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Research evidence continues to reveal that using active learning methods in the classroom has a positive impact on student learning. Additionally, awareness by faculty and administrators of the importance and value of using active learning methods continues to grow in higher education. However, some faculty find the consistent implementation of active learning methods challenging. Many continue to teach the way they were taught, and the majority of terminal degree programs do not include training on learning theory and effective teaching. The study explored the internal and external barriers preventing faculty use of active learning methods in higher education across the United States and the relationship between the barriers and faculty demographics. A sample of one thousand full-time and part-time faculty teaching in private and public higher education institutions completed a twenty-four-item survey on perceived barriers to using active learning in the classroom. Results suggest that male and full professors identified more barriers than their counterparts and listed workload and competing demands high on their lists of barriers to utilizing active learning. The results also showed that training, mentoring, and professional development are vital components for supporting faculty in the utilization of active learning pedagogies and are instrumental in supporting faculty in their efforts to become better teachers of their discipline. Limitations of the study include the use of classroom observation or in-depth interview methodologies to contribute more in-depth data.

Purpose: This paper presents a case study of the Surabaya City Office for Population Administration and Civil Registration (COPACR), which is currently undergoing digitization and digital transformation across all its civil registration service lines. This research identifies internal and external barriers relevant to digital transformation in the context of Surabaya COPACR.   Theoretical Framework: This study combines qualitative and quantitative methods to identify internal and external barriers relevant to the implementation of digital transformation in the COPACR sector. The barriers are validated through Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) applying the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Expert Choice tools. Priority barriers are determined based on the highest relevance weight values from the perspectives of Top Management and Field Officers.   Design/Methodology/Approach: This research adopts an action research methodology, leveraging the researcher's position within the system to directly intervene and facilitate change. A mixed-method approach is employed, combining qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Twenty literature sources are utilized to identify internal and external barriers within public sectors to adopt digital transformation. A total of 63 barriers (33 internal and 30 external) are categorized and their relevance tested through Focus Group Discussions (FGDs). Barrier priorities are selected using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method and expert choice tools.   Findings: The Surabaya COPACR in developing countries exhibits characteristics such as low employee motivation, inadequate officer competency, rigid bureaucratic structures, and limited innovation. With these conditions, the internal priorities for adopting digital transformation in Surabaya COPACR include lack of political support, traditional bureaucracy, organizational complexity, and lack of competency. External barriers include inflexible regulations, bureaucracy, lack of data standardization, and inadequate funding allocation.   Research, Practical & Social Implications: This research contributes theoretical insights into internal and external priority barriers that need to be considered to adopt digital transformation in the COPACR context of developing countries. The identified barriers can serve as references for public sectors with similar organizational characteristics in developing countries to design strategies for adopting digital transformation effectively.   Originality/Value: This study identifies internal and external barriers to digital transformation in the Surabaya COPACR context, involving assessments from both strategic (Top Management) and technical (Field Officer) perspectives.

Due to climate change, firms are encouraged to introduce various measures to enhance both their competitiveness and sustainability, particularly energy efficiency measures (EEMs). Energy efficiency is particularly important in energy-intensive sectors such as the industrial sector. However, EEMs within industrial firms are hindered by several internal barriers such as competing interests within firms, lack of information regarding energy efficiency opportunities, and low technical competence. In this regard, energy audits aim to improve energy efficiency in facilities and to tackle internal barriers to energy efficiency. We developed a model that seeks to investigate the significance of energy audits in the implementation of EEMs and to reduce the intensity of internal barriers to energy efficiency. Our research model was empirically tested via data collected from a survey conducted with 193 industrial firms in the Kingdom of Morocco. Results show that competing interests, lack of information, and low technical competence hinder the adoption of EEMs within industrial firms, which aligns with findings from previous studies. In addition, our findings indicate that energy audits enhance EEMs and mitigate the negative effect of lack of information and low technical competence on the adoption of EEMs, which is consistent with findings from prior studies. However, our results demonstrate that energy audits do not attenuate the negative effect of competing interests on EEMs; this contrasts with findings from several previous studies. Therefore, our study builds upon prior research and contributes new insights regarding the importance of energy audits in tackling internal barriers to energy efficiency.

Purpose There are several important strategic projects in the field of renewable energy in Egypt. Benban project is considered as one of the largest solar generation facilities in the world, which aims to increase clean energy produced, provide electricity needs for citizens and help to increase the volume of Egypt's electricity exports. The purpose of this paper is to explore the most important drivers and barriers that affect the implementation of green supply chain management (GSCM) practices in the field of solar energy production. Design/methodology/approach It is an exploratory research that conducts a case study about solar energy companies operating in Benban, south Egypt. It adopts a mixed approach; qualitative and quantitative research strategy to test the relationship between dependent and independent variables through a survey. Findings This research concluded that normative drivers involving stakeholder pressure are of the greatest drivers of GSCM practice, while external barriers including lack of government regulations and government support, poor supplier commitment, customers’ unawareness of sustainable green products, lack of markets receiving and manufacturing recycled materials, lack of renewal or technological innovation in markets and lack of human resources or expertise in market are among the biggest barriers to GSCM implementation. Research limitations/implications The researchers collected 30 responses during the field survey, which is a nonrandom sample that does not allow generalization. In addition, samples are only from companies in the solar energy sector only. Originality/value As there is a need for research that addresses sustainability practices and solutions in developing countries, especially in Egypt, this paper theoretically contributes to literature by proposing a conceptual framework that identifies the drivers and barriers of GSCM from the existing literature, then investigates and measures their impact on the implementation of GSCM on an Egyptian case study. As regards the practical contribution, this research is a trial to experimentally test the importance of top management’s role in motivating and training employees to improve the brand image of their company and making them aware of the benefits of the successful GSCM implementation.

Manufacturing small and medium enterprises (SMEs) need to propel their creativity and innovativeness to enhance their innovation performance in the competitive and fast-changing environment. The current environment has transformed the internal working pattern, structure, and communication system to survive the rough business ecosphere. Consequently, SMEs encountered innumerable barriers to achieve the innovation performance and the SMEs should recognise the internal barriers so that they are able to accelerate their innovation performance. Therefore, this study aims at examining the internal barriers namely constraint in financial resources, constraint in technology, and constraint in human resources that hamper the innovation performance among the Malaysian manufacturing SMEs. This study embarked on two phases of data collection. First phase includes a series of semi-structured interviews with 15 participants from 5 SMEs via snowballing technique to gather their insights on internal barriers that impede innovation performance. For second phase, the survey method was adopted, and 217 SMEs responded to the survey. All the responses were analysed using SmartPLS technique. The interview findings demonstrate that all the internal constraints are indeed important for SMEs to grasp and serve as the obstacles for innovation performance. Nevertheless, from the quantitative analysis, only financial constraints serve as the significant barrier that impede innovation performance. To summarise, this research produces insights on decisive proof regarding internal barriers that inhibit the manufacturing SMEs to achieve innovation performance. 

Aim/Purpose: The aim of this study is to propose and test a model in which perceived barriers to technology integration are handled within a broad framework. It can be argued that the proposed model will have the dynamics to examine the studies performed on technology integration in a generic way and to have an important place in explaining the technology barriers at individual and school level under internal and external barriers. This can then be used to minimize such barriers and facilitate technology integration. Background: As seen in previous studies, barriers constitute a complex structure that is encountered in almost every environment for different reasons, affects the teaching-learning process, and contains several variables under primary and secondary barriers. It is thought that exploring this complex structure plays a key role in technology integration. In many studies, it is observed that the barriers are addressed as internal and external aspects but work on such aspects is quite limited. Methodology: Based on the convenience sampling method, the research was planned and conducted in accordance with the relational survey model. A structural regression model was used to examine the barriers that teachers perceive in technology integration. The sample of the study involved 449 teachers working in different branches at nine public schools in the academic year of 2018-2019 at the city center of Kirsehir province, and they participated on a voluntary basis. The number of teachers in the research sample corresponds to 73% of the total number of teachers in Kirsehir. Contribution: The contribution to the literature is proposing and testing a model which can be used to measure technological barriers in technology integration in education considering internal and external factors with a large perspective and holistically. Findings: The findings of the structural regression model used in this study showed that beliefs towards learning-teaching activities (BLTA), beliefs towards the expert support (BES), technological self-efficacy beliefs (TSEB), family resistance (FR), assessment (ASSES), and pedagogical self-efficacy beliefs (PSEB) are located under internal barriers and that lack of vision (LV), lack of money (LM), lack of training (LT), infrastructure (INF), content (CONT), and time (TIME) are all part of external factors. Furthermore, the results showed that external barriers affect the internal barriers directly and positively. Finally, it was observed that beliefs towards change (BC) and lack of leadership (LL) had no effect on internal or external barriers. Recommendations for Practitioners: As the findings of this study were discussed under internal and external barriers to technology integration, the results of the study could shed a light for managers, teachers or candidate teachers within the framework of “technology integration.” The identification of barriers in different settings should be used as the first step in minimizing the impact of such barriers in technology integration in education. Recommendation for Researchers: The work done can form the basis of investigating the impacts of latest technology on education, and necessary dimensions on the technology integration within the context of internal and external factors in the classroom or in a virtual learning environment for further research. Findings should then be used to aid technology integration in education. Impact on Society: The effective and successful technology integration may be reached by minimizing the barriers identified. Future Research: Future research can investigate technological barriers with reference to external variables (e.g., motivation, acceptance, satisfaction) using the developed scale. The findings can then be used to eliminate the barriers and facilitate technology integration.

The paper delves into the investigation of the internal and external barriers toward female sexual harassment prevention in the workplace. A survey was conducted with 289 employees collected from different industries in Vietnam with the questionnaires relevant to victims’ experiences and responses toward sexual misconducts at work, and the internal-external barriers to deter the sexual harassment prevention. The in-depth interviews were conducted to explore women’ expectation about sexual harassment-free working environment-oriented policies in their workplace. The results revealed that victims experienced a wide range of sexual harassment types; the victims, especially unmarried girls have experienced sexual harassment more than married women but have fewer responses to the sexual misconduct. A low incidence of sexual harassment claims was also filed to authority due to various barriers, including internal and external ones. Through the interviews, the victims manifested that the comprehensive changes in sexual harassment law and social policies should be consistently made to ensure human rights, and prompt employees’ efforts and contribution to work.

This article examines how environmental awareness, stakeholder pressure, circular economy orientation and internal barriers influence circular economy practices in international and non-international micro-firms. For this, we utilised fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) using data from 128 micro firms operating in different manufacturing industries in Estonia. Three paths were identified for explaining circular economy practices in internationally operating micro-firms and two paths for explaining it in micro-firms that do not operate internationally. Our results show that understanding the impact of the four before-mentioned aspects can be beneficial for engaging in circular economy efforts in both international and non-international micro-firms. The intricate five pathways (three for international and two for non-international) through which environmental awareness, stakeholder pressure, circular economy orientation, and internal barriers shape circular economy practices in micro-firms, challenging conventional understandings and offering nuanced insights for effective engagement in sustainable business practices. Based on the findings, theoretical and practical implications of this study and directions for future research are discussed.

The aim of the article is to analyse the performance of managerial functions in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The first part of the article focuses on a systematic literature review (SLR) aimed at identifying the most frequently researched managerial functions in the context of changes due to the pandemic and the difficulties in performing these functions. A total of 211 articles from the Web of Science database were analysed, 18 of which were relevant to the present research. Based on the SLR conducted, two research questions were identified and answered by conducting a three-round Delphi survey among the experts interviewed (a total of 23 company managers). The results show that during the COVID-19 pandemic, the managerial function of planning has the highest importance and was performed the most often, followed by the function of leading. The managers gave minor importance to the organising function, which was statistically confirmed by Friedmann ANOVA followed by post hoc analysis – the Bonferroni-Dunn test. The results also confirmed a satisfactory level of expert agreement on the data obtained (Kendall W ~ 0.7–0.84), confirming the relevance of the findings. Also, several internal barriers that affected the work of managers were identified. The results are somewhat unusual, as most of the constraints faced by managers were imposed by the external environment, such as government regulations or sanitary measures. This discrepancy suggests that companies should emphasise improving their crisis management in the future. The results obtained thus provide the basis for further research in the area analysed. At the same time, it is possible to move away from the COVID-19 situation and transform the issue into managerial management in crises.

Industrial Estates are significant for the growth of any economy. In this research, the business mangers’ perceptions of the internal and external obstacles facing medium and large enterprises in the Industrial Estates are collected and analyzed. The research is conducted with special reference to the Rusayl Industrial Estate (RIE), a prominent Industrial Estate in Oman. A structured questionnaire was administered to a sample of 42 enterprises in the RIE. The survey discovered that medium enterprises reported more obstacles, both internal and external, compared to larger enterprises. Among a variety of external barriers, the lack of raw materials, the lack of skilled workers, visas for foreign workers and the high interest rate of business loans, are at the top of the list. The most significant internal obstacles are competitive pressure in the market, difficulty of external marketing, high labor cost and high operating cost. Some challenges, such as lack of skilled workers and difficulty getting visas for foreign workers are common to medium and large enterprises alike. The study emphasized the need for strategic intervention by regulatory agencies primarily aimed to mitigate the various challenges and provide a conducive environment for enterprises to develop.