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The current research re-examines cruisers' satisfaction in the context of online user generated content extracted from CruiseCritics through the application of Multicriteria Satisfaction Analysis Method (MUSA). MCDA methods evaluate alternative courses of action with respect to criteria that reflect the main dimensions of the decision-making problem, involving human judgment and preferences. More precisely, the present work illustrates an evidence-based decision-making approach in the areas of quality management and cruisers' satisfaction and reveals valuable information to the decision-makers like global satisfaction indices, criteria weights and action diagrams to assist them restart and improve the performance of the cruise industry at the post pandemic era. Specifically, the analysis elucidated that the cruise industry players should reconsider the \"value for money\" aspect of their offering, continue investing in areas of service quality like cabins, service, and dining and closely monitor the fitness recreation, entertainment, and enrichment aspects of the cruisers' experience.

This paper presents data that investigates the creative industries ventures’ performance affected by four different types of networking, namely the social, the professional, the family, and that with public sector organizations. Three hundred and seventy-one questionnaires have been collected for the assessment of networking impact on venture performance. In order to examine the ventures’ performance levels of the female entrepreneurs or self-employed in the creative industries of Greece, we use a multiple criteria method. Based on the data analysis, the most important criterion for the female entrepreneurs in the creative industries to perform highly is professional networking while the least important is observed in the criterion of family networking.

This paper presents data about the analysis of Webster’s model of creative thinking in music products, and the impact of information on musical creativity. For this purpose, a specially designed closed-ended structured questionnaire was developed and distributed. The questionnaire was completed by 238 musicians and was analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 22.0. The data are presented though descriptive and inferential statistics, principal component analysis for variable reduction, and finally, bivariate regression analysis. The data provide information on Webster’s model of creative thinking in music as well as on the impact of music information on musical creativity. The survey results indicate that the overall sense of musical creativity includes conceptional and replicational musical creativity components. These are significantly positively correlated with music information. Musicians’ sense of creativity is impacted by music information availability when dealing with various musical creative activities.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is threefold. First, to explore the importance of specific work environment facets for the overall job satisfaction (JS) of primary full-time permanent teachers (PTs) and substitute/temporary teachers (STs). Second, to highlight the similarity or difference in JS patterns among PTs and STs. Third, to provide guidelines for effective evidence-based human resource management (HRM) interventions targeting to boost PTs and STs JS levels by considering: (1) the perceived importance of individual work facets for them and (2) the school's performance in providing a satisfactory work environment.Design/methodology/approachData on overall and important JS facets (i.e. satisfaction with opportunities for self-fulfillment, work intensity/load, salary/income, leadership and collegial relations) were collected from a sample of 438 PTs and STs in Greece. Moreover, MUSA, a method that combines Multi-Criteria Decision (MCDA) and Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA), was applied to uncover the critical work environment facets of PTs and STs overall JS that call for interventions.FindingsThe findings suggest that PTs seem to value, more than STs, the transactional and economic aspects of the school environment. More precisely, on the part of PTs, self-fulfillment and salary/income are the main contributors to their JS, whilst leadership is the least important facet of JS. For STs self-fulfillment and collegial relationships are the aspects of work that contribute the most to their overall JS, whilst salary/income is the least important contributor. The study results further indicate that self-fulfillment is the strong attribute of Greek schools' work environment in boosting TJS regardless teachers' status, whilst salary/income and workload are potential threats.Originality/valueIt is one of the few studies that provide insights into the differing JS patterns of STs and PTs through the application of a MCDA/IPA method. Therefore, it offers evidence-based guidelines that take into consideration both the school's performance (overall and facet JS) and importance of core aspects of the work experience for STs and PTs.

Research has so far made a rather limited advancement in identifying the contribution of the aspects of the working environment that matter to teachers’ overall job satisfaction (TJS), as well as in providing evidence-based guidelines for improving their working experience. Addressing these deficiencies, the current work uses data related to school working environment facets, i.e., opportunities for self-fulfillment, work intensity/load, salary/income, leadership and collegial relations, and overall TJS, from a sample of 438 public primary school teachers in Greece and applies a multi-criteria decision analysis method (the multi-criteria satisfaction analysis (MUSA)) to identify the contribution of these facets to overall TJS, underline the strong and weak points of TJS based on their importance for teachers and the school’s performance on them, and provide direct action implications for improving primary TJS. The results reveal that all the examined facets are crucial for TJS. Yet, self-fulfillment is the most important contributor to overall TJS and work intensity/load the least significant one. Also, self-fulfillment is the strongest point of TJS that school leaders and policymakers should continue investing on, whilst salary/income is a risk factor that could easily turn into a threat for TJS into the future.

Retention of provisional substitute teachers (PSTs) in the teaching profession is an important and timely topic that relates to the sustainability of the schools’ work environment and teaching profession. The present study re-examines these issues using teacher job satisfaction (TJS) as a surrogate variable. More precisely, MUlti-criteria Satisfaction Analysis (MUSA) -a method that combines Multi-Criteria Decision and Importance-Performance Analysis- is applied to a data set of primary school substitute teachers from Greece to assess the contribution of schools’ performance on 5 important aspects of the school environment i.e., opportunities for self-fulfillment, work intensity/load, salary/income, leadership and collegial relations, to overall PSTs JS. The findings indicate that self-fulfillment and collegial relationships contribute the most to PST overall JS, whilst salary/income the least. The results further suggest that self-fulfillment is not only the facet of the work environment that PSTs value the most but also the strong point of the schools’ work environment. The study provides a new strategic perspective on TJS research, as well as evidence-based strategies for improving the quality of work life and attrition rate levels of substitute teachers. Moreover, the theoretical and practical implications of this study are presented and avenues for future research are highlighted.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to study and quantify musicians' creativity in order to tune music library services and pinpoint potential musical creative activities.Design/methodology/approach/methodology/approachWebster's conceptual framework for the creative thinking process in music is informing our survey while the analysis adopts a multiple criteria method for quantifying musical creativity. strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis is also adopted developing strategic decisions based on musicians' creativity behaviours.FindingsMental representations of the music heard (listening) is the most important dimension for creative thinking in music while dimensions such as recorded improvisations (improvisation), written analysis (analysis) and composed music scores (composition) follow. SWOT analysis provides further indications for music library services development based on musicians' creativity behaviours.Originality/valueThis study proposes a novel research vein based on multicriteria analysis within the contexts of musical creativity for managing music library services.

Governments across the European Union (EU) face the challenge of responding to public demand for more responsive, efficient and effective services. E-Government based on the principle of providing services via internet to citizens and companies. The rapid growth of electronic government gave the EU the ability to correspond more effectively to the needs of citizens and provide more valuable services. In this paper the authors analyze the web based services that have been developed by EU member states. A comparative measurement of the progress of online services delivery is presented using a Multi-criteria INteractive Ordinal Regression Analysis (MINORA) system. The paper demonstrates the importance of Multicriteria Analysis and the use of reliable methods that allowed the development of a function of total utility dynamically modified depending on the evolution of e-government services.

The economic crisis has resulted in cuts in health spending and an increase in the number of patients visiting hospitals for health services. Taking into account the limited number of resources, operational researchers are trying to develop methodologies for the more effective management of hospital resources and processes. The increase in admissions to Emergency Departments (EDs) by patients belonging to economically vulnerable groups is a global problem, resulting in the phenomenon of overcrowding. The result of the overcrowding phenomenon are phenomena such as patients leaving the ED without being examined, ambulance transfers between hospitals, increased mortality, and delays in the provision of health care. In order to address the phenomenon of overcrowding as well as for the more effective management of resources and processes of the ED in the specific doctoral thesis, the MEDUTA methodology was developed. The aim of the specific methodology is to identify, through simulation, alternative solutions in order for the department to operate more efficiently but also to support the decision maker in decision-making using the analytical synthetic approach.This specific methodology, compared to other methodologies that have been published, gives particular weight to the parties involved (doctors, nurses, patients) for the development of hypothetical solutions. In order to develop hypothetical solutions, MEDUTA takes into account the opinions of doctors and nurses, while for patients it uses the multi-criteria satisfaction assessment methodology MUSA. The methodology has been designed to work in departments where there are no information systems for data collection, providing the user with the steps to follow for data collection. In addition to using simulation to redesign the department's operational functions, MEDUTA contributes to supporting the decision-maker's decisions. More specifically, while the published methodologies use the Analytical Hierarchical Approach, this particular methodology uses the stochastic uta, which is a member of the analytical synthetic approach. This particular method reveals in a shorter period of time the value system used by the decision-maker, while through the results it provides to the user it reveals in detail the decision-maker's way of thinking in order to make decisions related to the management of resources and processes of the department. In order to practically apply the methodology, cooperation was developed with the Emergency Department of the General Hospital of Chania. Finally, it should be noted that this methodology provides the researchers with the opportunity to integrate other modern approaches to management and IT, such as the balanced scorecard and process mining techniques, in order to, on the one hand, evaluate the organization's strategy based on hypothetical solutions, while on the other hand, develop the simulation model in a shorter period of time.