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Neo-institutional theory has provided a productive perspective on comparative and international education phenomena since the 1970s. Yet, recent critical discourse about educational phenomena investigated through a neo-institutional lens has been somewhat one-sided. The authors reexamine neo-institutional theory and its application to comparative and international education by demonstrating the ways that the theory frames both macro- and micro-level educational phenomena. The ability to shift the discourse about neo-institutional theory from a largely macro-level framework to one capable of investigating educational changes occurring at the micro level is vital to understanding the comprehensiveness of national educational systems and the ways that both world culture and individual agency contribute to these systems. Specifically, using the empirical application of neo-institutional theory to the intersection of information and communication technology (ICT) and internationally comparative educational data, the macro and micro levels of educational phenomena can be productively examined. In so doing, this chapter shifts the discourse on how and why neo-institutional theory reflects cross-national educational trends and micro-contextual effects on education worldwide.

Studies report that frontline employees frequently discriminate against overweight customers, a group of vulnerable consumers that is growing worldwide. However, because most discrimination by frontline employees is covert, the authors ask whether overweight customers perceive discrimination and what influences this perception. Drawing on field theory, this paper aims to investigate how two environment factors (frontline employee overweight and frontline employees’ neutral treatment of other customers) and two person factors (customer pre-encounter affect and self-esteem) influence customer-perceived weight discrimination.

In a pilot study and three experimental studies, the authors examine the impact of covert discrimination of overweight customers by frontline employees on customers’ perception of discrimination and the influencing effects of environment and person factors. Hypotheses are tested using regression analysis.

The authors find that overweight customers perceive covert weight discrimination by frontline employees. Frontline employee overweight mitigates the effect of covert discrimination, and (state and trait) self-esteem amplifies this effect. Frontline employees’ neutral treatment of other customers is insignificant. Customer (state and trait) negative affect directly increases customer-perceived discrimination independent of covert discrimination.

While extant research focuses on marketplace discrimination triggers and consequences, the perspective of the discriminated customer and what influences his or her perception of covert discrimination has attracted much less attention. Moreover, research rarely addresses overweight as a discrimination trigger. As environment and person influences frequently shape service encounters, the authors contribute novel and relevant insights to the literature. This is of high value, especially in light of the harmful consequences marketplace discrimination entails for customers and service firms.

Background: Artificial intelligence (AI) is a booming sector that has profoundly influenced every walk of life, and the education sector is no exception. In education, AI has helped to develop novel teaching and learning solutions that are currently being tested in various contexts. Businesses and governments across the globe have been pouring money into a wide array of implementations, and dozens of EdTech start-ups are being funded to capitalise on this technological force. The penetration of AI in classroom teaching is also a profound matter of discussion. These have garnered massive amounts of student big data and have a significant impact on the life of both students and educators alike.

Purpose: The prime focus of this chapter is to extensively review and analyse the vast literature available on the utilities of AI in health care, learning, and development. The specific objective of thematic exploration of the literature is to explicate the principal facets and recent advances in the development and employment of AI in the latter. This chapter also aims to explore how the EdTech and healthcare–education sectors would witness a paradigm shift with the advent and incorporation of AI.

Design/Methodology/Approach: To provide context and evidence, relevant publications were identified on ScienceDirect, PubMed, and Google Scholar using keywords like AI, education, learning, health care, and development. In addition, the latest articles were also thoroughly reviewed to underscore recent advances in the same field.

Results: The implementation of AI in the learning, development, and healthcare sector is rising steeply, with a projected expansion of about 50% by 2022. These algorithms and user interfaces economically facilitate efficient delivery of the latter.

Conclusions: The EdTech and healthcare sector has great potential for a spectrum of AI-based interventions, providing access to learning opportunities and personalised experiences. These interventions are often economic in the long run compared to conventional modalities. However, several ethical and regulatory concerns should be addressed before the complete adoption of AI in these sectors.

Originality/Value: The value in exploring this topic is to present a view on the potential of employing AI in health care, medical education, and learning and development. It also intends to open a discussion of its potential benefits and a remedy to its shortcomings.

The purpose of this study is to examine the role of collective angst, the concern about the future viability of one’s group, during service failure and recovery.

To test this objective the authors utilize an experiment to examine how Kuwaitis react to service failures when the front-line employee is a foreigner.

The results indicate that collective angst is associated with greater anger following a service failure. The authors also find that collective angst moderates the impact of cultural distance on anger and recommendation intentions following a service-failure recovery attempt. More specifically, cultural distance leads to greater anger and lower intentions to recommend a service establishment for consumers that experience greater collective angst.

The research provides the first attempt at examining how local consumers react to foreigner service providers, by examining how concern about the future vitality of one’s national group, in other words collective angst, affects such reactions.

Romanian women migrant entrepreneurs (RWMEs) are amongst the largest EU migrant communities in the UK and make significant socioeconomic contributions to both their host and origin nations, but academic research and policy discussions have ignored them. Intersectionality raises complex contextual issues that require comprehensive examination and inclusive policies and programmes. This study is aimed at exploring how Romanian women migrant entrepreneurs experience their transnational intersectional journeys of belonging, as they create, negotiate and enact their intersectional identities of the country of origin, gender and being entrepreneurs in the UK and Romania.

This Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) draws on draws upon Crenshaw's (1991) intersectional and Social Identity theories (Tajfel and Turner, 1979) to investigate how nine interviewed RWMEs have experienced their transnational journeys of acculturative belonging in the UK and Romania.

The study findings show how RWMEs undo and negotiate their intersecting identities to adhere to socio-cultural standards in both their host and native nations. In the UK, they feel empowered as women entrepreneurs, but in patriarchal Romania, their entrepreneurial identity is revoked, contradicting the prescribed socio-cultural roles.

This study responds to the call regarding inequalities in entrepreneurship opportunities (Vershinina et al., 2022). By focussing on the understudied community of RWMEs and exploring new intersectional and transnational contextual insights, it contributes to the literature and practice of migrant entrepreneurship. These empirical findings are essential for the development of evidence-based, disaggregated entrepreneurship programmes and policies.

This study responds to the call regarding inequalities in entrepreneurship opportunities (Vershinina et al., 2022). By focussing on the understudied community of RWMEs and exploring new intersectional and transnational contextual insights, it contributes to the literature and practice of migrant entrepreneurship. These empirical findings are essential for the development of evidence-based, disaggregated entrepreneurship programmes and policies.

The purpose of this research is to investigate how parents and caregivers describe their concerns about the HPV vaccine for their children on open Internet websites. The study examines what the discourse among parents reveals about their concerns regarding the HPV vaccine.

Our exploratory study utilized a grounded theory approach as a method of collecting data and simultaneously formulating research questions based on emerging themes from the data. We used purposeful sampling to select sets of comments posted on websites that provided news, scientific information, or parental support regarding HPV and its vaccine.

Findings suggest support for Bond and Nolan’s (2011) theory that familiarity with a disease is central to parents’ assessment of risk, and that dread of a serious disease such as cervical cancer is weaker than dread of unknown possible side effects in parents’ motivation to give or withhold the vaccine for their children.

Research limitations include our usage of a purposeful convenience sample of websites. The limitation of this sampling technique is that the comments made by website “users” and used in the analysis may not be representative of the wider population, and may include Americans as well as non-Americans.

Our research fills an important gap in the literature by looking at the ways in which parents share their concerns about the HPV vaccine on Internet websites as they consider whether to reject, delay, or consent to the vaccine.

This article explores and contrasts the views of two influential research projects within the social and environmental accounting space. Both projects advocate for sustainability. The first here referred to as the Critical Social and Environmental Accounting Project (CSEAP), was developed and championed by Rob Gray and calls for immediate radical structural change. The second one is called the Pragmatic Sustainability Management Accounting Project (PSMAP), championed by Stefan Schaltegger, and advocates for an entrepreneurial process of creating radical solutions in joint stakeholder collaboration over time.

The paper is the culmination of a decade-long debate between Gray and Schaltegger as advocates of CSEAP and PSMAP, respectively. Specifically, the paper explores the differences and agreements between CSEAP and PSMAP on whether and how companies should pursue sustainability and the role of accounting in these efforts. The paper focusses on critical issues that exemplify the tension in their views: general goals, the role of structure and agency and how to creating change and transformation.

The article contrasts CSEAP's uncompromising antagonising approach to accountability and fundamental systemic change with PSMAP's pragmatic approach to sustainability accounting with its management and entrepreneurship-orientated approach to change and unwavering support for transformative managers on the front lines. Despite their apparent differences, the paper also outlines areas of agreement between these two positions and how accounting and sustainability can move forward.

The debate tries to reconcile language and conceptional differences in the social and environmental accounting (SEA) and sustainability management accounting (SMA) communities to reduce confusion in the research space over what sustainability is for organisations and what role accounting plays in this. The authors hope that the tension between the different positions outlined in this paper generates new insights and positions on the topic.

While the two views explored in this paper are primarily incompatible, each generates implications for practice, research and education. Debates like this are crucial to moving from discursive disagreement to creating a tolerant and robust foundation for moving forward and achieving much-needed sustainable transitions in the economy and society.

The authors offer shared understandings, points of continuing disagreement and alternative views on the nature of sustainability. The debate forges a bridge of understanding where both sides can learn from each other.

This chapter provides both an introduction to the volume and a brief review of literature on technology, communications, and health disparities.

Literature review.

The chapter argues for the importance of greater examination of technology, communications, and their linkages to health disparities and other related factors.

Reviews the topic of technology, communication, and health disparities and previews this book.