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Crime risk can affect tourists' choices of holiday destination, accommodation, and activities. However, victimisation of tourists has received limited attention in existing studies. This paper integrates tourists' holiday preferences with lifestyles and routine activities explanations to examine the relationship between tourism and victimisation. Using a sample of Australian tourists who travelled to Bali or the British Isles (N = 1027), we demonstrate the usefulness of this integrated approach in understanding the risk of theft while on holiday. We found that tourists aspiring to be adventurous, but opting for pre-arranged package holidays and spending most of their time with other tourists, were most vulnerable to theft from their person. The findings can help ensure that security measures target those who will benefit it the most. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gun violence significantly threatens tens of thousands of people annually in the United States. This paper proposes a multidisciplinary approach to address this issue. Specifically, we bridge the gap between criminology and computer vision by exploring the applicability of firearm object detection algorithms to the criminal justice system. By situating firearm object detection algorithms in situational crime prevention, we outline how they could enhance the current use of closed-circuit television (CCTV) systems to mitigate gun violence. We elucidate our approach to training a firearm object detection algorithm and describe why its results are meaningful to scholars beyond the realm of computer vision. Lastly, we discuss limitations associated with object detection algorithms and why they are valuable to criminal justice practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Enterprise Security Risk Management (ESRM) is gaining popularity in industry circles, especially after the American Society of Industrial Security (ASIS International) elevated it as its strategic priority in 2016. However, research on its adoption has attracted little attention, especially in universities which are often characterized by outstanding variations in culture, structure, and more. In this paper, we conduct a self-assessment of ESRM maturity in Kenya's accredited universities using process metrics of the 2019 ASIS ESRM Maturity Model and insights from university security executives. The findings reveal that more than 35% of accredited universities have achieved advanced levels of ESRM adoption, with over 57% at average or middle levels, predominantly at Level 3. Public accredited universities exhibit higher ESRM adoption levels compared to their private counterparts. The study also identifies variations in the terminology used, with 60% using "Security Risk Management (SRM)," 35% using "University Risk Management," and a minority adopting ESRM. The discomfort with the "enterprise" term indicates a need for awareness and sensitization programs. We argue that benchmarking with optimized ESRM adopters and increasing awareness and integration of ESRM in strategic planning and institutional governance are crucial for comprehensive security risk management in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The left–right scale is widely assumed to be a common space, a joint yardstick that facilitates political communication. Aggregate voter perceptions of party positions on the left–right scale are widely used by scholars, a.o. to test models of voting behaviour, assess voter-elite congruence, or study party system change. Remarkably, while these models hinge on the longstanding assumption that voters have a joint understanding of the ordering of political parties on the left–right scale, this assumption has not been put to a systematic test. This paper introduces formal and a probabilistic tests of the formal demands of a common space: individual transitivity and collective transitivity. Cross-national analyses of election survey data (36 countries in the CSES) and longitudinal analyses in Germany (1983–2021), Great Britain (1997–2019), and the Netherlands (1981–2021) test whether the left–right dimension meets these demands. The outcomes are sobering. They cast serious doubt on the interpretation of the left–right scale as a common scale among voters, except under specific circumstances. We discuss the far-reaching implications of these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Defending democracy requires undemocratic steps; one of the most radical is the prohibition of political parties. The functioning of political parties is fundamental to healthy and pluralistic democracies. Thus, their exclusion from the political process raises a severe dilemma for a democratic society, which has to address sufficiently why and when a political competitor can legitimately be kicked out of the political arena. The latter is crucially important because of the rise of far-right parties and attempts by authoritarians to infiltrate the domestic political competition of democratic countries. The approaches of various national courts in cases concerning the prohibition of political parties are far from uniform. Experiences in Spain, Ukraine, the UK and, eventually, Germany demonstrate significant contrasts regarding the political theory and legal rationale for prohibition. While democracy is a universal value for a pan-European context, the courts set different limits of democratic tolerance for guarding it. The paper offers a new paradigm that explains why and when democracies ban political parties. The classification of democratic state orientation to party bans consists of liberal, institutional and militant models, which illustrate different concepts around finding the balance between personal rights on the one hand and the interests of a democratic society on the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The surge of populist and radical right phenomena reshaped European political geography. Yet the connections between places of residence and populist or radical right politics tended to be neglected until recently. This paper addresses the gap by exploring how residency relates to support for populism and the radical right in contemporary Europe. Focusing on the distinction between 'cities', 'towns–suburbs', and 'countryside', I conduct an individual-level investigation of populist and radical right votes and attitudes across different residential contexts. The analysis is based on European Social Survey data (2020–22) from 23 countries, in both Western (WE) and Central–Eastern (CEE) Europe. The key finding is that the cleavage between cities and suburban–rural areas is much more related to the thick ideological underpinnings of the radical right—authoritarianism and nativism—than the thin, purely populist, dimension. Nativism particularly is stronger the more rural the place of residence, irrespective of the individual's socio-economic profile, political orientations, the extent to which their region is left-behind, and whether they live in WE or CEE. Hence, future research on the geographical polarization of politics may turn its attention to the radical right, more than to populism per se. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors reflect on the need to modify the behavior of the U.S. food industry to control the obesity epidemic. They explore the trend of vertical integration in the market which enable firms to reduce cost and increase product value. They argue that producers gain their profits via larger market shares and excessive food trade resulting to obesity. They add that campaigns intended to avoid obesogenic foods are futile unless the industry's assumed anti-social behavior is changed.

In this paper, we present a social and economic impact analysis of the Burundi political crisis (2015 to 2017) accompanied by economic sanctions. We perform our analysis with a macro–micro-simulation framework. We constructed a macro–micro analytical framework that includes a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model and a micro-simulation (MS) model. This framework allows us to link shocks of a more macroeconomic nature such as reductions in foreign aid, reductions in the supply of public services, on household decomposed to focus the analysis on children. Scenarios were designed and applied to capture the sanctions associated with the crisis and other manifestations of the crisis. The distributional analysis is performed with the standard indices (FGT and Gini), and we innovated by extending our social analysis on five social indicators by combining results from our CGE model and elasticities linking growth and social indicators from the literature. The macroeconomic and sectoral results show significant negative effects on GDP, skilled employment, and unemployment. The social impact analysis carried out with our framework and with observed data shows a very significant negative impact on the five social indicators selected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The profound attempts to promote financial inclusion (FI) need more scrutiny for better policy insights. This paper, therefore, assesses the nature of FI in terms of geographical dispersion, convergence, and implications on development goals using various FI measures for a large cross-section of countries. The findings indicate that FI is multifaceted, accounting for a diverse geographical dispersion across countries in terms of financial access and use. FI, over the years, has progressed significantly while mobile money transition in developing countries shows a gradual progress, focusing on certain regions. We observe FI convergence across countries, albeit at a slower rate. FI can act as a tool for promoting income per capita and human development index, especially in developing countries. Nevertheless, the impact of FI on inequality is limited, requiring policymakers to formulate a better governance system to promote FI as a catalyst. Policy implications are further discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite its importance for development, long-term finance is particularly scarce in countries with lower income levels. This not only results in unrealized growth and employment creation, but may also undermine a broader shift towards better jobs. After all, many long-term investments comprise investments in labor that have the potential to contribute to improvements in job quality. This paper uses more than 17,000 firm-level observations from 73 mostly low- and middle-income countries to provide first empirical evidence of the extent to which LTF affects the quality of jobs. Additionally, it looks into effects on investments and firm performance. The findings, based on inverse probability weighted regression adjustment, indicate that long-term finance increases the likelihood of formal training by 4.4 to 4.8 percentage points, raises average wage by 4.1 percentage points and the share of permanent employees by 1.3 percentage points. Effects are also significant for investments in fixed assets and process innovation as well as for employment and sales growth. The fact that the positive effects on job quality increase with loan maturities underlines the importance of longer-term finance for better jobs. Despite several robustness checks, it cannot be ruled out completely that unobservable variables affect the estimation of effect sizes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the opaque selling strategy for a parallel-flight airline based on a newsvendor model with stochastic demand. The optimal pricing decision and capacity allocation policy are obtained and analyzed subject to necessary assumptions. There is a relationship between the optimal allocated capacities of these flights, and the airline can adjust its capacity allocation decisions according to this relationship. In addition, the airline is suggested to allocate more capacity for opaque seats if the demand variance is high or the difference in consumer's preferences between flights is small; meanwhile, a lower price for opaque seats will be provided when the variance is high or the difference is large. Numerical experiments are presented to show the effectiveness of the opaque selling strategy, and the results indicate that this strategy brings a 1.09% revenue increment on average compared to the conventional strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Setting the right fares is a key lever for increasing operating profitability in the airline industry. It is crucial to design fares that are both appealing to passengers and contribute to an increase in airline revenue. Although airline revenue management techniques have evolved to capture customer-choice behavior, the pricing and allocation decisions continue to be taken independently. However, since they are linked, a single optimization model can address this shortcoming. This paper presents a joint optimization model (JOM) that considers product prices and their allocation quantities as decision variables. A sequential optimization technique that divides the model into two decision problems is adopted to cope with JOM's complexity. The problem is divided into a master problem and a sub-problem, wherein product price changes are made in the master problem and, with these fixed prices, optimization is performed in the sub-problem. The sub-problem is solved by simplifying the non-linear JOM into a linear programming problem. The direction of product price changes in the master problem is identified using price elasticity of demand. A heuristic based on this concept is proposed and tested. The Elasticity-integrated Pricing and Allocation Heuristic (EPAH) is observed to produce a consistent increase in existing revenues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Indian Railways has adopted a dynamic pricing mechanism for its premium trains like Shatabdi, Rajdhani, and Duronto. This led to an increase in its revenue but also a fall in passenger traffic. In this paper, we have analyzed the existing dynamic pricing model. A major flaw in the existing system is that the present system is only a fare hike system rather than a dynamic pricing system as there is no provision for a decrease in prices when the demand is low. Considering this, we have developed a new model that incorporates both inter-temporal pricing and demand-based pricing to come up with the dynamic fares along with the provision of having a downside in case of low demand. We developed a route selection criteria based on the key parameters identified by us where dynamic pricing would yield good results. The model was then tested on these routes using real-time data to determine the feasibility of the dynamic pricing system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brand transgressions might put at risk some of companies' most important achievements: a high awareness brand and loyal customers' trust. High awareness brands may suffer from the effects of a functional transgression on customers' trust and perception regarding an organization's capacity to keep its promises, as well as the relationship developed with loyal customers. A common outcome of a product functional transgression is government intervention asking for a product recall. The voluntary recall is an alternative to handle brand transgressions, but less common than mandatory product recalls. This paper adds to the literature by theoretically discussing and empirically analyzing how the relationship status of a first-time or loyal customer with a high awareness brand affects consumers' trust after a functional transgression. Additionally, it examines the moderation effect of response to a functional transgression on the relation between trust's components—competence, integrity, and benevolence. Through an experimental study 2 (company's response: passive strategy; voluntary product recall) × 2 (relationship: loyal; first-time) × between-subjects design, the findings indicate that after a high awareness brand transgression, loyal consumers perceive greater competence, integrity, and benevolence in the brand than first-time consumers. When a transgression is followed by a passive strategy in which the transgressor company is aware of a malfunction and decides not to take any action to remediate the situation, loyal consumers have higher integrity and benevolence-based trust perception than first-time consumers. As voluntary recall takes place, loyal and first-time consumers' perceptions of integrity and benevolence increase, and first-time consumers reach the same levels as loyal consumers, which suggests voluntary product recall is an effective trust recovery strategy for a high awareness brand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers some lines of flight away from stagnant features of Terrorism Studies. I largely reiterate the critiques made by field leaders like Lee Jarvis, but I frame the field in a way that eases the tensions between different forms of critical scholarship which have frustrated other writers. Where others split the field into 'traditional' and 'critical' strands and admonish the 'critical' strand for its reticence to reflexively critique its referent objects, I suggest that Terrorism Studies can be read as a convergence of 'Counterterrorism Studies', 'Critical Terrorism Studies' and 'The Beyond'. While the second category exists primarily to grapple with the first, relying heavily on the language and theoretical frameworks of the first, the third category troubles the very constitution of concepts like the state and the figure of the terrorist, which are the sine qua non of the first two categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brands are increasingly required to be 'woke' and communicate their stance on various divisive sociopolitical issues and to do so particularly on social media platforms. However, research shedding light on the outcome of woke brand communication is in short supply; it does not compare the suasory effects of the latter with those achieved by traditional persuasive appeals; and it provides scant guidance on which brands ought to adopt this strategy. Combining language expectancy theory, the brands-as-intentional-agents framework, and the literature on consumer engagement in social media, this paper aims to fill these gaps by means of a multi-industry, text-mining-based study which investigates both the volume and the semantic virality patterns of traditional vs. woke persuasive appeals adopted by brands on social media platforms. The findings suggest that woke communication generates higher levels of consumer engagement than do traditional persuasive appeals; in particular, woke communication is more effective for warm brands. Moreover, when competent brands undertake woke campaigns, they tend to trigger more polarized reactions in consumers' comments than warm brands do. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rise of influencer marketing, companies and brands are increasingly cooperating with social media influencers as another important promotion tool. In this context, it is important to understand the followers' perspective on how the influential power of the influencer transforms into their brand perception and actions toward the brand. This study explains the effects of perceived influence on brand attachment (i.e., brand self-connection and brand prominence) and brand credibility on followers' word of mouth and purchase intention. Our findings reveal that perceived influence positively affects two dimensions of brand attachment and brand credibility. In addition, our study also finds the more prominent role of brand credibility over brand attachment in affecting followers' actions (i.e., word of mouth and purchase intention). Finally, the results confirm that the parasocial relationship acts as a moderator in the relationship between three brand-relevant constructs and behavioral outcomes. This paper offers a better understanding of the effect of social media influencers' influential power on followers' brand-related thoughts and their responses to the recommended brand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document discusses the current state of research on microinsurance and highlights the need for further study in this area. The microinsurance sector has experienced significant growth, particularly in Asian countries, and plays a crucial role in providing financial protection to low-income populations. However, there is still a lack of understanding regarding the theoretical benefits, practical effectiveness, and necessary regulation of microinsurance. The document introduces three articles from a special issue of The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance that address various aspects of microinsurance, including adoption determinants in Ghana, premium calculation for beekeeping insurance in Turkey, and the impact of microinsurance on the financial resilience of low-income households in Ghana. The articles provide valuable insights for policymakers and practitioners and suggest avenues for future research, such as exploring the role of digital technologies and mobile banking in enhancing accessibility and reducing costs, and examining the scalability of beekeeping insurance models to other agricultural sectors. The document concludes by suggesting the possibility of partnering microinsurance with inclusive insurance to improve financial inclusion. [Extracted from the article]

Diversity and inclusion scholarship addresses inequality at work across categories of difference marked with historical disadvantages such as gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, and class or categories meaningful for the industrial, organisational or local settings. This scholarship has not considered political ties to be a diversity strand. However, political ties are a considerable source of uneven power relations, unearned privileges, and unjust discrimination in many contexts. Similarly, political ties could be sources of disadvantage, exclusion and discrimination for individuals with weak, absent or oppositional political affiliations. Our paper focuses on the Asian context, where political ties are often a legitimate human and institutional resource that can shape individual choices and chances at work. By defining political ties as a diversity and inclusion strand, we critique the legitimacy of political ties as a dominant and desirable resource and present political tie discrimination as a wicked social problem that entrenches uneven relations of power and authority in workplaces. Highlighting how political affiliation manifests across different national contexts in Asia, we explore the utility of adding political ties to the Asian vernacular to regulate workplace diversity and inclusion. Asia provides an interesting context in which the interplay between political affiliation and workplace relations is often culturally endorsed, remains unregulated and unscrutinised through ethical and anti-discrimination regulations. Thus, Asia provides an ideal setting to explore the emergence of political tie diversity and inclusion at work. We illustrate this through country-specific examples, illustrating the cross-national varieties of political tie diversity in the Asian business context. We also suggest a roadmap to manage political tie diversity and inclusion for this context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has demonstrated that both visibility of parties, party leaders, candidates, and topics, and the sentiment of this coverage can affect people's decision in the ballot box. Most of this research was, however, done in the period before social media gained importance which has drastically changed the media consumption of citizens. The main aim of this paper is to investigate whether, and if so to what extent, traditional media use during the 2021 Dutch parliamentary elections has (still) affected vote choice in this era of social media. To study this, two-wave panel survey data from the Dutch Parliamentary Election Survey (DPES) are combined with an automated content analysis of newspaper articles (N = 35,511). We created respondent-specific content variables to conduct a linkage analysis. Our analysis, relying on a pooled analysis of respondent–party combinations (N = 54,162), demonstrates that political parties profit electorally from being visible in both newspapers and online outlets. This is in particular true for parties that are not part of parliament yet, thus increasing the further fragmentation and division in Dutch politics. Contrary to the expectations, sentiment in online media has a negative effect, with negative coverage increasing electoral support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research demonstrated that voters for the Dutch radical right party PVV were the most stable voters among the highly volatile electorate. However, since 2017 two new radical right parties have successfully entered the Dutch Parliament: Forum for Democracy (FvD) and JA21, conceivably at the expense of the PVV. The success of these new parties is puzzling, because there does not seem to be much room for new parties campaigning on a highly similar platform. In our paper, we use LISS panel data to study the determinants of vote switching patterns between four subsequent elections from 2017 to 2021. We find that the surprise victory of the new far right in 2019 can be explained by its ability to attract both former PVV voters as well as voters new to the far right. Since then, FvD has lost many of its supporters again, but these voters have mostly switched to other far-right parties, meaning the far-right support base has become fragmented, yet enlarged. This suggests that when provided with viable alternatives, radical right voters are as volatile as other voter groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are the leaders of independent agencies independent in practice? Are the independence requirements set out in legislation a guarantee of de facto independence? This paper reveals the relationship between de iure independence and de facto independence of independent agencies through two dimensions: political affinity and political vulnerability of their leaders. Our analysis reveals how the de iure independence of an agency affects the probability that agency heads will have connections to political parties and whether their mandates will end prematurely in a period of political transition, i.e., when a new government takes office. It also determines whether the biographical profile of agency heads (PhD degree, bureaucratic background, and political affiliation) can influence their security of tenure when governments change, and hence their independence. This is supported by an empirical evaluation of independent authorities in the Czech Republic between 1993 and 2021. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Associative issue ownership (AIO) has proven its value in describing issue competition and explaining voting behavior. Yet, it is unclear whether and to what extent AIO also differentiates parties and influences vote choice in highly fragmented, multiparty systems. In such a context, parties must differentiate from many electoral competitors, which makes AIO worth pursuing. At the same time, obtaining unequivocal ownership may be a very difficult endeavor in the face of so many rivals. This paper aims to assess these questions empirically by employing the Dutch Parliamentary Election Study 2021 on a system with 17 elected parties (ENPP = 8). At the aggregate level, we find unequivocal issue ownership for 4 of the 14 issues under study. AIO of most other issues is contested, either by parties with very similar policy positions (within-block competition) or by parties with opposing positions (between-block competition). A final set of issues remain unclaimed. At the individual level, perceptions of issue ownership explain the composition of voters' party consideration sets (pre-elections) and their actual vote choice (post-elections). These impacts are stronger when voters associate the party with an issue they find important. We conclude that AIO perceptions are an important factor to consider when studying party dynamics and voting behavior in a context of highly fragmented multipartyism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this research paper is to compare and analyse how crypto-assets are regulated in the UK and Germany. The aim is to understand and highlight the approaches taken by these two countries in terms of regulating crypto-assets and to explore the potential impact that their regulatory frameworks could have on the market for these crypto-assets. The research employs a doctrinal research design to examine the crypto-asset regulatory regimes in the UK and Germany. A comprehensive review of existing literature, official regulatory documents and relevant legal frameworks is conducted to understand the core components of each country's crypto-asset regulations. The findings of this study reveal divergences in the regulatory approaches of the UK and Germany towards crypto-assets. While the UK has embraced a principles-based regulatory framework, fostering innovation and industry growth, Germany has adopted a more prescriptive and cautious approach, focusing on investor protection and market stability. The research identifies that the UK's flexible approach has attracted a flourishing crypto-asset ecosystem, while Germany's conservative stance has offered greater investor confidence. However, certain regulatory gaps and challenges persist in both jurisdictions, such as ambiguities in classification and tax treatment, requiring further attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic research on trend-following investing has almost exclusively focused on testing various trading rules' profitability. However, all existing trend-following rules are essentially ad hoc, lacking a solid theoretical justification for their optimality. This paper aims to address this gap in the literature. Specifically, we examine the optimal trend-following when the returns follow a two-state process, randomly switching between bull and bear markets. We show that if a Markov model governs the return process, it is optimal to follow the trend using the Exponential Moving Average rule. However, the Markov model is unrealistic because it does not represent the bull and bear market duration times correctly. It is more sensible to model the return process by a semi-Markov model where the state termination probability increases with age. Under this framework, the optimal trend-following rule resembles the Moving Average Convergence/Divergence rule. We confirm the validity of the semi-Markov model with an empirical study demonstrating that the theoretically optimal trading rule outperforms the popular 10-month Simple Moving Average and 12-month Momentum rules across a universe of international markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper generalizes the concept of capacity from the portfolio level to the investment process for systematic equity strategies. Capacity is often understood as the maximum asset under management, above which additional inflows would have too great a negative impact on performance. The concept of capacity is often limited to the study of a given portfolio. However, setting up a capacity management framework must consider what the portfolio might look like in the future. This is obviously complicated for discretionary portfolios but theoretically conceivable for portfolios implementing systematic strategies, if we can simulate all possible scenarios. In our framework, we extend the traditional definition of capacity from a number to a random variable, allowing portfolio managers to integrate it into their risk considerations. We provide examples of how portfolio managers can approach this problem, with full-search or modelling methods. Our framework includes several capacity metrics that can be used jointly or selected to align better with the features of each strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper feeds the literature about investors' reaction to the release of going concern modified audit reports, which is abundant and controversial among scholars. Moving a step beyond the solely detection of abnormal stock returns at and around the event date, as done in the only two previous studies on the Italian setting, we perform an OLS multiple regression to test the informativeness of CARs and the influence of variables as selected firms' accounts, auditor characteristics, the market capitalization and specific measures of financial distress to gather evidence whether investors react adversely to elements different from going concern modifications (GCMs). Based on our findings, investors react negatively to GCMs attached to qualified opinions and, surprisingly, positively to GCMs attached to clean opinions, reversing the prevailing evidence found out in the literature, especially in the USA. We attribute these results to the rough knowledge of Italian naïve investors of the going concern (GC) issue. The study detects how disclosure features conceived for large equity markets can lead to different investors' behaviours in small ones on the one hand; on the other hand, it cannot lead to unequivocable generalization, even within similar countries, in light of sub-specific country features. The piece of evidence achieved suggests, for further research, to make an investors categorization to analyse market reactions, which takes more into account three main features stressed by the prevailing literature of small equity markets: high ownership concentration, the higher presence of institutional investors and the poorer reputation of BIG4 auditors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the determinants of eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) adoption using the Technology-Organizational-Environment framework. This framework explains how the process of adopting and implementing XBRL is influenced by the technological context (country's firm-level technology absorption and technological capacity), organizational context (education) and environmental context (level of economic development; degree of external economic openness; investor protection; accounting system and the burden of government regulation). Using a sample of 78 countries during the period 2009–2017, we find that countries with high levels of technology absorption, higher levels of economic development and strong investor protection are more likely to adopt XBRL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SOX requires that the audit of internal control over financial reporting (ICFR) is "integrated" with the audit of the financial reports, which means the same audit firm conducts these two audits. Prior studies found that audit costs and quality were lower for non-integrated audits in the Chinese context (Gunn et al. in Account Rev, 2021). This paper reports the association between firms' internal corporate governance mechanisms and the decision between integrated and non-integrated audits in Chinese companies. The empirical results demonstrate that firms with a larger proportion of controlling owners or those in which the same person is the BOD chairman and CEO, or those that are state-owned or have a smaller proportion of independent directors, are more likely to choose non-integrated audits than integrated audits. Our study implies that firms with weak internal corporate governance mechanisms choose non-integrated audits or switch to non-integrated ones if integrated audits are not mandatory. Our conclusions provided evidence that helps regulators understand the consequence of the regulation enforcement on public companies with different corporate governance models if these regulation compliance options are available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data practices in biomedical research often rely on standards that build on normative assumptions regarding privacy and involve 'ethics work.' In an increasingly datafied research environment, identifiability gains a new temporal and spatial dimension, especially in regard to genomic data. In this paper, we analyze how genomic identifiability is considered as a specific data issue in a recent controversial case: publication of the genome sequence of the HeLa cell line. Considering developments in the sociotechnological and data environment, such as big data, biomedical, recreational, and research uses of genomics, our analysis highlights what it means to be (re-)identifiable in the postgenomic era. By showing how the risk of genomic identifiability is not a specificity of the HeLa controversy, but rather a systematic data issue, we argue that a new conceptualization is needed. With the notion of post-identifiability as a sociotechnological situation, we show how past assumptions and ideas about future possibilities come together in the case of genomic identifiability. We conclude by discussing how kinship, temporality, and openness are subject to renewed negotiations along with the changing understandings and expectations of identifiability and status of genomic data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent scientific developments have made possible something that would once—not long ago—have seemed out of a science fiction film: the creation of a human and non-human chimaera with human brain cells and their eventual birth. This has posed novel challenges for lawmakers. Laws have been established to allow for the creation of these entities; the challenge now is to define their legal status. Such chimaeras are neither entirely animal nor entirely human, but unlike other chimeric creatures, they share a feature with humans that has long been considered the basis of the special legal status afforded to the human person: human brain cells. This feature is unlikely to prove sufficient to replicate the human brain. Likewise, it is improbable that these creatures will reach the same levels of autonomous thinking and consciousness as humans. Still, such enhanced chimaeras might acquire capacities that distinguish them from other animals. As such, a special legal status must be created to accommodate their specific characteristics. This paper will analyse the legal status that should be granted to these chimeric entities in light of the existing laws. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While screen-mediated analysis long predated the pandemic, it was largely seen as non-equivalent to in-person treatment by analysts and patients alike. When COVID forced us to move our entire practices to the screen, our concerns about its limitations were replaced by relief; we could continue doing analytic work during a terrifying and challenging time. Three years later, many have chosen to continue practicing remotely for reasons that are no longer driven by fears of exposure. We mostly minimize or deny our earlier concerns about the limitations of screen work. Have we chosen convenience, ease, and a personal sense of safety over togetherness, while ignoring the underbelly of remote work? This paper identifies the convergence of several forces underlying our decision to stay remote, including guilt and anxiety about privileging our own self-interest, unmourned losses and collective PTSD, fear of the future and existential anxiety about living in a techno-culture that threatens to replace us. Our denial of these powerful forces makes it easy to rationalize a decision to embrace remote work and disavow the threat it poses to our field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the impact of technology on the human mind and self. It explores various technological advancements such as artificial intelligence, medical technologies, remote psychotherapy, and the internet, and their effects on psychology and psychoanalysis. The papers in this collection raise questions about how these advancements shape our work and our lives, and whether they enhance or undermine human experience. The article also examines the changing conception of self in the digital age and the potential dangers and benefits of technology. [Extracted from the article]

The shift towards remote or online therapy was compelled by the Pandemic. Many colleagues, who neither had practice using this modality, nor had ever considered it as a possibility, ultimately adopted it. This experience brought with it a substantial expansion of online therapy beyond that moment of emergency. It opened up new prospects of intervention, but at the same time it required a greater measure of reflection in order to understand how to inhabit this new therapy space. Setting aside provisory, intermittent, or emergency situations, which temporarily transfer therapy into a "field of tents" (Bolognini, 2021), the author proposes to consider how online psychotherapy redefines an important element of the psychoanalytic setting—the issue of the space. This is no longer the therapist's place of work, envisaged and organized by him/her/them, fixed in time, and contrived only to welcome the therapeutic relationship—one of the crucial aspects of the external setting, which together with the temporal dimension, fulfills the therapy ritual. Assuming the framework to be essential to the psychoanalytic process, this paper will focus on the methodology of online therapy. The author will describe the contributions of the neurosciences, to provide a deeper understanding of the distinctive characteristics of sharing in an online vs. an offline space. Online therapy should be assessed for its distinguishing qualities within a complete theoretical, technical, and clinical reflection specific to each case. Proceeding as if it were a mere relocation of an in-person analysis would enhance the seductiveness of a therapy that is easily accessible with any laptop anywhere, anytime, and in which one could mistake an online connection for a deep connection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper regards Seneca's practical philosophy as ancestor to psychoanalytically informed psychotherapy and as a progenitor of ongoing contemporary praxis in applied ideas of mind. Facing forward into the Anthropocene, as psychoanalysis encounters Artificial Intelligence, the convergence with contemporary psychoanalytic psychotherapy of value concepts developed from Antiquity is discussed. Drawn from Seneca's Letters on Ethics, constellations of significant ideas present in ancient practical philosophy resonate with similar configurations developed two millennia later, and central to the practice of contemporary psychotherapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article brings forward a psychoanalytic reading of the recent abuse scandals in women's gymnastics. By taking into consideration wider psychoanalytic literature on sport as well as gymnastics' historical development, this structural analysis of systemic abuse focusses on two overarching questions: firstly, what is the libidinal economy of perfectionism underlying the sport, and secondly, what is the role of sexual difference and gender ideals within this economy? The paper argues that women's gymnastics, as a sport which aims at performing perfected femininity, is submitted to deeply patriarchal structures of gendered oppression and subordination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While athletes are at increased risk for developing disordered eating, there is little consensus on the most effective treatment. While behavioral and cognitive behavioral approaches are most commonly used, we propose that psychoanalysis has the potential to revolutionize treatment for athletes with eating disorders (EDs). In this paper, we use the theories of Winnicott and Bion to frame our arguments, proposing that psychic overwhelm resulting from impingement as well as failures in containment may drive an individual to concretize their emotional and relational experiences through the body via EDs and sport. While historically sport and athletic involvement have been thought to perpetuate and maintain EDs, we propose that sport participation may also provide a unique path to ED recovery for athletes, a claim that is consistent with recent recommendations. Sport involvement may serve as a bridge to facilitate the process of emotion regulation, psychic symbolization, and self-reflection that is necessary for ED recovery. Through the facilitative function of a containing, therapeutic relationship, one may feel safe enough to practice curiosity and creatively explore the metaphor and meaning behind one's concrete relationship to food and sport, paving the way to recovery from EDs for athletes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of D. W. Winnicott's seminal contributions to our understanding of personality development is the notion of transitional phenomena. This refers to a child's capacity to create objects and space that are neither fully real nor fully imaginary. The creation of a transitional space is essential to the child's ability to recreate sensations of parental comfort. Transitional phenomena are equally essential in the preschooler's development of the capacity to play. This paper argues that the need for transitional phenomena is also constant throughout life, and that a primary place where it comes to reside for many of us is in our fanatical allegiance to sports teams. We claim that being a fan is a true transitional phenomenon: so safely real, just like our play in earlier years, that we can be far more intense and uninhibited than we can be in almost any other activity, thus satisfying our feelings of passionate expansion within a secure base that are at the core of our personality development from the very start. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an investigation of the factors influencing the decision to purchase processed food based on traffic-light labeling (TLL). To achieve this, we use data from the official National Survey of Health and Nutrition, which gathered information on 26,532 individuals aged between 19 and 59 between 2011 and 2013. Employing a probit regression to assess the likelihood of buying food based on TLL, we identify a positive association between income level and the probability of buying food based on TLL; indeed, our model suggests that a 1% increase in monthly income increases by 0.008 the probability of buying food based on TLL. We infer that people with higher levels of income are more aware of the benefits of TLL and healthy food habits. Our results also suggest that the probability of basing purchasing decisions on TLL is higher for overweight people compared to those of normal weight, that is, overweight people buy their processed food paying more attention to TLL compared to normal weight people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Customer relationship management (CRM) practices are essential for gaining a competitive edge in the business environment. CRM has been used worldwide in the banking industry to acquire, create, and maintain strong customer relationships. With intense competition among commercial banks in Ghana, this paper purposely established the effects of CRM practices on organisational performance, focusing on the hierarchically mediating roles of customer satisfaction and loyalty. The positivists' philosophy, quantitative approach, and descriptive survey design guided the study. The sample used was 420 customers who were selected using multi-stage sampling techniques. A questionnaire was the instrument used. The data were analysed using partial least square structural equation modelling to test the research model. The results revealed that CRM practices positively affect organisational performance. However, the effects become stronger when customer satisfaction and loyalty mediate hierarchically the link between CRM and organisational performance. The study concludes that whenever these variables mediate CRM practices and organisational performance hierarchically, there will be a significant boost in commercial banks' performance in Ghana. This study provides insight into what could strongly boost the performance of organisations, especially commercial banks. Its findings could also be a source of motivation for other organisations in the service sector. The study suggests that, based on its findings, the various branch managers in charge of CRM should develop, nurture, and maintain attractive CRM practices as an administrative system to help boost customer satisfaction and loyalty, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against the backdrop of global challenges and unprecedented events, intellectual capital is seen as the key to opening doors for banks to achieve competitiveness. Inspired by this issue, the paper explores the relationship between intellectual capital and one of the most important functions of banks, namely financial intermediation. The study uses the balanced panel data of 26 Vietnamese commercial banks collected directly from their audited financial statements between 2006 and 2020, and employs various regression analyses such as OLS, Fixed-effect, and the GMM method, in which the VAIC model is utilised as the measure of the intellectual capital of banks. The consistent evidence demonstrates that intellectual capital plays a key role in fostering this function of banks. Also, when dividing VAIC into three components, the empirical result indicates that capital employed efficiency is the most effective resource to enhance financial intermediation compared to human capital efficiency and structure capital efficiency. Furthermore, these findings seem to be clearer in small banks than in large ones, and remain unchanged during both crisis and non-crisis periods. Besides, in the crisis period, the evidence suggests that banks should strengthen their human capital efficiency, and structure capital efficiency should be taken into consideration. Therefore, this study provides a deep insight into the influences of intellectual capital on banking operations in emerging countries, where the development and sustainability of banks could ensure economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to extend the enhanced "unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT)" model with pandemic precautionary measures (PPM) to examine the variables that influence the adoption of "cashless transactions (CLT)" during pandemic periods such as COVID-19. For this purpose, this research polled 363 people from 15 zones of Chennai City, India. Utilizing the responses, the relationship between components was explored using a PLS-SEM approach in two distinct research models to examine the influence of PPM in the enhanced UTAUT. The results indicate that the model with PPM (model 2) exhibited an improvement over the model without PPM (model 1) in the variance explained of behavioural intention from 77.3 to 82%. Further, in model 1, performance expectation is the most potent predictor of individuals' intentions to use CLT, and in model 2, performance expectations deteriorated slightly in its ability and PPM became the most potent predictor. Furthermore, these findings reveal that the PPM-included enhanced UTAUT has significantly strengthened its ability to explain behavioural intent to adopt CLT. Thus, this research model has the potential to be of great use in investigating the adoption of CLT in any epidemic period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper intends to examine the role of CSR communication on social media in building consumer company identification (C–C identification) and electronic word of mouth (EWOM) in Indian banking context. Specifically, this study addresses the following three research questions: First, how does consumer perceived CSR orientation of Indian public sector banks in social media (CPBCSRSM) help in spreading positive EWOM and building consumer C–C identification? Second, what are the mediating effects of C–C identification between CPBCSRSM and EWOM? Third, how does user-generated content (UGC) moderate the influence of CPBCSRSM on EWOM? The author analyzed the data obtained from 648 banks' consumers who evaluated consumers' perceived CSR initiatives of those Indian public sector banks which have presence on social media, by using CFA and SEM techniques through SPSS and AMOS. The findings indicate that CPBCSRSM and C–C identification have direct effects on EWOM. The findings also indicate the mediating role of C–C identification and moderating role of UGC between CPBCSRSM and EWOM. Our study significantly contributes to marketing and CSR literature, by adding to limited knowledge on banks' CSR orientation and its communication in social media. The study enriches the extant literature by filling gaps such as improving the generalizability of the findings, providing an integrated framework and using multiple social media platforms in an emerging economy. Our findings will provide a significant forward step to banking professionals regarding the factors influencing EWOM and the role of CSR communication in social media. This study highlights to the policymakers of Indian public sector banks that they need to focus on CSR communication in social media for better consumer engagement, C–C identification, encouraging a favorable UGC and EWOM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the start of the year 2020, World Health Organization declared a public health emergency of international concern about "The COVID-19 pandemic". During this pandemic, when the entire world was facing lockdown, and all industries were getting a setback, there was a spurt observed in the insurance industry. With the rise in COVID-19 cases in India, it became a wake-up call for people towards health insurance. Health Insurance is one of the critical elements for sustainable and inclusive development. A paradigm shift has been noticed among individuals towards health insurance during this pandemic time, especially to protect their families from unforeseen medical expenses. This paper identifies the impact of COVID-19 as a fear that leads to a change in behaviour towards health insurance products. This study is based on the primary data collected from Ahmedabad city showing behaviour towards purchasing an insurance product during the pandemic situation. A sample of 200 individuals from Ahmedabad city of Gujarat State in India has been surveyed. The Binary logistic model is used to analyse the significant factors for the purchase of health insurance and also to check whether fear has a significant impact on a purchase decision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the long-run equilibrium relationship between economic growth and income inequality while documenting the structural transformation of the Romanian economy over the period 1990–2020. First, we examine the structural changes that have accompanied economic development and the historical trend of income inequality to better understand the mechanism connecting inequality and growth. Second, we study the long-term relationship between income inequality and economic development in the framework of the Kuznets hypothesis, using the ARDL bounds testing procedure for cointegration. Data for income inequality come from the most recent revisions of the World Inequality Database. The empirical findings support a nonlinear long-run relationship between income inequality and GDP per capita. The left half of an inverted U-shaped curve is revealed by the data, but the right half is not yet clearly outlined. We also find that the service-driven structural transformation experienced by Romania underlies this pattern. There is an inverted U-shaped relationship between inequality measures and services employment share. Overall, several stylized empirical facts are pointed out regarding the structural changes and the level of development of the Romanian economy, which can be seen as prerequisites of the transition to the right half of the inverted U-shaped curve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the European Living, Working and COVID-19 survey (Eurofound 2021) to examine the mechanism linking citizens' worsening financial hardship to lower satisfaction with democracy through the mediating role of government support and trust in institutions. We find that as households and firms have struggled to meet loan repayments to creditors, governments have intervened with social support measures that citizens have not judged to be adequate in terms of fairness, integrity, responsiveness and reliability. This has led to a decline in citizens' trust in institutions, exacerbating the impact of increased economic hardship on their satisfaction with democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and political stability on food security (SDGs2) in Sub-Saharan African countries using simultaneous equation model and GMM method over the period 1996–2020. The empirical results show that FDI positively affects food security in Sub-Saharan African countries, East Africa (EAC), West Africa (WAMZ) and WAEMU. The results show that political stability negatively affects food security in Sub-Saharan African countries, CEMAC, ECA and WAEMU, while having a positive impact on food security in SACU and WAMZ. Other important results show that the interaction of FDI and political stability has a positive and significant impact on food security in Sub-Saharan African countries and SACU, while negative impact in EAC and WAEMU. This implies that political stability plays a crucial role on how FDI affects food security. This result indicates that improving food security in Sub-Saharan African countries depends on increasing the inflows of foreign direct investment and improving political stability. The policy implications of this study is that governments in Sub-Saharan African countries must give great importance to improving political stability, thus, increasing FDI inflows and enhancing the level of food security (SDGs2). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Remarkable resistance of Ukraine has become in the world focus starting from the dawn of February 24th, 2022. While policymakers draft plans to address the consequences of the war, it is crucial to understand the pre-war labor market context, risks of joblessness, inequalities, and sources of resilience. In this paper, we study inequality in job market outcomes in 2020–2021 during another global disaster—the COVID-19 epidemic. While there is a growing literature on worsening gender gap for developed countries, not much is known about the situation in transition countries. We fill in this gap in the literature by using novel panel data from Ukraine, which enacted strict quarantine policies early on. Our pooled and random effects models consistently indicate no gender gap in the probability of not working, fearing to lose job or having savings for less than one month. This interesting result of non-deteriorating gender gap can potentially be explained by higher chances of urban Ukrainian women to switch to telecommuting compared to men. Although our findings are limited to urban households only, they provide important early evidence on the effects of gender on job market outcomes, expectations, and financial security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the impact of technological progress on individual political engagement using longitudinal data from the British survey. The analysis suggests that regional technological progress, measured as the gross value added per worker, the number of patents per capita, and the share of employed in R&D, reduces individual identification with a particular political party, individual interest in politics, and participation in elections. The individual assertion that vote is a social norm, the self-assessed cost of political participation, and the awareness of voter irrelevance are not found to be mediating the impact of technological progress on political disengagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]