Smart Cities for a Sustainable Social Inclusion Strategy – A Comparative Study between Italy and Malaysia

Background: Recent data from several studies and surveys confirm that our society has entered the digital transformation era. The crucial role of this digital trend is becoming increasingly more evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hence, a bunch of technologies, such as artificial intelligence, have the potential to change the present enhancing people’s power to act, to live and to promote equal citizen participation. In this scenario, Smart Cities with its smart technology innovative components are challenging for excluded people. Method: The general objective of this article is to identify and understand the dimensions that must be taken into account to promote the digital participation/inclusion of people with ID. The model is based on a qualitative analysis of people’s perceptions related to how Smart Cities can promote social Inclusion. Results: The challenges associated with social inclusion were identified in the social, economic and political as well as cultural dimensions of the countries investigated: Italy and Malaysia. The results constitute a first step to shape and understand how smart cities can promote social inclusion in different contexts. Conclusion: The outcomes of our research suggest that, starting from standard technologies, smart cities in different countries need tailored solutions. The results reveal that the Smart City strategy is, in general, and in terms of social Inclusion, in particular, a local phenomenon changing in each country. This outcome has important implications for practitioners and future scholarly research alike. The current study contributes to both social inclusion and smart city literature in many ways

The Effect of Leader Inclusiveness on Innovative Work Behavior: The mediator role of Leader-Member Exchange

Referring to the social exchange theory and to leader-member exchange theory, the purpose of this study is to investigate how inclusive leadership influences innovative work behavior by testing leader-member - exchange (LMX) as a mediator. A quantitative study was carried out in 10 service-based organizations in Lebanon with 187 subordinates and their supervisors. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, simple and multiple regression analysis. The findings indicated that inclusive leadership is positively associated with IWB and that LMX mediates the relationship between the two variables. This paper contributes in many ways. First, it provides further support to the importance of relational leadership in influencing behaviors within the organizations. Second, it contributes to the growing body of research on the relationship between inclusive leadership and innovative work behavior. Third, it helps to understand the mechanism of leader-member exchange through which inclusive leadership can influence innovative work behavior. These findings highlight the fact that human resource management and managers need to consider how high-quality leader-member exchanges based on communication, openness and trust can promote IWB. Finally, the limitations of the study are discussed as well as the indications for future studies

Digital Resilience for Cities’ Smartness

Over the past two decades, the “Smart City” has risen to global prominence as an urban planning and development strategy. This concept is now widely used as broad of toolkit of technological services and policy inter- ventions aiming at enhancing a balance between competitiveness and sustaina- bility of cities through ICT innovation and Human Capital. ICT and modern technology are considered the key aspect of the Smart City concept. Meanwhile, other authors emphasize the importance of the people and human capital who adopt and operate the technology. Although very few litera- tures emphasize the importance of resilience in the Smart City discourse. This paper aims to analyze and redefine the Smart City concept through resili- ence approach. For this purpose, it describes and defines what the Smart City concept is, and then the relation and linkage of the importance of using resilience approach in defining the Smart City. The model is based on a qualitative analysis of people’s perceptions related to Smart Cities and Digital Resilience. Digital Resilience will lead to a soft infrastructure approach, such as enhancement in social and human capital, knowledge inclusion, citizenship participation and social satisfaction. The results constitute a first step to approach Smart Cities as a soft sustainable infrastructure urban planning. Discussion and analysis are conducted through a deep literature study using systematic literature review methodology

Smart Working and Digital Resilience

Digitalization of work takes the giant leap forward and that our society has entered the digital era. Smart working became the norm adopted by all insti- tutions. With the spreading of covid-19 pandemic, all organizations yielded to novel ways of working. The effect will be permanent, and digitalization of work takes the giant leap forward. Organizations need to support and develop compe- tencies for smart working for the twenty-first century, and yet this is an area largely overlooked in the literature. The general objective of this article is to an- alyze how to effectively support smart workers build digital resilience using a competency-based approach. The development of a digital resilience framework outlines the core competencies for smart working. The model is based on a qual-itative analysis of people’s perceptions related to smart working and digital resil- ience at both individual and institutional level. We conducted a qualitative and exploratory re- search using semi-structured interviews. The results constitute a first step to how organizations can apply this digital resilience framework to sup- port smart working

Transformational leadership for organizational change in the Lebanese public sector

The public sector is facing multiple changes. In a constantly changing environment, that is more and more demanding in terms of innovation and performance, the concept of leadership is of particular importance, as it is one of the few tools available to public managers.Based on the transformational leadership theory, the aim of this study is to explore how transformational leadership characteristics influence organizational change within the public sector in Lebanon. To serve this purpose, a qualitative approach is adopted based on a series of semi-focused interviews conducted with ten public managers running 10 public administrations. These administrations have undergone significant changes over the past five years.The results point out the importance of transformational behaviors adopted by public managers in leading change within the public sector in Lebanon, despite the multiple obstacles. They confirmed the role of two transformational dimensions related to idealized influence and inspirational motivation in the successful implementation of organizational change. This study contributes to better understanding of the role of transformational leadership in promoting change in the public sector

Resilient leadership in the food service sector in Lebanon

For the past two years, the Lebanese socio-economic crisis has had disastrous effects on the hospitality industry especially the food Service sector. During high adversity and incredibly challenging times, leaders must develop and nurture resilience in the organizations. Resilience may be the attribute that is most needed today by Lebanese leaders since they ought to be more responsive and more attuned to the unprecedented difficult conditions in the country. Based on the Duchek (2020) model of organizational resilience, and the crisis management approach, this qualitative research study focuses on gaining insight and understanding about the managers/owners’ perceptions of events and circumstances affecting their industry, and how they have adjusted to the challenges raised simultaneously by the worst economic crisis in the country and by the spread of Covid-19 around the world. The authors of the study utilized semi-structured interviews to collect and analyze the study data. The findings reveal that pursuing resilience is a process based on the interactions between organizational resilience capabilities and crisis management tasks, and it is mainly characterized by three phases: anticipation of potential threats, coping with disruption and adapting to the new reality

Perceived acceptability and preferences for low-intensity early activity interventions of older hospitalized medical patients exposed to bed rest: a cross sectional study

Abstract Background Hospitalized older patients spend most of their time in bed, putting them at risk of experiencing orthostatic intolerance. Returning persons to their usual upright activity level is the most effective way to prevent orthostatic intolerance but some older patients have limited activity tolerance, supporting the need for low-intensity activity interventions. Consistent with current emphasis on patient engagement in intervention design and evaluation, this study explored older hospitalized patients’ perceived acceptability of, and preference for, two low-intensity early activity interventions (bed-to-sitting and sitting-to-walking), and characteristics (gender, illness severity, comorbidity, illnesses and medications with orthostatic effects, and baseline functional capacity) associated with perceived acceptability and preference. Methods A convenience sample was recruited from in-patient medical units of two hospitals in Ontario, Canada and included 60 cognitively intact adults aged 65+ who were admitted for a medical condition within the past 72 h, spent ≥ 24 consecutive hours on a stretcher or in bed, presented with ≥ 2 chronic diseases, understood English, and were able to ambulate before admission. A cross-sectional observational design was used. Participants were presented written and oral descriptions and a 2-min video of each intervention. The sequence of the interventions’ presention was randomized. Following the presentation, a research nurse administered measures of perceived acceptability and preference, and collected health and demographic data. Perceived acceptability and preference for the interventions were measured using the Treatment Acceptability and Preferences Scale. Illness severity was measured using the Modified Early Warning Score. Comorbidity was assessed with the Age Adjusted Charlson Comorbidity Scale and the Cumulative Illness Rating Scale – for Geriatrics. Baseline functional capacity was measured using the Duke Activity Status Index. Results Participants’ perceived acceptability of both interventions clustered above the scale midpoint. Most preferred the sitting-to-walking intervention (n = 26; 43.3%). While none of the patient characteristics were associated with intervention acceptability, illness severity (odds ratio = 1.9, p = 0.04) and medications with orthostatic effects (odds ratio = 9.9, p = 0.03) were significantly associated with intervention preference. Conclusions The interventions examined in this study were found to be acceptable to older adults, supporting future research examining their feasibility and effectiveness