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The purpose of this paper is to describe the evolution of a common approach to impact assessment across the Global Libraries (GL) portfolio of grants. It presents an overview of two systems, the Performance Metrics (PMs) and the Common Impact Measurement System (CIMS). By providing a standard set of definitions and methods for use across countries, these systems enable grantees to collect data that can be compared and aggregated for the purpose of collective learning, improvement, accountability, and advocacy.

The PMs offer a standard methodology to collect library project performance management data, whereas the CIMS is a standard survey of public library users. The paper describes how the PM and CIMS data are being visualized and used, with examples of findings and lessons learned.

The paper cites examples of the type of PM and CIMS data available, with a focus on employment, gender, and case studies from Botswana and Indonesia. These highlights illustrate how libraries’ user demographics differ from other types of public internet access venues and how libraries can contribute to strong employment and growth.

The measurement systems rely on different partners collecting data for the same metrics across different countries; while each grantee adheres to a standard methodology, small procedural, and methodological differences are inevitable. Future research could focus on conducting similar studies elsewhere, outside the cohort of countries in the GL portfolio of grants.

The paper offers insights and lessons for library agencies or institutions interested in implementing a common measurement system. Recognizing that few library projects have the resources to track a comprehensive set of indicators, a case study is presented about how smaller initiatives can adapt these systems to their needs.

The indicators described in this paper enable public libraries to shift their focus from services provided to the outcomes they help individuals and communities realize, potentially increasing the potency of their programming and advocacy.

Common measurement systems are not new, but their application in the public library field is novel, as is the Data Atlas, a platform grantees use to compare results across metrics, track progress, and conduct advocacy.

This paper has two objectives: first, to investigate the state-of-the-art of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) adoption in Italian manufacturing firms and, second, to understand variations in technologies implemented and business functions involved, benefits perceived, and obstacles encountered in I4.0 implementation over a three-year period.

The approach adopted in this research is descriptive, nesting longitudinal features. The paper presents a descriptive survey of 102 Italian manufacturing companies. The authors also evaluated non-response biases. The longitudinal approach was achieved by comparing the responses of the 40 sub-samples in common with a second similar survey launched three years prior, which aimed to identify patterns of evolution in the adoption of the I4.0 paradigm.

Survey findings demonstrate that Italian manufacturing companies still have limited awareness of I4.0 technologies, and the adoption of I4.0 technologies differs per technology. Company size and information system coverage level are the two factors that impact the company's technology adoption level. The comparative study shows that knowledge and adoption increase in a three-year interval with an unbalanced involvement of business functions regarding the I4.0 transformation. Indeed, companies are still seeking I4.0 solutions to reduce costs and lead times primarily, and the benefits perceived by companies are shown to be related to the number of I4.0 technologies in use. Finally, when companies put the I4.0 technologies into practice, competence is constantly considered the most significant barrier.

This paper aims at conducting a thorough investigation into the development of I4.0 adoption in manufacturing companies. The main limitation of this study concerns the limited number of subjects involved in the longitudinal study (40) and the focus on a limited geographical area (Italy). In addition, more I4.0 technologies could also be incorporated into the survey protocol to gain further insight into I4.0 development.

The authors provide one of the first attempts to assess the variations of I4.0 implementation concerning technology adoption, business function involvement, and the alteration of benefits and obstacles. Several studies presented in the literature highlight the lack of longitudinal studies investigating the development of the I4.0 paradigm in a specific manufacturing context: this paper is the attempt at filling this gap.

This paper aims to discuss the challenges of conducting research with homelessness services frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Between 2015 and 2019, the research team surveyed frontline staff in three cities about their psychosocial stressors and needs. In 2020, the authors replicated the previous study and expanded data collection to seven cities across Canada to determine the extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the well-being of frontline staff. This report describes how the authors adapted the research methodologies to continue work throughout the pandemic, despite various restrictions.

The original studies had very high participation rates because of several methodological approaches that minimized barriers, especially in-person data collection. During the pandemic, distancing requirements precluded replication of these same methods. Research strategies that enabled staff participation during working hours, with designated time allotted for participation, was key for ensuring high participation rates, as access to technology, availability of free time and other factors frequently make online survey research a hardship for these staff. Restrictive interpretation and regional variations of COVID-19 guidelines by some research ethics boards were also a challenge to rapid and responsive data collection.

Few studies describe the experiences of frontline workers in the homelessness sector, and quantitative reports of their experiences are particularly scant. Consequently, little is known about specific methodologies that facilitate large-scale data collection in the homelessness services sector. The present research advances the field by providing lessons learned about best practice approaches in pre and post COVID-19 front line worker contexts. A strength of this research is the well-controlled design. The authors collected data within several of the organizations that had previously participated. This fortunate baseline provided opportunity for comparison before and during the pandemic; the authors can highlight factors that might have had influence during the pandemic.

The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a discrete choice experiment (DCE) on the competencies of potential information technology (IT)-retrainees. The results give insights in the monetary value and relative returns to both soft and hard skills.

The authors apply a DCE in which the authors propose seven pairs of hypothetical candidates to employers based in the municipality of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. These hypothetical candidates differ on six observable skill attributes and have different starting wages. The authors use the inference from the DCE to calculate the marginal rates of substitution (MRS). The MRS gives an indication of the monetary value of each skill attribute.

Employers prefer a candidate who possesses a degree in an exact field over a similar candidate from another discipline. Programming experience from previous jobs is the most highly valued characteristic for an IT-retrainee. Employers would pay a candidate with basic programming experience a 53 percent higher starting wage. The most high-valued soft skill is listening skills, for which employers are willing to pay a 46 percent higher wage. The results of this paper show that both hard and soft skills are important, but not all soft skills are equally important.

The results on the returns to skills provide guidelines to tailor IT training and retraining programs to the needs of the business environment. A key strength of this paper is that the authors have information on the preference orderings for different skills and kinds of experience.

A common understanding of what events to regard as production disturbances (PD) are essential for effective handling of PDs. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to answer the two questions: how are individuals with production or maintenance management positions in industry classifying different PD factors? Which factors are being measured and registered as PDs in the companies monitoring systems?

A longitudinal approach using a repeated cross-sectional survey design was adopted. Empirical data were collected from 80 companies in 2001 using a paper-based questionnaire, and from 71 companies in 2014 using a web-based questionnaire.

A diverging view of 21 proposed PD factors is found between respondents in manufacturing industry, and there is also a lack of correspondence with existing literature. In particular, planned events are not classified and registered to the same extent as downtime losses. Moreover, the respondents are often prone to classify factors as PDs compared to what is actually registered. This diverging view has been consistent for over a decade, and hinders companies to develop systematic and effective strategies for handling of PDs.

There has been no in-depth investigation, especially not from a longitudinal perspective, of the personal interpretation of PDs from people who play a central role in achieving high reliability of production systems.

The purpose of this paper is to share the author’s viewpoint on how to increase student response rate in course evaluation surveys.

The approach is to highlight measures which increased student response rate in online surveys of the author’s teaching evaluation at The University of the West Indies, Jamaica.

This viewpoint suggests that student response rate to course evaluation can be improved by the lecturer’s effective communication. The examples of effective communication are given in this paper.

This work will encourage the lecturers to initiate more student engagement to improve response rate of their teaching evaluation.

This paper is a survey of recent academic developments in the literature on green bonds, which have become an important financial instrument in socially responsible investment. This study provides a review of papers that study the market pricing of green bonds, the economic and environmental effects of green bond financing, as well as legal and institutional issues in the green bond market. The literature on market pricing focuses mainly on the existence of greenium, which represents the extent to which green bonds carry a price premium over otherwise identical non-green counterparts. The literature on the economic and environmental effects mainly concerns stock market reaction to green bond issuance and associated economic value implications to other stakeholders, as well as investment in green projects. This paper discusses current issues in the green-bond market and avenues for future research.

This paper aims to identify a possible mismatch between the theory found in academic research and the practices of investment managers in Brazil.

The chosen approach is a field survey. This paper considers 78 survey responses from 274 asset management companies. Data obtained are analyzed using independence tests between two variables and multiple regressions.

The results show that most Brazilian investment managers have not adopted current best practices recommended by the financial academic literature and that there is a significant gap between academic recommendations and asset management practices. The modern portfolio theory is still more widely used than the post-modern portfolio theory, and quantitative portfolio optimization is less often used than the simple rule of defining a maximum concentration limit for any single asset. Moreover, the results show that the normal distribution is used more than parametrical distributions with asymmetry and kurtosis to estimate value at risk, among other findings.

This study may be considered a pioneering work in portfolio construction, risk management and performance evaluation in Brazil. Although academia in Brazil and abroad has thoroughly researched portfolio construction, risk management and performance evaluation, little is known about the actual implementation and utilization of this research by Brazilian practitioners.

This paper aims to examine the employment effect of the minimum wage in Mauritius, a country that has recently introduced an economy-wide national minimum wage. As women have low labor force participation rate and higher unemployment rate compared to men, this study sheds light on the impact of the national minimum wage on male and female employment.

A conceptual framework based on the labor–leisure model of Blundell et al. (2007) incorporating the minimum wage as an important variable influencing the employment decision of the individual serves as the methodological backdrop of this paper. It applies the difference-in-difference estimation technique and uses micro data from the Continuous Multi-Purpose Household Survey for the period 2017–2019.

The results show that minimum wage has a significant negative impact on overall employment. With the imposition of the national minimum wage, the probability that an individual, currently earning less than the minimum wage, remains employed is 0.525 lower than that of a worker earning above the minimum wage level. Moreover, using sex-disaggregated data, the analysis demonstrates the negative employment effects of the minimum wage adversely impact women more than men.

This is a first attempt to estimate the effect of the newly introduced national minimum wage on employment in Mauritius. While the effects of a minimum wage vary across different segments of the economy, this study adopts a gender perspective by comparing the impact of the minimum wage on male and female employment.

In this study, the authors report visitors' and personnel's safety experiences and concerns in order to understand the safety conditions of a library.

The analysis is based on answers from a small sample survey of library visitors, interviews with the personnel and incidents recorded in a library in Stockholm the capital of Sweden.

Dealing with visitors under influence of drugs/alcohol or feeling intimidated by groups of young individuals are examples of situations in which the staff feel most unsafe. Visitors declare witnessing problems of public disturbance and disorderly conduct, fights and other types of aggression. Although the vast majority of visitors declare feeling safe in the library, their perceptions vary according to the library's environment and their individual characteristics, including their previous victimization.

The study is novel because it indicates the importance of the environment to ensure the safety conditions of the library for both visitors and staff. Finally, research on safety in libraries is often from North America and Western European contexts, while this study contributes to the international literature by illustrating libraries in a Nordic European context.

The study indicates that more social control, both formal and informal, is at the top of the list of recommendations for visitors. Among personnel, recommendations include the need for cooperation with other local actors to solve problems in surrounding areas as well as better education for librarians in dealing with the current safety challenges of libraries as multifunctional public facilities.

Combine visitors' and personnel's safety experiences to better understand the safety conditions of a public library.