Enhancing administrative service delivery practices of local government: Experiences from Nepal

This study applied Altman Z-score model to assess the bankruptcy risk of a set of multidisciplinary enterprises of various types, mainly small and medium enterprises, with data taken from official financial reports of 180 enterprises in Soc Trang province. The binary logistic regression was employed to assess the impact of non-financial and financial factors on the bankruptcy risk of enterprises. The research findings showed that both the non-financial factors such as business area, types and size of the business, the educational level of managers and executors and other characteristics, and the financial factors (indicators) such as earnings before tax, net profit/equity ratio, earnings before interest and tax/total assets ratio, equity/total debt ratio, affect the bankruptcy risk of enterprises. Predicting the bankruptcy risk and measuring its determinants play an important role not only as an effective managing tool of the business, but also as evidence for policymakers to support the sustainable development of business.

Talents play a critical role in achieving organizational strategic goals and a higher level of performance in the healthcare industry. Therefore, the UAE government, which strives to provide world-class healthcare services, encouraged the adoption of talent management strategies and creation of essential capabilities for talent recruitment, development, and retaining. This study explores the talent management strategies, policies, and practices in multiple departments of a public UAE hospital. Moreover, it investigates required skills, competencies, and programs for those departments in the context of Industry 4.0. The study adopted a case study approach and qualitatively surveyed a purposive sample of 13 departmental managers, section heads, and supervisors who are experienced in employee management. The study found that talent management at the studied hospital is undefined and unclear in terms of strategies, policies, and practices. Furthermore, the study highlighted the need for employee encouragement, motivation, and engagement, as well as confirmed the critical role of management and leadership in facilitating talent management in the hospital. Accordingly, a UAE hospital could benefit from this study to develop its talent management policy and strategies that will guide managers in the Industry 4.0 era.

Acknowledgment
The nursing administration, nursing research committee at Tawam hospital and managers who responded to the study survey are acknowledged for the extension of support for the study.

China’s involvement in Africa has become one of the contentious topics in the development literature. The background of the study is that Sino-African relations can be grouped into two phases thus: past relations and contemporary relations. The two phases are dissimilar, as past relations are categorized by solidarity against imperialism, while contemporary relations are characterized by economic relations. The study uses a historical approach to analyze China’s resurgence into Africa and Zimbabwe, a case study is used to examine the contemporary Sino-African relations. Secondary data were utilized to come to sound conclusion of the study. The study mainly found out that China’s resurgence into Africa presents both negative and positive impacts for Africa and that the negatives need to be regulated in order for African countries to benefit from the relations.