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This chapter traces the origin of racism and reviews the historical and contemporary debates around race and racialisation in western thought. There are persistent disagreements surrounding the origin and nature of racism. Because of the evolution of racist ideas, behaviours and institutional practices and policies, there are various views about the meaning and analytical application of racism. This chapter explores how ideas of race – understood as innate and immutable human differences that can be classified and ranked hierarchically based on race – has emerged in western history and evolved over time. It examines how this has influenced social and political practices and associated policies across the evolution of modernity. The chapter specifically discusses the Atlantic slave trade and how it shaped the historical development of race and racism within the context of colonialism. It concludes with a discussion and critical review of some of the racist systems and policies which have been enforced across different multiracial countries.

This study aims to examine the market structure and the factors influencing the price of fuelwood in the Dormaa Municipal in the Bono region of Ghana.

A total of 200 fuelwood harvesters, 20 wholesalers and 20 retailers were sampled by using probability and non-probability sampling methods. Gini coefficient was used to analyse the market structure, whereas quantile regression was used to analyse the factors influencing the pricing of fuelwood.

The study results indicated that the fuelwood harvesters’ market is less concentrated, with a Gini coefficient of 0.22, likewise the fuelwood intermediaries’ market, with Gini coefficients of 0.22 and 0.32 for wholesalers and retailers, respectively. The price of fuelwood decreased when sold through the retailer and wholesaler outlets, but the price increased when sold via the end-user outlet. Less smoky fuelwood species attracted higher prices, whereas easy-to-light fuelwood species were sold at lower prices. Furthermore, fuelwood from Perpewa (Celtis zenkeri) and Acacia (Senna siamea) species received the highest prices in the market. It is recommended that fuelwood harvesters establish woodlots with acacia (Senna siamea), especially and Perpewa (Celtis zenkeri), both of which emit less smoke and have high calorific value with fast rotation period. This will ensure fuelwood availability and offer better prices to the harvesters, as such species command high prices in the market.

There is paucity or near unavailability of literature on the market structure and the influence of the hedonic attributes on different quartile prices of fuelwood; the result of this study provides the foundational springboard for future studies on fuelwood marketing.

This study aims to identify the political alignment and political activity of the 11 Presidents of Britain’s most important scientific organisation, the Royal Society of London, in its early years 1662–1703, to determine whether or not the institution was politically aligned.

There is almost no information addressing the political alignment of the Royal Society or its Presidents available in the institution’s archives, or in the writings of historians specialising in its administration. Even reliable biographical sources, such as the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography provide very limited information. However, as 10 Presidents were elected Member of Parliament (MP), The History of Parliament: British Political, Social and Local History provides a wealth of accurate, in-depth data, revealing the alignment of both.

All Presidents held senior government offices, the first was a Royalist aristocrat; of the remaining 10, 8 were Royalist or Tory MPs, 2 of whom were falsely imprisoned by the House of Commons, 2 were Whig MPs, while 4 were elevated to the Lords. The institution was Royalist aligned 1662–1680, Tory aligned 1680–1695 and Whig aligned 1695–1703, which reflects changes in Parliament and State.

This study establishes that the early Royal Society was not an apolitical institution and that the political alignment of Presidents and institution continued in later eras. Furthermore, it demonstrates how the election or appointment of an organisation’s most senior officer can be used to signal its political alignment with government and other organisations to serve various ends.

In 2018, the International Financial Reporting Standard 9-Financial Instruments became mandatory, effectively changing the underlying accounting principles of financial instruments. This paper systematically reviews the academic literature on the implementation effects of IFRS 9, providing a coherent picture of the state of the empirical literature on IFRS 9.

The study thrives on a systematic review approach by analyzing existing academic studies along the following three broad categories: adoption and implementation, impact on financial reporting, and risk management and provisioning. The study concludes by providing research prospects to fill the identified gaps.

We document data-related issues, forecasting uncertainties and the interaction of IFRS 9 with other regulatory standards as implementation challenges encountered. Also, we observe cross-country heterogeneity in reporting quality. Furthermore, contrary to pre-implementation expectations, we find improvement in risk management. This suggests that despite the complexities of the new regulatory standard on financial instruments, it appears to be more successful in achieving the intended objective of enhancing better market discipline and transparency rather than being a regulatory overreach.

As the literature on IFRS 9 is burgeoning, we provide state-of-the-art guidance and direction for researchers with a keen interest in the economic significance and implications of IFRS 9 adoption. The study identifies gaps in the literature that require further research, specifically, IFRS 9 adoption and firm’s hedging activities, IFRS 9 implications on non-financial firms. Lastly, existing studies are mostly focused on Europe and underscore the need for more research in under-researched jurisdictions, particularly in Asia and Africa. Also, to standard setters, policymakers and practitioners, we provide some insight to aid the formulation and application of standards.

The purpose of this study is to explore the interplay among self-organization, networks and sustainable innovations within microfinance institutions (MFIs) and to examine the extent to which organizational resilience plays a significant role in shaping these dynamics as a mediator.

This paper adopted a cross-sectional research design combined with analytical and descriptive approach to collect the data. Smart partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to construct the measurement model and structural equation model to test the mediating effect under this study.

The results revealed that organizational resilience is a significant mediator in the relationship between self-organization, networks and sustainable innovations among microfinance institutions in Uganda.

The data for this study were collected only from microfinance institutions in Uganda. Future studies may collect data from other formal financial institutions like commercial banks and credit institutions to test the mediating effect of organizational resilience. More still, the study adopted only a single approach of using a questionnaire. However, future research through interviews may be desirable. Likewise this study was cross-sectional in nature. Therefore, a longitudinal study may be useful in future while investigating the mediating role of organizational resilience traversing over a long time frame.

A possible implication is that microfinance institutions which desire to have sustainable innovative solutions for their business operations in disruptive circumstances may need to scrutinize their capacity to be resilient and self-organize.

Microfinance institutions play a great role to the underserved clients. Thus, for each to re-organize to be able to provide services that meet users’ needs, without physical products so as to ensure long-term financial and social welfare combined with the ability to bounce back and adapt in times of economic downturn to avoid mission adrift.

While most studies have been carried out on organizational resilience, this paper takes center stage and is the first to test the mediating role of organizational resilience in the relationship between self-organization, networks and sustainable innovations, especially in microfinance institutions in Uganda. This paper generates strong evidence and contributes to the powerful influence of organizational resilience in enhancing the level of sustainable innovations based on self-organization and networks.

Women working in public relations (PR) in the 1990s developed the power of metamodern pragmatism to avoid being constrained in this decade of contradictions.

This was a time of promise for female empowerment and careers. The PR industry in Britain had quadrupled in size, yet increased feminisation and professionalisation did not resolve gender inequity. Indeed, alongside the existence of ‘old boys clubs’ and hedonistic macho agencies in the industry, the 1990s offered a lad's mag culture and an AbFab image of PR.

An original collaborative historical ‘Café Delphi’ method was developed using three themes (sex, sexuality and sexism) to explore women's careers and contributions in the expanding and increasingly powerful field of PR in the United Kingdom during the 1990s. It built on feminist critique of the industry and paradoxical portrayals of women resulting from significant changes in media, popular culture and a pluralistic marketplace.

Individual and collective experiences of women working in PR at the time reveal the power of attitudes to affect their ability to achieve equality and empowerment. Women navigated tensions between the benefits of accelerated pluralism and the patriarchal resistance in the workplace through performative choices and a deep sense of pragmatism.

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered an increase in online traffic, with many assuming that this technology would facilitate coping through active social connections. This study aims to interrogate the nature of this traffic-engagement relationship by distinguishing between passive (e.g. browsing) and active (e.g. reacting, commenting and sharing) engagement, and examining behavioral shifts across platforms.

Three field studies assessed changes in social media engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic. These studies included social media engagement with the most followed accounts (Twitter), discussion board commenting (Reddit) and news content sharing (Facebook).

Even though people spent more time online during the pandemic, the current research finds people were actively engaging less. Users were reacting less to popular social media accounts, commenting less on discussion boards and even sharing less news content.

While the current work provides a systematic observation of engagement during a global crisis, it does not claim causality based on its correlational nature. Future research should test potential mechanisms (e.g. anxiety, threat and privacy) to draw causal inference and identify possible interventions.

The pandemic shed light on a complex systemic issue: the misunderstanding and oversimplification of how online platforms facilitate social cohesion. It encourages thoughtful consideration of online social dynamics, emphasizing that not all engagement is equal and that the benefits of connection may not always be realized as expected.

This research provides a postmortem on the traffic-engagement relationship, highlighting that increased online presence does not necessarily translate to active social connection, which might help explain the rise in mental health issues that emerged from the pandemic.

This study aims to empirically test how sponsored video customization (i.e. the degree to which a sponsored video is customized for a sponsoring brand) affects video shares differently depending on influencer characteristics (i.e. mega influencer and expert influencer) and brand characteristics (i.e. brand establishment and product involvement).

This study uses a unique real-world data set that combines coded variables (e.g. customization) and objective video performance (e.g. sharing) of 365 sponsored videos to test the hypotheses. A negative binomial model is used to analyze the data set.

This study finds that the effect of video customization on video shares varies across contexts. Video customization positively affects shares if they are made for well-established brands and high-involvement products but negatively influences shares if they are produced by mega and expert influencers.

This study extends the influencer marketing literature by focusing on a new media modality – sponsored video. Drawing on the multiple inference model and the persuasion knowledge theory, this study teases out different conditions under which video customization is more or less likely to foster audience engagement, which both influencers and brands care about. The chosen research setting may limit the generalizability of the findings of this study.

The findings suggest that mega and expert influencers need to consider if their endorsement would backfire on a highly customized video. Brands that aim to engage customers with highly-customized videos should gauge their decision by taking into consideration their years of establishment and product involvement. For video-sharing platforms, especially those that are planning to expand their businesses to include “matching-making services” for brands and influencers, the findings provide theory-based guidance on optimizing such matches.

This paper fulfills an urgent research need to study how brands and influencers should produce sponsored videos to achieve optimal outcomes.

This chapter examines the concepts of race and racism, critically reviewing their historical and contemporary applications in everyday life as well as in academic and policy debates. Racism has been extensively researched, with various theories and conceptualisations developed across social science. However, there is a great deal of disagreement regarding its nature, contemporary significance and empirical validation. This chapter examines these and attempts to synthesise some of the common definitions of racism provided in the literature. It explores related concepts and underlying themes pertaining to expressions of race and racism. Furthermore, it unpacks current knowledge about racial issues and discusses recent advances in the conceptual understanding of various forms of racism. It also elucidates the social, political and analytical applications of racism as a concept and the significance of racism in contemporary societies. The chapter concludes by highlighting how racism is a dynamic phenomenon, continuously evolving with the social, political and technological transformations in contemporary societies.

India generates around two million tonnes of e-waste every year, and it is increasing at a very high rate of 30%. However, due to inefficient handling of infrastructure and limited number of collection centres along with the absence of proper incentive structure for producer and recyclers, 95% of e-waste reaches to unorganized sector for disposal. Consumers are not aware of the need of proper e-waste disposal and in absence of proper motivation and they are not inclined towards recycling process. Therefore, this paper aims to identify the best practices of e-waste take adopted all over the world to implement effective policy interventions for e-waste management in India and other emerging economies.

This paper has recommended preventive as well as curative policy interventions on the basis of best e-waste management practices of Germany, Italy and Japan; life cycle assessment of e-waste; and SWOT analysis of Indian electronic product industry.

Preventive measures include a deposit refund scheme wherein a consumer will be responsible for depositing a refundable fees during the purchase of the product. The amount should be arrived at keeping in mind cost involved in handling e-waste and ensure some motivation for the consumers to give back used product. To ensure proper tracking of the product, Radio frequency identification (RFID) tags can be used which will be activated at the time of sale of product and remain so until product reaches some designated recycling space or recycler and consumer is returned back his deposit fee. Subsidy to the producers and recyclers can also be provided by the government to further incentivize the whole process. An example of mobile phones has been used to understand the proposed deposit fees and associated cost structure. Curative measures to reduce the generation of e-waste in long run for managing the discussed issue have also been proposed.

This study is an initiative for proposing and implementing best e-waste take back techniques in a developing economy like India by acquiring learnings from best/advanced economies in terms of e-waste take back.