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Globally “non-urgent” health care services were ceased in response to the 2020 outbreak of COVID-19, until 2021, when restrictions were lifted. In the UK, this included speech and language therapy services. The implications of COVID-19 restrictions have not been explored. This study aimed to examine the impact of the UK’s COVID-19 response on speech and language therapy services.

An online survey of the practice of speech and language therapists (SLTs) in the UK was undertaken. This explored SLTs’ perceptions of the demand for their services at a time when COVID-19 restrictions had been lifted, compared with before the onset of the pandemic. The analysis was completed using descriptive statistics and content analysis.

Respondents were mostly employed by the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) or the private sector. Many participants reported that demands on their service had increased compared with before the onset of the pandemic. The need to address the backlog of cases arising from shutdowns was the main reason for this. Contributing factors included staffing issues and redeployment. Service users were consequently waiting longer for NHS therapy. Private therapy providers reported increased demand, which they directly attributed to these NHS challenges.

This presents the only focused account of the impact of the national response to COVID-19 on speech and language therapy services in the UK. It has been identified that services continue to face significant challenges, which indicate a two-tier system is emerging. Healthcare system leaders must work with service managers and clinicians to create solutions and prevent the system from being overwhelmed.

Prior research examining cultural effects on customer service expectations has primarily used more generic Western cultural theory on an aggregate scale or with only a single variable to draw conclusions on a customer’s underlying reasoning for buying a service. This study aims to focus on culturally distinct clusters within non-Western nations, specifically exploring within-cluster differences in service expectations within the Confucian Asia cluster.

This study developed a measurement model of Chinese cultural values and service expectations, consisting of a three and five-factor structure, respectively. Data from a sample of 351 diners were analysed using SmartPLS software. The data was compared with similar studies within the Confucian Asia cluster to understand the culture effect on service expectations and within-cluster variations.

The findings underscore the varying importance of cultural values in shaping customer service expectations, emphasizing their relative, rather than equal, significance. The study provides insights into potential within-group differences in customer service expectations within the same cultural cluster – without losing sight of the fundamental cultural heterogeneity of the Confucian culture.

Managers should leverage the distinct cultural values of their operating country to gain insights into diverse customer groups, predict their behaviours and meet their needs and expectations.

This study offers valuable insights to both service management scholars and practitioners by focusing on culturally distinct clusters of non-Western nations and exploring their effects on variation in service expectations within these clusters.

Concerns regarding the dysfunctional behaviours of public officials have sparked renewed interest in public service ethics and spirituality. While national and organizational systems have been established to eliminate dysfunctional behaviours such as corruption, sexual harassment and misuse of confidential information, the practice continues to have a demoralizing impact on developing countries. The study aims to intend to investigate the empirical relation between the application of spirituality and ethics in reducting dysfunctional behaviours within Ghana's Public Sector.

The study conducted a qualitative case analysis that utilized 28 semi-structured interviews and four focus groups. Interviews and group discussions with public sector staff, managers and policymakers were used to collect qualitative data. This approach facilitated an in-depth investigation into their views on dysfunctional actions and the possible impact of workplace spirituality and ethics in the Ghanaian public service.

The study uncovered a persistent recurrence of dysfunctional behaviours, such as fraudulent activities, resource misuse, unofficial work and inappropriate use of official time. There was uncertainty regarding the effectiveness of integrating ethics and spirituality to curtail dysfunctional behaviours. Nevertheless, the results supported adopting spiritual and ethical rejuvenation in the public service as a universal solution to overcome these behaviours.

This study enhances comprehension of dysfunctional behaviours in Ghana's public service by providing insights into how spirituality and ethics can transform it. The potentials of workplace spirituality and ethics can lead to a strong public service that embodies accountability, integrity and effectiveness, thereby serving as a pivotal device for Ghana's holistic advancement.

In the past few years, researchers across the world have been attracted to corporate governance (CG) and sustainability studies in the banking space. However, inconsistencies remain, which have created a lack of alignment in existing research. To address this problem, this paper aims to re-examines the CG–bank sustainability relationship using a qualitative design, which has been underused in the field, to generate in-depth, useful and novel analysis and insights that may hide behind the numbers.

A qualitative inquiry was conducted using key informants in Ghana’s banking industry. This study made use of purposive and snowball sampling techniques, an interview guide and the thematic approach to qualitative data analysis.

Firstly, this research finds that while larger boards do not promote bank sustainability, those who are independent and have diversified expertise and experiences do. Secondly, CEO duality can boost bank sustainability only if the CEO is actively engaged and performing. Thirdly, this study finds that foreign-owned and managed banks make more profits only if they have good knowledge of the local market.

This research makes the call that upcoming researchers should replicate this research in other banking settings worldwide to validate the results.

Practical lessons for local and foreign-owned banks and their shareholders are discussed to advance the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 8.

This research shares novel insights that offer clarity to the literature and move the CG and sustainability fields forward.

The purpose of this paper is examining how financial inclusion can be enhanced in rural and remote areas in emerging economies through the adoption of Financial technologies. The study examines the direct influence of technological characteristics, facilitating conditions, trust and perceived risk on adoption of FinTech. Furthermore, the study examines the mediating effects of facilitating conditions and moderating effects of education level in adoption of FinTech.

The study employed quantitative research design. Stratified and simple random sampling were employed to identify areas in which respondents will be collected. Drop and Pick method was further employed to collect 275 valid and reliable responses. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data and assess the reliability and validity of the measurement model. Structural model analysis was employed to examine the hypothesized relationship.

The results show that compatibility, complexity agent trust, perceived risk and facilitating have significant influence on adoption of FinTech. Furthermore, the findings show that facilitating conditions mediate the relationship between all technological characteristics and FinTech adoption except the relationship between compatibility and FinTech. The study also has found that education level moderates the relationship between observability and FinTech adoption as well as trialability and FinTech adoption.

This study employed cross-sectional research-based techniques in collecting data for analyzing the hypothesized relationship. However, the drawback of cross-sectional may impact the findings of this study over a long time. Therefore, future studies must consider conducting longitudinal studies which may collect data over some time for analysis of the FinTech adoption. Furthermore, the generalization of these findings should be considered carefully by other countries which are not economically similar to Tanzania and developed countries. This also provides room for future studies to examine the same area in countries with different economic development.

This study contributes to knowledge into two folds: First there is limited knowledge on adoption of FinTech in emerging economies; the study addresses the knowledge gap by providing empirical findings which will help scholar. Furthermore, less studies have examined the moderating effects of facilitating condition in adoption of technology. This study addresses the knowledge gap by examining the moderating influence of moderating influence of facilitating conditions. Also, this study provides empirical findings which will help policymakers to implement strategy that will speed-up financial inclusion in rural and isolated areas in emerging economies.

The very essence of internationalisation, which depends heavily on academic mobility and cross-border interactions, has been adversely affected due to the COVID-19 pandemic and has been associated with a significant decline in student and staff mobility in South Africa and around the world. Nonetheless, it has also catalysed innovation and inspired new approaches to teaching and learning that have the potential to transform the future of higher education. In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, higher education institutions are grappling with a fundamental question that goes beyond the practicalities of internationalisation: How can we re-envision the concept of internationalisation to meet the challenges of the new normal? This question calls for a deeper reflection on the nature of internationalisation itself. How can we ensure that cross-border interactions and exchanges continue to foster a sense of global community and intercultural understanding, even in a world that is physically distanced? This chapter seeks to explore the profound implications of the pandemic on the internationalisation of higher education (IHE) in South Africa. It aims to critically examine the present challenges to internationalisation and the strategies that have been developed to address them in the context of the post-pandemic world. The chapter employs a critical reflection approach through the use of qualitative research, systematic literature review, and document analysis. By utilising these methodologies, it seeks to delve deeper into the implications of the pandemic on the IHE in South Africa.

This paper aims to investigate the relationships amongst career patterns, neutrality of the state civil apparatus, and organizational performance of the local government in South Konawe District, Southeast Sulawesi Province in Indonesia.

Data were analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) to investigate the relationships between variables through direct and indirect influence testing.

The findings reveal that career patterns influence neutrality and organizational performance. Neutrality of the state civil apparatus in politics mediates career patterns and local government organizational performance. The findings indicate that, first, promotions most significantly influence the organization’s neutrality and performance. Second, demotions have the least influence on the organization’s robustness and performance.

This paper is among the first to examine the relationships amongst career patterns, neutrality, and organizational performance. Recommendations are provided to improve neutrality and organizational performance, that is, the need to increase promotions and reduce demotions.

This public-sourced case describes the latest restructuring efforts by Deutsche Bank (DB) and gives a short history of prior restructuring efforts from the decade before. In July 2019, Christian Sewing, the new CEO of DB, announced a series of measures that included, among others, the elimination of global equity trading, the layoff of 18,000 employees, the creation of a “bad bank” to transfer noncore assets, and the suspension of dividends until 2022. The case describes key decisions a bank CEO makes when a bank needs to change course to return to profitability and growth. The case offers an opportunity to debate these key decisions, as well as discuss some of the prior ones during earlier restructuring efforts, and put the students in the CEO's shoes: What would you do and why? The case also describes key banking performance metrics (e.g., ROE, ROA) and other critical variables such as those reflecting capital health (Tier 1 ratio), as well as gives an overview of the bank business model and factors impacting bank profitability and value.

Currently, consumers of financial products and services have become more vulnerable to predatory financial institutions, especially in the aftermath of Covid-19 pandemic. Therefore, financial consumers like the persons with disabilities (PWDs) should be equipped with knowledge and skills to help them to evaluate complex financial products on offer in financial markets, especially in developing countries to avoid being victims of fraudulent lending. The purpose of this study is to establish whether customized financial literacy mediates the relationship between financial consumer protection and financial inclusion of PWDs’ owned MSMEs in rural Uganda post Covid-19 pandemic.

SmartPLS 4.0 was used to construct the measurement and structural equation models to test whether customized financial literacy significantly mediates the relationship between financial consumer protection and financial inclusion of PWDs’ owned MSMEs in rural Uganda post Covid-19 pandemic.

The results revealed a partial mediating effect of customized financial literacy in the relationship between financial consumer protection and financial inclusion of PWDs’ owned MSMEs in rural Uganda post Covid-19 pandemic. Conducting customized financial literacy increases financial consumer protection by 12 percentage points to promote financial inclusion of PWDs’ owned MSMEs in rural Uganda post Covid-19 pandemic.

This study focused only on customized financial literacy and financial consumer protection to promote universal financial inclusion of PWDs’ owned MSMEs post Covid-19 pandemic. Future studies may use data collected from other vulnerable groups amongst the unbanked population in developing countries, Uganda inclusive. In addition, this study also collected only quantitative data from the selected population. Further studies can be conducted using key informant interviews and focused group discussion to get the perceptions of the PWDs on being protected from exploitation by unscrupulous financial institutions.

The findings from this study can help policymakers in developing countries like Uganda to revise the existing consumer protection law to include strong clauses on protection of people with special needs like the PWDs. The law must ensure that they are not exploited by financial institutions because of their conditions. The law ought to make sure that the PWDs are educated about their rights in the financial market place and all information on financial products offered by financial institutions should be simplified and interpreted to them before they make consumption decisions.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the present study is amongst the first few studies to provide a meticulous and unique discourse on the ever increasing role of financial literacy combined with consumer protection to reduce consumption risks within the financial markets, especially in developing countries in the aftermath of global pandemic shocks. This study uses the social learning theory, theory of reasoned action and theory of planned behaviour to elucidate how customized financial literacy can enhance consumer protection to increase financial inclusion of groups with special needs like the PWDs who have become more susceptible to exploitation by unscrupulous financial institutions in under-developed financial markets, especially in post Covid-19 pandemic.