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Explores recent approaches to international best practices and how they relate to context and innovation in health services.

Critical review of existing research on best practices and how they created, diffused, and translate in the international setting.

Best practices are widely used and discussed, but processes by which they are developed and diffused across international settings are not well understood.

Further research is needed on innovation and dissemination of best practices internationally.

This commentary points out directions for future research on innovation and diffusion of best practices, particularly in the international setting.

This chapter asks whether it is helpful to consider a profession to be a practice and to what extent this meshes with the idea that ‘profession’ is a moral concept. It examines MacIntyre’s concept of a practice as an activity that pursues internal goods, finds that MacIntyre’s articulation of the concept by itself is not enough to describe what it is to be a profession and seeks to supplement this with ideas from others, primarily Miller and Davis. This supplementation, however, still leaves open the question of the origin of a profession’s authority (or licence) to use what can be called the ‘dangerous knowledge’ that differentiates the work of professions from other occupations. For this, Veatch provides useful ideas.

This chapter discusses the strengths and challenges posed by the chapter by Aumann and Ostroff entitled, “Multi-Level Fit: An Integrative Framework for Understanding HRM Practices in Cross-Cultural Contexts.” In addition, this chapter proposes an alternative multi-level model of culture, which consists of structural and dynamic dimensions with culture's strength as a moderator of the top-down bottom-up dynamic processes. This model assumes that there is a fit between the value system and the HRM practices, as they represent two layers of culture – visible and less visible. Yet, the fit can be interrupted when HRM practices are transferred across cultures. The chapter further discusses when HRM practices are rejected and when they are accepted despite the misfit.

The hotel sector in South Africa is also aware of the detrimental impact of its activities on the environment. As a result, it has taken steps to mitigate such effects, evidenced by implementing green hotel practices. ‘Green hotels’ refers to lodging establishments that try to consume less energy, water and materials while still offering high-quality services. Unfortunately, although the hotel sector contributes significantly to employment and economic growth globally, its activities harm the environment through pollution, overuse of natural resources and solid and liquid waste.

This chapter discusses the concepts of green hotels and green practices. This chapter also highlights the need for green practices and identifies a case study on green hotels and practices in a South African context. This chapter found that the green hotel sector implements green practices, such as water-saving practices due to the risk of water insecurity, the growing demand for sustainability and the necessity to boost revenues. Green hotels and practices are a step to actualise the objectives of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 12 and 13, which focus on clean water and sanitation and climate change, respectively. The study underscores the importance of green practices and how South Africa responds to the challenge. It is believed that hotels contribute significantly to environmental degradation, but they can also help to preserve the environment through their activities through green practices. Strategies like adopting green practices would be a remedy to mitigate pollution and its effects on environmental sustainability.

This chapter describes pre-service teachers' teaching practices of didactic methods based on cognitive apprenticeship. The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate potential of Second Life® as a space for teaching practices of pre-service teachers. The participants were 160 college students who were completing a practicum at Korea National University of Education. These students enrolled in four sections of teaching methods and educational technology, which was one of the requirements for their teaching certificate. The students were placed in groups of three to five students according to their majors. In Second Life, they practiced their teaching and participated in the evaluation of other groups' teaching. They discussed Second Life's potential, such as a space for expanding their teaching experiences and explored possibilities for using it as an environment for teaching practices. The authors believe that readers will find that Second Life can offer a valuable environment to promote pre-teachers' understanding of teaching techniques.

Continuous improvement in an integrated approach is a philosophy developed over decades based on a set of management practices. It comprises enhancement methodologies that escalate success as well as diminishes letdowns. The state-of-the-art literature finds a variety of practices for the execution of continuous improvement (CI) system. However, it is rare to find an empirical study with an inclusive system that considers various practices in one frame for improving competitiveness. With this outlook, therefore, this study aims originally to identify drivers, motivations and barriers for the application of integrated CI system, and then conduct an empirical investigation within the context of Ethiopian manufacturing industries.

Justification of the problem, extensive review of literature, identification of practices, developing research framework, investigational analysis of the empirical study using reliability and descriptive statistical analysis and identifying leading drivers (unique practices and common factors), motivations and barriers are the research approaches used in this study. Furthermore, the primary data were collected through a self-administered questionnaire and were analyzed using a statistical package for social science (SPSS) 23 and the findings were triangulated to relate to the existing state-of-the-art literature.

The findings indicate 17 common factors associated with human, strategic, operational, technology, structure, resource and information factors; 21 unique practices of just-in-time (JIT), lean-six sigma (LSS), supply chain management (SCM), total productive maintenance (TPM), and total quality management (TQM) methodologies; 20 barriers connected with internal and external issues and 17 motivations linked to operational, innovation and business results are identified. In general, the empirical analysis discovers the practices are noteworthy and commonly supported by a least of 52% of the respondents. As a result, the first five prominent common factors, barriers, unique practices and motivations are also supported by a minimum of 72%, 73.9%, 65.8% and 75% of the respondents, respectively.

Even though this is the first-ever study in the Ethiopian manufacturing sector with the focus on integrated CI practices of JIT, TQM, TPM, SCM and LSS initiatives, some limitations have existed and the major limitations of the study are, targeted merely small number manufacturing companies despite the fact that there are hundreds of companies implementing CI system in Ethiopia, and the data collected were only based on the perception of the respondents, and other information’s like annual reports was not employed to support the findings.

The findings of this study underlined that the implementation of drivers in relation to common factors and unique practices supported by exterminating barriers in manufacturing industries of Ethiopia enables to enhance competitiveness through attaining operational, innovation and business results though it requires a practical case application to prove this perception-based analysis.

Though there are a number of studies published on integrated continuous improvement, currently it is found that there is no literature focused on the identification and empirical investigation of drivers (common factors and unique practices), motivations and barriers for application of integrated CI system with the focus of JIT, TQM, TPM, SCM and LSS initiatives. Therefore, this is the first-ever study, and the empirical analysis of the study discovered that identified practices are providing valuable insights for manufacturing industries which will be on board on this voyage including institutions, practitioners and other sectors.

Examine how social studies preservice teachers conceptualize and enact critical historical inquiry.

Critical qualitative case study.

Differing conceptual understandings and had trouble infusing their practice with the critical theory learned in the university.

Examine how a core practice is bolstering the practice-theory connection in teacher education.

Manufacturers face increasing demands to address inefficiencies and improve environmental performance across their supply chains. However, there remains a significant gap in empirical research examining how collaboration in the supply chain affects various environmental practices and their consequent impacts on performance. This study aims to address the gap by examining how shared goals and vision drives compliance-oriented and prevention-oriented practices, subsequently affecting environmental performance and operational costs—critical for fostering antifragility and resilience in today’s environment.

An empirical study has been performed based on a sample of survey data from 279 manufacturers from fifteen countries and regions. Applying structural equation modeling analysis to the sample dataset, this study examines the mediating role of two distinct types of environmental practices between shared goals and visions and manufacturers’ environmental performance and operational cost.

This study delineates distinct pathways through which shared goals and vision affect various types of environmental practices, and consequently lead to different performance outcomes: (1) environmental impact of manufacturing activities depends on the collective efforts of the manufacturers and their supply chain partners; (2) shared goals and vision among supply chain partners facilitates both environmental performance and operational cost through prevention-oriented practice; (3) shared goals and vision in supply chain benefits operational cost performance primarily through prevention-oriented practice, but less likely through compliance-oriented practice.

This study reveals two distinct pathways through which the shared goals and vision impact various performance outcomes, providing valuable guidance to businesses aiming to balance operational cost and environmental performance — crucial for resilience in today's turbulent environment.

This study not only corroborates existing theories of the Natural Resource-Based View and collaborative networks but also provides a detailed depiction of how collaboration across the supply chain promotes a diverse range of environmental practices and yields varied performance outcomes. It offers vital insights for supply chain participants to effectively navigate environmental challenges, enabling them to cultivate resilience and proactively address environmental issues.

This study explores how excellence models can leverage digital transformation on the path to sustainable development in organisations.

A survey was used to study the different facets of digital capabilities and their impact on sustainable development success of organisations holding an external recognition from the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM). Partial Least Squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) combined with Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA) were used to analyse data.

Internalising excellence practices is decisive in mediating effective digital capabilities to achieve sustainable development. To achieve high levels of sustainable development success, organisations must achieve high levels of excellence practices internalisation, which are much more important than the excellence model external recognition.

This study addresses essential issues with theoretical and practical value but is limited to a sample of organisations with EFQM recognition in two countries. Future studies should address different organisations and cultural environments.

The findings are relevant for organisations facing digital transformation and sustainable development challenges. They are essential for managers leveraging digital capabilities to capitalise on practices and processes and achieve Sustainable Development Goals. Organisations can benefit from a multidimensional approach to digital capabilities when struggling against external challenges.

This study closes a research gap regarding the impact of digital capabilities on sustainable development success. It is the first empirical study to combine sufficiency and necessity conditions analyses to explore the mediating role of excellence practices internalisation and one of the first to address digital capabilities from a multidimensional perspective.