Journal of Foresight and Health Governance

Decision-making is one of the most important managerial functions in public organizations, and its quality has a direct impact on efficiency, justice, and the realization of the public interest. Despite the importance of rationality in decision-making, many prevailing management models are based primarily on purely instrumental and empirical approaches and pay limited attention to value-based and guidance-oriented foundations. In this context, the teachings of the Holy Qur’an, as one of the major epistemic sources in Islamic thought, have considerable potential to explain a rational model of decision-making within managerial systems. Accordingly, the present study aims to design a model of rational decision-making in public organizations based on the teachings of the Holy Qur’an. This study adopted a qualitative approach within an interpretive paradigm. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data collected. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews as well as document and text analysis, including the Holy Qur’an, Qur’anic exegeses, and scholarly sources. To validate the research model, the criteria of credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability were applied. The findings revealed four overarching themes and twelve organizing themes. The results showed that the model of rational decision-making in public organizations rests on four overarching themes: rational governance grounded in divine guidance, ethics-centered managerial decision-making, people-centeredness and social responsibility in governance, and foresight and sustainability in management and implementation. The findings suggest that the proposed model can improve the quality of decision-making, strengthen accountability, uphold justice, and enhance efficiency in public organizations, and can serve as both a theoretical and practical framework in public administration.

The visualization of mental disorders in cinema plays a major role in shaping public attitudes toward mental health, psychiatric patients, and treatment institutions. Because media texts actively construct meaning rather than neutrally reflecting reality, cinematic portrayals can either reproduce stigma or challenge it. This qualitative study analyzes the representation of mental disorders in three films by Iranian filmmaker Fereydoun Jeyrani—Ghermez (1998), Park Way (2006), and Khefeghi (2016)—using Stuart Hall’s theory of representation, John Fiske’s multi-level communication model, and Roland Barthes’ semiotics. The analysis indicates a gradual shift from individualized, violence-centered depictions toward more structurally complex portrayals that increasingly highlight gendered power relations, social class dynamics, and institutional labeling processes. However, the recurring emphasis on tragic and violent outcomes still risks reinforcing stigma and fear-based interpretations of mental illness. The paper underscores the need to strengthen health communication discourse and encourage more responsible mental health portrayals in Iranian cinema.

This study aimed to identify and prioritize sports policies that contribute to national security development. Using a sequential exploratory mixed-methods design, the research integrated constructivist grounded theory with the TOPSIS multi-criteria decision-making technique. In the qualitative phase, 16 experts from sport governance, national security institutions, and academia were selected through purposive and snowball sampling. Semi-structured interviews were analyzed using focused coding, leading to the identification of 32 policy actions grouped into eight strategic themes: roadmap design, inter-sectoral coordination, infrastructure development, support for specific groups, international engagement, alliance-building, sport promotion, and cultural development and support. In the quantitative phase, these policies were prioritized through TOPSIS based on expert weighting. Results indicated that “improving the country’s international image” ranked first, followed by “strategic policymaking and training,” and “strengthening diplomatic relations.” Findings highlight that soft power-oriented and sport diplomacy-based policies exert the greatest perceived impact on national security. The study provides a structured decision-making framework enabling policymakers to allocate resources more strategically. By moving beyond descriptive analysis of sport-security relationships, this research contributes a prescriptive and operational roadmap for leveraging sport as an instrument of national resilience and geopolitical positioning.

This study developed a sustainable development model for sport tourism in Qeshm Island by framing sport tourism as a future-oriented public health strategy that can generate economic benefits while supporting active lifestyles and environmental stewardship. A sequential exploratory mixed-methods design was employed. In the qualitative phase, 23 semi-structured interviews with experts in sport management, tourism, business, and environmental management were analyzed using thematic analysis, resulting in 50 indicators organized into 10 components and five dimensions: natural and environmental resources, infrastructure and services, economic factors, socio-cultural factors, and management and governance. In the quantitative phase, 560 stakeholders of sport tourism development in Qeshm were surveyed using a researcher-made questionnaire with confirmed validity and reliability. Descriptive findings showed that, except for natural and environmental resources (M = 3.10), other dimensions were below the desired midpoint: infrastructure and services (M = 2.15), economic factors (M = 2.05), socio-cultural factors (M = 2.43), and management and governance (M = 1.78). Structural equation modeling indicated that all five dimensions significantly and positively predicted sustainable sport tourism development, with the strongest effects for management and governance (β = 0.35) and infrastructure and services (β = 0.30). Model fit indices supported acceptable fit. The model provides an operational roadmap for policy and planning to convert Qeshm’s natural potential into sustainable, health-supportive sport tourism outcomes.

Professional football has transformed into a global entertainment industry characterized by multi-sided revenues (broadcast/media, sponsorship, matchday, and digital), intense labor and talent markets, and expanding financial governance. Yet its financial future cannot be inferred from any single driver because revenue growth is persistently challenged by structural cost inflation, governance risk, and uneven market power across leagues and clubs. This study systematically reviews and quantitatively meta-synthesizes peer-reviewed evidence (2020–2026, plus key conceptual frameworks) to identify high-confidence trends and plausible scenarios for global football finance through 2030, focusing on (i) regulated financial governance, (ii) structural cost inflation and soft budget constraints, (iii) competitive balance and market stratification, (iv) women’s football commercialization and sustainability, and (v) transfer-market scaling and volatility. Because the evidence base is methodologically heterogeneous—spanning meta-analysis, panel econometrics, league-level concentration studies, club financial accounts analysis, and transfer-market modeling a single pooled-effect meta-analysis was not feasible. Instead, we integrated meta-analytic evidence on UEFA financial regulation outcomes with convergent quantitative results from large-sample econometric and multi-league studies. Across domains, five consistent signals emerge. First, revenue resilience depends heavily on diversification; clubs with broader revenue mixes appear less exposed to shocks. Second, cost inflation remains structurally embedded, as competitive incentives channel incremental revenues into wages and transfers, consistent with soft budget constraint dynamics. Third, financial regulation (notably UEFA’s FFP) is more reliably associated with improvements in profitability-related outcomes than with deep sustainability measures such as solvency. Fourth, competitive balance risks may increase in several contexts after regulation, suggesting stratification effects when rules interact with pre-existing inequality. Fifth, women’s football and transfers are major growth frontiers but carry sustainability risk: women’s clubs may sustain losses and rising debt despite revenue momentum, while transfer markets exhibit systematic pricing determinants yet remain vulnerable to volatility under shocks and tightening constraints. Overall, the evidence supports a “regulated growth under inflationary cost pressure” outlook for football finance through 2030, emphasizing the need for governance designs that address both financial discipline and distributional competitive effects.