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Prolonged hospital stay in the course of management of microbial keratitis patients has been a burden to the resources of a multi‐disciplinary tertiary hospital. The paper aims to evaluate the impact of streamlining the workflow and increased cross‐disciplinary interactions on the average length of hospitalisation. It also seeks to study secondary outcomes including the average time for initiation of therapy, microbial culture positive rate, patients' satisfaction and resource savings.

The authors employed the model of clinical practice improvement (CPI) (New South Wales Health Department) methodology for a systematic approach to improve processes of care and service delivery. A team consisting of ophthalmologist, microbiologist, pharmacist and nursing staff was formed to brainstorm and highlight the problems. A new workflow was formulated and data were prospectively collected to evaluate and to identify areas where improvements could be made.

The average length of hospitalisation stay was reduced from 7.43 to 5.93 days with a mean difference of 1.50±0.63 days (p<0.05). The microbial keratitis culture positive rate increased from 54.6 to 73.0 per cent (p>0.05). The average time taken to initiate antibiotic eye drops after first contact with the doctor was 26.1 minutes (n=28), and 74.4 per cent of the patients surveyed were satisfied with their length of stay.

Intervention was carried out on the top 20 per cent of areas for improvement after voting by the team members.

The reduction in average length of hospitalisation can be improved by strict adherence to a formulated workflow and coordinated cross‐disciplinary interactions.

The management protocol discussed in the paper for microbial keratitis enables more effective and efficient treatment for the inpatients. Increased cross‐discipline and nursing coordination decreases length of hospitalisation of microbial keratitis patients and achieve better care for these patients.

While the rapid adoption of information communication technologies (ICT) in organizations has been linked with a higher risk of cyberbullying, research on the influence of cyberbullying on interpersonal behaviors in the workplace remains limited. By drawing on the ego-depletion theory and the leader-member exchange (LMX) theory, this research investigates how, why and when workplace cyberbullying may trigger interpersonal aggression through ICT.

The authors collected data from 259 employees and 62 supervisors working in large ICT organizations in China through a multi-wave survey. The authors performed multilevel analysis and used hierarchical linear modeling to test the proposed moderated mediation model.

The results revealed that workplace cyberbullying has a significant and positive influence on interpersonal aggression in the workplace via ego depletion. The authors found that differentiation in LMX processes at group level moderates the indirect relationship between workplace cyberbullying and interpersonal aggression (via ego depletion). Furthermore, the positive indirect effect of workplace cyberbullying was found to be stronger in the presence of a high LMX differentiation condition in comparison to a low LMX differentiation condition.

The data were collected from Chinese ICT organizations, which may limit the generalization of this study’s findings to other cultural and sectoral contexts.

This paper provides the first step in understanding how, why and when workplace cyberbullying triggers interpersonal aggression by investigating the role of ego depletion as a mediator and LMX differentiation as a boundary condition. This is the first study to empirically examine the relationships between workplace cyberbullying, ego depletion, LMX differentiation and interpersonal aggression in ICT organizations using multi-level modeling.

In an urbanising world, neighbouring is perceived to be steadily losing significance and a remnant of the past. The same belief can also be found in China where rapid urbanisation has had a tremendous impact on the social networks and neighbourhood life of urban residents. This chapter challenges the common perception of neighbouring in demise and argues that neighbouring remains an important form of social relationship, even if the meanings and role of neighbouring have changed. This chapter first charts the changing role of neighbouring from the socialist era to post-reform China. It then provides an account of four common types of neighbourhoods in Chinese cities – work-unit estates, traditional courtyards, commodity housing estates and urban villages – and considers how and why neighbouring in different ways still matters to them. In pre-reform socialist China, neighbourhood life and neighbouring comprised much of the daily social life of residents. Since the reform era, with the proliferation of private commodity housing estates, middle-class residents prioritise comfort, security and privacy, such that neighbouring levels have subsided. Nevertheless, in other neighbourhood types, such as work-unit housing estates, traditional courtyards and urban villages, neighbours still rely upon one another for various reasons.

This paper aims to propose user experience sharing (UES) as a customer-based initiation of value co-creation pertaining to service provision, which represents customers’ level of effort made for the direct benefit of others in their service network. The authors propose and empirically examine a user experience sharing model (UESM) that explicates customer-to-customer (C2C) UES and its impacts on firm-desired customer-based outcomes in online communities.

Based on an extensive review, the authors conceptualize UES and UESM. By using online survey data collected from mobile app users in organic online communities, the authors performed structural equation modeling analyses by using AMOS 24.

The results support the proposed UESM, showing that C2C UES acts as a key driver of both firm-desired customer efforts and customer insights. The results also confirmed that service-dominant (S-D) logic-informed motivational drivers exert a significant impact on C2C UES. Importantly, C2C UES mediates the relationship between S-D logic-informed motivational drivers and firm-desired customer-based outcomes.

This study offers a pioneering attempt to develop an overarching concept, UES, which reflects customers’ initiation of value co-creation, and to empirically examine C2C UES. The empirical evidence supports the key contention that firms should proactively facilitate C2C UES.

Purpose – This paper compares the experiential consumption values that motivate consumer choice to purchase online for both male and female purchasers and non‐purchasers. Design/methodology/approach – Using the theory of consumption value the study examines gendered perceptions of the functional, social and conditional value of using a virtual consumption setting for purchasing. Data was collected through an online survey and analysed using multiple discriminant analysis to determine meaningful differences between male and female purchasers and non‐purchasers. Findings – The findings show that male online purchasers are discriminated from female purchasers by social value and from male non‐purchasers by conditional value. Female purchasers are discriminated from male purchasers by functional value and from female non‐purchasers by social value. Female non‐purchasers are discriminated from female purchasers by conditional value. Male non‐purchasers are discriminated from male purchasers by functional and social value. Research limitations/implications – Limitations include using an Internet survey and an Australian sample which may impact the generalisability of the findings to a wider population of Internet users. Future research should involve replication of the study in a country more or less developed in terms of gender composition of internet users to extend the generalisability of the findings. Additionally, researchers should examine whether other dimensions of consumption value, such as social influence through on‐ and off‐line communication networks, may influence consumer choice to purchase online. Practical implications – The study provides practical implications for marketers to leverage consumption values that influence male and female consumers' choice to purchase online and then drive their behaviour online through integrated marketing campaigns that involve both on‐ and offline strategies. Originality/value – The research makes an original contribution to the consumer behaviour literature as to date, no research has been found that undertakes such a comprehensive gender‐based comparison of the perceived value of using a virtual consumption setting for purchasing.

Focuses on the difficulties faced by department stores in Singapore. Losing their prominence as a favourite shopping concept this retail format will need to adapt quickly or further ground will be lost to foreign competitors and new retailing formats. Creative strategies include tighter cost control, more recreational value, better customer service programmes, market expansion and niche marketing.

Statistical inference (estimation and testing) for the stochastic volatility (SV) model Taylor (1982, 1986) is challenging, especially likelihood-based methods which are difficult to apply due to the presence of latent variables. The existing methods are either computationally costly and/or inefficient. In this paper, we propose computationally simple estimators for the SV model, which are at the same time highly efficient. The proposed class of estimators uses a small number of moment equations derived from an ARMA representation associated with the SV model, along with the possibility of using “winsorization” to improve stability and efficiency. We call these ARMA-SV estimators. Closed-form expressions for ARMA-SV estimators are obtained, and no numerical optimization procedure or choice of initial parameter values is required. The asymptotic distributional theory of the proposed estimators is studied. Due to their computational simplicity, the ARMA-SV estimators allow one to make reliable – even exact – simulation-based inference, through the application of Monte Carlo (MC) test or bootstrap methods. We compare them in a simulation experiment with a wide array of alternative estimation methods, in terms of bias, root mean square error and computation time. In addition to confirming the enormous computational advantage of the proposed estimators, the results show that ARMA-SV estimators match (or exceed) alternative estimators in terms of precision, including the widely used Bayesian estimator. The proposed methods are applied to daily observations on the returns for three major stock prices (Coca-Cola, Walmart, Ford) and the S&P Composite Price Index (2000–2017). The results confirm the presence of stochastic volatility with strong persistence.

Experiential learning encouraging critical thinking and creative problem-solving is the essence of innovation. Knowing this, in 2015, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) launched the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Education Program in partnership with Stanford University faculty. The purpose of the project was to create customized curriculum for university students, support educators teaching the material, and inspire an entrepreneurial mindset that transitions the nation into an innovation-based society. Three cohorts of university educators participated in workshops, professional development activities, and a four-day visit at Stanford University to learn design thinking, the pedagogical platform of the custom curriculum. After a three-year pilot, remarkable results were realized among students, faculty, and within the entrepreneurial ecosystem of UAE. Analyzing the faculty and student interviews, reviewing an initiative impact report, and referencing related research, this case study: establishes the importance of teaching innovation and entrepreneurship, outlines the program’s practical and operational elements, and documents how educators succeeded in integrating and customizing the curriculum (before and during the coronavirus pandemic).

Middle East and Africa head job demand league THE migration of middle management continues with more than one in five jobs advertised nationally at £6,500‐a‐year‐plus being for appointments overseas. That is the distillation of the half‐year (January to June) figures of an on‐going survey carried out by Ores International, the executive search organisation.