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This concluding chapter summarises the main themes and topics discussed in this book, synthesising the key issues facing contemporary anti-racism efforts. It reflects on a possible anti-racist future(s) in a context of greater sociocultural affiliations and more interconnected local and global environments. Ideas about race and ethnicity have adapted, and racial hierarchies, structures and processes continuously shape the way social groups engage, interact and live with difference. This raises questions regarding the enduring influence of race and racism. What will the state of multiracial societies be in the evolving digital economy that has transformed the structural and institutional environment affecting everyday life? What kind of an anti-racist future can be imagined that will contribute to ensuring greater social equity? This chapter ponders on a range of possibilities to chart directions towards an anti-racist future that fosters increased intercultural understanding for relational engagements across difference. It draws conclusions and lessons for an anti-racist future and lays out some directions for future research.

The COVID-19 pandemic has generated a significant impact on several aspects of public relations practice. By adopting the theoretical framework of adaptive leadership, this research is designed to explore how an organization’s top leadership can support related adaptive action in strategic communication. Particularly, we hope to explore whether the application of adaptive leadership could facilitate a higher level of communication transparency as well as deliver a sense of caring and empathy in COVID-19 communication.

An international online survey was designed and conducted for this study. The first sample consists of 776 full-time communication professionals in the United States of America with 435 women (56.1%) and 341 men (43.9%). The second sample consists of 268 full-time communication professionals in Canada, with 110 women (41.0%) and 158 men (59.0%). The two samples were merged into the final sample of 1,044 for the data analysis.

Results confirmed that the perceived impact of the COVID-19 pandemic increased communication professionals’ challenges in building trust. It also drives adaptive changes in their coping actions in strategic communication. More importantly, the top leadership within the organization played a key role in this adaptive leadership environment by demonstrating commitment to transparency in COVID-19 communication and delivering a sense of empathy during the pandemic.

This study contributes to our understanding of strategic communication in times of crisis, such as the COVID-19 global pandemic, by focusing on the adaptive nature of communication leadership. More importantly, our study confirms the important roles of two leadership attributes (i.e. the sense of empathy and the commitment to communication transparency) in supporting adaptive leadership, which eventually influences trust building.

In this chapter, we focus on specially designed instruction (SDI) as a core value for the field of specific learning disabilities (SLD). SDI is at the heart of special education, and the field of LD has been built on the core value that effective instruction improves student outcomes. We describe a two-step test and an extended example of what is and is not SDI for Matt, a student with an SLD. Finally, we discuss some of the confusion surrounding SDI and the need for the field to return to its core value of individualized, intentional, targeted, evidence- or high leverage practice–based, and systematic instruction for students with SLD.

This study aims to explore whether globalization and technology are harmful to health using a global panel data set of 52 countries over the period 1990–2019.

The study focused on four continents: Africa, the Americas, Asia/Oceania and Europe. The authors used four advanced econometric methodologies, which include the standard panel fixed effect (FE), Arellano–Bover/Blundell–Bond dynamic panel, Hausman–Taylor specification and two-stage least squares (FE-2SLS)/Lewbel-2SLS approaches.

The empirical evidence highlights the significance of globalization and technology in promoting global health. The findings suggest that globalization has various impacts on global health indicators and that technology is useful in tracking, monitoring and promoting global health. In addition, the empirical evidence indicates that a truly health-centred process of globalization and technological innovation can only be realized by ensuring that the interests of countries and vulnerable populations to health risks are adequately considered in international decision-making regarding global economic integration.

The authors suggest that achieving the aspiration of global health will entail the use of globalization and information technology to extend human activities and provide equal access to global health.

This paper investigates the dynamics between state affect and trusting cognitive beliefs on post-adoptive information technology (IT) use behaviors in the form of intention to explore and deep structure usage. That state affect can influence behaviors is recognized in practice. In fact, some studies examine the impact of affective constructs, but the way state affect impacts how individuals use IT remains largely unexplored. The authors theorize that state affect, in the form of positive and negative affect, will influence trusting cognitive beliefs regarding an IT artifact (in terms of perceived helpfulness, capability and reliability) and, more importantly, directly influence intention to explore and deep structure usage.

The authors test the model using a sample of 357 IT users. Survey items were derived from established measures, and the data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

Results of this study suggest that positive affect and negative affect impact trusting cognitive beliefs. Trusting cognitive beliefs positively impact intention to explore with an IT and deep structure usage of an IT. Even in the presence of trusting beliefs, though, positive affect directly impacts intention to explore. Positive affect and negative affect both also have various indirect, mediated effects on intention to explore and deep structure usage.

In order to maximize value from workplace IT, the results suggest managers foster an authentic, positive work environment in order to harness or redirect employees' emotional energies.

This study aims to explore some perceptions related to the suggestion that external auditors will be replaced by audit technologies that use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to make audit judgements when performing the financial statement audits. Digital transformation is revitalising the technologies used by external auditors and their firms; thus, the authors seek to understand what challenges this creates for the auditing profession in Vietnam.

Through the theoretical lens of new institutionalism theory, this study uses a qualitative approach involving 20 semi-structured interviews conducted with external auditors in Vietnam during 2022. This sample includes the global Big Four, global mid-tier and smaller local Vietnamese audit firms.

The findings indicate that there is resistance or disagreement with the suggestion that in the future audit technologies using AI tools can replace humans (external auditors). The role of external auditors in the professional services sector will gradually be changed by audit technologies; however, external auditors are unlikely to be replaced by audit technologies that use AI tools based on the responses of the participants. Strict institutional rules that exist in Vietnam would prevent the replacement of (human) external auditors. In the future, external auditors may take on new roles as consultants, with unique skills in classifying and processing data for decision-making processes; however, they will not be completely replaced by technology in the audit space.

This study has limitations that it is based on the data collection from a single developing country, Vietnam; therefore, the generalisability of the findings is limited to Vietnam. Also, the authors sought insights into the future of external audits in Vietnam.

This study highlights the changing role of auditors and institutions. Thus, policymakers, external auditors and auditees in other developing countries would find the findings helpful.

This study provides new perspectives, particularly from local Vietnamese firms, about audit practices that emerge due to high-level technological advancements and then embed themselves into existing audit practices in an emerging economy. Prior studies tended to focus on the global Big Four firms, thus this study contributes by sharing the perceptions of the smaller practitioners also.

This study aims to examine authentic leadership behavior (ALB) and empowering leadership behavior (ELB) as predictors of innovative work behavior (IWB) while assessing the mediating role of work-family enrichment (WFE).

Through the explanatory research design, data was retrieved from 303 respondents from 16 small-sized hotels in Ghana and analyzed quantitatively using descriptive and inferential statistics (hierarchical component analysis within PLS-SEM).

The study’s findings revealed that both ALB and ELB positively and significantly relate to IWB. Additionally, our study found that WFE partially mediated the nexus between ALB and IWB as well as ELB and IWB.

The findings of our study imply that in the pursuit of excellence, ALB and ELB in the hospitality industry are crucial, as they not only nurture employee potential but also help employees to thrive both at home and at the workplace.

The hospitality literature lacks a comprehensive understanding of the underlying mechanism by which ALB and ELB influence IWB. To the best of the authors' knowledge, our study is the first empirical study conducted on ALB, ELB, WFE, and IWB in the hospitality industry.