Kyriaki Argyro Tsioptsia, Ioannis Mallidis, Thomas Siskou and Nikolaos Sariannidis
This paper aims to examine the impact of the Greek economic crisis on the sustainability of the Turkish economy.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the impact of the Greek economic crisis on the sustainability of the Turkish economy.
Design/methodology/approach
A generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) model is used over the Thomson Reuter’s Turkey Index for the period of May 1999 to August 2018 using monthly data. The control variables introduced in the proposed model are the S&P 500 of the US stock market and crude oil prices which are used to isolate more general systemic factors.
Findings
The structural analysis of volatility with the EGARCH model has shown that current volatility is more influenced by past volatility than by previous month shocks.
Research limitations/implications
The results can be exploited by investors, portfolio managers and policy makers in their decision-making process.
Originality/value
It is a first-time effort that examines the impact of the Greek economic crisis on the sustainability of the Turkish economy. The developed methodology can be used by investors, portfolio managers and policy makers in their decision-making process.
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Nikolaos Apostolopoulos, Panagiotis Liargovas, Pantelis Sklias, Ilias Makris and Sotiris Apostolopoulos
This paper aims to examine whether private healthcare entrepreneurship can flourish and overcome obstacles in cases of a free-access public health system and periods of strict…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine whether private healthcare entrepreneurship can flourish and overcome obstacles in cases of a free-access public health system and periods of strict public policies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, the paper aims to illuminate the wider social role of private healthcare entrepreneurship during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper adopts a qualitative methodological strategy through 12 in-depth semi-structured interviews with the owners of diagnostic centres located in small Greek towns.
Findings
Private healthcare entrepreneurship flourished and played a significantly positive social role in the context of a degraded public health sector, which lacked investments for more than ten years and was further depleted by its recent focus on COVID-19 incidents. This paper reveals that although public policies that aimed to deal with COVID-19 produced serious consequences, business activity adapted to the new circumstances.
Research limitations/implications
Future research can combine the findings of this paper with the views of stakeholders, policymakers and social actors.
Originality/value
This paper's value lies in its efforts to expand our current knowledge regarding the impact of COVID-19 public policies on entrepreneurship.
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Ali Mohammad Mosadeghrad and Arezoo Mojbafan
Hospitals are complex and complicated organizations and are prone to the conflict. The purpose of this paper is to identify the intensity and type of conflict experienced by…
Abstract
Purpose
Hospitals are complex and complicated organizations and are prone to the conflict. The purpose of this paper is to identify the intensity and type of conflict experienced by hospital managers and explore their conflict management strategies in hospitals affiliated with Tehran University of Medical Sciences.
Design/methodology/approach
This quantitative, descriptive and cross-sectional study was conducted in 2015. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from top, middle and front line managers. In total, 563 managers from 14 hospitals responded to the questionnaires. Data were analyzed using SPSS software version 19.
Findings
Hospital managers reported average level of conflict (2.73 score out of 5). Organizational factors produced more conflict for managers than personal factors. High workload, resource shortage, bureaucracy and differences in managers’ personality, knowledge, capabilities and skills were the main causes of organizational and personal conflict. Top managers experienced more conflict than middle and front line managers. Conflict was higher in specialized hospitals compared to general hospitals. Less conflict was observed in administrative and support departments than diagnostic and therapeutic departments. Conflict was meaningfully associated with management level, education, size of hospital, number of employees and willingness to leave the hospital. The dominant conflict management style of managers was collaborating. There were significant relationships between collaborating style and management level, manager’s age, work experience and management experience.
Practical implications
The nature of hospitals requires that managers use collaborating, compromising and accommodating styles to interact better with different stakeholders. Managers by acquiring necessary training and using the right conflict resolution strategies should keep the conflict in a constructive level in hospitals.
Originality/value
This is the first study conducted in Iran examining the level of conflict, its types and identifying managers’ dominant conflict resolution strategies at front line, middle and top management levels.
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Athanasios Michalis, Demosthenes B. Panagiotakos, Apostolos Papadopoulos and Vassiliki Costarelli
The study aims to have adults discuss experiences, practices needs and feelings related to health management, diet and food security.
Abstract
Purpose
The study aims to have adults discuss experiences, practices needs and feelings related to health management, diet and food security.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 22 immigrants were recruited from the Open School of Immigrants in Piraeus, Attica, Greece, to participate in focus group discussions. The discussions were audio recorded and thematically analyzed. Three major themes were developed: pathways to health care, nutrition management and experiences related to food shortages.
Findings
Most of the participants identified internet as the most commonly used way to obtain health advice; they also stated that unexpected ill-health is usually accompanied by feelings of fear, anxiety and loneliness. Immigrants, who had visited a public hospital in Greece, identified the language barrier as the most challenging issue, followed by the long waiting lists. Fear and anxiety of hospital visits was an important factor in their decision to vaccinate against COVID-19. Lack of time, high cost of healthy food and lack of knowledge were the most common obstacles to a healthy diet. One in two immigrants reported that they have faced food insecurity issues in the past. Stress, psychological distress and irritation were reported, due to food shortages, especially during the first few years of arriving in Greece. The exclusion of some foods, reduced portion sizes and buying cheaper foods were among the coping strategies to address food shortages.
Originality/value
The study offers an insight into immigrant’s experiences, practices and feelings about managing health issues and could be useful for health-care practitioners, researchers and policymakers.
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The purpose of this study is to describe and interpret the interpersonal and intragroup conflict experiences of staff-level employees and leaders in the medical imaging technology…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to describe and interpret the interpersonal and intragroup conflict experiences of staff-level employees and leaders in the medical imaging technology field, working in US tertiary care centers to extract mitigation and management strategies.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 13 medical imaging technologists, who were employed in leadership and staff positions throughout the USA, offered their in-depth accounts of workplace conflict in this interpretive phenomenological investigation.
Findings
Conflict avoidance was a predominant conflict management style. This style did little to effectively manage workplace conflict. In some cases, it led to deleterious effects on individuals and organizations and created conflict perpetuation. With proper conflict mitigation and management, the conflict perpetuation cycle can be broken.
Research limitations/implications
Generalization beyond the group being studied is not applicable, as it is not the intent of phenomenological research. Four leaders participated in the research study. To examine this population more completely, a greater sample size is required. This recommendation also applies to the staff technologist roles. Another limitation involved the leader/staff-level representation inequality, as well as the male–female representation. These imbalances made it difficult to effectively make comparisons of the experiences of leaders with staff-level technologists, and males with females.
Practical implications
Offering the medical imaging workforce emotional intelligence training, health-care administrators can invest in their leaders and staff technologists. Medical imaging schools can incorporate emotional intelligence training into their curricula. Clear policies may decrease the ill effects of change when unforeseeable occurrences result in schedule modifications. Making technologists fully aware of who is responsible for shift coverage when these events occur may reduce negative impact. Trainings in organizational change, collaboration or positivity may be warranted, depending on findings of cultural assessments. Team-building events and opportunities for employees to intermingle may also be used to improve a departmental or organizational culture.
Social implications
Mitigating and managing health-care workplace conflict more effectively may prevent patient harm, thus improving the health of members of society.
Originality/value
According to recent studies, conflict, and the incivility that often accompanies it, has been on the increase in US organizations overall, and in health care specifically. Conflict that perpetuates can adversely affect health-care organizations and its employees. This paper offers mitigation and management strategies to prevent such consequences.
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Constantinos-Vasilios Priporas, Irene (Eirini) Kamenidou, Nga Nguyen and Riad Shams
The purpose of this paper is to explore how the macro-environment influences consumer scepticism towards cause-related marketing (CRM), especially in a turbulent economic setting.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how the macro-environment influences consumer scepticism towards cause-related marketing (CRM), especially in a turbulent economic setting.
Design/methodology/approach
An exploratory qualitative research study utilising open-ended, semi-structured Skype interviews with 26 respondents was conducted in a country experiencing economic crisis.
Findings
The findings demonstrate that respondents hold a strong scepticism towards CRM campaigns and they are more negative towards the CRM campaigns initiated by foreign enterprises as compared to the domestic ones. This can be attributed to ethnocentrism, or even antipathy or animosity towards foreign companies due to crisis. Furthermore, results reveal that the political and legal elements of the macro-environment have an impact on consumer scepticism towards CRM campaigns, while the impact of the economic crisis itself did not seem to be equally significant.
Originality/value
This work contributes to the existing literature of CRM as it is the first study that explores the impact of macro-environmental elements on consumer scepticism towards CRM within an economic turbulence setting.
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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the cases of Bangladeshi, Filipina, Nigerian, Palestinian and Pakistani migrant workers and how the frame of their work and employment…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the cases of Bangladeshi, Filipina, Nigerian, Palestinian and Pakistani migrant workers and how the frame of their work and employment in precarious, low-status/low-wage jobs affects their perceptions and practices regarding health and access to healthcare services.
Design/methodology/approach
Using qualitative research methodology, the analysis via in-depth interviews focuses on male Bangladeshi, Nigerian, Pakistani and Palestinian unskilled manual and textile laborers as well as street vendors, and female Filipina live-in domestic workers.
Findings
Migrants are entrapped in a context of isolative and exploitative working conditions, i.e., in unskilled labor, textile work, street-vending, personal services, care and domestic work, which lead them to adopt a self-perception in which healthcare and social protection are not a priority.
Social implications
Throughout the paper it has become clear that these precarious low-status/low-wage jobs have an important underside effect on migrants’ lives, intensifying labor and health instability and exposing migrants to employment-generating activities that do not guarantee health safety. In Greek society, the impact of migration on public health is characterized by many as a “time bomb ready to explode,” especially in urban centers. Meanwhile, the economy and particularly the informal sector of the labor market is benefiting from migrant workers. More research is needed as this mode of exploitative labor and precarious employment needs to be adequately addressed to mitigate barriers in the access of labor and healthcare rights.
Originality/value
Via its contribution to the sociology of migration with particular emphasis on labor healthcare, the paper provides evidence that due to their concentration in precarious, low-status/low-wage jobs migrant workers have very limited access to healthcare services. The removal of inequalities and discrimination against migrant workers in accessing healthcare services and medical care is a challenge for South European Union countries and particularly for Greece. However, in spite of this, there is no uniform policy in the management of migrants with respect to their access to health services. The paper will aid debates between policy makers and academics working on migration and inequalities due to the division of labor and health disparities, will contribute to the understanding of the perils attached to precarious, low-status/low-wage jobs and in addressing health inequalities effectively.
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Mohammad Meskarpour Amiri, Mohammadkarim Bahadori, Zahra Motaghed and Ramin Ravangard
Informal payments (IPs) for healthcare are a serious obstacle to equitable access and universal health coverage in developing countries. Policy makers need to know more about the…
Abstract
Purpose
Informal payments (IPs) for healthcare are a serious obstacle to equitable access and universal health coverage in developing countries. Policy makers need to know more about the hidden nature of informal patient payments (IPPs) before any policy adoption and implementation. The purpose of this paper is to systematically review the main factors affecting IPPs.
Design/methodology/approach
This systematic review was conducted in 2018 using the standard guideline of PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses. All English original articles on the determinants of IPPs published in the scientific journals, whose full text was available through Scopus, PubMed and Web of Science databases, which were given consideration for review.
Findings
The results showed that IPPs were greatly dependent on the characteristics of healthcare consumers, providers, healthcare system and services. Among healthcare consumers’ characteristics affecting IPPs, the income, age, education, gender, employment and health status were more cited factors, respectively. Among healthcare providers’ characteristics affecting IPPs, the providers’ experience, reputation, and salary satisfaction were better known, respectively. Among healthcare services features, the hospitalization, service specialty and the level of treatment urgency were more noted, respectively.
Originality/value
Policy making against IPs in the health sector requires precise attention to all components of healthcare market, including healthcare consumers, providers, healthcare system and services characteristics.
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Mohammad Meskarpour Amiri, Abbas Assari, Mohammadkarim Bahadori, Ramin Ravangard and Sayyed Morteza Hosseini-Shokouh
Reducing informal payments (IPs) for health services has always been a top priority for health policymakers all over the world. As the newest attempts to reduce IPs, Iran’s…
Abstract
Purpose
Reducing informal payments (IPs) for health services has always been a top priority for health policymakers all over the world. As the newest attempts to reduce IPs, Iran’s Government applied a set of reforms in the health care system in 2014 called “Health Sector Evolution Plan” (HSEP). The purpose of this paper is to investigate the prevalence and nature of IPs one year after implementing this plan.
Design/methodology/approach
This descriptive and cross-sectional study was a nationwide survey on Iran's health sector informal payments carried out in 2016. To do this, a sample of 1,112 Iranain households was selected from all over the country using a multistage cluster-stratified sampling method. The prevalence and nature of IPs were determined through conducting face-to-face interviews using a standard questionnaire.
Findings
One year after implementing the HSEP, about 27.7 percent of sampled Iranians had at least one experience of IPs for health services. The prevalences of compulsory and voluntary IPs were 21.4 and 11.5 percent, respectively. IPs were reported by 26.1 and 12.5 percent in the inpatient and outpatient services, respectively.
Originality/value
According to the results, compulsory IPs are still prevalent in both the outpatient and inpatient services of Iran’s health system and it seems that the HSEP has not been completely successful in achieving the goal of eradicating IPs. It can be said that the HSEP has been the first step toward eradicating IPs in Iran and should not be the last one. The study provides useful results of the prevalence and nature of IPs after implementing the HSEP, which should be considered in designing the next steps.
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Georgios Sfakianakis, Nikolaos Grigorakis, Georgios Galyfianakis and Maria Katharaki
Because of the 2008 global financial crisis aftermaths, economic downturn and prolonged recession, several OECD countries have adopted an austerity compound by significantly…
Abstract
Purpose
Because of the 2008 global financial crisis aftermaths, economic downturn and prolonged recession, several OECD countries have adopted an austerity compound by significantly reducing public health expenditure (PHE) for dealing with their fiscal pressure and sovereign-debt challenges. Against this backdrop, this study aims to examine the responsiveness of PHE to macro-fiscal determinants, demography, as well to private health insurance (PHI) financing.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors gather annual panel data from four international organizations databases for the total of OECD countries from a period lasting from 2000 to 2017. The authors apply static and dynamic econometric methodology to deal with panel data and assess the impact of several parameters on PHE.
Findings
The authors’ findings indicate that gross domestic product, fiscal capacity, tax revenues and population aging have a positive effect on PHE. Further, the authors find that both unemployment rate and voluntary private health insurance financing present a negative statistically significant impact on our estimated outcome variable. Different specifications and sample periods applied in the regression models reveal how inseparably associated are PHE and OECD's economies compliance on macro-fiscal policies for offsetting public finances derailment.
Practical implications
Providing more evidence on the responsiveness of PHE to several macro-fiscal drivers, it can be a helpful tool for governments to reconsider their persistence on fiscal adjustments measures and rank public health financing to the top of their political agenda. Health systems policies for meeting Universal Health Coverage (UHC) objectives, they should also take into consideration the voluntary PHI institution, especially for economies with insufficient fiscal capacity to raise public health financing.
Originality/value
To the best of knowledge, the impact of unemployment and voluntary PHI funding on public health financing, apart from other macro-fiscal and demographical parameters effect, remains unnoticed in the existing published studies on the topic.