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This study aims to investigate barriers and enablers of social media usage by zooming on one specific type of domain: disaster management. First, by systematically reviewing previous studies using a typology to social media usage, this study identifies the challenges often faced. Second, the results are visualized by qualitatively analyzing the focus group discussion data.

This paper opted for an inductive thematic approach of grounded theory, including focus group discussion with ten participants from diverse backgrounds working in the disaster domain. The data is transcribed verbatim and coded using Atlas.ti software.

The findings suggest that the vogue of social media significantly ascends its usage in disaster management. Regulatory, software, physical, authenticity, cultural and demographic rose as challenges for social media usage in disaster management. Findings further indicate enablers as the rise in mobile penetration, democratic participation, increase in living standards, two-way real-time communication, global reach, expeditious decision-making, no space-time constraint and cheaper source of information. Social media, compared to traditional media, is explored. This study has practical implications in helping authorities understand the barriers and enablers for social media usage in disaster management.

Qualitative data analysis of social media usage for disaster management has received scant attention. The main takeaway of this research is to offer clear findings of the purview of social media usage for disaster management. It demonstrates the challenges and enablers of disaster management using social media in the Indian context. Results indicate that leveraging social media for disaster management can extend decision-making for effective disaster management.

This chapter traces the origin of racism and reviews the historical and contemporary debates around race and racialisation in western thought. There are persistent disagreements surrounding the origin and nature of racism. Because of the evolution of racist ideas, behaviours and institutional practices and policies, there are various views about the meaning and analytical application of racism. This chapter explores how ideas of race – understood as innate and immutable human differences that can be classified and ranked hierarchically based on race – has emerged in western history and evolved over time. It examines how this has influenced social and political practices and associated policies across the evolution of modernity. The chapter specifically discusses the Atlantic slave trade and how it shaped the historical development of race and racism within the context of colonialism. It concludes with a discussion and critical review of some of the racist systems and policies which have been enforced across different multiracial countries.

Heritage buildings are a witness to previous civilizations and constitute important elements in transmitting cultural identity through generations. In 1938, Alexandria University was established; it was called the University of Farouk at the time. In 1952, the university was named “Alexandria University,” and since then, it has witnessed growth and expansion in several fields. The research aims to preserve the heritage of this academic institution. It seeks to document this wealth of buildings that tell the story of the second-earliest university in Egypt.

A mixed-method approach was employed. A descriptive method was used to narrate the history of the university and the importance of its buildings. Within the quantitative approach, a questionnaire was chosen as the survey instrument for collecting the data within the research case study. The aim was to determine the awareness of students, staff and employees of the heritage importance of their faculty. Within the qualitative approach, several interviews were conducted with employees in the engineering departments of the university administrative building at Chatby and some of the selected faculties. The aim was to determine the methods used for the conservation of these buildings.

Alexandria University has a heritage value not only in its great history but also through its heritage buildings. Raising the awarness of the university's affiliates of this heritage will lead to enhance the feelings of loyalty and belongings to the university. Therefore, preserving this heritage and properly managing it is crucial.

Universities have to recognize that their built heritage constitutes a unique expression that can create a distinctive sense of place. University heritage is crucial in defining and interpreting the university cultural identity. The institution must identify resources that will help build a new public image and contribute to develop a successful brand. Campus appearance is an important factor that has a significant impact on student feelings of loyalty and belonging.

This exploratory study aims to investigate the use of Facebook as a dialogic accounting tool for promoting citizen engagement in Italian regions.

This study adopts a mixed methodology. Indeed, it first collects some quantitative data to construct an engagement index for the Facebook pages of the Italian regions, and then it performs a content analysis of some posts while also examining the tenor of the related comments and the level of interaction between regions and citizens.

The Italian regions have mainly used their Facebook pages for public communication purposes rather than for public participation. Therefore, they have conceived social pages more as an instrument of self-legitimisation and thus monologic accounting and have rarely considered them as a tool for engaging citizens who, in turn, showed low interest in participating in online debates. Nature and environment, tourism promotion and sport were the most engaging content types. Findings also confirm that posting many messages does not automatically increase engagement.

This study is one of the first to investigate the potential of social media from a dialogic accounting perspective, especially in the public sector. Additionally, it focuses on regions which are understudied in the literature, although they are critical actors in implementing public policies. Last but not least, this study offers a framework that integrates the literature on the use of social media for citizen engagement and research on such platforms as dialogic accounting tools.

This study employs Stein Rokkan's methodological approach to analyse state formation in the Greater Middle East. It develops a conceptual framework distinguishing colonial, populist and democratic pacts, suitable for analysis of state formation and nation-building through to the present period. The framework relies on historical institutionalism. The methodology, however, is Rokkan's. The initial conceptual analysis also specifies differences between European and the Middle Eastern state formation processes. It is followed by a brief and selective discussion of historical preconditions. Next, the method of plotting singular cases into conceptual-typological maps is applied to 20 cases in the Greater Middle East (including Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey). For reasons of space, the empirical analysis is limited to the colonial period (1870s to the end of World War 1). Three typologies are combined into one conceptual-typological map of this period. The vertical left-hand axis provides a composite typology that clarifies cultural-territorial preconditions. The horizontal axis specifies transformations of the region's agrarian class structures since the mid-19th century reforms. The right-hand vertical axis provides a four-layered typology of processes of external intervention. A final section presents selected comparative case reconstructions. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first time such a Rokkan-style conceptual-typological map has been constructed for a non-European region.

In this paper, the authors study the phenomenon of price clustering in the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX), a market viewed as one of the best-performing stock markets in the world during 2014–2017. The authors study the effect of stock-level variables on price clustering and analyze the determinants of the cross-sectional patterns of price clustering in the PSX, in particular the causal link between price clustering and political instability.

The authors' dataset comprises daily observations on 100 PSX stocks spanning from January 1, 2009 to June 30, 2019. The authors use multivariate regression and spectral analysis to shed light on the dynamics of stock price clustering in PSX.

The authors document abnormally high levels of stock price clustering, particularly on integer increments, in PSX. The nature of stock price clustering in PSX is consistent with the negotiation hypothesis of Harris (1991). The levels of stock price clustering on PSX are persistent and contain a cyclical component. Furthermore, the authors find that political uncertainty in Pakistan is a significant contributor to the high levels of price clustering on PSX. The authors' conclusions are robust to alternative econometric specifications and different measures of price clustering and political uncertainty.

The authors' findings are of interest to investors and policymakers. Since price clustering decreases market quality and degrades the information content of stock prices, the authors' study shows that price efficiency in PSX has not improved despite major reforms over the last decade. One practical implication of the authors' results is that investors should be cautious while rebalancing portfolios around political events such as general elections because stock price clustering increases in the PSX during these periods. As a result, stock prices are likely to deviate from their intrinsic values.

Research on price clustering is limited to developed markets, and emerging/frontier markets have been largely overlooked. The phenomenon of price clustering in the PSX has yet to be studied, despite the relevance of the PSX for emerging/frontier market investors.