Search Results (122)

This article proposes a practice-informed institutional design framework for embedding transdisciplinarity (TD) as an operational orientation in higher education. Building on the Reflexive and Situated Model for Institutionalizing Transdisciplinarity, the study examines how TD can be progressively developed from an abstract principle into an institutional capability through a phased process of conceptual framing, normative interpretation, contextual adaptation, and strategic embedding. The framework is articulated through the analysis of institutional processes and governance arrangements associated with the activation of Transdisciplinary Strategic Areas, through which the institutional architecture is translated into operational practice. The study identifies a reflexive metastructure that connects strategic leadership, academic practice, and emerging TD initiatives through participatory mechanisms and communicative governance processes. Core elements of the model (phased meaning-making, a mediating governance layer, selective investment, permeable resource logics, and reflexive monitoring) highlight a set of organizational design principles for institutionalizing TD. The article contributes an analytically grounded framework for supporting institutional leaders in embedding TD while balancing strategic coherence with openness, reflexivity, and contextual responsiveness. Full article

The aim of this study is to examine the potential role of inclusive leadership in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. A qualitative research method and case study were employed in the study. The study group consists of 53 participants. A semi-structured interview form was used, and the findings were analyzed through content analysis. In the study, 5 themes, 20 codes, and 34 sub-codes were created. According to the findings, first, inclusive leadership was predominantly conceptualised through the principles of equality, fairness, and participation, with stakeholders emphasising equal treatment, inclusion of all individuals in school processes, and participatory decision-making. While school administrators tended to view inclusion from a structural and managerial perspective, teachers emphasised its relational, emotional, and communicative dimensions. Second, the cultural structure of disadvantaged neighbourhoods was characterised primarily by low socioeconomic conditions, strong traditional values, and cultural diversity, creating both challenges and opportunities for inclusive leadership practices. Third, school administrators’ inclusive leadership practices were largely perceived positively and reflected instructional leadership, open communication, stakeholder participation, attention to individual differences, collaboration, and fairness, although weaknesses related to empathy and engagement with external stakeholders were also identified. Fourth, inclusive leadership was perceived to contribute to academic achievement indirectly through enhanced student motivation, school belonging, organisational trust, positive school climate, cooperation, and respect for individual differences. Finally, participants identified family disengagement, economic hardship, inadequate physical resources, and limited community support as major barriers to inclusive leadership, while recommending stronger family-school collaboration, increased community involvement, leadership training, and structural improvements as key strategies for enhancing both inclusion and academic success. Overall, the findings suggest that the influence of inclusive leadership on academic achievement in disadvantaged contexts operates through both structural and relational mechanisms and is strongly shaped by broader socioeconomic and community conditions. Full article

This community-engaged qualitative study co-defined digital health and artificial intelligence (AI) priorities with First Nations communities in Manitoba, Canada, including those with disabilities. Grounded in Indigenous research methodologies and community-based participatory research, the project responded to persistent inequities in rehabilitation and health service access shaped by geography, colonial legacies, and jurisdictional fragmentation. These inequities are especially important in the context of aging, as older adults and Elders may experience compounded barriers related to disability, chronic conditions, mobility limitations, and digital exclusion. Over approximately 12 months, an interdisciplinary team consisting of First Nations scholars and partners, disability organizations, clinicians, and researchers conducted relationship-building visits and meetings with First Nations leadership, Elders/Knowledge Keepers, health providers, and community members to inform the design of a Gathering focused on disability, digital health, and AI. A one-day community-engaged Gathering was held on Treaty 1 and 2 Territory in Winnipeg and convened approximately 70 participants from multiple First Nations communities and disability/health organizations. Five facilitated roundtables explored: (1) health and research priorities for First Nations persons with disabilities; (2) primary care and disabilities; (3) digital access and cultural safety; (4) culturally safe and ethical AI use; and (5) health system challenges, disability, and digital health. Data consisted of facilitator-produced, de-identified table summaries, facilitator reflection forms, and participant-validated plenary notes; no recordings or individual sociodemographic data were collected. Using qualitative description and team-based content analysis, three interrelated domains emerged: (1) relationships, identity, trust, and cultural safety; (2) system, infrastructure, and equity conditions required for accessible care and digital inclusion (e.g., connectivity “dead zones,” device access, transport, and culturally safe services); and (3) opportunities, risks, and governance principles for AI and data use (e.g., AI literacy, privacy, bias, Indigenous data sovereignty, and Nation-specific governance). Findings emphasize that equitable digital health and AI must be relational, disability-informed, culturally safe, and led under First Nations authority, with AI positioned to support, rather than replace, human care relationships. The findings also highlight the importance of designing digital health and AI initiatives that remain accessible and trustworthy for older adults and Elders, particularly where aging, disability, and rural or remote living intersect. Full article

Background/Objectives: Contemporary healthcare systems face compound challenges (including technological acceleration, demographic aging, rising chronic disease burden, and growing patient expectations) that demand models that are simultaneously efficient, high-quality, and person-centered. Despite a substantial body of research addressing organizational design, human capital management, and clinical competencies, these dimensions have largely been theorized in isolation. This study aims to construct and justify an integrated theoretical framework explaining how organizational models, human capital, and transversal competencies may jointly shape care quality, patient safety, and institutional sustainability in healthcare organizations. Methods: A narrative literature review was conducted, integrating contributions from business economics, healthcare management, organizational psychology, and nursing sciences. This design was selected for its suitability in synthesizing heterogeneous, multidisciplinary knowledge into a coherent conceptual framework, a purpose for which systematic meta-analytic approaches are not appropriate. Sources encompassed 79 references: peer-reviewed journals (PubMed, JSTOR, Google Scholar), institutional reports (WHO, OECD, European Commission, Joint Commission), normative standards (ISO 30414:2018), and Italian regulatory frameworks, spanning foundational twentieth-century contributions through the most recent literature (2025). Results: Four principal findings emerged: (1) healthcare organizations are evolving from rigid hierarchical structures toward flexible, value-based configurations, with the Value-Based Healthcare (VBHC) paradigm redirecting institutional attention from service volume to patient-meaningful outcomes per unit of cost; (2) transversal competencies (communication, empathy, emotional intelligence, teamwork, and transformational leadership) are closely associated with care quality and patient safety, with 70–80% of sentinel events associated with communication failures; (3) human capital, encompassing technical expertise and relational capacity, constitutes the primary lever of competitive advantage in healthcare institutions; and (4) the trajectory from pyramidal toward participatory and self-managed models is supported by international evidence, including the Buurtzorg experience in the Netherlands. Conclusions: The integrated three-pillar framework (combining resource-based theory and dynamic capabilities, Value-Based Healthcare, and evolutionary organizational theory) provides a theoretically grounded basis for understanding how organizational structure, human capital, and transversal competencies are jointly associated with clinical performance. Healthcare institutions should systematically integrate soft-skills training into professional education and invest in participatory organizational structures. Health policy should revise financing mechanisms to incentivize patient-meaningful outcomes over service volumes and support the broader transition toward Value-Based Healthcare models. The Italian SSN is discussed as an illustrative national context rather than as the primary empirical focus of the review. Full article

A participatory school climate refers to the involvement of school administrators, teachers, and other school members in decision-making processes, their sharing of responsibility, and their collaborative work for school improvement. Since this climate can be related to individual, organizational, and contextual factors such as leadership, job satisfaction, diversity beliefs, workload, well-being, and national context, identifying the key variables that support a participatory school environment is important. This study used TALIS 2024 school administrator data to identify the main predictors of participatory school climate and examined the mediating role of school administrator job satisfaction in the relationship between school administrator leadership, used here in line with school principal leadership, and participatory school climate. The research is based on a two-stage analytical framework. In the first stage, explanatory machine learning analysis was conducted by comparing Elastic Net, Random Forest, and XGBoost models; the relative significance levels of the variables were evaluated using permutation importance and SHAP methods. In the second stage, mediation analysis was performed using multi-level linear mixed models, considering clustering at the national level; the indirect association was evaluated using bootstrap confidence intervals. The analyses were conducted using data from 16,335 school administrators. The findings showed that the highest prediction performance was produced by the XGBoost model and that model performance improved with the inclusion of the country variable. Explainability analyses indicated that school administrator leadership was the strongest predictor of participatory school climate, followed by job satisfaction and diversity beliefs. Multilevel models suggested that the association between school administrator leadership and participatory school climate was consistent, with an indirect pathway through school administrator job satisfaction; bootstrap findings also supported the statistical stability of this indirect association. These findings suggest that a participatory school climate is associated not only with individual perceptions but also with multifaceted conditions such as leadership, job satisfaction, inclusivity, and country context. By combining explanatory machine learning with multilevel statistical modeling, this study identifies variables associated with participatory school climate and examines an indirect association among leadership, job satisfaction, and participatory climate. Because TALIS survey weights and the full complex sampling design were not incorporated, the findings should be interpreted as associations observed in the pooled analytical sample rather than as population-representative estimates for participating education systems. Full article

This paper critically examines disability-inclusive design theory and practice through the lens of new materialism, tracing a shift from designing for users to designing with and ultimately from disability. It reveals a key paradox: while participatory and disability-led approaches foreground lived experience and plural voices, design outcomes must still function across shared, pluriversal contexts. Individual accounts of disability generate situated, partial knowledge that cannot be straightforwardly generalised, creating persistent tensions between singular experiences and collective design needs. By introducing a relational ontology, the paper reframes design knowledge as emergent from dynamic interactions between people, materials and contexts, destabilising binaries such as designer/user and disabled/non-disabled. The proposed praxeology advances disability leadership, positionality and embedded participation as core to design practice. These insights prompt new research questions around how plural, situated knowledges can inform scalable design decisions, how conflicting lived experiences can be ethically negotiated, and how relational, material perspectives can reshape methodologies for inclusive and socially just design. Full article

Indigenous food systems are increasingly threatened by climate change, socio-economic transformations, and reduced access to traditional lands and resources, contributing to disproportionately high levels of food insecurity among Indigenous peoples. Despite growing recognition of Indigenous food systems within sustainability research, limited attention has been given to Indigenous food system governance across different contexts. This study examined: (1) how Indigenous food systems vary across continents; (2) the key characteristics of Indigenous food system governance; and (3) how these characteristics are expressed within Sri Lankan Vedda communities. A systematic literature review of 143 publications from Web of Science and Scopus was conducted alongside a multi-sited case study involving 114 semi-structured interviews across six Vedda communities in Sri Lanka. Findings revealed continental variations in food sourcing, food sources, food use, and harvesting practices. Eight interconnected governance characteristics were identified: co-management, leadership, participatory research, partnerships, social networks, mutualism, collective action, and religious/cultural dimensions. Evidence from Sri Lankan Vedda communities demonstrated that strong leadership, social cohesion, and collaborative partnerships enhanced food security and resilience, whereas weakened governance structures and limited external support contributed to food insecurity. The study highlights the importance of strengthening Indigenous self-governance to support sustainable Indigenous food systems. Full article

This study investigates how monitoring and support practices are enacted and strengthened to improve matric (National Senior Certificate) performance in the Vhembe East District, Limpopo Province, South Africa. Persistent underperformance in rural schools reflects structural challenges related to instructional leadership, limited resources, and weak institutional support systems. While alternative frameworks such as instructional leadership and school effectiveness emphasise formal structures and standardised practices, this study adopts bricolage theory to better capture the adaptive, improvised, and context-responsive ways in which school leaders operate under resource constraints. Bricolage is particularly appropriate in this context as it foregrounds how actors mobilise available resources, relationships, and local knowledge to address immediate challenges where formal systems are insufficient. A qualitative case study design, informed by participatory and reflective principles, was employed and data were generated through semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, and document analysis, and analysed using a hybrid inductive–deductive thematic approach. Findings reveal that monitoring and support practices—such as teacher supervision, learner support programmes, and parental engagement—are unevenly enacted due to limited resources, weak monitoring capacity, and inconsistent implementation. Based on the participants’ reflections, the study proposes that strengthening monitoring and support in resource-constrained contexts requires integrating locally adaptive practices with structured capacity-building and institutional support. It contributes to a contextually grounded understanding of educational improvement and demonstrates the analytical value of bricolage theory in explaining how school leaders navigate constraints through adaptive practice. Full article

Background: Fostering job satisfaction in rural health workplaces is crucial due to its relationship with multiple outcomes such as physical and mental health, job performance, burnout, turnover intention, and retention. As knowledge of the organizational climate components which influence rural job satisfaction is currently limited, this scoping review sought to identify organizational climate factors influencing job satisfaction among the rural health care workforce in upper-middle-income and high-income countries, organized by thematic categories for use in future workplace initiatives. Methods: Following JBI scoping review methodology and the PRISMA-ScR checklist, studies published between January 2013 and October 2023 were identified through searches of PubMed, APA PsycINFO, CINAHL, and Google Scholar. Eligible studies reported research evaluating organizational climate factors as facilitators of and/or barriers to job satisfaction among health care workers in rural regions of upper-middle-income and high-income countries. Screening was conducted in Covidence and data were extracted using a customized Excel tool. Results: Of 305 identified articles that underwent screening, eighteen studies were included in the final review. Thirteen components of organizational climate across studies were identified as facilitators of and/or barriers to job satisfaction in rural health care workplaces, and categorized into four overarching domains: interpersonal relationships, individual responsibilities, organizational structure and planning, and reward and professional development. Conclusions: Relationships with leadership, peer relationships, autonomy and freedom of working method, availability and quality of resources, workload and the ability to remain busy, and wages and benefits emerged as the most consistently identified components impacting job satisfaction across studies. Rural health care organizations are encouraged to prioritize these components and implement participatory, communicative leadership structures, foster team cohesion and support, develop health care worker autonomy and limit inefficient oversight structures, address resource gaps, coordinate with workers to determine manageable workloads, and implement competitive wages and benefits. Additional research is needed to better elucidate the associations between job satisfaction and organizational climate components as well as to longitudinally evaluate interventions aiming to foster rural health workers’ job satisfaction. Full article

Culturally unsafe mental health services contribute to persistent inequities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, yet existing cultural safety frameworks lack clear, prioritised, community-endorsed implementation guidance. This study aimed to establish Aboriginal consensus on cultural safety principles, implementation priorities and practical actions for culturally safe mental health services. A three-round modified Delphi study was conducted with 37 Aboriginal participants from Western Australia with expertise in mental health, social and emotional wellbeing and lived experience. In Round 1, participants completed an online survey rating the importance of cultural safety principles and identifying those requiring urgent action. In Rounds 2 and 3, facilitated yarning sessions reviewed findings, refined principles, grouped them into implementation domains, and identified priority actions. Aboriginal Participatory Action Research ensured Aboriginal leadership and governance throughout. All principles achieved strong consensus for importance. The most urgent priorities were trustworthiness, Aboriginal governance, trauma-informed care, addressing racism and strengthening the Aboriginal workforce. Participants organised the refined principles into six implementation domains, with Leadership and Governance identified as foundational to reform. Trustworthiness was reframed as an aspirational outcome requiring structural change. This study provides a community-endorsed, prioritised framework for translating cultural safety principles into mental health service practice and policy. Full article

School leadership practices may influence teachers’ motivation and professional engagement, which, in turn, may affect overall school performance. This study explores how secondary school teachers and deputy head teachers perceive head teachers’ leadership practices and how these practices are understood to influence teacher motivation and professional engagement. Drawing on a qualitative design, data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 12 teachers and six deputy head teachers from six government secondary schools in Kabwe District, Zambia. A qualitative approach enabled an in-depth exploration of leadership perceptions across participants from multiple school contexts. Data were analysed using thematic analysis to identify patterns in leadership practices described by participants. The findings indicate that participants frequently described leadership practices aligned with delegation, mentorship, and open communication, shaped by contextual and organisational factors. However, these practices were not consistently experienced across all school contexts. Participants also described the presence of democratic and autocratic leadership practices. Participants perceived participatory and supportive leadership practices as contributing to their motivation and professional engagement. However, participants from several schools reported that autocratic leadership practices continued to shape decision-making, largely due to contextual, institutional, and workload-related constraints. The study highlights the importance of understanding leadership as contextually negotiated and relationally enacted. It contributes to African educational leadership research by demonstrating how leadership practices are experienced and interpreted within specific school contexts and emphasising the value of examining leadership beyond a single theoretical model. The implications of these findings for school leadership practice, policy development, and international educational leadership research are discussed. Full article

Public administrations increasingly seek to adopt digital tools for evidence-based policymaking, yet systematic frameworks guiding this adoption remain scarce. This paper aims to develop and apply a co-creation framework for technology adoption roadmaps in public sector policymaking. The objectives are threefold: (1) to systematically identify impacts, facilitators, and barriers through structured stakeholder engagement; (2) to structure these elements into Impact Pathways and Transition Scenarios; and (3) to derive actionable policy recommendations. Using a participatory action research design, a seven-step co-creation methodology was applied across all four cases addressing crisis management challenges: forest fires in Finland, floods and refugee reception in Italy, power outages in Greece, and wildfires in Spain. Through structured stakeholder engagement combining surveys, workshops, and online consultations, the study identified seven categories of policy support results; twelve impacts spanning technology adoption, policy process enhancement, public administration capacity, and citizen empowerment; nine facilitators across financial, organisational, legal, and technical dimensions; and eight frustrators assessed through a risk matrix. These elements were structured into Impact Pathways, visualising causal relationships among policy support tools, enabling factors, and transformation outcomes. Four Transition Scenarios were derived, aligned with the policy lifecycle stages of inception, negotiation, set-up, and operation, accompanied by fifteen actionable policy recommendations classified by thematic area, timeframe, and stakeholder responsibility. The findings reveal that evidence-based policies represent a central transformation target across all result categories, while effective stakeholder engagement and leadership commitment emerge as cross-cutting enablers. The integrated framework contributes to digital governance research by operationalising co-creation for strategic roadmap development and offers practitioners a decision-support tool for planning digital technology-assisted policymaking transformations. Full article

This qualitative study analyzes the perceived effects of the Quiero Mi Barrio—I love my neighborhood—(PQMB) urban regeneration program on the physical and social environments and residents’ quality of life in two deprived neighborhoods in Temuco, Chile, where PQMB was implemented in 2007 and 2015, using a phenomenological approach and a gender perspective. PQMB is a state-led program that combines improvements in urban infrastructure with participatory processes aimed at strengthening community life. Data were collected through interviews, focus groups, and non-participant observations. The findings indicate improvements in public spaces, increased social interaction, and enhanced community cohesion, although these effects were unevenly distributed. Women and older adults experienced greater benefits due to higher participation and leadership in neighborhood organizations, while younger residents’ involvement was more limited and focused on the use of sports facilities. Differences between neighborhoods highlight the importance of time and institutional continuity in maintaining program-related effects. The study shows that changes in the built environment interact with participation patterns and community organization, shaping how residents experience improvements in quality of life. However, the sustainability of these effects depends on long-term institutional support and communities’ capacity to sustain collective action and influence local decision-making beyond the formal closure of interventions. Full article

Humanity is facing an unprecedented socio-ecological and climate crisis resulting from human impact on the planet, which requires a profound transformation in how we inhabit and develop our territories. Regenerative development is emerging as a key approach to strengthening living systems and improving environmental health. In this context, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Biosphere Reserves are consolidating their role as strategic instruments that link biodiversity conservation with sustainable development through integrated and participatory land management models. Mexico stands out for its regional and global leadership in implementing these areas. Participatory governance, promoted by the Man and Biosphere (MAB) programme, encourages the active involvement of local communities. This article analyses the application of a regenerative and participatory design methodology in a Biosphere Reserve, evaluating both the process and the tools used. Beyond the fulfilment of sustainability objectives, it examines the lessons learned, results and scope from a regenerative perspective, providing critical reflections on its effectiveness as a strategy for the socio-ecological management of vulnerable territories. Full article

Religious tourism is an evolving form of cultural and spiritual mobility that connects faith, community identity, and sustainable destination development. Despite its growing significance, few studies have examined service quality in pilgrimage contexts using the 4A framework (attraction, accessibility, amenities, and ancillary services), particularly in developing regions. This qualitative study explores how the 4A dimensions shape service experiences and sustainability practices in religious tourism across three Catholic pilgrimage sites in Labuan Bajo, Indonesia: Goa Maria Golo Koe, Goa Maria Golo Kaca, and Goa Maria Rekas. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews conducted with ecclesiastical leaders, including a diocesan priest and the Archbishop; key informant interviews with government and tourism actors; focus group discussions with local communities; and non-participatory field observations. The findings show that spiritual attraction remains the primary driver of pilgrim motivation, reinforced by local traditions and collective devotion. However, accessibility, amenities, and ancillary services are constrained by inadequate infrastructure, fragmented governance, and limited service standards. Despite these challenges, community voluntarism and the Church’s moral leadership help preserve the sanctity and authenticity of visitor experiences. This study introduces a Sacred Service Framework that integrates faith-based ethics with the 4A model to support sustainable, inclusive, and spiritually grounded religious tourism management. Full article