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This study aims to explore what and how digital innovation, as a knowledge-based and multi-dimensional process, can be used to increase the accountability of public and private sector organizations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Taking an interpretivist approach, qualitative research is designed around Strong Structuration Theory (SST). A content analysis of relevant documents and semi-structured interviews focusing on the relationships between digital innovation and accountability in extraordinary times is conducted.

The results show the existence of digital innovation barriers and facilitators that can have an impact on accountability during extraordinary times. The research highlights how managers of public organizations focus largely on the social dimension of knowledge (i.e., competencies shaped by collective culture), while managers of private organizations focus mainly on the human dimension of knowledge (i.e., skills gained through learning by doing).

The paper enriches the accountability literature by historicizing SST for extraordinary times and by utilizing a multiple-dimensional approach to digital innovation. Also, the work underlines specific strategies organizations could usefully adopt to improve accountability through digital innovation in the public and private sectors during extraordinary times.

This article emphasizes the crucial integration of technological components with knowledge. In particular, the digital innovation is considered as a strong synergy of human and social dimensions that compels organizations toward enhanced accountability, particularly in the face of extraordinary challenges.

This study employs firm-level data to evaluate how the knowledge economy impacts the financing constraints of businesses across 106 low- and middle-income nations, focusing on the influence of technological transformation on corporate financing choices.

The research centers on privately held, unlisted firms and examines the distinct effects of knowledge at both the within-country and between-country levels using a panel dataset. Rigorous sensitivity and endogeneity analyses are conducted to ensure the reliability of the findings.

The findings indicate that greater levels of the knowledge economy correlate with reduced financing constraints for firms. However, this effect varies depending on the location within a country and across different geographical regions. Firms situated in larger urban centers and more innovative regions reap the most significant benefits from the knowledge economy when seeking external funding. Conversely, firms in smaller cities, rural areas and regions characterized by structural and institutional inefficiencies in knowledge generation experience fewer advantages.

The impact of knowledge exhibits variability not only within and among countries but also between poor and affluent developing nations, as well as between larger and smaller countries. The knowledge effect on firms' access to external finance is influenced by factors such as financial openness and development, educational quality, technological absorption capabilities and agglomeration conditions within each country.

Given a baffling contradiction that the availability of safety knowledge may not necessarily lead to workers' safety behavior, this study aims to develop an exploratory two-step working model of safety knowledge in translating safety climate into safety behavior. In particular, this study highlights the importance of articulating tacit safety knowledge and improving workers' systematic problem solving (SPS) capacity in a favorable safety climate.

This study uses 110 valid responses from Pakistan-based construction workers to test five hypotheses which embody the exploratory two-step working model of safety knowledge. The partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) is used to analyze the data.

The results of this study support the two-step working mechanism of safety knowledge in translating safety climate into safety behavior. Furthermore, results suggest that safety climate as a job resource facilitates converting construction workers' tacit safety knowledge into explicit safety knowledge (i.e. safety knowledge articulation) and then enabling them to spot non-conformities in safety management practices (i.e. SPS) and consequently to work safely (i.e. safety behavior).

The study has both theoretical and practical significance. In theory, it extends organizational learning theory and job demands-resources (JD-R) theory in the construction safety research domain and elaborates on the mediating role of safety knowledge articulation and SPS for the relationship between safety climate and safety behavior. In practice, it highlights the importance of continuous articulation of tacit safety knowledge and accumulation and use of explicit safety knowledge in construction safety management practices.