Frequency Of Meetings Research Articles

The role of the audit committee in enhancing the credibility of CSR disclosure: Evidence from STOXX Europe 600 members

AbstractThis study examines the influence of audit committee attributes, namely financial expertise, independence, meeting frequency and size, on the adoption of CSR assurance. The study also offers insight into the effect of audit committee attributes on the scope and level of CSR assurance and the selection of CSR assurance providers. Contextually, this is achieved using a sample of European companies listed on the STOXX 600 index over the period 2012–2018. The findings show that attributes related to audit committee financial expertise, audit committee independence and audit committee meeting frequency and the existence of a CSR committee, are positively linked with the adoption of CSR assurance. Moreover, our empirical analysis further highlights the critical role of audit committee financial expert members in enhancing the scope and level of CSR assurance. Furthermore, audit committee with more frequent meetings lead to higher assurance scopes. Our findings offer significant and multidimensional insights for regulators, policymakers and professionals, regarding the revision and establishment of regulations concerning the audit committee structure.

Interdependence: The Pathway to the Inclusion of People with Intellectual Disabilities and Immigrant Disability Support Workers

Friendship and social connections generally improve quality oflife and well-being. However, research shows that people with intellectualdisabilities face challenges forming and maintaining friendships. Disabilitysupport workers play an indispensable yet under-recognized role indeveloping friendships with people with intellectual disabilities. Becausedisability support workers are disproportionately immigrant women, as theyfacilitate the inclusion of their clients, they too experience social isolation.After conducting in-depth interviews with disability support workers livingin Edmonton, Canada, for my master’s thesis project, I offer the followingobservations. First, staff and clients became friends with one another in partdue to weak family ties and limited social networks. Second, relationships thatfelt genuine helped staff better understand their clients and gave the staff adeeper sense of purpose in life. Third, the context, environment, and frequencyof meetings were essential for the development of friendships. Fourth,friendships among people both with and without disabilities were crucial forcommunity development. Overall, based on these interviews I suggest thatgenuine friendships between people with intellectual disabilities and careworkers can help foster a sense of belonging and are integral to community-building. My research also suggests that the meaning of friendship ought tobe expanded beyond current understandings.

Formation of Communicative Competence of Foreign Students in Conditions of Distance Learning

The article addresses to the issue of communicative competence formation of foreign students in the conditions of distance learning. The number of foreign students has been determined, which currently are studying in Ukrainian universities. The introduction of distance learning is emphasized to be one of the ways to modernize higher education. The concepts of “distance learning” and “competence” has been clarified. The problems which arose at the beginning of the widespread implementation of distance learning are noted. One of the adaptation advantages of distance learning is holding frequent large-scale online meetings. Articles of domestic and foreign scientists on distance education and communicative competence formation to foreign students are covered. It was found that the main factors influencing the communicative competence formation to students are professional orientation, humanistic style of communication and focus on the cultural aspect. The requirements for teacher’s of higher educational institutions have been defined in order to form communicative competence in foreign students. The relevance of distance learning implementation in the educational process has been emphasizes. The scientist, who first started the research on distance learning, found out the differences between online and traditional learning. Emphasis is placed on synchronous and asynchronous modes of distance learning. The essence of complex learning has been also revealed. The advantages and disadvantages of distance learning are investigated. The process of organizing educational activities online is presented – which is a foreign language learning. Educational platforms for the distance learning organization are presented. The advantages of working on the platform “Moodle” and “Coursera” are revealed. Conclusions are made regarding the raised issue.

Kurumsal Yönetimin Firma Temettü Politikası Üzerindeki Etkisi: Gana Örneği

The purpose of this research is to reveal at the influence of board independence on dividend policy of firms listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange. We employ a panel dataset covering the period 2008-2018 and apply the generalized method of moments technique. The results reveal that dividend per share is positively and significantly driven by board independence. We also find that larger audit committees are more likely to result in higher dividend payouts. On the other hand, frequent board meetings and remuneration committees reduce dividend payments. We further document that firm age has a significant positive impact on dividend payment. The findings suggest that increasing the proportion of non-executive directors will help preserve shareholders' interest by allowing for higher dividend payments.

P161 Experiences of virtual research involvement activities: from the perspectives of young people and researchers

Background/AimsYour Rheum is a UK young person’s research advisory group, for those aged 11-24 years and diagnosed with a rheumatic condition. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Your Rheum engaged with its members and researchers at face-to-face meetings, offering online activities to enable broader involvement. Aim(s) to explore the advantages and disadvantages of conducting research involvement activities virtually, from the perspectives of both young people and researchers.MethodsOnline surveys were sent to Your Rheum members and researchers, who have engaged with the Group virtually over the past 12 months. 8/16 young people responded and 3/6 researchers.ResultsMany young people commented on the convenience of meetings taking place virtually, allowing more young people to be involved regardless of location. Some highlighted that face-to-face meetings were often too far to travel to. For example. as one young person highlighted “no travel is required so it is much less of a whole-day commitment, meaning it is much easier and more likely that I will be able to attend.” Similarly, researchers who responded also stated the convenient aspect to conducting virtual activities. Additionally, for some young people, speaking online is easier and more comfortable than face-to-face communication; with some expressing, there is less pressure to contribute to discussions. One researcher noted a positive feature was the ability to switch cameras off, helping younger or quieter members to participate. However, a number of young people felt the opposite was true and have found virtual meetings difficult to contribute to, “it is more stressful⋯everyone is looking at you and no one else is speaking. The format of having meetings online also makes the whole event feel much more formal⋯which means that it can be quite intimidating to speak.” Difficulty building virtual relationships and connections was a significant disadvantage. This was highlighted by over half of respondents, who reported that it is easier to get to know others in person as you have the opportunity to deviate from the topic being discussed, allowing for natural conversations to occur. As one young person poignantly noted, online meetings “lacking true human connection”. From a researcher perspective, the subtle insights gained from face-to-face interactions were missing.ConclusionThis study has highlighted strengths of conducting research involvement activities virtually. For example, logistics and convenience, and for some young people, the development of personal skills such as speaking to others. However, the formal and rigid nature of virtual meetings makes interacting and connecting with other people difficult. Moving forward, Your Rheum will take a blended approach to activities (frequent virtual meetings, as well as bi-annual face-to-face meetings). When planning virtual meetings, consideration to social interactions and opportunities to get to know one another remains important for young people.Disclosure L.E. Lunt: None. J. Leslie: None. S. Gnanenthiran: None. M. Purvis: None. T. Kierkegaard Holt: None. J.E. McDonagh: Consultancies; Consultancy fees from Pfizer (2018) and CSL-Behring (2021).

Parent Engagement in a COVID-19 Cohort Study of Children and Families: Successes, Challenges and Next Steps.

This article describes the methods, successes and challenges of engaging parents while studying the impacts of COVID-19 on healthy children and families. Parent partners in a Parent and Clinician Team (PACT) informed study aims, supported feasibility and recommended changes to enhance participation. PACT members stated that they felt a sense of connectedness and purpose by contributing to COVID-19 research. Engagement increased by parents acquiring new roles, attending more frequent meetings and co-creating alternative methods of engagement. Recruiting new PACT members was challenging, likely due to limited time and resources available to parents of young children during a pandemic.

Corporate Governance, Financial Performance, and Social Sustainability Practices of Consumer Goods Companies Listed in Nigeria

Social sustainability practice is a contemporary issue and is internationally embraced by organizations to exhibit the significance of its existence in the society. Published financial statements have not been communicating the social sustainability practices of firms. The study examined the effect of corporate governance and financial performance on social sustainability practice of listed consumer goods companies in Nigeria. Ex-post facto design was applied in the study using annual reports for a period of 10 years, 2010 - 2019 of listed consumer goods companies in Nigeria. The population is all the twenty listed consumer goods companies in Nigeria as at December 31, 2019 and purposive sampling technique was used to select sixteen companies as sample size. Content analysis was used to obtain data on social sustainability practices from annual reports of the selected listed consumer goods companies. The outcomes of the study showed that the collective effect of corporate governance and financial performance have a significant impact on social sustainability practices of listed consumer goods companies in Nigeria though the isolated effects were mixed. It was concluded that corporate governance and financial performance influenced social sustainability practices of quoted consumer goods firms in Nigeria. It was recommended that the regulators should enforce effective corporate governance by having adequate board size, independent board coupled with frequent and sufficient meetings to attend to the companies’ issues and management of such companies should ensure adequate running of companies’ resources to generate better financial performance. The social sustainability practices and its disclosure should be made mandatory and failure to comply should attract sanction with a huge penalty.

Structural and institutional arrangements impacting collective actions in WUAs of West Bengal, India

ABSTRACT This study provides empirical evidence of major debates in collective action theory concerning resource and member heterogeneity by conducting a survey on 63 randomly selected water-user associations promoted by the West Bengal state government of India. The functioning and governance of these institutions were evaluated by efficiency in resource mobilization (collection of membership fees), members’ perception of transparency and democratic decision-making, and dependency on third-party involvement in the future. The study finds that a larger command area, larger proportion of smaller farmers, optimum membership fee, frequent general body meetings, certain documentation, and power structure improve the functioning and governance indicators.

Quality clusters in general practice: associations between cluster organization and general practitioners' self-reported benefits.

Quality clusters were introduced as a quality improvement concept in Danish general practice in 2018. This new concept anchored quality improvement in local clusters managed by general practitioners (GPs). To describe the cluster organization and GPs' self-reported benefits of participating in them and explore the associations between cluster organization and self-reported benefits. A national survey in Danish general practice gathering information about cluster organization (cluster size, cluster meetings, participants, and content) and GPs' self-reported benefits (overall benefit, internal changes in the clinic, and improved external collaboration). One hundred and eight (95%) clusters and 1,219 GPs (36%) were included. Cluster size varied from 10 to 68 GPs (34 GPs on average). Approximately 70% of GPs reported moderate to very high overall benefit from cluster participation. Most GPs experienced changes in their clinic organization (68%), drug prescriptions (78%), and patient care (77%). Collaboration was reported improved between the GPs (86%), municipality (50%), and hospital (36.2%). GPs in clusters with 3-6 planned meetings per year (odds ratio [OR] 1.9; confidence interval [CI] 1.3-2.9), mixed meeting types (OR 1.7; CI 1.2-2.4), group work (OR 1.7; CI 1.1-2.5), and use of guidelines in their meetings (OR 1.8; CI 1.3-2.4) had statistically significantly higher odds for reporting overall benefit of participating in clusters compared with GPs in clusters without these characteristics. Frequent and active meetings with a relevant meeting content are positively related to GPs' perceived benefits and with improved collaboration between GPs in the clusters. There seems to be a potential for developing collaboration with other healthcare providers.

The Influence of Corporate Governance on the Environmental Information Disclosure of MNCs: An Empirical Study on Corporations from China, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States

As one of the ways for multinational companies to obtain the advantages of sustainable development, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been widely recognized by the academic community. Research featuring the influence of corporate governance (CG) on the environmental information disclosure of multinational corporations (MNCs) have gained much attention, but there is a lack of research into the empirical examination of cross-national samples. Drawing on Agency Theory, this study fills the gap by making a theoretical exploration and empirical test on relationships between CG and MNCs’s environmental disclosure. Board independence, board size, board meeting frequency and their relationships to the environmental disclosure of MNCs are observed in this study. In order to examine the aforementioned relationships, this study incorporates measurement techniques used by Van Staden and Hooks (2007) [1] and Global Reporting Initiative 4.0 guideline (GRI4.0) and develops a set of comprehensive, systematic measurement standards to appraise the environmental information disclosure of corporations. The content analysis method is used to assess the environmental disclosure of 151 companies from China, the United States, Japan, and the United Kingdom, according to Forbes Global 2000 Ranking in 2019. We find that board independence, the board size, and the frequency of board meetings are all positively associated with the environmental disclosure of MNCs. This finding indicates that more independent boards of directors, larger boards, and more frequent board meetings are CG mechanisms which lower the likelihood for an opportunistic behaviour and increase information transparency and voluntary implementation of the disclosure, effectively enhancing the environmental disclosure of MNCs. This impact of CG on corporations’ environmental information disclosure exists across country contexts.

Developing a multi-departmental residency communication coaching program.

Local needs assessments in our institution's surgery and neurology residency programs identified barriers to effective communication, such as no shared communication framework and limited feedback on nontechnical clinical skills. Residents identified faculty-led coaching as a desired educational intervention to improve communication skills. Three university departments (Surgery, Neurology, and Pediatrics) and health-care system leaders collaborated closely to develop an innovative communication coaching initiative generalizable to other residency programs. Coaching program development involved several layers of collaboration between health-care system leaders, faculty educators, and departmental communication champions. The efforts included: (1) creating and delivering communication skills training to faculty and residents; (2) hosting frequent meetings among various stakeholders to develop program strategy, discuss opportunities and learnings, and engage other medical educators interested in coaching; (3) obtaining funding to implement the coaching initiative; (4) selecting coaches and providing salary and training support. A multi-phased mixed-methods study utilized online surveys and virtual semi-structured interviews to assess the program's quality and impact on the communication culture and the satisfaction and communication skills of residents. Quantitative and qualitative data have been integrated during data collection and analysis using embedding, building, and merging strategies. Establishing a multi-departmental coaching program may be feasible and can be adapted by other programs if similar resources and focus are present. We found that stakeholders' buy-in, financial support, protected faculty time, flexible approach, and rigorous evaluation are crucial factors in successfully implementing and sustaining such an initiative.

Improving the Effectiveness of Risk Management Among Sub-Contractors in the Northern State of Malaysia

The risk should be managed crucially by any level of multidiscipline. Construction activities involved hazardous situations and unpredictable incidents during construction. There is a central issue triggered by sub-contractors’ tasks, i.e., failure to manage the risk management of main contractors effectively. Many factors contributed to the ineffectiveness of risk management implementation among sub-contractors, including lack of skills and expertise, lack of experience, and communication breakdown with the team. Therefore, this paper significantly provides the results of a survey of sub-contractors involved in the Northern construction projects. The goal of this study concerns the strategies to improve the effectiveness of sub-contractors in managing the risk on site. These are described with the results of the questionnaire survey analysis from 300 respondents. The respondents are from sub-contractors among G1 to G4 in the northern state of East Malaysia. Using the Kruskal-Wallis test, sixteen strategies were identified from the literature have been tested among the sub-contractors. The finding reveals that only ten approaches, i.e., effective site management and supervision, experience contractors, good feasibility studies, project understanding, thoroughly investigate vendor capabilities, frequent progress meetings, systematic coordination between parties, allocation enough resources, the right path, and proper identification of risk does give significant strategies to improve implementation of risk management among sub-contractors in the northern states of Malaysia.Keywords: Risk Management, Sub-Contractors, Strategies, Effectiveness, Construction

Managing Human Subjects Research During a Global Pandemic at an Academic Center: Lessons Learned From COVID-19.

By March 2020, New York City became the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. Consequently, Columbia University, with its large portfolio of human subjects research, had to address the challenges of protecting thousands of research participants and research staff from potential exposure to COVID-19 while facilitating essential biomedical research, especially pandemic-related studies. The authors describe, from the perspective of Columbia’s research administration leadership, how the University and its primary teaching hospital ramped down—and later ramped up—human subjects research and reflect on lessons learned.As the pandemic unfolded, only studies offering the prospect of direct benefit to subjects were permitted to continue with in-person contact. New in-person participant enrollment ceased, except for COVID-19 prevention or treatment studies. Centralized, frequently updated communication about policies and procedures was disseminated to the Columbia research community. Procedural efficiencies were rapidly developed and implemented for review and oversight of human subjects research and contractual agreements for clinical trials. More frequent institutional review board meetings and 24-hour support markedly reduced turnaround time for COVID-19 studies, without delaying approvals of non–COVID-19 research. Research administration worked closely with relevant principal federal agencies, whose regulatory flexibility facilitated the efficient implementation of COVID-19–related research.Overall, the ramp-down and ramp-up of the majority of human subjects research, with specified priorities and accelerated processes, worked well. Adjustments were made to handle the increase in administrative tasks, the need to respond rapidly to added oversight responsibilities, and the management of the many new COVID-19–related research protocols. Timely, centralized communication, support for staff needs, prioritization, and collaboration were critical to successful research oversight at a large-scale academic setting in the midst of a pandemic. These perspectives may be useful to academic research centers addressing the current and future pandemics.

Report on the SIGDial 2021 special session on summarization of dialogues and multi-party meetings (SummDial)

The SummDial special session on summarization of dialogues and multi-party meetings was held virtually within the SIGDial 2021 conference on July 29, 2021. SummDial @ SIGDial 2021 aimed to bring together the speech, dialogue, and summarization communities to foster cross-pollination of ideas and fuel the discussions/collaborations to attempt this crucial and timely problem. When the pandemic has restricted most of our in-person interactions, the current scenario has forced people to go virtual, resulting in an information overload from frequent dialogues and meetings in the virtual environment. Summarization could help reduce the cognitive burden on the participants; however, multi-party speech summarization comes with its own set of challenges. The SummDial special session aimed to leverage the community intelligence to find effective solutions while also brainstorming the future of AI interventions in meetings and dialogues. We report the findings of the special session in this article. We organized the SummDial special session under the aegis of the EU-funded H2020 European Live Translator (ELITR) project. 1 Date : 29 July, 2021. Website : https://elitr.github.io/automatic-minuting/summdial.html.

Creation and implementation of a pharmacy-led meds-to-beds program at a large teaching hospital

Background“Meds-to-beds” programs are a quality improvement intervention that is gaining wider implementation throughout the United States. The University of Oklahoma hospital system did not have this program and sought to implement one. There are sufficient data on the benefits of meds-to-beds programs, but there is a lack of literature on describing the development and implementation process. ObjectivesThe objective of this article is to describe the planning process, implementation, and barriers encountered during the organization of a pharmacy-led meds-to-beds program operating within 2 large teaching hospitals. Practice descriptionThe University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center campus has 7 colleges, multiple primary care and specialty clinics, and 2 hospitals. In addition, there are 3 on-campus outpatient pharmacies operated by the University of Oklahoma College of Pharmacy (OUCOP). Practice innovationThe college implemented a meds-to-beds program primarily serving 2 on-campus hospitals, The Oklahoma Children’s Hospital and University of Oklahoma College of Pharmacy Medical Center. The program operated out of The Children’s Pharmacy, an outpatient pharmacy located within the Children’s Hospital. Evaluation MethodsA Plan-Do-Study-Act model was used, which allowed for adaptation in response to barriers encountered throughout the process. Frequent meetings among stakeholders were held to continuously evaluate progress (e.g., awareness and utilization of the program and prescription counts) and make necessary changes. ResultsImplementation of the program required changes in workflow both within the pharmacy and within the registration and discharge processes of medical teams. In addition, after the initiation of the meds-to-beds program, the daily prescription count more than doubled. The program averages 40 deliveries per day and 3 prescriptions per delivery and continues to grow, providing evidence of a successful meds-to-beds implementation. ConclusionThe Plan-Do-Study-Act model allowed for many adjustments to be made throughout the process, including the conversion from an opt-in to an opt-out model to increase program utilization.

Educational experiences of pupils with Down syndrome in the UK

BackgroundThough research has identified that increasing numbers of pupils with Down syndrome (DS) in the UK are educated in mainstream schools, little detailed information about the educational experiences of pupils with DS is available. AimsThis study explored parent views of the educational experiences of pupils with DS attending UK schools (Reception-Year 11) using an online survey. Methods and proceduresResponses from 569 parents were collected. Outcomes and resultsOverall, 65 % of pupils were in mainstream schools but this was more common at primary (80 %) than secondary school (37 %). Pupils participated in most academic and social activities alongside their peers but were commonly not accessing all opportunities. Many pupils received additional support in school including external professional services. Frequent meetings between parents and teachers/teaching assistants indicated high levels of collaboration. Teachers and teaching assistants were largely viewed as responsible for children’s learning. Overall, respondents reported satisfaction with provision. Conclusions and implicationsMany pupils with DS in the UK are able to access a broad and balanced curriculum but this is not the case for all. Ways in which provision can be enhanced are discussed.

Iterative Coordination and Innovation: Prioritizing Value over Novelty

An innovating organization faces the challenge of how to prioritize distinct goals of novelty and value, both of which underlie innovation. Popular practitioner frameworks like Agile management suggest that organizations can adopt an iterative approach of frequent meetings to prioritize between these goals, a practice we refer to as iterative coordination. Despite iterative coordination’s widespread use in innovation management, its effects on novelty and value in innovation remain unknown. With the information technology firm Google, we embed a field experiment within a hackathon software development competition to identify the effect of iterative coordination on innovation. We find that iterative coordination causes firms to implicitly prioritize value in innovation: Although iteratively coordinating firms develop more valuable products, these products are simultaneously less novel. Furthermore, by tracking software code, we find that iteratively coordinating firms favor integration at the cost of knowledge-creating specialization. A follow-on laboratory study documents that increasing the frequency and opportunities to reprioritize goals in iterative coordination meetings reinforces value and integration, while reducing novelty and specialization. This article offers three key contributions: highlighting how processes to prioritize among multiple performance goals may implicitly favor certain outcomes; introducing a new empirical methodology of software code version tracking for measuring the innovation process; and leveraging the emergent phenomenon of hackathons to study new methods of organizing. History: This paper has been accepted for the Organization Science Special Issue on Experiments in Organizational Theory. Funding: The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from Google LLC, the Harvard Business School Division of Research and Faculty Development, and the National Science Foundation [Grant 1122374]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2021.1499 .

How B2B marketers interact with customers and develop knowledge to produce a co-owned marketing strategy

PurposeThis paper aims to explore how senior business to business (B2B) marketing managers within a collectivist culture, contribute to knowledge development by interacting with staff in customer organizations to produce a co-owned marketing strategy.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative research strategy incorporating an open-ended questionnaire was used to collect data from 15 senior B2B marketing managers in three Korean companies that deployed the customer-centred approach. The grounded theory technique (Strauss and Corbin, 1998) and the mind map method (Burgess-Allen and Owen-Smith, 2010) were used to show how senior Korean marketing managers’ thoughts are processed and knowledge transfer occurs.FindingsThe findings show that a governance mechanism is instrumental in guiding interactive communication that results in knowledge being used that benefits the members of a partnership arrangement. The knowledge development process is enhanced by mutual trust and emotional bonds that are established through socialization. Cyclical interaction through socialization and frequent (in)formal meetings facilitates the process of turning explicit knowledge into tacit knowledge and vice versa, and encourages new knowledge to be developed. Socialization also helps to reduce learning myopia and contributes to the innovatory processes that result in customer needs being met.Originality/valueThe paper provides insights into the importance of boundary setting that facilitates cooperative marketing action, which results in a B2B integrated marketing intelligence and planning process.

How a hydrogen start-up can contribute to the energy transition through the emerging hydrogen economy

How a hydrogen start-up can contribute to the energy transition through the emerging hydrogen economy

Student's experiences with online teaching following COVID-19 lockdown: A mixed methods explorative study.

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic lead to a sudden shift to online teaching and restricted campus access.AimTo assess how university students experienced the sudden shift to online teaching after closure of campus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.Material and methodsStudents in Public Health Nutrition answered questionnaires two and 12 weeks (N = 79: response rate 20.3% and 26.6%, respectively) after the lockdown in Norway on 12 March 2020 and participated in digital focus group interviews in May 2020 (mixed methods study).Findings and discussionTwo weeks into the lockdown, 75% of students reported that their life had become more difficult and 50% felt that learning outcomes would be harder to achieve due to the sudden shift to online education. Twelve weeks into the lockdown, the corresponding numbers were 57% and 71%, respectively. The most pressing concerns among students were a lack of social interaction, housing situations that were unfit for home office purposes, including insufficient data bandwidth, and an overall sense of reduced motivation and effort. The students collaborated well in digital groups but wanted smaller groups with students they knew rather than being randomly assigned to groups. Most students agreed that pre-recorded and streamed lectures, frequent virtual meetings and student response systems could improve learning outcomes in future digital courses. The preference for written home exams over online versions of previous on-campus exams was likely influenced by student’s familiarity with the former. The dropout rate remained unchanged compared to previous years.ConclusionThe sudden shift to digital teaching was challenging for students, but it appears that they adapted quickly to the new situation. Although the concerns described by students in this study may only be representative for the period right after campus lockdown, the study provide the student perspective on a unique period of time in higher education.