Theoretical foundations of organizational problem solving methodologies in Operational Research

Paradigms are some principles and assumptions, which define frameworks and research priorities in each discipline. Many believe that operational research (OR) is not a science and like many other sciences does not have any paradigm. However, since OR is committed to scientific methods, therefore it contains a methodological paradigm. The purpose of this paper is to consider theoretical methodologies in the field of OR. This paper performs a review on the existing literature based on interpretive hermeneutic approach. Based on literature review, the study determines four principles and assumptions for each OR paradigms and a classification of the methods are presented. The results show that OR has four main paradigms and there are many methods in OR fields to tackle a particular problem where each problem belongs to a particular paradigm. In addition, instead of using a particular method in problem situations, we can implement a combination of methodologies

Religious Tourism Development Strategies in Qom Province: Using and Comparing QSPM and Best Worst Methods

After Mashhad county, Qom province has the most valuable religious, cultural, historical and natural potential as the second Iranian pilgrimage centre. This study was conducted to formulate strategies for the development of religious tourism in Qom province using the most influential view of the strategy-formation process named design school. This school normally uses External Factor Evaluation (EFE) Matrix, Internal Factor Evaluation (IFE) Matrix, SWOT Matrix, QSPM matrix, and some other tools. The strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats were determined using IFE and EFE matrices. The SWOT matrix was prepared and then the proper strategies for the development of religious tourism in Qom province (hold and maintain strategies or ST strategies) were determined using the Internal-External (IE) Matrix in the next step. Extracted ST strategies were prioritised using the QSPM and five strategies were proposed respectively. This study used the Best-Worst Method (BWM) to prioritise the created strategies in addition to QSPM this aims at developing strategic planning methodology. The results of the BWM were compared to the QSPM and the priority of the second and third strategies were modified. The priority of the first, fourth and fifth strategies is the same in the two methods. Moreover, the correlation coefficient between the results of the two methods was calculated. This shows a similarity of approximately 95 percent. So, it seems using the BWM method is more cost-effective than QSPM, due to saving time and cost

Identification of Tourism Scenarios in Turkey Based on Futures Study Approach

This study aims to identify the plausible scenarios of tourism in Antalya, Turkey. For this purpose, the drivers and key factors of the research were first identified by reviewing the literature and interviewing Turkish tourism experts. Then these factors were screened using binomial nonparametric test and eight factors were eliminated from the 19 key factors. Two key factors of government policy in the tourism field and value of country currency were selected using cross impact analysis technique in order to write plausible scenarios. Based on these two uncertainties, four scenarios of luxury tourism, cheap tourism, tourism deterioration and unplanned tourism were identified

Role of big data in the future of the banking industry with scenario planning approach

This research has been done with the aim of developing Iran's banking scenarios with an emphasis on big data. The current research is practical in terms of orientation and exploratory in terms of the goal. It is also mixed in terms of its philosophical, pragmatic and methodological foundations. To carry out the research in the first stage, 20 key drivers of the research were extracted through literature review and interviews with banking and technology experts. After screening with the fuzzy Delphi method, 8 factors were removed and the rest were evaluated with the Marcus decision making technique. The findings of the research show that the two factors of "technology regulation" and "technology transfer costs" were chosen as key uncertainties for developing research scenarios. Based on these two key uncertainties, four scenarios were developed based on interviews with the focus group with the titles of comprehensive banking, static banking, searching banking, wandering banking. In the comprehensive banking scenario, everything is in its optimal state; Technology transfer costs have decreased and regulators are supportive of the technologies. According to the findings of the research, considering drivers, key uncertainties and alternative scenarios by managers and decision makers can improve the performance and increase the competitive advantage of banks

Strategic Factors Affecting Banks' Cooperation with FinTechs

Traditional banking needs new fintech innovations and technologies to improve its processes and services. Various factors affect the cooperation of banks and fintechs, some of which are related to banks and others to the banking environment.The purpose of this study is to identify and analyze the strategic factors affecting the cooperation of banks and fintechs in Bank. The present study is applied in terms of orientation and has a quantitative nature in terms of methodology. Two methods of fuzzy Delphi and fuzzy dematel were used to analyze the data. The fuzzy Delphi method was used to screen the strategic factors of the research and the fuzzy dematel technique was used to identify the most effective factors. Two tools of interview and questionnaire were used to collect data. The research questionnaires were:Fuzzy Screening Questionnaire and effect analysis Questionnaire. Initially, through literature review and interviews with experts, 28 strategic factors were identified.These factors were screened by fuzzy Delphi technique.10 internal factors and eight external factors had a defuzzy number greater than 0.7 and were selected for analysis with fuzzy dematel.Analysis of internal factors with fuzzy dematel showed that the factors of the nature of the needs of the bank's customers,the future thinking of the bank's senior managers, the culture of risk-taking between managers and senior experts and the agility of the bank's structure and processes have the most net effect In relation to external factors, the factors of intensity of competition between banks, effective factors on the cooperation between banks and fintechs

Evaluation of board performance in Iran’s universities of medical sciences

Background: The critical role that the board plays in governance of universities clarifies the necessity of evaluating its performance. This study was aimed to evaluate the performance of the boards of medical universities and provide solutions to enhance its performance. Methods: The first phase of present study was a qualitative research in which data were collected through face- to-face semi-structured interviews. Data were analyzed by thematic approach. The second phase was a mixed qualitative and quantitative study, with quantitative part in cross-sectional format and qualitative part in content analysis format. In the quantitative part, data were collected through Ministry of Health and Medical Education (MoHME). In the qualitative part, the content of 2,148 resolutions that were selected by using stratified sampling method were analyzed. Results: Participants believed that the boards had no acceptable performance for a long time. Results also indicated the increasing number of meetings and resolutions of the boards in these 21 years. The boards’ resolutions were mostly operational in domain and administrative in nature. The share of specific resolutions was more than the general ones. Conclusion: Given the current pace of change and development and the need to timely respond them, it is recommended to accelerate the slow pace of improvement process of the boards. It appears that more delegation and strengthening the position of the boards are the effective strategies to speed up this process

Measuring the availability of human resources for health and its relationship to universal health coverage for 204 countries and territories from 1990 to 2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

Background: Human resources for health (HRH) include a range of occupations that aim to promote or improve human health. The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the WHO Health Workforce 2030 strategy have drawn attention to the importance of HRH for achieving policy priorities such as universal health coverage (UHC). Although previous research has found substantial global disparities in HRH, the absence of comparable cross-national estimates of existing workforces has hindered efforts to quantify workforce requirements to meet health system goals. We aimed to use comparable and standardised data sources to estimate HRH densities globally, and to examine the relationship between a subset of HRH cadres and UHC effective coverage performance. Methods: Through the International Labour Organization and Global Health Data Exchange databases, we identified 1404 country-years of data from labour force surveys and 69 country-years of census data, with detailed microdata on health-related employment. From the WHO National Health Workforce Accounts, we identified 2950 country-years of data. We mapped data from all occupational coding systems to the International Standard Classification of Occupations 1988 (ISCO-88), allowing for standardised estimation of densities for 16 categories of health workers across the full time series. Using data from 1990 to 2019 for 196 of 204 countries and territories, covering seven Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) super-regions and 21 regions, we applied spatiotemporal Gaussian process regression (ST-GPR) to model HRH densities from 1990 to 2019 for all countries and territories. We used stochastic frontier meta-regression to model the relationship between the UHC effective coverage index and densities for the four categories of health workers enumerated in SDG indicator 3.c.1 pertaining to HRH: physicians, nurses and midwives, dentistry personnel, and pharmaceutical personnel. We identified minimum workforce density thresholds required to meet a specified target of 80 out of 100 on the UHC effective coverage index, and quantified national shortages with respect to those minimum thresholds. Findings: We estimated that, in 2019, the world had 104·0 million (95% uncertainty interval 83·5–128·0) health workers, including 12·8 million (9·7–16·6) physicians, 29·8 million (23·3–37·7) nurses and midwives, 4·6 million (3·6–6·0) dentistry personnel, and 5·2 million (4·0–6·7) pharmaceutical personnel. We calculated a global physician density of 16·7 (12·6–21·6) per 10 000 population, and a nurse and midwife density of 38·6 (30·1–48·8) per 10 000 population. We found the GBD super-regions of sub-Saharan Africa, south Asia, and north Africa and the Middle East had the lowest HRH densities. To reach 80 out of 100 on the UHC effective coverage index, we estimated that, per 10 000 population, at least 20·7 physicians, 70·6 nurses and midwives, 8·2 dentistry personnel, and 9·4 pharmaceutical personnel would be needed. In total, the 2019 national health workforces fell short of these minimum thresholds by 6·4 million physicians, 30·6 million nurses and midwives, 3·3 million dentistry personnel, and 2·9 million pharmaceutical personnel. Interpretation: Considerable expansion of the world's health workforce is needed to achieve high levels of UHC effective coverage. The largest shortages are in low-income settings, highlighting the need for increased financing and coordination to train, employ, and retain human resources in the health sector. Actual HRH shortages might be larger than estimated because minimum thresholds for each cadre of health workers are benchmarked on health systems that most efficiently translate human resources into UHC attainment

Mapping 123 million neonatal, infant and child deaths between 2000 and 2017

Since 2000, many countries have achieved considerable success in improving child survival, but localized progress remains unclear. To inform efforts towards United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 3.2—to end preventable child deaths by 2030—we need consistently estimated data at the subnational level regarding child mortality rates and trends. Here we quantified, for the period 2000–2017, the subnational variation in mortality rates and number of deaths of neonates, infants and children under 5 years of age within 99 low- and middle-income countries using a geostatistical survival model. We estimated that 32% of children under 5 in these countries lived in districts that had attained rates of 25 or fewer child deaths per 1,000 live births by 2017, and that 58% of child deaths between 2000 and 2017 in these countries could have been averted in the absence of geographical inequality. This study enables the identification of high-mortality clusters, patterns of progress and geographical inequalities to inform appropriate investments and implementations that will help to improve the health of all populations

Mapping local patterns of childhood overweight and wasting in low- and middle-income countries between 2000 and 2017

A double burden of malnutrition occurs when individuals, household members or communities experience both undernutrition and overweight. Here, we show geospatial estimates of overweight and wasting prevalence among children under 5 years of age in 105 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) from 2000 to 2017 and aggregate these to policy-relevant administrative units. Wasting decreased overall across LMICs between 2000 and 2017, from 8.4% (62.3 (55.1–70.8) million) to 6.4% (58.3 (47.6–70.7) million), but is predicted to remain above the World Health Organization’s Global Nutrition Target of <5% in over half of LMICs by 2025. Prevalence of overweight increased from 5.2% (30 (22.8–38.5) million) in 2000 to 6.0% (55.5 (44.8–67.9) million) children aged under 5 years in 2017. Areas most affected by double burden of malnutrition were located in Indonesia, Thailand, southeastern China, Botswana, Cameroon and central Nigeria. Our estimates provide a new perspective to researchers, policy makers and public health agencies in their efforts to address this global childhood syndemic