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This study aims to investigate Indian mainstream secondary school teachers’ awareness and attitude toward assistive technology (AT) and its implementation level in an inclusive setting.

The study followed a descriptive survey method within the cross-sectional research design, and the selected approach consisted of a mixture of quantitative (e.g. questionnaire surveys) and qualitative (e.g. interviews) methods. A survey was distributed among 150 teachers from 15 secondary schools following the stratified random sampling technique. Collected data were analyzed descriptively and inferentially.

Findings revealed that teachers’ awareness of AT was not up to the satisfactory level yet they showed an overall positive attitude toward it. Regarding teachers’ knowledge, professional support or institutional support, almost everywhere the inadequacy was obvious. These schools were running with a poor resource pool of assistive products along with a squat implementation level. Hence special needs students did not get required supports from schools as they deserved which had been hampering the overall inclusive atmosphere. Lack of suitable policies, adequate awareness and financial limitations were evolved as major barriers in the implementation of AT in these schools. Further, statistical analysis revealed a surprising output that male teachers showed slightly higher awareness level regarding AT than their female counterparts but in respect of attitude they were found overpowered by the females. Teachers of urban schools also exhibited slightly better awareness and attitude toward AT than those of rural schools.

The study has a high research value for not only having a scarcity of past studies on this topic but also in developing the inclusive education concept in India by enhancing the use of AT for making the process effective and efficient so far as the academic achievements of students with special needs is concerned. The survey can also serve as a source for academic planners in the country by getting information on the current state of resources, both human and material, and thus by making suitable measures for optimum use of available resources.

The write up of this paper was very difficult, as there were almost no previous studies done on this topic in the past in India, and we had to face an acute shortage of related literature. So, this study would prove to be a good addition in this respect for future researchers.

This is the reporting of an original research conducted in India. To do this study, the authors conducted intensive surveys, interviews and observations. The write up of the findings focuses mainly on the survey and interview data. This type of the study is exclusive in the Indian context and can help Indian policymakers and many other similar developing countries on the globe.

There exist large gaps in research about social networking services, for example in their development. Most of these networks lack any scientific or engineered base in their designing and developing processes. In this paper, a holistic model will be described for the development of social network sites and parts of a scientific social network (SSN) will be developed using it. Users of this site are faculties, students and R&D personnel of a university or an enterprise. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In this paper, a SSN site is designed along with a brief description of a social network site development methodology. The structure of methodology is based on conceptual template for the construction of a methodology. Using this methodology, a group of 50 users (from all three types of end-users) have been chosen to be interviewed about their expectations from the mentioned site.

Based on the interview, it was discovered that their view about social networks is inflexible and they do not have any new visions about functionalities of these networks. Their emphasis was mostly on exchanging and sharing role of this site. Design and development of social network sites based on the proposed methodology is easily understandable because of using state machine notations.

The innovation of this study is to propose a soft model for social network sites design based on these site's special specifications and regarding differences of them with other regular ones. This can pave the way for investors of such sites for setting up distinct social sites with new functionalities in an innovative approach.

The research analyzes good practices in health care “management experimentation models,” which fall within the broader range of the integrative public–private partnerships (PPPs). Introduced by the Italian National Healthcare System in 1991, the “management experimentation models” are based on a public governance system mixed with a private management approach, a patient-centric orientation, a shared financial risk, and payment mechanisms correlated with clinical outcomes, quality, and cost-savings. This model makes public hospitals more competitive and efficient without affecting the principles of universal coverage, solidarity, and equity of access, but requires higher financial responsibility for managers and more flexibility in operations.

In Italy the experience of such experimental models is limited but successful. The study adopts the case study methodology and refers to the international collaboration started in 1997 between two Italian hospitals and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC – Pennsylvania, USA) in the field of organ transplants and biomedical advanced therapies.

The research allows identifying what constitutes good management practices and factors associated with higher clinical performance. Thus, it allows to understand whether and how the management experimentation model can be implemented on a broader basis, both nationwide and internationally. However, the implementation of integrative PPPs requires strategic, cultural, and managerial changes in the way in which a hospital operates; these transformations are not always sustainable.

The recognition of ISMETT’s good management practices is useful for competitive benchmarking among hospitals specialized in organ transplants and for its insights on the strategies concerning the governance reorganization in the hospital setting. Findings can be used in the future for analyzing the cross-country differences in productivity among well-managed public hospitals.

This study aims to propose priority solutions for mitigating the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic through the Social Safety Net (SSN) based on the Islamic objectives.

The analytic network process method is used in this study. Focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with relevant stakeholders were used to collect data and supplemented by a literature review to explore comprehensive information.

The findings indicate different opinions among experts, including regulators, practitioners, associations and academics regarding the most important priority solutions to the impact of Covid-19. However, experts agree that the highest priority solution is the SSN program in the lineage sector, specifically the distribution of the Family Hope Program. A program in the field of protecting the mind is the second priority solution. The program in the field of soul and wealth is the third priority solution.

This study contributes to the development of government policy to deal with the socioeconomic impact of Covid-19 based on the Islamic objectives by mapping the SSN through the five elements of protection, namely, faith, soul, mind, lineage and wealth protection based on priority solution.

Many information systems involve data about people. In order reliably to associate data with particular individuals, it is necessary that an effective and efficient identification scheme be established and maintained. There is remarkably little in the information technology literature concerning human identification. Seeks to overcome that deficiency by undertaking a survey of human identity and human identification. Discusses techniques including names, codes, knowledge‐based and token‐based identification, and biometrics. Identifies the key challenge to management as being to devise a scheme which is practicable and economic, and of sufficiently high integrity to address the risks the organization confronts in its dealings with people. Proposes that much greater use be made of schemes which are designed to afford people anonymity, or which enable them to use multiple identities or pseudonyms, while at the same time protecting the organization′s own interest. Describes multi‐purpose and inhabitant registration schemes, and notes the recurrence of proposals to implement and extend them. Identifies public policy issues. Of especial concern is the threat to personal privacy that the general‐purpose use of an inhabitant registrant scheme represents. Speculates that, where such schemes are pursued energetically, the reaction may be strong enough to threaten the social fabric.

The study aims to test the applicability of a variant of the model proposed by Hockerts (2017) for assessing the social entrepreneurial intention (SEI) of male and female students. It extends the model by incorporating the university's environment and support system (ESS) as an additional more distal construct. The university's ESS, coupled with the experience with social, cultural and environmental issues can affect SEI by influencing the more proximal precursors of empathy towards others, perceived self-efficacy, perceived community support and social, cultural and environmental responsibility.

A structured non-disguised questionnaire was administered to students at a Canadian university. A sample of 485 usable responses was analysed by means of second-order structural equation modelling.

The results provide confirmation that the proposed model is a multi-group invariant and appropriate for analysing the SEI of male and female students. They also show that the university's ESS helps predict SEI indirectly through the complete mediation of the more proximal antecedents.

The questionnaire is limited to universities with social innovation and entrepreneurship initiatives.

Outcomes of the study can help universities assess the efficacy of their social innovation and entrepreneurship initiatives for instilling a social entrepreneurial mind-set in students. Consequently, universities will be better equipped to raise the perceptions of venture feasibility and desirability, thus increasing students' perceptions of opportunity.

The study advances the social entrepreneurial knowledge of the university's effect on the precursors of SEI.

The purpose of this paper is to present exciting and innovative research questions in service operations that are aligned with eight key themes and related topics determined by the Journal of Service Management (JOSM) Service Operations Expert Research Panel. By offering a good number of such research questions, this paper provides a broad range of ideas to spur conceptual and empirical research related to service operations and encourage the continued creation of deep knowledge within the field, as well as collaborative research across disciplines that develops and incorporates insights from service operations.

Based on a Delphi study, described in the companion article, “Service Operations: What Have We Learned?,” the panel identified eight key research themes in service operations where leading-edge research is being done or has yet to be done (Victorino et al., 2018). In this paper, three or four topics within each theme are selected and multiple questions for each topic are proposed to guide research efforts. The topics and questions, while wide-ranging, are only representative of the many ongoing research opportunities related to service operations.

The field of service operations has many interesting research topics and questions that are largely unexplored. Furthermore, these research areas are not only increasingly integrative across multiple themes within operations but often transcend functional disciplines. This creates opportunities for ever more impactful research with a greater reach throughout the service system and suggests that service researchers, regardless of functional affiliation, can contribute to the ongoing conversation on the role of service operations in value creation.

Leveraging the collective knowledge of the JOSM Service Operations Expert Research Panel to expand on the research themes generated from the Delphi study, novel questions for future study are put forward. Recognizing that the number of potential research questions is virtually unlimited, summary questions by theme and topic are also provided. These questions represent a synopsis of the individual questions and can serve as a quick reference guide for researchers interested in pursuing new directions in conceptual and empirical research in service operations. This summary also serves as a framework to facilitate the formulation of additional research topics and questions.

The COVID-19 pandemic and its related economic meltdown and social unrest severely challenged most countries, their societies, economies, organizations, and individual citizens. Focusing on both more and less successful country-specific initiatives to fight the pandemic and its multitude of related consequences, this chapter explores implications for leadership and effective action at the individual, organizational, and societal levels. As international management scholars and consultants, the authors document actions taken and their wide-ranging consequences in a diverse set of countries, including countries that have been more or less successful in fighting the pandemic, are geographically larger and smaller, are located in each region of the world, are economically advanced and economically developing, and that chose unique strategies versus strategies more similar to those of their neighbors. Cultural influences on leadership, strategy, and outcomes are described for 19 countries. Informed by a cross-cultural lens, the authors explore such urgent questions as: What is most important for leaders, scholars, and organizations to learn from critical, life-threatening, society-encompassing crises and grand challenges? How do leaders build and maintain trust? What types of communication are most effective at various stages of a crisis? How can we accelerate learning processes globally? How does cultural resilience emerge within rapidly changing environments of fear, shifting cultural norms, and profound challenges to core identity and meaning? This chapter invites readers and authors alike to learn from each other and to begin to discover novel and more successful approaches to tackling grand challenges. It is not definitive; we are all still learning.

The paper aims at a multi‐faceted review of scholarly work, analyzing the current state of empirical studies dealing with privacy and online social networking (OSN) as well as the theoretical “puzzle” of privacy approaches related to OSN usage from the background of diverse disciplines. Drawing on a more pragmatic and practical level, aspects of privacy management are presented as well.

Based on individual privacy concerns and also publicly communicated threats, information privacy has become an important topic of public and scholarly discussion. Beside diverse positive aspects of OSN sites for users, their information is for example also being used for data mining and profiling, pre‐recruiting information as well as economic espionage. This review highlights information privacy mainly from an individual point‐of‐view, focusing on the usage of OSN sites (OSNs).

This analysis of scholarly work shows the following findings: first, adults seem to be more concerned about potential privacy threats than younger users; second, policy makers should be alarmed by a large part of users who underestimate risks of their information privacy on OSNs; third, in the case of using OSNs and its services, traditional one‐dimensional privacy approaches fall short. Hence, findings of this paper further highlight the necessity to focus on multidimensional and multidisciplinary frameworks of privacy, for example considering a so‐called “privacy calculus paradigm” and rethinking “fair information practices” from a more and more ubiquitous environment of OSNs.

The results of the work presented in this paper give new opportunities for research as well as suggestions for privacy management issues for OSN providers and users.

Confidentiality in adoption has been the norm in this country since the 1930s. Traditionally, it has been perceived as beneficial to all sides of the adoption triangle: the adoptive parents, the adoptee, and the birth parents. Adoption agencies have supported the policy of confidentiality, and as a result the practice of concealment is almost universal in the United States. Alaska, Hawaii, and Kansas are the only states that allow adult adoptees access to their birth and adoption information.