Search results

This study aims to conduct a geographical analysis of the distribution and type of activities developed by social enterprises in rural and urban areas of Ireland.

The study analyses data of more than 4,000 social enterprises against a six-tier rural/urban typology, using descriptive statistics and non-parametric tests to test six hypotheses.

The study shows a geographical rural–urban pattern in the distribution of social enterprises in Ireland, with a positive association between the remoteness of an area and the ratio of social enterprises, and a lack of capital-city effect related to the density of social enterprises. The analysis also shows a statistically significant geographical rural–urban pattern for the types of activities developed by social enterprises. The authors observe a positive association between the remoteness of the areas and the presence of social enterprises operating in the community and local development sector whereas the association is not significant for social enterprises developing welfare services.

The paper shows the potential of using recently developed rural–urban typologies and tools such as geographical information systems for conducting geographical research on social enterprises. The findings also have implications for informing spatially sensitive policymaking on social enterprises.

The merging of a large national data set of social enterprises with geographical tools and data at subregional level contributes to the methodological advancement of the field of social enterprises, providing tools and frameworks for a nuanced and spatially sensitive analysis of these organisations.

Geographic periphery regions are the focus of sustainable regional development research, with ongoing discussions on core–periphery relationships to address economic disadvantage and remoteness. However, periphery regions face challenges due to the high efficiency of core regions. Tourism provides an alternative economic landscape, revitalizing stagnant sectors and driving strategic exploration. The Sino-Russian border, spanning 4,209 km, represents a periphery where tourism plays a vital role. This chapter views Sino-Russian cross-border tourism through the lens of the core–periphery model, suggests two conceptual models of developing experiential cores in the cross-border areas of geographic peripheries, and argues for peripheries' potential to become sustainable experiential cores post COVID-19.

In the field of heritage science, especially applied to buildings and artefacts made by organic hygroscopic materials, analyzing the microclimate has always been of extreme importance. In particular, in many cases, the knowledge of the outdoor/indoor microclimate may support the decision process in conservation and preservation matters of historic buildings. This knowledge is often gained by implementing long and time-consuming monitoring campaigns that allow collecting atmospheric and climatic data.

Sometimes the collected time series may be corrupted, incomplete and/or subjected to the sensors' errors because of the remoteness of the historic building location, the natural aging of the sensor or the lack of a continuous check of the data downloading process. For this reason, in this work, an innovative approach about reconstructing the indoor microclimate into heritage buildings, just knowing the outdoor one, is proposed. This methodology is based on using machine learning tools known as variational auto encoders (VAEs), that are able to reconstruct time series and/or to fill data gaps.

The proposed approach is implemented using data collected in Ringebu Stave Church, a Norwegian medieval wooden heritage building. Reconstructing a realistic time series, for the vast majority of the year period, of the natural internal climate of the Church has been successfully implemented.

The novelty of this work is discussed in the framework of the existing literature. The work explores the potentials of machine learning tools compared to traditional ones, providing a method that is able to reliably fill missing data in time series.

Due to the crisis originated by the COVID-19 pandemic, an important number of workers have been incorporating the telework modality. In this context, the distance from the workplace generates new dilemmas for work performance. In the paper the authors study the role of some individual and social antecedents on telework outcomes. In particular, they empirically investigate the direct relationship between trust (TR) and telework performance (PER) and explore mediators of that relationship such as social isolation (SI) and fatigue (FA).

A theoretical model with three main hypotheses is proposed and tested using partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The study sample, of an exploratory nature, consists of a dataset of 201 teleworkers working in Spanish companies.

The relevance of the proposed model is demonstrated and FA is found to be the factor that most affects (negatively) PER, followed by TR (positively) and SI (negatively). Beyond the direct effects, the results provide support for the role of SI and FA in mediating the relationship between TR and PER.

This paper discusses the PER dilemma and proposes and tests a background model that may be useful for future research. The results are of interest to human resource managers, consultants, academics and telework tool developers and managers. Practices are proposed to improve TR or to reduce feelings of SI or FA. The research provides a practical evaluation tool for telework implementation.

In Trinidad and Tobago, there is significant reliance on the traditional and centralized police service to engage in crime response and suppression in urban and rural areas. In this regard, policing scholarship has largely focused on the impact of policing within urban areas, producing a gap in knowledge on what policing rural spaces entails. Despite this, there is some understanding that policing rural spaces can engender diverse challenges and calls for variability in policing strategies. The current study examines the lived experiences of police officers stationed in rural communities in Trinidad and Tobago.

Using the descriptive phenomenological approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted with eleven police officers stationed in rural communities throughout the country.

Interviewees narrated the importance of community dynamics and community-specific needs in shaping their roles and functions when operating in and serving these communities. Three major themes were identified: (1) network activity in policing; (2) engagement in localistic and service-oriented approaches and (3) community-specific challenges.

The findings suggest that while there is an emphasis on traditional law enforcement responsibilities, in the rural context, police responsibilities and duties are constantly being redefined, reframed and broadened to meet the contextual community and geographic-specific diversities and demands.

The purpose of the paper is to present the results of research in the region covered by the Murska Sobota Police Directorate based on semi-structured interviews we conducted with community policing officers in the rural and urban areas of Pomurje.

Community policing is one of the more recent (yet hardly new) ways of ensuring security. It focuses on collaboration between citizens and the police, the joint identification of security issues and resolving them. Not long ago, it was established that policing varies depending on geographical criteria, specifically the urbanisation of the environment since police work in cities is often very narrowly specialised compared to in a rural environment. We were therefore interested in whether the Pomurje region also shows that it is easier to practise community policing in rural areas compared to cities.

The research results confirm previous findings; namely, that in urban areas approximately two-thirds of the population does not know the community policing officer, leading to the mutual cooperation between residents and the police being poorer than in rural areas. The conclusion describes ways of improving the established situation facing Pomurje.

We see the limitations of the study in the peculiarities of the Pomurje region; therefore the results cannot be generalised and applied in areas of other police directorates.

The survey offers insight into rural and urban policing in the Pomurje region at the same time, focusing on possibilities for improvements.

Rural regions in Canada are aging faster than urban centers, but access to health and social care is limited. Integrated health and social care (IHSC) through collaboration across different health and social care organizations can support enhanced care for older adults living in rural regions. However, IHSC is not well understood within a rural Canadian context.

A case study of a Canadian IHSC initiative, Geriatric Assessment Program Collaboratory (GAPC), in northern Alberta was undertaken to understand how successful IHSC can occur in an urban/rural region. The study used key informant interviews and a focus group of representatives from the GAPC organizations.

Nine factors were identified that support GAPC: communications, information sharing, shared vision and goals, inter-organizational culture, diffused leadership, team-based approaches, dedicated resources, role clarity, champions and pre-existing relationships. Eight external influence factors were identified as influencing partnership including geography, strong sense of community, inter-sectoral work, public policy, governance authorities and structures, funding models, aging communities and operating within a not-for-profit (NFP) setting.

The study reveals insights into how IHSC can occur within a rural Canadian context. This study demonstrates that IHSC occurs at the local level and that primary care providers can drive IHSC successfully.

A systematic investigation of postgraduate leadership programs for health and/or human services offered by Australian higher education institutions was undertaken.

Quantitative analysis identified the core characteristics of the programs. A thematic analysis of the course learning outcomes was conducted and six major themes of disciplinary leadership and management knowledge; research and analytical skills; professional practice; communication and collaboration; creativity and innovation; and system knowledge are shared in this study.

The authors conclude that Australian universities have taken an evidence-based approach to leadership education.

More work might need to be undertaken to ensure leadership theories are incorporated into learning outcomes.

This study investigated the role of community infrastructure planning in Sarawak, Malaysia, by concentrating on the obstacles that hinder effective governance of community infrastructure planning.

The qualitative approach via case study design was adopted in this study. The Song District, located in the State of Sarawak, Malaysia, was selected as the case study area. Semi-structured interview sessions were conducted with 21 respondents who belonged to the government agencies involved in rural community infrastructure planning and village community representatives to capture their views on community infrastructure development planning in the selected district. The gathered responses were analysed thematically and the outcomes are discussed.

The findings revealed that although the development of community infrastructure in Song District has progressed and has exerted transformative impacts on rural livelihood, several challenges were identified in the delivery of community infrastructure. The four main themes of challenges that emerged from the data were location factors, financial resources, cooperation and collaboration of stakeholders, as well as community involvement. The outcomes disclosed that, in terms of governance, the institutional roles of the community, stakeholders and government agencies must be integrated throughout the rural community infrastructure planning process to resolve the emerging challenges effectively so that the demands of the rural community are met meritoriously.

An effective and efficient community infrastructure planning approach ascertains that the community infrastructure development gaps in rural areas are bridged and brings fruition to the rural communities for their livelihood transformation.

This paper delineates a view on the governance aspect of community infrastructure planning in Sarawak, Malaysia, that is largely untapped. The study outcomes may facilitate practitioners and academics to move forward and recommend improvements in the approach to rural community infrastructure planning.

Virtual professional learning communities provide digital platforms for teachers across the globe to join learning networks and engage in continuous and unrestricted learning. This study aimed to explore the impact of contextual factors on establishing virtual professional learning communities in Maldivian schools.

This quantitative study used a sample of 420 Maldivian in-service teachers chosen using two-stage cluster sampling and a stratified random sampling method.

The findings revealed that all three contextual factors – micro-, meso- and macro-contextual – positively and significantly influenced the virtual professional learning communities.

These findings recommend an integrated framework with micro-, meso- and macro-contextual factors as valuable instruments for educational leaders striving to establish virtual Professional Learning Communities (PLCs).

This study is among the first to examine the association of contextual factors of schools with the establishment of virtual PLCs in a country such as the Maldives, with geographically dispersed islands and limited resources.