scholarly journals The Combat against COVID-19 in Portugal, Part II: How Governance Reinforces Some Organizational Values and Contributes to the Sustainability of Crisis Management

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (20) ◽  
pp. 8715
Author(s):  
Pedro Miguel Alves Ribeiro Correia ◽  
Ireneu de Oliveira Mendes ◽  
Sandra Patrícia Marques Pereira ◽  
Inês Subtil

The new coronavirus caught governments all over the world completely unaware, which led to a set of different and sometimes not quite articulated responses, leading to some undesirable results. The present investigation is based on three objectives: to assess the conditions “before” and “during” the combat and the expected consequences “after” the outbreak, by having as reference the Portuguese case; to offer a framework of the input factors to crisis management in the pandemic context; and to contribute to the crisis management literature, in the public sector from a perspective of collaborative and multi-level governance. This research is inductive and follows a quantitative approach, with the proposal and testing of a crisis management COVID-19 structural model. The Portuguese case presented in this paper suggests a robust and valid crisis management model. This model may be well translated for other countries with cultural proximity to the Portuguese culture, for instance, Portuguese speaking countries such as Brazil, or geographical proximity to Portugal such as, for instance, Spain. The authors, nevertheless, advise readers to exert some restraint on the extrapolation of the results, as governance systems and traditions can vary a good deal from country to country. Future studies should focus on the importance of coordination as one of the most important areas in crisis management, narrowing the scope of analysis from the broad, macro understanding of the research problem presented on this paper.

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mio Fredriksson ◽  
Anna Hallberg

Sweden's use of soft response measures early in the COVID-19 pandemic received a good deal of international attention. Within Sweden, one of the most debated aspects of the pandemic response has been COVID-19 testing and the time it took to increase testing capacity. In this article, the development of and the debate surrounding COVID-19 testing in Sweden during 2020 is described in detail, with a particular focus on the coordination between national and regional actors in the decentralised healthcare system. A qualitative case study was carried out based on qualitative document analysis with a chronological presentation. To understand COVID-19 testing in Sweden, two aspects of its public administration model emerged as particularly important: (i) the large and independent government agencies and (ii) self-governing regions and municipalities. In addition, the responsibility principle in Swedish crisis management was crucial. Overall, the results show that mass testing was a new area for coordination and involved a number of national and regional actors with partly different views on their respective roles, responsibilities and interpretations of the laws and regulations. The description shows the ambiguities in the purpose of testing and the shortcomings in communication and cooperation during the first half of 2020, but after that an increasing consistency among the crucial actors. During the first half of 2020, testing capacity in Sweden was limited and reserved to protect the most vulnerable in society. Because mass testing for viruses is not normally carried out by the 21 self-governing regions responsible for healthcare and communicable disease prevention, and the Public Health Agency of Sweden stated that there was no medical reason to test members of the public falling ill with COVID-like symptoms, the responsibility for mass testing fell through the cracks during the first few months of the pandemic. This article thus illustrates problems associated with multi-level governance in healthcare during a crisis and illustrates the discrepancy between the health service's focus on the individual and the public health-oriented work carried out within communicable disease control.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 61-77
Author(s):  
Sabine Rusmane ◽  

Contemporary public sport governance takes place in a very different context than that of past decades. The public sport governance is comprised of a variety of basic aspects that build its managerial basis - legislative base, funding allocation and long-term strategic development. The research problem presented is the seeming ambiguity of the variety of theoretical aspects of public sport governance that define the real-life practice of various public sport governance systems across countries. The aim of research was to examine and analyze the theoretical aspects of public sport governance and to determine the practical differences through the comparative analysis of the public sport governance systems of the Baltic States and Scotland. The research was conducted using monographic and content analysis method to research the variety of theoretical aspects, while the comparative analysis method was applied to compare the public sport governance cases of the chosen countries. The main results of the research present that the available theoretical aspects of public sport governance enable a practical research to be conducted on a wider and detailed scale. The results proved that even the slightest difference between countries within their legal framework could prove its intention in furthering sport sector’s promotion. A definition of the term “public sport governance” was developed and proposed. It could be used in further research of the conceptual and practical understanding within the public governance, policy, sport management, economics and sport law fields as crucial part of the overall public sport governance within the national, regional and international economic framework.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-29
Author(s):  
Nour El Houda Yahiaoui ◽  
Abdelmadjid Ezzine

Corporate governance systems are developed to govern corporations, build trust and create sustainable value for all stakeholders. Paradoxically, in spite of massive efforts in developing governance systems, corporate scandals are persisting. Different studies have strongly recommended business ethics as a solution to this paradox. Thus, this study explores if business ethics supports corporate governance practices in a sample of Algerian corporations. The study used a mixed methodology; qualitative: since this subject is poorly addressed in the Algerian context that requires an exploratory study. Quantitative by developing a structural model demonstrating the relationship between business ethics and corporate governance, Data for the study were collected by means of a questionnaire distributed on an anonymous basis to corporations’ senior managers in Sidi Bel Abbes district. Treatment of collected data is done using two types of analysis: the structural equations modeling approach by using the PLS Path approach (PLS Path Modeling) and linear regression. The study finds out that business ethics leads to better levels of corporate governance and supports its practices; and the reason is mainly due to an implicit involuntary commitment to laws as a minimum required level of compliance, and that the protection of stakeholders’ rights are the most important corporate governance’s dimension affected by business ethics.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heba Bakr Khoshaim ◽  
Areej Al-Sukayt ◽  
Karuthan Chinna ◽  
Mohammad Nurunnabi ◽  
Sheela Sundarasen ◽  
...  

COVID-19 is the worst pandemic of this millennium, and it is considered to be the “public enemy number one.” This catastrophe has changed the way we live in the blink of an eye. Not only has it threatened our existence and health status, but the damage associated with it could equally affect our economic, social, and educational systems. The focus of this study was on the anxiety level of university students during the COVID-19 pandemic in Saudi Arabia. The study was conducted between March and June 2020. A questionnaire was administered online, and 400 completed questionnaires were returned. In this study, the Zung self-rating anxiety scale was used to determine the anxiety levels among the respondents. The results indicated that about 35% of the students experienced moderate to extreme levels of anxiety. Anxiety was highly associated with age, sex, and level of education. These findings can enlighten government agencies and policy makers on the importance of making prompt, effective decisions to address students' anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic. Researchers are encouraged to focus their future studies on how to develop strategies to boost students' resilience and enhance their adaptability skills for similar disasters in the future.


2014 ◽  
Vol 989-994 ◽  
pp. 5540-5543
Author(s):  
Yong Chang Ren

China is in a critical period of urbanization, and various social contradictions continue to be accumulated, emerged and enlarged, so public crisis management mechanism has been highly valued by governments at all levels with the public crisis events are occurred frequently. The paper conducts study for the problems in the current urban public crisis handle mechanism. First, the evaluation model of crisis management can be researched, and crisis management can be divided into four stages to evaluate respectively, they are Reduction, Readiness, Response and Recovery; then, we should research crisis prediction model to strengthen prediction, prevention and monitoring of the crisis before the crisis happened; finally, stakeholders analysis model should be studied, and scientific analyzing the interests of the various stakeholders and the relationship among them. From the theoretical point of view, the paper carries on a study for crisis handle mechanism to provide support for improving the crisis handle level.


Viruses ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 1356
Author(s):  
Julie Teresa Shapiro ◽  
Luis Víquez-R ◽  
Stefania Leopardi ◽  
Amanda Vicente-Santos ◽  
Ian H. Mendenhall ◽  
...  

Many of the world’s most pressing issues, such as the emergence of zoonotic diseases, can only be addressed through interdisciplinary research. However, the findings of interdisciplinary research are susceptible to miscommunication among both professional and non-professional audiences due to differences in training, language, experience, and understanding. Such miscommunication contributes to the misunderstanding of key concepts or processes and hinders the development of effective research agendas and public policy. These misunderstandings can also provoke unnecessary fear in the public and have devastating effects for wildlife conservation. For example, inaccurate communication and subsequent misunderstanding of the potential associations between certain bats and zoonoses has led to persecution of diverse bats worldwide and even government calls to cull them. Here, we identify four types of miscommunication driven by the use of terminology regarding bats and the emergence of zoonotic diseases that we have categorized based on their root causes: (1) incorrect or overly broad use of terms; (2) terms that have unstable usage within a discipline, or different usages among disciplines; (3) terms that are used correctly but spark incorrect inferences about biological processes or significance in the audience; (4) incorrect inference drawn from the evidence presented. We illustrate each type of miscommunication with commonly misused or misinterpreted terms, providing a definition, caveats and common misconceptions, and suggest alternatives as appropriate. While we focus on terms specific to bats and disease ecology, we present a more general framework for addressing miscommunication that can be applied to other topics and disciplines to facilitate more effective research, problem-solving, and public policy.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maizatul Akmar Khalid ◽  
Md. Mahmudul Alam ◽  
Jamaliah Said

To improve the trust of citizens and delivery of services, employing good governance principles in the public sector is very crucial. Despite efforts to improve service delivery, criticisms and complains toward public services remain evident. This study aims to assess the status of good governance practices in the public sector of Malaysia. Primary data were collected from the responses of 109 department heads under 24 federal ministries to a survey questionnaire. Respondent perception of good governance practices was measured using a seven-point Likert scale and analyzed by descriptive statistics and path measurement modeling. Standard diagnostic tests were also conducted to check the reliability of the data and model. Results indicated that nine factors were significant in the measurement of good governance practices. However, very few people in the public sector of Malaysia practice fraud control, which is at the lowest intensity. Among the service groups, the engineer group practiced good governance at the highest level, whereas the health service group practiced good governance at the lowest level. Therefore, still there are scopes available to improve good governance systems to become more reliable and efficient public sector in Malaysia. Findings of the study will help policy makers improve the efficiency of the public sector of Malaysia and other countries.


Author(s):  
Nada Mohammed Abid

Services are one of the important indicators that reflect the welfare of the society and its development. Due to the increase in various means of transport and the increase in internal and external traffic, the provision of basic services for the regional road users has become a necessity that should be studied in a thorough and accurate manner to reach the appropriate mechanism for the spatial allocation of these services. The research problem lies in the lack of interest in the optimal spatial allocation of the public road services because of the overlap between the powers and authority of the municipalities and the directorates of roads and bridges preventing to study the subject comprehensively. In addition, there is a lack of roads in general and regional roads in particular for service stations and passenger vehicle stopping spaces, with standard specifications. Therefore, this research is aimed at identifying the sufficiency of spatial allocation of regional road services and studying the current situation of these services, analyzing the efficiency of these services and finding the shortage. We also set plans and strategies to develop the level of services and invest in a manner that achieves the required sufficiency. Furthermore, some research hypotheses were set: the sufficiency of the spatial allocation of the public road services in the regional roads improves the road level of service by identifying a set of factors that directly affect this sufficiency.


2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 141-159
Author(s):  
Ewa Gruszewska ◽  

Household income dispersion in Poland is growing systematically. Since the late 1970s, the Gini index has increased from 0.252 (1975) to 0.313 (2016). At the same time in France, the ratio has dropped from 0.34 (late 1970s) to 0.293 (2016). A higher income dispersion is also observed among various occupations and across genders. The ratio of minimum to average wages has increased from 33.7% (1975) to 45.45% (2019). The research period covers the period of the centrally planned economy in Poland, when income leveling was an effect of government policy, and that of the market economy, which caused significant income disparities. The research problem is the growing household income dispersion in Poland. The aim of the study was to determine the institutional sources of increasing income dispersion. The study involved a comparative analysis of income dispersion in the years 1975–2017 in the context of institutional changes taking place in these countries, especially after 1990. The author applied a hypothetico-deductive method. Having analysed income dispersion, the author made a hypothesis regarding the influence of institutional changes on this phenomenon and presented the groups of institutional factors. The conducted research indicated inequalities in Poland grew mainly as a result of high dynamics in the income of the highest earners (top 10% and 1%). The social policy of the Polish government may have had little impact on this factor. Moreover, the distributional effects of taxes and transfers were slightly weaker in Poland than in France. An increase in the scale of acceptance of the inequality level in Poland over the past few years is noteworthy. In France, the public opposition to inequality is growing, even though income inequality is lower than in many European countries.


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