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This paper aims to explain the impacts of the ongoing digitization reform in Benin. It demonstrates that a well-conducted reform can reduce corruption, improve performance and bring citizens closer to the administration. It also highlights the elements needed to ensure the success of such a reform.

The impacts of the digitization of services and processes on both administrative structures and accountability mechanisms are described and discussed through the analysis of interviews conducted with government officials and key external stakeholders.

Findings indicate that the implementation of new technologies has created difficulties for public servants and that reaching out to the entire population is still proving challenging. However, the reform has helped prevent abuses and corruption in management, and it has raised hopes of improving the state–citizen relationship in the long run.

This paper adds to the research on digitization, accountability and state–citizen relationships in developing countries. It fills a gap in the literature by directly analyzing the relationship between digitization and public accountability in Benin.

The transition to a circular economy in the built environment is key to achieving a resource-effective society. The built environment can be made more circular by applying circular building components. The purpose of this paper is to present a design tool that can support industry in developing circular building components.

The tool was developed and tested in five steps. In Step 1, the authors analysed existing circular design frameworks to identify gaps and develop requirements for the design tool (Step 2). In Step 3, the authors derived circular design parameters and options from existing frameworks. In Step 4, the authors combined and specified these to develop the “circular building components generator” (CBC-generator). In Step 5, the CBC-generator was applied in the development of an exemplary component: the circular kitchen and tested in a student workshop.

The CBC-generator is a three-tiered design tool, consisting of a technical, industrial and business model generator. These generators are “parameter based”; they consist of a parameter-option matrix and design canvasses. Different variants for circular components can be synthesised by filling the canvasses through systematically “mixing and matching” design options.

The developed tool does not yet support establishing causal links between “parameter-options” and identification of the most circular design variant.

The CBC-generator provides an important step to support the building industry in developing and implementing circular building components in the built environment.

Whilst existing tools and frameworks are not comprehensive, nor specifically developed for designing circular building components, the CBC-generator successfully supports the integral design of circular building components. First, it provides all the design parameters which should be considered; second, it provides extensive design options per parameter; and third, it supports systematic synthesis of design options to a cohesive and comprehensive circular design.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the possibility of rating the credit worthiness of a firm’s quarterly financial report using a dynamic anomaly detection method.

The study uses a data set containing financial statements from Quarter 1 – 2001 to Quarter 4 – 2016 of 937 Vietnamese listed firms. In sum, 24 fundamental financial indices are chosen as control variables. The study employs the Mahalanobis distance to measure the proximity of each data point from the centroid of the distribution to point out the extent of the anomaly.

The finding shows that the model is capable of ranking quarterly financial reports in terms of credit worthiness. The execution of the model on all observations also revealed that most financial statements of Vietnamese listed firms are trustworthy, while almost a quarter of them are highly anomalous and questionable.

The study faces several limitations, including the availability of genuine accounting data from stock exchanges, the strong assumptions of a simple statistical distribution, the restricted timeframe of financial data and the sensitivity of the thresholds for anomaly levels.

The study opens an avenue for ordinary users of financial information to process the data and question the validity of the numbers presented by listed firms. Furthermore, if fraud information is available, similar research can be conducted to examine the tendency for companies with anomalous financial reports to commit fraud.

This is the first paper of its kind that attempts to build an anomaly detection model for Vietnamese listed companies.

This study focused on identifying measurable constructs of a restorative classroom and appropriate metrics to measure those constructs through content validity analysis of a direct observation tool. The tool was designed to assess restorative practices implementation in the classroom in the context of professional development supporting teachers in a fundamental reorientation towards non-punitive discipline.

The authors administered a 30-item survey to a panel of 14 experts in restorative practices implementation in schools asking them to provide quantitative and qualitative feedback on the tool's content, metrics, and utility for building teachers' skill and confidence in promoting a restorative classroom. The authors calculated item-level content validity indices and scale-level content validity indices. To interpret findings, the authors applied acceptability criteria recommended in the literature. The authors used qualitative coding to analyze qualitative responses and contextualize quantitative findings.

Quantitative results indicated that the tool's structure and measures of teacher behavior were acceptable. The student behavior scale did not meet the acceptability criterion. Qualitative feedback indicated that observation and later co-reflection on teachers' use of specific restorative skills was deemed helpful to teacher implementation of restorative practices. Observations of student behaviors, however, needed to be broadened to emphasize student voice and agency and the quality of student interactions.

Novel approaches to measurement are needed to facilitate teacher implementation of restorative practices as schools adopt those practices to promote equitable student agency, engagement and belonging in a pivotal shift from existing punitive discipline systems.

Information Systems (IS) research has built up a considerable understanding of digital platform ecosystems, while policymakers worldwide are aiming to introduce platform regulations that seek to erode fundamental mechanisms of digital platforms. This viewpoint article provides an introduction to how platform regulation affects our current understanding of digital platform ecosystems and suggests opportunities for future research.

A detailed analysis of the effects of the European Union (EU) Digital Markets Act (DMA) on current findings of organizational, technical and economic IS platform research.

Government regulations of digital platforms such as the DMA likely affect the central mode of operation of platforms in the scope of the regulation. The authors preconceive a major impact on platform openness, governance, steering the platform supply-side, modularity, nestedness, network effects, pricing and single-/multi-homing. In addition, the authors present opportunities for future research in each of these IS platform research streams.

Landmark regulations implemented in the past, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), caused paradigm changes that fertilized research opportunities in IS and beyond. This viewpoint article aims to nudge studies that examine the changed mode of operation of platforms following platform regulation.

This article describes the development and initial experiences of Design Your Life, a new design approach implementing user-initiated design of technological environments that support autistic young adults to live independently.

This article makes use of a phenomenological Research-through-Design approach. Investigation of possible ways in which a set of four guiding principles could be applied into a design toolkit for autistic young adults and their caregivers by means of three design case studies was conducted. Promising methods from the design practice and literature were applied and contrasted with the lived experiences and practical contexts of autistic young adults and their caregivers.

This exploratory research yielded several important insights for the design direction of Design Your Life. Reflecting on how the guiding principles played out in practice it was noted that: the case studies showed that stakeholders appreciate the approach. The design principles applied cannot be used without the help of a sparring partner. This suggests that caregivers may be trained in design-thinking to fulfil this role. The Design Your Life method will be iteratively developed, refined and validated in practice.

The presented approach puts design tools in the hands of the people who will use the technology. Furthermore, the approach sees technologies as empowering interventions by which a person can strengthen their own living environment. According to this article, this approach is new for this application. It provides valuable perspectives and considerations for autistic people, caregivers, researchers and policy makers.

The purpose of this study was to investigate restaurant clientele tipping behavior and its inspiration on foodservice empathy within two- and three-star hotels in Kisumu County, Kenya. This was with the objective of analyzing the tipping effect on restaurant food service quality with an emphasis on Parasuraman, Zeithmal and Barry's empathy as a key dimension of quality in accordance to the SERVQUAL model.

For the purpose of this study, food service empathy was investigated in relation to the influence of tipping on restaurant food service quality. Further, a census of all the two and three star-rated hotels within Kisumu County was carried out. The study applied descriptive research design in the investigation on the tipping behavior and its inspiration on foodservice empathy. Moreover, simple random sampling was employed in the selection of clients since it yielded a sample that is representative of the population. Additionally, the study employed the use of questionnaires for collection of data, which were coded, analyzed and presented in frequencies, tables and graphs.

The study findings reveal that there is a significant relationship between rewards upon perception of service and food service empathy but failed to find a significant relation between incentives for improved future service as well as the social norms and foodservice empathy. However, in general, the study established a significant relationship between tipping and foodservice empathy in the sampled hotels in Kenya. Thus, in summary, at 95% confidence level, the study concluded that there is a significant relationship between tipping and foodservice empathy.

This study was restricted on two and three-star hotels within Kisumu County in Kenya with a sample size of 384 respondents, which would otherwise limit the degree to which the findings were applied. Consequently, the study sought to collect data from restaurant clients although the access and, therefore, direct interaction were denied by some of the hotels. Further, this study employed a survey approach in the collection of data from restaurant clients in two and three-star hotels. Accordingly, there was minimal local and regional research literature available on the study topic.

Tipping in the context of the broad global service industry, including hospitality's restaurant food service, is as old as Roman times. However, tipping is practiced differently across the world with some countries practicing while other countries not practicing the act of tipping. For that reason, tipping is not regulated in some of the countries including Kenya and therefore the lack of policy. Nonetheless, tipping is perceived to be the genesis of food service failures as a result of discriminatory restaurant food service in addition to increasing costs of eating out. This study therefore sought to investigate restaurant tipping behavior and its inspiration on foodservice empathy. The study results might be applied in policy formulation in order to curb the negative effect of tipping on food service empathy.

Minimal studies have been instituted and published in the area of tipping and service quality relationship with an emphasis on each of Parasuraman, Zeithmal and Berry's dimensions of quality. This research survey, therefore, sought to collect data from restaurant clients in two and three-star hotels within Kisumu County in Kenya and therefore investigated restaurant clientele tipping behavior and its inspiration on food service empathy.

In this study, the authors explain citizens’ adoption of social media in citizen–government relations in China, a country that blends an authoritarian governance regime with limited tolerance of and responsiveness to online citizen participation.

Original survey data were gathered using a vignette survey among 307 respondents living in the People’s Republic of China. Multivariate analysis of the data was used to test four hypotheses and identify antecedents of Chinese citizens’ social media adoption for “thin” participation purposes.

Citizens’ perceived impact of “thin” participation, citizens’ skills and capabilities and citizens’ trust in institutions are significantly associated with citizens’ social media adoption. Social media anxiety was found not to be associated with Chinese citizens’ social media adoption.

This study demonstrates how vignettes can be used to study adoption of technological and institutional innovations in an authoritarian governance regime and how in this context existing adoption theories can be extended with notions of institutional trust to adequately explain citizens’ adoption of technological and institutional innovations in citizen–government relations.

Although some argue that social media activity could potentially mitigate democratic deficits caused by the state, in the case of China, the intertwinement of state and social media platform renders this argument unsustainable.

This study is one of the few systematic survey studies focusing on Chinese citizens’ adoption of social media in citizen–government relations.

Information verification is an important factor in commercial valuation practice. Valuers use their professional autonomy to decide on the level of verification required, thereby creating an opportunity for client-related judgement bias in valuation. The purpose of this paper is to assess the manifestation of client attachment risks in information verification.

A case-based questionnaire was used to retrieve data from 290 commercial valuation professionals in the Netherlands, providing a 15 per cent response rate of the Dutch commercial valuation population. Descriptive and inferential statistics have been used to test research hypotheses involving relations between information verification and professional features that may indicate client attachment such as an executive job level and brokerage experience.

The results reveal that valuers acting at partner level within their organisation obtain lower scores on information verification compared to lower-ranked valuers. Also, brokerage experience correlates negatively to information verification of valuation professionals. Both findings have statistical significance.

The results reflect valuers’ reasoning behaviour rather than actual behaviour. Replication of findings through experimental design will contribute to research validity.

Maintaining close client contact in a competitive environment is important for business continuity yet may foster client attachment. The associated downside risks in valuation practice call for higher awareness of (subconscious) client influence and the development of attitudinal scepticism in valuer training programmes.

This paper is one of the few that explore possible sources of valuer judgement bias by relating client-friendly valuer features to a key area of valuation i.e. information verification.

This study aims to examine whether the impact of international financial reporting standards (IFRS) on audit fees differs between early and late adopters.

The authors use robust econometric estimation on a sample of 314 firms from both early and late IFRS adopting countries.

The authors find that IFRS is positively and significantly associated with an increase in audit fees for early adopters, but the impact is very weak for late adopters and insignificant in some cases. The results on auditing time suggest that increase in audit fees around IFRS adoption is due to an increase in audit reporting lags. After accounting for pre- and post-years, the authors find that the relationship between IFRS and audit fees, as well as audit time for late adopters, is significant only in the adoption year. However, early adopters experience a significant increase in audit fees and audit time in the transition year to one-year post-adoption.

The findings imply that countries that are yet to adopt IFRS are less likely to experience a significant increase in audit fees audit time. Hence, is probable that the benefit of IFRS will outweigh the cost.

The results, therefore, suggest that early adopters paid a premium for been the first users of IFRS, which is consistent with any innovation. The study provides new insights by demonstrating that the consequences of IFRS differ between early and late adopters.