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This study explores the “Sell-in-May” effect in environmental, social and governance (ESG) indices and compares the seasonal effects in ESG equity indices with conventional equity indices.

The authors use ordinary least squares (OLS) models and M-estimation as a robustness check, as OLS estimates may be sensitive to outliers. The authors also employ bootstrap simulations to use the data efficiently and to test whether seasonal trading strategies can produce abnormal returns.

The regression results reveal that seasonal effects in USA ESG equity indices are similar to those in conventional equity indices. Higher returns are noticeable from November through April, mainly in ESG indices including small and medium capitalization stocks. When the authors extend the Sell-in-May strategy from October through April, the authors find that the seasonal effect is significant for multiple ESG indices, even after accounting for the January effect. Bootstrap simulations show that the Sell-in-May and Extended Sell-in-May strategies appear to beat a buy-and-hold strategy on a risk-adjusted basis and that this result is stronger in medium and small capitalization ESG indices.

Although previous research has considered the effectiveness of seasonal equity trading strategies and the general performance of ESG stocks, this is the first study to specifically examine the “Sell in May” effect in ESG indices. The authors also consider an “Extended” Sell-in-May strategy where stocks are purchased one month earlier and show that the strategy produces higher returns.

The purpose of this paper is to show how recent capital gains affect ex‐dividend stock pricing. Traditional models assume that investors are motivated to sell a stock before its ex‐date to avoid paying higher taxes on dividends. However, if a stock has appreciated significantly, stockholders have an offsetting incentive to delay the realization of capital gains by continuing to hold the stock in spite of the higher dividend tax rate.

This paper develops a model showing that ex‐dividend price drops should be greater in the presence of larger accrued capital gains. The model was tested by regressing ex‐day pricing measures on the relative size of the recently accrued gain, along with other control variables.

Empirical tests confirm that accrued gains reduce the magnitude of the ex‐day effect, increasing the price drop ratio (ΔP/D) and reducing ex‐day returns. Also documented was that ex‐day price drops are larger for stocks that have recently experienced positive gains, that the observed effect of recent price performance is stronger for higher‐yield stocks, and that share turnover is usually lower for stocks with greater gains.

This paper's findings suggest that the results of existing empirical investigations of ex‐day pricing should be interpreted with some caution, and that future studies should control for gains that occur prior to the ex‐date.

While the tax clientele explanation of ex‐day pricing has been investigated extensively, this is the first study to show how accrued gains and losses impact ex‐dividend price changes.

The purpose of this paper is to determine to what extent a person’s psychophysiological well-being is affected by misinformation and whether their level of information discernment has any positive or negative effect on the outcome.

Participants (n = 48) were randomly and blindly allocated to one of two groups: control group participants were told a person they were working with was a student; experimental group participants were additionally led to believe that this other participant had extreme religious views. This was both stigmatising and misinforming, as this other person was an actor. Participants completed a pre-screening booklet and a series of tasks. Participants’ cardiovascular responses were measured during the procedure.

Participants with high levels of information discernment, i.e. those who are curious, use multiple sources to verify information, are sceptical about search engine information, are cognisant of the importance of authority and are aware that knowledge changes and is contradictory at times exhibited an adaptive stress response, i.e. healthy psychophysiological outcomes and responded with positive emotions before and after a stressful task.

The findings indicate the potential harmful effects of misinformation and discuss how information literacy or Metaliteracy interventions may address this issue.

The first study to combine the hitherto unrelated theoretical areas of information discernment (a sub-set of information literacy), affective states (positive affect negative affect survey) and stress (challenge and threat cardiovascular measures).

This paper intends to explore the relationship between participants' eye fixations (a measure of attention) and durations (a measure of concentration) on areas of interest within a range of online articles and their levels of information discernment (a sub-process of information literacy characterising how participants make judgements about information).

Eye-tracking equipment was used as a proxy measure for reading behaviour by recording eye-fixations, dwell times and regressions in males aged 18–24 (n = 48). Participants' level of information discernment was determined using a quantitative questionnaire.

Data indicates a relationship between participants' level of information discernment and their viewing behaviours within the articles' area of interest. Those who score highly on an information discernment questionnaire tended to interrogate the online article in a structured and linear way. Those with high-level information discernment are more likely to pay attention to an article's textual and graphical information than those exhibiting low-level information discernment. Conversely, participants with low-level information discernment indicated a lack of curiosity by not interrogating the entire article. They were unsystematic in their saccadic movements spending significantly longer viewing irrelevant areas.

The most profound consequence is that those with low-level information discernment, through a lack of curiosity in particular, could base their health, workplace, political or everyday decisions on sub-optimal engagement with and comprehension of information or misinformation (such as fake news).

Ground-breaking analysis of the relationship between a persons' self-reported level of information literacy (information discernment specifically) and objective measures of reading behaviour.

The focus of this paper is on knowledge transfer. The purpose is to investigate intra‐project knowledge‐transfer practice in information systems development (ISD) firms applying a Scrum methodology.

Case study of ISD projects and empirical data obtained using in‐depth interviews following a semi‐structured approach were employed.

One of the main findings showed that Scrum team members believed in the usefulness of knowledge transfer. The study observed extensive personal exchange of knowledge through, for example, meetings and networks, including dialog with the client. The mechanisms observed in creating knowledge transfer were: lean and dynamic documentation, cross‐functional teams, client consultation and feedback, intra‐project meetings, application of project tools and techniques, and management of changes.

Future research should investigate other organizations and countries, so that these findings may be generalized.

The study observed extensive personal exchange of knowledge which can be described as people track of knowledge management. This observation coincides with the view that information systems and tools only play a subordinate role in knowledge management widely held by many contributors to the people track of knowledge management. Others argue that the dominance of tacit knowledge in projects is a key challenge. This involves a particular concern for organizational culture and leadership style and has implications for how a project should be structured and managed.

Knowledge transfer in ISD projects is studied in this research paper.