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Urbanization in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has seen rapid growth in recent decades, resulting in significant changes to the region’s landscape and ecosystems, including wetlands. This study aims to examine the causes and effects of urbanization on wetlands. This study lays down the need to intervene to protect and restore wetlands in SSA.

The methodology used was a systematic literature review, supported by the VOSviewer software and the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews criteria, with data analyzed using abductive reasoning and content analysis.

This study found that a complex web of factors reflecting regional and global trends propels urbanization in Sub-Saharan Africa. Urbanization is driven by population growth, economic development, infrastructure development and migration, leading to significant changes in the region’s ecosystems. The key effects include biodiversity loss, flooding and altered hydrology, water quality degradation and loss of livelihood. The study identifies sprawling urbanization, densification, informal settlement, fragmented urbanization and planned urban expansion as patterns of urbanization affecting wetlands.

This study offers practical recommendations for policymakers, planners and local communities to ensure long-term urban sustainability while conserving wetland ecosystems in SSA. Thus, there is a need for continued cooperation, technology and discovery sharing, and cooperative research funding initiatives with the global community. It also commends implementing green infrastructure, like artificial wetlands, to mitigate the adverse environmental effects and promote sustainable development.

This study used VOSviewer software visualization to uncover structural trends and research frontiers, focusing on wetland conservation in the context of urban areas in SSA, where rapid urbanization adds to wetland degradation.

The exchange rate is an important driver of a country’s economic growth, influencing trade, investment, inflation, and employment. This study’s main objective was to investigate the threshold effects of exchange rates on economic growth.

In this research, innovative endogenous threshold autoregressive (TAR) models introduced by Hansen (2000) are employed for estimation and inference. The dataset comprises secondary annual time series data from Ghana, covering thirty-one years from 1990 to 2021. Economic growth is represented by GDPPC, with the growth exchange rate serving as the crucial threshold variable.

The finding suggests a single exchange rate threshold for Ghana, indicating a nonlinear relationship with economic growth. However, above 8.97%, the exchange rate considerably slows growth, harming the economy. The exchange rate negatively influences growth in both low and high-exchange-rate regimes, but it is insignificant in the high regime. In addition, inflation has a significant negative influence on growth in the low regime but a positive impact on the high regime. In contrast, interest rates positively impact growth in both regimes, though not as significantly in the high regime.

The findings from this study offer valuable insights to the Ghanaian government and policymakers as they consider choosing an exchange rate target that helps minimise the negative impact of a high exchange rate to promote economic growth.

This paper is remarkable for being one of the few studies that have explored the relationship between exchange rates and economic growth, exploring the threshold effect.

The present paper offers a literature review on the application of institutional theory in the context of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The study aims to synthesize existing research on how institutional factors, both formal and informal, shape the strategic behaviors of SMEs through the lens of new institutionalism and its three strands – rational-action neoinstitutionalism (RAN), social-constructionist neoinstitutionalism (SCN) and mediated-conflict neoinstitutionalism (MCN). It also identifies critical gaps and proposes avenues for future research.

Employing the B-SLR’s multi-method framework, this study integrates bibliometric analysis and a systematic literature review. The analysis examines 202 articles, categorizing them into four key research clusters related to the application of institutional theory to SMEs.

The literature on SMEs and institutional theory is framed around the following clusters: (1) institutional theory and innovation in SMEs, (2) institutional theory and the environmental sustainability of SMEs, (3) institutional theory and the internationalization of SMEs and (4) institutional theory and SME strategies in emerging markets.

This study represents the first literature review applying institutional theory to SMEs, offering a framework for understanding how institutional factors influence SME strategic decisions. The paper also identifies research gaps, proposing directions for future studies within each of the four clusters and contributes to bridging the fragmented research on SMEs and institutional theory.

This research investigates the effect of accessibility to points of tourist interest (buffer) and direct and indirect spatial spillover effects of agglomeration economies on tourism industry revenues in Spain.

Data were collected from the Bureau van Dijk's (BvD) Orbis global database. The data were analysed using a spatial econometric model and the Cobb–Douglas production function.

This study reveals that hotels located inside the buffer zone of points of tourist interest achieve better economic outcomes than hotels located outside the buffer. Furthermore, the results show that there is a direct and indirect spatial spillover effect in the hotel industry.

The results provide valuable information for identifying areas where the agglomeration of hotels will produce a spillover effect on hotel revenue and the area of influence of location characteristics. This information is relevant for hotels already established in a destination or when seeking a location for a new hotel.

The results of this study can help city planners in influencing the distribution of hotels to fit desired patterns and improve an area's spatial beauty.

The paper provides insights into how investment, structural characteristics, reputation and location affect hotel revenue.

This research introduces and validates psychological ownership of health as a novel theoretical construct characterized by individuals’ perceived possessiveness, attachment and responsibility toward their health. This study aims to examine the construct’s ability to predict and explain consumers’ health-related decision-making for themselves and others.

Two online surveys with US participants (N = 680) were conducted. The psychological ownership of health scale was first validated through confirmatory factor analysis. Next, the influence of psychological ownership of health on positive health behaviors and blood donation intentions was assessed using multiple regression analyses and conditional process modeling.

Psychological ownership of health demonstrated significant positive associations with health-promoting behaviors (dietary choices, physical activity, sleep hygiene) mediated by health self-efficacy. In addition, psychological ownership of health predicted increased blood donation intentions, and this relationship is amplified among individuals high in cultural collectivism.

The findings suggest that interventions fostering psychological ownership of health may simultaneously promote personal health maintenance and prosocial health behaviors. These dual implications offer promising applications for individualized and public health initiatives.

This research advances psychological ownership theory by establishing and validating a health-specific dimension that predicts critical health behaviors at individual and societal levels. By identifying cultural collectivism as a moderator, this research also integrates psychological ownership theory with cultural dimensions theory, revealing cultural variability in health ownership’s influence on prosocial health outcomes.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the capabilities essential to vaccine supply chain (VSC) resilience given a mass vaccination endeavor during a pandemic.

An exploratory qualitative study was used to elicit the required capabilities pertinent to the design of resilient VSC flows. Data were extracted from white papers, reports, academic papers and the presentations of over 100 experts globally who convened at webinars, symposia and workshops to discuss the COVID-19 mass vaccination campaign and the VSC.

The results of this study indicated that 7 primary capabilities, 44 Level 1 sub-factor capabilities and 145 Level 2 sub-factor capabilities are essential to VSC resilience in a mass vaccination situation during a pandemic. Furthermore, through cluster analysis, associations of various degrees were identified between some pairs of resilience capabilities.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, a comprehensive and holistic exploratory research study that identifies systemic resilience capabilities of mass vaccination supply chains and aligns these requirements to the seven critical flows in the VSC has not been previously undertaken. A cluster analysis that depicts the relationships between the resilience capabilities has also not yet been done.

The results have significant consequences as an informative reference for leaders managing herd immunity goals during pandemic situations. Stakeholders in the public sector, private sector and other entities, involved in planning and managing all or part of a mass VSC during a pandemic, should find the results valuable in providing a structured approach for building resilience at systemic and individual flow levels.

This study contributes to the literature on designing resilient mass vaccination supply chains during a pandemic. Using data from a wide spectrum of published and audiovisual sources, this study identifies seven resilience capabilities to reduce disturbances that lead to delays in mass vaccination supply chains. This study develops a structured approach to align these capabilities to the seven critical flows in the VSC. Through cluster analysis, associations between the resilience capabilities are identified, indicating where multiple strategies may be required to reinforce VSC resilience.

Mental health inequalities based on race and ethnicity in the USA and globally persist despite efforts to address them. The COVID-19 epidemic accentuated these inequalities and demonstrated the extent to which they are linked to social determinants. However, the organizations that are best placed to ameliorate mental health inequalities are often underfunded and under-resourced. Investment strategies that restrict funding for programmatic costs rather than general operating costs often disproportionately impact small organizations that serve communities of color. This study aims to argue that effectively addressing mental health inequalities requires investing in these organizations by applying the lessons learned from implementation science.

This study demonstrates how organizational factors such as leadership, supervision and organizational culture and climate are key to programmatic success and how implementation strategies can target these factors. As promoting health equity is increasingly recognized as a priority outcome for implementation science research, these organizational approaches can inform funders on how to support small organizations that serve marginalized communities, giving them the capacity and flexibility to address mental health inequalities.

This paper applies the findings from implementation science to consider how best to support mental health organizations, particularly those well suited to serving the mental health needs of diverse communities.