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For more than four decades, scholars from diverse disciplines and countries have been interested in the act of whistleblowing. To battle financial fraud, financial regulators have been developing whistleblowing programs to motivate and protect whistleblowers, i.e. those who sound the alarm after witnessing an illegal act in their organization. The purpose of this article is to review five historical phases of whistleblowing research. The authors analyze the themes covered by whistleblowing studies conducted over the past 50 years and draw a snapshot of the evolution of whistleblowing research.

The authors examine academic papers published between 1970 and 2022 and inventory the disciplines involved in the literature and changes in the definition of whistleblowing.

The findings show the progress made in academic research (especially for the accounting discipline) regarding whistleblowing. The themes covered by academic studies became progressively diverse. However, this broader scope limited the depth of analysis and the level of self-criticism in the academic research. All but a few articles fail to view whistleblowing in light of its actual level of complexity, and the rationale behind limiting the definition of whistleblowing can only increase this myopia. Although most academic studies have adopted Near and Miceli (1985) definition of whistleblowing, the literature has yet to reach a consensus. Indeed, the analysis shows that Near and Miceli’s (1985) definition of whistleblowing is incomplete and narrow by today’s standards, not to mention out of step with regulators’ needs.

The main contributions are offering a big picture of whistleblowing academic research's evolution and proposing a more complete and updated view of this act.

This paper aims to demonstrate to lawmakers that the addition of art dealers to the designated non-financial businesses and professions (DNFBPs) definition would provide Australia with more comprehensive protection against money laundering within the art market.

The paper opted for an exploratory study using doctrinal and jurisdictional comparative analysis that focused on arguments for and against the inclusion of art dealers in respective DNFBPs definitions. Evaluation of these arguments concludes that art dealers should be included in Australia’s DNFBPs definition and subject to anti-money laundering (AML) regulation.

The current omission of art dealers from Australia’s DNFBPs definition perpetuates AML vulnerabilities within the Australian art market.

This paper fulfils an identified need to study high-value dealers not included in Australia’s DNFBPs definition and provide arguments for and against the inclusion of Australian art dealers in the listed DNFBP.

This paper aims to analyse how financial literacy (FL) is conceptualised and operationalised in the Indian context.

A systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) protocol. Thirty-six articles published between 2010 and 2020 were considered for analysis. The FL conceptualisation was examined based on knowledge, ability, skill, attitude and confidence elements. The FL operationalisation was analysed using the modified version of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012 model for organising the domain for an assessment framework.

The findings indicate that, despite offering operationalisation details of the FL, 13 out of 36 studies did not include a conceptual definition of FL. Of the 23 studies that mentioned a conceptual definition, 87% are primarily focused on the “knowledge” element and only 39% have combined knowledge, ability/skill and attitude elements in defining FL. As in the developed countries, the Indian studies also preferred investment/saving-related contents in their FL measures. The volume of content focusing on the financial landscape is meagre amongst the FL measures used in India and developed countries. The survey instruments of most studies have been designed in the individuals’ context but have failed to measure the extent to which individuals apply the knowledge in performing their day-to-day financial transactions. Further, it was found that 20 out of 36 studies did not convert the FL level of their target groups into a single indicator or operational value.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that explores the FL’s assessment practices in India. Further, this study offers new insights by comparing the contents of FL measures used in Indian studies with those used in developed countries.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of cyberbullying and corresponding strategies being used under the New United Arab Emirates (UAE) Cybercrimes Law.

The analysis begins with a review of the nature of cyberbullying, focusing primarily on key concepts, underlying risk factors, forms of cyberbullying and adverse effects. Background information about the nature of cyberbullying will then lay the foundation for the subsequent sections of the analysis, which will focus on preventive strategies and legislative measures. The second section of the analysis will entail a review of the legislative framework for cyberbullying in the UAE. The goal here is to examine how the UAE is responding to the emerging threat of cyberbullying in its jurisdiction. The next section will then shift gears to interventions and strategies being implemented at the global level. A global perspective is central to comparing practices in the UAE to international standards and regulations.

Findings from the analysis have shown that the UAE has the most robust and comprehensive cyberbullying laws internationally. Nonetheless, the New Cybercrimes Law is ambiguous, and it is not expressively specific to cyberbullying. The law does not have a clear definition of cyberbullying, as well as the scope of its application to specific cases involving students. A comparative analysis across jurisdictions has revealed that most countries neither have specific cyberbullying laws nor explicitly define the phenomenon in existing laws. Thus, cyberbullying is a gray area in the UAE national law, requiring a clear definition and scope of application. The courts will establish case law that will finally address the current definitional challenges and extend of applying the New Cybercrimes Law.

The analysis concludes with the application of international best standards and practices to the UAE context, focusing specifically on how to strengthen laws and procedures in the UAE.

This scoping review aims to explore how “food media”, “food messages” and “food content” are referred to in scholarly writing to enhance a shared understanding and comparability.

Following the PRISMA, ScR-guidelines, four scientific databases were screened on published manuscripts in academic journals, books and doctoral theses mentioning food media, content and messages within the prevalent meaning as in human communication.

Of the 376 included manuscripts, only a small minority (n = 7) provided a conclusive definition of at least one of the three earlier-mentioned concepts; 40 others elucidated some aspects of food media, messages or content; however, they emphasized different and, sometimes even, contrasting aspects. In addition, the review explores in which disciplines the manuscripts mentioning food media, messages or content occur, which methodologies are used and what target groups and media are most common.

Based on this aggregated information, a definition of food media, messages and content is proposed, aiming to enhance the comparability of diverse academic sources. This contribution invites scholars to critically reflect on the included media and content types when comparing studies on food media, messages or content.

Research on employee non-/compliance to information security policies suffers from inconsistent results and there is an ongoing discussion about the dominating survey research methodology and its potential effect on these results. This study aims to add to this discussion by investigating discrepancies between what the authors claim to measure (theoretical properties of variables) and what they actually measure (respondents’ interpretations of the operationalized variables). This study asks: How well do respondents’ interpretations of variables correspond to their theoretical definitions? What are the characteristics of any discrepancies between variable definitions and respondent interpretations?

This study is based on in-depth interviews with 17 respondents from the Swedish public sector to understand how they interpret questionnaire measurement items operationalizing the variables Perceived Severity from Protection Motivation Theory and Attitude from Theory of Planned Behavior.

The authors found that respondents’ interpretations in many cases differ substantially from the theoretical definitions. Overall, the authors found four principal ways in which respondents interpreted measurement items – referred to as property contextualization, extension, alteration and oscillation – each implying more or less (dis)alignment with the intended theoretical properties of the two variables examined.

The qualitative method used proved vital to better understand respondents’ interpretations which, in turn, is key for improving self-reporting measurement instruments. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is a first step toward understanding how precise and uniform definitions of variables’ theoretical properties can be operationalized into effective measurement items.

The purpose of the paper is to afford a comprehensive conceptualization and operationalization of the construct of talent management through an inclusive exploration of conceptual clarifications for existing confusions while developing a complete measuring instrument.

The archival method was adopted together with a systematic review based on Khan et al.’s (2003) five steps of systematic literature review. The systematic review has encircled published research articles between 1982 and 2023 in the human resource management (HRM) arena. A total of 130 articles were initially scrutinized, and 106 were systematically reviewed to conceptualize, operationalize and explore clarifications for confusions and instrument development for talent management.

This study explored conceptual clarifications for existing confusions towards talent management while recognizing definitions that come under the main philosophical schools for the underlying concept of talent. A novel practical definition has been established for talent management while recognizing dimensions, and then certain elements. A comprehensive instrument has been developed to measure talent management.

This study is limited to instrument development in measuring talent management; nevertheless, there is an enormous scope for using the instrument to empirically measure talent management through organizational and employees perspectives linked to diverse global contexts in future studies.

The developed comprehensive instrument is a vibrant contribution to future investigations related to empirically measuring talent management associated with organizational and employee perspectives related to diverse global contexts in winning “war for talent.” This study endows a significant input to the whole frame of HRM knowledge as it resolves existing conceptual ambiguities towards talent management while defining and operationalizing it.

This research paper aims to analyze the scientific and grey literature on Quality 4.0 and zero-defect manufacturing (ZDM) frameworks to develop an integrated quality 4.0 framework (IQ4.0F) for quality improvement (QI) based on Six Sigma and machine learning (ML) techniques towards ZDM. The IQ4.0F aims to contribute to the advancement of defect prediction approaches in diverse manufacturing processes. Furthermore, the work enables a comprehensive analysis of process variables influencing product quality with emphasis on the use of supervised and unsupervised ML techniques in Six Sigma’s DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) cycle stage of “Analyze.”

The research methodology employed a systematic literature review (SLR) based on PRISMA guidelines to develop the integrated framework, followed by a real industrial case study set in the automotive industry to fulfill the objectives of verifying and validating the proposed IQ4.0F with primary data.

This research work demonstrates the value of a “stepwise framework” to facilitate a shift from conventional quality management systems (QMSs) to QMSs 4.0. It uses the IDEF0 modeling methodology and Six Sigma’s DMAIC cycle to structure the steps to be followed to adopt the Quality 4.0 paradigm for QI. It also proves the worth of integrating Six Sigma and ML techniques into the “Analyze” stage of the DMAIC cycle for improving defect prediction in manufacturing processes and supporting problem-solving activities for quality managers.

This research paper introduces a first-of-its-kind Quality 4.0 framework – the IQ4.0F. Each step of the IQ4.0F was verified and validated in an original industrial case study set in the automotive industry. It is the first Quality 4.0 framework, according to the SLR conducted, to utilize the principal component analysis technique as a substitute for “Screening Design” in the Design of Experiments phase and K-means clustering technique for multivariable analysis, identifying process parameters that significantly impact product quality. The proposed IQ4.0F not only empowers decision-makers with the knowledge to launch a Quality 4.0 initiative but also provides quality managers with a systematic problem-solving methodology for quality improvement.

This paper sets out to solve a common and crucial fundamental theoretical problem of gray incidence cluster analysis: to [X]={X|ρ(X,Y)≥1−ε0} constitute an approximate classification, it must first be proven that [X]={X|ρ(X,Y)=1} constitutes a rigorous classification.

This paper does not study the concrete expressions of various incidence degrees but rather the perfect correlation essence of such incidence degrees, that is, sufficient and necessary conditions.

For any order difference incidence degree, the similarity incidence degree, the direct proportion incidence degree, the parallel incidence degree and the nearness incidence degree, it is proven that the perfect correlation relation is an equivalence relation. The set composed of all sequences Y that are equivalent to sequences X is studied, that is, the equivalence class of X. The structure and mutual relations of these equivalence classes are discussed, and the topological homeomorphism concept of incidence degree is introduced. The conclusion is obtained that the equivalence classes of the two incidence degrees must be the same when the topological homeomorphism is obtained.

In this paper, only the perfect correlation relation of any order difference incidence degree, the similarity incidence degree, the direct proportion incidence degree, the parallel incidence degree and the nearness incidence degree are studied as equivalent relations.

Not only are the research results of several incidence degrees involved in this paper original but also many other effective incidence degrees have not done this basic research, so this paper opens up a research direction with theoretical significance.

Effective communication is crucial in the medical field where different stakeholders use various terminologies to describe and classify healthcare concepts such as ICD, SNOMED CT, UMLS and MeSH, but the problem of polysemy can make natural language processing difficult. This study explores the contextual meanings of the term “pattern” in the biomedical literature, compares them to existing definitions, annotates a corpus for use in machine learning and proposes new definitions of terms such as “Syndrome, feature” and “pattern recognition.”

Entrez API was used to retrieve articles form PubMed for the study which assembled a corpus of 398 articles using a search query for the ambiguous term “pattern” in the titles or abstracts. The python NLTK library was used to extract the terms and their contexts, and an expert check was carried out. To understand the various meanings of the term, the contextual environment was analyzed by extracting the surrounding words of the term. The expert determined the appropriate size of the context for analysis to gain a more nuanced understanding of the different meanings of the term pattern.

The study found that the categories of meanings of the term “pattern” are broader in biomedical publications than in common definitions, and new categories have been emerging from the term's use in the biomedical field. The study highlights the importance of annotated corpora in advancing natural language processing techniques and provides valuable insights into the nuances of biomedical language.

The study's findings demonstrate the importance of exploring contextual meanings and proposing new definitions of terms in the biomedical field to improve natural language processing techniques.