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In recent years professional accountancy bodies (e.g., CPA), accreditation institutions (e.g., AACSB) and employers have steadily raised, and continue to raise expectations regarding the need for accounting graduates to demonstrate skills in data analytics. One of the obstacles accounting instructors face in seeking to implement data analytics, however, is that they need access to ample teaching materials. Unfortunately, there are few such resources available for advanced programming languages such as R. While skills in commonly used applications such as Excel are no doubt needed, employers often take these for granted and incremental value is only added if graduates can demonstrate knowledge in using more advanced data analytics tools for decision-making such as coding in programming languages. This, together with the current dearth of resources available to accounting instructors to teach advanced programming languages is what drives motivation for this chapter. Specifically, we develop an intuitive, two-dimensional framework for incorporating R (a widely used open-source analytics tool with a powerful embedded programming language) into the accounting curriculum. Our model uses complexity as an integrating theme. We incorporate complexity into this framework at the dataset level (simple and complex datasets) and at the analytics task level (simple and complex tasks). We demonstrate two-dimensional framework by drawing on authentic simple and complex datasets as well as simple and complex tasks that could readily be incorporated into the accounting curriculum and ultimately add value to businesses. R script programming code are provided for all our illustrations.

In this chapter, we examine how the schooling experiences of disabled children have changed during COVID-19, how families' engagement, advocacy and support of their children have shifted during the pandemic, and how race, class, and other axes of inequality shape these processes.

We used a semi-structured interview protocol with families of disabled children, asking them about their experiences with their children's schools before and during the pandemic. We analyzed the interview data using “flexible coding” and the constant comparative method.

COVID-19 has had wide-reaching effects on disabled children's schooling experiences, yet these effects varied, particularly at the intersections of disability with race, class, linguistic status, and gender. Remote learning and other pandemic-related changes to schools exacerbated extant inequalities in children's educational experiences, as well as in families' ability to effectively advocate for their children in school.

This research provides important information about how the pandemic has exacerbated inequality at the intersection of disability, race, and other axes of inequality. Moreover, it provides a lens to examine ableism and other systems of oppression in schools. The findings have crucial policy implications, pointing to the necessity of equitably allocated, high quality, inclusive educational services for disabled students, as well as to the need for special education policy that does not rely on individual family advocacy to allocate appropriate services.

Purpose – One-third of the world's population is infected with tuberculosis (TB) and there are two million TB-related deaths worldwide every year. Along the U.S.-Mexico border, migration patterns, and reduced access to health care contribute to high rates of TB. Delayed diagnosis of TB, the focus of this chapter, increases the likelihood that a patient will progress to more advanced stages of the disease and heightens the risk of TB transmission to others as patients are contagious for longer periods of time.

Approach – Despite the seriousness of these consequences, few sociological studies have examined delayed diagnosis of TB and why people affected by TB symptoms delay care. Because of this, we take a health narratives approach to understanding the experiences of 15 TB patients of Mexican descent in a high-risk border community (e.g., El Paso, Texas) in order to discover why delayed diagnoses happen and how they impact patients.

Findings – Fourteen of the fifteen patients experienced delayed diagnosis. Analysis of these fourteen narratives revealed two broad themes: (1) provider lack of awareness, including repeated misdiagnosis and TB test errors, and (2) patient disadvantage, including fear of U.S. immigration authorities and few economic resources for care.

Implications – Findings from this study suggest that prompt diagnosis of TB could be achieved if providers were more cognizant of TB and its symptoms and public health policies increased access to health care regardless of immigration status or socioeconomic status.

We are currently experiencing, in western societies, a new reality in health systems, the emergence of an epidemic of chronic diseases, which test and raise new challenges to the health systems. This exponential increase in chronic diseases has not been accompanied by updated training of health professionals in this area. The chronic illness implies a bilateral relationship, of commitment and compromise for life, in which the involvement of the sick person must be the rule. The scope of therapeutic education (TE) is making the person autonomous and helping them to maintain or improve their quality of life. To treat patients with chronic disease, health professionals need to adapt their knowledge to their new role in the therapeutic relationship. As for the methodology, a participative observational methodology will be carried out with the training of health professionals who work in this area. It is a descriptive work based on studies and works published by the main schools working in this area, with emphasis on the School of Geneve. The purpose is to identify the problem of chronic diseases, the challenges that patients and health professionals face and how to build educational projects, exploring the use of educational tools, including digital technology.

This study, carried out in the bilingual and bicultural border area of South Texas, is an exploration of bilingual preservice teachers’ identity formation and their experiences and beliefs about literacy and biliteracy during an undergraduate class focused on learning about emergent literacy in the bilingual classroom. This study is based on a sociocultural approach to learning and identity development, and research that explores how bilingual teachers’ identity is shaped through their participation in cultural and linguistic practices. The purpose of this practitioner research is to provide insights into preservice teachers’ identities as they start to explore literacy and biliteracy practices. Two research questions guide the study: What experiences about literacy and biliteracy development do prospective teachers identify as meaningful? How do these experiences contribute to define bilingual preservice teachers’ identities? Findings indicate that bilingual preservice teachers’ identities are shaped by cultural and linguistic experiences that define the bilingual and bicultural dynamics of the region. Two predominant types of experiences impact bilingual preservice teachers’ beliefs about teaching, learning, and literacy/biliteracy development. Particularly significant in defining their perceptions are the lessons learned from meaningful others – especially mothers and teachers – and certain relevant memories regarding effective practices they experienced when learning to read and write. Implications for teacher education preparation of bilingual teachers are identified.

This study draws on the natural resource-based view to analyze the effects of technologies, managerial commitment, and firm strategy on sustainability performance, in terms of both environmental and social profits. It also examines how the effect of green technologies on sustainability performance can be triggered by a managerial commitment to sustainability issues, and by the adoption of a prospector strategy. Multiple linear regression was used to test research hypotheses on a sample of 426 Spanish tourism firms. The results provide important insights into the importance of the adoption of explorer strategies fostering the strategic exploitation of green technologies to obtain new efficient processes, organizational procedures, and products. This research also shows the contingent moderating effect that managerial commitment exerts on the strategic implementation of green technologies for sustainability performance.

Empirical evidence for the positive correlation between company size and competitiveness is widely supported in the literature and research. Of the many ways in which companies can increase in size, mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are the most common. M&As are now a strategic option for corporations to exploit emerging opportunities in order to expand. This paper reviewed the literature on how M&As impact company’s performance, comparing pre-merger and post-merger situations. We found that while scholars have explored this topic extensively, no minimum level of consensus has been reached, not only in conclusions but neither in methodologies nor in identifying independent and dependent variables. The evidence from the M&A literature is extremely inconsistent. Based on these mixed findings, we identified directions for future research, and suggested how to develop the scholarship to reach a consensus on the answer to the research question: does company performance improve after M&As?

Several brands are striving in their endeavors to find new ways to improve their consumer engagement through social media. They are using different tools including influencer marketing through social networking sites (SNSs). Therefore, this chapter addresses a gap in the academic literature as it distinguishes between two types of online influencers. The researchers investigate the effects of celebrity endorsers’ and of micro influencers’ posts on a brand’s page on Instagram. They examine the number of followers, clicks, comments and likes that are generated following their influencer marketing. The results suggest that both influencers have generated varying levels and types of interactions. In sum, this exploratory study revealed that the chosen celebrity’s posts attracted more followers to the brand’s Instagram page, when compared to the micro influencer’s publications. However, the latter has garnered more clicks, comments and likes, thereby increasing the consumer-brand engagement through social media. In conclusion, this contribution identifies future research avenues relating to influencer marketing.