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According to the literature concerned with this study, less than satisfactory outcomes have been achieved through implementing business process improvements methods (BPIMs) in industries, in general, and in healthcare, in particular. The existing methods used need to be enhanced in order to create more effective outcomes. There has also been a lack of studies documenting gaps or shortfalls in implementing BPIMs, to be presented to the BPI research community. Therefore, researchers of this paper have attempted to fill gaps between theory and practice. On the contrary, there is also a need to link practical outcomes in the healthcare domain with those of the BPI research community. The purpose of this paper is to review popular BPIMs, techniques and tools applied in the healthcare domain; it seeks to examine and highlight their significant roles, clarify their pros and cons, and find opportunities to enhance their impact on the achievement of more sustainable improvements in the healthcare domain.

This study has been carried out by using a methodology combining an in-depth literature review with a comparison framework, which is called as the “Framework for Comparing Business Process Improvement Methods.” The framework is composed of seven dimensions and has been adapted from four recognized, related frameworks. In addition to the in-depth review of related literature and the adapted comparison framework, researchers have conducted several interviews with healthcare BPI practitioners in different hospitals, to attain their opinions of BPI methods and tools used in their practices.

The main results have indicated that significant improvements have been achieved by implementing BPIMs in the healthcare domain according to related literature. However, there were some shortfalls in the existing methods that need to be resolved. The most important of these has been the shortfall in representing and analyzing targeted domain knowledge during improvement phases. The tool currently used for representing the domain, specifically flowcharts, is very abstract and does not present the domain in a clear form. The flowchart tool also fails to clearly present the separation of concerns between business processes and the information systems processes that support a business in a given domain.

The findings of this study can be useful for BPI practitioners and researchers, mainly within the healthcare domain. The findings can help these groups to understand BPIMs shortfalls and encourage them to consider how BPIMs can be potentially improved.

This researchers of this paper have proposed a comparison framework for highlighting popular BPIMs in the healthcare domain, along with their uses and shortfalls. In addition, they have conducted a deep literature review based on the practical results obtained from different healthcare institutions implementing unique BPIMs around the world. There has also been valuable interview feedback attained from BPI leaders of specific hospitals in Saudi Arabia. This combination is expected to contribute to knowledge of BPIMs from both theoretical and practical points of view.

This paper investigates the effect of political connections on the capital structure of banks before and after the financial crisis in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.

This paper employs the natural experiment that the financial crisis offers and uses a difference-in-differences model to investigate the effect of political connections on capital structure. Capital structure is measured by the total debt to total assets ratio. Control variables include bank size, growth, profitability, coverage ratio and volatility. The research sample includes all the banks in the GCC from 2005 to 2016.

The authors find that political connections negatively affect banks capital structure decisions. The results contradict the claim that politically connected firms tend to sustain higher debt due to government privilege and a lower chance of bankruptcy. Additionally, the results show that after the financial crisis, politically connected banks de-lever more compared to non-connected counterparts. This could suggest that the degree of support received by connected banks changes or that they exploit their retained earnings for financing (individual country results, however, suggest that leverage increases in Qatar).

This paper provides several contributions. First, GCC countries present an interesting and important area in which to study the relation between political connections and capital structure as it represents a mix of newer markets that seek to attract investors and foreign capital. Second, to the best of our knowledge, the present study is the first to examine the effect of the political connection and capital structure in GCC region where royal families play a significant role, especially for banks. Third, our paper is the first to link connections with leverage after the financial crisis in the banking sector. Moreover, our paper is the first to investigate this phenomenon in the GCC countries using manually collected primary data.

Although there are over 55,000 social enterprises operating in Egypt, the social entrepreneurship field is still failing to create the desired social change. This paper aims to explore the challenges faced by the field with a special focus on government related challenges as well as offer a set of recommendations to the Egyptian government to enhance the field.

The research was carried out in two phases; reviewing the literature around the topic through a secondary research followed by an empirical research interviewing four social enterprises, the ministry of social solidarity and experts in the field of social entrepreneurship.

The paper arrived to several challenges and they were organized into three main themes: challenges related to policy-making and other legal aspects; challenges related to institutional and operational support; and challenges related to social, educational and cultural awareness of the field and its ecosystem. The paper also came up with a set of nine recommendations directed to the Egyptian Government.

The originality and value of this research is that it offers first hand viewpoints of the challenges facing the field of social entrepreneurship in Egypt as well as offer practical recommendations to the Egyptian Government to overcome them.

This study aims to examine the strategy of TV9 Nusantara, one of the local televisions in Indonesia, marketing its religious programs when soap operas are the most popular television programs in Indonesia.

This study used a descriptive qualitative method by collecting data using in-depth interviews, observation and documentation.

TV9 Nusantara used a counter-programming strategy to seize viewers from the competing television stations; the prime time is also set differently from other televisions as well as implements a head-sterling strategy to make the audiences loyal to watching TV9 Nusantara programs and not switch the channels.

In Indonesia, three types of television stations are broadcast nationally, publicly or government-owned, central and regional and local television. This study only focused on local television stations whose main program is religious, especially Islam.

The results of this study can underline the importance of establishing segmentation, targets, differentiation and market positioning as well as efforts to create products, prices, places and promotions for journalistic products, especially TV broadcast products and production processes that follow Sharia principles.

This study can inform the public regarding TV Broadcasting products and production processes following Sharia principles.

This study examined the implementation of marketing strategies and the marketing mix on local television, especially television that broadcasts programs that are not the favorites of most viewers.

This study aims to explore the key factors influencing customer loyalty in Islamic banking within the Iraqi market, as well as the consequences of loyalty. Despite the increasing global significance of Islamic finance, there is a notable lack of empirical research addressing how both causal and contextual factors shape customer loyalty in Iraq. This research seeks to fill this gap by examining the dynamics of customer loyalty and its perceived value to customers, thereby contributing to a deeper understanding of customer relationships in Islamic banking.

The research is conducted using a grounded theory approach, allowing for an exploration of the objective through in-depth qualitative analysis. In-depth interviews are conducted with various stakeholders, including customers, managers and bank employees. The inclusion of heterogeneous groups offers a richer and deeper understanding, increasing the validity and transferability of the findings.

A model of customer loyalty in Islamic banking in Iraq is developed, highlighting social, individual and banking characteristics as indicators of causal factors. Macroeconomic trends, government policy and media and advertising are identified as contextual factors, while competitor actions, life events and demographic profiles are recognized as intervening factors. The findings also suggest that loyalty brings positive values not only to the customers, such as positive experiences, lifetime value and better financial stability, but also to the banking institutions, including word-of-mouth referrals, competitive advantage and increased customer advocacy.

This study contributes to the advanced development of a theoretical framework on customer loyalty. In addition, the findings offer valuable insights into the relationship between Sharia compliance and customer loyalty, calling for banking institutions to prioritize adherence to Sharia principles.

This study explores areas of research within the context of Iraqi Islamic banking, allowing for the discovery of new and original insights into causal, contextual and intervening conditions of customer loyalty, which signify the Iraqi social phenomena. While the scope focuses on customers, the grounded theory approach opens up to emergent patterns and relationships.