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To elaborate the nature of fact-checking in the domain of political information by examining how fact-checkers assess the validity of claims concerning the Russo-Ukrainian conflict and how they support their assessments by drawing on evidence acquired from diverse sources of information.

Descriptive quantitative and qualitative content analysis of 128 reports written by the fact-checkers of Snopes – an established fact-checking organisation – during the period of 24 February 2022 – 28 June, 2023. For the analysis, nine evaluation grounds were identified, most of them inductively from the empirical material. It was examined how the fact-checkers employed such grounds while assessing the validity of claims and how the assessments were bolstered by evidence acquired from information sources such as newspapers.

Of the 128 reports, the share of assessments indicative of the invalidity of the claims was 54.7%, while the share of positive ratings was 26.7%. The share of mixed assessments was 15.6%. In the fact-checking, two evaluation grounds, that is, the correctness of information and verifiability of an event presented in a claim formed the basis for the assessment. Depending on the topic of the claim, grounds such as temporal and spatial compatibility, as well as comparison by similarity and difference occupied a central role. Most popular sources of information offering evidence for the assessments include statements of government representatives, videos and photographs shared in social media, newspapers and television programmes.

As the study concentrated on fact-checking dealing with political information about a specific issue, the findings cannot be extended to concern the fact-checking practices in other contexts.

The study is among the first to characterise how fact-checkers employ evaluation grounds of diverse kind while assessing the validity of political information.

This paper aims to explore how accounting is fostering neoliberal citizenship through the participants of Australia’s National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). More specifically, this paper aims to understand how accounting discourse and the management accounting technique of budgeting, when intertwined with automated administrative processes of the NDIS, are giving rise to a pastoral form of power that directs people’s behaviour toward certain ends.

Publicly available data has been crafted into an autoethnographic case study of one fictitious person’s experiences with the NDIS – Mina. Mina is an amalgam created from material submitted to the Joint Parliamentary Standing Committee on the NDIS. Mina’s experiences are then analysed through the lens of Foucault’s concept of pastoral power to explore how accounting has contributed to marketising and digitising public disability services.

Accounting rhetoric appears to be a central part of rationalising the decision to shift to individualised disability funding. Those receiving payments are treated as self-governable, financially responsible subjects and are therefore expected to have knowledge of management accounting techniques and budgeting. However, NDIS’s strong reliance on the accounting concepts of funds, budgets, cost and price is limiting people’s autonomy and subjecting them to intervention and control.

This paper addresses calls to explore the interplay between accounting and current disability policies. The analysis shows that incorporating accounting into the NDIS’s algorithms serves to conceal the underlying ideology of the programs, subtly driving behaviours towards neoliberal objectives. Further, this research extends the Foucauldian accounting literature by revealing the contribution of accounting to reinforcing the authority of digital pastors in contemporary times.

This study investigates the combined impact of two packaging cues (i.e. packaging material, recycled content claim) and a price premium on young consumers’ product perceptions and choices.

Experimental data were collected online via a questionnaire and a hypothetical choice task completed by 221 young consumers (i.e. 19–25 years). We manipulated two packaging cues for a liquid food product: the packaging material (glass vs plastic) and the presence (vs absence) of a recycled content claim (i.e. 100% recycled). We also manipulated whether a price premium was attached to these packaging variations.

The packaging material and the claim both had a significant influence on young consumers’ sustainability perceptions, and these perceptions extended to perceptions of various product attributes (e.g. healthiness, quality). When all products cost the same, participants were more likely to choose a glass bottle (i.e. 81%) than a plastic bottle, and a bottle with the recycled content claim (i.e. 79%) than a bottle without this claim. However, these preferences dropped significantly when a price premium was attached to these packaging variations.

While most studies have relied on surveys and qualitative methods to investigate consumers’ reactions to sustainable packaging, our research uses an experimental method to assess how packaging impacts young consumers’ perceptions and choices. Additionally, by manipulating the presence of a price premium, this study uniquely investigates the impact of such a premium on young consumers' willingness to choose sustainable packaging.

Despite the unparalleled importance of value within healthcare, value-based models remain underutilised in the procurement of medical devices. Research is needed to understand what factors incentivise standard, low-priced device purchasing as opposed to value-adding devices with potentially higher overall health outcomes. Framed in agency theory, we examine the conditions under which different actors involved in purchasing decisions select premium-priced, value-adding medical devices over low-priced, standard medical devices.

We conducted 2 × 2 × 2 between-subjects scenario-based vignette experiments on three UK-based online samples of managers (n = 599), medical professionals (n = 279) and purchasing managers (n = 449) with subjects randomly assigned to three treatments: (1) cost-saving incentives, (2) risk-sharing contracts and (3) stronger (versus weaker) clinical evidence.

Our analysis demonstrates the harmful effects of intra-organisational cost-saving incentives on value-based purchasing (VBP) adoption; the positive impact of inter-organisational risk-sharing contracts, especially when medical professionals are involved in decision-making; and the challenge of leveraging clinical evidence to support value claims.

Our results demonstrate the need to align incentives in a context with multiple intra- and inter-organisational agency relationships at play, as well as the difficulty of reducing information asymmetry when information is not easily interpretable to all decision-makers. Overall, the intra-organisational agency factors strongly influenced the choices for the inter-organisational agency relationship.

We contribute to VBP in healthcare by examining the role of intra- and inter-organisational agency relationships and incentives concerning VBP (non-) adoption. We also examine how the impact of such mechanisms differs between medical and purchasing (management) professionals.

In this study, we explored factors driving evidence-based management (EBM) decision-making in Poland which has experienced changes from state-controlled market environments to more competitive ones. Evidence-based management requires the critical use and adaptability to information to deal with complex problems.

In total, 422 Polish managers responded to a telephone survey measuring their perceptions about decision-making culture, styles, competence, and their use of specific sources to derive the evidence to enable them to make evidence-based decisions. Informed by theoretical principles, we used Hayes’ PROCESS macro (Model 4) to examine whether each factor produced direct effects on EBM decision-making and the mediating influence of competence and style in the relationship between culture and perceived evidence-based decision-making.

All three factors correlated positively with perceived evidence-based decision-making. Moreover, style was not predictive of EBM decision-making compared to competence and culture while culture had an imposing effect on decision-making both as a direct effect and indirectly through competence.

This study provides important insights into the perceptual state of EBM among Polish managers. It emphasizes the importance of embracing diverse cultures and improving critical thinking to help managers make more evidence-based decisions during significant changes in the business world.

This research aims to examine how decision-makers’ demographic traits affect the integration of foreign workforce into Tirolean (Austria) companies. With continuous world migrations, Tirol experiences a great inflow of foreign workforce. While integrating into the workforce, the foreign workers interact with various decision-makers whose demographic traits (e.g., age, gender, nationality) potentially influence the success of the integration process. To gather data on the integration levels of a foreign workforce, the author conducted a questionnaire. Furthermore, several statistical analyses were run to determine if the relationship between demographic characteristics and integration success exists. The study reveals that demographic characteristics influence decision-makers’ acceptance of expatriates, as well as their recruitment, integration, and training and development outcomes. The empirical results indicate the strength of relationships identified through analyses. The study is limited to geographical, as well as the scope of the sample size, as the data are obtained from Tirol only. In addition, the results from the study serve as a basis for future discussions and research.

The purpose of this paper was to examine the nexus between conditional exchange rate volatility and economic growth in BRICS countries. Further, the dynamic causation between economic growth and exchange rate volatility is also examined.

We employed three techniques, namely, dynamic panel models, static panel models and Dumitrescu and Hurlin (DH) panel causality test to examine the economic growth–conditional exchange rate volatility nexus in BRICS countries.

The overall results showed that conditional exchange rate volatility has a negative and significant effect on economic growth. Interestingly, the results showed that whenever the exchange rate volatility exceeds the 0–1.54 range, the economic growth of BRICS is reduced, on average, by 5%. Further, the results of the causality test reconciled with that of ARDL wherein unidirectional causality from exchange rate volatility, exports, labour force and gross capital formation to economic growth was found.

The urgent recommendation is to develop and align fiscal, monetary, trade and exchange rate policies, either through creating a common currency region or through coordinated measures to offset volatility and trade risks in the long run. Further, to offset the impact of excessive exchange rate changes, BRICS economies can set up currency hedging systems, implement temporary capital controls during periods of extreme volatility or create currency swap agreements with other nations or regions. Last, but not least, investment and labour policies that are coherent and well-coordinated can support market stabilisation, promote investment and increase worker productivity and job prospects.

Researchers hold contrasting views regarding the effect of exchange rate volatility on economic growth. Some researchers claim that exchange rate volatility reduces growth, and several shreds of empirical evidence claim that lower exchange rate volatility is linked with an increase in economic growth, at least in the short run. However, the challenge lies in establishing the optimal range beyond which exchange rate volatility becomes detrimental to economic growth. The present study contributes to this aspect by seeking to identify the optimal spectrum beyond which excessive shifts in exchange rate volatility negatively affect economic growth, or endeavors to define the acceptable spectrum within which these fluctuations actually boost growth. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to analyse the given research area. The present study used a dummy variable technique to capture the impact of permissible exchange rate band on the economic growth.

This chapter discusses the creation, structure, and functioning of the International Criminal Court. It also examines its operations to date and addresses many contemporary criticisms of the court.

In November 2022, the commercial company, OpenAI, launched ChatGPT. Since then, university students have rapidly become regular users of this artificial intelligence (AI) platform. One reason for this is the powerful capability of this generative AI tool to produce textual content, which in many cases, is almost indistinguishable from human-generated content. Another reason is that ChatGPT easily gives anyone access to knowledge. However, there is a problem as the vast majority of its users have no idea how this AI platform works and thus overlook the importance of thinking critically about information communicated in ChatGPT. While some call for banning this generative AI tool, this study aims to provide evidence that science classrooms can become scenarios where students find explicit, concrete, and realistic opportunities to critically evaluate scientific information generated by ChatGPT.

An intervention study was conducted with 55 students (26 females and 29 males, 17–24 years old) during a university Spanish-English bilingual science course taught within an active learning environment. The data consist of the written critiques of the students about Spanish-English bilingual scientific texts produced by ChatGPT.

Results indicate that the intervention had a positive effect on students’ abilities to construct sound arguments in Spanish and in English while judging the quality of scientific texts produced by this AI bot. Moreover, the findings suggest that the intervention enriched students’ skills to make improvements to texts produced by this generative AI tool.

The evidence provided in this study contributes to the exploration of possibilities to help students become critical users of ChatGPT.

Design an innovative Flipped classroom’s Delivery through virtual laboratory.

The fundamental framework of the present investigation is a Participatory Action Research (PAR) design. By merging the impetus of “action.” with the inclusiveness of “participation,” PAR establishes a “network” for collaborative teaching or research. PAR is pertinent to our research because it facilitates the participation of infrastructures and individuals in formulating a critical community. This community encourages critical self-reflection, promotes accountability, redistributes authority, and cultivates confidence in research. PAR fosters constructive transformation in educational environments by utilizing participants' combined insights and experiences to establish a structure for substantive dialogue and proactive measures.

As virtual laboratories are becoming essential in 21st-century science education, we found groundbreaking evidence that can support our novel approach to enhance the quality and equity in education. Our results show that virtual labs engage scientific goals and practices, develop scientific literacy, foster scientific inquiry and problem-solving, and promote metacognition. The effects of the virtual laboratory can develop high self-efficacy and positive attitudes among students. It improves students' laboratory performance, which we noted from laboratory activities, simulations, and long exam results.

The study offers groundbreaking account to depict epistemic fluency aided by virtual laboratory.