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This chapter explores the impact of equality, diversity, and inclusivity (EDI) on internal change agents’ (ICAs) personal and professional development. We have surveyed 117 ICAs that undergo a four-year digital development programme at Edinburgh Business School (EBS). Our survey design draws from expectancy, surprise, sensemaking, and attribution theories to test four hypotheses using Spearman’s rank. We found that diversity features such as gender, age, sector affiliation, work experience, management responsibility, and programme stage do not strongly impact ICAs’ experience of personal and professional development. Surprisingly, some diversity features had a modest or moderate impact on ICAs’ experience of personal and professional development. This disconfirmed our basic assumption about the effectiveness of inclusivity practices in the digital development programme at EBS. We conclude that future research should further investigate the impact of evaluation on ICAs’ personal and professional development and how we can secure it in a digital Business School context.

Stemming from the resource-based view (RBV) approach, this article overcomes the limits of the conventional strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis, setting the basis for the model actual–potential, positive–negative, internal–external (APPNIE). This paper enacts a new framework demonstrating how strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of SWOT can be replaced by actual or potential, positive or negative elements, considered in a dynamic way.

The traditional SWOT analysis provides only a partial view of the environment and adopts incorrect terminology that can confuse the user, preventing a clear understanding of the factors affecting the organisation’s situation. The authors developed a new tool to help managers in their decision-making processes.

This study proposes a new tool for assessing the quality of management, resources and environment, which is useful in understanding the economic and social scenario in which a firm is embedded. From a practical point of view, the new tool is applied in the case study, and it shows how managers and students can use it while choosing between alternative options (different strategies, markets, technologies, etc.).

The APPNIE model introduces a new dimension that the SWOT analysis does not consider. Moreover, for each element of the new matrix, the authors propose a plan of action, which is another valuable benefit of the APPNIE model.

People who identify as transgender face stigma, isolation and harassment while often struggling to come to terms with their gender identity. They also disproportionately experience mental health difficulties. The purpose of this paper is to present the voices of transgender people in the Republic of Ireland (RoI) in regard to the issues they are facing, improvements they would like to see made to schools, workplaces, services and society in general and whether mental health supports fulfil their needs.

Ten open questions were embedded within a quantitative online survey (LGBTIreland study) on factors impacting social inclusion, mental health and care. These open questions were re-analysed with exclusive focus on the transgender participants (n = 279) using content/thematic analysis.

The participants in this study reported significant signs of mental distress. The following themes emerged: impact of stigma, deficiencies in mental health services, need for education on transgender identity, importance of peer support, achieving self-acceptance and societal inclusion questioned.

Efforts to recruit young participants have led to a possible over-representation in this study.

The findings suggest the need for improvement in mental health support services, including further education in how to meet the needs of transgender individuals.

Transgender people in Ireland experience social exclusion. The need for more inclusivity was emphasised most in secondary schools. Education on transgender identities in all contexts of society is recommended by the participants.

This study reports on the largest group of transgender participants to date in RoI. Their voices will affect perceptions on social inclusion and mental health care.

School teachers had difficulty in monitoring and assessing the students during the COVID-19 lockdown. This study attempts to understand the assessment and teaching challenges during COVID-19 and how this problematic situation was reshaped by new normal teaching.

The qualitative research included perspectives of 84 school teachers using an interview-based approach. Pedagogical assessment, societal assessment and personal assessment were considered in the study.

Content switching, student involvement and individual assessment are the challenges in terms of pedagogy. Buying power of electronic equipment, digital skills, study environment and distraction are the challenges faced in terms of personal challenges. Personal connect and interaction intensity is the challenges faced in terms of social challenges. Teachers adapted to synchronous, blended, flipped and asynchronous modes of teaching.

The authors’ study will support schools in developing their institutional plans to understand teachers' apprehensions better and to check the readiness of the schools towards teaching and learning approaches.

The rise of interactive fitness games in the post-epidemic era has resulted in the need to establish a quality evaluation index system. This study aims to develop such a system and provide a reference for enhancing the quality of interactive fitness games.

To achieve this, interviews and questionnaires were conducted to identify the factors that influence the quality of interactive fitness games. The Kano model and SII (Satisfaction Increment Index)-Dissatisfaction Decrement Index (DDI) two-dimensional quadrant analysis were then used to explore differences in quality judgment between males and females, as well as their priorities for improving interactive fitness games.

The study revealed that males and females have different quality judgments for “rich and diverse content,” “motivational value,” “sensitive motion recognition detection” and “portability.” However, both genders share similar views on the other quality factors. In addition, the study identified differences in the priority of improvement between men and women. “Very interesting,” “effective fitness achievement,” “motivating fitness maintenance,” “sensitive motion recognition detection,” “portability” and “educational value” were found to be of higher priority for men than women.

These findings provide a valuable theoretical reference for developers and designers of interactive fitness games seeking to enhance the user experience.

This study aims to clarify the following research questions: to what extent do people consider natural disaster risks as important for residential selection? what personal demographics and attitudes toward natural disaster risks are associated with the relative importance of natural disasters for residential selection? and to what extent do the associated personal attributes influence the relative importance of natural disasters for residential selection?

An internet-based survey was performed to collect 2,000 responses from residents of Osaka Prefecture, Japan, to gauge people’s relative importance of safety against natural disasters regarding residential preference. The obtained results were analysed using two types of statistical analysis, specifically chi-square test and multivariable logistic regression analyses.

It was found that 37.3% of the respondents in Osaka Prefecture, Japan, considered the “safety against natural disasters” relatively important when selecting a residential location. The statistical analysis also demonstrated that those having a relatively higher level of disaster awareness and preparedness were 1.41 times more likely to prefer to live in a place that is safer from natural disasters. Thus, it was suggested that disaster education aimed at raising the level of people’s disaster awareness could be effective to increase the number of people who choose to live in a safer place from natural disasters.

Living in an area that is safer from natural disasters can effectively minimize human and property damage. Recently, several measures have been taken in Japan to guide people to live in a safer place. The clarification of the extent to which people consider natural disaster risks as important for residential selection and the understanding of the categories of the people who are likely to do so is important to develop more effective natural disaster measures; however, there has been less attention on such investigation. Therefore, this study conducted an internet-based survey and examined it.

This study aims to extend the application of the quality category approach in rapid fatigue assessment of complex welded structures containing defects under arbitrary loadings, following the investigation of their core data and fatigue assessment procedures based on fracture mechanics.

The analysis methods and procedures for calculating equivalent sizes of semi-elliptic cracks and initial sizes of through-width cracks at the weld toe were developed based on the life equivalence principle. Different stress concentration solutions, i.e. 2D-M_k and 3D-M_k solutions, and different bending ratios were considered. Then, approximate equations were proposed to calculate the crack size under combined stress. In addition, a procedure for calculating the fatigue life by interpolation was proposed and applied to engineering examples.

The fatigue lives of fillet and butt weld joints obtained with the 3D-M_k solution for large L/B are longer than those obtained with the 2D-M_k solution. The results of the fatigue life of the brake unit bracket show that the average error between the proposed approximation equations and the quality category approach is 1.6%.

The quality category and equivalent size curves of different stress concentration solutions under combined membrane and bending stresses are newly added, which further expands the application of the quality category approach. When the proposed fatigue life calculation methods are employed, the remaining life can be quickly derived in addition to the qualitative conclusion on the safety of the structure. These provide the necessary conditions to perform a rapid fatigue assessment adapted to engineering purposes.

The contemporary business environment is characterised by an increasing reliance on artificial intelligence, automation, optimisation, efficient communication and data-driven decision making. Based on the limited academic literature that examines the managerial perspective on enterprise chatbots, the paper aims to explore organisational needs and expectations for enterprise chatbots from a managerial perspective, assesses the relationship between managerial knowledge and managerial opinion regarding enterprise chatbots, and delivers a framework for integrating chatbots into the digital workforce.

The paper presents a quantitative design. An online, self-administered survey yielded 111 valid responses from managers in service and manufacturing organisations based on convenience and snowball sampling strategies. Given the nature of the data and the research questions, the research was conducted using principal component analysis, parallel analysis, correlation, internal consistency and difference in means tests.

This research explores the managerial perspective on enterprise chatbots from multiple perspectives (i.e., adoption, suitability, development requirements, benefits, barriers, performance and implications), presents a heat map of the average level of chatbot need across industries and business units, highlights the urgent need for education and training initiatives targeted at decision makers, and provides a strategic framework for successful chatbot implementation.

This study equips managers and practitioners dealing with enterprise chatbots with knowledge to effectively leverage the expected benefits of investing in this technology for their organisations. It offers direction for developers in designing chatbots that align with organisational expectations, capabilities and skills.

Insights for managers, researchers and chatbot developers are provided. The work complements the few academic studies that examine enterprise chatbots from a managerial perspective and enriches related commercial studies with more rigourous statistical analysis. The paper contributes to the ongoing discourse on decision-making in the context of technology development, integration and education.

This study aims to investigate the effect of smoking on the income of workers in the Brazilian labor market.

Using data from the 2019 National Health Survey (PNS), we initially address the sample selection bias concerning labor market participation by using the Heckman (1979) method. Subsequently, the decomposition of income between smokers and nonsmokers is analyzed, both on average and across the earnings distribution by employing the procedure of Firpo, Fortin, and Lemieux (2009) - FFL decomposition. Ñopo (2008) technique is also used to obtain more robust estimates.

Overall, the findings indicate an income penalty for smokers in the Brazilian labor market across both the average and all quantiles of the income distribution. Notably, the most significant differentials and income penalties against smokers are observed in the lower quantiles of the distribution. Conversely, in the higher quantiles, there is a tendency toward a smaller magnitude of this gap, with limited evidence of an income penalty associated with this habit.

This study presents an important limitation, which refers to a restriction of the PNS (2019), which does not provide information about some subjective factors that also tend to influence the levels of labor income, such as the level of effort and specific ability of each worker, whether smokers or not, something that could also, in some way, be related to some latent individual predisposition that would influence the choice of smoking.

The relevance of the present study is clear in identifying the heterogeneity of the income gap in favor of nonsmokers, as in the lower quantiles there was a greater magnitude of differentials against smokers and a greater incidence of unexplained penalties in the income of these workers, while in the higher quantiles, there was low magnitude of the differentials and little evidence that there is a penalty in earnings since the worker is a smoker.