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Individuals health with intellectual disabilities (ID) experience comorbid physical and mental health needs and have poorer outcomes resulting in early mortality. Currently, many training provisions based on ID exist; however, limited research supports their effectiveness. High-fidelity simulation is an innovative training mechanism with promising preliminary results. This study aims to evaluate the longitudinal impact of simulation training on clinical practice in ID.

A mixed-method approach was used in this study. A one-day simulation course using actors who had ID was delivered to 39 health-care professionals from across London hospitals. Nine semi-structured interviews were conducted 12–18 months post training.

High-fidelity simulation training is an effective training modality, which has a sustainable impact on participants, their clinical practice and patients. Core features of the training including debriefing, the use and type of actors, scenario design and the facilitators are crucial learning mechanisms which impacts learning outcomes and changes to behaviour in clinical practice and settings.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to longitudinally evaluate high-fidelity simulation training designed to improve the physical and mental health needs of those with ID. The research begins to bridge an important gap in the current literature, with a need for more research.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of corporate governance mechanisms and the environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosure score on bank performance and financial stability. Further, this paper analyses how this relationship varies over the different ownership structures.

The paper uses a sample of 41 Indian banks (including both public sector and private sector banks) over the period ranging from 2008 to 2020. The data is analyzed in both static and dynamic frameworks using panel regression and system generalized methods of moments.

The results indicate that the frequency of board meetings has a negative influence on the performance of the banks. Gender diversity reveals both linear and non-linear relationships with bank performance. In the sample of public sector banks, the board size and promoters’ ownership have a significant negative effect on the bank's performance. In private sector banks, CEO duality adversely affects performance. Further, the results indicate that ESG disclosure score is positively linked with the profitability of banks.

This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the impact of corporate governance mechanisms and ESG disclosure scores on bank performance and stability in the context of the Indian economy. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there has been no empirical investigation or study that has been conducted in this respect.

Corporate governance is a crucial factor when considering excessive corporate risk-taking. Since corporate boards play such an important role in corporate governance, the purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the impact of board composition and further board characteristics on excessive corporate risk-taking.

This study investigates listed firms from Germany and the USA from 2004 to 2015 based on data from Thomson Reuters Data Stream. The authors apply the fixed effect and random effect estimation method to demonstrate the impact of board composition on corporate risk-taking.

This study provides empirical evidence that an increase in the proportion of independent directors is associated with less corporate risk-taking. These effects are stronger among German firms. Lastly, the effects of board size and audit committee effectiveness (AUCE) on risk-taking have mixed results.

The results favor continued efforts to strengthen the composition of corporate boards and improve the effectiveness of audit committees to curb unhealthy corporate risk-taking. The recommendations from the research will provide regulators and corporate management with the necessary information needed to design an appropriate independent board structure, and board size (BOSI). The research will, furthermore, fortify the indispensability of financial experts on audit committees.

This study contributes to the agency theory debate with these findings. Stronger board independence enables a better monitoring of the CEO, which leads to decision making based on a more appropriate level of risk.

The Pashtun Jirga is a “tribal” conflict resolution method that has survived for centuries, with the Pashtuns, both in Afghanistan and Pakistan, still practicing it in rural communities. The chapter argues how the introduction and persistence of the Frontier Crimes Regulations, 1901, a colonial-era regulation, has undermined not only the traditional authority of the tribal elders but also diminished the importance of the Jirga. However, the tribal Pashtuns, through Jirga and Jirga-based Lashkars (tribal militias), have also occasionally supported the Pakistani military's actions against various militant groups operating in the Pashtun tribal areas, formerly known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. The chapter argues why, even with its positives, the Jirga still possess various loopholes that result in various gender rights violations in the Pashtun society. Finally, the chapter also discusses how recent developments in the Pashtun tribal areas, leading to their merger with the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, along with the introduction of the country's judiciary present a challenge for the survival of the Jirga as a conflict resolution tool in the tribal areas. Moreover, the chapter also argues why the young Pashtuns from the tribal region are against the male-dominated nature of Jirga and want it to be replaced with modern judicial structures, presenting a challenge to the survival of Jirga in Pakistan.

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between employee training and bank risk to verify whether and to what extent an increase in employee training, as a soft component of total quality management (TQM), affects bank risk.

The research adopts a panel regression, based on a unique dataset of a sample of Italian banks over the period 2011–2018, to test whether employee training affects bank risk, measured alternatively in terms of Z-score, a proxy of bank stability and non-performing loans (NPLs)/gross loans ratio as a proxy of credit risk.

Research findings reveal that increasing employee training leads to growing bank stability. In contrast, credit risk is not affected by employee training. However, by investigating training heterogeneity, this study found that the increase in the number of managerial training hours, as a proxy for soft skills training, negatively impacts credit risk. Therefore, an increase in soft skills leads to a reduction in bank credit risk.

This study provides empirical evidence in support of the relationship between employee training and bank risk, which seems novel in the literature. From a managerial point of view, this study highlights the need for banks to pay attention to the skills, particularly soft skills, that banks' employees must possess to effectively manage bank risk and, more specifically, the core bank risk.

Empirical evidence on the relationship between employee training, soft/hard skills and bank risk appears limited if not absent. Therefore, the findings provide insights for a more nuanced interpretation of variables that affect bank risk.

This study investigates the risk-taking behavior of financial institutions in the USA. Specifically, differences between taking risks that affect primarily the shareholders of the institution and risks contributing to the overall systemic risk of the financial sector are examined. Additionally, differences between risk-taking before, during and after the financial crisis of 2007/2008 are examined.

To analyze the determinants of stand-alone and systemic risk, a generalized linear model including size, governance, charter value, business cycle, competition and control variables is estimated. Furthermore, Granger causality tests are conducted.

The results show that systemic risk has a positive effect on valuation and that corporate governance has no significant effect on risk-taking. The influence of competition is conditional on the state of the economy and the risk measure used. Systemic risk Granger-causes idiosyncratic risk but not vice versa.

The major limitations of this study are related to the analyzed subset of large financial institutions and important risk-culture variables being omitted.

The broad policy implication of this paper is that systemic risk cannot be lowered by market discipline due to the moral hazard problem. Therefore, regulatory measures are necessary to ensure that individual financial institutions are not endangering the financial system.

This study contributes to the empirical literature on bank risk-taking in several ways. First, the characteristics of systemic risk and idiosyncratic risk are jointly analyzed. Second, the direction of causality of these two risk measures is examined. Moreover, this paper contributes to the discussion of the effect of competition on risk-taking.

This study aims to examine the relationship between board composition (i.e. non‐executive directors, family directors, role duality and board size) and bank performance, using a sample of nine listed Kuwait banks over the 2006 to 2010 period.

The study uses ordinary least squares (OLS) and two‐stage‐least squares (2SLS) to test such a relationship and to address endogeneity in explanatory variables.

The results provide some evidence that board composition of banks relates to their performance. According to the OLS regression results, only board size and proportion of non‐executive directors negatively affect bank performance. Meanwhile, the 2SLS results indicate that role duality positively affects a bank's performance while board size affects a bank's performance negatively.

Although the model has explained a significant part of the variation in performance, still unexplained is a material part that represents the “noise” of the model. Data availability limited the ability to study other aspects of corporate governance mechanisms such as number of audit committee members on board. The sample size is small; thus, in future research, the sample size could be increased by including a longer period of time or different countries such as members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) (Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia).

Given the importance of effective boards in monitoring bank values, more actions and rules need to take place in Kuwait to improve the efficacy of boards in protecting shareholders and their interests in Kuwaiti banks. Regulators may mandate a corporate governance code or adopt the OECD corporate governance principles as a starting point in Kuwait. Kuwaiti companies may use the findings to make appropriate choices about board appointments and best governance to improve performance. Investors also may use the findings to understand Kuwaiti companies. Such findings may assist them to diversify their investment portfolios.

This study asserts to provide insights on the relationship between bank performance and board composition in Kuwait. The study extends prior research and investigates the roles of board of directors in banks in the context of an emerging market characterized by weak shareholder protection and highly concentrated ownership.

In this chapter, I uncover the jail diaries of a revolutionary woman of the 20th century Pakistan, Akhtar Baloch. Although feminism in Pakistan has oscillated between liberal and postcolonial camps, through reading Akhtar's diaries, compiled as Prison Narratives (2017), I center Akhtar's own struggles for Sindh, along with the resistance of the women she met in the prison convicted for the murders of their husbands, to better theorize Marxist Feminism in Pakistan that overturns the structures that commodify women through love and revolution. My article will show the commodification of women's bodies; the “sale” of women through marriage as the goal of this commodification; the lovelessness and alienation women experience in commodified marriages; the unexpected fall in love with someone whom it is subversive for the commodified wife to love; the subversion of this unexpected event that leads to the attempted resolution of this tension through murder; the separation of the lovers through the incarceration of the woman by the capitalist-patriarchal state; and finally, the unexpected outcome (albeit the most common one) that the male lover abandons his female lover once she's jailed, but the defiantly brave female lover finds platonic love in jail through close female friendships with other women who are similarly brave in both love and in revolution. Through this exposition, I show that Akhtar's diaries provide a way for us to build on Marxist Feminist theory through a theory of love and revolution from a Sindhi feminist perspective.

THIS month usually sees the estimates adopted that must govern public library spending for the year to come. It is likely to be a testing time for many librarians and we look forward with much interest to their experiences this year. The international rearmament programme, which authority has told us will not radically change our economic position, must have its repercussions on all municipal activities; expansion, so badly needed and so often deferred, is not likely to come immediately. However, as we remarked last month, dismal prophecies have so often been confounded by the subsequent facts that we hope 1951 will not be an exception. The defence programme may have some Staff effects, especially if the Z reserves are called again to the Colours. There is much that we may hope and much we should plan for in the months immediately ahead.