Intervention Characteristics Considered in Health Educators’ Adoption Decision-Making Process

It is well known that perceptions of intervention characteristics (e.g., cost, source, evidence strength and quality) are a critical link from dissemination to implementation. What is less known is the process by which researchers understand the characteristics most valued by key intermediaries (i.e., real-world decision-makers), particularly in the federal system of Cooperative Extension. In Extension, university-based specialists are available to assist county-based agents in program selection, delivery, and evaluation. For this work, a sequential explanatory mixed-methods design was used to conduct surveys and semi-structured interviews, informed by the Diffusion of Innovations theory and Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research. Educators and specialists were recruited across 47 states to identify characteristics of health promotion interventions that facilitate the adoption decision-making process. Analysis of intervention attribute importance survey data was conducted through a one-way ANOVA with Bonferroni post hoc test to determine individual variable differences between responses. Interviews underwent a conventional content analysis. In total, 121 educators and 47 specialists from 33 states completed the survey. Eighteen educators and 10 specialists completed interviews. Educators and specialists valued components such as the community need for the intervention, and potential reach compared with other components including previous delivery settings and external funding of the intervention ( p < .05). Qualitative data indicated divergence between educators and specialists; educators valued understanding the intervention cost (time and training) and specialists valued the evidence base and external funding available. Intervention developers should communicate information valued by different stakeholders to improve the adoption of evidence-based interventions.

Media and Funding: A Qualitative Study of Malaysian Social Welfare NGOs

This study explores the extent of media facilitates Malaysian Social Welfare Non-Governmental Organizations (SWNGOs) to acquire funding. Malaysian SWNGOs rely on external funding to support their operation, but this external funding is uncertain and limited. The number of registered Malaysian NGOs has increased recently. For this reason, acquiring funding has become more challenging for Malaysian SWNGOs. Through semi-structured interviews with 6 Malaysian SWNGOs, the study found that television is a dominant media platform to acquire funding. Also, an official website, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp were prominent platforms for most Malaysian SWNGO to acquire funding. Keywords: Media; Funding; Malaysian SWNGO eISSN: 2398-4287© 2021. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians/Africans/Arabians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/ebpj.v6i18.3064

Japan’s development cooperation for health in Vietnam: a first holistic assessment on Japan’s ODA and non-ODA public resources cooperation

Background Japan strives to strengthen its development cooperation by mobilizing various resources to assist partner countries advance on Universal Health Coverage by 2030. However, the involvement and roles of various actors for health are not clear. This study is the first to map Japan’s publicly funded projects by both Official Development Assistance (ODA) and other non-ODA public funds, and to describe the intervention areas. Further, the policy implications for country-specific cooperation strategies are discussed. The development cooperation for health in Vietnam is used as a case in this study. Methods A cross-sectional analysis of the Japanese publicly funded health projects that were being implemented in Vietnam during December 2016 was conducted. A framework of analysis based on the World Health Organization six health systems building blocks was adopted. The projects’ qualitative information was also assessed. Results Overall, 68 projects implemented through Japanese public funding were analyzed. These 68 projects under 15 types of schemes were managed by seven different scheme-operating organizations and funded by five ministries. Of these 44 (64.7%) were ODA and 24 (35.3%) were non-ODA projects. Among the recategorized six building blocks of the health system, the largest proportion of projects was health service delivery (44%), followed by health workforces (25%), and health information systems (15%). Almost half the projects were implemented together with the central hospitals as Vietnamese counterparts, which suggests that this is one area in which the specificities of Japanese cooperation are demonstrated. No synergetic effects of potential collaboration or harmonization among Japanese funded projects were captured. Conclusions Several Japanese-funded projects addressed a wide range of health issues across all six building blocks of the health system in Vietnam. However, there is room for improvement in developing coordination and harmonization among the diversified Japanese projects. Establishing a country-specific mechanism for strategic coordination across Japanese ministries’ schemes can yield efficient and effective development cooperation for health. While Vietnam’s dependence on external funding is low, the importance of coordination across domestic actors of the donor countries can serve as an important lesson, especially in beneficiary countries with high external funding dependency.

Political Budget Cycles in Public Revenues: Evidence From Fines

This article seeks to ascertain whether local governments make improper use of their discretion and use pecuniary sanctions for electoral purposes. To this end, a sample of Spanish municipalities with a population of more than 1,000 citizens during the period 2010 to 2016 has been used. Our results show that revenues from fines are influenced by the presence of elections. In particular, we find that local governments in an election year reduce the percentage of fines, measured either over total non-financial revenues or in per capita terms. This reduction, compared to the pre-election year, suggests that politicians use their discretionary power to issue fewer fines in election years, as they are aware that penalties are not well-regarded by citizens. In addition, we find that the most indebted municipalities, those governed by right-wing parties and the most fragmented municipalities tend to collect more revenues from fines in the pre-election year. Finally, other factors influencing revenues from fines are the number of inhabitants of the municipality, the sources of external funding that the local government has, the ideology of the rulers and their political strength.

Regional Innovation Systems of Medical Technology

We investigated the role of external funding in cardiovascular device innovation across 31 countries in Europe. We rely on the knowledge production function (KPF) framework that establishes the knowledge output of a region as a function of innovatory effort and other characteristics of that region. In a cross-sectional analysis, we investigated regional variation in knowledge production by the number of publications in cardiovascular device research obtained from the bibliometric data of the world’s largest biomedical library, the US National Library of Medicine, 2014‒2017. We mapped these publications to product categories of medical devices approved for cardiovascular diseases by the US Food and Drug Administration. Considering spatial correlation across regions of Europe in our estimates of the KPF, we investigated the impact of two types of funding mechanisms: grants reported in the publications and the volume of European Union Horizon 2020 funding received by the innovating regions. We obtained 123,487 cardiovascular device-related publications distributed across 1,051 (75% of total) regions (NUTS-3 level). Receiving external funding strongly contributes to a region’s knowledge output. The estimated elasticities of innovatory effort range between 0.51 and 0.64. These estimates were consistently larger than the elasticities of other characteristics in the region measured by gross domestic product (0.14‒0.56). We also documented spillover effects from neighboring regions when the funding was measured by the grants reported in the publications, concluding that innovatory efforts in the form of external research investments are effective for promoting innovation in the medical device industry at the regional level.

Innovation and Access to External Funding: The Unique Case of Cameroonian Start-Ups

This article studies the effect of the types of innovation of start-ups (product, process, business and organizational innovation) on access to external funding. Thus, the main objective is to identify the specific determinants of innovation likely to influence access to external funding for Cameroonian start-ups. To achieve this, we have adopted a quantitative methodological approach through the administration of 105 questionnaires on start-ups in the cities of Douala and Yaoundé. The collected data were analysed by SPSS software and the logistic regression method was used. The results of these analyses show that the more Cameroonian start-ups adopt commercial innovations, the more likely they are to access external funding.

Deposit Supply and Bank Transparency

Does a bank’s dependence on different external funding sources shape its voluntary disclosure of information? We evaluate whether economic shocks that increase the supply of bank deposits alter the cost–benefit calculations of bank managers concerning voluntary information disclosure. We measure information disclosure using 10-K filings, 8-K filings, and earnings guidance. As for the funding shock, we use unanticipated technological innovations that triggered shale development and booms in bank deposits. Further analyses suggest that greater exposure to shale development reduced information disclosure by relaxing the incentives for managers to disclose information to attract funds from external capital markets. This paper was accepted by Kay Giesecke, finance.

Disruptive Innovation of Gojek indonesia

This study analyzes Gojek's business as a part of disruptive innovations based on the original theory and principles developed by Clayton Christensen and discusses factors that driven Gojek to become disruptive innovation. In-depth interviews with Gojek’s employees were conducted to collect the data. The research finds that Gojek can be categorized as a disruptive innovation that successfully transformed the market. Innovation is the core culture of the organization, which leads the company to disrupt the market successfully. Several internal and external factors, such as leadership, organizational structure and culture, external funding, undeveloped law, customer needs, and internet penetration, have proven to support and accelerate Gojek as a disruptive innovation.

Business Coaching of a Local F&B MSME: Building Financial Projection for External Funding and Measuring Digital Marketing Activities

Despite a large number of MSMEs in Indonesia, the contribution of the MSMEs to the country's GDP is relatively low. Some of the obstacles faced by MSMEs in Indonesia include access to capital, human resources, and supporting facilities. These obstacles were also faced by one of the local MSMEs, for instance Food and Beverage industry/service (F&B) that wanted to expand its business but was constrained by access to capital. Furthermore, the lack of evaluation of the performance of MSMEs is also a crucial problem, resulting in the lowest performance improvement plan. This paper describes a business coaching program for one of the local F&B MSMEs by building the financial projection and measuring digital marketing activities. Thus, MSMEs can be more accountable in seeking funding and evaluate their digital marketing performance continuously. This business coaching program is expected to increase access to capital and increase the productivity of MSMEs in Indonesia. By building financial projection and measuring digital marketing, MSME can define more specific targets and evaluate its attainment regularly. In order to accelerate the competence of MSMEs to be more competitive and productive, support from various parties is needed to overcome their obstacles.