Search results

This paper examines the national solidarity in Brunei Darussalam during the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequential impact on younger generations. Utilising Emile Durkheim's solidarity theories, I examine how young people's social media use builds on state discourse in the pandemic. I contend that a shift towards an organic society is visible through a social cohesion that is based on differentiated roles. I argue that the citizenry plays a vital role in the forward momentum toward Industrial Revolution (IR) 4.0, which illustrates that solidarity cannot be forged as a top-down directive. By prompting economic and creative divisions of labour, the local use of social media in a public health crisis has shown the government a new way to foster solidarity. Significant implications for youth as future leaders of the nation are discussed.

This study aims to explore the potentials of adopting salam-based crowdfunding for financing the agricultural sector in Afghanistan.

It adopts a triangulation approach, consisting of a number of methods used in gathering relevant information about Afghanistan’s agricultural sector, the concept of crowdfunding and salam (forward sale) contract. These methods include library research, reviewing documents provided by Afghanistan’s banks and semi-structured interviews with Islamic finance experts.

This study finds that salam-based crowdfunding is a viable Sharīʿah-compliant investment platform, which may offer some advantages for both potential investors and farmers or entrepreneurs.

The novelty of this paper lies in the proposed structure of salam-based crowdfunding.

The a priori identification and development of army personnel competencies are necessary to enable effective and efficient responses to rapidly changing climate conditions. Accordingly, this study aims to identify the performance requirements of a military flood responder and the competencies (knowledge, skills and abilities) required to perform it.

Using an abductive approach, the authors conducted both secondary and primary research to generate a validated framework of performance criteria and competencies for army personnel responding to floods. This literature review integrated both the peer-reviewed academic literature and public sector grey literature. Using the critical incident technique, the authors then conducted semi-structured interviews with 15 members of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) who had previously been tasked with flood response operations. Participants were asked about the tasks required while conducting flood response operations. Interview transcripts were then content analysed to identify themes regarding those tasks, and the competencies needed to perform those tasks were then extracted and contrasted with the literature review findings. Inter-rater reliability for the analysis was established via iterative discussion between the two co-authors.

The primary data reinforced and expanded the list of performance expectations that the authors deductively identified from the integrated literature review, adding granularity to each. It also identified competencies (including both hard and soft skills) and highlighted previously neglected contextual antecedents of military flood response effectiveness.

though knowledge saturation was achieved from the 15 interviews conducted, further research with larger samples could more deeply ground the evidence discovered in this study. Nevertheless, the competencies identified in this paper could serve as a starting guide to staffing and/or training interventions targeted at improving these competencies for personnel responding to flood scenarios.

The theoretical findings also have immediate practical relevance to training for flood response operations. In particular, the subtle challenges in competency crossover from military operations to flood response operations may facilitate not only more efficient, targeted training (that could improve the effectiveness of army personnel involved in humanitarian roles), but could be applied to the selection of army personnel as well. This study may also help provincial/municipal operators and emergency planners by better communicating the strengths and limitations of army personnel in addressing civilian military cooperation for humanitarian operations. Thus, the findings of this research study represent an important first step in prompting attention to the strategic human resource planning studies required to make all responders more efficient and effective in their respective division of labour within the humanitarian domain.

Peering a little beyond these research findings, human-induced climate change is expected to continue increasing the frequency of such events (IPCC, 2021), and a timely, national force is likely to be increasingly required for Canadians impacted by major disasters stemming from natural hazards when local resources become overwhelmed. Yet, there is some concern from the CAF that increasing responsiveness to disaster operations will affect their military readiness (Leuprecht and Kasurak, 2020). One can indeed envision a paradox whereby the CAF is both a “force of last resort” while increasingly becoming a “first choice for domestic disaster and emergency assistance”. The practical implications from this research also suggest that military personnel, while fully capable of successfully conducting flood response operations, may become overburdened and less able to adopt yet greater capacity and training for other additional humanitarian work. Nevertheless, the competencies highlighted by participants can help inform the next flood response operation in Canada.

Most literature in the field of emergency response focuses on cooperation between civilian and military resources and other strategic-level themes. The findings address critical granularity missing at the operational and tactical levels of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief research. The authors also draw implications beyond the military context, including for local/regional governmental players (operators and emergency planners) as well as for volunteers in flood response roles.

This study sought to distinguish characteristics of cognitive processes while using information technology. In particular, it identifies similarities and differences between mind wandering and cognitive absorption in technology-related settings in an effort to develop a deeper understanding of the role that mind wandering plays when using information technology.

Data was gathered using an online survey including responses from 619 English-speaking adults in 2019. We applied a confirmatory factor analysis and used a robust variant of maximum likelihood estimator with robust standard errors and a Satorra–Bentler scaled test statistic. The data analysis procedure was conducted with the R environment using the psych package for descriptive analysis, and lavaan to investigate the factorial structure and the underlying correlations.

We discuss the benefits of carefully differentiating between cognitive processes in Information Systems research and depict avenues how future research can address current shortcomings with a careful investigation of neurophysiological antecedents.

To date, mind wandering has been explored as a single phenomenon, though research in reference disciplines has begun to distinguish varieties and how they distinctly impact behavior. We demonstrate that this distinction is also important for our discipline by showing how two specific types of mind wandering (i.e. deliberate and spontaneous mind wandering) are differently correlated with sub-dimensions of cognitive absorption, a well-studied construct.

Computing ethics represents a long established, yet rapidly evolving, discipline that grows in complexity and scope on a near-daily basis. Therefore, to help understand some of that scope it is essential to incorporate a range of perspectives, from a range of stakeholders, on current and emerging ethical challenges associated with computer technology. This study aims to achieve this by using, a three-pronged, stakeholder analysis of Computer Science academics, ICT industry professionals, and citizen groups was undertaken to explore what they consider to be crucial computing ethics concerns. The overlap between these stakeholder groups are explored, as well as whether their concerns are reflected in the existing literature.

Data collection was performed using focus groups, and the data was analysed using a thematic analysis. The data was also analysed to determine if there were overlaps between the literature and the stakeholders’ concerns and attitudes towards computing ethics.

The results of the focus group analysis show a mixture of overlapping concerns between the different groups, as well as some concerns that are unique to each of the specific groups. All groups stressed the importance of data as a key topic in computing ethics. This includes concerns around the accuracy, completeness and representativeness of data sets used to develop computing applications. Academics were concerned with the best ways to teach computing ethics to university students. Industry professionals believed that a lack of diversity in software teams resulted in important questions not being asked during design and development. Citizens discussed at length the negative and unexpected impacts of social media applications. These are all topics that have gained broad coverage in the literature.

In recent years, the impact of ICT on society and the environment at large has grown tremendously. From this fast-paced growth, a myriad of ethical concerns have arisen. The analysis aims to shed light on what a diverse group of stakeholders consider the most important social impacts of technology and whether these concerns are reflected in the literature on computing ethics. The outcomes of this analysis will form the basis for new teaching content that will be developed in future to help illuminate and address these concerns.

The multi-stakeholder analysis provides individual and differing perspectives on the issues related to the rapidly evolving discipline of computing ethics.

Alcohol, tobacco, marijuana and other drugs use typically increases in prevalence and frequency during middle and late adolescence. School health instruction often focusses on providing facts and rarely provides tools for addressing the psychosocial risk factors needed to prevent substance use. The purpose of this paper is to report about the effectiveness of a prevention programme delivered in US high school health classes. The intervention augments typical instruction by providing teachers with activities that can be infused in their daily teaching.

In total, 26 schools were randomly assigned to receive the intervention or serve as controls. Pupils were pretested near the beginning of the school year, posttest near the end of the school year and administered a final test near the beginning of the following school year. Teachers in treatment schools were provided with activities designed to target psychosocial variables known to mediate substance use onset and self-initiated cessation. These include normative beliefs, intentionality, lifestyle incongruence, beliefs about consequences of use, peer pressure resistance skills, decision-making skills, goal setting skills and stress management skills.

Hierarchical modelling analytic strategies revealed the intervention to have definable positive impacts on alcohol and cigarette use. Moreover, the intervention had strongest effects on alcohol and cigarette use among pupils who were identified at pretest as being lower-than-average risk.

This research provides support for providing teachers with a strategy for preventing alcohol, tobacco and other drugs that can be used in a flexible manner to augment the instruction they are already mandated to provide.

There is more to primary care than solely medical and nursing services. Models of Child Health Appraised (MOCHA) explored the role of the professions of pharmacy, dental health and social care as examples of affiliate contributors to primary care in providing health advice and treatment to children and young people. Pharmacies are much used, but their value as a resource for children seems to be insufficiently recognised in most European Union (EU) and European Economic Area (EEA) countries. Advice from a pharmacist is invaluable, particularly because many medicines for children are only available off-label, or not available in the correct dose, access to a pharmacist for simple queries around certain health issues is often easier and quicker than access to a primary care physician or nursing service. Preventive dentistry is available throughout the EU and EEA, but there are few targeted incentives to ensure all children receive the service, and accessibility to dental treatment is variable, particularly for disabled children or those with specific health needs. Social care services are an essential part of health care for many extremely vulnerable children, for example those with complex care needs. Mapping social care services and the interaction with health services is challenging due to their fragmented provision and the variability of access across the EU and EEA. A lack of coherent structure of the health and social care interface requires parents or other family members to navigate complex systems with little assistance. The needs of pharmacy, dentistry and social care are varied and interwoven with needs from each other and from the healthcare system. Yet, because this inter-connectivity is not sufficiently recognised in the EU and EEA countries, there is a need for improvement of coordination and with the need for these services to focus more fully on children and young people.

This paper investigates whether career capital (CC) development abroad, expatriate type, career type and career stage affect expatriates' career success in terms of perceived marketability and the number of promotions.

The study presents findings from a 2020 follow-up study among 327 expatriates, including assigned expatriates (AEs) (n = 117) and self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) (n = 220), who worked abroad in 2015 and 2016. Among that group, 186 had continued their international career, while 141 had repatriated. Structural equation modeling with robust maximum likelihood estimation was used to test this study's hypotheses. MPlus 8.6 software supported the analysis.

The study outlines that CC developed abroad positively impacts perceived marketability and the number of promotions. Second, repatriates reported a greater degree of perceived marketability than those continuing an international career. Career type did not predict the number of promotions. The expatriate type did not influence any of the career success measures. Finally, expatriates in their late-career stage did not achieve a similar level of career success as those in other career stages.

All the expatriates were university-educated Finnish engineers and business professionals, and the career benefits of expatriation could differ for different sample groups. The study calls for more context-sensitive global careers research. The findings have positive implications for self-guided career actors considering working abroad. Organizations could focus more of their global talent attraction, management and career efforts on SIEs.

To analyze the impacts of these four antecedents on the career success of expatriates, the authors cooperated with two Finnish labor unions in 2020 to explore the careers of 327 expatriates, having surveyed the same group in 2015/2016. Such follow-up studies are not very common in expatriation research since it is difficult to keep track of expatriates who change locations and employers.

The purpose of this literature review is to critically analyze, synthesize and integrate the currently fragmented literature concerning the factors affecting the international transfer of individual career capital (CC).

This paper is a systematic literature review of the factors affecting the international transfer of individual CC from/for expatriates, repatriates and other employed highly skilled migrants and return migrants. The findings are classified based on the Social Chronology Framework (SCF) proposed by Gunz and Mayrhofer (2015).

This systematic literature review suggests that the international transfer of individual CC, which can be expressed both as (1) individual-level transfer across different organizations located in different countries as the direct use and application of CC and (2) individual knowing-how transfer to other individuals within organization, is affected by the individual, organizational and broader contextual-level factors that are bound by the aspect of time. The authors summarize the findings by presenting a model of the factors affecting the international transfer of individual CC.

The authors align the CC framework (Defillippi and Arthur, 1994) to the SCF (Gunz and Mayrhofer, 2018) by explaining the factors affecting the international transfer of individual CC that go beyond the qualities of CC, including the Being, Space and Time domains. Moreover, the authors critique the current focus on the international CC transfer in the present suggesting that future research should explore this phenomenon as a more dynamic process. Finally, the authors contribute to the literature on the global mobility of highly skilled employees' by highlighting gaps in the knowledge of the international transfer of CC and presenting a future research agenda.