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This study aims to stimulate scholarly attention and practical application pertaining to individuals recognized as “Docs.” Through conducting a comprehensive analysis and acquiring a profound understanding of its many connotations, the objective is to shift attitudes and approaches concerning those who are seen to possess knowledge and value within society.

For this study, culturally relevant pedagogies were used as theoretical frameworks in addition to Sankofa and concept explication being used as methodologies.

The authors identified three themes: (1) honorary cultural practice-community nomination of “professahs” and “docs,” (2) (Black) robinhoods – cultural signifiers of distinction and relatability and (3) docs as catalysts – elevating community via consciousness, trust and mentorship as significant understandings of this distinction.

The study emphasizes the importance of “Docs” in both academic and social contexts. The role of “Docs” serves to alleviate potential conflicts of being a Black intellectual. This study further reveals the ways in which Docs align with, promote or possibly undermine established frameworks of thought. Finally, this study provides institutions with opportunities to consider strategies for the utilization, recognition and integration of individuals who are frequently overlooked or undervalued.

This study aims to investigate the relation between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and disclosure transparency by examining over 12,000 disclosures of financial statements extending over 20 years. The purpose is to understand how CSR ratings relate to the level of disaggregation in financial statement line items. The study considers additional factors, such as firm size and governance, that can accentuate or moderate this relation.

This study applies regression analysis, including interactions, to test the magnitude of the relation between CSR ratings and disclosure transparency. CSR is measured as a composite score that ranks firms on their reputation over numerous indicators compiled by Morgan Stanley Capital International. Disclosure transparency is measured as the level of disaggregation in financial statement line items.

The study reveals evidence consistent with the notion that firms which are more CSR conscious are also more transparent with financial statements. Evidence shows that the level of transparency is more sensitive to changes in CSR for firms less CSR conscious. Firm size is found to moderate this relation, whereas enhanced governance accentuates it.

There is limited research on the relation between CSR ratings and disclosure transparency. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first empirical evidence on the relation between CSR ratings and the disaggregation of financial statement line items. Results from this study help us understand the drivers of disclosure transparency, which can aid regulators, investors and other stakeholders in knowing how such drivers impact managerial decisions on the disaggregation of financial statements. Accountants play a central role in producing transparent and disaggregated accounting disclosures, and their role is pivotal in effectively integrating CSR into accounting and reporting models.

The paper provides a detailed historical account of Douglass C. North's early intellectual contributions and analytical developments in pursuing a Grand Theory for why some countries are rich and others poor.

The author approaches the discussion using a theoretical and historical reconstruction based on published and unpublished materials.

The systematic, continuous and profound attempt to answer the Smithian social coordination problem shaped North's journey from being a young serious Marxist to becoming one of the founders of New Institutional Economics. In the process, he was converted in the early 1950s into a rigid neoclassical economist, being one of the leaders in promoting New Economic History. The success of the cliometric revolution exposed the frailties of the movement itself, namely, the limitations of neoclassical economic theory to explain economic growth and social change. Incorporating transaction costs, the institutional framework in which property rights and contracts are measured, defined and enforced assumes a prominent role in explaining economic performance.

In the early 1970s, North adopted a naive theory of institutions and property rights still grounded in neoclassical assumptions. Institutional and organizational analysis is modeled as a social maximizing efficient equilibrium outcome. However, the increasing tension between the neoclassical theoretical apparatus and its failure to account for contrasting political and institutional structures, diverging economic paths and social change propelled the modification of its assumptions and progressive conceptual innovation. In the later 1970s and early 1980s, North abandoned the efficiency view and gradually became more critical of the objective rationality postulate. In this intellectual movement, North's avant-garde research program contributed significantly to the creation of New Institutional Economics.

This study aims to investigate city branding as a post-pandemic COVID-19 outcome factor on brand satisfaction, brand experience, perceived risk and revisit intention. In addition, this research contributes to the discussion of post-COVID-19 city branding that needs to be considered in the development of future tourism marketing.

A quantitative approach was used with PLS-SEM statistical analysis and a 263-tourist sample. The study was conducted on tourists from Malang Regency in Indonesia by distributing questionnaires modified from previous studies in a similar context.

The results of this study found that there were significant influences of city brand personality on brand experience, brand satisfaction, brand experience on perceived risk, brand satisfaction on revisit intention and perceived risk on revisit intention. This study also presents the mediating role.

The study was only conducted on a small regency in Indonesia, and therefore the results cannot be generalized for other cities over the world.

The proposed study model suggests that stakeholders must seek to socialize services to potential tourists, so that tourists can understand the description of tourism activities that can be enjoyed during the COVID-19 pandemic and the way they travel in the future.

Understanding the determinant factors of city branding post-COVID-19 was valuable for developing marketing strategies to cope with intense competition among the city.

This study emphasizes the determinants of COVID-19 perceived risk and revisit intentions as explained in the tourism marketing literature by considering the role of brand satisfaction, brand experience and city brand personality which significantly contribute to build the city competitiveness. Therefore, various creative strategies should be implemented to promote the city as well as escalate tourist visits without ignoring the pandemic’s risks.

The construction industry has struggled to deliver schemes on time to budget and right-first-time (RFT). There have been many studies into nonconformance and rework through quantitative research over the years to understand why the industry continues to see similar issues of failure. Some scholars have reported rework figures as high as 12.6% of total contract value, highlighting major concerns of the sustainability of construction projects. Separately, however, there have been few studies that explore and detail the views of industry professions who are caught in the middle of quality issues, to understand their perceptions of where the industry is failing. As such, this paper interrogates qualitative data (open-ended questions) on the topic of nonconformance and rework in construction to understand what industry professionals believe are the causes and suggested improvement areas.

A qualitative approach is adopted for this research. An industry survey consisting of seven open-ended questions is presented to two professional working groups within a Tier 1 contractor, and outputs are analysed using statistic software (NVivo 12) to identify prominent themes for discussion. Inductive analysis is undertaken to gain further insight into responses to yield recurrent areas for continuous improvement.

Qualitative analysis of the survey reveals a persistent prioritisation of cost and programme over quality management in construction project. Furthermore, feedback from construction professionals present a number of improvement areas that must be addressed to improve quality. These include increased training and competency investment, overhauling quality behaviours, providing greater quality leadership direction and reshaping the way clients govern schemes.

There are limitations to this paper that require noting. Firstly, the survey was conducted within one principal contractor with varying levels of knowledge across multiple sectors. Secondly, the case study was from one major highways scheme; therefore, the generalisability of the findings is limited. It is suggested that a similar exercise is undertaken in other sectors to uncover similar improvement avenues.

The implications of this study calls for quality to be re-evaluated at project, company, sector and government levels to overhaul how quality is delivered. Furthermore, the paper identifies critical learning outcomes for the construction sector to take forward, including the need to reassess projects to ensure they are appropriately equip with competent personnel under a vetted, progressive training programme, share collaborative behaviours that value quality delivery on an equal standing to safety, programme and cost and tackle the inappropriate resource dilemmas projects finding themselves in through clear tendering and accurate planning. In addition, before making erratic decisions, projects must assess the risk profiling of proceed without approved design details and include the client in the decision-making process. Moreover, the findings call for a greater collaborative environment between the construction team and quality management department, rather than being seen as obstructive (i.e. compliance based policing). All of these must be driven by leadership to overhaul the way quality is managed on schemes. The findings demonstrate the importance and impact from open-ended survey response data studies to enhance quantitative outcomes and help provide strengthened proposals of improvement.

This paper addresses the highly sensitive area of quality failure outcomes and interrogates them via an industry survey within a major UK contractor for feedback. Unique insights are gained into how industry professionals perceive quality in construction. From previous research, this has been largely missing and offers a valuable addition in understanding the “quality status quo” from those delivering schemes.

The purpose of this study is to extend the Fraud Diamond Theory to celebrity Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) and investigate their post-Initial Public Offering (IPO) stock market performance.

After obtaining a sample of celebrity SPACs from the Spacresearch.com database, fraud risk characteristics were obtained from Lexis Nexus searches. Buy and hold abnormal returns were calculated for celebrity SPACs versus a small-cap equity benchmark for time intervals after IPO, and multiple regression analysis was performed to examine the relationship between fraud risk features and post-IPO returns.

Celebrity SPACs exhibit Fraud Diamond characteristics and significantly underperform a small-cap stock portfolio on a risk-adjusted basis after IPO.

This study only examines celebrity SPACs that conducted IPOs on the NYSE and NASDAQ/AMEX and does not include those that are traded on the Over the Counter Bulletin Board (OTCBB).

Celebrity endorsement of SPAC vehicles attracts investors who may not be properly informed regarding the risk characteristics of SPACs. Accordingly, investors should be warned that celebrity SPACs underperform a small-cap equity portfolio and exhibit significant elements of fraud risk.

The use of celebrity endorsement as a marketing device to attract investment in SPACs has regulatory implications.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to examine the fraud risk characteristics and post-IPO performance of celebrity SPACs.

This study proposes a novel method utilising a speech-word pair bipartite network to examine the correlation structure between members of parliament (MPs) in the context of the UK- China relationship.

We construct MP-word pair bipartite networks based on the co-occurrence relationship between MPs and words in their speech content. These networks are then mapped into monopartite MPs correlation networks. Additionally, the study calculates correlation network indicators and identifies MP communities and factions to determine the characteristics of MPs and their interrelation in the UK-China relationship. This includes insights into the distribution of key MPs, their correlation structure and the evolution and development trends of MP factions.

Analysis of the parliamentary speeches on China-related affairs in the British Parliament from 2011 to 2020 reveals that the distribution and interrelationship of MPs engaged in UK-China affairs are centralised and discrete, with a few core MPs playing an integral role in the UK-China relationship. Among them, MPs such as Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, David Cameron, Lord Hunt of Chesterton and Lord Howell of Guildford formed factions with significant differences; however, the continuity of their evolution exhibits unstableness. The core MP factions, such as those led by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon and David Cameron, have achieved a level of maturity and exert significant influence.

The research has several limitations that warrant acknowledgement. First, we mapped the MP-word pair bipartite network into the MP correlation network for analysis without directly analysing the structure of MPs based on the bipartite network. In future studies, we aim to explore various types of analysis based on the proposed bipartite networks to provide more comprehensive and accurate references for studying UK-China relations. In addition, we seek to incorporate semantic-level analyses, such as sentiment analysis of MPs, into the MP-word -pair bipartite networks for in-depth analysis. Second, the interpretations of MP structures in the UK-China relationship in this study are limited. Consequently, expertise in UK-China relations should be incorporated to enhance the study and provide more practical recommendations.

Firstly, the findings can contribute to an objective understanding of the characteristics and connotations of UK-China relations, thereby informing adjustments of focus accordingly. The identification of the main factions in the UK-China relationship emphasises the imperative for governments to pay greater attention to these MPs’ speeches and social relationships. Secondly, examining the evolution and development of MP factions aids in identifying a country’s diplomatic focus during different periods. This can assist governments in responding promptly to relevant issues and contribute to the formulation of effective foreign policies.

First, this study expands the research methodology of parliamentary debates analysis in previous studies. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to study the UK-China relationship through the MP-word-pair bipartite network. This outcome inspires future researchers to apply various knowledge networks in the LIS field to elucidate deeper characteristics and connotations of UK-China relations. Second, this study provides a novel perspective for UK-China relationship analysis, which deepens the research object from keywords to MPs. This finding may offer important implications for researchers to further study the role of MPs in the UK-China relationship.

This study proposes a novel scheme for analysing the correlation structure between MPs based on bipartite networks. This approach offers insights into the development and evolving dynamics of MPs.

The authors aim to contribute to the understanding of the enduring underrepresentation of women in the IT industry by analysing media discourse triggered by a campaign intended to encourage women to join the IT industry.

Internet media coverage of the Little Miss Geek campaign in the UK was analysed as qualitative data to reveal systematic and coherent patterns contributing to the social construction of the role of women with respect to the IT industry and IT employment.

While ostensibly supporting women's empowerment, the discourse framed women's participation in the IT industry as difficult to achieve, focused on women's presumed “feminine” essential features (thus, effectively implying that they are less suitable for IT employment than men), and tasked women with overcoming the barrier via individual efforts (thus, implicitly blaming them for the imbalance). In these ways, the discourse worked against the broader aims of the campaign.

Campaigns and organisations that promote women's participation should work to establish new frames, rather than allowing the discourse to be shaped by the established frames.

The authors interpret the framing in the discourse using Bourdieu's perspective on symbolic power: the symbolic power behind the existing patriarchal order expressed itself via framing, thus contributing to the maintenance of that order. By demonstrating the relevance of Bourdieu's symbolic power, the authors offer a novel understanding of how underrepresentation of women in the IT sector is produced and maintained.