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This paper aims to analyze the potentials of dynamic, commitment and revenue-sharing contracts; that a nonrebate offering manufacturer can use to safeguard his profit while his competitor offers customer rebates in a supply chain consisting of two manufacturers and a common retailer.

We consider a two-period supply chain model to explore optimal decisions under eight possible scenarios based on the contract and rebate offering decisions. Because the manufacturers are selling substitutable products, therefore, a customer rebate on one of the products negatively impacts the selling quantity of other. Optimal price, rebate, and quantities are examined and compared to explore the strategic choice for both the rebate offering and non-rebate offering manufacturer. Comparative evaluation is conducted to pinpoint how the parameters such as contract parameters and its nature affect the members.

The results demonstrate that all these contracts instigate the rebate offering manufacturer to provide a higher rebate, but do not ensure a higher profit. If the revenue sharing contract is offered to the common retailer, the effectiveness of the rebate program might reduce significantly, and the rebate offering manufacturer might receives lower profits. A non-rebate offering manufacturer might use a commitment contract to ensure higher profits for all the members and make sure the common retailer continues the product.

The effect of customer rebate vs. supply chain contract under competition has not yet been explored comprehensively. Therefore, the study contributes to the literature regarding interplay among pricing decision, contract choice and rebate promotion in a two-period setting. The conceptual and managerial insights contribute to a better understanding of strategic decision-making for both competing manufacturers under consumer rebates.

The purpose of this research is to propose a new choice of nonnegative parameter t in Dai–Liao conjugate gradient method.

Conjugate gradient algorithms are used to solve both constrained monotone and general systems of nonlinear equations. This is made possible by combining the conjugate gradient method with the Newton method approach via acceleration parameter in order to present a derivative-free method.

A conjugate gradient method is presented by proposing a new Dai–Liao nonnegative parameter. Furthermore the proposed method is successfully applied to handle the application in motion control of the two joint planar robotic manipulators.

The proposed algorithm is a new approach that will not either submitted or publish somewhere.

The paper empirically investigates the impact of financial inclusion on food security. Subsequently, it examines the overall effect of various dimensions of financial inclusion on food security of developing countries using the panel data for the time period of 2004–2019.

To overcome the problem of endogeneity, the study has used a fixed-effect model, two-stage least-square and system generalized method of moments estimation techniques. Secondary data was collected from various websites such as WDI, FAO, UNICEF and UNESCO.

It was found in the study that there is a significant effect of financial inclusion on food security. The evidence shows that if there is more financial inclusion in the country, it will help poor people to cope with difficult situations they face and provide them food security. Financial development, per capita income, agriculture growth and education positively affect food security, while militarization and urbanization have a negative impact on food security. The crux of the analysis is that any country's financial sector is an integral part of any country that supports food security.

The literature does not clearly show the impact of financial inclusion dimensions on developing countries' food security. Therefore, there is a need to use all the dimensions of financial inclusion to check the overall impact on food security. For this purpose, the financial inclusion index is developed. A new dimension of non-life insurance is introduced that has not been used previously by any researcher to check financial inclusion impact.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on medical education and training, with many medical schools and training programs having to adapt to remote or online learning, social distancing measures and other challenges. This paper aimed to examine the disruption for clinical training, as it has reduced the opportunities for students and trainees to gain hands-on experience and interact with patients in person.

The ethnographic qualitative research design was chosen as the research methodology. Using Gibbs' reflective cycle, the researcher explored the psychiatry clerks' (final-year medical students) reflections on the disruption of their clinical training during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The findings demonstrated that the students had a significant psychological impact on their coping capacities as the crisis progressed from shock and depression to resilience. The students being the key stakeholders provided a concrete foundation for the development of a framework for improving practices during uncertain times.

Students' reflections provided valuable insight into the pandemic’s impact on their psychosocial lives with uncertainty and incapacity to cope up with changing stressful dynamics. The results will assist in planning how to best support medical students' well-being during interruptions of their educational process brought about by similar future crises.

This study aims to see the moderating effect of board diversity on the relationship between ownership structure and real earnings management.

This study uses unbalanced panel data of 75 listed energy firms (346 firm-year observations) from three South Asian emerging economies (Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan) from 2015 to 2019. The two-step system GMM estimation is used for data analysis. This study also uses fixed effect regression to obtain robust findings.

The findings show that firms with a greater ownership concentration and managerial ownership significantly reduce real earnings management. In contrast, the data refute the idea that institutional and foreign ownership affect real earnings management. We also find that board diversity interacts significantly with ownership concentration and managerial ownership, meaning that board diversity moderates the negative link of the primary relationship that reduces real earnings management. On the other hand, board diversity has no interaction with institutional and foreign ownership, implying no moderating effect exists on the primary relationship.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is unique research investigating how different ownership structures affect real earnings management in the emerging nations’ energy sector, which the earlier studies overlook. More specifically, this research focuses on how board diversity moderates the relationships between ownership structure and real earnings management, which could be helpful for future investors.

This paper aims to examine the extent to which board composition and ownership structure (OS) affect a firm’s dividend payout (DP) policy.

The sample comprises a total of 1,432 firm-year observations for Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nonfinancial firms. Total 179 firms were analyzed from 2009 to 2016. To test the research hypotheses, the paper used panel data analysis (i.e. fixed effects model) and instrumental variable method to ensure the robustness of results against endogeneity effects.

Corporate governance (CG) variables were found to significantly impact DP. Specifically, independent directors on board, institutional ownership and royal ownership were positively associated with DP. In contrast, board size, management, government and family ownership had a negative association with DP. The empirical evidence presented in this study supports that CG elements can be both an outcome and substitute of DP as a disciplinary mechanism.

This study excluded financial firms from the sample list. Future studies should carry out on financial firms to observe if the findings are different. Future research is suggested to incorporate more CG mechanisms. Future studies are suggested to use a dynamic panel regression due to its advantages.

Practitioners, such as investors and lenders operating in GCC markets, can derive valuable insights from this study regarding the influence of board components on DP policy. The study also provides information about the investment and business environment in GCC.

The contribution of this study lies in providing empirical evidence regarding the impact of CG mechanisms and OS on DP in GCC countries.

The ubiquitous impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare required agile and resilient leadership to navigate novel and evolving clinical challenges as well as changes in government and regulatory directives. Despite the pivotal role of healthcare leaders, their experiences of the pandemic are not understood. The current study explored the impact of the pandemic on senior healthcare leaders in the UK.

A cross-sectional survey was completed by 40 participants working in director or executive positions in physical or mental healthcare settings within the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic.

High levels of burnout (median = 9) and secondary traumatic stress (median = 7) were apparent, though moderate levels of compassion satisfaction (median = 12) were maintained. Scores of helplessness (median = 40) and moral injury (median = 19) were at the lower end of their respective scales. Younger age, the absence of formal leadership training and professional registration were risk factors for poorer psychological outcomes. Most leaders (95.0%) reported that the pandemic impacted on their wellbeing, and experienced multifarious occupational challenges, several of which were associated with distress. Specific challenges included experiencing a COVID-19-related death within the workplace and greater psychological unpreparedness for the organisational impact of the pandemic.

The impacts of the pandemic for healthcare workers extend beyond the frontline of healthcare. Further investigation of the experiences and distress of healthcare leaders through a moral injury framework is needed. Formal leadership training and mentoring, and the implementation of strategies that increase psychological preparedness for large-scale crises may prove fruitful in mitigating distress in this overlooked population.

To the authors knowledge, this is the first paper in the UK to explore the experiences and support needs, going forward, for healthcare executive leaders.