Macro-level Challenges Research Articles

Exploring the implementation of an educational film within antenatal care to reduce the risk of cytomegalovirus infection in pregnancy: A qualitative study

BackgroundCongenital cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection is a leading cause of sensorineural hearing loss and neuro-disability in childhood. In the absence of a licensed vaccine, adoption of hygiene-based measures may reduce the risk of CMV infection in pregnancy, however these measures are not routinely discussed with pregnant women as part of National Health Service (NHS) antenatal care in the United Kingdom (UK).MethodsAn exploratory qualitative study was conducted, underpinned by Normalization Process Theory (NPT), to investigate how an educational intervention comprising of a short film about CMV may best be implemented, sustained, and enhanced in real-world routine antenatal care settings. Video, semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants who were recruited using a purposive sample that comprised of midwives providing antenatal care from three NHS hospitals (n = 15) and participants from professional colleges and from organisations or charities providing, or with an interest in, antenatal education or health information in the UK (n = 15).FindingsMidwives were reluctant to include CMV as part of early pregnancy discussions about reducing the risk of other infections due to lack of time, knowledge and absence of guidance or policies relating to CMV in antenatal education. However, the educational intervention was perceived to be a useful tool to encourage conversations and empower women to manage risk by all stakeholders, which would overcome some identified barriers. Macro-level challenges such as screening policies and lack of official guidelines to legitimise dissemination were identified.DiscussionSuccessful implementation of education about CMV as part of routine NHS care in the UK will require an increase in awareness and knowledge about CMV amongst midwives. NPT revealed that ‘coherence’ and ‘cognitive participation’ between service members are vital to imbed CMV education in routine practice. ‘Collective action’ and ‘reflexive monitoring’ is required to sustain service changes.

Knowledge Mapping in Agricultural Economics

This study utilizes VOSviewer to conduct a bibliometric analysis of the agricultural economics literature, identifying thematic clusters, research trends, research opportunities, and collaboration networks among authors. Thematic cluster analysis reveals distinct research domains such as macroeconomic impacts, technology in agriculture, productivity, and efficiency. Research trend analysis over time shows a shift from foundational studies towards more integrated approaches focusing on the impact of technological advancements and policy changes on agricultural productivity and efficiency, especially from the mid-1990s to the 2010s. Further, the exploration of less illuminated areas within the network maps highlights underexplored topics such as agricultural markets, labor, and exports, presenting new opportunities for future research. Author collaboration networks reveal both dense clusters of frequent collaborators and key individuals linking various research areas, reflecting the collaborative nature of the field. These findings underscore the evolving dynamics of agricultural economics research and provide a roadmap for addressing both micro and macro-level challenges within the sector.

Autonomous and Sustainable Service Economies: Data-Driven Optimization of Design and Operations through Discovery of Multi-Perspective Parameters

The rise in the service economy has been fueled by breakthroughs in technology, globalization, and evolving consumer patterns. However, this sector faces various challenges, such as issues related to service quality, innovation, efficiency, and sustainability, as well as macro-level challenges such as globalization, geopolitical risks, failures of financial institutions, technological disruptions, climate change, demographic shifts, and regulatory changes. The impacts of these challenges on society and the economy can be both significant and unpredictable, potentially endangering sustainability. Therefore, it is crucial to comprehensively study services and service economies at both holistic and local levels. To this end, the objective of this study is to develop and validate an artificial-intelligence-based methodology to gain a comprehensive understanding of the service sector by identifying key parameters from the academic literature and public opinion. This methodology aims to provide in-depth insights into the creation of smarter, more sustainable services and economies, ultimately contributing to the development of sustainable future societies. A software tool is developed that employs a data-driven approach involving the use of word embeddings, dimensionality reduction, clustering, and word importance. A large dataset comprising 175 K research articles was created from the Scopus database, and after analysis, 29 distinct parameters related to the service sector were identified and grouped into 6 macro-parameters: smart society and infrastructure, digital transformation, service lifecycle management, and others. The analysis of over 112 K tweets collected from Saudi Arabia identified 11 parameters categorized into 2 macro-parameters: private sector services and government services. The software tool was used to generate a knowledge structure, taxonomy, and framework for the service sector, in addition to a detailed literature review based on over 300 research articles. The conclusions highlight the significant theoretical and practical implications of the presented study for autonomous capabilities in systems, which can contribute to the development of sustainable, responsible, and smarter economies and societies.

Retrospective review of work transition narratives: Advancing occupational perspectives and strategies.

In 2009 the journal WORK commenced a new column for the publication of Work Transition Narratives. Fourteen persons with lived experience published their narratives on approaches that helped them through work disruptions and change. A review of the articles was conducted to understand how people navigated challenges and obstacles and made sense of their in-transition experiences to return to work or to find new employment. A retrospective review was conducted using a convenience sample of N = 14 published narratives. A template approach was developed using micro (individual) and macro (social, cultural, political, structural) level issues to extract and analyze descriptive content. A senior researcher and two Masters of Science students independently reviewed the narratives and extracted data. A dialogic and inductive approach was used to achieve consensus on the description of the types of mechanisms used to move forward. The mechanisms evident in the narratives used by people to navigate work disruptions included drawing on anchors, catalysts, champions, opportunities, learning, coming to terms, critical conversations, and critical reflections. Mechanisms used to navigate in-transition experiences add to the knowledge on negotiating the dialectical relationship of micro and macro level challenges in occupational transitions of work. This review and analysis revealed commonly used strategies that may assist others in addressing in-transition work challenges. In addition, the findings have implications for ongoing research and the development of occupational mindfulness approaches that may help people through the overwhelming and often daunting experience of work transitions.

BASIC OVERVIEW OF THE CHALLENGES IN TEACHING INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION AMONG TERTIARY LEVEL ENGLISH TEACHERS IN CHINA

This paper provides an overview and discussion on the current situation of intercultural communication training and challenges for tertiary English in China. A qualitative meta-analysis was conducted on research articles written both in Chinese language and English during the last two decades (from 2002) to explore reported challenges faced by teachers. Mitigating strategies undertaken were also scrutinized via documents analysis of the assorted papers. The findings showed that instructional efforts to develop intercultural communication competence in tertiary students was previously quite stagnant in its approaches, riddled with various micro and macro level challenges and quite unsuccessful in yielding the desired results. Only within the last decade with the advent of ICT and multimedia technology that concerted efforts could be integrated into producing considerable results. This study puts forth relevant improvement strategies derived from various aspects analyzed. They came in the form of inevitable measures like upgrading the teaching system, improving the quality of teachers, changing the teaching strategies, developing resource hub, developing professional teams and groupings, and optimizing intercultural communication evaluation mechanism. The findings from this study has high transferability and insights for institutions in countries with similar contexts. It also provides beneficial theoretical reference for the training of intercultural communication competence in a foreign language learning context.

School Children's COVID-Related Future Anxiety over the Course of 8Months of the Pandemic

To explore the long-term effects of the COVID-19-pandemic on children, N = 140 8- to 10- year-olds were asked about their COVID-related future anxiety (CRFA) in their classrooms during months 6, 9, and 14 of the pandemic which started inMarch 2020 in Germany. Future anxiety was defined as a "state of apprehension, uncertainty, fear, worry, or anxiety about unfavorable changes in a more distant personal future" which was related to the effects of the COVID- 19-pandemic. In this survey, 13%to 19%of children reported experiencing CRFA "often" on at least one of the four items of the newly developed CRFA scale. Experiencing CRFA "often" was reported by 16% of the children at two and by 8 % of the children at three measurement points, among them more girls and more children from homes with poor educational backgrounds. Analyses uncovered large interindividual differences: For 45 % of the children CRFA decreased between months 6 and 9 of the pandemic, whereas for 43 % it increased. Children of parents with low educational backgrounds weremore likely to report frequent CRFA at all three measurement time points, even after controlling for gender and incidence of COVID-19-in Germany.This confirms predictions that contagion risk and controllability influence future anxiety. The descriptive results additionally support earlier findings that many children already experience future anxiety about macro-level events. The results on chronic CRFA underscore the urgency to examine the long-time effects of CRFA with greater care.This is of paramount importance considering the macro-level challenges of the future.

Urban FM and POPS – implications for UN’s SDG 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities

Urban FM (UFM) is usually understood as micro level Facility Management (FM) methods and tools applied on macro level challenges in communities and neighbourhoods in urban areas, among others to improve the citizens’ wellbeing. UFM is also often associated with smart cities, technology, and UN’s SDGs. However, many studies of UFM overlook property rights and other institutional matters that establish many of the ground rules. Property rights are frequently understood as a bundle of rights, i.e., the right of use (USUS), the right of enjoyment (USUS FRUCTUS), and the right of disposition (ABUSUS). UFM usually takes place across property boundaries, on properties with disparate bundles of rights, including restrictions through public zoning. Many urban transformation projects have established privately owned public spaces (POPS), leading to a restructured division of responsibilities between public authorities and private owners in the management, design, access control, and use of urban public spaces. This paper investigates whether and under which conditions UFM and management of POPS can contribute to realisation of UN’s SDG 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities, hereunder to facilitate development of inclusive, safe, robust, and sustainable cities and local communities.

Cultural barriers and facilitators for transformative nursing curriculum transformation

Successful transformative nursing curriculum implementation can be sustained when the contextual culture is considered. However, implementing a transformative curriculum is met with macro-level challenges with implications for the nursing profession and particularly nursing education. Macro-level challenges include the 4th industrial revolution, socio-political, economic, health trends, and cultural aspects. Inadvertently, culture seems to be an unexplored phenomenon regarding its influence on transformative nursing curriculum implementation. Therefore, the study was aimed at exploring congruency between Basotho culture and transformative nursing curriculum implementation. The intended objectives for this study were to identify the similarities between the Basotho culture and the student-centred approach, and also to establish the related stumbling blocks that impede CBC implementation.A qualitative explorative interpretative approach was used, and a Kawa model was adopted and adapted from clinical use to a data collection tool. The Kawa model uses a river metaphor to explore individuals’ socio-cultural interaction with society and the environmental factors which influence their life flow, therefore likened to educational flow. The adopted Kawa constructs are the ‘river flow’, ‘riverbanks’, ‘rocks, ‘driftwoods’ and ‘spaces’. The sample comprised 14 purposively selected nurse educators. Aligned with Kawa constructs, findings showed multiple subcategories and two themes, namely: ‘power’ and ‘cultural vitality’. The identified cultural barriers and facilitative aspects could be applied during transformative nursing curriculum implementation. Further research is recommended to co-construct a culturally conducive continuous professional development framework to support nurse educators to sustain a transformative nursing curriculum.

Medical economic vulnerability: a next step in expanding the farm resilience scholarship

In recent years, the long-standing questions of why, how, and which farm families continue farming in the face of ongoing changes have increasingly been studied through the resilience lens. While this body of work is providing updated and novel insights, two limitations, a focus on macro-level challenges faced by the farm operation and a mismatch between the scale of challenges and resilience measures, likely limit our understanding of the factors at play. We use the example of medical economic vulnerability, a micro-level challenge traditionally confined to the household sphere of the agri-family system, as a way to call attention to these limitations. Focusing on United States (U.S.) farm households, we assess: (1) To what extent are they experiencing medical economic vulnerability when using objective and subjective outcome measures? (2) Which demographic and farm characteristics are associated with experiencing medical economic vulnerability? (3) What is the association between institutional arrangements and medical economic vulnerability? Our analysis of over 900 surveys coupled with a conceptual framework merging complementary insights from three bodies of literature revealed seemingly large differences in the prevalence of medical economic vulnerability across the objective and subjective measures with the subjective measure indicating a general sentiment of medical economic vulnerability in a majority of respondents. Conversely, limited variations were noted in who experiences medical vulnerability on the basis of demographic and farm characteristics, with stronger associations being connected to the households’ health insurance arrangements. We conclude with three implications of our findings for the farm resilience literature.

Research Recruitment: A Case Study on Women with Substance Use Disorder

Women with substance use disorder may evade research participation because of individual and societal factors. Limited information exists on recruitment of women with substance use disorder. The purpose of this study was to delineate recruitment challenges among women with substance use disorder and identify successful recruitment strategies. An exploratory case study was used to examine recruitment of women with substance use disorder. This case study was informed by a pilot study in 2017-2018, where data were generated from 25 direct observations and three key informants from a drug rehabilitation treatment agency. Analysis took an explanation-building approach, which incorporated chronological field notes from direct observations, memos from key informant conversations, and the extant literature to revise our initial proposition. Macro-level contextual factors influencing recruitment were: (a) establishment of a triage system, (b) reactivation of agency ethics committee, (c) scheduled accreditation site visits, (d) varied guidelines, and (e) required treatment regimen. Recruitment may benefit from multiple sites, staff training in protocol, increased researcher presence, and the opportunity for women’s voices to be heard. This study advances knowledge of macro-level challenges faced during recruitment of women with substance use disorder in southeast USA. Indirect and direct recruitment, when combined, could maximize participation.

Social Inclusion and Exclusion in GCC Labour Policy Transformations: Evidence from Qatar and Saudi Arabia

Over the past five years, labour policies in the countries of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have witnessed significant transformations driven by numerous macro-level challenges, such as demographic imbalance, dependence on hydrocarbon economy, political and security crises. Despite the challenges' commonality across the GCC, yet, policy responses related to labour were different from country to another.
 
 This article explores the macro-level challenges facing labour policymaking in the GCC, followed by an examination of social inclusion/exclusion patterns targeting expatriate workers in Qatar and Saudi Arabia due to the recent labour policy transformations. Both countries were selected to provide in-depth contextual analysis of the radical shift towards inclusion in Qatar and exclusion in Saudi Arabia.

Policy Considerations for Nascent Space Powers

The luxuries of the modern-day living owe a lot to the services provided from outer space or passing through space. As the benefits of space technology permeate into our everyday lives, many new entrants, especially those from the developing regions of the world are initiating, synergizing, and expanding their national space programmes. Although having a space programme offers plenty of strategic and socioeconomic benefits and opportunities, it requires a high initial cost with most of the gains reaped in the long term. Therefore, the continual growth and long-term sustenance of a space programme is important for any nascent space power. Notwithstanding, the financial and technological constraints form a major caveat which, if not taken care of right from the onset, may seriously jeopardize the growth and in extreme situations, even endanger the long-term viability of the entire space programme. Hence, for nascent space powers, the ambition to do “big things” must start in small steps, articulated through a well-defined national space policy that can steer a correct direction for times to come. This article points toward the need to build space policies for nascent space powers that can justify the long-term investment in civil, commercial, and military programme applications of space technology. It identifies economic and technological constraints as the primary factors constraining nascent space powers that in turn govern the development of space policy. The article also identifies several of the macro-level challenges that need focused attention from policy makers and space programme managers for ensuring the development and sustainability of a viable space programme.

A Patient-Centered Asthma Management Communication Intervention for Rural Latino Children: Protocol for a Waiting-List Randomized Controlled Trial.

BackgroundRural Latino children with asthma suffer high rates of uncontrolled asthma symptoms, emergency department visits, and repeat hospitalizations. This vulnerable population must negotiate micro- and macrolevel challenges that impact asthma management, including language barriers, primary care access, parental time off from work, insurance coverage, distance from specialty sites, and documentation status. There are few proven interventions that address asthma management embedded within this unique context.ObjectiveUsing a bio-ecological approach, we will determine the feasibility of a patient-centered collaborative program between rural Latino children with asthma and their families, school-based nursing programs, and primary care providers, facilitated by the use of a smartphone-based mobile app with a Spanish-language interface. We hypothesize that improving communication through a collaborative, patient-centered intervention will improve asthma management, empower the patient and family, decrease outcome disparities, and decrease direct and indirect costs.MethodsThe specific aims of this study include the following: (1) Aim 1: produce and validate a Spanish translation of an existing asthma management app and evaluate its usability with Latino parents of children with asthma, (2) Aim 2: develop and evaluate a triadic, patient-centered asthma intervention preliminary protocol, facilitated by the bilingual mobile app validated in Aim 1, and (3) Aim 3: investigate the feasibility of the patient-centered asthma intervention from Aim 2 using a waiting-list randomized controlled trial (RCT) to investigate the effects of the intervention on school days missed and medication adherence.ResultsMobile app translation, initial usability testing, and app software refinement were completed in 2019. Analysis is in progress. Preliminary protocol testing is underway; we anticipate that the waiting-list RCT, using the refined protocol developed in Aim 2, will commence in fall 2020.ConclusionsTailored, technology-based solutions have the potential to successfully address issues affecting asthma management, including communication barriers, accessibility issues, medication adherence, and suboptimal technological interventions.Trial RegistrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT04633018; https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04633018International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID)DERR1-10.2196/18977

Sales management, education, and scholarship across cultures: early findings from a global study and an agenda for future research

While interest from the practitioner community in topics pertaining to global sales forces continues to accelerate, academic sales research that examines the challenges faced by these salespeople and their firms continues to lag behind. In response, the American Marketing Association (AMA) Sales Special Interest Group (Sales SIG) has recently developed an initiative designed to increase access to global sales force data. The initiative provides periodic, “snapshots” of the profession, via survey data, that can be used to guide sales scholars’ research agendas and provide critical insight into challenges facing salespeople across the globe. Recently, a group of sales scholars gathered to discuss the initial survey results from B2B salespeople in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Australia, and India. This manuscript reveals the interesting commonalities—and distinctions—between salespeople in those various countries on issues related to turnover, education and training, compensation, bureaucracy, technology usage, ethics, and macro-level challenges. Additionally, a subsequent discussion of the results, which we detail in this manuscript, reveals fruitful and important future research opportunities for sales scholars interested in global sales research.

Talent management research in Africa: towards multilevel model and research agenda

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to systematically review talent management research in Africa with the aim of developing a multilevel talent management model and defining future research agenda. Design/methodology/approach A systematic literature review is performed utilising studies published on the topic from 2008 to 2019 in various research databases. Findings The findings highlighted various talent management contributions and challenges in the African context. They further revealed major issues with the nature of research method adopted in talent management research in Africa. Moreover, contextually, apart from Southern Africa sub-region, talent management research is highly under-researched in the North African, West African and Eastern African sub-regions of the continent. Therefore, talent management research in Africa can be described as being at an embryonic stage. Practical implications Effective talent management has significant transformative and growth power through its varied positive contributions. Talent management in Africa is faced with numerous organisational and macro-level challenges and requires attention from relevant stakeholders, if African talents are to be harnessed to facilitate the development of the continent. Originality/value This systematic review on talent management is the first of its kind focusing solely on Africa. Also, this study contributes further evidence by proposing a multilevel talent management model based on the synthesised evidence since multilevel research in the field of talent management is very limited.

Dignity and Humiliation: Identity Formation among Syrian Refugees

Since 2011 half of Syria’s population has been forced to flee its homes. Much research has focused on the macro-level challenges and post-conflict reconstruction plans. In this article, I focus on the micro-level by examining the dialectic of “humiliation” and “dignity” as a dynamic that shapes and transforms Syrian refugees’ identities through sustained interaction, and sometimes through struggle, with others, who can be pro-regime or pro-opposition Syrians, or pro-refugees or anti-refugees in hosting countries. Methodologically, I use an interpretive approach which focuses on context-specific meanings and their relation to power, seeking multifaceted understandings of refugees’ lived-experience. This research is based on ethnographic fieldwork and ordinary language interviews conducted in the United States, and semi-structured, open-ended interviews with Syrians in Germany and Turkey. I show that researching participants’ meaning-making in their own settings reveals the dynamics of humiliation and dignity as dialectically interwoven in specific situational contexts and shaped by refugees’ lived-experience in both the country of origin (in the past) and the hosting country (in the present).

PSYCHOLOGY OF BEHAVIORAL FINANCE

One of the most critical research programs of today's financial knowledge that is at the top of the rejection of the theory of efficient markets is financial behavior theory. This theory is the result of collaboration between financial sciences and social sciences and makes our knowledge of financial markets deeper. Behavioral finance is a new branch of financial knowledge. Behavioral finance at the macro level challenges classical financial theories, particularly capital efficient market theory. Behavioral finance at the micro level shows that behavior of investors in the real world is incompatible with the fundamental assumption of rationality in classical finance, and cognitive and emotional tendencies or bevels of investors that we called them behavioral biases have an important role in economic decisions making. Behavioral finance of paying attention to the fundamental assumptions of theories in the field of financial economics and capital market like as other branches of the sciences in addition to better understanding and comprehending them, makes our utilization more efficient as a guide in practice. One of the most basic assumptions in valuation of securities and financial products in the stock exchanges is that behavior of investors is rational. This means they seek to maximize their interests, and in addition their response or reaction against the opportunities for taking profit and risk of loss is predictable.

“Are you able to access this website at all?” – team negotiations and macro-level challenges in telecollaboration

ABSTRACTThis exploratory study contributes to the underexplored area of collaborative task formats in telecollaboration. The study investigates how English as a second language (ESL) student teachers in the US and English as a foreign language (EFL) student teachers in Turkey negotiated the design, implementation, and evaluation of technology-based English language learning tasks. The overall pedagogical goal of this spring 2014 project was to provide participants in different educational and institutional settings an opportunity to collaboratively explore and evaluate the affordances of technology tools in the design of joint learning tasks. This ethnographic case study triangulates questionnaires, telecollaboration logs, and computer-mediated communication data (blogs, emails) to examine the types of negotiation (personal, interactive, procedural) telecollaborative teams displayed at the project's micro levels (self, situated telecollaborative activity) and macro levels (institutional setting, political context). Findings indicate that one telecollaborative team, Global Team 2, effectively managed their learning as a group by making key decisions collectively about their work processes. The team's high number of procedural negotiation instances suggests a high degree of task-orientation, which may have aided their task completion. In contrast, the number of personal and interactive negotiation types was low. The latter, however, may have been called for midway through the project, when unexpected political developments in Turkey unfolded. Repercussions disturbed Turkish participants and affected social media, which were at the core of this telecollaboration. Implications focus on foregrounding personal and interactive negotiation via virtual Global Team check-ins, as well as on expanding collaborative tasks by incorporating perspectives on the wider institutional and sociopolitical contexts of participating institutions.

Listening to the Voice of the Patients: The Marketing Function, Market Orientation and Performance in Hospitals in Emerging Markets

The present study aims to explore to what extent hospitals adopt a market orientation as their corporate marketing strategy in an emerging-market context which poses many macro-level challenges for...

Designing Classroom Routines to Promote Physical Activity in Children

Physical inactivity, a risk factor for childhood obesity, may contribute to difficulties with learning, social participation, and chronic disease in adulthood. This study examined the efficacy of ABC for Fitness™, a classroom-based physical activity program, at improving physical fitness in third grade students in two school districts. The sample included 229 students with 110 in the intervention and 129 in the control groups. Outcome measures included body mass index, curl-ups, push-ups, ½ mile run, and flexibility. Over a five month period, intervention schools showed greater improvement than controls in curl-ups and push-ups with trends toward significance in flexibility and ½ mile run. The study demonstrates the potential for designing classroom environments that promote physical fitness in children. Macro-level challenges for implementing programs in school systems are presented.