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This commentary aims to explore the theme of Tier 1 support within the UK context and abroad by the associated article by Hardiman and Harding (2025; this issue).

This commentary considers the literature regarding high-quality support as a Tier 1 approach within positive behaviour support (PBS) model in the UK and abroad. It also considers potential infrastructure that services could use to develop and sustain high-quality support.

This commentary highlights how the UK may be guided by the framework of school-wide PBS in the USA to inform the implementation of system-wide PBS in UK contexts.

This commentary explores how system-wide PBS can be applied.

Numerous attempts at installing six sigma (SS) have faced challenges and fallen short of the desired success. Thus, it becomes vital to identify the critical factors and characteristics that play a pivotal role in achieving successful adoption. In this study the research has aimed to highlight that a considerable number of corporate SS initiatives, around 60%, fail primarily due to the improper incorporation of essential elements and flawed assumptions.

To validate the influence of critical success factors (CSFs) on SS accomplishment, the study employed a research design combining exploratory and mixed-methods approaches. A Likert-scale questionnaire was utilized, and a simple random sampling method was employed to gather data. Out of the 2,325 potential participants approached, 573 responses were received, primarily from Germany, the United Kingdom and Sweden. The analysis focused on 260 completed questionnaires and statistical methods including structural equation modeling (SEM), exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) were utilized for data analysis.

The study acknowledged four essential components of CSFs that are imperative for sustaining the success of SS: (1) Competence of belt System employees; (2) Project management skills; (3) Organizational economic capability and (4) Leadership commitment and engagement. These factors were identified as significant contributors to the maintenance of SS’s success.

The practical implications of this research imply that institutions, practitioners, and researchers can utilize the four identified factors to foster the sustainable deployment of SS initiatives. By incorporating these factors, organizations can enhance the effectiveness and longevity of their SS practices.

The investigation's originality lies in its contribution to assessing CSFs in SS deployment within the European automobile industry, utilizing a mixed-methods research design supplemented by descriptive statistics.

In this chapter, the authors focus on the design and construction of the last MASK model, the lineage model. We learn what lineage is and how it applies to knowledge. The lineage model is differentiated from the history model. The authors explain that the history model pertains to the evolution of the environment in which knowledge develops, whereas lineage pertains to the evolution of the knowledge itself. Lineage examples are found in everyday examples such as ancestries, provenance, versions, and citation networks. A step-by-step methodology for building a lineage model is described.

This review paper aims to explore and investigate the Quality 4.0 current knowledge, emerging areas, and trends available in the literature and provide insights for future research directions. The bibliometric analysis determines the most prominent journals, authors, countries, articles, and themes. The Citation and PageRank analysis identifies the most influential and prestigious articles. The author's keyword analysis identifies the research theme, patterns, and trends within a particular area of research.

This study utilised the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis) declaration as a review protocol, and the data is retrieved accordingly. Therefore, 104 articles from Scopus and 28 from Web of Science were combined in R-Environment, and 25 duplicates were removed using RStudio. Finally, 107 papers were selected for further analysis. After the abstract level screening, the study reviewed 99 articles bibliographically published in peer-reviewed journals from prominent academic databases Scopus and WoS between 2011 to April 2023. We used the VOSviewer software tool for analysing bibliometric networks that allow the construction, visualisation, and exploration of maps based on any form of network data.

The review identified emerging themes: artificial intelligence, digitalization, sustainability, root cause analysis, topic modelling, and digital voice-of-customers. To establish the intellectual structure of the field and identify gaps, co-citation and content analysis were used. The content of 49 papers in the identified clusters was then carefully analysed. The four primary themes are the relationship of Quality 4.0 with Industry 4.0, the conceptualization of Quality 4.0, recommendations for the new Quality 4.0 model, and the impact of Quality 4.0. The findings provide an excellent foundation for future research in this field for policymakers, managers, practitioners, and academia.

This is the first systematic literature review-cum-bibliometric analysis on quality 4.0 that covers the field comprehensively. Based on the present review, the paper proposes six possible future research directions to investigate.

Mobile blended learning (MBL) is becoming common in higher education settings; however, the student’s intention to adopt such technological innovation is less explored. The purpose of this study is to measure MBL adoption using common variables used in the literature (supporting factors, learner attitude, learner perspective and learner effectiveness) and extending the model to include usability factors (ease of use, satisfaction and usefulness).

Data was collected from 322 respondents and analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis and partial least squares-structured equation modeling technique to assess the hypothesis. A five-point Likert scale instrument was developed using the existing literature for data collection.

The findings have both theoretical and managerial implications concerning MBL adoption. From a theoretical perspective, the findings provide a reconfirmation of the importance of usability in MBL adoption. From a managerial perspective, it will provide the necessary knowledge to incorporate relevant variables and factors that decision-makers could use to oversee a successful implementation.

This paper contributes to the ever-growing body of literature on MBL through an analysis of students’ intention to adopt MBL using usability factors.

This opening chapter introduces key debates in relation to informality in policymaking, laying the theoretical and conceptual groundwork for the individual empirical chapters, beginning with a provocation for how informality can alternatively be understood. Through illustrating where gaps in understanding within current literature exist for how informality acquires meaning, and the physical and material relevance for how it manifests across contexts, this chapter introduces the three thematic clusters that thread through the book’s chapters: boundaries, knowledge mastery and networks. In doing so, it briefly positions each chapter in relation to these flexible and overlapping categories, drawing attention to how each chapter presents a different understanding of informality. Key to this chapter is our contention that while informality escapes definition, without binary or fixed conceptualisations of this concept we are better able to take in its fluidity and envisage how it is interwoven in everyday policy work and its human and non-human enactment. Underpinning this contention is a key contribution of this work, a proposition for a re-conceptualising of informality and formality as in|formality. Methodologically, this chapter argues that informality is better ‘shown’ than ‘told’ – and that this can be achieved through interpretive and socio-material approaches woven through disciplines that foreground narrative, ethnographic and creative approaches to research.

The use of the concept of “agency,” in the sense of action that is to some extent free of “structural” constraints, has enjoyed enormous and growing popularity in the sociological literature over the past several decades. In a previous paper, we examined the range of theoretical rationales offered by sociologists for the inclusion of the notion of “agency” in sociological explanations. Having found these rationales seriously wanting, in this paper we attempt to determine empirically what role “agency” actually plays in the recent sociological literature. We examine a random sample of 147 articles in sociology journals that use the concept of “agency” with the aim of identifying the ways in which the term is used and what function the concept serves in the sociological explanations offered. We identify four principal (often overlapping) uses of “agency”: (1) purely descriptive; (2) as a synonym for “power”; (3) as a way to identify resistance to “structural” pressures; and (4) as a way to describe intelligible human actions. We find that in none of these cases the notion of “agency” adds anything of analytical or explanatory value. These different uses have one thing in common, however: they all tend to use the term “agency” in a strongly normative sense to mark the actions the authors approve of. We conclude that “agency” seems to serve the purpose of registering the authors' moral or political preferences under the guise of a seemingly analytical concept.

This article aims to provide the current state of the art of the literature on the contribution of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on the measurement and management of performance in the healthcare sector. In particular, the work aims to identify current and emerging ICTs and how these relate to the performance measurement and management (PMM) cycle of healthcare organizations.

To address the research objective, we adopted a systematic literature review. In particular, we used the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis (PRISMA) methodology to select articles related to the investigated topic. Based on an initial screening of 560 items retrieved from Scopus and ISI Web of Knowledge, we identified and analyzed 58 articles dealing with ICTs and PMM in the healthcare sector. The last update of the dataset refers to February 2024.

Although we attempted to address a relevant topic for both research and practice, we noticed that a relatively small sample of articles directly addressed it. Through this literature review, in addition to providing descriptive statistics of research on ICTs and PMM in healthcare, we identified six theoretical clusters of scientific streams focusing on the topic and eleven categories of ICTs effectively tackled by the literature. We then provided a holistic framework to link technologies to the different PMM phases and functions.

Nowadays, the availability of ICTs to support healthcare organizations’ processes and services is extensive. In this context, managers at various organizational levels need to understand and evaluate how each ICT can support different activities to benefit most from their adoption. The findings of this study can offer valuable insights to top and line managers of healthcare organizations for planning their investments in both existing and emerging ICTs to support the various stages of development and functions of PMM.

Most of the current literature focusing on ICTs in the healthcare sector refers to the contribution that technology provides to clinical processes and services, devoting limited attention to the impact of ICTs on administrative processes, such as PMM. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this represents the first literature review on the contribution of ICTs to PMM in the healthcare sector. The review, differently from other research focused on specific ICTs and/or specific PMM functions, provides a holistic perspective to understand how these technologies may support healthcare organizations and systems in measuring and managing their performance.

This article presents an exploratory analysis of perceived information needs for managing fixed public sector assets in South-Eastern Europe (SEE).

The analysis was carried out from a user needs perspective. A questionnaire was administered to government officials in SEE. Respondents were queried about what categories of information they need to make or to recommend five typical decisions concerning fixed public sector assets. Respondents also provided assessments on current availability and quality of information on fixed public sector assets, cost-benefit considerations regarding data collection and suitability of information for routine collection and updating.

The findings of this study indicate that the information collected for financial reporting purposes is recognized as insufficient to support decision-making on fixed public sector assets. However, perceived information needs by respondents are still rather basic. The need for more “sophisticated” and “strategic” information is found to be rather low, more so when the cost of collecting and processing such information is considered.

The findings of this study raise concerns about the persistently insufficient attention paid to the potential benefits that well-compiled and appropriately used asset registries could produce. The findings of this study might be useful to governments initiating the identification and measurement of their fixed assets, establishing fixed asset registries and instituting relevant regulation.

This study adds to the scant literature on the management of fixed public sector assets. It provides evidence on the perceived information needs of public sector officials, and it contributes to the ongoing debate on what good public sector asset management is and how it should be pursued.