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This study aims to explore how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted parents of autistic children and their families in Ireland.

A qualitative thematic analysis methodology was applied using semi-structured interviews. A total of 12 parents (ten mothers, one father and one grandfather speaking on behalf of a mother) of autistic children were asked how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted them and their autistic child with a particular focus on how it has impacted their access to respite care. Interviews were completed remotely from July 2021 to October 2021.

Data analysis identified four themes that reflect an adverse pandemic impact. These were: world gone; alone and isolated; constantly fighting for help; and negative and positive impact of COVID-19 on child and family. Two parents reported positive outcomes of the pandemic such as social distance requirements. Five parents (42%) reported an increase in the amount of respite received. Three parents (25%) reported a decrease and four (33%) parents reported no change in their access to respite.

COVID-19 has turned a spotlight on mental health for politicians, policymakers and the public and provides an opportunity to make mental health a higher public health priority for autistic children and their families.

This study highlights the need for access to respite for autistic children and for respite services to be responsive to the ongoing needs, in particular, the mental health needs of autistic children and their family, particularly in a crisis situation.

This study aims to examine the effects of the culture for innovation, work engagement and the use of interactive performance measurement systems (PMSs) in the interorganizational accounting processes automation at a shared services center (SSC).

A single-entity survey was carried out at an SSC provider of B2B accounting services of a multinational company in the electrical sector, and structural equation modeling was applied for data analysis.

The results show that the culture for innovation, the work engagement and the use of interactive PMS positively and significantly influence the accounting process automation in the investigated SSC. Moreover, the use of interactive PMS presents a mediating effect on the relationship between culture for innovation and work engagement.

The research findings contribute by revealing that the culture of innovation, work engagement and the interactive PMS support the use of robotic process automation and artificial intelligence in the interorganizational automation of accounting processes in an SSC-type service ecosystem. This highlights the importance of the culture of innovation and the positive feeling toward work being reinforced by the organization and the role of the interactive PMS as a formal instrument to transmit the organizational objectives and provide a common vision.

The study reveals that the use of interactive PMS seems to be an important conductor of the behavior of employees toward the accounting process automation strategy at the SSC, reinforced, in this case, by the culture of innovation and work engagement.

This chapter investigates the coffee value chain in Latin America. By drawing on the concept of just transitions as a “connective tissue” between the sustainable development goals (SDGs), the discussion zooms in on the promise of agroforestry for environmental upgrading. The chapter concludes by providing examples of trade-offs between environmental, social and economic aspects.

Previous research has identified associations between quality management and employee health. This study's purpose was to (1) examine those associations in a public healthcare organisation and (2) explore and describe the association between digitalisation and employee health.

An online questionnaire including indices to measure quality management values, employee health and digitalisation was answered by 118 managers in Swedish public healthcare. Correlation analysis was used to analyse the data. Based on the survey results, 12 qualitative, in-depth interviews were conducted with healthcare managers.

The findings show that employee health is associated with quality management and digitalisation. Categories were defined to describe the managers' views of the relationship between digitalisation and health.

Causality was not explicitly tested and cannot be assumed. However, the results strengthen the body of research showing that quality management is related to employee health, and associations between health and digitalisation were identified.

The findings and model should be helpful for healthcare managers in a digitalising environment who aim to preserve or enhance employee health whilst ensuring high service quality.

The results were used to create an integrated conceptual model depicting the association between quality, digitalisation and health. This association has not previously been studied.

Cities are becoming smarter and more optimized because of digital transformation, reducing costs, increasing safety, attracting investment, ensuring sustainability, and increasing viability. As a result of this optimization, they are becoming smart cities. Smart cities use the Internet of Things’ devices, such as connected sensors, lights, and smart meters, to improve infrastructure and design by gathering and analyzing real-time citizen data. In this research, different conceptions of smart cities and their interconnections with digital transformation are presented. Therefore, the purpose of this chapter is to analyze how digital transformation may help manage smart cities. As a result, a thorough and integrated evaluation of the SCOPUS database will be conducted in order to address the following questions: (1) What are smart cities? (2) What is digital transformation? (3) How does digital transformation help to manage smart cities? The results point out that technologies and digital abundance, which include artificial intelligence, blockchain, and Internet of Things, play a crucial role in managing a controlled and automated infrastructure in smart cities. These favor the development of suitable places to live, work, and have fun, with a better quality of life for everyone.

The aim of this paper is to theorize on and empirically extend the understanding of the adoption of codes of ethics within the context of family firms. The authors contend that in family firms the adoption of code of ethics is a process emerging from social interaction.

Through a multiple case study design the authors analyze family firms that have not yet adopted a code of ethics and untangle the process that could potentially lead to that choice.

The authors’ main finding suggests that the institutional context impacts on the adoption of codes of ethics. Furthermore, in first generation the adoption of codes of ethics is hindered by the presence of the founder and the existence of strong family ties. In subsequent generations as founder centrality is reduced the owning-family considers more the possibility to adopt such codes to preserve the family's reputation in the local community.

First multiple views also from external stakeholders could be added; second, an international perspective using cross-country cases could add more nuances on how cultural and institutional aspects shape the adoption of codes of ethics differently across national contexts.

The authors’ findings inform family business owners on the importance of adopting code of ethics to support the formalization of the family value system.

The authors advance the debate on codes of ethics in family firms by disentangling the process through which those codes may be adopted to institutionalize and formalize the family values, history and tradition.

The success of waste management depends on public awareness of environmental issues and the ability of the local government to provide facilities. Many countries have serious problems of financial resources and infrastructure for waste management. As there is a lack of awareness of the population on the importance of waste management, municipal governments only adopt remediation actions to manage waste collection service.

In Angola, during the last decade, the government has been committed to the reconstruction and development of the country, creating infrastructure for the provision of essential services and publishing legal tools to respond to environmental issues. In 2012 the government approved the Strategic Plan for the Management of Municipal Solid Waste (PESGRU). The strategic plan was designed for a time horizon until 2025. Due to the economic crisis that hit the country, the implementation of the plan suffered several setbacks and the deadlines established for the different programmes are being compromised.

A study carried out in 2020 on waste management in Angola, with four of the main provinces as a stage, through the analysis of official documents, direct observation and face-to-face interviews with those in charge of waste management, revealed a lack of funding for the implementation of PESGRU and low assistance from the Ministry of the Environment and the central government and showed the unsustainability of the waste management model in light of the principles recommended by international good practices.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between dynamic capabilities and sustainable business performance in Vietnamese small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), focusing on the mediating role of digitalization strategies. Specifically, the authors seek to explore whether and how the three critical characteristics of dynamic capabilities (DCs) – sensing, seizing and transforming capabilities – are linked to business model innovation (BMI) or sustained performance and what dimensions contribute to their development and adoption in digitalization strategies.

The authors analyse a sample of 596 Vietnamese SMEs using a validated measurement framework to explore the three clusters of DCs activities and their contributions to digitalization strategies, BMI and sustainable business performance across economic, social and environmental dimensions.

The study highlights the pivotal role of sensing, seizing and transforming capabilities in the adoption of digitalization strategies, BMI, as well as in promoting sustainable business performance. Firstly, sensing capability profoundly influences product digitalization strategy, whereas seizing capability has the greatest impact on process digitalization strategy. Secondly, sensing and transforming capabilities significantly contribute to BMI. Thirdly, both process and product digitalization strategies exert a significant positive influence on sustainable business performance, especially the environmental dimension. Finally, the study exhibits the indirect impacts of seizing and sensing capabilities on sustainable business performance through product and process digitization strategies.

This study extends recent research by investigating the DCs underlying a firm’s digitalization strategies and contribute to ongoing calls for further investigation in the DCs literature. This research design, which draws from a validated measurement framework, responds to recent calls to broaden the toolkit used in DCs research. The practical implications of this study can benefit SMEs in Vietnam and beyond as they seek to enhance their digitalization strategies and achieve sustainable competitive advantage.

This paper aims to study the value of informal care (IC) time from the perspective of caregivers using two alternative contingent valuation tools – willingness to pay (WTP) and willingness to accept (WTA) – and to identify the variables that affect the stated values.

The authors used data from a multi-centre study of 610 adult caregivers conducted in two Spanish regions in 2013. The existence of “protest zeros” and “economic zeros” because of the severe budgetary constraints of the households was also considered. Two-part multivariate models were used to analyse the main factors that explained the declared values of WTA and WTP.

The average WTP and WTA were €3.12 and €5.98 per hour of care, respectively (€3.2 and €6.3 when estimated values for “protest zeros” and “economic zeros” were considered). Some explanatory variables of WTA and WTP are coincident (place of residence and intensity of care time), whereas other variables only help to explain WTP values (household and negative coping with caregiving) or WTA values (age and burden of care). Some nuances are also identified when comparing the results obtained without protest and economic zeros with the estimated values of these special zeros.

Studies analysing the determinants of WTP and WTA in IC settings are very scarce. This paper seeks to provide information to fill this gap. The results indicate that the variables that explain the value of IC from one perspective may differ from the variables that explain it from an alternative perspective. Given the relevance of contextual factors, studies on the topic should be expanded, and care should be taken with the extrapolation of results across countries and settings.

Search engines, the most popular online services, are associated with several concerns. Users are concerned about the unauthorized processing of their personal data, as well as about search engines keeping track of their search preferences. Various search engines have been introduced to address these concerns, claiming that they protect users’ privacy. The authors call these search engines privacy-preserving search engines (PPSEs). This paper aims to investigate the factors that motivate search engine users to use PPSEs.

This study adopted protection motivation theory (PMT) and associated its constructs with subjective norms to build a comprehensive research model. The authors tested the research model using survey data from 830 search engine users worldwide.

The results confirm the interpretive power of PMT in privacy-related decision-making and show that users are more inclined to take protective measures when they consider that data abuse is a more severe risk and that they are more vulnerable to data abuse. Furthermore, the results highlight the importance of subjective norms in predicting and determining PPSE use. Because subjective norms refer to perceived social influences from important others to engage or refrain from protective behavior, the authors reveal that the recommendation from people that users consider important motivates them to take protective measures and use PPSE.

Despite its interesting results, this research also has some limitations. First, because the survey was conducted online, the study environment was less controlled. Participants may have been disrupted or affected, for example, by the presence of others or background noise during the session. Second, some of the survey items could possibly be misinterpreted by the respondents in the study questionnaire, as they did not have access to clarifications that a researcher could possibly provide. Third, another limitation refers to the use of the Amazon Turk tool. According Paolacci and Chandler (2014) in comparison to the US population, the MTurk workers are more educated, younger and less religiously and politically diverse. Fourth, another limitation of this study could be that Actual Use of PPSE is self-reported by the participants. This could cause bias because it is argued that internet users’ statements may be in contrast with their actions in real life or in an experimental scenario (Berendt et al., 2005, Jensen et al., 2005); Moreover, some limitations of this study emerge from the use of PMT as the background theory of the study. PMT identifies the main factors that affect protection motivation, but other environmental and cognitive factors can also have a significant role in determining the way an individual’s attitude is formed. As Rogers (1975) argued, PMT as proposed does not attempt to specify all of the possible factors in a fear appeal that may affect persuasion, but rather a systematic exposition of a limited set of components and cognitive mediational processes that may account for a significant portion of the variance in acceptance by users. In addition, as Tanner et al. (1991) argue, the ‘PMT’s assumption that the subjects have not already developed a coping mechanism is one of its limitations. Finally, another limitation is that the sample does not include users from China, which is the second most populated country. Unfortunately, DuckDuckGo has been blocked in China, so it has not been feasible to include users from China in this study.

The proposed model and, specifically, the subjective norms construct proved to be successful in predicting PPSE use. This study demonstrates the need for PPSE to exhibit and advertise the technology and measures they use to protect users’ privacy. This will contribute to the effort to persuade internet users to use these tools.

This study sought to explore the privacy attitudes of search engine users using PMT and its constructs’ association with subjective norms. It used the PMT to elucidate users’ perceptions that motivate them to privacy adoption behavior, as well as how these perceptions influence the type of search engine they use. This research is a first step toward gaining a better understanding of the processes that drive people’s motivation to, or not to, protect their privacy online by means of using PPSE. At the same time, this study contributes to search engine vendors by revealing that users’ need to be persuaded not only about their policy toward privacy but also by considering and implementing new strategies of diffusion that could enhance the use of the PPSE.

This research is a first step toward gaining a better understanding of the processes that drive people’s motivation to, or not to, protect their privacy online by means of using PPSEs.