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The urban form of cities plays a key role in achieving high-quality urban environments. Recently, Form-Based Code has been gaining popularity and has become a travelling and universal concept. This paper explores the adaptability of FBC as a universal concept to the local socio-cultural context by analysing the Wadi Hanifa Urban Code. Three methods were used to triangulate the sources of data include review of policy documents, semi-structured interviews, and thematic analysis. This paper identifies four key socio-cultural factors that play a significant role in urban and social context of Riyadh: privacy, safety and security, sociability, and architectural character. They play a key role in forming the code at multiple layers, including the transect zoning, regulating plan, and code standards. The process of drafting the code was conducted through a top-down approach with no 'public engagement' process, which represents the planning culture and practices in Saudi Arabia. Hence, the adaptation of FBC to the socio-cultural context relied on municipal stakeholders' and experts' opinions during workshops and charrettes. However, the paper shows that a hybrid approach to seek public feedback was practiced through the Code Studio, which functioned as a testing phase at a later stage of the code development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper forecasts the response of Islamic banks' dynamics (size, profitability, nonperforming financing, and stability) to the COVID-19 pandemic over the period ranging from 2019Q4 to 2021Q4. Nine jurisdictions are considered based on their Islamic banks' systemic importance, namely Bahrain, Brunei, Indonesia, Kuwait, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and UAE. Using the bivariate VARX model, our forecasting exercise shows that the Islamic banks' response to the COVID-19 pandemic is not uniform across jurisdictions. While the Islamic banks' dynamics in Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Kuwait are less likely to be impaired, Bahrain, Brunei, Malaysia, Pakistan, and Turkey are expected to be relatively more affected especially in terms of their size growth. Saudi Arabia will continue leading the growth momentum of the global Islamic banking sector, and its Islamic banks' assets are expected to reach at least $185.4 billion by the end of the fourth quarter of 2021. This paper recommends a prioritization approach for the implementation of the policy measures by the jurisdictions based on their banks-specific responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of financial technologies (FinTech) by financial market participants fostered a discussion among public authorities on the use technologies for regulatory (RegTech) and supervisory (SupTech) purposes. This paper discusses the application of innovative technologies to crisis resolution (ResTech) and sets out its potential scope of application. ResTech is the application of technologies: i) to support the work of resolution authorities in developing resolution plans and in resolving financial firms; and ii) to allow financial firms to achieve regulatory compliance and better risk management in a more effective and automated manner. This paper also argues that the features and market dynamics of resolution differ from those of RegTech and SupTech: there is little market incentive for the private sector to foster innovation in the area of crisis resolution. The lack of private sector incentives to invest in R&D on how to resolve a firm's crisis leaves the task to resolution authorities. In addition, resolution-technologies may support the identification of optimal liquidation strategy for small and medium-sized financial firms, by ensuring the maximisation of creditors' proceeds out of the insolvency estate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research in the marketing literature has explored the use of artificial intelligence in harnessing consumer information, providing researchers and businesses with strategic insights. However, despite the efforts of individual researchers, this knowledge regarding the use of artificial intelligence is still sparse. We conducted a systematic review and a network analysis to address this gap, including the most relevant marketing journals based on the SCImago Journal and Country Rank (Q1 n = 30), resulting in 672 initially screened articles. The final sample of our analysis was composed of 74 papers. As a result, we present three main clusters that emerged from the data (brand role, components of interaction, and results of interaction). The paper contributes to the literature showing the main theoretical topics and variables exploring AI approaches and the most used marketing methods. We also discuss avenues for future research that are not currently being explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes patterns of long-term economic performance in all five Central Asian countries. We first look at sources of economic growth based on a simple growth accounting exercise. Our findings show that under the period of study total factor productivity growth rates were modest ranging from 1.7% for Kazakhstan, 1.4% for Uzbekistan, and 0.8% for Tajikistan and Turkmenistan to—0.4% for the Kyrgyz Republic. The second part of the paper is connected with exploring productivity level analysis across all Central Asian countries by decomposing differences in output per worker into differences in capital intensity and productivity. Results reflect different levels of productivity performance in the region compared with Japan and South Korea as frontier economies for the analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to the journal is presented in which the editor discusses an article on innovation and sustainability.

Criticizes papers written by Sue Nathanson Elkind and Alice Abarbanel which deal with problems of ethics in the field of psychoanalysis. Implications for the psychoanalytic theory.

With the introduction of IATA's New Distribution Capability (NDC), airlines will no longer be limited to discrete fare classes for their fare product distribution but could show fare quotes from continuous ranges to booking requests. NDC will also allow airlines to present different fare quotes to passengers from different demand segments as identified by the airline. In theory, airlines can better extract passenger willingness to pay, and thus, see gains in revenue, by offering segmented continuous fare quotes to different passengers requesting to book. This paper describes the revenue management (RM) methods for Segmented Continuous Pricing and examines their potential effects on airlines' revenue through simulations in the Passenger Origin–Destination Simulator (PODS). We describe a class-based algorithm for continuous pricing, a straightforward extension from the traditional methods used with existing RM systems. Our simulation results show that in a calibrated scenario in which only one airline adopts Segmented Continuous Pricing and has an 80% accuracy in identifying business versus leisure passenger booking requests, the first-mover airline can see as much as a 17% revenue gain, at the expense of competitors. The revenue gains come primarily from the leisure passenger segment by offering lower fares than competitors closer to departure. The first-mover airline loses bookings but does not see losses in revenue from the business passenger segment. We also explore potential response strategies by the competing airlines. We discover that competitors can reverse the first-mover's revenue gain by removing their fare restrictions while still using traditional RM methods. We conclude that although adopting Segmented Continuous Pricing is promising in theory, its gains in practice will depend heavily on the competitive situation and the responses made by competing airlines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hotel pricing discussions seem to be increasingly dominated by automated revenue management and pricing systems without considering human interaction. Using grounded theory, this paper foregrounds the voice of twenty managers and exposes the complexities and realities of their involvement in price decision-making. A hybrid price decision-making process was discovered where the hotel general manager remains in control despite automation, due to their modus operandi to control the performance of their hotel by using their local market and customer knowledge in the pricing process. This indicates that for revenue management at hotel unit level there is an often-unseen gap between theory and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we develop a stochastic optimization model to evaluate tradeoffs and effects of strategic variables on storage and logistics costs in managing an ethanol supply chain. Specific objectives include: (1) to develop a model of the ethanol supply chain incorporating stochastic variables capturing uncertainties that ethanol merchandisers manage; (2) to evaluate effects of short- and long-term decisions such as feedstock purchase, when to ship, rail car strategies, and transit time and: (3) to analyze impacts of random variables and strategies on supply chain costs. The model maximizes profit from operation of the supply chain subject to decisions on corn feedstock procurement, ethanol production, ethanol shipments, corn and ethanol inventory levels, and rail car transit time and number of rail cars needed for the ethanol to be shipped. A representative case study in North Dakota ethanol firm is used for illustration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite its potential, the application of dynamic pricing (DP) remains the exception rather than the rule in car parks across Europe. This paper conceptualizes DP as a practice and leverages mechanisms of practice diffusion and organizational implementation to explain its slow diffusion. Among European car park operators the lack of technical and cultural fit of DP is identified as one of the main reasons for the slow diffusion process. It appears that more time is needed for an acceleration of the diffusion process as data management improves and prevalence of increasing digital solutions in a rather analogue industry become more accepted. As parking customers will eventually become more susceptible to digital solutions, more market participants are likely to adopt DP as the driving pricing scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigated the relationship between sports team reputation and team identification (ID) when team reputation was operationalized at the dimension level and measured using reflective indicators. The Spectator-based Sports Team Reputation (Jang et al., Int J Sports Market Sponsorship 16(3):52–72, 2015) was modified and used to collect data from 520 fans of five European football league champions (i.e., Barcelona, Manchester City, Juventus, Bayern Munich, and Paris Saint-Germain) during the 2018–2019 season. Results of the structural equation modeling (SEM) showed five dimensions of SSTR (i.e., performance, spectator-orientation, social responsibility, tradition, and management quality) were significantly and positively related to ID. In addition, the results of the Fuzzy Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) method showed that high ID exists under two SSTR dimensions complex configuration, while absent under three complex configurations. Theoretically, the results provide a deeper understanding of the differential impact of spectator-based team reputation dimensions on fans' team identification. Managerially, sports teams can use the scale as a diagnostic tool to measure their reputation from their fans' perspective and strategically allocate their resources on the important dimensions and configurations of SSTR to improve fans' ID. This research applied an innovative analysis approach to reveal necessary and sufficient conditions when conventional methods such as SEM have limited power. This paper highlights a valuable insight on how ID is formed through the SSTR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to experimentally examine stakeholder punishments in response to poor CSR performance communicated through either internal or external channels. Across two experiments, we find that receiving negative CSR information communicated through internal channels (CSR reports) or external channels (news articles) causes individuals to punish a firm (less investment, lower employment interest, buy less, post negative comments on social media). Furthermore, we find sensitivity to a conflict of information from internal and external channels, which increased Calls to Action on social media. This is a concern for firms because such social media posts can elicit further punishments from stakeholders and inflict reputational costs on the firm. The findings of our studies suggest that firms should accurately report CSR performance, especially if external channels are likely to communicate negative CSR information regarding the firm because such conflicting information can elicit a strong online backlash. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Default prediction is the primary goal of credit risk management. This problem has long been tackled using well-established statistical classification models. Still, nowadays, the availability of large datasets and cheap software implementations makes it possible to employ machine learning techniques. This paper uses a large sample of small Italian companies to compare the performance of various machine learning classifiers and a more traditional logistic regression approach. In particular, we perform feature selection, use the algorithms for default prediction, evaluate their accuracy, and find a more suitable threshold as a function of sensitivity and specificity. Our outcomes suggest that machine learning is slightly better than logistic regression. However, the relatively small performance gain is insufficient to conclude that classical statistical classifiers should be abandoned, as they are characterized by more straightforward interpretation and implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we explore the relationship between regional powers and security norms by examining the influence of the liberal international order (LIO) on regional security dynamics in East Asia. In examining the influence of the LIO on East Asian nonproliferation norms, the USA and its partner nations have displayed a great deal of inconsistency regarding nuclear nonproliferation. We contend that this inconsistency offers opportunities for regional powers like China to reinforce or contest expectations associated with international nuclear norms. Often perceived as a stable pillar of the international order, variations in nuclear nonproliferation norms from the global to those in East Asia suggest a need to reconsider the influence and nature of the ILO on regional orders more broadly. Due to the role regional powers play in this relationship between the global and regional levels, this research also reinforces the continued importance of the Regional Powers Research Program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a revised and decentred perspective on regional power behaviour in world politics. Our revisionist approach departs from existing accounts by incorporating three key elements. First, in focusing attention on the regional–global nexus within which the international relations of regional powers have been conducted, demonstrating how regions can be mobilised as part of a status-seeking strategy at the global level. Second, examining this nexus historically: historical trajectories are vital sites of learning about the long-standing ambitions and policies of regional powers. Third, drawing on insights from critical geopolitics in highlighting the fluid and socially constructed nature of regions. We illustrate the interdependence of regional strategies and global outlooks through the cases of India and Iran, states in which we find parallels and shared insights demonstrating the value of a revisionist approach to analysing regional power behaviour, especially as their rise and growing capabilities inform a changing world order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we quantify the economic gain from accounting for departures from normality for the mean-variance (MV) investor. We provide two models that account for the key empirical regularities of financial returns: stochastic volatility, asymmetric returns, heavy tails and tail dependence. We show that accounting for departures from normality leads to significant gains in expected utility commensurate with or exceeding typical active management fees. The majority of the uplift in expected utility derives from accounting for stochastic volatility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How and to what extent does far-right populism impact the nation-specific implementation of neoliberal policymaking? While scholarship convincingly demonstrated the importance of ideas and the political agents propagating neoliberal ideas in policy paradigmatic shifts, there is little investigation of the role that far-right populists play in economic policy change. Exploring the ideational power and impact of far-right populism in neoliberal policymaking provides an important insight into how neoliberal political economies enact nationalist cultural exclusion. The paper traces the process through which the Austrian Freedom Party's ideational trajectory evolved in post-war Austria and how it impacted the political mainstream. The analysis draws from the party's discourse in manifestos, interviews, and other publications in the period 1956–2006. The results show how the specific far-right populist actor, the Austrian Freedom Party, played a significant role in rendering neoliberal ideas viable as policy option early on and ultimately constructing the neoliberal exclusionary state. By empirically showcasing how political actors from the fringes of the political spectrum can impact economic policy change, this presents an important contribution to the study of paradigm shifts, which predominantly focused on major national political actors. In light of the recent rise of far-right populism in Europe and beyond, this raises important questions for the continuity and change of the global paradigmatic dominance of neoliberalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growth model (GM) programme in comparative and international political economy attempts to do three things. First, it encourages a dialogue between international and comparative political economy research through creating a shared theoretical framework that moves beyond the methodological and ontological nationalism of traditional comparative research. Second, it draws upon post-Keynesian macroeconomics to emphasise the importance of domestic demand, credit debt, and macro-financial regimes in shaping the politics of advanced capitalism. Third, it draws attention to the dynamics of political conflict, coalition building and social agency in shaping country-specific GMs. Each paper in this special issue either directly or indirectly touches on these different aspects of the nascent GM research programme. But they do so with a particular focus on the comparative political economy of Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What role do domestic institutional and structural factors play in the emergence of national macroprudential regimes? So far, the literature on macroprudential policy has mainly focused on transnational processes of knowledge production. We therefore still know very little about what causes the observed differences in macroprudential regimes at a country level. The paper addresses this issue by way of an examination of housing sector related macroprudential policies in the UK and Germany. It finds that part of the reason for the observed differences is to be found in the fact that macroprudential authorities in the two countries tend to construct the intermediate goals of their macroprudential interventions in somewhat different ways, with the UK paying much greater attention to broader macroeconomic outcomes. These differences themselves, however, can only be properly understood in relation to the wider institutional and structural context (including different types of growth models) within the two countries, which create different links between their housing sectors and the real economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Germany's excessive current account surpluses mirror domestic problems. They are rooted in inequality and a weak home market, creating an overdependence on exports. Why, then, are policymakers so reluctant to reduce them? This paper argues that a contributing factor is the public misrepresentation of surpluses' domestic costs. Imbalances are narrated as distributional conflicts between countries, not within them; and bilateral trade is framed as a competition, where surplus countries win. The analysis reconstructs stakeholders' positions and discursive strategies through media narratives and Bundestag debates, using an original dataset of public statements. It finds evidence for a systematic bias disregarding the domestic losers of surpluses. Whenever imbalances are discussed, the triggering event is outside criticism, mainly from the European Commission and the US. The ensuing debate follows an 'us versus them' logic, where foreign critics clash with domestic defenders—mainly the government and export-sector organisations. The success narrative and identitarian discourse about an 'export nation' limits left-wing actors' room to move beyond incremental criticism. The analysis finds an effect of European integration exacerbating imbalances. Germans fend off critics by an arena-shifting strategy: pointing out that exchange rates and trade are European-level prerogatives, disregarding internal policy levers for rebalancing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AI and other forms of automation are causing a shift into a more capital-intensive form of capitalism. Many scholars have suggested that we can best understand this process as the cost-efficient substitution of labour by capital in routine tasks based on relative factor costs. However, this model, which has cast firms as endlessly chasing the productivity frontier, has not paid sufficient attention to cross-national divergences in technological changes. This paper builds a comparative historical case study tracing the divergent introduction of credit scoring in British and German bank branches to argue that the introduction of credit scoring was a result of a policy-led process in both countries. Increased liberalisation of financial market institutions benefitted the rise of market-led banking which fundamentally changed the business model of banks resulting in a devaluation of the services provided by branch managers. This case suggests we need to think about the role of politics and policy within our, often deterministic, models of labour-saving technological change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Experiential marketing (XM)—a form of marketing that uses branded experiences as a tool to influence consumers—has become one of the dominant tools within the marketing world. Despite this, it is poorly understood by both sides of the academic and practitioner dyad. What appears to be missing is a holistic conceptualisation of XM that explains not only its antecedent conditions and resulting outcomes but also the factors that may mediate and moderate those outcomes. This paper presents a Delphi study that seeks to provide such a conceptualisation. Across three phases, a panel of XM experts from academia and industry practice was recruited to establish a robust and holistic conceptualisation of XM as well as its success factors, consequences, psychological mechanisms, and boundary conditions. The current findings identify XM as a marketing strategy that uses the subjective, elaborative nature of experience to positively influence the salience of a brand in the mind of participants. The findings suggest that the 'depth of immersion' in the experience on three levels (experiential, brand, and conceptual) is an important underlying mechanism while the impact is moderated by the ability and motivation to become immersed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Distinctive brand assets, such as logos, fonts, and jingles, help strengthen the link between a brand and its marketing communications, which is pivotal to anchoring any message to the right mental structures of category buyers. However, budget and time constraints mean that brand managers can only effectively build and own a limited number of assets, heightening the need for guidance on selecting the most valuable ones to invest in. The only exhaustive paper on the topic revealed that logos, logotypes, and characters offer the best opportunities for ownership in FMCG categories. We extend these findings to the automotive industry, a first in a high-involvement product category, and replicate the Competitive Intensity formula used in this contribution to enable comparison. Results of testing 44, in-market and de-branded assets show that logo is the most uniquely ownable asset type. Fonts, slogans, and colours all emerge as having Low Uniqueness Concentration. The dispersion of competitive intensity within asset types varies in line with their uniqueness concentration, raising the importance of creative execution and consistent usage to develop a sufficiently high level of unique ownership. Finally, we observed neither gender nor generational differences in the uniqueness scores, nor in the dispersion of competitive intensity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the institutional determinants of insurance demand in Africa. We used a panel of 42 countries over the period 1996–2017. A system GMM approach was used for the estimations. Consistent with previous results, we find that institutional quality has positive and significant effects on insurance penetration in Africa. Specifically, regulatory quality, rule of law, control of corruption, political stability and absence of violence, and government effectiveness are the five institutional quality indicators that have positive and significant effects on the demand for total insurance and life insurance. However, only regulatory quality, control of corruption and government effectiveness are positively associated with non-life insurance demand. This indicates that governments should improve the business environment and strengthen the political environment to boost insurance development in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a text mining analysis to study the development of sustainable investing in the European and US insurance industry as reflected in their public reports from 2013 to 2018. The sample comprises 1215 annual, sustainability- and investment-related documents of 77 firms. We develop a dictionary with principles, criteria and terminologies as well as strategies, and differentiate between the quality of reports. Our results show that the number of firms referring to as well as the word count related to sustainable investing substantially increase over the sample period, and that insurers reporting about sustainable investing are on average significantly larger. We also find that European insurers report much more extensively on their sustainable investment practices as compared to US insurers in our sample. Most relevant in 2018 are references to general ESG criteria, followed by responsible investment and the Sustainable Development Goals. Top strategies mentioned were ESG integration and impact investing, whereby we observe that insurers evolve from mentioning one single towards multiple strategies over time. Finally, a regression analysis does not show a value-effect of sustainable investment-related keywords in reporting on Tobin's Q, which may be due to the rather long-term investment perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper applies loan-level information from Paycheck Protection Program loans to analyze the coverage of this extraordinary lending program. Most loans were intended to be forgiven making them effectively grants. We show that loans went to a large share of small businesses across most industries in the US, especially to industries that were most negatively impacted by COVID-19 stay-at-home orders. We geocode the loans and then identify that 2021 loans were more concentrated in low- and moderate-income communities, along with census tracts where minority residents are a majority of the population. The growth of nonemployer loans and fintech lending in the program were key components of the broadened reach of the program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Characteristics of real estate agents and brokerage firms have been shown to impact home sales prices. This paper extends the literature by exploring the heterogeneous effects of these brokerage characteristics under different market conditions and market pricing segments. Using the Multiple Listing Service of Chatham County, Georgia, this study finds that agent and firm characteristics are more impactful in cold markets, when homes are presumably more difficult to sell, and for lower priced homes, which are more likely to be purchased and sold by younger and/or less experienced homebuyers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fiscal austerity is a policy characteristic of governments that adhere to conservative economic ideologies. In recent decades, however, especially after the 2009 Eurozone Crisis, leftist and left-centre coalition governments have also adopted austerity policies. While it is documented that fiscal austerity incurs electoral costs upon incumbent governments and these costs depend on their partisanship, whether and how the partisanship of the incumbent government affects the pattern of protest movements remains unknown. In this paper, I hypothesized that fiscal austerity by leftist governments, through adding a 'premium' to public grievances and demining citizens' utility of electoral participation, results in a higher likelihood of protest movements than fiscal austerity implemented by right-dominant governments. I supported this hypothesis by analysing panel data for 37 developed countries between 1973 and 2015. Besides, the partisan-pronounced effects on the protest likelihood are observed particularly for non-violent protests such as demonstrations and strikes and for the post-2000 era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the turn of the century, two developments have radically changed the relationship between West Africa and the European Union and the United States. First, the terrorist attacks on the US in 2001 pushed the global fight against terrorism to the top of the international agenda. Second, migration from Africa turned migration into one of the hottest issues in European politics. The paper asks what have been the consequences of the remarkable increase in Western attention to the region. The first argument states that the lack of territorial control has been an asset for the governments in Mali, Niger, and Chad because it led to huge inflows of economic and military support. The link between limited statehood and the conspicuous inflow of resources reflected a coincidence of interests between the elites in the three African countries and the interests of the West, meaning the United States and Europe. The second argument states that inflows propped up the three Sahel governments and their undemocratic rule, thereby underpinning their inclination to avoid domestic reforms. The coincidence of interests in regime survival and the interests of the US and the EU in security undermined the goals of the West in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper exploits a sharp regression discontinuity design (RDD) to causally identify the impact of the league 'split' on Scottish Premier League (SPL) club revenues. The data used are drawn from 21 completed seasons in which the institutional arrangement has been in place in Scotland's elite tier of professional soccer. The empirical analysis fails to detect strong or persuasive statistical evidence that the league design substantially impacts the revenue distribution of the participating clubs. Given the league design is found to be close to financially-neutral for the clubs most directly affected by the 'split', it is not viewed as a catalyst in driving financial inequality within the league. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the level of corporate governance quality (CGQ) of firms in sub-Saharan Africa and the factors that determine this CGQ as a build-up of the study of Waweru (Waweru, Managerial Auditing Journal 29:455–485, 2014). The study's sample comprises 104 companies listed on the respective stock markets of nine sub-Saharan African countries. The data are collected from annual reports from 2007 to 2019, a total of 1108 firm-year observations. Both static and dynamic panel data models are used in the analyses. The study established that the CGQ of firms in Sub-Saharan African capital markets is weak thus disputing the findings of Waweru (Waweru, Managerial Auditing Journal 29:455–485, 2014). The study also concludes that IFRS adoption, asset tangibility, ownership concentration, audit quality, firm size and national regulatory quality are the most consistent predictors of CGQ of firms in sub-Saharan Africa. The other determinants of CGQ include listing tenure, business operating tenure, leverage, firm growth opportunities and macroeconomic misery index. The novelty of this study stems from its consideration of a larger cross-country panel dataset from sub-Saharan Africa to extend the work of Waweru (Waweru, Managerial Auditing Journal 29:455–485, 2014). Again, the study's introduction of the economic misery index and regulatory quality variables as determinants of CGQ extends the agency theory by demonstrating how macroeconomic factors and the quality of the national regulatory environment can influence governance at the firm level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reviews the fundamental indicators to provide a scientific production analysis of dividend decisions, focusing on corporate governance. The study is divided into three steps to conduct a structured review and a bibliometric analysis. First, the study employs the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses flow methodology and search strategy in the initial stage. Secondly, it uses the Scopus database search results to include the articles written in the English language only. Finally, the study includes performance analysis and employs VOSviewer software for science mapping. The findings indicate that themes addressed in prior research are the theories of dividend, corporate governance and dividend alliance, and the relationship between agency costs and dividend decisions. The findings further reveal that the articles on the relationship between internal corporate governance and dividend policy dominate the literature. In addition, the review shows that most studies examined the alliance of dividend policy with board size, board independence, and board gender diversity. The results give academicians and researchers insight into developing future research agendas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite being greatly progressive for more than 45 years covering even Muslim minority countries, the development of Islamic finance in some countries is not supported by well-established governance. This paper aims to empirically re-examine the effects of the governance components on Islamic finance in 45 Islamic finance-permitting countries. The study utilizes the dynamic panel GMM approach from the data spanning from 2012 to 2019. We find insignificant effect of regulation in Islamic finance in the region of developed countries, Muslim minority countries, and other Arab countries. We also find that corporate governance is not statistically significant in MENA and non-Asian countries. These results reinforce the need for a new type of regulation based on product requirements, policies, and procedures. Thus, the governance indicators can be understood by the wider world and assist in gaining more acceptance for the Islamic finance industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 2010 and 2019, five Eurozone governments in economic difficulty received assistance from international lenders on condition that certain policies specified in the Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) were implemented. To what extent were those conditions implemented? After conditionality, to what extent have governments rolled back changes pursued under external constraint? Do we find variation across governments regarding implementation and reversals, and if so, why?. This paper presents a database allowing the answers to those questions, the Data Base on EcoNomic Adjustment Policies (ENAP) database. We codified all policies and reforms included in the MoU's, and whether those were subsequently fully or partially implemented. We also codified all decisions taken by bailed out countries since the beginning of the financial crisis and verified whether those had been kept or fully or partially reversed until December 2019. For each condition or policy, a series of explanatory variables were coded: policy sector, type of reform, timing and type of reversal, origin of reversal and number of veto players. The ENAP shows that in all countries, MoU's were largely implemented and are resilient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the 'cynical scientist' as a figure in British animal science discourse that developed in relation to the nineteenth-century emergence of the 'sceptical scientist'. Here, efforts by scientists to demarcate their profession's territory led to religious backlash against an alleged 'divorce' of British science from Christian morality. Animal experimentation became embroiled in this controversy through antivivisectionists' conviction that animal research was symptomatic of scientific scepticism and Continental atheism's malign influence. Accusations of cynicism ultimately forced British scientists to accept legal regulation following the 1875 Royal Commission on Vivisection. British scientists were, however, able to utilise their political leverage and credibility as experts to favourably influence licensing and inspection. We suggest that efforts to silence public claims of scientific cynicism may have enabled 'cynical scientists' to remain invisible and that this was marked by privilege and power, not marginality. Nevertheless, we argue that regulation and reforms have also worked to internalise within British animal science the notion that scientific cynicism must be combatted through proper governance and internal discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tracks the regulation of the border crossings of pigs and people in and out of Denmark. By bringing together pig and human unborn life, fully fledged bodies, and genomes, I direct analytical attention to the governance of entangled living things. Where existing scholarship has unravelled how central animal-based institutions build up the nation, I investigate how pig–human entanglements at biological, spatial, and genomic margins make the nation. First, I examine how pig breeding and human reproductive policies regulate the biological 'borders' through which pigs and humans may enter the Danish nation. Second, I scrutinise how wild boar fences and human immigration policies regulate the entrance of pigs and human migrants at the Danish geographical borders. Third, I examine how scientific, political, and financial investments into precision medicine shape the genomic 'borders' regulating the containment and movement of pig and human genomes. I argue that the intertwined processes of selection and care are at the centre of administering the entry points to Denmark. In the Danish context, selecting pig and human lives at these various 'borders' is conceptually linked to securing universal care and a high level of equality for humans already belonging within the nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines if universities in the UK mediate the impacts of spatial inequalities on earnings disparities among similar graduates and provides new evidence on the persistent income inequality at the neighbourhood level, using the Destination of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE) survey data on the population of individuals graduating from universities in 2012/13. The results suggest that graduates from neighbourhoods with the highest university participation rate, on average, have higher earnings than those from the lowest-participation neighbourhoods, holding demographic features and university-related factors constant. The earnings gap by the neighbourhood quality remains substantial so that males from the lowest-participation neighbourhoods with a degree from the Russell Group barely earn higher incomes than their peers from the highest-participation areas who attended a less prestigious university. These results imply that universities in the UK do not fully level the playing field in terms of earnings disparities among graduates from different neighbourhoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empirical research has explored the relationship between professors and the academic capitalist regime. Nevertheless, this literature has mainly focused on fields heavily engaged with industry at top-ranked research universities in English-speaking countries. In this paper, we analyze the link between faculty promotion policy and professors as agents who introduce (or resist) the academic capitalist regime in the Colombian context. In order to cover heterogeneity among professors and higher education institutions, we consider two dissimilar academic departments at one public university. This multicase study examines how Colombian professors translate faculty promotion policy into actions on both intra- and inter-department levels. The findings indicate that the unique context of each academic department fostered or hindered professors in moving toward "the ideal professor," as promoted by the analyzed policy. In terms of academic capitalism, regardless of the academic department, professors did not internalize the inclusion of profit motive as part of their research activities. However, some professors were guided by prestige behavior through (but not limited to) the academic journal publishing market. This article concludes by highlighting the need to incorporate prestige behavior as part of the theory of academic capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is a general understanding that higher education has characteristics of an "experience good" because the quality cannot be determined before receiving the service, which induces information asymmetry. In response to reducing the asymmetry, external assessment tools like international accreditations have emerged in higher education, which is especially evident in the field of business and management research. Quality is an integral part of reputation and legitimisation, so business schools actively engage in the accreditation race. In order to ensure legitimacy in the higher education market, business schools pay special attention to their intellectual output. It is reflected in the development of academic policies designed to encourage publication activities. It is pivotal to analyse how international accreditations contribute to the research performance and impact of business schools. The results of the study provide evidence that AACSB accreditation contributes to the research performance, however, it does not contribute to increasing the impact of the papers. Since the signalling research-based reputation is important for business schools, the study places attention on further examination of determinants of impactful research as international accreditation only determines the growth of quantity not the quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the heated debates on the implementation and its massive impact on the lives of Filipino people, only a dearth of research has been conducted to investigate the free college education project of the Duterte administration. Informed by corpus-based investigation of discourse, this paper critically compares news articles on the free college tuition discourse written by seven English online newspapers in the Philippines. The findings revealed that thematizing key public officials in the Manila Times, Philippine Daily Inquirer, and Philippine Star highlighted strong regard on the sources of information and the attribution of full authorial responsibility to information sources. CNN and Rappler's focus on educational institution news themes depicts the thematization of the indispensable role of key agencies as implementers and venues for implementing the free college education project and the indispensable stance of these public higher education institutions. The Manila Bulletin and the government-owned Philippine News Agency's strong rendition of free college tuition as a subject matter simply focused on state-of-affairs, where the absence of authorial sources may lower the credibility and trustworthiness of the news. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the article is to explore and understand contemporary structural developments in Slovak higher education (HE). This work examines the pre-conditions, policy rationales and organisational forms of a new phenomenon: the formation of university umbrella structures. The paper conceptually uses the theoretical backdrop of sociological institutionalism and examines how the powerful concept of university mergers is translated and adapted into the context of Slovak HE. The analysis also attempts to answer the question on whether emerging university umbrella structures are only an organisational semblance of plausible policy imitation or if they are actual steps in a long way towards full organisational mergers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the contemporary trend towards relativization and perversion of truth increasingly prominent in American culture, which, in Bion's terminology (1970), has become an ever more hospitable "home to the lie." The anti-COVID vaccine movement emerging in the United States in 2021, and its related network of conspiracy theories, is presented as an example. To make sense of these phenomena the author presents clinical vignettes illustrating (1) Bion's (1970) notions of catastrophic change, the lie/thinker relation, and the messianic idea; (2) Freud's (1921) thinking on group leaders; and (3) Matte-Blanco's (1975) bi-logical theory of mind. According to Bion, the lie is mobilized to avoid the psychological upheaval associated with catastrophic change. The author suggests that developments in American life experienced as threatening catastrophic change provide a hospitable environment for the lie, making the recognition of truth more elusive. In line with Matte-Blanco's bi-logical theory, the author suggests that creation of opportunities for dialogue giving weight to both conscious and unconscious ways of thinking is necessary for re-establishing a culture of truth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the concept of truth in Bion's theory and in the post-Bionian context of the analytic field. Truth is addressed on three levels: epistemological, metapsychological, and clinical. Bion criticizes positivism in psychoanalysis, and the same vertex when it appears in psychoanalysis itself, stating that the search for truth at all costs is similar to the arrogance and stupidity of the psychotic part of the personality. He revolutionizes the analytic concept of truth by orienting it to the function of the emotional linking between analyst and patient rather than to content. Post-Bionian analytic theory further develops these concepts. In a field or radically intersubjective perspective, the author emphasizes the shift from an "I/you" perspective to a "we" perspective. The treatment is less about the abstract search for supposed truths and more about the truth being expressed in the process of emotional and affective attunement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how the allure of magical thinking and groupthink contrasts with intuition of emotional truth. Since truth can terrify, the author suggests that a longer learning curve is needed to apprehend what Bion (1970a) called the "evolving O" of the analytic session. Traumatized patients are described as dream weavers who spin webs of partial truths and lies around their true selves. For the analyst, untangling these webs involves what Bion (1970b) calls an "act of faith." Clinical material is presented to show how groupthink and other concretions of thought can, under favorable circumstances, be transformed on the wings of psychic truth. Alternatively, uncontained violent emotions can become calcified, creating a carapace over the chrysalis of the patient's true self. The author concludes that the analyst's desire for a particular treatment outcome can unwittingly lead to the formation of an adhesive web where healthy analytic culture becomes a cult. Paradoxically, it is only when there is equal attention to emotional truth and lies that a trajectory of growth is likely to evolve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the widely circulated idea that algorithms will soon be able to know people "better than they know themselves." I address this idea from two perspectives. First I argue for the particular subjective qualities of experience and self-understanding issuing from our engagement with the world and the constitutive role of our reflexive relation to ourselves. These are not "known" by the algorithms. I then address our fundamental opacity to ourselves and the biased, partial, and limited nature of human self-understanding. Our failure to know ourselves is however essential to our subjectivity and therefore, to know a subject in a perfect way that bypasses these limitations is actually not to know them. Taken together, both directions show that while algorithmic knowledge of humans can be vast, and can outperform their own knowledge, it remains foreign to their subjectivity and cannot be said to be better than self-understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The platform economy is an ecosystem of algorithmically-organised social–technical relationships. In the specific area of home food delivery via digital platforms, algorithmic mediation motivates agents to act in specific ways based on algorithmic logic, creating a distinct form of subjectivity. Based on an ethnography carried out with delivery riders in the City of Madrid (Spain) between 2021 and 2023, in this paper we explore the concept of participatory subjectivity, proposing a distinction between three categories: (a) systems in which the delivery worker seeks algorithmic recognition, (b) systems in which users act in such a way as to be ignored by the algorithm and (c) systems in which it is the design of the algorithms themselves that fosters participation by users. We believe that the concept of participatory subjectivity contributes to the debate on algorithmic mediation in the platform economy, while also affording new perspectives on its effects on workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploring the relationship between humans and AI chatbots, as well as the ethical concerns surrounding their use, this paper argues that our relations with chatbots are not solely based on their function as a source of knowledge, but, rather, on the desire for the subject not to know. It is argued that, outside of the very fears and anxieties that underscore our adoption of AI, the desire not to know reveals the potential to embrace the very loss AI avers. Consequently, rather than proposing a knowledge that seeks to disavow loss, we can instead recognize the potential in loss itself: an opportunity to assert and define the gap inherent to both the subject and AI we create. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How—and why at all—should we listen to voices of perpetrators of political violence, lend an ear to their stories and hear their (self-inflicted) pain? In this paper I try to show how the psychoanalytic concept of "witnessing", which came forth in the context of the treatment of trauma victims, gets problematized when applied to testimonies relating to perpetrators' trauma. While initially the idea of witnessing marked an increased affinity between the psychoanalytic and the political/ethical, current literature on witnessing and trauma in the context of perpetrators reveals a re-growing gap between these two spheres. I examine these complexities through the case of Israeli soldiers and the testimonies they recite, both within clinical settings and in the public realm. I use the concepts "implicated witnessing" and "failed witnessing" in order to relate to possible ethical perils, especially in the context of ongoing, socially sanctioned violence. I point to the potential proximity between notions of the therapist qua witness and the therapist qua bystander. However, I also insist on the potential gain of applying psychoanalytic ideas (such as working-through) to processes in the public sphere and on the importance of thinking politically about clinical processes. In this spirit, I aim to find a way to go beyond two binary positions towards perpetrators' narratives which are lacking in their account of the witness' own involvement and responsibility: on the one hand, a resolute critical denunciation, and on the other, an alleged neutrality. In the case of testimonies of perpetrators and their trauma, I assert, this may be an important step in a social process of shifting from defensive splitting to assuming responsibility, and thus in diminishing political violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes a rich dataset from a nationally representative Nepalese household survey to study household migration decisions considering household per capita income and migration networks. The study highlights three key takeaways: (i) households with higher per capita income are less likely to migrate; (ii) households with more extensive migration networks are more likely to migrate; and (iii) migration networks have a greater influence than income on migration decisions. These findings hold across different model specifications that address potential endogeneity issues and apply to both extensive and intensive margins of migration. The results have important policy implications for Nepal, a country with high levels of temporary international migration and significant remittance inflows. The findings, unexplored hitherto, highlight an important issue relevant to other countries with similar economic, social, and cultural characteristics and large migrant populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]