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This paper aims to determine the key trust antecedents that influence Internet users’ trust level toward Internet service providers (ISPs) in a high-risk society. It also investigates trust-building process, major causes of its violation, their potential implications and restoration.

A mixed-method approach was used in collecting data in Kenya in 2014 by using questionnaire and interview techniques. The former was administered to 250 (with 81 per cent response rate) randomly selected Internet users at Kenyatta University while the latter focused on key decision-makers from four randomly selected ISPs in Nairobi.

The results show that Internet users’ perceptions of ISPs’ ability to be trusted in Kenya depend more on their competence in terms of service delivery (ability) and desire to protect users (benevolence) than upholding acceptable standards (integrity). The results also indicate a lack of trust manifested in poor communication and greed for profit among ISPs as major causes of trust violation.

This paper proposes two frameworks that can enhance Internet use by providing a better understanding of trust in a high-risk society.

The main purpose of this paper is to consider knowledge production as a social self‐organization process, to clarify ethical implications of such an approach, and to relate it to the thinking of Heinz von Foerster.

The method employed is the one of dialectical constructions, i.e. existing contradicting approaches on knowledge research are identified and classified and a constructive synthesis of these approaches is made.

Since Heinz von Foerster's pioneering work, information‐generating systems are considered to be self‐organizing systems. We see knowledge as only a particular kind of information: it is the manifestation of information in the social realm. Thus, the creation of social information is due to the self‐organization of social systems. Heinz von Foerster has given us some indications of how knowledge and self‐organization could be applied to society. In this paper, we try to sketch a position of our own while taking into consideration Heinz von Foerster's relevant ideas.

The research results in this paper imply that a knowledge‐based society can only survive if it is designed in a participatory and socially and ecologically sustainable way. Hence a practical implication is that participation and co‐operation need to be advanced in order to guarantee human development.

The innovative aspect of the paper is that it suggests that all social self‐organizing systems are knowledge‐producing systems and that considering knowledge as a co‐operative process implies responsibility for solving the global social problems. It combines knowledge research and systems thinking based on ideas on self‐organization by Heinz von Foerster in order to describe social systems.

The rule for success in the 1990s is simple and surprising: Move toward the forces that are powering both uncertainty and growth. Foreign trade, technology, corporate restructuring, government deregulation—these are the forces, simultaneously destructive and creative, that drive the high‐risk society.

The year 2020 is an epochal moment for governance and public administration. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has upset social and economic life, including the delivery of public services, and eroded domestic and international politics. It comes in an era of uncertainty resulting from the end of the New Public Management boom and a looming breakdown of the contemporary US-defined international order. Against such a sea change, we can hardly take business as usual. Change breeds indeterminacy but also induces reimagining. Any renewal and renaissance of public management has to address the ‘what’ and ‘how’ questions of governance in a low-trust and high-risk society. Both the capacity and legitimacy of the state need to be re-empowered, but no longer through the market. The dual failure of democratic politics and bureaucratic excellence in many countries has rendered the Wilsonian politics-administration dichotomy redundant. Amid the rise of East Asia, there are growing contentions over the conceptualization of meritocracy as alternative systems of governance and public service models seem to be delivering effective rivals. Governance performance may not be predetermined by regime types within a poly-polar world. We need to search for new reconnections, new leadership, a new basis for trust and consensus, and a new public service bargain to avoid getting bogged down in old wine in re-labelled bottle, or another singular universalist paradigm.

Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) can be transferred from one person to another through sexual contact. STIs lead to substantial morbidity and mortality and affect many different aspects of human life, including quality of life, sexual health, reproductive health and even the health of newborns and children. Despite of high rates of STIs in prisons, there are not sufficient screening, prevention and treatment programs to control STIs transmission among prisoners in Iran. This study aims to evaluate the prevalence of STIs among incarcerated women in Iran for the first time, using the active case finding strategy.

This is a cross-sectional study conducted on 438 incarcerated women in a prison in Tehran, Iran, from 2017 to 2018. A total of 438 prisoners were screened by active case findings for STI symptoms, then evaluated by complete genital and anal examination, followed by molecular testing.

A total of 189 (43.2%) prisoners announced vaginal discharge, while 194 (44.3%) individuals had vaginal discharge in the genital examination. In the cervical examination, 137 individuals (31.3%) had abnormal findings, of which 83 (18.9%) individuals had cervicitis, 40 (9.1%) individuals had cervical erosion, 38 (8.7%) individuals had cervical prolapse and 17 (3.9%) individuals had bleeding originated from the cervix.

This study showed that it is possible to set up a system in which the diagnosis, follow-up and treatment of prisoners with STIs can be actively performed. Educating prisoners about signs and symptoms, risk behaviors and prevention routes of STIs, as much as regular screening of prisoners, and adequate treatment can help control the STIs prevalence among prisoners and in the general population.

In this chapter, we reexamine the notion that socially responsible behavior by firms will lead to increased financial performance. By identifying the underlying processes, institutional settings, and actors involved, we present a framework that is more attentive to the multiplicity and conditionality of the mechanisms operating in the often tenuous connection between firms’ social behavior and financial performance. Building and expanding upon existing analyses of the CSP–CFP linkage, our model helps to explain the mixed results from a wide range of empirical studies which examine this link. It also provides a novel theoretical account to help guide future researches that are more attentive to conditionalities and contextual contingencies.

The purpose of this paper is to suggest that the importance of culture on the innovation of technological processes and products has not received sufficient attention from researchers. The paper offers a framework and some categories for investigating the affects of culture on technological innovation.

The data and ideas that inform this paper come primarily from interviews carried out as a part of case studies of the innovation of 13 technology products and processes centered in China and other five countries.

Innovation success in the various technology sectors differs among countries including China in part because of different national cultures – the norms and values that guide and constrain both the individuals in societies and the societies at large.

The values the paper assigns to eight cultural characteristics for China and other five countries are based on qualitative interviews and more scientific survey is needed.

Increased understanding of how different national cultures influence innovation will give managers and policy makers improved opportunities to formulate policies and management practices that can overcome cultural barriers and take advantage of cultural assets.

The paper offers a starting point for the investigation of the impact of national cultures on technological innovation in different technology sectors.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of six core behavioural factors on financial risk tolerance (FRT). The study also analyses the role of religiosity in the relationship between behavioural factors and FRT.

Empirical data were collected using a survey questionnaire. A total of 1,679 questionnaires were distributed to six public universities in the Klang Valley. However, only 1,204 questionnaires were completed and used for analysis. This study employs structural equation modelling to validate and assess proposed research model.

The results of the analysis demonstrated some new findings. The findings indicate that propensity for regret, propensity for trust, happiness in life, propensity to attribute success to luck and propensity for overconfidence have a significant influence on FRT while propensity for social interaction does not. The results also provide support for the moderating effects of religiosity in the proposed research model.

The findings highlight the important role of behavioural determinants to assess individuals’ FRT. Understanding FRT is a complex process that goes beyond the exclusive use of behavioural factors. Thus, more research is clearly needed to resolve which additional factors can be used by financial advisors to increase the explained variance in FRT differences.

The COVID-19 pandemic has seen a growing emergence of “quarantine hotels” that provide accommodation to guests who are mandated to self-isolate for 14 days upon entry to a country to prevent the spread of virus. Why are young hotel workers willing to endure relatively poor working conditions and expose themselves to dangerous COVID-19 workplace environments? Perhaps, the opportunity to participate in meaningful work is the prime motivator for hotel workers who choose to work in quarantine hotels. This study aims to investigate the motivations that young hotel employees hold towards working in a potentially dangerous hotel workplace.

Using personal interviews, this research explored the antecedents behind Generation Z employees’ (n = 42) actual behaviour towards working in quarantine hotels through the lens of the extended theory of planned behaviour (TPB) model (attitudes, subjective norms, perceived difficulties and meaningful work).

Results revealed that meaningful work such as making the world safer and going beyond the call of duty was a key motivating factor behind a willingness to work in quarantine hotels. Hotel employees also viewed working in quarantine hotels as exciting but dangerous, and the support from their family nuclei was seen as a key underlying motivator.

The key implications are the image of the hospitality industry in terms of professional identity to be an industry that is respected by society given the high-risk work environment with increased exposure to COVID-19. Even though Generation Z still see some long-standing negatives in hotel work such as long hours and emotional challenge, it is positive to know that there are contexts in which they can have more pride and meaningfulness from their jobs.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to examine Generation Z hotel workers’ motivations to work in quarantine hotels. A key theoretical contribution to the body of knowledge is the extension of the TPB framework with the additional meaningful work variable.