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Introduction: There remain a number of debates and conflicts about the concept of rewilding which can be barriers to its application. Some of these conflicts stem from the variety of contextual interpretations of rewilding, leading to conflict between rewilding theories and approaches. Conclusions have also been drawn about rewilding based on limited case studies, so that emergent rewilding theories aren't applicable to all rewilding projects, limiting their support in the field. Past theories have distinguished different types of rewilding, encouraging debate over the proposed methods, although in practice these approaches often share similar goals and use similar interventions. One barrier to achieving consensus in the practice of rewilding is that there are no clear guidelines for rewilding, and there are limited broad-scale studies focusing on how rewilding is practiced. This paper addresses this by offering the first broad study of rewilding guidelines and interventions. Methods: A grounded theory study was undertaken, using data sourced from rewilding organisations, case studies, and research. Expressions were coded in the data relating to intentions for how rewilding should be practiced and the interventions used. Results: Drawing from these data, the paper offers three tools to guide rewilding practitioners: (1) an overview of guidelines for rewilding practice, (2) a list of interventions used in rewilding, considering them against rewilding goals, (3) a theory of change framework to guide rewilding application. Discussion: The tools presented here will inform work towards IUCN rewilding guidelines. Several areas that require further consideration are highlighted. We hope that this initial study of application can improve agreement and collaboration among the rewilding community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to propose a new comprehensive retirement insurance solution (CRIS) that, by offering appropriate modules, can be flexibly adapted to customers' needs during the accumulation of funds and entitlements and during retirement. Technically, the product is life-insurance-based and includes insurance for sickness and in-capacity, long-term care (LTC), work activation expenses, hospital stays, and tontine and Luxembourg policies. Due to consumers' changing expectations and needs, the technical dimension of this solution is based on a three-layer insurance product in which individual parts of the protection are supplemented by several additional benefits (types of assistance) that improve the quality of life of insurance participants and allow the ongoing use of the product. The basis for considering such a new insurance product is the theory of change (ToC), which makes it possible to build considerable flexibility into such a solution. A SWOT analysis was used to position the proposed solution in relation to other insurance products and social security offered by the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of steadily declining Natural Capital and universal recognition of the imperative to reverse this trend before we get to the point that nature is not able to restore itself, cities have a crucial role to play. The UK Government commissioned a comprehensive study into the value of biodiversity, and by extension nature, reinforcing “why we should change our ways”—yet what is missing is the “how?”. This paper uniquely describes both the “how?” and a conclusive demonstration of the remarkable benefits of implementing it in a city. Critical to this process, it took a UK Parliamentary Inquiry to reveal that nature has become invisible within the economy, yet the ecological ecosystem services nature provides have enormous benefits to both people and the economy. Therefore integration—or seamless weaving—of urban greenspace and nature into people's lives and the places where they live, work, and spend their leisure time is vital. Moreover, what nature does not provide must be provided by engineered systems, and these have an economic cost; put another way, there are enormous cost savings to be made by taking advantage of what nature provides. In addressing these issues, this paper is the definitive paper from a 20-year portfolio of research on how to bring about transformative change in the complex system-of-systems that make up our cities, providing as it does the crucial in-depth research into the many diverse strands of governance—the last link in a chain of the creation, testing and proof of efficacy of methodologies underpinning a theory and practice of change for infrastructure and cities. The impact of this portfolio of research on Birmingham is two-fold: the Star Framework that placed natural environment considerations at the heart of all decision-making in the city, and the successful bid for the largest of the UK Future Parks Accelerator awards. While both are transformative in their different ways, yet mutually supportive, the latter enabled the design of a suite of system interventions from which the value of Birmingham's greenspaces is estimated to rise from £11.0 billion to £14.4 billion—a remarkable return on investment from the research's conceptualization of Birmingham's urban greenspace as a “business” (with its associated business models). In achieving this, the necessary enablers of thinking and practicing systemically, seamlessly working across disciplinary boundaries, an unusually strong focus on both the aspirations of all stakeholders and the context in question to define “the problem,” and the testing of proposed system intervention(s) both now and in the future have been iteratively combined. However, it is the critical enabling steps of identifying the complete range of value-generating opportunities that the interventions offer, formulating them into alternative business models to underpin the case for change and ensuring that they are synergistic with all the dimensions of governance that yielded the profound outcomes sought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper applies the theory of change model (Kotter in Harv Bus Rev 2:59–67, 1995; Moore et al. in Viet Nam J Public Health 1(1):66–75, 2013) to describe the pathway that lead to Australia's first pill testing/drug checking services in Canberra, in the Australian Capital Territory. The paper takes each step of the model and illustrates the key activities that largely occurred over an approximately 24 month period resulting in the service being operational on 29 April 2018. The paper demonstrates that leadership, advocacy and activism are key components, alongside evidence, to bringing about public policy change. It provides a unique insight to the extensive efforts undertaken to achieving the first legally sanctioned pill testing at festivals in Australia and provides a positive case study for those seeking to introduce contested harm reduction services in the drug and alcohol field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper revisits the "deflationary" line of criticism that had been raised against the theory of event presented in Alain Badiou's Being and Event. This line of criticism questions the Badiouian claim to have provided a theorization of radical novelty and change, suggesting that events and their consequences may be more banal than is assumed by the account of change based on truths, elaborated in Badiou's great ontological treatise. Advancing a version of deflationary criticism, this paper proposes that there are important matters left unclear in the settheoretical ontology of Badiou's magnum opus that become particularly relevant when the categories such as void, event, and truth are deployed in analyses of specific and concrete extra-ontological situations. Exploiting some of those ambiguities, it will be argued that the theorization of change due to post-evental truths in Being and Event does not adequately establish the universality of the truths that, for Badiou, must commence with events. This is problematic for the Badiouian account of change because universality, or what Badiou's ontological discourse terms "genericity," is the property of truths that is supposed to ensure their transformative potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sex and gender are inadequately considered in health and medical research, policy and practice, leading to preventable disparities in health and wellbeing. Several global institutions, journals, and funding bodies have developed policies and guidelines to improve the inclusion of diverse participants and consideration of sex and gender in research design and reporting and the delivery of clinical care. However, according to recent evaluations, these policies have had limited impact on the inclusion of diverse research participants, adequate reporting of sex and gender data and reducing preventable inequities in access to, and quality provision of, healthcare. In Australia, the Sex and Gender Policies in Medical Research (SGPMR) project aims to address sex and gender bias in health and medical research by (i) examining how sex and gender are currently considered in Australian research policy and practice; (ii) working with stakeholders to develop policy interventions; and (iii) understanding the wider impacts, including economic, of improved sex and gender consideration in Australian health and medical research. In this paper we describe the development of a theory of change (ToC) for the SGPMR project. The ToC evolved from a two-stage process consisting of key stakeholder interviews and a consultation event. The ToC aims to identify the pathways to impact from improved consideration of sex and gender in health and medical research, policy and practice, and highlight how key activities and policy levers can lead to improvements in clinical practice and health outcomes. In describing the development of the ToC, we present an entirely novel framework for outlining how sex and gender can be appropriately considered within the confines of health and medical research, policy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special feature concerns understanding human‐nature relations through the lens of values to comprehend how values of the natural world connect with wider processes of change, action and transformation in social‐ecological systems.The relationships between values and action have preoccupied several disciplines and multiple discourses concerned with implementing change, including sustainability and health, and conservation.Focusing on the conceptual underpinnings of how values, action and change are generally understood, this paper proposes an alternate view informed by more‐than‐human thinking and theories of social practices. In doing so, it aims to closely scrutinise the relationship between values and actions in the context of creating transformative change.In highlighting this relationship and presenting some different ways to understand it, the paper aims to contribute to deepening understanding of how to relate to, value and act for nature and how this might be encouraged.One of the most common pathways assumed to generate action is based on the idea that action is driven by values, and that in order to change action, we therefore need to change values. The paper questions the assumed relationship between values and actions and its direction, and instead posits that beginning with actions is a more productive place to start.To work through these ideas, I introduce more‐than‐human theories, focusing on theories of social practice, to discuss how these theories can change how values and actions are conceptualised, how the relationships between them can be understood, and what these ideas can mean for rethinking how to achieve social‐ecological change. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to determine the real share of the morphological components of the municipal waste generated in the municipal systems in Poland (all municipal waste collected from the communes). So far, the analysis of the morphological composition of municipal waste has not involved all of the waste streams. In addition, it is necessary to use factors for correcting estimates of waste mass to prevent false increases in the mass of certain groups of waste. Determining the real morphological composition of municipal waste is necessary for proper calculation of the levels of readiness for the re-use and recycling of municipal waste. This study shows that bio-waste accounted for the largest mass share of 28.68%, followed by paper, glass, and plastic, constituting 10.78%, 10.59%, and 10.29%, respectively. This study reveals the proportion of the rubble and mineral fractions is 6.60% in total; however, these fractions should not be found in municipal waste, according to the given definition of this waste and the indicated codes for municipal waste. The content of <10 mm and 10-20 mm fractions was high, amounting for a total of 11.60%. The <20 mm fine fraction contained, among other components, glass, earth, bio-waste, plastics, ceramics, and small stones. The following conditions contributed to the high share of the fine fraction: the crumbling of various groups of waste, the time of storage at the place of production, incorrect separate collection of waste by primary producers, and the means by which it was transported to waste treatment plants. This causes the morphological composition of the generated waste to differ from that of the waste supplied for treatment. For this reason and others, it is necessary to change the methodology for determining the morphological composition of municipal waste generated in the Polish municipal systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper traces financial and non-financial variables that prompt external debt distress in Pakistan. It explains that the economic vulnerability emanates from macroeconomic imbalances and structural problems. The macroeconomic imbalances deeply connect with global oil crisis, the Russia-Ukraine war and non-compliance with mutually agreed International Monetary Fund (IMF) conditionalities in the short run. However, the structural reasons are rising oil expenses, growing domestic political scandals, increasing terrorist attacks, and high spending on military imports. The paper recommends formulating a publicly available blueprint i.e. theory of change to resolve Pakistan's increased reliance on transnational lenders, including the IMF. It should include innovative policies to initiate the green revolution that could replace intermittent nonrenewable resources to incrementally lower oil imports. Moreover, to increase growth in the non-military sector employing non-kinetic means and engaging transnational governance entities to resolve geopolitical conflicts would reduce reliance on military sector. The paper concludes that undergoing policy innovation for environmental and economic sustainability, is inevitable for gaining benefits from global renewable energy transition and avoiding debt distress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Stakeholder engagement is essential to the design, implementation and evaluation of complex mental health interventions like peer support. Theory of Change (ToC) is commonly used in global health research to help structure and promote stakeholder engagement throughout the project cycle. Stakeholder insights are especially important in the context of a multi-site trial, in which an intervention may need to be adapted for implementation across very different settings while maintaining fidelity to a core model. This paper describes the development of a ToC for a peer support intervention to be delivered to people with severe mental health conditions in five countries as part of the UPSIDES trial. Methods: One hundred thirty-four stakeholders from diverse backgrounds participated in a total of 17 workshops carried out at six UPSIDES implementing sites across high-, middle- and low-income settings (one site each in India, Israel, Uganda and Tanzania; two sites in Germany). The initial ToC maps created by stakeholders at each site were integrated into a cross-site ToC map, which was then revised to incorporate additional insights from the academic literature and updated iteratively through multiple rounds of feedback provided by the implementers. Results: The final ToC map divides the implementation of the UPSIDES peer support intervention into three main stages: preparation, implementation, and sustainability. The map also identifies three levels of actors involved in peer support: individuals (service users and peer support workers), organisations (and their staff members), and the public. In the UPSIDES trial, the ToC map proved especially helpful in characterising and distinguishing between (a) common features of peer support, (b) shared approaches to implementation and (c) informing adaptations to peer support or implementation to account for contextual differences. Conclusions: UPSIDES is the first project to develop a multi-national ToC for a mental health peer support intervention. Stakeholder engagement in the ToC process helped to improve the cultural and contextual appropriateness of a complex intervention and ensure equivalence across sites for the purposes of a multi-site trial. It may serve as a blueprint for implementing similar interventions with a focus on recovery and social inclusion among people with mental ill-health across diverse settings. Trial registration: ISRCTN26008944 (Registration Date: 30/10/2019). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Replication is an important tool to promote high quality research and ensure policy makers can rely on studies in making guidelines or funding programs. By ensuring influential studies are replicable we provide assurance that the policies based on these studies are well-founded and the conclusions and recommendations are robust--to different estimation models or different choices. In this paper, we argue that replication is not only useful but necessary to ensure that an author's choice in how to analyse data is not the only factor that determines whether an intervention is effective or not. We also show that while most research is done well and provides robust results, small differences can lead to different interpretations and these differences need to be acknowledged. This special issue highlights 5 such replication studies, which are replications of influential studies on biomedical, social, behavioural and structural interventions for HIV prevention and treatment. We reflect on their findings. Four out of five studies, which conduct push button replication and pure replication, were able to reproduce the results of the original studies with minor differences, mainly due to minor typographical errors or rounding differences. The analysis of the measurement and estimation analyses conducted in these five studies reveals that the original results are not very robust to alternative analytical approaches, especially when these results rely on a small number of observations. In these cases, the original results are weakened. Furthermore, in contrast to the original papers, two of the five included replication studies conducted a theory of change analysis--to explore how or why the interventions work (or do not) not just whether the intervention works or not. These two analyses indicate that the estimated impacts of the interventions are drawn from few mediators. In addition, they demonstrate that, in some cases, a lack of effect may be related to lack of adequate exposure to the intervention rather than inefficacy of the intervention per se. However, overall, the included replication studies show that the results presented in the original papers are trustworthy and robust, especially when based on larger sample sizes. Replication studies can not only verify the results of a study, they can also provide additional insights on the published results, such as how and why an intervention was effective or less effective than expected. They can thus be a tool to inform the research community and/ or policymakers about whether and how interventions could be adopted, which need to be tested further, and which should be discontinued because of their ineffectiveness. Thus, publishing these replication studies in peer-reviewed journals makes the work public and publicized. The work advances knowledge, and publication should be encouraged, as it is for other types of research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drug abuse constitutes a significant societal and health challenge in the Republic of North Macedonia, the broader region, and globally. The detrimental consequences, stemming from both direct and indirect effects, profoundly impacted individuals, families, and society, extending to jeopardizing state security. The paper aimed to scrutinize the implementation of the criminal legislation of the Republic of North Macedonia concerning the prevention and detection of criminality involving narcotic substances (drugs) and the penalization of offenders engaged in illegal trafficking and unauthorized production of drugs. Employing the theory of change, which centered on identifying realistic positive transformations in the short and long term, coupled with applying the statistical method, the paper offered an overview of the number of criminal offenses. This overview was based on the official statistical data the Ministry of Internal Affairs provided for 2017 to 2022. Subsequently, the paper extended its focus to international cooperation, engaging in a comprehensive discussion on preventing and detecting criminality involving narcotic substances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While throughout modern history it has been shown how thoroughly biological discourses were shaped by conceptions originating in the theory and praxis of breeding, for the medieval period similar studies are mostly absent. This paper offers a symmetrical history of theory and praxis of breeding by asking to what extent they shaped medieval conceptions of human 'race' and 'ancestry' in Europe. For scholarly knowledge of breeding, the analysis relies on Albertus Magnus' extensive Aristotelian work De animalibus. For the practical knowledge of the breeders, scattered indications from the secondary literature are compiled and promising primary sources are outlined for further research. The paper finds that various concepts and practices whose origins are commonly placed in the early modern period were already present in the Middle Ages, including the concept of reproductive heredity and the view that creation diversified over time through reproductive ancestry. Breeding practices, thus, existed before the rise of genetics in modern biology. The medieval conceptions of 'race' and 'ancestry' underwent conceptual transfers from the non-human into the human sphere, collapsing the qualitative distinction of the two spheres into one quantitively graded overarching image of nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper demonstrates how two different methods used to calculate population-level mobility from Call Detail Records (CDR) produce varying predictions of the spread of epidemics informed by these data. Our findings are based on one CDR dataset describing inter-district movement in Ghana in 2021, produced using two different aggregation methodologies. One methodology, "all pairs," is designed to retain long distance network connections while the other, "sequential" methodology is designed to accurately reflect the volume of travel between locations. We show how the choice of methodology feeds through models of human mobility to the predictions of a metapopulation SEIR model of disease transmission. We also show that this impact varies depending on the location of pathogen introduction and the transmissibility of infections. For central locations or highly transmissible diseases, we do not observe significant differences between aggregation methodologies on the predicted spread of disease. For less transmissible diseases or those introduced into remote locations, we find that the choice of aggregation methodology influences the speed of spatial spread as well as the size of the peak number of infections in individual districts. Our findings can help researchers and users of epidemiological models to understand how methodological choices at the level of model inputs may influence the results of models of infectious disease transmission, as well as the circumstances in which these choices do not alter model predictions. Author summary: Predicting the sub-national spread of infectious disease requires accurate measurements of inter-regional travel networks. Often, this information is derived from the patterns of mobile device connections to the cellular network. This travel data is then used as an input to epidemiological models of infection transmission, defining the likelihood that disease is "exported" between regions. In this paper, we use one mobile device dataset collected in Ghana in 2021, aggregated according to two different methodologies which represent different aspects of inter-regional travel. We show how the choice of aggregation methodology leads to different predicted epidemics, and highlight the conditions under which models of infection transmission may be influenced by methodological choices in the aggregation of travel data used to parameterize these models. For example, we show how aggregation methodology changes predicted epidemics for less-transmissible infections and under certain models of human movement. We also highlight areas of relative stability, where aggregation choices do not alter predicted epidemics, such as cases where an infection is highly transmissible or is introduced into a central location. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Finance is a precondition for many of the activities that harm ecosystems, but how to address this underlying driver of biodiversity loss remains a topic of debate. This paper reviews the Task Force on Nature‐Related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), a corporate‐led effort that aims to identify how changes to biodiversity may create financial risks for companies and investors. This approach is also promoted as a strategy for managing the impact of business on biodiversity, with the assumption that risk disclosure will more effectively price biodiversity‐harming activities. We assess the potential of the TNFD toward this end, and invite conservation scientists, practitioners, and policymakers to engage critically with its theory of change. We find that the relationship between disclosing biodiversity risk and redirecting finance away from environmental degradation is tenuous and unproven, making this mechanism insufficient for addressing the impact of the financial sector on nature. We question the embrace of another industry‐led mechanism that implies that a lack of information is the greatest barrier to stopping biodiversity loss. Further, there are risks that this financial sector approach to biodiversity will reinforce the highly unequal concentration of power and wealth, which is itself inimical to transformative change, as called for by the Intergovernmental Science–Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Dental caries (tooth decay) in children is a national public health problem with impacts on the child, their family and wider society. Toothbrushing should commence from the eruption of the first primary tooth. Health visitors are a key provider of advice for parents in infancy and are ideally placed to support families to adopt optimal oral health habits. HABIT is a co-designed complex behaviour change intervention to support health visitors' oral health conversations with parents during the 9-12-month universal developmental home visit.Methods: A seven stage co-design process was undertaken: (1) Preparatory meetings with healthcare professionals and collation of examples of good practice, (2) Co-design workshops with parents and health visitors, (3) Resource development and expert/peer review, (4) Development of an intervention protocol for health visitors, (5) Early-phase testing of the resources to explore acceptability, feasibility, impact and mechanism of action, (6) Engagement with wider stakeholders and refinement of the HABIT intervention for wider use, (7) Verification, Review and Reflection of Resources.Results: Following preparatory meetings with stakeholders, interviews and co-design workshops with parents and health visitors, topic areas and messages were developed covering six key themes. The topic areas provided a structure for the oral health conversation and supportive resources in paper-based and digital formats. A five-step protocol was developed with health visitors to guide the oral health conversation during the 9-12 month visit. Following training of health visitors, an early-phase feasibility study was undertaken with preliminary results presented at a dissemination event where feedback for further refinement of the resources and training was gathered. The findings, feedback and verification have led to further refinements to optimise quality, accessibility, fidelity and behaviour change theory.Conclusion: The co-design methods ensured the oral health conversation and supporting resources used during the 9-12 month visit incorporated the opinions of families and Health Visitors as well as other key stakeholders throughout the development process. This paper provides key learning and a framework that can be applied to other healthcare settings. The structured pragmatic approach ensured that the intervention was evidence-based, acceptable and feasible for the required context.Trial Registration: ISRCTN55332414, Registration Date 11/11/2021. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information Communication Technologies (ICT) research projects are important in generating breakthrough technologies that translate into solutions for numerous societal grand challenges through research and innovation (R&I). However, to ensure that such solutions are socially desirable, there is a concerted drive for the engagement of different stakeholders, including industry, academia, public and government. In the face of the growing recognition of stakeholder engagement in ICT research projects, particularly as part of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), there is a limited discourse on how its consequence could be evaluated. This paper suggests and uses a Theory of Change approach to evaluate the value of stakeholder engagement on the attainment of socially desirable and responsible outcomes in projects, particularly ICT research projects. Using a multi-case study approach, the paper appraises the value of stakeholder engagement in ICT research projects by elucidating the linkages between stakeholder activities and socially desirable outcomes. The findings from the paper could apply to other types of projects apart from ICT research projects in understanding some of the roles stakeholders play in ensuring responsible innovation as an outcome of the projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graduate education in engineering is an extremely challenging, complex entity that is difficult to change. The purpose of this exploratory research paper was to investigate the applicability of the Collective Impact framework, which has been used within community organizing contexts, to organize the change efforts of a center focused on advancing equitable graduate education within engineering. We sought to understand how the conditions of Collective Impact (i.e., common agenda, backbone organization, mutually reinforcing activities, shared measurement system, and continuous communication) could facilitate the organization of equity-focused change efforts across a college of engineering at a single institution. To achieve this, we took an action research approach. We found the Collective Impact framework to be a useful tool for organizing cross-sectional partnerships to facilitate equity-focused change in graduate education; we also found the five conditions of Collective Impact to be applicable to the higher education context, with some intentional considerations and modifications. Through coordinated efforts, the Collective Impact framework can support the goal of reorienting existing decentralized structures, resource flows, and decision processes to foster bottom-up and top-down change processes to advance equitable support for graduate students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reflects on the development process (2015-2020) of the Learning Initiative for Norms, Exploitation, and Abuse (LINEA) Intervention. The LINEA Intervention is a multi-component social norms intervention to prevent agedisparate transactional sex in Tanzania. This paper aims to: (1) critically reflect on the LINEA Intervention development process by retrospectively comparing it with a pragmatic, phased framework for intervention development in public health, the Six Essential Steps for Quality Intervention Development (6SQuID); and (2) discuss the usefulness and applicability of this framework to guide intervention development for gender-based violence prevention. This paper contributes to a growing field of intervention development research to improve the designs of interventions to prevent gender-based violence. Findings showed that the LINEA Intervention development approach mostly aligned with the steps in 6SQuID framework. However, the LINEA Intervention development process placed particular emphasis on two phases of the 6SQuID framework. First, the LINEA Intervention development process included significant investment in formative research, feasibility testing, and refinement; and second, the LINEA Intervention was informed by a clearly articulated behavior change theory--social norms theory. Beyond the 6SQuID framework the LINEA Intervention development process: (i) followed a non-linear, iterative process; (ii) applied ongoing feasibility testing to refine the intervention, and (iii) relied on co-development with local implementers and participants. This paper suggests future components for a robust intervention development process, highlighting beneficial additions to the 6SQuID approach, a well-recognized intervention development sequence. Particularly useful additions include incorporating sufficient time, flexibility, and resources to foster meaningful collaborations and iteration on the intervention design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Involving service users in health service design and delivery is considered important to improve the quality of healthcare because it ensures that the delivery of healthcare is adapted to the needs of the users. Co‐production is a process used to involve service users, but multiple papers have highlighted the need for the mechanisms and values guiding co‐production to be more clearly stated. The aim of this paper was to evaluate the mechanisms and values that guided the co‐production approach of the Stories for Change project, which used Public Narrative as part of the co‐design process to create change in National Health Service maternity services. Methods: This study was conducted using a rapid feedback evaluation approach. Semistructured interviews (n = 16) were the main source of data, six of which were maternity service users, with observations (5 h) and documentary analysis also carried out in parallel. RREAL sheets were used for data analysis to organize data based on key topics of interest. Results: This study identified three broad mechanisms and values underpinning the co‐production approach: creating an open and safe space to share ideas, learning how to tell stories using Public Narrative and having service providers who play a key role in strengthening the health system listen to stories compelling them to action. This study identified the main areas for improvement of the Stories for Change project related to recruitment, the inclusion of participants, the co‐design process, the Skills Session and the Learning Event. Conclusion: Our study provided a deeper understanding of the co‐production approach that addresses the need to uncover the mechanism and values underlying co‐production and co‐design approaches. This study expands on the literature pertaining to the influence of storytelling in creating meaningful change in health care. We propose a co‐design methodology that uses Public Narrative as a model for service user engagement to help inform future healthcare development processes. Patient or Public Contribution: The experiences and perceptions of maternity service users and health professionals informed this evaluation. The project organizers were involved in the manuscript preparation stage by providing feedback, and service users wrote a commentary on the project from the lived experience perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to identify the changes in the share of large public interest entities (PIEs) in European Union (EU) Member States providing Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) reporting prior to (2017) and after (2019) the implementation of Directive 2014/95/EU and the factors that influence their decisions to provide SDG reporting in 2019. Design/methodology/approach: The authors use the multilevel theory of social change in organizations as the theoretical background. The sample consists of 341 PIEs based in the EU Member States, for which reports published in 2017 and 2019 are available in the global reporting initiative sustainability disclosure database. The authors analyzed the data using the statistical significance test of equal proportions and the logistic regression model. Findings: The study findings allow to identify a significant positive change in the share of companies providing a reference to SDGs in 2019 compared with 2017. The research confirms that companies' engagement in United Nations Global Compact and previous experience in sustainability reporting positively influences the decision to report on SDGs in 2019. Contrary to the expectations, industry, size, SDG implementation score, future orientation of government and corporate governance score do not seem to be relevant factors influencing PIEs' disclosures. Originality/value: The paper adds to the understanding of the differences in SDG reporting within the EU, which is seen as a frontrunner in implementing the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine measures of entrepreneurship education efficacy. Currently, entrepreneurship education program design is often driven by a desire to perform well in ranking systems. Ranking systems focus on the number of start-ups and program inputs such as the number of courses. To better understand entrepreneurship education efficacy, educators at three universities have worked to assess the effectiveness of their programs. Our research team has taken a competencies-based approach and employed the theory of change logic model to link entrepreneurship education efficacy to both generalizable entrepreneurial competencies and early career outcomes. We propose that entrepreneurship educators should measure outputs, outcomes, and impact using this theory of change lens. Metrics associated with these areas are suggested and are linked with skills beneficial to graduates whether traditionally employed or in a start-up. The paper innovatively integrates the theory of change to propose measures in five core areas important for entrepreneurship program graduates. The discussion is intended to broaden our view of how we assess entrepreneurship education and encourage work regarding the goals of entrepreneurship education, which is overdue and will strengthen all our programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the growing number of impact evaluations worldwide, the question of how to apply this evidence in policy making processes has arguably become the main challenge for evidence-based policy making. How can policy makers predict whether a policy will have the same impact in their context as it did elsewhere, and how should this influence the policy's design and implementation? This paper suggests that failures of external validity (both in transporting and scaling up policy) can be understood as arising from an interaction between a policy's theory of change and a dimension of the context in which it is being implemented. The paper surveys existing approaches to analyzing external validity, and suggests that there has been more focus on the generalizability of impact evaluation results than on the applicability of evidence to specific contexts. To help fill this gap, the study develops a method of "mechanism mapping" that maps a policy's theory of change against salient contextual assumptions to identify external validity problems and suggest appropriate policy adaptations. In deciding whether and how to adapt a policy, there is a fundamental informational trade-off between the strength of evidence on the policy from other contexts and the policy maker's information about the local context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the current state of the social impact measurement (SIM) field to better understand common practices in measuring the post-intervention social impact of a program or project and to identify strategies to improve measurement in practice. This study employed a systematic literature review. Articles were manually coded deductively and inductively in NVivo to complete a descriptive and thematic analysis of the literature. The thematic analysis provided an in-depth understanding of the SIM field. We found that similarities existed across the definitions of social impact (e.g., environmental impact is part of social impact). Additionally, social return on investment (SROI) is the most common measurement model and theory of change was identified as a core concept across SIM literature. Strategies are presented for practitioners to consider when measuring social impact, including: (i) engage stakeholders throughout the process, (ii) mobilize existing operational data, (iii) increase measurement capacity, and (iv) use both qualitative and quantitative data. This study reveals the nuances of SIM based on academic literature published across the globe over the span of a decade. It places emphasis on the post-intervention stage and identifies strategies to improve the application of measurement models in practice. Lastly, it outlines future research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an operational approach for detecting floods and establishing flood extent using Sentinel-1 radar imagery with Google Earth Engine. The methodology relies on change detection, comparing pre-event and post-event images. The change-detection method is based on the normalised difference ratio. Additionally, the HAND model is employed to delineate zones for processing only in flood-prone areas. The approach was tested and calibrated at a small scale to optimise parameters. In these calibration tests, an accuracy of 85% is achieved. The approach was then applied to the whole of the island of Madagascar after Cyclone Batsirai in 2022. The proposed method is enabled by the computing power and data availability of Google Earth Engine and Google Colab. The results show satisfactory accuracy in delineating flooded areas. The advantages of this approach are its rapidity, online availability and ability to detect floods over a wide area. The approach relying on Google Tools thus offers an effective solution for generating a large-scale synoptic picture to inform hazard management decision making. However, one of the method's drawbacks is that it depends to a large extent on frequent radar imagery being available at the time of flood events and on free access to the platform. These drawbacks will need to be taken into account in an operational scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: A robust evidence base is required to assist healthcare commissioners and providers in selecting effective and sustainable approaches to improve cancer diagnosis and treatment. Such evidence can be difficult to build, given the fast-paced and highly pressured nature of healthcare delivery, the absence of incentives, and the presence of barriers in conducting pragmatic yet robust research evaluations. Cancer Research UK (CRUK) has played an active part in building the evidence base through its funding of programmes to identify, evaluate and scale-up innovative approaches across the UK. The aim of this paper is to describe and explain the research design and intended approach and activities for two cancer services improvement projects in Scotland funded by CRUK. Methods: A hybrid effectiveness-implementation study design will assess both the efficiency of the new pathways and their implementation strategies, with the aim of generating knowledge for scale-up. A range of implementation, service and clinical outcomes will be assessed as determined by the projects' Theories of Change (ToCs). A naturalistic case study approach will enable in-depth exploration of context and process, and the collection and synthesis of data from multiple sources including routine datasets, patient and staff surveys, in-depth interviews and observational and other data. The evaluations are informed throughout by a patient/public representatives' group, and by small group discussions with volunteer cancer patients. Discussion: Our approach has been designed to provide a holistic understanding of how (well) the improvement projects work (in relation to their anticipated outcomes), and how they interact with their wider contexts. The evaluations will help identify barriers, facilitators, and unanticipated consequences that can impact scalability, sustainability and spread. By opting for a pragmatic, participatory evaluation research design, we hope to inform strategies for scaling up successful innovations while addressing challenges in a targeted manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Africa is a water-stressed country with significant water management challenges. In response, progressive and advanced water management policy and legislation have been developed that include the regulation of water uses through a water use license application (WULA) system. In recent years, the effective functioning of the WULA system has come under increased scrutiny. However, a comprehensive systematic evaluation of the effectiveness of the WULA system has not yet been conducted. This paper aims to identify key risks to the effectiveness of the WULA system in South Africa through the application of a theory of change (ToC) methodology. Workshops with more than 60 participants were held with different stakeholder groups. Ultimately, a total of 21 key risks to the effectiveness of the WULA system were identified. The results suggest that various risks have already been realized and that the WULA system is not functioning as intended and is not achieving its outcomes. It is recommended that the identified key risks provide the basis for a comprehensive system evaluation to inform a more effective WULA system design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Peer-research is steered and conducted by people with lived experience of the issues being researched. This paper explores the value of peer-research in two complex public health intervention evaluations in the UK.Methods: Reports from 18 peer research projects, completed by residents from 12 communities in the UK taking part in two community empowerment interventions, were analysed using cross-case analysis.Results: Undertaking peer research helped to build the evaluation and research skills within individual projects as well as providing data on other outcomes related to the programmes Theory of Change. Some peer researchers, however, felt unprepared for the activity despite support from the academic team and were unsatisfied with project outcomes. While peer research projects provided more opportunities for local residents to engage with the overall evaluations, there was an overreliance on people closely connected to the programmes to be peer researchers. The peer research projects explored topics that were broader than the aims and objectives of the overall programme evaluations. All provided insight into the context in which projects occurred, while some also informed understanding of programme change mechanisms.Conclusions: Including peer research as part of complex public health intervention evaluations can help uncover important contextual and ecological details beyond the reach of more traditional evaluation data collection. Peer research can also empower and build research/evaluation capacity within communities, which is particularly pertinent for community empowerment interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As research defines new treatments and policies to improve the health of patients, an increasing challenge has been to translate these insights into routine clinical practice to benefit patients and society. An important exploration is how theories of human behavior change fit into the science of implementation and quality improvement. In this paper, we begin with a brief review of the intellectual roots of implementation science and quality improvement, followed by a discussion of how theories and principles of behavior change can inform both goals and challenges in using behavior change theories. The insights offered through health behavior change theory have led to changes in how we plan for implementation and select, develop, design and tailor implementation interventions and strategies. While the degree to which organizational and external contexts influence the behavior of providers in these organizations varies widely, some degree of context external to the individual is important and needs adequate consideration. In short, health behavior change theory is essential but not sufficient to integrate in most implementation efforts, where priority must be given to both individual factors and contexts in which individuals operate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Despite the increasing popularity of the theory of change (ToC) approach, little is known about the extent to which ToC has been used in the design and evaluation of public health interventions. This review aims to determine how ToCs have been developed and used in the development and evaluation of public health interventions globally.Methods: We searched for papers reporting the use of "theory of change" in the development or evaluation of public health interventions in databases of peer-reviewed journal articles such as Scopus, Pubmed, PsychInfo, grey literature databases, Google and websites of development funders. We included papers of any date, language or study design. Both abstracts and full text papers were double screened. Data were extracted and narratively and quantitatively summarised.Results: A total of 62 papers were included in the review. Forty-nine (79 %) described the development of ToC, 18 (29 %) described the use of ToC in the development of the intervention and 49 (79 %) described the use of ToC in the evaluation of the intervention. Although a large number of papers were included in the review, their descriptions of the ToC development and use in intervention design and evaluation lacked detail.Conclusions: The use of the ToC approach is widespread in the public health literature. Clear reporting of the ToC process and outputs is important to strengthen the body of literature on practical application of ToC in order to develop our understanding of the benefits and advantages of using ToC. We also propose a checklist for reporting on the use of ToC to ensure transparent reporting and recommend that our checklist is used and refined by authors reporting the ToC approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with problems in the post-implementation phase of management Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. Proper management of the system maintenance stage is a basis for efficient system development in terms of business needs. Based on the research and analysis of collected materials, it turns out that making a decision to upgrade the system is equally crucial. We present revealed mechanisms determining the post-implementation approach to upgrade or reimplement the ERP system. The main aim is to determine the methodology and difference understanding to achieve success in the post-implementation stage. The paper shows that the systemic approach to the maintenance stage of the ERP system affects its further decisions: upgrade or reimplement. It has a direct impact on future maintenance costs and the scope of new business demands. This research is an outcome of industry–academia collaboration and based on several developed implementation systems, achieved upgrade and reimplementation projects. Based on case study analysis, we show that reimplementation means an evolution of the current ERP processes rather than another attempt to "reimplement" an unsuccessful system implementation. On the other hand, upgrades are not only a tool or system actualization but the easiest way to bolster company sustainability and to have the information system up to date. The issues discussed in the article will be used to develop changes in the implementation methodology of ERP systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of emotions and some personality traits on translation performance. It builds on Rojo and Ramos's (2016) findings and is broadly based on their methodology, but introduces some methodological changes. It replicates their experiment with translation students in another language pair (English L2>Macedonian L1) following their three step procedure: resiliency test, translation-bogus feedback-translation, self-reporting questionnaire. Following their recommendations (ibid.), the change in methodology involves using comparatively easier translation tasks. The paper aims to provide answers as to: the effect of positive and negative emotions on overall translation performance; the effect of positive and negative emotions on different aspects of translation performance (accuracy vs. creativity) and the role of the personality trait of resilience in regulating negative emotions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper, the first in a mini-series on change management, will consider one model of change which is justly famous for its simplicity and applicability to practice, that is Lewin's (1951) unfreeze-change-refreeze model. It will explore in some depth what is meant by unfreeze, which is the first stage of the model and what this means for managers and leaders taking their teams through a process of change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Complex social processes introduce difficulties to validating causal parameters and identifying the correct system structure in modelling. Policy impact assessment for sustainability transitions should therefore not expend too many resources modelling any single set of assumptions about the world. Furthermore, keeping models relatively simple allows more effective communication and stakeholder collaboration. This paper presents an exploratory system dynamics model of urban mode choice. We demonstrate that, despite structural and parametric uncertainty, it is possible to rank alternative policy approaches and identify high-leverage uncertainties as targets of policy action or further analysis. We also show how different narrative theories of change can have drastically different or unintuitive outcomes for the same intervention. Simulation can benefit both impact assessment and the further scrutiny and refinement of change narratives. We argue that the following methodological choices and their synergies made our modelling approach effective: exploratory modelling, focus on endogeneity, coarse resolution and avoidance of abstract variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Protected area systems are designed in law and policy towards achieving certain policy objectives. These systems rely on legal frameworks that determine how countries designate, declare and manage their protected areas. To date, little research has been conducted on the risks faced by protected area systems. To this end, this paper aims to identify the key risks for protected area systems achieving their objectives. This is achieved through the application of Theory of Change (ToC), which is internationally recognised as the preferred method to identify underlying assumptions and risks within policy and legal frameworks. We achieve this aim through a case study analysis of the South African protected area system as embedded in law and policy. The application of the ToC method identified 25 underlying assumptions and risks which are central to the protected area system achieving its objectives. Understanding these risks allows for a better understanding of the potential failure of the system and how to avoid it. The paper then explores and discusses the identified risks in terms of existing literature and concludes by making recommendations related to further research for the identified risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explicit model predictive control (eMPC) has been proposed to reduce the huge computational complexity of MPC while maintaining the performance of MPC. Therefore, this control method has been more widely employed in the automotive industry than MPC. In this paper, an eMPC is designed to perform a double-lane-change (DLC) maneuver. This task has been employed to demonstrate the efficacy of controllers in an autonomous driving situation. In this sense, the proposed controller shows better performance than a driver model designed in CarSim at a high vehicle longitudinal velocity. The main contribution of this paper is to present an eMPC for discrete-time linear time-variant (LTV) systems so that the proposed controller can be robust against parameter variation. In a state-space representation of the vehicle, the longitudinal velocity of the vehicle is assumed to be a constant so that the whole system is linear time-invariant (LTI). However, it is inevitable that this velocity varies in an actual driving situation. Therefore, an eMPC controller is designed using an add-on unit to consider the varying parameter without modification of the eMPC solution. The CarSim simulation results of eMPC show enhanced performance compared to that of eMPC for the LTI system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kant's 'Copernican Revolution' has caused a radical change in the common-sense theory of knowledge. The subject became the centre and the necessary premise for the validity of the objective world. This change in the understanding of knowledge has best manifested itself in Weber's 'Verstehende Soziologie'. Therefore, in order to understand the Weberian sociological method and to be able to detect the possible problems that may arise from his sociology, a better grasp of what Kantian epistemology is and in what ways it has influenced Weberian sociology is needed. Accordingly, this paper will firstly analyse Kantian epistemology with a special emphasis on transcendental idealism, and will expand and explain in detail Weber's 'Verstehende Soziologie'. Next, the paper will show how Weberian sociology relates to Kantian epistemology through the construction of ideal types. Before concluding, the focus moves to the objectivity claim of both Kantian epistemology and Weberian sociology and shows how objectivity arises from subjectivity through the establishment of causality. Finally, the paper will propose an objection to the objectivity claim of Weberian sociology and will argue that Kantian epistemology, when adopted as a method of sociology, becomes reflexive and threatens to deprive sociology of its objectivity claim. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Managing long-term sickness absence is challenging in countries where employers and managers have the main responsibility to provide return to work support, particularly for workers with poor mental health. Whilst long-term sick leave and return to work frameworks and guidance exist for employers, there are currently no structured return to work protocols for employers or for their workers encompassing best practice strategies to support a positive and timely return to work outcome. Purpose: To utilise the intervention mapping (IM) protocol as a framework to develop return to work toolkits that are underpinned by relevant behaviour change theory targeting mental health to promote a positive return to work experiensce for workers on long-term sick leave. Methods: This paper provides a worked example of intervention mapping (IM) to develop an intervention through a six-step process to combine theory and evidence in the development of two toolkits – one designed for managers and one to be used by workers on long-term sick leave. As part of this process, collaborative planning techniques were used to develop the intervention. A planning group was set up, through which researchers would work alongside employer, worker, and mental health professional representatives to develop the toolkits. Additionally, feedback on the toolkits were sought from the target populations of workers and managers and from wider employer stakeholders (e.g., human resource specialists). The implementation and evaluation of the toolkits as a workplace intervention were also planned. Results: Two toolkits were designed following the six steps of intervention mapping. Feedback from the planning group (n = 5; psychologist, psychiatrist, person with previous experience of poor mental health, employer and charity worker) and participants (n = 14; employers = 3, wellbeing director = 1; human resources = 2, managers = 2, employees with previous experience of poor mental health = 5) target populations indicated that the toolkits were acceptable and much needed. Conclusions: Using IM allowed the development of an evidence-based practical intervention, whilst incorporating the views of all the impacted stakeholder groups. The feasibility and acceptability of the toolkits and their supporting intervention components, implementation process and methods of assessment will be evaluated in a feasibility pilot randomised controlled trial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The business world is becoming increasingly complex, disrupted, and uncertain. As Industry 4.0 (I4.0) takes shape, to endure this change and focus on growth, industries must learn to embrace change and move quickly; this is particularly so for the automotive industry, which is a major sector of any economy. Agility is needed to embrace this change and promote sustainability across every industry. To face these contingencies, it is essential to identify and understand the strategies that can aid industries in sustaining real‐time scenarios. In this paper, we aim to assess the agility indicators that bring resilience to the inclusion of I4.0 and sustainability in the automotive sector. The unexpected changes in the environment related to sustainability and technological disruptions of I4.0 require the identification of sustainable agile mitigation strategies to manage such situations. The fuzzy Delphi methodology assesses agility indicators based on a questionnaire for prioritization. Further, the fuzzy technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) is utilized to prioritize these agility indicators with the agility strategies that manufacturing industries can deploy to enhance the sustainability of their operations. The fuzzy extension to the methodologies helps in incorporating vagueness and ambiguity in the decision‐making process. A fuzzy approach to prioritizing agile strategies as the industries are changing is helpful. The decision makers have only a few clear ideas about how best to integrate them. Among the agile strategies, "resilience," "technological capabilities," and "customer‐centric innovation" are the top strategies. By executing the strategies suggested in the study and understanding the agility indicators, practitioners can ensure resilience in the work systems and minimize the impact of the disruptions caused by the industrial revolution. Thus, this research has been underpinned by the organizational change theory and discusses all mitigation strategies concerning the rapid changes organizations are facing with the fourth industrial revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The Syrian crisis, followed by a financial crisis, port explosion, and COVID-19, have put enormous strain on Lebanon's health system. Syrian refugees and the vulnerable host population have a high burden of Non-communicable Diseases (NCD) morbidity and unmet mental health, psychosocial and rehabilitation needs. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) recently introduced integrated NCD services within its package of primary care in Lebanon, which includes NCD primary health care, rehabilitation, and mental health and psychosocial support services. We aimed to identify relevant outcomes for people living with NCDs from refugee and host communities in northern Lebanon, as well as to define the processes needed to achieve them through an integrated model of care. Given the complexity of the health system in which the interventions are delivered, and the limited practical guidance on integration, we considered systems thinking to be the most appropriate methodological approach. Methods: A Theory of Change (ToC) workshop and follow-up meetings were held online by the ICRC, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the American University of Beirut in 2021. ToC is a participatory and iterative planning process involving key stakeholders, and seeks to understand a process of change by mapping out intermediate and long-term outcomes along hypothesised causal pathways. Participants included academics, and ICRC regional, coordination, and headquarters staff. Results: We identified two distinct pathways to integrated NCD primary care: a multidisciplinary service pathway and a patient and family support pathway. These were interdependent and linked via an essential social worker role and a robust information system. We also defined a list of key assumptions and interventions to achieve integration, and developed a list of monitoring indicators. Discussion: ToC is a useful tool to deconstruct the complexity of integrating NCD services. We highlight that integrated care rests on multidisciplinary and patient-centred approaches, which depend on a well-trained and resourced team, strong leadership, and adequate information systems. This paper provides the first theory-driven road map of implementation pathways, to help support the integration of NCD care for crises-affected populations in Lebanon and globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic research has identified several factors that affect price movements; however, the scenario changes abruptly in the case of very short time price changes (VSTPC). This topic is not specifically examined in the existing literature; nonetheless, the behavior of the market microstructure is quite different at the subsecond scale. Indeed, below a certain psychological time threshold, most factors typically influencing price changes cease to apply. This paper analyzes several parameters considered to affect price changes and identifies four of them as potentially influencing VSTPC. These factors are previous volatility, scarce liquidity, high quantity exchanged, and stop-loss (SL) orders (seldom mentioned in the literature). These four parameters are examined by means of a mathematical model, audit trail data analysis, Granger-causality testing, and agent-based model. The results of these four techniques converge to suggest a nonlinear combination of previous volatility, liquidity, and SL orders as the main causes of excess volatility. However, contrary to mainstream literature on trading time above a certain psychological threshold, the volumes exchanged are not integral agents for VSTPC. Currently, financial markets face many ultrafast orders, yet a coherent theory of price change at time scales incomprehensible by humans and only manageable by computers is still lacking. The theory presented in this paper attempts to fill this gap. The outcome of such a theory is important for purposes of market stability, crisis avoidance, investment planning, risk management, and high-frequency trading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual framework for ensuring employee championing behavior (ECB) during organizational change for business organizations in Bangladesh. Design/methodology/approach: On the basis of previous literature, this paper proposed a framework for ensuring ECB during organizational change. Findings: This paper proposed transformational leadership (TL), which enhances the championing behavior of the employee. In addition, valence, work engagement and trust in leadership act as potential mediators between TL and championing behavior. This paper also proposed organizational alignment (OA) as a potential moderator that influences ECB in the context of organizational change. Research limitations/implications: This paper highlights numerous influential factors that enhance ECB. This proposed conceptual framework will be validated by the empirical evidence in future research. Practical implications: This paper provides new insights for business leaders to understand the importance of ECB during organizational change. Moreover, this research underlined the effectiveness of valence, work engagement and trust in leadership and OA to nurture ECB in the time of organizational change, which helps managers of the business organizations to make efficient strategies to tackle organizational change. Originality/value: This paper adopted Kurt Lewin's change management theory and integrated with different factors associated with organizational change (TL, valence, work engagement, trust in leadership and OA) to propose a model to understand the mechanism of enhancing ECB in the context of change in Bangladesh's business organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: A considerable evidence base has been produced in recent years highlighting the effectiveness of brief scalable psychological interventions for people living in communities exposed to adversity. However, practical guidance on how to scale up these interventions to wider populations does not exist. In this paper we report on the use of Theory of Change (ToC) to plan the scale up of the World Health Organization's flagship low intensity psychological intervention "Problem Management Plus" (PM+) for Syrian refugees in Turkey. Methods: We conducted a one-day ToC workshop in Istanbul. ToC is a participatory planning process used in the development, implementation and evaluation of projects. It is similar to driver diagrams or logic models in that it offers a tool to visually present the components needed to reach a desired long-term outcome or impact. The overall aim of ToC is to understand the change process of a complex intervention and to map out causal pathways through which an intervention or strategy has an effect. Results: Twenty-four stakeholders (including governmental officials, mental health providers, officials from international/national non-governmental organisations, conflict and health researchers) participated in the ToC workshop. A ToC map was produced identifying three key elements of scaling up (the resource team; the innovation and the health system; and the user organisation) which are represented in three distinct causal pathways. Context-specific barriers related to the health system and the political environment were identified, and possible strategies for overcoming these challenges were suggested. Conclusion: ToC is a valuable methodology to develop an integrated framework for scaling up. The results highlight that the scaling up of PM+ for Syrian refugees in Turkey needs careful planning and investment from different stakeholders at the national level. Our paper provides a theoretical foundation of the scaling up of PM+, and exemplifies for the first time the use of ToC in planning the scaling up of an evidence-based psychological intervention in global mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the years, there has been a significant increase in the adoption of game-based interventions for behaviour change associated with many fields such as health, education, and psychology. This is due to the significance of the players' intrinsic motivation that is naturally generated to play games and the substantial impact they can have on players. Many review papers measure the effectiveness of the use of gaming on changing behaviours; however, these studies neglect the game features involved in the game design process, which have an impact of stimulating behaviour change. Therefore, this paper aimed to identify game design mechanics and features that are reported to commonly influence behaviour change during and/or after the interventions. This paper identified key theories of behaviour change that inform the game design process, providing insights that can be adopted by game designers for informing considerations on the use of game features for moderating behaviour in their own games. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2022 Decadal Plan for Science, Technology and Innovation intends to shape innovation activities and their contribution to development out to 2031, serving as government master plan and pivoting the National System of Innovation to mitigate the socio-economic, health and environmental challenges of times that are volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. But in trying to be all things to all people, the Decadal Plan avoids prioritisation, reading more as a Vision Statement than an Implementation Plan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The implementation of new and complex interventions in mental health settings can be challenging. This paper explores the use of a Theory of Change (ToC) for intervention design and evaluation to increase the likelihood of complex interventions being effective, sustainable, and scalable. Our intervention was developed to enhance the quality of psychological interventions delivered by telephone in primary care mental health services. Methods: A ToC represents how our designed quality improvement intervention targeting changes at service, practitioner, and patient levels was expected to improve engagement in, and the quality of, telephone-delivered psychological therapies. The intervention was evaluated following implementation in a feasibility study within three NHS Talking Therapies services through a qualitative research design incorporating semi-structured interviews and a focus group with key stakeholders (patients, practitioners, and service leads) (N = 15). Data were analysed using the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) and the ToC was examined and modified accordingly following the findings. Results: CFIR analysis highlighted a set of challenges encountered during the implementation of our service quality improvement telephone intervention that appeared to have weakened the contribution to the change mechanisms set out by the initial ToC. Findings informed changes to the intervention and refinement of the ToC and are expected to increase the likelihood of successful future implementation in a randomised controlled trial. Conclusions: Four key recommendations that could help to optimise implementation of a complex intervention involving different key stakeholder groups in any setting were identified. These include: 1-developing a good understanding of the intervention and its value among those receiving the intervention; 2-maximising engagement from key stakeholders; 3-ensuring clear planning and communication of implementation goals; and 4-encouraging the use of strategies to monitor implementation progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past two decades, voluntary sustainability standards (VSS) have emerged as instruments to improve social and environmental practices and to communicate sustainability standards in trade and business. However, debates about the correct assessment methodology for VSS risk causing duplication, overlaps, and fragmentation, undermining the value of VSS in sustainability transition. In this paper I propose materiality, theory of change and reflexive governance as the three building blocks of an appropriate framework for VSS and other sustainability assessment schemes in the food and agricultural sectors. Materiality is the specific criteria for defining and assessing factors that matter for sustainability, such as indicators, metrics, and rankings. Materiality is a process of social construction that enables stakeholder engagement and integrated knowledge production, going beyond just benchmarking entities against their competitors using standardized measures. Theory of change is a method that explains how interventions lead to desired outcomes and changes but is much more than a linear logic model of inputs and outputs. It sheds light on underlying assumptions, embedded contexts and long- and short-term dynamics. Reflexive evaluation consists of a single-loop process that follows a problemdetection-correction course and double- and triple-loop learning that allows assumptions and learned propositions to be challenged. It highlights unintended outcomes and offers alternatives to conducting interventions, which is different from conventional monitoring and evaluation methods, which focus on measuring the attainment of intended outcomes only. The study concludes that the semantic meaning of "standards" and "assessment" in agricultural VSS abstract the complex nature of sustainability because of overly linear meaning. In the complex construct of sustainability assessment, the role of VSS is not to conclude a success or a failure but to encourage knowledge-based learning and accountable governance because social change is an open-ended validation and adaption process. The framework proposed by this paper offers a solution by calling for integrated knowledge production resulting from interdisciplinary assessments and learning-oriented actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper's primary goal is to analyse the development of Knowledge Economy (KE) measurement methods ranging from those based on national income to indices identifying and combining the relevant indicators. The paper focuses on four current global and European KE level indices: Global Innovation Index (GII), Global Knowledge Index (GKI), European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS), and Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), highlighting persistent significant differences in the perception of the very essence of KE, as there is no clear interdisciplinary definition of the initial concept of knowledge, leading to further problems with ambiguous and insufficiently specific definitions and measurement of KE. Tacit aspects of knowledge are rarely part of KE definitions or measurements, excluding a large part of the knowledge system from KE measurements. The results of the analysis show that the set of KE indicators used by the individual KE indices is heterogeneous, with the set of intersecting indicators having different weights in terms of importance. Frequent interventions in the indices by their authors were observed, such as changes in index methodology, the indicators used, main pillars (subindices), etc. Despite the high heterogeneity in the approach to measuring KE, we identified the pillars, which can be viewed as the core pillars of KE. These include, for example the level of ICT, R&D, human resources, innovation, patents, and education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Self-management is a promising approach to improve quality of life after stroke. However, evidence for the appropriateness and effectiveness of self-management for stroke survivors with aphasia is limited. This article reports on the process used to develop a supported self-management intervention for stroke survivors with aphasia (SSWA) using co-production and behaviour change theory. Preparatory research included systematic reviews, and qualitative interviews and focus groups with SSWA, family members and speech and language therapists (SLTs). Materials and methods: We conducted six, 2 hour long intervention development workshops with key stakeholders. The workshops were informed by principles of co-production and the intervention development process outlined by the Behaviour Change Wheel (BCW). We also incorporated the findings of our preparatory research within workshops. Each workshop included an introduction, 1–2 co-production tasks and time for feedback at the end of the session. Data were analysed on an ongoing basis so that findings could be used to feed in to subsequent workshops and intervention development. Results: Workshop participants (n = 12) included; SSWA (n = 5), family members (n = 3) and SLTs (n = 4). Together, participants engaged with accessible and participatory co-production tasks which aligned with the BCW framework. Participants engaged in discussion to define self-management in behavioural terms (behavioural diagnosis) and to identify what needed to change to support self-management. Participant's co-produced solutions for supporting self-management and discussed options to implement these in practice. Prototype materials were generated by the research team and evaluated by participants. Intervention functions and behaviour change techniques (BCTs) were mapped to the solutions generated by participants by the research team, after the final workshop. A supported self-management intervention for SSWA was developed which will be delivered by SLTs through community stroke services. Conclusions: This paper reports the process we used to integrate co-production work with behaviour change theory to develop a complex self-management intervention. This is of relevance for researchers looking to harness the strengths of co-production methods and theory in intervention design. Future research will feasibility test the supported self-management intervention developed. This paper provides transparency to our intervention development process which will help others to better interpret the findings of our feasibility work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]