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Mobile communication has grown beyond its original scope and scale, and mobile operators have played a significant role in this phenomenon. Since the mobile operator business is highly regulated, the authors aim to analyze the effects of regulation on the industry during the period 1985‐2009. They also aim to consider its potential effects in the years 2010‐2015.

The method selected for this research was the Delphi method. The challenge was that this method was originally created to assess experts' opinions about the course of development of a certain technology or phenomenon in the future, and then by using for example a scenario technique, to draw conclusions about its possible futures. Here the authors used the Delphi method for estimating past development also, i.e. experts' opinions of the causes and effects of laws and other regulations in the past few decades.

According to this research the ultimate goals of the regulator, set as early as in the middle of the 1980s, have been actualized: in Finland there are several competing nationwide mobile operators and the use of mobile phones is cheap compared to many other countries. One significant finding of this study is that the regulatory framework for the mobile operator business has become more complex over the years and that this complexity is also likely to grow in the future.

Dynamic regulation has enabled strong competition in Finland's mobile operator market and at the same time a very high service level for subscribers. The Delphi method is proven to be a powerful tool also when examining past events, and the authors recommend Delphi for use in studies related to other sectors of administration and fields of business.

This paper enables better monitoring of the changes in regulatory framework over a long period in which several changes have been made, compared to previous studies which focus on a single regulatory action.

The purpose of this paper is to describe how Finnish experts perceive future (year 2030) hospital management and leadership.

A total of 33 experts participated in a three-round Argument Delphi process. Opposing views of management and leadership in 2030 were analyzed using inductive content analysis.

The experts’ perceptions were divided into two main categories: management and leadership orientation and future organization. Perceptions relating to management and leadership orientation were classified as relating to patient-centred, clinical dominance, professionally divided and management career options. Perceptions relating to future management and leadership organization were classified as representing shared, pair, team and the individual-centered leadership. The results highlighted the most distinctive issues raised by the participants.

This qualitative study was conducted in the context of Finnish healthcare according to the principles of the Argument Delphi Method. The panel consisted of high-level experts representing a diverse set of roles. However, as suggested in previous literature, these experts may not be the most astute in predicting the future development of hospital organizations.

The findings can be used to develop and renew management and leadership training and management practices in hospitals.

The findings can be exploited in discussions, planning and decision making regarding future management and leadership in hospitals.

Only a few studies have investigated perceptions of future management in hospitals. This study adopted the Argument Delphi Method to identify distinct perceptions on the future orientation and organization of management and leadership in hospitals.

The purpose of this study is to elicit and analyze experts’ perceptions of management and leadership competence (MLC) and likely MLC developments and requirements in hospital contexts by 2030.

A three-round, web-based Argument Delphi process was used to gather critically discussed opposing perceptions of 33 Finnish experts, which were subjected to inductive content analysis to identify themes.

Current deficiencies in MLC and several trends (e.g. an ongoing shift towards collaborative management) and required improvements (e.g. a need to adopt more holistic approaches) were identified. However, there were some conflicting perceptions, regarding for example the desirability of fixed-term positions for managers.

The findings provide qualitative indications of a group of Finnish experts’ perceptions of MLC and requirements for its development, elicited using the Argument Delphi Method. Thus, they are subject to the usual limitations of the applied methodology and should be generalized to other contexts cautiously.

The identification of current deficiencies and future requirements for MLC may facilitate the formulation of robust approaches for improving it in hospital contexts.

The findings may be useful for improving MLC in hospitals, thereby enhancing efficiency, teamwork, safety and client satisfaction in healthcare settings.

The Argument Delphi Method has been rarely used in health management science studies and healthcare context. It is intended to develop relevant arguments and reveal reasons for differing views about focal issues, thereby providing deeper understanding of experts’ perceptions of MLC and its likely development.

This paper seeks to demonstrate the importance of uses and gratifications theory to social media. By applying uses and gratifications theory, this paper will explore and discuss the uses and gratifications that consumer receive from using social media. This paper seeks to provide a better and more comprehensive understanding of why consumers use social media.

Exploratory study was conducted. 25 in‐depth interviews were conducted with individuals who use social media.

This study identified ten uses and gratifications for using social media. The ten uses and gratifications are: social interaction, information seeking, pass time, entertainment, relaxation, communicatory utility, convenience utility, expression of opinion, information sharing, and surveillance/knowledge about others.

Limitations are small sample size. Research implications are that uses and gratifications theory has specific relevance to social media and should be given more prominence. Uses and gratifications theory helps explain the many and varied reasons why consumers use social media.

This paper helps organizations to understand why consumers use social media and what gratifications they receive from social media.

This paper makes the contribution that uses and gratifications theory has specific relevance and should be given more prominence within the area of social media. This paper also provides a rich and vivid understanding of why consumers use social media.

This paper aimed to study business model innovation by a work-integration social enterprise (WISE). Specifically, the study investigated how the organization developed novel value propositions and created and delivered value for multiple stakeholders.

An in-depth qualitative study was conducted at Foreword, a for-profit organization that uses persons with disabilities, mental health conditions and special needs. Data was drawn from semi-structured interviews with stakeholders of the organization and several secondary information sources.

The authors’ inductive analysis revealed the existence of an innovative and powerful business model that is integrated by the organization’s overarching social mission and anchors its ability to deal with multiple conflicting logics such as economic, social, ecological sustainability and community development, to co-create value with and for multiple stakeholders.

The study underscores the need for business model innovation through enhancing value creation for multiple stakeholders for for-profit WISEs. Since the analysis and resulting model in the study are based on a single organization in a geographically small, affluent country with a hands-on government, they may need to be modified before applying in other contexts.

The study identifies several pointers for other social enterprises – specifically the need for managers to build business models appropriate for their organizational and environmental contexts.

The study’s originality stems from the adoption of a stakeholder lens to examine business model innovation. It also proposes an integrative conceptual model of the antecedents and outcomes of business model innovation.

Higher education institutions (HEIs), including universities, adult and vocational institutes, and technical and further education (TAFE) centres, faced the challenge of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic with limited data on how best to protect their communities and to continue educating their students. HEIs implemented various measures and adaptations by prioritizing the safety and well-being of students, staff, and the broader community while ensuring uninterrupted educational delivery. The pandemic presented a global educational challenge, requiring institutions to address complex organizational issues. These challenges encompassed topics such as information access, equity, diverse communication infrastructures, collaboration, logistics, the use of digital platforms, decentralization, redundancy, variation in virtual rituals and communication protocols, unstructured digital proxemics, Zoom fatigue, the absence of remote feedback loop models, and COVID-19 management protocols. Among the critical questions posed by the pandemic in the higher education sector in Australia and Canada, whether at universities, technical institutes, or education centres, was how faculty enhanced the learning experience and fostered symbiosis among co-located/on-shore and remote/off-shore students. To gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between HEIs and COVID-19 educational mitigation, we analysed the actions taken by three HEIs in Australia and one in Canada during the crisis years of 2021–2022. This analysis was based on the personal reflections of the authors (academics from various HEIs), a synthesis of which is presented in this chapter.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of workfare programme participation on self-efficacy, because many studies suggest that sufficient self-efficacy is essential for successful job search in modern labour markets.

The paper analyses an exemplary German workfare programme’ the so-called “One-Euro-Jobs” programme and examines whether participation in this programme improved the self-efficacy of participants. The analyses are based on survey data (Panel Study Labour Market and Social Security) that were combined with administrative records of the Statistics Department of the German Federal Employment Agency to obtain more reliable information on programme participation. To detect causal effects of participation, the authors apply propensity score matching.

The findings show that participants’ self-efficacy, on average, was not improved by programme participation. Also, no well-determined positive effects of programme participation were found when controlling for the individual baseline level of self-efficacy.

The findings suggest that workfare programme participation did not fulfil several of the psychological functions of work necessary to enhance participants’ self-efficacy. The authors suggest a two-step approach to enhancing individuals’ self-efficacy and their job-search abilities: in the first step, workfare participation aims to improve employability; in the second step, participants can learn the extent to which they have become ready to work in a regular subsidised job.

Various studies examine the effect of workfare programme participation on employment prospects, well-being, health or social participation. Within the discourse on active labour market policy, this paper is the first to study the effect of workfare programme participation on self-efficacy.

Research has confirmed that franchise systems may change over their lifetime. It is argued that changes to franchise systems may be the result of changes in the level of uncertainty they face in their environments. It therefore examines the developments that have occurred both in the state of the environment and the nature of the franchise systems of one group of traditional franchisors in Britain – namely, the oil companies’ petrol retailing networks – over the past 20 years in order to assess the validity of this view and to shed some light on the long‐term developments of traditional franchises. In particular it considers whether increasing environmental uncertainty encourages traditional franchisors to adopt the characteristics of business format franchise agreements in order to tighten their control over their franchisees.