title: Training During the COVID-19 Lockdown: Knowledge, Beliefs, and Practices of 12,526 Athletes from 142 Countries and Six Continents

authors: Washif, J. A.

subjects: Science & Technology

abstract: Objective
Our objective was to explore the training-related knowledge, beliefs, and practices of athletes and the influence of lockdowns in response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).

Methods
Athletes (n = 12,526, comprising 13% world class, 21% international, 36% national, 24% state, and 6% recreational) completed an online survey that was available from 17 May to 5 July 2020 and explored their training behaviors (training knowledge, beliefs/attitudes, and practices), including specific questions on their training intensity, frequency, and session duration before and during lockdown (March–June 2020).

Results
Overall, 85% of athletes wanted to “maintain training,” and 79% disagreed with the statement that it is “okay to not train during lockdown,” with a greater prevalence for both in higher-level athletes. In total, 60% of athletes considered “coaching by correspondence (remote coaching)” to be sufficient (highest amongst world-class athletes). During lockdown, < 40% were able to maintain sport-specific training (e.g., long endurance [39%], interval training [35%], weightlifting [33%], plyometric exercise [30%]) at pre-lockdown levels (higher among world-class, international, and national athletes), with most (83%) training for “general fitness and health maintenance” during lockdown. Athletes trained alone (80%) and focused on bodyweight (65%) and cardiovascular (59%) exercise/training during lockdown. Compared with before lockdown, most athletes reported reduced training frequency (from between five and seven sessions per week to four or fewer), shorter training sessions (from ≥ 60 to < 60 min), and lower sport-specific intensity (~ 38% reduction), irrespective of athlete classification.

Conclusions
COVID-19-related lockdowns saw marked reductions in athletic training specificity, intensity, frequency, and duration, with notable within-sample differences (by athlete classification). Higher classification athletes had the strongest desire to “maintain” training and the greatest opposition to “not training” during lockdowns. These higher classification athletes retained training specificity to a greater degree than others, probably because of preferential access to limited training resources. More higher classification athletes considered “coaching by correspondence” as sufficient than did lower classification athletes. These lockdown-mediated changes in training were not conducive to maintenance or progression of athletes’ physical capacities and were also likely detrimental to athletes’ mental health. These data can be used by policy makers, athletes, and their multidisciplinary teams to modulate their practice, with a degree of individualization, in the current and continued pandemic-related scenario. Furthermore, the data may drive training-related educational resources for athletes and their multidisciplinary teams. Such upskilling would provide athletes with evidence to inform their training modifications in response to germane situations (e.g., COVID related, injury, and illness).

text: Training During the COVID-19 Lockdown: Knowledge, Beliefs, and Practices of 12,526 Athletes from 142 Countries and Six Continents Objective
Our objective was to explore the training-related knowledge, beliefs, and practices of athletes and the influence of lockdowns in response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).

Methods
Athletes (n = 12,526, comprising 13% world class, 21% international, 36% national, 24% state, and 6% recreational) completed an online survey that was available from 17 May to 5 July 2020 and explored their training behaviors (training knowledge, beliefs/attitudes, and practices), including specific questions on their training intensity, frequency, and session duration before and during lockdown (March–June 2020).

Results
Overall, 85% of athletes wanted to “maintain training,” and 79% disagreed with the statement that it is “okay to not train during lockdown,” with a greater prevalence for both in higher-level athletes. In total, 60% of athletes considered “coaching by correspondence (remote coaching)” to be sufficient (highest amongst world-class athletes). During lockdown, < 40% were able to maintain sport-specific training (e.g., long endurance [39%], interval training [35%], weightlifting [33%], plyometric exercise [30%]) at pre-lockdown levels (higher among world-class, international, and national athletes), with most (83%) training for “general fitness and health maintenance” during lockdown. Athletes trained alone (80%) and focused on bodyweight (65%) and cardiovascular (59%) exercise/training during lockdown. Compared with before lockdown, most athletes reported reduced training frequency (from between five and seven sessions per week to four or fewer), shorter training sessions (from ≥ 60 to < 60 min), and lower sport-specific intensity (~ 38% reduction), irrespective of athlete classification.

Conclusions
COVID-19-related lockdowns saw marked reductions in athletic training specificity, intensity, frequency, and duration, with notable within-sample differences (by athlete classification). Higher classification athletes had the strongest desire to “maintain” training and the greatest opposition to “not training” during lockdowns. These higher classification athletes retained training specificity to a greater degree than others, probably because of preferential access to limited training resources. More higher classification athletes considered “coaching by correspondence” as sufficient than did lower classification athletes. These lockdown-mediated changes in training were not conducive to maintenance or progression of athletes’ physical capacities and were also likely detrimental to athletes’ mental health. These data can be used by policy makers, athletes, and their multidisciplinary teams to modulate their practice, with a degree of individualization, in the current and continued pandemic-related scenario. Furthermore, the data may drive training-related educational resources for athletes and their multidisciplinary teams. Such upskilling would provide athletes with evidence to inform their training modifications in response to germane situations (e.g., COVID related, injury, and illness).

year: 2021

title: Measurement of SME risk and its relationship with SME operating characteristics: An empirical study in Malaysia

authors: Harith, Samir

subjects: Finance

abstract: SMEs are inherently risky organisations reflected in high birth and death rates in many countries. This risk of failure is exacerbated by the financial and operational opacity of SMEs, which hamper efforts by authorities and investors to evaluate and value objectively SMEs. Despite a wide spread view that SMEs are risky there is little evidence of generalizable, empirical estimates SME risk and supporting analyses, covering the relationship between operational characteristics risk.  Commencing from a premise that there needs to be a robust framework for quantifying SME risk this research examines, using a Malaysian database, risk measures and their relationship to observable attributes of SMEs.  The work is important for a range of stakeholders, including government in relation to sustainable economic growth goals and other areas of public policy.  Investors, customers, suppliers, employees and society are unlikely to benefit from business churn where some of it is avoidable.
Malaysia, one of the larger economies in Southeast Asia (by GDP) is a multi-cultural country with a diversity of ethnicities. In the 1990s, it, along with various other East Asian countries underwent an economic boom that subsided with the onset of the Asian financial crisis in 1998. It is a constitutional monarchy with members of the royal Malay families assuming the role, in rotation, of Head of State. Given its diverse demographic, Malaysia actively practices an affirmative action scheme designed to give indigenous people (the Bumiputera) better access to finance, education and business opportunities to promote greater economic parity across the different ethnicities living in the country. Islam is the State religion with close to 60% of the population practicing the religion. As such, Islamic finance is widely available and has come to characterise Malaysian fiscal policy as being very conservative and risk-averse in accordance with Islamic principles. 
SMEs in Malaysia are predominantly family-owned and control is often centralised in the hands of the family, with very few outsiders rising to high managerial positions within these businesses. There is little to no separation between management and shareholders as they are typically the same. This lack of separation creates unique governance issues where the CEO and the Chairman of the board are often the same person. This creates a conflict of interest between the principal (owner) and the agent (manager) as there are weaker checks and balances performed against the CEO if they are the head of the Board of Directors. However, in a family business, because the CEO/Chairman is the head of the family, principal-agent conflict is virtually eliminated as the CEO and the Chairman’s goals align. Despite this, principal-principal conflict still exists through leadership tussles, nepotism and poor consensus decision making. SMEs have contributed significantly to the Malaysian GDP and play a very important role in the economic development of Malaysia. 
The Companies Commission of Malaysia (Suruhanjaya Syarikat Malaysia - SSM) records SME data, as all Malaysian businesses, regardless of their size are required to furnish the authorities with regular annual reports. The initial dataset consists of an unbalanced panel dataset of 400 individual companies over the years 2005 to 2014. After data cleaning and removal of dormant and insolvent companies, this figure is reduced to 303 individual companies. The current research draws on the information covering financial statements; owner ethnicity, age and gender; business location; shareholding and items stored in the database, providing a rich panel of data for businesses over time. 
Most empirical risk and return measures, relating to models like Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) and Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT) originate from research with publicly listed companies and initially in large mature western economies.  For SME research, where firms are not listed on stock exchanges, other approaches are necessary.  Four models are examined in this thesis, viz. the pure-play (PP) beta, accounting beta and two probability of survival models (1 & 2). These models noted in prior research are tractable within the constraints of data typically available for SMEs and are present in the SSM database. A selection of SME characteristics identified in the literature as connected with SME risk, these include financial indicators such as performance and capital structure; firm characteristics such as firm size, firm age, the firm’s sub-industry and firm’s geographical location; and owner demographics such as owner age, largest share percentage, business owner gender and business owner ethnicity.
The analysis consists of two parts. First, a correlation analysis of the risk metrics against the other SME characteristics. The correlation analysis shows that PP beta has the highest level of correlation with not only the other risk measures but also the SME characteristics. The other risk measures have lower cases of significant correlation with the accounting beta having the lowest number of significant correlations with SME characteristics. 
Second, each risk value is regressed against the SME characteristics using the Dynamic Panel Data Generalised Method of Moments (GMM) regression technique, which effectively captures the panel nature of the data and mitigates the threat of endogeneity. The regression results show that the PP beta measurement has the most significant relationships with the selected SME characteristics, most notably in areas of financial performance and gender of the business owner. The other measurements recorded significant relationships in the same areas as well as capital structure. Interestingly, despite Malaysia’s affirmative action policies, there is no significant relationship between any of the risk measures and business ethnicity. Furthermore, despite a large portion of Malaysian SMEs involved in the service sector, the type of industry SMEs are in do not significantly affect their risk either. 
The presence of family ownership as represented by concentration of ownership in the largest share percentage is not significantly related to risk, indicating that principal-principal conflict does not adversely affect Malaysian SMEs. Firm size and firm age both are not significantly related to SME risk, providing some hope for smaller, younger businesses trying to convince finance providers to invest in them. Owner age is significantly related to the probability of survival model 1, however it does not significantly relate to any of the other risk measures. The identification of significant relationships between capital structure with SME risk is relevant to lenders and can assist them in pricing their loans to SMEs. The finding that neither firm size nor age are not statistically significantly correlated with SME risk has implications for loan terms and bargaining. 
The research concludes that PP beta, used in conjunction with a probability of survival model provides the most adequate measure of risk for unlisted SMEs. Combined with the results from the regression, this research challenges some long-standing assumptions held regarding the relationship between SME characteristics and risks in the hopes that the findings will influence policy makers and finance providers to give better financial and development support to SMEs.

text: Measurement of SME risk and its relationship with SME operating characteristics: An empirical study in Malaysia SMEs are inherently risky organisations reflected in high birth and death rates in many countries. This risk of failure is exacerbated by the financial and operational opacity of SMEs, which hamper efforts by authorities and investors to evaluate and value objectively SMEs. Despite a wide spread view that SMEs are risky there is little evidence of generalizable, empirical estimates SME risk and supporting analyses, covering the relationship between operational characteristics risk.  Commencing from a premise that there needs to be a robust framework for quantifying SME risk this research examines, using a Malaysian database, risk measures and their relationship to observable attributes of SMEs.  The work is important for a range of stakeholders, including government in relation to sustainable economic growth goals and other areas of public policy.  Investors, customers, suppliers, employees and society are unlikely to benefit from business churn where some of it is avoidable.
Malaysia, one of the larger economies in Southeast Asia (by GDP) is a multi-cultural country with a diversity of ethnicities. In the 1990s, it, along with various other East Asian countries underwent an economic boom that subsided with the onset of the Asian financial crisis in 1998. It is a constitutional monarchy with members of the royal Malay families assuming the role, in rotation, of Head of State. Given its diverse demographic, Malaysia actively practices an affirmative action scheme designed to give indigenous people (the Bumiputera) better access to finance, education and business opportunities to promote greater economic parity across the different ethnicities living in the country. Islam is the State religion with close to 60% of the population practicing the religion. As such, Islamic finance is widely available and has come to characterise Malaysian fiscal policy as being very conservative and risk-averse in accordance with Islamic principles. 
SMEs in Malaysia are predominantly family-owned and control is often centralised in the hands of the family, with very few outsiders rising to high managerial positions within these businesses. There is little to no separation between management and shareholders as they are typically the same. This lack of separation creates unique governance issues where the CEO and the Chairman of the board are often the same person. This creates a conflict of interest between the principal (owner) and the agent (manager) as there are weaker checks and balances performed against the CEO if they are the head of the Board of Directors. However, in a family business, because the CEO/Chairman is the head of the family, principal-agent conflict is virtually eliminated as the CEO and the Chairman’s goals align. Despite this, principal-principal conflict still exists through leadership tussles, nepotism and poor consensus decision making. SMEs have contributed significantly to the Malaysian GDP and play a very important role in the economic development of Malaysia. 
The Companies Commission of Malaysia (Suruhanjaya Syarikat Malaysia - SSM) records SME data, as all Malaysian businesses, regardless of their size are required to furnish the authorities with regular annual reports. The initial dataset consists of an unbalanced panel dataset of 400 individual companies over the years 2005 to 2014. After data cleaning and removal of dormant and insolvent companies, this figure is reduced to 303 individual companies. The current research draws on the information covering financial statements; owner ethnicity, age and gender; business location; shareholding and items stored in the database, providing a rich panel of data for businesses over time. 
Most empirical risk and return measures, relating to models like Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) and Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT) originate from research with publicly listed companies and initially in large mature western economies.  For SME research, where firms are not listed on stock exchanges, other approaches are necessary.  Four models are examined in this thesis, viz. the pure-play (PP) beta, accounting beta and two probability of survival models (1 & 2). These models noted in prior research are tractable within the constraints of data typically available for SMEs and are present in the SSM database. A selection of SME characteristics identified in the literature as connected with SME risk, these include financial indicators such as performance and capital structure; firm characteristics such as firm size, firm age, the firm’s sub-industry and firm’s geographical location; and owner demographics such as owner age, largest share percentage, business owner gender and business owner ethnicity.
The analysis consists of two parts. First, a correlation analysis of the risk metrics against the other SME characteristics. The correlation analysis shows that PP beta has the highest level of correlation with not only the other risk measures but also the SME characteristics. The other risk measures have lower cases of significant correlation with the accounting beta having the lowest number of significant correlations with SME characteristics. 
Second, each risk value is regressed against the SME characteristics using the Dynamic Panel Data Generalised Method of Moments (GMM) regression technique, which effectively captures the panel nature of the data and mitigates the threat of endogeneity. The regression results show that the PP beta measurement has the most significant relationships with the selected SME characteristics, most notably in areas of financial performance and gender of the business owner. The other measurements recorded significant relationships in the same areas as well as capital structure. Interestingly, despite Malaysia’s affirmative action policies, there is no significant relationship between any of the risk measures and business ethnicity. Furthermore, despite a large portion of Malaysian SMEs involved in the service sector, the type of industry SMEs are in do not significantly affect their risk either. 
The presence of family ownership as represented by concentration of ownership in the largest share percentage is not significantly related to risk, indicating that principal-principal conflict does not adversely affect Malaysian SMEs. Firm size and firm age both are not significantly related to SME risk, providing some hope for smaller, younger businesses trying to convince finance providers to invest in them. Owner age is significantly related to the probability of survival model 1, however it does not significantly relate to any of the other risk measures. The identification of significant relationships between capital structure with SME risk is relevant to lenders and can assist them in pricing their loans to SMEs. The finding that neither firm size nor age are not statistically significantly correlated with SME risk has implications for loan terms and bargaining. 
The research concludes that PP beta, used in conjunction with a probability of survival model provides the most adequate measure of risk for unlisted SMEs. Combined with the results from the regression, this research challenges some long-standing assumptions held regarding the relationship between SME characteristics and risks in the hopes that the findings will influence policy makers and finance providers to give better financial and development support to SMEs.

year: 2018

title: A Relationships Framework for Organisational Responsiveness to Te Tiriti/Treaty of Waitangi in the Work of Groups and Organisations in the Community and the Public Sector of Aotearoa New Zealand

authors: Spelman, Anthony Cyril

subjects: Organisation Development

abstract: This thesis is focussed on the development and implementation of a Relationships Framework based on Te Tiriti/Treaty of Waitangi.  The Framework has been designed to enable working together between Tangata Whenua and Tangata Tiriti in the community and Public Sector in Aotearoa New Zealand.  Its development is explored and its implementation critiqued.  Within that Framework, an original organisation development tool based on a Tiriti/Treaty two-worldview approach is examined in terms of its potential to facilitate change in the operation and management of public life in Aotearoa New Zealand.
My aim is to establish an effective approach for working with worldview difference in the context of Tiriti/Treaty of Waitangi relationships and their implications.  I have a belief that Tangata Whenua are currently excluded from participating in processes that govern public life due to the dominance of Tangata Tiriti worldviews.  Therefore I am committed to making a contribution to a change in this dynamic so that Tangata Whenua views are not only heard but form an integral part of how the infrastructure of our public life is developed and managed. 
The Tiriti/Treaty of Waitangi Relationships Framework [The Framework] presented in the thesis is critiqued in two ways: i) through an examination of the concepts that inform it, and ii) by exploring six examples of its operation and further development in the community and public sector in Aotearoa New Zealand.  The Framework and the Tiriti/Treaty Two-worldview approach used to inform it has worked effectively in a variety of settings.  Through my research I show that organisation development of this type is complex.  It appears that there need be no fixed starting point in the development process within an organisation.  However all key elements of that process must eventually be addressed if effective relationships are to be achieved and the resulting organisational change is to be sustained.  Commitment to organisation development of this type is therefore long-term and requires a commitment to leading and supporting change in behaviour, systems and processes, and structures.

text: A Relationships Framework for Organisational Responsiveness to Te Tiriti/Treaty of Waitangi in the Work of Groups and Organisations in the Community and the Public Sector of Aotearoa New Zealand This thesis is focussed on the development and implementation of a Relationships Framework based on Te Tiriti/Treaty of Waitangi.  The Framework has been designed to enable working together between Tangata Whenua and Tangata Tiriti in the community and Public Sector in Aotearoa New Zealand.  Its development is explored and its implementation critiqued.  Within that Framework, an original organisation development tool based on a Tiriti/Treaty two-worldview approach is examined in terms of its potential to facilitate change in the operation and management of public life in Aotearoa New Zealand.
My aim is to establish an effective approach for working with worldview difference in the context of Tiriti/Treaty of Waitangi relationships and their implications.  I have a belief that Tangata Whenua are currently excluded from participating in processes that govern public life due to the dominance of Tangata Tiriti worldviews.  Therefore I am committed to making a contribution to a change in this dynamic so that Tangata Whenua views are not only heard but form an integral part of how the infrastructure of our public life is developed and managed. 
The Tiriti/Treaty of Waitangi Relationships Framework [The Framework] presented in the thesis is critiqued in two ways: i) through an examination of the concepts that inform it, and ii) by exploring six examples of its operation and further development in the community and public sector in Aotearoa New Zealand.  The Framework and the Tiriti/Treaty Two-worldview approach used to inform it has worked effectively in a variety of settings.  Through my research I show that organisation development of this type is complex.  It appears that there need be no fixed starting point in the development process within an organisation.  However all key elements of that process must eventually be addressed if effective relationships are to be achieved and the resulting organisational change is to be sustained.  Commitment to organisation development of this type is therefore long-term and requires a commitment to leading and supporting change in behaviour, systems and processes, and structures.

year: 2013