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In this fast-changing world, digitization has become crucial to organizations, allowing decision-makers to alter corporate processes. Companies with a higher corporate social responsibility (CSR) level not only help encourage employees to focus on their goals, but they also show that they take their social responsibility seriously, which is increasingly important in today’s digital economy. So, this study aims to examine the relationship between digital transformation and CSR disclosure of Chinese A-share companies. Furthermore, this research investigates the moderating impact of governance heterogeneity, including CEO power and corporate internal control (INT) mechanisms.

This study used fixed effect estimation with robust standard errors to examine the relationship between digital transformation and CSR disclosure and the moderating effect of governance heterogeneity among Chinese A-share companies from 2010 to 2020. The whole sample consists of 17,266 firms, including 5,038 state-owned enterprise (SOE) company records and 12,228 non-SOE records. The whole sample data is collected from the China Stock Market and Accounting Research, the Chinese Research Data Services and the WIND databases.

The regression results lead us to three conclusions after classifying the sample into non-SOE and SOE groups. First, Chinese A-share businesses with greater levels of digitalization have lower CSR disclosures. Both SOE and non-SOE are consistent with these findings. Second, increasing CEO authority creates a more centralized company decision-making structure (Breuer et al., 2022; Freire, 2019), which improves the negative association between digitalization and CSR disclosure. These conclusions, however, also apply to non-SOE. Finally, INT reinforces the association between corporate digitization and CSR disclosure, which is especially obvious in SOEs. These findings are robust to alternative HEXUN CSR disclosure index. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the negative relationship between corporate digitalization and CSR disclosures is more pronounced in bigger, highly levered and highly financialized firms.

Digitalization and CSR disclosure are well studied, but few have examined their interactions from a governance heterogeneity perspective in China. Practitioners and policymakers may use these insights to help business owners implement suitable digital policies for firm development from diverse business perspectives.

This paper aims to consolidate the state of research on information behaviour. Regardless of the scholarly surge on information behaviour using numerous models and extended ones, gaps still exist on the development of more pragmatic frameworks that explain and/or predict the information behaviour across different fragmented environmental situations. Therefore, this paper extends technology-organization-environment (T-O-E) framework and synthesizes different research positions into a multi-dimensional framework that assists small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to understand their information behaviour and to make informed decisions on the adoption of emerging information communication technology (EICT).

This study deployed an inductive approach; data were generated from unstructured and semi-structured interviews with 20 participants drawn purposively from Luton directories.

This study developed a more integrated framework underpinned by T-O-E framework, which helped to identify how EICT adoption is critically shaped by perceived information need, information sources selection and the factors determining information source selection.

Qualitative research is normally subjective, inductive, interpretive and limited on the sample used. However, because of the limited number of interviews used, as well as industry-specific nature of the study, the generalization of the framework and the findings will be difficult, hence, the need to test the framework on a broader population and cross-context testing.

The T-O-E framework is extended to Expectancy (T-O-E-E) to provide a more robust insight into information behaviour of SMEs from a multi-dimensional perspective. It also offers a more analytical framework for exploring critical issues identified and demonstrates the capacity to provide a reliable explanation to the findings. Further, it serves as a tool for assessing the benefits or challenges of SMEs information behaviour especially on the EICT adoption decision.

To promote access to their services, health-care companies provide various communication channels to their customers (beneficiaries) to enable the receipt of requests, such as authorization for examinations, procedures and hospitalizations. Under the approach of innovation studies, the management of customer relationship channels for health-care companies is characterized as a knowledge-intensive business service (KIBS). The purpose of this study is presenting innovation as a strategy to increase customer service productivity, as well as the monitoring of the quality of the service, the generation of health information for beneficiaries and compliance with the regulation set by the Brazilian National Health Agency (ANS).

The study is characterized as an applied research, as it proposes solutions to problems faced by supplemental health-care companies using the strategy of action research, i.e. an independent, social research with an empirical basis.

The result of this study shows that a computerized health-care system can increase productivity by 21.96%, and it presents an innovative solution for health-care companies to guarantee the process of meeting the demands and requests of their beneficiaries, ensuring the compliance with ANS regulations.

These results can be replicated to other healthcare companies and contribute to those seeking innovation, increased productivity and quality improvements in their services.

This work was also motivated by the lack of lstudies in the areas of health-care companies in Brazil.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a theoretical model to illustrate factors influencing research data communication on diseases caused by the Zika virus.

The grounded theory methodology was adopted. For data collection, interviews were conducted with 13 Brazilian researchers involved with the Zika virus theme. Data analysis was performed using the open, axial and selective coding processes, according to the principles of the grounded theory.

Based on data collection and analysis, seven theoretical categories representing intervening factors in Zika virus research data communication were identified. The emerging theory showed the centrality of researchers’ expectations for acknowledgment and reward, influenced by the aspects of research funding and academic culture. Three factors involved in the macro processes of research data communication: data use, data production and data sharing. In the use and production processes, factors related to collaboration figured most strongly. In the production and sharing processes, the factors regarding data processing and the use of research data repositories were more pronounced. Finally, data sharing, and the possibility of reusing data are directly affected by the social context of Zika virus disease as an emerging disease.

The study presents a theory developed systematically to explain the phenomenon of communication of research data on Zika virus. The theory presents a set of intervening factors of the process of communication of research data and discusses the factors in light of the fundamentals of information science.

This paper aims to analyze the context of community opinions and participation in the natural gas sector in developing countries, a case study of Tanzania. To achieve this purpose, the study pointed out six facts, namely, information on the natural gas sector; awareness of the natural gas-related policies; laws and regulations and the creation of employment opportunities; local experts in the natural gas sector; the use of natural gas revenues; and natural gas for poverty reduction and improvement of social well-being.

The study is a systematic review of the literature on community participation based on the relevant studies published between 2010 and 2018. A comprehensive literature review was carried out following the seven-step model whereby relevant themes from different potential bibliographic databases such as Google Scholar were systematically selected, compiled and analyzed using descriptive methods.

The study revealed that despite the various efforts made by the governments and other stakeholders to promote community participation, there is an inadequate level of community participation in the natural gas sector in developing countries. There are limited local experts for natural gas operations and low transparency on natural gas contracts, agreements and revenues. Therefore, there is the need to raise awareness for a highly informed society with a clear sense of ownership of the natural gas wealth among the local communities. Moreover, transparency and accountability are recommended for the sustainable natural gas sector development.

This paper offers new and current cross-sectoral inclusion, opinions, hopes and concerns of the community on the natural gas sector management in developing countries.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the occurrence of the extended-spectrum β-lactamases (ESBLs) and AmpC β-lactamase genes in 144 Escherichia coli isolates recovered from 160 vegetable salad samples.

Among the 144 E. coli isolates recovered from 160 vegetable salads, 17 (12 percent) ceftazidime-resistant isolates were screened for ESBL production with the double disk-diffusion test. The ESBL-producing isolates were characterized for antimicrobial resistance, the presence of virulence genes and plasmid-mediated quinolone resistance (PMQR) determinants. The isolates were also subjected to phylogenetic group typing. The existence of plasmid AmpC genes and mutations in the regulatory region of the chromosomal AmpC gene was assessed using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and sequencing. All β-lactamase isolates were further characterized by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis to determine the genetic relatedness.

Overall, 17 (12 percent) of the 144 E. coli isolates studied were ceftazidime resistant. Among the 17 isolates, 13 (77 percent) were multidrug resistant and four (23.5 percent) were ESBL producers. The bla CTX-M14 was the only gene detected. Of the 12 AmpC-producing isolates, three (18 percent) harbored plasmid-encoded AmpC and sequencing analysis of the chromosomal AmpC genes revealed mutations in the promoter/attenuator region. PMQR determinants were detected in 9 (52 percent) isolates. A was the most prevalent phylogenetic group (56 percent), followed by groups B1 (31 percent), D (6 percent), and B2 (6 percent). PCR showed that six (50 percent) ESBL/AmpC-producing E. coli isolates carried one and/or two virulence genes. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis showed no epidemiological relationship between these isolates.

This study places vegetable salads within the spectrum of ecological niches that may be vehicles for antibiotic-resistant bacteria/genes with clinical interest and these findings are worthy of attention as their spread to humans by ingestion cannot be dismissed.

Broad-spectrum cephalosporin resistance is rapidly increasing in Escherichia coli, representing a food safety problem. The purpose of this paper is to characterize eight extended-spectrum-ß-lactamase (ESBL) and acquired AmpC ß-lactamase-producing E. coli isolates and virotypes associated, obtained from chicken and pork food samples in Puebla, Mexico.

Samples (36 from chicken and 10 from pork) were cultured on Levine agar plates supplemented with cefotaxime (2 mg/L) for isolation of cefotaxime-resistant (CTXR) E. coli. CTXR-E. coli isolates were detected in 33 of 46 samples (72 percent), and one isolate/sample was characterized (28 from chicken and 5 from pork), for ESBL production, phylogenetic group, sequence typing, resistance and virulence genes by PCR and sequencing.

Results showed 16 ESBL-E. coli (35 percent) (12/16 belonging to phylogroup B1) and 8 CMY-2-E. coli (17 percent). ESBL detected were as follows (number of isolates): CTX-M-2 (8); CTX-M-1 (2); CTX-M-15 (1); SHV-2a (4) and TEM-52c (1). In total, 20 different sequence types (STs) were identified among the ESBL- or CMY-2-producing E. coli strains, which included four new ones. The CTX-M-15 β-lactamase was detected in one E. coli ST617-ST10 Cplx-B1 strain that also carried ibeA gene. One CMY-2-positive strain of lineage ST224-B2 was detected and it carried the qnrA1 gene.

In this study, a ST131-based virotyping scheme for strains from food of animal origin was established since this kind of strains constitutes an important vehicle of virulent ESBL- and CMY-2-producing E. coli isolates, which could be transmitted to humans by direct contact or through the food chain.