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(1) A concern often expressed in relation to cryptocurrencies is the environmental impact associated with increasing energy consumption and mining pollution. Controversy remains regarding how environmental attention and public concerns adversely affect cryptocurrency prices. Therefore, the paper aims to introduce the index of cryptocurrency environmental attention (ICEA), which aims to capture the relative extent of media discussions surrounding the environmental impact of cryptocurrencies. (2) The impacts of cryptocurrency environmental attention on long-term macro-financial markets and economic development remain part of undeveloped research fields. Based on these factors, the paper will further examine the effects of the ICEA on financial markets or economic developments.

(1) The paper introduces a new index to capture cryptocurrency environmental attention in terms of the cryptocurrency response to major related events through gathering a large amount of news stories around cryptocurrency environmental concerns – i.e. >778.2 million news items from the LexisNexis News & Business database, which can be considered as Big Data – and analysing that rich dataset using variety of quantitative techniques. (2) The vector error correction model (VECM) and structural VECM (SVECM) [impulse response function (IRF), forecast error variance decomposition (FEVD) and historical decomposition (HD)] are useful for characterising the dynamic relationships between ICEA and aggregate economic activities.

(1) The paper has developed a new measure of attention to sustainability concerns of cryptocurrency markets' growth, ICEA. (2) ICEA has a significantly positive relationship with the UCRY indices, volatility index (VIX), Brent crude oil (BCO) and Bitcoin. (3) ICEA has a significantly negative relationship with the global economic policy uncertainty (GlobalEPU) and global temperature uncertainty (GTU). Moreover, ICEA has a significantly positive relationship with the industrial production (IP) in the short term, whilst having a significantly negative relationship in the long term. (4) The HD of the ICEA displays higher linkages between environmental attention, Bitcoin and UCRY indices around key events that significantly change the prices of digital assets.

The ICEA is significant in the analysis of whether cryptocurrency markets are sustainable regarding energy consumption requirements and negative contributions to climate change. Understanding of the broader impacts of cryptocurrency environmental concerns on cryptocurrency market volatility, uncertainty and environmental sustainability should be considered and developed. Moreover, the paper aims to point out future research and policy legislation directions. Notably, the paper poses the question of how cryptocurrency can be made more sustainable and environmentally friendly and how governments' cryptocurrency policies can address the cryptocurrency markets.

(1) The paper develops a cryptocurrency environmental attention index based on news coverage that captures the extent to which environmental sustainability concerns are discussed in conjunction with cryptocurrencies. (2) The paper empirically investigates the impacts of cryptocurrency environmental attention on other financial or economic variables [cryptocurrency uncertainty (UCRY) indices, Bitcoin, VIX, GlobalEPU, BCO, GTU index and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development IP index]. (3) The paper provides insights into making the most effective use of online databases in the development of new indices for financial research.

Whilst blockchain technology has a number of useful implications and has great potential to transform several industries, issues of high-energy consumption and CO2 pollution regarding cryptocurrency have become some of the main areas of criticism, raising questions about the sustainability of cryptocurrencies. These results are essential for both policy-makers and for academics, since the results highlight an urgent need for research addressing the key issues, such as the growth of carbon produced in the creation of this new digital currency. The results also are important for investors concerned with the ethical implications and environmental impacts of their investment choices.

(1) The paper provides an efficient new proxy for cryptocurrency and robust empirical evidence for future research concerning the impact of environmental issues on cryptocurrency markets. (2) The study successfully links cryptocurrency environmental attention to the financial markets, economic developments and other volatility and uncertainty measures, which has certain novel implications for the cryptocurrency literature. (3) The empirical findings of the paper offer useful and up-to-date insights for investors, guiding policy-makers, regulators and media, enabling the ICEA to evolve into a barometer in the cryptocurrency era and play a role in, for example, environmental policy development and investment portfolio optimisation.

The purpose of this study is to explore the link between aggregate production efficiency and the extent of linguistic clustering in Indonesia.

The author draws on the stochastic frontier model and applies it to the data on Indonesian provinces to compute the effects of various determinants on these provinces' aggregate production efficiency. The key determinant is the spatial index of linguistic clustering that the author believes has never been applied before in this context.

Linguistic clustering is an important determinant of aggregate production efficiency. Linguistic diversity is positively associated with productive efficiency if members of a specific linguistic group are not clustered beyond a certain level.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study that links the spatial index of linguistic clustering (because of Massey and Danton) to production efficiency. In other words, the contribution of this study is to introduce a geographical dimension to the mainstream analysis of the association between ethnic diversity and economic performance.

Rape culture, described as when “violence is seen as sexy and sexuality as violent” (Buchwald, Fletcher, & Roth, 1993, p. vii), exists online and offline (Henry & Powell, 2014). Much of the research on rape culture focuses on the experiences of heterosexual women, and few studies have explored rape culture in the context of dating apps. This chapter explores how men who have sex with men (MSM) understand and experience rape culture through their use of Grindr and similar dating apps. A thematic analysis of interviews with 25 MSM dating app users revealed problematic user behavior as well as unwanted sexual messages and images as common manifestations of rape culture on dating apps. Participants explained that rape culture extends beyond in-app interactions to in-person encounters, as evident by incidents of sexual violence that several participants had experienced and one participant had committed. Participants were unsure about the extent to which MSM dating apps facilitate rape culture but asserted that some apps enable rape culture more than others. This chapter demonstrates the importance of investigating sexual violence against people of diverse gender and sexual identities to ensure their experiences are not minimized, ignored, or rendered invisible.

This study aims to assess gender-based differences on farmers’ perception of impacts and vulnerability to climate change and the implementation of adaptation strategies in the Pra River Basin of Ghana, while also providing lessons for other Sub-Saharan nations and regions with similar conditions.

The study used semi-structured interviews and questionnaires to collect data from 344 farmers, 64 participants in focus group discussions and 6 agriculture extension officers (key informants) from 10 districts in the Pra River Basin of Ghana.

Results showed several differences in how climate change is perceived and tackled by male and female genders. In the perception of male farmers, for example, they were found to be more vulnerable to increased temperature, and changes in rainfall and growing season, whereas female farmers on average were considered to be less resilient to floods and droughts for different reasons. Moreover, floods posed higher risks to farming than other climate change impacts. Gender roles had a significant correlation with the type of adaptation strategies practised. Men adopted agrochemicals more often than women, as an adaptation strategy.

Gender-differentiated interventions should be incorporated in the national climate change action plan for sustainable development in a rain-fed agricultural economy such as Ghana. The study recommends several actions to promote gender equity in the assessed region.

This research assessed the gender differentials in climate trends, impact, vulnerability and adaptation based on primary data collected between April and May 2019 and compared the results with climate data in the basin for the period 1991–2014. It is an empirical study focused on primary data analysis obtained in loco by authors, involving approximately 400 participants.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the association between drug consumption and unemployment. This paper also studies the differential association between these variables in both the pre- and current-crisis periods. The results are compared in an attempt to verify that the population of users is more vulnerable in terms of how likely they are to get and hold down a job in the labour market.

Matching methods and microdata from the Survey on Alcohol and Drugs in Spain, EDADES are used. The use of these methods on the estimates carried out prove to be particularly effective in reducing treatment-selection bias. The authors’ interest is also to analyse the differential association between the interest variables in both the pre- and current-crisis periods. For this purpose, the authors also use the differences-in-differences (DID) estimation method between the two periods to check if the impact of drug use on unemployment depends on the economic context. The estimations are compared in an attempt to verify that the population of users is less likely to attain and hold down a job in the labour market than non-drug users.

The results obtained in the current study are consistent with the hypothesis that drug use decreases an individual’s capacity and availability when he or she is trying to enter the labour market. In both 2007 and 2013, drug users were more likely to be unemployed, regardless of the type of drug. Differences in the probability of being unemployed intensify during an economic crisis. In light of these results, it is possible to conclude that the negative effect of drug consumption on an individual’s employability is increased during periods of economic recession.

The study presented here has some limitations. Firstly, cross-sectional data were used to examine the causal relationship between consumption and employment. In this sense, the results are susceptible to bias. The unavailability of longitudinal data on the same individual made it impossible for the researchers to consider periods of abstinence, the duration of periods of consumption and how this consumption affected an individual’s productivity and his or her working situation. Another limitation is that certain relevant unemployment variables may have been omitted. Among the variables that affect an individual’s labour participation is the existence of sources of income as an alternative to market salaries. With state subsidies, income from illegal activities and money sent by family or friends, an individual may decide not to work. This problem could be mitigated if omitted variables operate in a similar way throughout both of the periods examined.

Given the results obtained in this paper, the authors believe that public policy conclusions should be mainly concerned with the importance of implementing proactive employment policies, along with family support programmes and a greater role for primary care among the people with the highest risks of exclusion. Health treatment should go jointly with measures that make it easier for individuals to enter the workforce. These steps would only be possible with an improved level of education and more complete professional profiles, to increase motivation when individuals seek employment.

This study could make various contributions to the existing body of evidence. In the authors’ knowledge, this is the first attempt to document the effect of the economic crisis on the employability of the drug-using population in contrast with the general population. Moreover, a methodology is presented that provides an alternative to those used in earlier studies, in terms of reducing treatment-selection bias. At the same time, the use of a DID estimation method between pre- and current-crisis periods allow us to check if the impact of drugs consumption on unemployment depends on the economic context.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the differences in importance assigned by manufacturing or service organizations to topics related to operations management and its attendant body of knowledge.

The authors did this by cataloguing and analyzing vacancy announcements related to operations management, presented by manufacturing and services companies in major Brazilian human resources websites.

The results show that manufacturing companies primarily hire personnel with skills in routine process management, quality management, lean manufacturing, ergonomics and work organization. Service companies generally seek professionals with knowledge and experience in logistics, supply chain management and project management.

This study presents some limitations that reduce the power of its conclusions. There is some degree of subjectivity in the interpretation of the contents of the analyzed ads. In order to reduce this problem, the authors who did the tabulation of data marked the situations for which there were some doubts about the classification, discussing them with the other author, until they reached a consensus on the best way to classify each one.

The discussion about the importance assigned by manufacturing and service companies to the topics of operations management is crucial for not only the results obtained, but also to stimulate the debate on topics that comprise or should comprise the body of knowledge of operations management, and the way they are incorporated into business practice. This provides an additional opportunity to reflect on the potential of operations management in supporting business managers now and in the future.

The study aims to examine the factors affecting the customers' choice of Bangladeshi banks during the Covid-19 pandemic and the moderating effects of private and public banks on this association.

This study is based on explanatory research, where significant factors have been explored to evaluate the customers' perception of private and public banks in Bangladesh. Primary data are accumulated through an online survey from customers who have an account in a private or public bank in Bangladesh during the past four months, where 318 (non-probability convenience sampling) are usable, and secondary data are collected from various sources. Descriptive statistics, multiple and hierarchical multiple regressions have been conducted.

The results revealed that customers consider safe and secure websites, infrastructural facilities, technological know-how, service, price, time, payment, administrative and psychological factors in choosing Bangladeshi banks during Covid-19. Moreover, the results show that private and public banks have moderated these associations.

During Covid-19, few studies were conducted on Pakistani, Sri Lankan and Ethiopian banking customers, where different factors are significant; however, this study is unique because all factors are significant for Bangladeshi banking customers. The findings will originate the value with several theoretical implications and managerial guidelines.

This paper aims to explore various factors associated with radio frequency identification (RFID) adoption with quantitative meta-analysis. More specifically, this paper attempts to measure key variables of RFID adoption derived from Rogers’ innovation theory and further examines how state intervention influences the process of RFID adoption. First, this paper compares, relying on a meta-analysis, various mean effect sizes among technological, organizational and environmental factors (i.e. government-driven policies) that Rogers suggested in his innovation model.

In mean effect size analysis, this paper finds that the technological factor is the most powerful factor that affects the RFID adoption. The technological factor is statistically significant across all regions, including North America, Europe and Asia. The organizational factor is significant only in developing countries like Southeast Asian countries and East Asian countries. Environmental factors like government intervention for facilitating RFID adoption are strong enough only in Southeast Asia and Europe.

This paper finds that government’s supportive policy is more effective in Europe but not in America, while external pressure is still more effective in Southeast Asia. These results implicate that developmentalism or government-driven policy can be effective not only in developing countries but also in the case of developed countries. In addition, this paper conducts a seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) analysis based on Fisher’s standardized score.

In SUR analysis, this paper finds that the correlations between RFID adoption intention and three innovation factors vary across industrial areas. More specifically, the manufacturing area shows negative moderating effect on all three equations where correlations between Rogers’ innovation factors and RFID adoption intention are meta-dependent variables. Also, RFID adoption is accelerated when the size of the firm is large or the location of the firm is in Southeast Asia. This result implicates that the aspect of technology adoption can be changed by region and type of industry.