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11 – 20 of over 3000Mohamed Saeudy, Jill Atkins and Elisabetta A.V. Barone
This paper aims to contribute to a growing literature in sustainable and green banking by exploring the views of senior banking representatives towards the implementation of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to contribute to a growing literature in sustainable and green banking by exploring the views of senior banking representatives towards the implementation of sustainability initiatives through extensive interview research. The authors explore the extent to which such initiatives are embedded within the banking industry, whether they represent risk management mechanisms and whether they are imbued with reputational risk management rather than a genuine response to ethical societal concerns.
Design/methodology/approach
Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with UK bank managers. The interviewees’ utterances are interpreted through a sociological theoretical lens derived from the study of Giddens and Beck, allowing us to conclude that external initiatives such as the Equator Principles seem to be adopted as re-embedding mechanisms that can rebuild societal trust, as well as representing mechanisms of reputational risk management.
Findings
The analysis suggested that internal sustainability initiatives were interpreted as coping mechanisms whereby bank employees can recreate their protective cocoon, reinstating their ontological security in response to the high consequence risks of climate change and other related systemic factors that create overwhelming feelings of engulfment.
Originality/value
Using Beck’s risk society theory as a theoretical lens through which to interpret the interview data allows a number of concluding comments and suggestions to be made. The findings resonate with earlier research into institutional investors’ attitudes towards climate change that found their engagement and dialogue with companies around climate change issues to be imbued with a risk discourse: their initiatives and actions were dominated by risk management motivations.
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Daniel William Mackenzie Wright
By drawing on current reports, this paper positions that Homo sapiens could in the near future be faced with an increasingly uninhabitable planet. It emphasises the importance of…
Abstract
Purpose
By drawing on current reports, this paper positions that Homo sapiens could in the near future be faced with an increasingly uninhabitable planet. It emphasises the importance of adventure tourism and its associated activities as a means of supporting individuals to develop more outdoor survival skills.
Design/methodology/approach
This study applies a scenario narrative approach in exploring and presenting potential future ideas. The significance of narratives lies at the essential examination of current trends and drivers that could be shaping future scenarios. This paper, through the exploration of past and current trends supports the researcher in presenting future views. The scenario narratives in this research are established via desk-based research and inspection of academic journals, industry reports, ideas and knowledge.
Findings
If society is pushed to the brink of extinction due to a catastrophic event(s), people will require survival skills, similar to those shared by our hunter-gather nomad ancestor. Thus, this paper highlights the value and importance of the industry in encouraging soft and hard outdoor adventure in the coming years. It recognises how different adventure travel activities can support people in rekindling with our more basic instincts and ultimately, surviving in different natural environments.
Originality/value
This paper offers original theoretical knowledge within the adventure tourism literature. Offering original consideration to the value of exploring the past as a method of understanding the future, the paper presents an original spectrum of soft and hard skills-based adventure tourism activities.
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Reimara Valk and Gabriella Planojevic
The purpose of this paper is to investigate digital knowledge sharing (KS) and social learning (SL) of geographically dispersed employees during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate digital knowledge sharing (KS) and social learning (SL) of geographically dispersed employees during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Design/methodology/approach
The method is qualitative case study action research within a leading global provider of comprehensive logistics and transportation solutions; 22 employees from various geographically dispersed entities were selected through purposive sampling. Employees took part in interviews to explore their perspectives on and experiences with digital KS and SL.
Findings
Findings first show that successful digital KS and SL hinges on the motivation, intentions, attitude and behaviour of employees to share and co-create knowledge embedded in supportive KS culture and climate. Second, findings show that the implementation of knowledge sharing platforms customised to the needs and preferences of employees within the case study organisation facilitated KS and SL, which in turn aided the development of individual and organisational capability, agility and adaptability required in the contemporary, digital knowledge economy, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Research limitations/implications
This research was a single case study of an organisation within one business sector, namely logistics, encompassing a small sample of 22 employees. Hence, this study does not permit statistical generalisation but only permits internal generalisation.
Practical implications
Forming and sustaining networks of influencers, i.e. employees who are role models of digital KS and SL, who serve as strong advocates and ambassadors for instilling a KS culture and climate within the organisation have a powerful influence on evoking digital KS and SL organisation-wide.
Originality/value
The contribution of this paper is that it presents an evidence-based “Digital Knowledge Sharing and Social Learning model” depicting the factors that influence digital KS and SL, the benefits and outcomes. This model aids researchers and practitioners to better understand the dynamics of digital KS and SL between organisational members in a cross-cultural business environment during times of crises.
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Karim Jebari and Joakim Lundborg
The claim that super intelligent machines constitute a major existential risk was recently defended in Nick Bostrom’s book Superintelligence and forms the basis of the…
Abstract
Purpose
The claim that super intelligent machines constitute a major existential risk was recently defended in Nick Bostrom’s book Superintelligence and forms the basis of the sub-discipline AI risk. The purpose of this paper is to critically assess the philosophical assumptions that are of importance to the argument that AI could pose an existential risk and if so, the character of that risk.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper distinguishes between “intelligence” or the cognitive capacity of an individual and “techne”, a more general ability to solve problems using, for example, technological artifacts. While human intelligence has not changed much over historical time, human techne has improved considerably. Moreover, the fact that human techne has more variance across individuals than human intelligence suggests that if machine techne were to surpass human techne, the transition is likely going to be prolonged rather than explosive.
Findings
Some constraints for the intelligence explosion scenario are presented that imply that AI could be controlled by human organizations.
Originality/value
If true, this argument suggests that efforts should focus on devising strategies to control AI rather strategies that assume that such control is impossible.
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Bui P.L., (Charline) Tzu-Ling Chen and Eugenia Wickens
COVID-19 impacts different groups and subsectors of tourism unevenly, with massive vulnerabilities in tourism operating systems among urban tourism areas. Different types of…
Abstract
Purpose
COVID-19 impacts different groups and subsectors of tourism unevenly, with massive vulnerabilities in tourism operating systems among urban tourism areas. Different types of COVID-19 related crises depend on isolation or returning to “normal” in various urban areas. Boosting domestic tourism activities to spark resilience before international demand returns is essential to stimulating local demand worldwide. This paper aims to build upon a non-exhaustive review of the scientific literature about tourism resilience issues to see the bigger picture of tourism resilience on three levels worldwide.
Design/methodology/approach
This research applies a content analysis technique to collect research data from the latest scientific papers on tourism resilience issues. This study will use searching and filtering on the Scopus web database and based on the VOSviewer algorithm to identify useful insights and determine a framework for tourism resilience issues on three levels.
Findings
The outcome of three aspects of resilience, which mainly relate to the development of tourism industry sectors (transportation, accommodation, food and beverage) and other industries (research and education) connected to urban tourism resilience, could be useful for future researchers to explore less-studied issues and policymakers’ future application.
Research limitations/implications
The research data are mostly from literature reviews of papers that may not interpret all contemporary resilience issues and the research data are based on urban areas alone.
Originality/value
The research idea is fresh and adds new knowledge to professionals’ or policymakers’ future applications.
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The purpose of this paper is to explain to readers how intelligent systems can fail and how artificial intelligence (AI) safety is different from cybersecurity. The goal of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explain to readers how intelligent systems can fail and how artificial intelligence (AI) safety is different from cybersecurity. The goal of cybersecurity is to reduce the number of successful attacks on the system; the goal of AI Safety is to make sure zero attacks succeed in bypassing the safety mechanisms. Unfortunately, such a level of performance is unachievable. Every security system will eventually fail; there is no such thing as a 100 per cent secure system.
Design/methodology/approach
AI Safety can be improved based on ideas developed by cybersecurity experts. For narrow AI Safety, failures are at the same, moderate level of criticality as in cybersecurity; however, for general AI, failures have a fundamentally different impact. A single failure of a superintelligent system may cause a catastrophic event without a chance for recovery.
Findings
In this paper, the authors present and analyze reported failures of artificially intelligent systems and extrapolate our analysis to future AIs. The authors suggest that both the frequency and the seriousness of future AI failures will steadily increase.
Originality/value
This is a first attempt to assemble a public data set of AI failures and is extremely valuable to AI Safety researchers.
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