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Technology has eased access to information. During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, ease of access and transmission of information via social media has led to ambiguity, misinformation and uncertainty. This research studies the aforementioned behaviours of information sharing and verification related to COVID-19, in the context of social media.

Two studies have been carried out. Study 1, with Indian social media users, is a two-factor between-subjects experimental design that investigated the effect of message polarity (positive versus negative) and message type (news versus rumour) on the dissemination and verification behaviour of COVID-19-related messages. The study also investigated the mediation of perceived message importance and health anxiety. Study 2 is a replica study conducted with US users.

The study finding revealed significantly higher message sharing for news than rumour. Further, for the Indian users, message with positive polarity led to higher message sharing and message with negative polarity led to higher verification behaviour. On the contrary, for the US users, message with negative polarity led to higher message sharing and message with positive polarity led to higher verification behaviour. Finally, the study revealed message importance mediates the relationship of message type and message sharing behaviour for Indian and US users; however, health anxiety mediation was significant only for Indian users.

The findings offer important implications related to information regulation during a health crisis. Unverified information sharing is harmful during a pandemic. The study sheds light on this behaviour such that stakeholders get insights and better manage the information being disseminated.

The study investigates the behaviour of sharing and verification of social media messages between users containing health information (news and rumour) related to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-07-2020-0282

This study seeks to provide a systematic analysis of bounded rationality expressed by individual lenders in a Peer-to-peer (P2P) lending market.

26,383 personal loan listings collected from Moneyauction in Korea, were analyzed with binary logit regression. 6 hypothesis based on bounded rationality theory were constructed and tested. Binary logit regression was employed as both dependent variables have binary characteristics and can thus be assigned values equal to 0 or 1.

The results confirm that individual P2P lenders make their funding decisions based on bounded rationality, arousing from cognitive limitations, incomplete information, and time constraints.

By adopting the theory of bounded rationality, this study attempts to prepare the theoretical background for an explanation of the decision behavior of individual lenders in a P2P lending market.

The findings of this research emphasize the importance of the platform provider's role to facilitate the sustainable market growth of P2P lending as an alternative form of finance. As the rationality of individual lenders is bounded during their decision-making process according to the research findings, the platform provider must continuously adjust their decision criteria by referencing the cumulative loan repayment data.

This study attempts to identify for the first time the suboptimal decision making by individual lenders in a P2P lending market on the basis of bounded rationality theory.

The purpose of this paper was to examine health-related misinformation proliferation during COVID-19 pandemic and its implications on public governance in South Africa.

Because of COVID-19 related restrictions, this study conducted a systematic review. The researchers searched several search engines which include PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus to identify relevant studies. A total of 252 peer reviewed research papers were identified. These research papers were furthered filtered, and a total of 44 relevant papers were eventually selected

There is a relationship between the spread of health-related misinformation and public governance. Government coordination and institutional coherence across the different spheres of governance is affected when there are multiple sources of information that are unverified and uncoordinated.

This study was limited to a systematic review because of COVID-19 restrictions, and therefore, actual data could not be collected. Moreover, this study was limited to health-related communication, and therefore, its findings can only be generalized to the health sector.

Future research in this subject should consider actual data collection from the departments of health and communications to gain an in-depth understanding of misinformation and its implications on public governance from their perspective as frontline departments as far as government communication is concerned.

Misinformation is an impediment to any fight against a public health emergency. Institutions which regulate communications technology and monitor misinformation should work harder in enforcing the law to deter information peddlers from their practice. This calls for reviewing existing regulation so that online spaces are safer for communicating health-related information.

Effective health communication remains a priority for the South African Government during COVID-19. However, with health-related misinformation on the increase, it is imperative to mitigate the spread to ensure it does not impede effective public governance. Government departments in South Africa are yet to develop policies that mitigate the spread of misinformation, and this paper may assist them in doing so.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the potentially positive role of rumors in generating curiosity about new products, and further shows how this prior knowledge through rumors affects consumer responses to subsequent official preannouncements about these products.

Building on the seminal work by Rogers (2003) on the innovation-adoption process, the authors examine how two factors – product newness (incremental vs radical) and rumor ambiguity (ambiguous vs unambiguous) shape consumer interest (curiosity) toward new products.

Study 1 experimentally tests the assumption that incremental and radical new products may benefit from different types of rumors, and shows that radical new products benefit more from ambiguous rumors as compared to incremental new products in terms of increased curiosity toward the product. Study 2 links rumors to preannouncements, and shows that rumors set expectations that become confirmed or disconfirmed by preannouncements. The results show that the curiosity evoked by the rumor has a significant impact on purchase intentions toward the new product, especially when they are confirmed by the preannouncements about the same product.

There is scant research investigating how rumors may shape consumer expectations about new products despite the prevalence of rumors in the marketplace, and this research provides a first outlook on the positive role that rumors play in the marketplace.

Intellectual capital includes what employees know and the agility to search and retrieve knowledge (organizational agility). Organizational agility could be seen as the result of using validated routines and protocols (knowledge application), but also as the result of using unproven theories, rumors, colloquial expressions, or sayings (counter-knowledge), which means that organizational memory may enable both the application of good knowledge and the mitigation of counter-knowledge. This study examines the links between a firm's organizational memory, counter-knowledge, knowledge application, and organizational agility.

Using SmartPLS 3.2.8 in a sample of 112 companies, the following questions were addressed: Does the improvement of organizational memory result in the growth of organizational agility? Does the growth of counter-knowledge and knowledge application at the same time hinder the enhancement of organizational agility?

The results support that organizational memory not only enhances the application of gained knowledge but also allows the spreading of rumors, gossip, and inappropriate or false beliefs (counter-knowledge). Furthermore, results support that the knowledge that emerges from the development in parallel or simultaneous of counter-knowledge and knowledge application provides bad references, which will lead to a degradation of organizational agility.

When supporting organizational agility, managers should be conscious of the urgency of counteracting the misuse of counter-knowledge.

These findings make an important contribution to what is potentially a barrier to innovation and creativity, helping managers overcome the problems associated with misunderstandings or wrong assumptions derived from counter-knowledge.

This study aims to explore the use of evolutionary and institutionalization models to understand the technical progression of sustainability in political organizations and their contribution to sustainable effectiveness. It describes the evolution of mass media, political marketing, in the organization’s strategy and design and the methods it is using to institutionalize this political and transition change.

The study describes models of sustainability evolution and political and technical change, in political and social life in transition state Montenegro.

Online and internet presentations of political programs, political blogs, sites that promote the national history and culture of the desired perception – the achievements have already risen in Montenegro in the first decade of the new millennium and beyond. Internet presentation of political subjects are reduced mainly to a brief presentation of history and of political parties, and mostly during the current election campaign, serving to inform the public about the program and promotion announcements.

The findings of this study will help senior executives with responsibility for transition states. The aim of this paper is to show the transformation of the media during the transition period from one political system to another. With the use of descriptive methodological postulates and numerous case studies. With a wealth of facts and examples, which contributes to the originality and value of the article. The significance and originality of this research and article is reflected in a comprehensive and multidisciplinary approach to the transition process and quantitative and qualitative development of the media.

This paper aims to inform the readers about the existing financial intelligence tools that are being used by financial intelligence units. It tries to demonstrate, with the help of a literature review, what the limitations of these tools are and how these limitations hinder the potential of the financial intelligence tools for early detection of terrorist financing activities.

The literature review method was adopted to discuss the financial intelligence tools, their limitations and the implications of the limitations for early detection of terrorist financing activities.

It was found that although the financial intelligence tools were introduced with a view to detect terrorist financing activities early, there are some inherent limitations of the tools relating to technical design features and operational procedures that hinder early detection of terrorist financing activities.

The existing financial intelligence tools need to be repaired by removing the inherent limitations of the tools.

The financial intelligence units should take into cognizance the importance of early detection of terrorist financing activities for preventing terrorist attacks and need to redesign the existing tools in such a way that make these tools effective for early detection of terrorist financing activities.

Peace will be established in society by preventing terrorist attacks through early detection of terrorist financing activities.

The originality of the paper lies in identifying the limitations of the existing financial intelligence tools for the early detection of terrorist financing activities.