to significant improvement in firm performance. Further, firms with greater managerial discretion benefit more from hiring elite CFOs. The results hold after controlling for chief executive officer (CEO), CFO, top managment team (TMT), and board characteristics.

This study shows converging and mutually consistent results about what specific types of CFO human capital create firm value and, more importantly, show that such value-creation is only in the case of small firms and high growth firms. The study also advances the stream of literature that contrasts the relative benefits of specialist versus generalist qualifications.

Higher education institutions have undergone a transformation over the past few decades, from loosely coupled systems to more centrally managed organizations. Central to this ongoing development is the increasing competition for resources and reputation, driving higher education institutions to rationalize their structures and practices. In our study, we focused on changes in job advertisements for professorships in Germany from 1990 to 2010. Findings showed that the requirements stipulated by universities for professorial positions have become increasingly differentiated (and measurable) over time. In this context, competitive aspects, such as third-party funding, international orientation, or publications, have particularly come to the fore and grown significantly in importance. We discuss these findings in light of an increasing managerialization of higher education institutions, which has a direct effect on collegiality. We argue that the differentiation of professorial job profiles leads to even more formalized appointment processes and may push collegial governance into the background.

This study aims to describe the experiences and barriers to care for women with autistic spectrum condition (ASC) under the care of the Brighton and Hove Specialist Perinatal Mental Health Service (BHSPMHS) and provide recommendations to improve the service.

Patients with an ASC diagnosis or suspected diagnosis and awaiting assessment under the care of BHSPMHS were offered to take part in the study. Five patients were interviewed to explore their experiences.

Participants had a mix of positive and negative experiences of services. Positives included the continuous support and allowing flexibility around appointments. Dialectical behavioural therapy groups running online instead of in-person was highlighted as a universal negative as well as delays in diagnosing ASC.

Those likely to meet the criteria for ASC but are awaiting formal diagnosis should be treated with appropriate adjustments to service provision as those who have received a diagnosis. Recommendations for service improvements include the provision of smaller, in-person therapy groups. Adjustments to treatments may include flexibility around appointment times and location.

There is little research into the experiences of people with ASC under the care of perinatal mental health teams. As specialist perinatal services expand, it is important to understand the experiences of women with ASC being cared for by these services, to ensure they are accessible and inclusive. The results of this study will be used to guide service development and act as a model for other services, with the intention of improving care for this patient group.

This preliminary study aims to examine the use of a co-designed immersive virtual reality intervention programme in improving access to health care for people with intellectual disability.

A co-production approach was used to design a virtual reality intervention in collaboration with people with intellectual disability, their families and carers. A mixed-method single sample pre-test-post-test design examined using a virtual reality intervention simulating health-care environments to improve access of attending health-care appointments. Qualitative feedback was used to understand participants’ experience and opinions of using the digital technology.

The study found that the intervention did help people access health-care appointment and reduced their fear. Improvements were also found in quality-of-life post intervention. Positive feedback was provided from participants on using digital technologies indicating the novelty of the approach and potential further applications.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study which has used virtual reality to support people with intellectual disability access health care.

This study examines how service feedback and physician popularity affect physician demand in the context of virtual healthcare environment. Based on the signaling theory, the critical factor of environment uncertainty (i.e. disease risk) and its impact on physician demand is also investigated. Further, the research on the endogeneity of online reviews in healthcare is also examined in the current study.

A secondary data econometric analysis using 3-wave data sets of 823 physicians obtained from two PRWs (Healthgrades and Vitals) was conducted. The analysis was run using the difference-in-difference method to consider physician and website-specific effects.

The study's findings indicate that physician popularity has a stronger positive effect on physician demand compared with service feedback. Improving popularity leads to a relative increase in the number of appointments, which in turn enhance physician demand. Further, the impact of physician popularity on physician demand is positively mitigated by the disease risk.

The authors' research contributes to a better understanding of the signaling transmission mechanism in the online healthcare environment. Further, the findings provide practical implications for key stakeholders into how an efficient feedback and popularity mechanism can be built to enhance physician service outcomes in order to maximize the financial efficiency of physicians.

This chapter examines how elected politicians exercise their role as leaders (managers) of public services by employing three concepts: accountability, trust and authenticity. Political leaders have an obligation to their electors and the public services that they lead. Lord German examines this dual accountability. He maintains that the mediation of political power and leadership through interaction with a permanent civil service offers a rich field for interdisciplinary research. He suggests that authenticity in the political sphere has two dimensions which may not align: political authenticity and organisational authenticity. Lord German argues that both of these offer potential for research and the reinterpretation of authenticity in the political arena.