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The collapse of building has been an issue of great concern to all and sundry in Nigeria and yet these buildings are major contributors to the development of any nation. Therefore, when a building collapses, it fails to render the functions which it should perform to the people and the government. A building is regarded as collapsed if the whole structure or part thereof has fallen down and therefore cannot serve the purpose for which it was intended. When building collapses, it generates deep emotional reactions from every segment of the population constituting great losses to the country in terms of physical, human and material resources. Therefore, the aim of this research is to assess the opinion of construction professionals who are perceived as critical stakeholders on the causes as well as to proffer remedies to curb the menace. The case study is Owerri municipal council, Imo State, Nigeria. A well-structured four-point Scale questionnaire was drawn and administered to 250 selected sampled respondents to elicit data. Out of that the 250 respondents, 193 representing 77% valid respondents were retrieved and utilized in the study analysis. The analysis revealed that all critical construction stakeholders were implicated as contributors towards the incidences of building collapse. The study recommends among others that, Government, professionals’ as well as other critical stakeholders should adhere strictly to their statutory roles in order to curb the menace of building collapse in Nigeria.

Moving beyond the ‘great man’ view of the organization which had regarded leaders as all-knowing and repository of knowledge and tactics, this study empirically examines how a flexible system of management (networked approach) provides benefits for organizations in terms of decisional breakthroughs and practical problem resolution in society. The study is underpinned by the system approach to leadership and a transdisciplinary framework which, strives for a flexible management system through greater interaction between leaders and their relevant stakeholders in organizational decision processes. Seventeen (17) cases were drawn from diverse organizational settings within public and private sectors of Ghana (Africa) to empirically demonstrate how networks in leadership proffer solutions to “ill-structured” and “moderately structured” challenges that confront organizations. The study observes that wicked problems are inevitable in organizations. We conclude that efforts at building bridges between leaders and their environment are not only good for human relations per se but remain the “lifeblood” for organizational breakthroughs, especially, in situations of critical challenges that involve complex decisions. The study concludes that although leaders may be well endowed in knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs), organizational issues in most cases go beyond familiar issues and from the ‘ordinary’ to ones that are subtle, complex, extraordinary, and sophisticated in nature and in most cases requiring social capital to liaise between the organization and other actors for successful negotiations and resolutions, not ‘quick-fix solutions’.

The art of video film directing is all encompassing as the director deals with virtually all aspects of film production. This comes with herculean challenges that tend to mar the efforts of directors if not properly addressed. Film scholars cum critics have done a lot of work investing the challenges of the Nigerian Video Film industry with little or no effort to directly ascertain the peculiar challenges of each sector of the industry. To this effect, the paper seeks to source from the directors what these challenges have been over the decade in view and as well through the affected, proffer plausible suppositions asmeasure to ameliorate the identified challenges. In doing so, this paper adopts the view point that the director is the author of the film and thus engages the Survey research method wherein Personal interviews are employed as data collation tool and later analyzed with inferences made from the responses. Conclusively, it anchors on the directors’ views of possible ways to improve/enhance the director’s art in future productions.

In contemporary surveillance and reconnaissance efforts, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been widely deployed in dangerous, low-altitude regions where manned aircrafts cannot navigate easily because of their size, purchasing costs for environmental remote sensing, monitoring, and combat mission for military operations. As UAVs are used in compromising situations, they are designed to be low cost in the event of failed recovery process and there is increased operational flexibility for military applications and non-military development. This paper provides an overview of the use of UAVs in combating illegal bunkering activities. It classifies these vehicles based on performance and size. The paper seeks to proffer potential solutions for its adoption in the Niger Delta for forestalling security, monitoring and surveillance of multinational oil companies’ pipelines operating in the region, tactical responses by security agencies to address emergency situations of oil spillage, and illegal bunkering activities for the promotion of the nation’s economic development.

Kohut struggled courageously to proffer many ideas that were opposed to the psychoanalytic theories, philosophy, and clinical ideologies of his day. Not only did he question the way psychoanalysis ...

This paper reviews the current strides in the wireless power transfer (WPT) system. The paper discusses the classification of wireless power transfer, its application, trend and impact on society, advantages as well as disadvantages. It also presents a comparative analysis of existing work done by researchers in the field of wireless power transfer showing the shortcomings in various topologies, communication, and optimization methods used to increase the overall performance efficiency and proffer direction for further studies. Keywords: wireless power transfer, application, advantages, disadvantages topologies, communication, optimization, efficiency

Across denominations, in contemporary Nigeria, there is a growing trend for prayers in solitary places. Many Christians are withdrawing to consecrated places, which in most cases are in secluded areas of the country for various spiritual activities. Such places include mountains, watersides, bar beaches, and campgrounds. Most Christians in Nigeria are no longer spiritually satisfied or contented with their churches'' prayers and spiritual activities. Both the clergy and laity now patronize solitary places for prayers and to engage in other spiritual activities. The idea of “withdrawal” or solitude in Christianity has attracted a level of scholarly attention from church historians. However, problems arising from “withdrawal,” especially among African Christianity, have not been adequately explored and documented. Likewise, what could probably be the prospects of “withdrawal” in Nigeria, and indeed in African Christianity if well utilized and harnessed, have not been adequately discussed by scholars. This paper intends to fill this lacuna. This study will proffer answers to the following questions: why do Christians in Nigeria go for spiritual exercises in secluded places? Are there problems or negative impacts of spiritual exercises in remote areas? Are there any spiritual and physical benefits to be gained in solitude? The methodology utilized is descriptive. Fieldwork was conducted by visiting some prayer mountains for personal observation and participation. Interviews were also conducted with mountain officials and attendees.

Quantification has long played a vexed role in efforts to record and resist racial violence. Building from Ida B. Wells’s antilynching crusade, this essay examines the risks and power of calculating life and death at the close of the nineteenth century. For her part, Wells pushed mere counting past itself to a profound mode of ethical accounting. Two of her contemporaries, Mark Twain and W. E. B. Du Bois, sustained a similarly supraquantitative thrust; each attempted to harness the antilynching potential of numbers by enlisting data visualization. Twain falls short in a telling fashion, as his unpublished satire “The United States of Lyncherdom” (written in 1901) exacerbates the dehumanizing tendencies of quantification. Du Bois, however, pursues a more generative experiment, creating statistical graphics in 1900 that indict and outstrip the causal circuit that yoked scientific numbering to lynching and racial violence more broadly. This latter achievement resonates with scholarly efforts to access Black life from within a desolately tabulated archive of loss and erasure. Specifically, as triangulated with Wells and Twain, Du Bois’s graphics proffer a counterintuitive means to register life as a future-oriented, aggregate abstraction that is neither wholly conditioned by, nor separate from, a past whose violent legacies endure.

Nascent technological innovation is fast advancing, with a promise to reach the most primitive corners of the earth. Industry operations are also fast-changing. Thus, the introduction, and implementation of the different Industry 4.0 (4IR) technologies such as the cyber-physical systems (CSP), big data analytics, 3-D printing, and the Internet of Things (IoT), etc., hold great potential to pilot sustainable manufacturing. The present article explores the opportunities and challenges of 4IR implementation for sustainable manufacturing practices to promote SMEs' operational performances, and future decision to promulgate techno-innovativeness, specifically in Africa. This research aims to benefit organizational effectiveness practitioners and policy strategists within private and public parastatals to proffer industrial solutions that will promote the integration of emerging technologies and sustainable value chain businesses.

The research evaluates if the classification of Botswana as an Upper Middle Income Country (UMIC) negates Gaborone’s Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) access to financial support from international development partners. The objectives were, to establish the extent to which the UMIC status of Botswana has affected NGO access to funding from international development partners, second, to establish what other factors and to what extent such factors influence accessibility of funding from international development partners, third, to establish the strategies engaged by NGOs which are still accessing funding from international development partners and, last, to proffer methodologies that could enhance access to funding from international development partners by Botswana NGOs. A case study research design was used. The research was qualitative and employed semi structured interviews and focus group discussions. A total of fifty six (56) respondents was realized, namely through the policy makers, senior government officials and administrators, NGOs and their umbrella bodies. The research established that Botswana’s UMIC status did not have a huge bearing on failure by some local NGOs in accessing financial support from international development partners. The research revealed that NGOs required more technical and strategic preparedness, a necessary pre requisite for funding.

Purpose Health-care building maintenance has been receiving concern because of the recent global pandemic. However, there are inadequate broad studies affecting health-care facilities maintenance and feasible solutions in Nigeria. This study aims to conduct an all-inclusive review of public hospital building maintenance issues and proffer possible solutions to improve maintenance practices in health-care buildings via a framework that will support studies in the future. Design/methodology/approach A review of published papers from 2006 to 2020 was conducted. Based on the keywords, 3 pertinent databases were searched and descriptions of the findings from 40 studies were recognised and used in line with Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses. Findings Two main themes (issues and feasible solutions to improve practices) emerged from public health-care building maintenance practices. The study developed a framework that describes the relationship between issues and possible solutions with an emphasis on how to improve human development, management efficiency, technical competence and professional skills, cost-minimisation and others. Practical implications As part of the paper implications, emerged issues were group into five categories (human development, management, technical, limited financial resources and others). The proposed framework for future studies will attempt to mitigate issues and proffer feasible solutions to improve hospital building maintenance practices in Nigeria and other developing countries that are facing similar challenges. Originality/value To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is possibly the first comprehensive review of public health-care building maintenance practices in Nigeria. Moreover, this review demonstrates how the proposed feasible solutions can mitigate problems.

This exploratory study uses both qualitative and quantitative data to reveal insights used to proffer a new definition for iconicism as related to distilled spirits: A distilled spirit brand that h...

This study on tailoring conservation farming to climate change attempted to design and proffer ways that enhance the application of climate information in managing climate-related production risks ...

The marginal contribution of faculty to student learning at an AACSB-accredited College of Business Administration in a public university located in a southeastern state in the United States (U.S.) is measured for the first time by an objective quantitative method. Student cumulative Grade Point Average (GPA), centralized to avoid grade inflation relates to the partial amount of credit hours each teacher devotes to students. We proffer that the marginal contribution of the professor to student GPA earned per contact hour of instruction is the regression coefficient associated with the professor. Since the university uses GPA as a measure of progress, contribution to GPA is the professorial teaching contribution to the university objective. Such a teaching contribution is consistent with the professor’s assignment of responsibility. The computational results of a five-year empirical data analysis are presented.

The prevalence of endocrine disorders in children in Nigeria is not well known. Therefore the burden of these diseases is often overlooked as most cases are undiagnosed or diagnosed too late; and yet they constitute a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in children. There has been a paucity of Paediatric Endocrinologists, absence of laboratory equipments and even drugs for the treatment of these diseases are often not in stock. The desired attention these endocrine diseases should receive from both health care institutions and the government is lacking. Therefore, the aim of this review article was to highlight the challenges facing the practice of Paediatric endocrinology in Nigeria and to proffer a way forward to building a robust endocrine care services in health institutions in Nigeria.

Data protection is important to businesses, and increasingly so as the paper-based world fades into memory. Information safeguards that were sufficient in the past no longer are in the current digitized environment. It is incumbent upon companies to keep their data secure, but what constitutes reasonable protection? In this installment of Business Law & Ethics Corner, we tackle this question and proffer Draper’s Catastrophe Value Curve as an assessment tool toward that end.

It seems apparent that despite all the agitations, protests, and concerns raised by various organised trade unions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), scholars and interested persons on the need for South Africa to out rightly ban the business of labour broking in South Africa because of the various unfair labour practices being perpetrated by the labour brokers and their clients, the business continues to thrive and prosperous. The ban continues to fail because till date, no single legislation has been enacted specifically to outlaw labour broking. Therefore, it seems that labour broking as a business is inevitable in South Africa and will continue to operate. That being said, even if it is not banned, this article strongly accentuates the need to stringently regulate labour broking considering various unfair labour practices that labour brokers and their clients perpetrate against workers. Against the backdrop of this, the article extensively relied on and utilised the recently enacted Labour Relations Amendment Act, 2014 which makes a moderate attempt to protect casual workers from unfair labour practices in South Africa. The South African courts have made tremendous progress by interpreting and applying this regulatory regime to protect the labour broker's employees and transform labour broking in South Africa. This article contributes to the body of knowledge regarding the need to ensure holistic protection for vulnerable casual works through stringent regulation of the business. This assertion is made against the backdrop that this aspect has not been robustly researched hence this article seeks to address the problem and proffer solutions.

When confessions are entered into evidence in criminal courts, issues of coercion and voluntariness are important and often contested matters. Occasionally, defense attorneys proffer expert witness...

The Spatiality of Emotion in Early Modern China: From Dreamscapes to Theatricality is a bold reconceptualization of fundamental questions in ontology, epistemology, and ethics. Ling Hon Lam proffer...

Contemporary multiple interment is a minority burial practice occasionally encountered in Medieval Christian burial grounds that is suggestive of the death of two or more individuals at the same time followed by a conscious decision by the living to bury those individuals together. The study reviews the evidence from thirty-one Irish burial grounds (spanning AD 300 to 1700) to explore the nature of the demographic combinations apparent in these contemporary multiple interments. Drawing upon information gleaned from contemporary historical sources, an attempt will be made to proffer possible scenarios to account for the different demographic configurations apparent in the burials. Funerary practices, in particular, positioning of the bodies, will be explored to see if insights can be gained concerning the nature of the potential social relationships that may have existed between those interred together in each grave. The findings from Ireland will be compared to those of studies of similar burials in Anglo-Saxon England.

This article takes a critical look at comparative analysis of the Charter of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and the Constitutive Act of the African Union (AU). In doing so, the article will compare the organs and institutions of both the OAU and the AU. It will also access the achievements and failures of the two bodies and in doing this, the article will argue that if OAU has been performing as expected, there will be no need for the AU. It will in addition go further to list some provisions in the Constitutive Act of the AU that were not included in the Charter of the OAU. It will also argue that in modeling the AU like the European Union (EU), there has been no linkage in the achievements of this continental body that can make it comparable to the EU. Also, in accessing the AU, this paper will proffer answer to the question, whether there has been any significant change since AU come on board, or if it was just a name change. Finally, the article will conclude by making recommendations and suggestions for better performance of the continental body before it clocks twenty (20) years.

This study investigated the perceived impact of examination malpractices (EMs) and its contextual factors on the study progress in Nigeria. Drawing upon data collected through structured questionnaire administered to 795 participants comprising of 711 secondary and tertiary education students, two different focus group discussions with 7 secondary school students and 6 university students, and five different interviews with 71 participants (18 examination invigilators, 12 university lecturers, 20 parents/caregivers, 12 examination security agents, 9 secondary school teachers), it sought to investigate the major forms of EMs currently being practiced in the Nigerian education system, the major actors of the EMs and as well proffer practicable strategy to curb the prevalence of the EMs in the education system. Data collected were statistically and thematically analyzed to provide key answers to the research questions that guide the study. The findings of this study revealed that among other major actors of the EMs, the parents/caregivers were found to be the major actors who directly or indirectly fund EMs in the education system. Our study contributes to the improvement of the theory and practice of education in Nigeria to curb the high rate of EMs in the education system, as well as the education systems in other developing countries.

The purpose of this article is to examine the relationships between telemedicine and telecommunication in the realm of telecommunications technology, following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The author discusses the shifts in the use of telecommunications, its competitive advantage, impact, challenges, and proffer solutions in its use in the world of work. The approach of the article is anchored on qualitative research.

We proffer an argument that university education ought to be inherently about the cultivation of critique—that is, its primary intellectual pursuit. Through critique, university teachers and students can produce open, reflective and activist human encounters that can both be harnessed inside and outside of the university. After all, as we show, the university is a public space that relies on critique for its enactments. Our main argument is that a university of critique seems to be most appropriately placed to contend with the complex socio-political challenges of the modern day.

In this chapter, we proffer a new epistemology of memory. We discuss why we think this new epistemology of memory is necessary, and we link this requisite to the complexity of geographies of commemoration. This complexity relates to the in-depth place-based acumen required to comprehend the complicated geopolitical terrain of the sites, places and events of commemoration. Integral to our approach has been an embodied and mindful cognisance of our own positions within/on memory research (including about Anzac), and how we have often felt our research, as much as we have thought about it. We detail a methodology and method geared towards a ‘thinking-with’ approach, one that crosses disciplinary boundaries, and operates between and within layers of memory/place/identity, to thinking-with-body across material and digital spaces.

As a result of the pandemic lockdown, most Faculty, Staff, and students in Nigerian universities were unable to learn online because of irregular power and internet unavailability. As a major concern to the Nigerian Deans of Engineering, a study was commissioned by the Deans to identify the extent of the problem with a view to identifying the research and development areas and proffer an indigenous solution to the problems identified. This paper discusses the results of an online survey administered during the lockdown to a stratified sample size from the over 80,000 engineering students' population in Nigeria. The initial results showed that there is need to develop some form of a cost-effective but modular and mobile integrated boosted internet-ready power system suitable for teaching, learning and research which is always-on both day and night for learning.

The French Socialist Party (PS) experienced its worst European Parliamentary election performance ever in May 2019, after a calamitous decline from its position as presidential party in early 2017. This collapse was rooted in programmatic failure, born partly of the party’s shift to the ideological centre, which provoked tensions between its social liberal and radical wings. However, this chapter argues that, within the European arena, the PS has also struggled because of its historical position as a supporter of the European social project, and its consequent inability to shed this image in order to proffer a radical vision of reform that can compete with newer, less institutionalised competitors such as La France Insoumise (LFI) or the Rassemblement National (RN, formerly the Front National). In a domestic context of leadership failure and organisational decline, the legacy of Mitterrand’s ‘party of Epinay’ has provided no foothold for programmatic renewal at the European, any more than at the domestic, level. This chapter examines the effects of this on party cohesion on Europe, its 2019 campaign programme, and its lack of distinctive political offer to voters equally open to either the radical-left LFI or the centrist La République en Marche! (LREM).

The provision of sustainable water supply systems in rural communities in developing countries like Nigeria has been a challenge for several years, thereby promoting the dependency of rural dwellers on polluted surface water sources. This has also promoted water disparities between rural and urban areas, as well as developing and developed countries. In a bid to proffer solutions to this public health challenge, there is need to routinely assess the systems available in our rural communities. This cross-sectional survey assessed the water facilities available in four(4) randomly selected villages across Ayeedade Local Government Area, Osun State. Grab water samples were collected from the main water source in each community and assessed for physico-chemical properties using standard methods. The Sanitary Inspector for the Local Government was also interviewed to obtain insights about the modalities of the water supply system present in the area. All the villages surveyed had at least two handpump boreholes present.

Effective disease outbreak response has historically been a challenging accomplishment for the Nigerian health system due to an array of hurdles not unique to Nigeria but also found in other African nations which share its large size and complexity. However, the efficiency of the response mounted against the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak of 2014 proved that indeed, though challenging, proactive and effective outbreak response is not impossible. With over 20 public health emergencies and infectious disease outbreaks between 2016 and 2018 alone, Nigeria is one of only five members of the World Health Organization (WHO) African Region to report five or more public health events per annum. There are many lessons that can be drawn from Nigeria's experience in handling outbreaks of infectious diseases. In this review, we discuss the history of emerging and re-emerging infectious disease outbreaks in Nigeria and explore the response strategies mounted towards each. We also highlight the significant successes and note-worthy limitations, which we have then utilized to proffer policy recommendations to strengthen the Nigerian public health emergency response systems.

It was early in the New Year, January 3, 2020, participants had convened in London to review the state of the Nollywood industry and the potentials of the enterprise. Could it be positioned in the UK as a commercially viable transnational cinema? The agenda was set to cover film production by Nigerians in the diaspora, and to identity challenges facing geographically displaced Nigerians in producing and distributing their movies. Participants were to consider and proffer solutions to challenges confronting Nigerian filmmakers, including structural hindrances in financing, (pre/post) production, distribution and exhibition of their productions. That the original idea was proposed by a Nollywood legend, Clarion Chukwura made it fascinating. The event, held at the University College London, was an occasion for dialogue between the professionals and academics.

Media reports on train mishaps and havocs emanating from rooftop riding abound; however, there has been very limited effort on the empirical investigation of why daredevils embark on this utter suicide mission. Besides, studies that rigorously examined profiles of the perpetrators of the dastardly act are hard to come by in the literature of railway transport. Against this background, this study examined the menace of train rooftop riding in Lagos Metropolis, Nigeria, with a view to evolving a policy response that could curtail the life-threatening nuisance. Towards achieving this aim, specific objectives were formulated. These were to examine the socioeconomic characteristics of train rooftop riders in Lagos Metropolis, determine the motivations for train rooftop riding in the study area, assess the efforts made by the authorities to discourage train rooftop riding in the study area, and proffer policy recommendations towards engendering a safe rail transport milieu. Data were obtained through participant observation, interview and questionnaire administration. The respondents comprised 64 conveniently sampled rooftop riders, 183 law-abiding passengers of three Diesel Multiple Units and three Mass Transit Trains selected using multistage sampling, and the 113 staff members of the Nigerian Railway Corporation consisting of 20 engineers, 79 conductors and 14 ticket vendors. The study found that train rooftop riding had defied all the measures taken against it in the study area. It characterized most trips but was prevalent at the morning and evening peak periods (35.2% and 59.2%, respectively). All the rooftop riders were middle-aged men. None of them admitted to ever falling off before; however, 28 (43.8%) admitted to being scared of falling off, while 40 (62.5%) boasted they could not possibly fall off. Two categories of motivations for rooftop riding were found: ‘perceived’ and ‘real’. Smoking (47.0%), substance abuse (23.0%) and criminal tendencies (19.7%) were among the perceived motivations, while space inadequacy (37.5%), queue avoidance (50.0%) and adventure (34.4%) were among the real motivations. Given an overall improvement in the railway services, 28 (43.8%) would stop, 18 (28.1%) would not stop, and 18 (28.1%) were unsure they would stop rooftop riding. The study concluded that the menace of train rooftop riding was undesirable. Consequently, practical policy recommendations were proffered towards curbing the menace.

In this article, I engage the psychoanalytic writings of Donald Winnicott, Thomas Ogden and Wilfred Bion, who proffer maternal reverie – an intimate intersubjective communication between th...

The roles of Family Owned Businesses (FOBs) cannot be overemphasized in providing employment and contributing immensely to the economic growth of Nigeria. Anambra state known for its entrepreneurial exploits enjoys its fair share of family businesses as all over the states; there are a great number of them. However, the majority of these businesses do not survive up to the next generation and no more than a few get to the third generation, therefore making them unable to leave up to their expectation of economic contribution to the state and the nation at large. Therefore, this study sought to examine the challenges faced by these businesses, to explore the rationale for starting this form of business, to look at the problems of this form of business in the economy and to proffer possible solutions to the problems. The study found that some of the major problems they face are lack of planning, problem of access to finance, professionalization challenges, family dispute, infrastructural issues unstable and multiple taxation. The study recommended among other things that government policies that favour FOBs should be consistent, improvement in infrastructure, increased access to finance and harmonizing taxes paid by these businesses.

This study focused on a comparative analysis of exposure to pollution in Ota and Ewekoro Township where we have concentration of industries that emits pollutant to the air. This was with a view to proffer solution to the negative effects of industrial activities on residents within industrial location. The study involved empirical observation and interview of residents. About 652 questionnaires were administered randomly on the residents. Analysis involved descriptive statistical tools including chi-square techniques. The results suggest that air pollution was most frequently reported in Ewekoro and Ota and this can help in the prediction of stringent factor in which industrial activities could pose to society. Keyword: Industrial zone, Pollution, Emission, Eco-system

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine corruption in the Nigeria judicial system, the implications on justice administration and the fight against corruption in the country, and proffer recommendations on ways to eradicate corruption in the system. Design/methodology/approach This paper is essentially a desk research with reliance on secondary source of data in published outlets such as journal articles, online articles and books. Findings There is prevalence of corruption in the judicial system, and it is one the obstacles hindering the fight against corruption in the country. Originality/value Its scope is limited to issue and content analysis of judicial corruption in Nigeria.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to proffer the view that the activities of libraries in Japan are central to the democratic process. Design/methodology/approach This paper is a viewpoint. Findings This paper demonstrates librarians’ and library users’ views of libraries in the context of the notion that “information is the currency of democracy”. Originality/value This is the first English-language article on information as the currency of democracy in a Japanese context.

International audience; Drawing on neo-institutional theory, this study aims to discern the poorly understood ethical challenges confronted by senior executives in Indian multinational corporations and identify the strategies that they utilize to overcome them. We conducted in-depth interviews with 40 senior executives in Indian multinational corporations to illustrate these challenges and strategies. By embedding our research in contextually relevant characteristics that embody the Indian environment, we identify several institutional- and managerial-level challenges faced by executives. The institutional-level challenges are interpreted as regulative, normative and cognitive shortcomings. We recommend a concerted effort at the institutional and managerial levels by identifying relevant strategies for ethical decision-making. Moreover, we proffer a multi-level model of ethical decision-making and discuss our theoretical contributions and practical implications.

Self-defeating work behavior (SDWB) is a common and costly behavior that is not adequately incorporated into management research. We argue there are two reasons for this. First, the construct has not been adequately defined for management scholars. This has hindered grounding the construct in the organizational context and created confusion about differences between SDWB and related constructs like deviant work behavior (DWB). Second, the underlying nature of SDWB is not well understood by management scientists. To stimulate management research on a costly and arguably understudied construct, we provide a definition of SDWB and use the definition to clarify relations between SDWB and DWB. We then proffer two research propositions to guide future management research based on two salient attributes of SDWB: 1) self-regulation failure, and 2) the habitual nature of SDWB. Finally, we demonstrate how investigating the two research propositions can open new territories for studying SDWB in the workplace.

Understanding strategic decisions aimed at addressing regional economic issues is of increasing interest among scholars and policy makers today. However, studies that proffer effective strategies to address digital futures concerns from social and policy perspectives are timely. In light of this, this research uses strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis tool to frame a regional strategy for digital futures to enhance place-specific digital connectivity and socio-economic progress. Focus group discussions and a structured questionnaire were conducted to examine a SWOT for a digital economy strategy in the Southern Downs Region in Queensland, Australia. The findings show that while the proposed regional strategies for digital futures are susceptible to internal and external forces, strategic planning makes them manageable. The study's findings also reveal that adaptive strategic planning can help regulate the effects of internal and external factors that shape individual and organizational responses to digital transformation, and that these factors promote regional competitiveness.

We are pleased to present this special issue of Management Decision, the aim of which is to advance an in-depth understanding of the area of sustainability and ethical consumerism and to proffer new possibilities for future research. This topic has been drawing significant attention, more so in recent decades, as was evident in the large number of manuscripts that were submitted to this issue. We are delighted to introduce the ten articles in this special issue. Each of these papers furthers the understanding of sustainability and ethical consumerism and, together, they provide novel directions for future studies.\ud We first explicate the main concepts that form the basis of this special issue: sustainability and ethical consumerism. We then provide an overview of the articles in this issue, highlighting various topics pertaining to this research area.

Current communication textbooks proffer conflicting, vague, or incomplete definitions of the core concepts of “mass communication” and “news,” contributing to confusion among students, and subsequently in the public sphere, of what experts in the field mean when discussing news and mass media. The analysis in this article disentangles a clear definition of mass communication from the related concepts of mass media and mediated communication, as well as clearly differentiating the concept of “news” from the adjacent concepts of journalism and entertainment. Discussion concludes with implications for communication education and improved public understanding of the field.

Psychoanalytic Dialogues has, since its inception, welcomed controversy. Articles were paired with discussions so as to proffer challenges to the relational paradigm and, at the same time, forge a ...

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant disruption to patient care delivery and medical training in the UK.1 However, the views of healthcare professionals on the impact of the pandemic has not been fully explored. This study aimed to identify the challenges experienced by healthcare professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic and proffer potential solutions, from the perspectives of postgraduate trainees. A SurveyMonkey® questionnaire was emailed to postgraduate trainees through Health Education England (HEE) deanery databases, to capture their experiences during the pandemic. The survey was also circulated informally via WhatsApp®, to include the views of individuals in non-training posts. Ethics review was …

A decline in the world’s freshwater resources poses a major domestic and industrial challenge. Amelioration efforts that proffer possible water management and reclamation technology is ther...

As a global partner, Nigeria public sector has opted for electronic government in the conduct of government business. To ensure that this is realizable, government has strategized many policy, programme and project options to ensure its viability. Unfortunately, these policy, programmes and projects that are mapped out by government over the years to ensure smooth implementation of e-governance in its business are not yielding positive results. It is in line with this development that this paper sought to explore the challenges that militate against its actualization and proffer some solutions that will help to cushion the effects of these obstacles that have become a cog in the wheels of e-governance in Nigerian public sector. Various literature were reviewed and the paper after sitting through the problems makes recommendations and concludes with a call for more research in the subject matter-of-governance.

The aim of the author is to emphasize in the life and personality of J. Brodsky some important moments based upon memories of K. Proffer. Analysis of poet’s moral statements is being made, as well as his attitude to the “red” socialist as a dominant evaluative criteria, manifested in his assessments of contemporary writers. The analysis reveals choked consciousness of Brodsky in exile as well as high importance of his history of love - “feeling incredibly strong and long”. All these points witnesses that Brodsky was a personality tragic destiny and unique originality.

We review the recent academic and policy literature on bank loan loss provisioning (LLP) to identify several advances in the literature, to highlight some challenges in LLP research and suggest possible directions for future research with some concluding remarks. Among other things, we observe some major advancement in country-specific and cross-country analyses and substantial interaction between LLPs and existing prudential, accounting, institutional firm characteristic, cultural, religious, tax and fiscal framework. We observe that managerial discretion in provisioning does not necessarily generate LLP estimates that reflect the true and underlying economic reality of banks’ credit risk exposure but rather managerial discretion in provisioning is strongly linked to income smoothing, capital management, signalling and other objectives. We also address several issues including the ethical dimensions of income smoothing, motivations and constrains to income smoothing, methodological issues in the bank loan loss provisions literature and the dynamic loan loss provisioning experiment. Moreover, we suggest several avenues for further research such as: finding a balance between sufficient LLPs which regulators want versus transparent LLPs which standard setters want; the sensitivity of abnormal (specific and general) LLPs to changes in equity; the persistence of abnormal LLPs following CEO exit; country-specific interventions that induce LLP procyclicality in emerging countries; investigating LLP behaviour in the post-financial crisis sample period; the impact of Basel III on banks’ provisioning discretion; LLP behaviour among systemic and non-systemic financial institutions; etc. We conclude that, because provisioning models are only as good as the assumptions underlying such models as well as the accuracy of the inputs included in such models, regulators need to pay attention to how much discretion banks and lending institutions should have in determining reported provision estimates, and this has been a long standing issue.

Thompson et al. (2016) proffer a critique of the wild adult Florida Largemouth Bass Micropterus salmoides floridanus stocking program at Lake Griffin (2004–2007) and Lake Dora (2007–2010) in Florid...