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Anecdotally, many hospitals experience shortfalls in anaesthetic consultant staffing. This paper aims to investigate whether these subjective experiences are confirmed objectively.

The paper hypothesises that a simple model that estimated service delivery capability using consultant entitlements to annual and other types of leave would not (null hypothesis) accurately predict the magnitude of any shortfall that existed. It also hypothesises that excessive leave‐taking was an important cause of any shortfall. A comparison is made between the model predictions for total leave taken and service delivery with results from a real data set from a large university teaching hospital's department of anaesthetics.

The model prediction for leave (median total 45 days absence in a year per consultant, range (30‐59)) closely matched the reality (median 41 days (tenth‐ninetieth deciles 30‐69)). Consequently, both model predictions and the real data for annual elective service delivery agreed: median 228 sessions (193‐266) vs 232 (183‐266) per consultant respectively. Taking into account likely service delivery by trainees (2,304‐4,140 elective sessions in total annually) the predicted shortfall of 2,220 sessions was very close to the true elective service shortfall of 2,148 sessions for the department as a whole over the year.

Rejecting the null hypothesis, it is concluded that a simple model that estimates elective service delivery using leave entitlements as the main factor can accurately predict actual service capability for a department. There is no evidence that excessive leave‐taking occurs.

The paper computes an estimate that 2.2‐2.6 consultants per functional operating theatre are necessary to ensure that staffing matches the elective workload.

This paper seeks to identify some of the most important drivers of Portuguese local government transparency in their activities over time. The recent literature on good governance has repeatedly identified transparency as central to promoting accountability, preventing corruption and mismanagement and stimulating greater civic engagement. As local government is the main provider of many primary services to the population, evaluating its transparency is especially relevant given that misconduct or maladministration will have a strong impact on the population's well-being. Given increased diffusion of European good governance norms and practices, the authors believe the Portuguese case to be relevant across the EU.

The authors develop a dynamic panel data model to evaluate the simultaneous influence of both political and contextual variables on the municipal transparency index (MTI) in 308 Portuguese municipalities during the period from 2013 to 2017.

The results suggest support for previous studies that found increased Internet enabled transparency in municipalities with low levels of indebtedness (per capita), are more highly populated, are governed by left-wing parties, demonstrating higher levels of financial efficiency. The urban/rural status, measured by population density, is not a significant predictor.

The paper seeks to confirm earlier analyses of these same data over a longer period of years to substantiate the validity of those findings. This is important especially in the context of the political variable, to demonstrate it was not necessarily a particular collection of left-wing mayors, but that the relationship holds over time, across administrations, because the dataset covers two election periods.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the features of health misinformation on social media sites (SMSs). The primary goal of the study is to investigate the salient features of health misinformation and to develop a tool of features to help users and social media companies identify health misinformation.

Empirical data include 1,168 pieces of health information that were collected from WeChat, a dominant SMS in China, and the obtained data were analyzed through a process of open coding, axial coding and selective coding. Then chi-square test and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were adopted to identify salient features of health misinformation.

The findings show that the features of health misinformation on SMSs involve surface features, semantic features and source features, and there are significant differences in the features of health misinformation between different topics. In addition, the list of features was developed to identify health misinformation on SMSs.

This study raises awareness of the key features of health misinformation on SMSs. It develops a list of features to help users distinguish health misinformation as well as help social media companies filter health misinformation.

Theoretically, this study contributes to the academic discourse on health misinformation on SMSs by exploring the features of health misinformation. Methodologically, the paper serves to enrich the literature around health misinformation and SMSs that have hitherto mostly drawn data from health websites.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse if citizens’ searches on the internet coincide with the services that municipal websites offer. In addition, the authors examine municipal webpage rankings in search engines and the factors explaining them.

The empirical study, conducted through a sample of Spanish city councils, contrasted if the information that can be found on a municipal website fits with citizens’ demands. This has been done by comparing the most-searched keywords with the contents of municipal websites.

A positive relationship between the supply and demand of municipal information on the internet has been found, but much can still be improved. Analysed administrations rank the basic data of the organisation, as well as some of the fundamental competences thereof, at the top in search engines, but the results are not entirely effective with some keywords still highly demanded by citizens, such as those related to employment or tourism. Factors explaining internet ranking include the number of pages of the municipal website, its presence in social networks and an indicator designed to measure the difficulty of ranking the municipal place-name.

The results obtained from this study provide valuable information for municipal managers. Municipal websites should not only include information in which citizens are interested, but achieve accessibility standards, have a responsive web design, and follow the rules of web usability. Additionally, they should be findable, which also requires improvement in terms of the design of the municipal website thinking in search engines, particularly in terms of certain technical characteristics that improve findability. A municipal website that wants to have a good positioning should increase its contents and attain the maximum degree possible of visibility in social networks.

Given the spread of multi-level governance tools, interaction between local and regional governments has become an important mechanism for service delivery and the implementation of public policies. The purpose of this paper is to empirically test a model of cooperative relations affecting local governments and thus having impact on local autonomy and dependence.

This paper takes previous typologies as a starting point to theoretically build and empirically test a model of cooperative relations based on two selected indicators: the degree of autonomy-dependence and the degree of rigidity-flexibility of the cooperative system. In a second step, the authors stimulate the model numerically to match real data on it coming from South European local governments to assess the functioning of the theory in a concrete space and time.

The combination of the aforementioned concepts, creates a four-option theoretical model that describes four possible situations where cooperative intergovernmental relations can be empirically placed.

This paper points out the need to incorporate empirical studies to trace the characteristics and evolution of the cooperative relations between local governments and upper tiers. This is particularly relevant if the authors are referring to mechanisms that can vary through time. In the current big and open data era, this empirical process will become easier and more affordable. In this context, local government studies benefit from particular features that improve the operation of this kind of analysis: large “N” configuration (a large number of units to be included) and a reasonable equivalence in concepts and bodies that allows comparability.

The analysis intends to clarify whether higher education institutions place as much value on internal transparency as on external transparency. This study aims to analyze the university budgeting process as a reflection of internal transparency. It also aims to identify the weaknesses of the budgeting process regarding transparency in order to improve decision-making.

A case study that applies mixed methods – documentary analysis, observations and interviews – has been conducted. To study internal transparency, the model of three levels of transparency of Biondi and Lapsley (2014) has been applied to the budgeting process of a university. Then, the results have been compared to the external transparency of this institution.

While external transparency is achieved, internal transparency in the budgeting process is far from optimal in the case of study. An improvement in transparency of the budget process can promote the engagement of stakeholders in the process and achieve better governance.

The general inductive approach is not as strong as other approaches in the area of theory or model development. However, it does provide a simple approach for deriving findings linked to this research’s questions.

Trust issues and external accountability appear to be more relevant than internal transparency for universities. However, improving the three levels of transparency along the budgeting process could motivate collegiate members to reinforce accountability, as it requires them to effectively communicate their actions and decisions to their represented.

This paper seeks to situate transparency as an attribute of university governance, contributing to the scarce literature on transparency, internal and external, in the university. The study compares the approach of this university to external transparency – which relates to accountability – with internal transparency – a concept that links to corporate governance. This study uses the novel lens of Biondi and Lapsley model (2014) to study internal transparency, focussing on university budgeting as a key management tool.

Most local governance assessment tools are entirely or partially based on stakeholders’ surveys, focus groups and benchmarks of different local governments in the world. These tools remain a subjective way of local governance evaluation. To measure the performance of local good-governance using an unbiased assessment technique, the authors have developed a framework to help automate the design process of a data warehouse (DW), which provides local and central decision-makers with factual, measurable and accurate local government data to help assess the performance of local government. The purpose of this paper is to propose the extraction of the DW schema based on a mixed approach that adopts both i* framework for requirements-based representation and domain ontologies for data source representation, to extract the multi-dimensional (MD) elements. The data was collected from various sources and information systems (ISs) deployed in different municipalities.

The authors present a framework for the design and implementation of a DW for local good-governance assessment. The extraction of facts and dimensions of the DW’s MD schema is done using a hybrid approach, where the extraction of requirement-based DW schema and source-based DW schema are done in parallel followed by the reconciliation of the obtained schemas to obtain the good-governance assessment DW final design.

The authors developed a novel framework to design and implement a DW for local good-governance assessment. The framework enables the extraction of the DW MD schema by using domain ontologies to help capture semantic artifacts and minimize misconceptions and misunderstandings between different stakeholders. The introduction and use of domain ontologies during the design process serves the generalization and automation purpose of the framework.

The presently conducted research faced two main limitations as follows: the first is the full automation of the design process of the DW and the second, and most important, is access to local government data as it remains limited because of the lack of digitally stored data in municipalities, especially in developing countries in addition to the difficulty of accessing the data because of regulatory aspects and bureaucracy.

The local government environment is among the public administrations most subject to change-adverse cultures and where the authors can face high levels of resistance and significant difficulties during the implementation of decision support systems, despite the commitment/engagement of decision-makers. Access to data sources stored by different ISs might be challenging. While approaching the municipalities for data access, it was done in the framework of a research project within one of the most notorious universities in the country, which gave more credibility and trust to the research team. There is also a need for further testing of the framework to reveal its scalability and performance characteristics.

Compared to other local government assessment ad hoc tools that are partially or entirely based on subjectively collected data, the framework provides a basis for automated design of a comprehensive local government DW using e-government domain ontologies for data source representation coupled with the goal, rationale and business process diagrams for user requirements representations, thus enabling the extraction of the final DW MD schema.

The term “carbon footprint” emerged during the early 2000s, but many hotels remain unaware of what they should do to implement a comprehensive programme to reduce carbon footprint despite having some environmental measures. This study aims to investigate the barriers to reducing hotel carbon footprint and to explore why many hotel managers remain bystanders.

In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with hotel executives to understand what hinders hotels’ implementation of comprehensive programmes to reduce their carbon footprint. The NVivo 11 software package was used to organise data and code the transcribed interviews to identify patterns and themes.

The findings identified several main barriers. They were (1) a lack of understanding, (2) a lack of owner initiative, (3) difficulty with measurements, (4) a lack of stakeholder coordination and support, (5) a lack of a strong mediator, (6) balancing interests and (7) risky investment. The findings of this study suggest some specific strategies for overcoming these barriers.

The study sample was restricted to the Hong Kong hotel executives interviewed; therefore, the findings will not reflect the full picture of managerial perceptions. Drawing on the foundations laid by this study, researchers could collect quantitative data from hotels in other countries to conduct a cross-cultural study.

Very few studies have investigated barriers to carbon-footprint reduction programmes. Specifically, none have been published in the hotel environmental management literature. This study represents a preliminary step towards understanding the barriers that prevent hotels from implementing the programmes.

The study aims at examining the level of financial transparency of local governments in a sub-Saharan African country and how financial transparency is affected by democracy in the sub-region.

The study applied a panel regression model to data collected from public accounts of 43 local authorities in Ghana from 1995 to 2014. Financial transparency was measured using a transparency index developed based on the Transparency Index of Transparency International and the information disclosure requirements of public sector entities under the International Public Sector Accounting Standards.

The study finds the low level of financial transparency among the local governments in Ghana, creating information asymmetry within the agency framework of governance. Further, evidence from the study suggests a strong positive relationship between democracy and financial transparency in the local government.

Deepening democracy is necessary for promoting the culture of financial transparency in local governance in sub-Saharan Africa, perhaps in entire Africa.

There is a need for the local governments and governments, in general, to deepen democracy to ensure proactive disclosure of the financial information to the citizens to improve participation trust and eventual reduction in corruption. Effective implementation of the Right to Information Act would also help promote financial and other forms of transparency in the sub-region.

The study contributes to the public sector accounting literature by linking democracy to financial transparency in the local government. Hitherto, studies concentrate on how entity level variables impact on the level of financial information flow in the local government without considering the broader governance infrastructure within which local governments operate.

Although governments are hugely investing in information technology (IT) infrastructure, eGovernment performance has reported variations in performance. The relationship between IT infrastructure investments and eGovernment performance remains unexplored in academic research. This study aims to explain how investments in IT assets lead to infrastructure capability and eGovernment system performance. The work conceptualizes technical performance of IT infrastructure as a consequent of thoughtful investments in IT assets, which help generate IT infrastructure capability. The findings have important implications for eGovernment theory and practice in developing understanding about eGovernment IT infrastructure and supporting decision-making on the choice of infrastructure components.

This study showcases quantitative analysis based on survey method-based research using a questionnaire for testing the hypotheses formulated.

The analysis of the work showed that IT infrastructure performance is a significant mediator between investments in IT assets and IT infrastructure capability.

Owing to constraints of data collection, probability sampling was not followed, which is a prerequisite for statistical generalization.

The study provides insights for governments on investing in technologies that meet requisite performance standards. IT infrastructure performance is an antecedent of IT infrastructure capability, which directly determines how an eGovernment system performs.

The study shows that delay in implementing new service models such as cloud potentially result in relatively lower performance of the IT infrastructure for the investments made in the given assets.

This paper builds on the existing literature on IT assets, IT infrastructure performance and IT infrastructure capability and applies it to the eGovernment domain.