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Lockdowns and the forced closure of certain industries during the COVID-19 pandemic severely impacted workers, particularly entrepreneurs, who were financially and emotionally involved in their businesses. Two studies have shown that entrepreneurs have a lower willingness to get vaccinated against COVID-19 than employees. In this study, the authors try to replicate the vaccination gap between the two groups. Second, the authors study whether the difference persists when controlling for demographics, vaccination attitudes and the COVID-19 context, including the financial impact of the pandemic, its effect on the wellbeing of workers, and government attitudes. Third, the authors study whether there are differences in how the context of the pandemic relates to vaccination willingness for entrepreneurs and employees.

The authors conduct regression analyses using three large datasets. The authors study vaccination status (February 2022) in a 27-country Eurobarometer sample, vaccination intention (December 2020) in a Dutch sample from the LISS panel and vaccination status (July 2021) in a sample from the Understanding America Study (UAS).

All datasets confirm that entrepreneurs have lower vaccination intention and coverage than employees. Even when controlling for the variables described in the LISS and UAS datasets, this negative difference remains. The study results also indicate that demographics, especially vaccination attitudes, are much more important than contextual influences in the decision to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

The authors are the first to dive further into the vaccination differences between entrepreneurs and employees. They advise further research into the drivers of this gap, specifically relating to the role of personality and social normative influences.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the interplay between fiscal dominance and monetary policy in South Africa from 1960 to 2023.

The study employs a structural vector autoregression (SVAR) medel to analyze the relationship between fiscal dominance and monetary policy. Short-term and long-term shocks of government borrowing and deficits are examined to understand their impact on inflation dynamics.

Fiscal dominance has a significant effect both in the short and long run. There is evidence that government debt and deficits increase inflation, overriding the effects of monetary policy aimed at maintaining price stability. On the other hand, the study reveals that money supply shocks have a greater effect in reducing fiscal dominance compared to interest rate shocks. The variance movement on inflation is significantly explained by government debt and deficits. This emphasizes the persistence of inflationary pressures associated with fiscal dominance, highlighting the importance of effective policy interventions to mitigate inflationary risks.

This study contributes to the existing literature by providing insights into the dynamics of fiscal dominance in South Africa. Moreover, this study extends the theoretical framework of the fiscal theory of the price level (FTPL) and the government budget constraint. This study contributes valuable insights into the dynamics of fiscal dominance in South Africa and offers guidance for policymakers in formulating strategies to safeguard economic stability.

Social media platforms are highly visible platforms, so politicians try to maximize their benefits from their use, especially during election campaigns. On the other side, people express their views and sentiments toward politicians and political issues on social media, thus enabling them to observe their online political behavior. Therefore, this study aims to investigate user reactions on social media during the 2016 US presidential campaign to decide which candidate invoked stronger emotions on social media.

For testing the proposed hypotheses regarding emotional reactions to social media content during the 2016 presidential campaign, regression analysis was used to analyze a data set that consists of Trump’s 996 posts and Clinton’s 1,253 posts on Facebook. The proposed regression models are based on viral (likes, shares, comments) and emotional Facebook reactions (Angry, Haha, Sad, Surprise, Wow) as well as Russell’s valence, arousal, dominance (VAD) circumplex model for valence, arousal and dominance.

The results of regression analysis indicate how Facebook users felt about both presidential candidates. For Clinton’s page, both positive and negative content are equally liked, while Trump’s followers prefer funny and positive emotions. For both candidates, positive and negative content influences the number of comments. Trump’s followers mostly share positive content and the content that makes them angry, while Clinton’s followers share any content that does not make them angry. Based on VAD analysis, less dominant content, with high arousal and more positive emotions, is more liked on Trump’s page, where valence is a significant predictor for commenting and sharing. More positive content is more liked on Clinton’s page, where both positive and negative emotions with low arousal are correlated to commenting and sharing of posts.

Building on an empirical data set from Facebook, this study shows how differently the presidential candidates communicated on social media during the 2016 election campaign. According to the findings, Trump used a hard campaign strategy, while Clinton used a soft strategy.

The purpose of this study is to better understand factors related to turnover intention (TI) and job satisfaction (JS) in the information technology and engineering sectors. Specifically, this study investigates the role of workplace learning opportunities (WLO) afforded by the environment and individual’s subjective career success (SCS). The connections between learning opportunities and career success are examined, as well as their connections to JS and TI.

The current research was based on self-report questionnaire data (N = 153). The questionnaire included existing instruments measuring WLO, SCS, JS and TI. The analyses of the data included Pearson product-moment correlations, path analysis (based on multiple regression) and analysis of relative importance (dominance analysis).

Results indicated that higher access to resources that support learning, more opportunities for professional growth and satisfactory career decisions made by employees were connected to lower TI. The processes of well-being and learning are strongly intertwined and mutually reinforce each other, reducing the willingness to change a job in the near future.

This study adds to the previous research by providing more detailed knowledge on the connections between the various dimensions of WLO and SCS. The findings of the present study can offer insights for developing work environments where employees wish to remain, learn and are satisfied with their job and careers, thus ultimately supporting their well-being.

This paper aims to evaluate the progressivity of health-care financing in Egypt by assessing all five financing sources individually and then combining them to analyze the equity of the whole financing system.

Lorenz dominance analysis and Kakwani progressivity index were applied on data from 2010/2011 Household Income, Expenditure, and Consumption Survey and the National Health Accounts 2011 using Stata to evaluate the progressivity of each source of health-care finance and the financing system overall.

The data show that Egypt’s health-care system, which is largely financed by out-of-pocket (OOP) payments, is slightly regressive, with an overall Kakwani index of −0.079. The overall regressive effect was the result of three regressive sources (OOP payments, an earmarked cigarette tax and direct taxes), one proportional finance source (social health insurance) and two slightly progressive sources (indirect taxes and private health insurance). This shows that the burden of financing health care falls more on the poor. These results signal the need for reform of health-care financing in Egypt to reduce dependence on OOP payments to achieve more equitable financing.

The paper seeks to augment the literature on health-care financing in Egypt by calculating specific progressivity estimates for all five sources of financing the Egyptian health-care system and analyzing the overall equity of this financing system. It will, therefore, provide a benchmark for monitoring the equity of finance in the Egyptian health-care system in future studies and allow one to assess the impact of implemented financing reforms in the future on the level of progressivity of health system financing.

Based on the theoretical predictions of media equation theory and the computers-are-social-actors (CASA) perspective, this study aims to examine the effects of performance error type (i.e. logical, semantic or syntactic), task type and personality presentation (i.e. dominant/submissive and/or friendly/unfriendly) on users’ level of trust in their personal digital assistant (PDA), Siri.

An experimental study of human–PDA interactions was performed with two types of tasks (social vs functional) randomly assigned to participants (N = 163). While interacting with Siri in 15 task inquiries, the participants recorded Siri’s answers for each inquiry and self-rated their trust in the PDA. The answers were coded and rated by the researchers for personality presentation and error type.

Logical errors were the most detrimental to user trust. Users’ trust of Siri was significantly higher after functional tasks compared to social tasks when the effects of general usage (e.g. proficiency, length and frequency of usage) were controlled for. The perception of a friendly personality from Siri had an opposite effect on social and functional tasks in the perceived reliability dimension of trust and increased intensity of the presented personality reduced perceived reliability in functional tasks.

The research findings contradict predictions from media equation theory and the CASA perspective while contributing to a theoretical refinement of machine errors and their impact on user trust.

This study aims to identify different consumer segments to address the strategies that can be adopted by companies and policymakers to increase the consumption of safer foods and reduce the negative externalities caused by pesticides. More than 3,000 consumers were involved in the survey, of which more than 1,000 completed in all parts.

The complexity of the topic required a multidimensional approach. Therefore, the authors modelled the decision support system by proposing a decision rule-based approach to analyse consumers' food purchasing choices. More precisely, the authors referred to the dominance-based rough set approach (DRSA).

Based on the DRSA results, three consumer segments were identified: green consumers, integrated pest management (IPM)-informed and active consumers, and potential low-pesticide consumers for which different policy implications have been highlighted.

Despite the high number of survey respondents, further research should seek to obtain data from a more balanced sample. Furthermore, different methods of analysis could be applied and the results compared.

Identification and promotion of managerial and public policies to increase the consumption of low pesticide food.

The main social implications can be summarised in the greater knowledge and awareness of the environmental aspects related to food, recognition of the intrinsic quality and/or functionality of food.

The authors contribute to the literature in two ways. First, the authors refer to the DRSA, an innovative approach in the context of consumer analysis. Second, based on the decision rules, the authors identify three consumer segments to which specific tools can be addressed.

This article explores the synergy between journalism studies and computer science in the context of observing online news. By establishing web applications of online media observatories as research tools, researchers can employ various analytical approaches to gain valuable insights into online news discourse and production.

Drawing eight months of data (01.08.2022–30.04.2023) from the Labservatory’s web application, i.e. over 250,000 news items, the article demonstrates how some of this web application’s main functionalities may be useful in implementing (1) news flow analysis, (2) news topic distribution analysis and (3) media discourse analysis.

The capabilities provided by this web application, (1) to simultaneously analyse the daily news production of ten media outlets with varying features, (2) to rapidly collect a large volume of news items, (3) to identify the news categories as classified by the media themselves, (4) to present the results of the search in relevance order and (5) to automatically generate a search report, highlight the significance of this interdisciplinary collaboration for implementing comprehensive analyses of online news.

The article concludes by emphasising the importance of continuing this joint effort, as it opens new avenues for further research and provides a deeper grasp of the intricate relationship between journalism, technology and society in the digital era. The Labservatory also contributes to society since it may be used by the broader public for immediate access to more pluralistic information and thus for promoting both news media literacy and news media accountability.

Although numerous women have contributed essays and research on servant-leadership there is still a considerable gap in literature addressing feminist perspectives and issues of gender in servant-leadership. This theoretical paper attempts to fill that gap by presenting a discussion of servant-leadership that is informed through feminist scholarship. The intent is to build a theoretical foundation for conceiving servant-leadership as a gender-integrative approach to leadership. A further purpose is to propose gender-integrative discernment in leadership education programs and suggest using servant-leadership as a framework for discussing gender in leadership and organizations. Examples of implications for leadership education programs are discussed in terms of outcomes and assessment. Suggestions for course content are made.

Passive investing has established itself as the dominant force in the world of professionally managed assets, surpassing the concept of index funds. Its meteoric rise is fueled by investors’ preference for its dual benefits of strong diversification and low cost. A comprehensive study of the economic model, addressed areas and market structure has not yet been conducted, despite the existence of numerous studies on more specific topics. To address this gap, this paper examines 943 articles on passive investing published between 1998 and 2022 in SCOPUS and Web of Science.

The study utilizes the most pertinent tools for conducting a systematic review by the PRISMA framework. This article is the result of SLR and extensive bibliometric analysis. Contextualized systematic literature review is used to screen and select bibliographic data, which is then subjected to a variety of bibliometric analyses. The study provides a bibliometric overview of works on passive investment research that are indexed in Scopus and Web of Science. Bibliometrix, VoS Viewer and Cite Space are the tools used to conduct content and network analysis, to ascertain the present state of research, as well as its focus and direction.

Our exhaustive analysis yields important findings. One, the previous decade has witnessed a substantial increase in the number of publications and citations; in particular, the inter-disciplinary and international scope of related research has expanded; Second, the top three clusters on “active versus passive funds,” “price discovery and market structures” and “exchange-traded funds (ETFs) as an alternative” account for more than fifty percent of the domain’s knowledge; Third, “Leveraged ETFs (LETFs)” and “environmental, social and governance (ESG)” are the two emerging themes in the passive investing research. Fourth, despite its many benefits, passive investing is not suitable for everyone. To get the most out of what passive investing has to offer, investors, intermediaries and regulators must all exercise sufficient caution. Our study makes a substantial contribution to the field by conducting a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of the existing literature, highlighting key findings and implications, as well as future research directions.

While the study contributes significantly to the field of knowledge, it has several limitations that must be considered when interpreting its findings and implications. With our emphasis on academic journals, the study analyzed only peer-reviewed journal articles, excluding conference papers, reports and technical articles. While we are confident that our approach resulted in a comprehensive and representative database, our reliance on Elsevier Scopus and Web of Science may have resulted in us overlooking relevant work accessible only through other databases. Additionally, specific bibliometric properties may not be time-stable, and certain common distribution patterns of the passive investing literature may still be developing.

With this study, it has been possible to observe and chart the high growth trajectory of passive investing research globally, especially post-US subprime crisis. Despite the widespread adoption of passive investing as an investment strategy, it is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. Market conditions change constantly, and it frequently requires an informed eye to determine when and how much to shift away from active investments and toward passive ones. Currency ETFs enable investors to implement a carry trade strategy in their portfolios; however, as a word of caution, currency stability and liquidity can play a significant role in international ETFs. Similarly, LETFs may be better suited for dynamic strategies and offer less value to a long-term investor. Lastly, the importance of investor education cannot be underestimated in the name of the highly diversified portfolio when using passive alternatives, for which necessary efforts are required by regulators and investors alike.

The inexorable trend to passive investing creates numerous issues for fund management, including fee and revenue pressure, which forces traditional managers to seek new revenue streams, such as illiquid and private assets, which also implies increased portfolio risk. Additionally, the increased transparency and efficiency associated with the ETF market indicates that managers must rethink the entire value chain, beginning with technology and the way investments interact. Passive investments have triggered changes in market structure that are still not fully understood or factored in. Active management and a range of valuation opinions on whether a price is “too low” or “too high” provide much-needed depth to a market as it attempts to strike a delicate balance between demand and supply forces, ensuring liquidity at all price points.

I hereby certify that I am the sole author of this paper and that no part of this manuscript has been published or submitted for publication.