Poor Commitment Research Articles

Drivers and barriers to green supply chain management in the South African cement industry

Background: The cement industry in South Africa is lagging behind the green supply chain management (GSCM) revolution that has influenced many sectors to re-evaluate their supply chain systems.Objective: This study was conducted to determine the significant drivers of and barriers to the implementation of GSCM in the South African cement industry, and thus to investigate the impediments to the implementation of GSCM in the cement industry.Method: A mixed-method approach was used to collect data from various role-players in the cement value chain. Geometric means were calculated from the scores of the survey conducted. Interviews were also conducted to confirm the results of the survey. An analytical hierarchy process technique ranked the individual drivers and barriers using the results from pairwise comparisons conducted. After ranking the drivers and barriers, a Pareto analysis was applied to determine the most significant drivers and barriers for the South African cement industry.Results: Overall, the seven most significant sub-drivers fall into three categories of main drivers: financial performance, competitors and organisational style. Ten barriers were identified as most significant and were categorised into five themes, namely, high capital costs, poor supplier commitment, high certification costs, weak marketing positioning and lack of awareness of GSCM.Conclusion: The identification of these drivers and barriers contributes to further research on improvements to GSCM process in the cement industry. The study shows that drivers of and barriers to the implementation of GSCM are not universally standard, and the ranking varies from one industry to another and from one country to another.

On sustainable predictive maintenance: Exploration of key barriers using an integrated approach

Poor maintenance practices lead to significant economic, environmental, and social problems and affect the sustainable manufacturing paradigm. The predictive maintenance (PdM) technique helps to minimise problems by forecasting the conditions of the machines. Hence, it is essential for industrial managers to have sustainable predictive maintenance (SPM) practices in place to achieve economic, environmental, and social objectives in their manufacturing environments. However, industrial managers face numerous barriers that may prevent the adoption of SPM practices, and this study aims to identify and evaluate barriers to SPM practices. Initially, by literature review, thirty barriers were identified, and then, using the Pareto analysis, twenty barriers were finalized for evaluation. This study uses an integrated Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) and Grey-Decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) technique to understand the hierarchies and interrelationships among the barriers to SPM practices. A sensitivity analysis was conducted to examine the robustness of the result. The study reveals that no independent barriers are present in the course of study. Results indicate that poor commitment from top management, lack of a standard performance analysis system, no synchronization among technologies, a lack of awareness on sustainable maintenance practice among stakeholders, and the organization's reluctance to change are the primary causal barriers to SPM practices. This study implies that SPM practices can be productive for industrial communities when industries enhance their technological capability and show interest in maintenance activity. The findings of this study help industrial managers and policymakers to better understand the nature of the barriers towards implementing SPM practices in a manufacturing environment.

Risks affecting the performance of Ethiopian domestic road construction contractors

The government of Ethiopia (GOE) has been working to enhance the capacity of Ethiopian domestic contractors (EDCs) over the past three decades. This has enabled the development of several private and public construction firms. However, the performance of EDCs is still a matter of concern. The aim of this paper is, therefore, to identify and prioritize risks of EDCs operating in the federal road construction projects. Forty-seven risk events were identified through an in-depth literature review. A questionnaire survey was conducted with professionals from the three main contracting parties (contractors, consultants, and the client) to prioritize the identified risk events in terms of their relative significance. The study outlined the ten most significant risk events namely, shortage of cash, inadequate planning, lack of access to foreign currency, delay in possession of site, frequent breakdown of equipment, delay in delivery of material and equipment, financial failure, inflation, delay in payments and poor commitment and coordination within the contractors’ team. This study provides an insight into contractors’ risks with a focus on domestic contractors engaged in the road sector. The findings of this study will be helpful to construction firms to develop an appropriate risk management system to effectively mitigate their risks.

The Problematic of Disaster Management Law and Policy in Nigeria: A Study of Bayelsa State

The study examined the problem of disaster management in Nigeria using Bayelsa State as a case study. Four null hypotheses were raised and tested at a 0.05 level of significance. The study adopted the descriptive survey design and sample sizes of 300 adults were drawn from fifteen (15) affected communities in Bayelsa State. The instrument used for data collection was a disaster management questionnaire and the data were analyzed using chi-square. The finding of the study revealed that there is a significant relationship between poor integrated policy and action plan as well as weak institutional capacity and collaboration of disaster management agencies and effectiveness of disaster management in Bayelsa State. The study clearly showed that there is a significant relationship between poor commitment and piece-meal approach by the multi-layered levels of government as well as poor stakeholders’ participation and synergy and effectiveness of disaster management in Bayelsa State. The study recommended among others that long-term monitoring and surveillance mechanism; continuous provision of infrastructure for the host communities by prospecting oil companies; adequate funding by governmental and non-governmental and the development of a national oil spill contingency plan should be adopted and deployed with an eye to guaranteeing sustainable development of the environment in the region.

What Predicts the Sport Event Volunteer Experience? Examining Motivation, Satisfaction, Commitment, And Sense of Community

Despite the large body of literature on sport event volunteers, researchers have a poor understanding of the volunteer experience despite studies claiming direct and indirect relationships involving motivation, satisfaction, commitment, and sense of community towards the volunteer experience. In fact, most studies fail to statistically measure experience as a dependent variable. As such, the importance of these four antecedents as predictors of the volunteer experience remains assumed and uncertain. The purpose of this study was to empirically test if and how sport event volunteers' motivation, satisfaction, commitment, and sense of community predict their experience. Following the 2019 Osprey Valley Open, 161 volunteers (65% response rate) completed an online self-administered questionnaire. A two-step structural equation model analysis tested the hypothesized linear relationships. Results indicated direct (i. e., motivation and satisfaction) and indirect (i. e., commitment and sense of community) relationships between antecedents and the volunteer experience. Commitment had an indirect relationship to the volunteer experience through motivation's direct relationship, while the indirect relationship of sense of community occurred through satisfaction's direct relationship to the volunteer experience. Confirmatory factor analysis also indicated motivation and sense of community had poor factor loadings, while satisfaction and commitment loaded adequately. Moreover, only the egoistic motivation factor was supported in this study motivation's direct relationship to the volunteer experience. These findings empirically support previous claims for motivation and satisfaction's direct relationship to the volunteer experience but dispute previous claims of direct relationships involving sense of community and commitment. Contributions include the need to move beyond investigating individual antecedents of the volunteer experience as it requires a multifaceted analysis due to conceptual interrelationships. Event managers should understand their volunteers' experience as being complex and develop strategies aimed at each of the four antecedents.

Irony of Development Agendas: Perspectives on APRM under Presidents Thabo Mbeki and Olusegun Obasanjo

ABSTRACT The attainment of development is largely consequent upon the throes of political governance as a fragment of public administration. In truth, the nexus between political governance and development is crucial to the advancement of social justice. The quest to reverse Africa’s underdevelopment and de-democratisation instigated its political leaders to initiate, formalise, and adopt the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM). The APRM is expected to promote good governance, transparency, democracy, political accountability, and other indicators of development, thereby entrenching developmentalism. Based on Gerry Stoker’s new governance theory, the paper examines the Country Self-Assessment Report (CSAR) of South Africa and Nigeria under the administrations of Thabo Mbeki and Olusegun Obasanjo based on the four theoretical pillars of the APRM. It finds that successive regimes after Mbeki and Obasanjo exhibited poor commitment to implement the ideals of the APRM to further the gains made by the understudied regimes and thereby weakened the developmentalism push of the countries.

Assessing Teacher Motivation and its Outcome on Performance in Public Basic Schools in East Gonja District of Ghana

The study ascertains the extent and adequacy of motivation within the Ghana Education Service (GES) and its effect on teaching. The population for the study was all teaching staff in the East Gonja District. A Survey design was used in the study and a self-developed questionnaire was administered to 25 schools out of 69 zoned schools giving a 36% representation of the entire population. Random sampling was used to select 4 respondents from each of the selected schools to give a total of 100 respondents. The study revealed that promotion, salary increment, cash rewards and study leave with pay were motivating factors to teacher performance. The study also unraveled poor management commitment to teacher performance, and finally, the relationship between years of experience and job satisfaction depicted that, teachers with more years of teaching experience were more motivated and satisfied than the youth. It is recommended that management pays attention to factors that motivate teachers so as to improve performance and also give some form of incentives/appreciation to especially longer and industrious teachers.

Characterization of farmer‐based cooperative societies in the upper west region of Ghana

AbstractThe study describes the ownership and governance characteristics and the challenges of farmer‐based cooperative societies from three districts in the Upper West Region of Ghana. Primary data were obtained from 59 active and 14 inactive cooperatives in the selected districts. The study concludes that Ghanaian cooperatives in the sample bear much resemblance to the traditional form which emerged in Europe and North America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Generally, such cooperatives have relatively small memberships from local communities who use a democratic governance system and do not delegate control to outsiders. While the cost of owning and transacting is limited with such characteristics, many traditional cooperatives lack the specific knowledge, economic efficiency, and resource endowment necessary to become or remain competitive. Indeed, the active cooperatives listed finance, access to inputs, tractor services and poor leadership as key challenges, while inactive cooperatives blamed poor member commitment as the primary culprit for their inactivity. Efforts aimed at promoting and supporting farmer cooperatives should focus on addressing these key challenges. Also, financial and technical support should probably be conditional on group performance and not group formation itself.

Do social accountability approaches work? A review of the literature from selected low- and middle-income countries in the WHO South-East Asia region.

Governance failures undermine efforts to achieve universal health coverage and improve health in low- and middle-income countries by decreasing efficiency and equity. Punitive measures to improve governance are largely ineffective. Social accountability strategies are perceived to enhance transparency and accountability through bottom-up approaches, but their effectiveness has not been explored comprehensively in the health systems of low- and middle-income countries in south and Southeast Asia where these strategies have been promoted. We conducted a narrative literature review to explore innovative social accountability approaches in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Indonesia, the Maldives, Myanmar and Nepal spanning the period 2007–August 2017, searching PubMed, Scopus and Google Scholar. To augment this, we also performed additional PubMed and Google Scholar searches (September 2017–December 2019) to identify recent papers, resulting in 38 documents (24 peer-reviewed articles and 14 grey sources), which we reviewed. Findings were analysed using framework analysis and categorized into three major themes: transparency/governance (eight), accountability (11) and community participation (five) papers. The majority of the reviewed approaches were implemented in Bangladesh, India and Nepal. The interventions differed on context (geographical to social), range (boarder reform to specific approaches), actors (public to private) and levels (community-specific to system level). The initiatives were associated with a variety of positive outcomes (e.g. improved monitoring, resource mobilization, service provision plus as a bridge between the engaged community and the health system), yet the evidence is inconclusive as to the extent that these influence health outcomes and access to health care. The review shows that there is no common blueprint which makes accountability mechanisms viable and effective; the effectiveness of these initiatives depended largely on context, capacity, information, spectrum of actor involvement, independence from power agendas and leadership. Major challenges that undermined effective implementation include lack of capacity, poor commitment and design and insufficient community participation.

Biosecurity challenges in the control of avian influenza in Nigeria

Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) has a devastating impact on the economy especially the poultry industry and it jeopardizes food security and public health. The disease which was first reported in Nigeria in 2006, re-occurred in 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2019. Inspite of the efforts the federal government has put into eradicating Avian Influenza in the country, the re-occurrence of the disease points to challenges of control efforts by stakeholders. Biosecurity challenges confronting poultry farmers and live bird market operators were implicated in new outbreaks and spread of HPAI. A cross-sectional study was carried out by administering open ended questionnaires to poultry farmers and live bird marketers in 12 States that shared boundaries with States affected by HPAI in 2019. Using the thematic style of qualitative analysis and MS Excel 2016, data and information with common denominators and pattern were collated and grouped. The One Health approach was adopted for this study. This was achieved by evaluating the knowledge of the stakeholders on the spread of Avian Influenza (AI), the biosecurity challenges they faced, their recommended solutions and new preventive or control measures they were willing to implement in order to achieve biosecurity against AI outbreak. The live bird marketers' responses showed their major challenge to be poor commitment to implementing already known biosecurity rules (22%), followed by unavailability of funds (13%) and sanitation problems. The poultry farmers struggled with lack of funds for maintenance (32%), and lack of compliance to biosecurity by farm attendants (24%). Both groups jointly recommended alleviating strategies such as the improvement of stakeholder education, supportive financing and the strengthening of animal health legislations. These new insights would benefit the formulation and implementing effective probiosecurity strategies for the control of avian influenza.
 Keywords: Avian influenza, biosecurity, one health, poultry farms, Nigeria

Developing sustainable tourism through public-private partnership to alleviate poverty in Ghana

Encouraging sustainable tourism is an essential aspect of driving economic growth, social responsibility and safeguarding the ecology. This study, therefore, aimed at examining how Public-Private Partnership (PPP) in sustainable tourism development helps eradicate poverty in tourism host communities. A qualitative design was employed by using a semi-structured interview to collect primary data from experts from diverse backgrounds using both purposive and snowball sampling techniques. The findings were thematically analysed and discussed by focusing on general issues related to sustainable tourism and how PPP implementation in the tourism sector has impacted on the economic, social and environmental conditions of the tourism destination areas in Ghana. The findings indicate that the potential of PPP development for long-term economic infrastructural needs of tourism destination have not been sufficiently realized. We suggest that the sole involvement of the private sector and a poor commitment from government has led to a failure to create enough jobs to improve prosperity among the local people in these tourism host communities. Nonetheless, PPP development and implementation have improved the preservation of traditional values, cultural heritage and inter-cultural tolerance in the tourism destination areas. As a result, tourism host communities have seen a positive impact on intercultural interaction, business activities, entrepreneurial development and economic empowerment to eradicate poverty in the host communities. Commitment and the poor involvement of the tourism host communities can have long-term negative effects on poverty eradication in the locales.

EMPLOYEE RETENTION STRATEGIES AND NORMATIVE COMMITMENT OF ACADEMICS IN SELECTED PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES IN OGUN STATE, NIGERIA

Tertiary educational institutions are facing a huge challenge in terms of retaining skilled human resource capacity, which has a debilitating effect on its ability to make strides in the areas of socio-economic and political development. The need for qualified academic staff in Nigerian tertiary institutions of learning is on the increase, while, majority of the tertiary institutions in Nigeria are experiencing dearth of teaching personnel due to poor remuneration, low motivation, low job satisfaction and lack of organisational commitment amongst the lecturers, which have created negative job attitudes and poor organisational commitment. This study therefore investigated the influence of employee retention strategies on normative commitment of academics in selected private universities in Ogun state, Nigeria. Survey research design was adopted for the study. The population comprised 1,842 academics in the private universities (Covenant, McPherson, Babcock, Bells, Crawford and Crescent universities). Through a multiple sampling technique, 589 out of 1842 were sampled for the study. Data were analyzed using both descriptive, as well as inferential statistics. Findings revealed that employee retention strategies had a significant effect on the normative commitment of academics in selected private universities in Ogun state, Nigeria (R2 = 0.638, t = 169.039, p<.05). The study recommends among others that private universities should take into consideration the retention factors which impact on the employees’ commitment to the institution and improve on them so as to curb employees’ desires to leave the organisation.

The Influence of Demographic Factors and Work Environment on Job Satisfaction Among Police Personnel: An Empirical Study

Job satisfaction among employees is important for police organizations. Low job satisfaction may result in poor organizational commitment, unsatisfactory job performance, and absenteeism. Job satisfaction is impacted by demographic factors and characteristics of the work environment. Analyzing survey data of 6,041 police officers, the study finds that while demographic factors and job characteristics impact job satisfaction, organizational characteristics have the greatest influence. The study illuminates the similarities and differences in organizational dynamics impacting job satisfaction in police organizations in India and other countries and underlines the relevance of the theory across countries and cultures.

Exploration of facilitators of and barriers to the community-based service utilization for newborn possible serious bacterial infection management in Debre Libanos District, Ethiopia: descriptive qualitative study

BackgroundGlobally, possible serious bacterial infection [PSBI] is a cause for about 600,000 newborn deaths per year. To decrease the burden of this infection, a community-based management newborn PSBI when referral to hospital is not possible has been on implementation. Studies showed gaps in the service utilization and this study was aimed at exploring its barriers and facilitators.MethodsA descriptive qualitative study was conducted from March 11– April 7, 2019, in Debre Libanos District, Ethiopia. Study participants were recruited purposively. Women who gave birth within 2 months before data collection, health extension workers [HEW], health workers, religious leader, kebele chairman, and other community members were involved in the study. Five in-depth interviews, seven key informant interviews, and four focused group discussions were conducted with a total of fifty-two participants. The data were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and translated, and inductive thematic analysis was done using Atlas ti.7.1 software.ResultThe availability of health workers trained on community-based newborn care [CBNC], Integrated Management of Newborn and Childhood Illness guidelines, availability of medical supplies and job aids, and performance review meetings were identified as facilitators. Communities perception that the newborn illness has no medical treatment, newborn illness is not severe and is self-resolution; the belief in healing power of traditional medicines, socio-cultural and religious beliefs, lack of awareness about service availability at the health post, poor supportive supervision or monitoring, shortage of HEW, the residency of HEWs outside the health post, a poor commitment of health workers and HEWs, and non-functionality of health developmental army were explored as barriers.ConclusionsThe findings provided insight into the facilitators of and barriers to community-based service utilization for newborn PSBI management. There is a need to develop strategies to address the barriers. Therefore, health care providers should have to develop strategies, and conduct a behavioral change communication to change the perception of community members towards newborn illnesses, promote the availability of the service at the health post, and the HEWs provide the service staying at the health post.

THE IMPORTANCE OF SUPPORTIVE LEADERSHIP IN THE SEWERAGE OPERATION INDUSTRY IN MALAYSIA: A CASE OF INDAH WATER KONSORTIUMPRIVATE LIMITED (IWK)

Purpose: This study intends to determine the importance of Supportive Leadership in the sewerage operation industry since the nature of work itself, together with workload and pressure, has resulted in severe occupational stress among the workers; consequently, it would translate into poor work commitment.
 Methodology: The random sample was obtained from the sampling frame, which consists of employees of the sewerage operation company in Malaysia, namely, Indah water Konsortium (IWK). Data was gathered using a self-administered questionnaire given to the randomly selected respondents. Meanwhile, data were analyzed using the second-generation method of multivariate analysis called Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) in IBM-SPSS-AMOS 24.0. Furthermore, the results were reconfirmed through bootstrapping procedures.
 Result: The study found Supportive Leadership fully mediates the relationship between Occupational Stress and Work Commitment. The finding of this research indicates that in this particular industry, Supportive Leadership is extremely important to transform from negative Work Commitment to positive and significant Work Commitment from the employees.
 Applications: The management of sewerage operation industries needs to be supportive of their workers in order to obtain a positive and significant commitment from the workers amid the work pressure and stress.
 Novelty/Originality: Unlike other industries, the sewerage operation industry (in Malaysia) is pre-occupied with work burden and under tremendous work pressure. The study that links occupational stress and work commitment are scarce, especially in this particular industry, and in developing countries like Malaysia.

Identification of institutional risks of SMEs supply chain using the fuzzy failure mode and effect analysis

Institutional problems experienced by SMEs pose institutional risks that may affect their supply chain. The variables include involved actor, relationship and institution. The actor as a variable poses the risks of technical and intellectual knowledge, and negotiation skills, not to mention the issues of commitment, communication and responsibility. The relationship as a variable revolves around the issues of trust, honesty and motivation to improve, frequent conflicts, and limited information. Other institutional variables pose the risks of under-developed business networks and insufficient government involvement and training, and fundings. These risks must be handled properly and correctly. This study was aimed to identify and to assess institutional risks in supply chains. The risk identification and assessment in this research employed the Fuzzy Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (Fuzzy FMEA). The result from analysing five randomly selected SMEs revealed that the prioritised risks for actor as a variable included the lack of intellectual knowledge and poor commitment level. The prioritised risk for relationship as a variable was the lack of motivation to improve together. The prioritised risk for other institutional variables was the limited funding from other institution.

A Proposed Electronic System for a Smartphone to Improve Communication Between Academics, Administrators, and Students at Palestinian Universities: Palestine Ahliya University as a Case Study

This study has investigated the improvement of communication between students, academic and administrative departments at Palestinian universities, Palestine Ahliya University (PAU) in particular, by proposing a smartphone application. In particular, the study aimed to measure the level of administrative and academic communication provided to students and staff by the current e-services (portal and email) and traditional paper method at PAU, and thus identify their most prominent administrative and academic needs. In this paper, the descriptive-analytical method was used and a questionnaire was distributed to academics and head of administrative departments who have direct contact with university students. A random sample of the university students of different levels was selected at PAU as a case study. More precisely, 221 questionnaires were distributed, 169 were retrieved and analyzed using Google Drive. The results showed a real weakness in the communication level between the academic departments, administrative departments, and students, which shows that the current e-services at PAU are not sufficient and need to be enhanced. In particular, 82% of staff reported poor communication through the academic portal, and 70% reported poor communication via email. The rates of communication weakness of the academic gate and email for students were lower than teachers, reaching 72.2% and 67.2%, respectively. The results also showed that there is a lot of time and effort wasted by using the traditional method. All of these currently used methods led to a poor commitment to the university policy and instructions and additional workload for the administrative departments. In addition to that, the results showed the most important academic and administrative needs for students, academic and administrative departments. The most important needs were the administrative ones (83.6% for teachers and 81.4% for students), most notably, the admission and registration services followed by the needs of the Alumni and Training Unit. Ranked second were the academic needs (75.8% for teachers and 72.6% for students) which include the policy of exceptions and absence, and academic advising services. Therefore, developing a smartphone application that meets all of these needs would play an important role in bridging and activating communication between the students as well as academic and administrative departments.

Impact of Industrial SMEs in the Environment Conservation : A Systematic Mapping Study

Small and medium-sized companies have an impact on the environment where they operate. In some cases, the effects on the environment can be significant within local communities leading to a series of negative processes, such as emission pollution into the atmosphere, the discharges to rivers and seas, the production of waste; in some cases, it makes the contamination to the soil. This paper presents the results of the systematic mapping study aimed at assessing environmental management in industrial SMEs. Descriptive studies of SMEs emphasize their poor environmental commitment, describing them as primarily interested in controlling pollutant emissions just to comply with regulations. Ninety-eight papers were identified, and the results indicate that environmental management is not fully incorporated as a standard in the management processes of SMEs, so their environmental performance depends on the degree of pressure placed by control agencies, authorities, or clients. Such companies believe that the economic resources allocated for environmental care are costs rather than investments. However, research on environmental management in SMEs shows the uniformity of environmental strategies with a low level of development. The intellectual interest arose based on the need to identify the environmental needs that small businesses in developing countries must attend. The paper is justified by its own condition of proposing sustainable development, with the possibility of providing a real vision of the situation of industrial businesses in environmental matters.

Ranking the occupational incident contributory factors: A Bayesian network model for the petroleum industry

IntroductionA vast amount of research has been conducted to identify human and organizational factors that contribute to the occurrence of occupational incidents. Considering the identified factors, the question is how much the occupational incident probability will decrease in the absence of one or more recognized contributory factors. MethodsTwenty-one fatal accident reports were selected for Root Cause Analysis (RCA). The contributory factors were identified by content analysis of the accident scenarios. A 5-point Likert questionnaire was developed to measure the probability of identified factors. Using the identified contributory factors and their corresponding probabilities, a Bayesian network model was constructed for estimating the probability of the occupational incident in the absence of each contributory factor. ResultsProcedure violation, poor risk perception, and poor management commitment were three top-ranking contributory factors. The Bayesian network estimated that preventing procedures violation could cause a reduction of 44 % in the occupational incident probability. ConclusionUsing Bayesian network’s advantages is an effective technique for quantifying occupational safety risks. Ranking the contributory factors enables us to choose the most effective prevention strategies. Procedure violation (a type of unsafe act) was the most influencing factor in occupational incident probability.

Differentiation and plasticity of human vascular wall mesenchymal stem cells, dermal fibroblasts and myofibroblasts: a critical comparison including ultrastructural evaluation of osteogenic potential

ABSTRACTMesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) share many properties with other tissue stromal cells, including cell morphology, immunophenotype, differentiation and immunologic properties. In this study, we compared the immunophenotype and the differentiation potential of human vascular wall mesenchymal stem cells (hVW-MSCs) with those of human dermal fibroblasts and myofibroblasts. Cell morphology and surface markers were evaluated by immunofluorescence and flow cytometry; functional assays for immunomodulation, angiogenesis, adipogenesis and osteogenesis were performed, together with the mRNA analysis of the critical differentiation genes. hVW-MSCs, dermal fibroblasts and myofibroblasts were all negative to CD34, whereas the expression of CD44 stemness marker was more intense in hVW-MSCs. As expected, hVW-MSC plasticity was wide and the angiogenic, adipogenic, osteogenic features were confirmed. Fibroblasts were the less effective in terms of immunomodulation, angiogenesis and adipogenic differentiation; differently from fibroblasts, the myofibroblasts showed a poor angiogenic commitment. The mineralization assay was positive in all the three cell types, but ultrastructure interestingly evidenced differential osteogenic patterns among them. Our study supports the higher anti-inflammatory and wound healing repair features of hVW-MSCs, in comparison to the other stromal cells investigated. Moreover, we underline the importance of ultrastructure for investigating the specific osteogenic pattern for each cell type.