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The Covid-19 pandemic has quickly transformed the notions of crises and of living in a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) world into a lived experience. This chapter offers a perspective on how New Zealand businesses experienced and reacted to Covid-19 related management from a distance and with a mindset that was informed by the government’s focus on health and well-being and “being kind.” This exploratory findings from a sample of New Zealand exporters show that technology-supported management of digital distance and trust, infused with a partner-specific exhibition of empathy, fostered successful business relationships during these challenging times.

Purpose – We aim to elucidate the influence of leaders' emotion expressions on the social distance between leaders and followers in face-to-face and digital communication.

Design/methodology/approach – Literature review

Findings – Following functional theories on emotions, leaders' expressions of socially engaging emotions (e.g., guilt, happiness, gratitude, and compassion) lower social distance. Leaders' expressions of socially disengaging emotions (e.g., anger, contempt, disgust, and pride) increase social distance. In digital communication, we propose that the effect of socially engaging and disengaging emotions depends on the social presence that is provided by the different digital communication media.

Practical implication – Based on our theoretical model, we derive implications for (1) leaders' use of face-to-face communication, (2) the importance of digital communication with high social presence, (3) leaders' use of digital communication as a tool for emotion regulation, and (4) coping strategies when communicating via digital means with low social presence.

Digital credit is spreading rapidly across Sub-Saharan Africa and holds potential for financial inclusion and female financial autonomy. Women in developing economies have long been targeted by microfinance institutions due to the women’s reliability and positive spillover effects. Yet, adoption rates for digital financial innovations remain moderate among rural women in Sub-Saharan Africa. The authors explore whether female preferences for digital and conventional credit differ from males.

The authors conduct a Discrete Choice Experiment with 420 smallholder farmers in central Madagascar, one of the region's poorest countries, to assess preferences for selected digital and conventional credit attributes.

Results of the mixed logit model and the comparison of the willingness-to-pay via Poe-test suggest high general demand for both credit forms. The demand of female respondents is higher than that of males, suggesting that they might be underserved. This holds for both credit forms. However, differences in willingness to pay for the credit attributes are mostly not statistically significant, indicating that designing gender-specific services may not be advisable.

This article is believed to be the first to assess and compare gendered willingness to pay for digital and conventional credit. The study’s findings give valuable insights to decision-makers in development politics as well as the fintech industry.

This paper aims to present recently published resources on library instruction and information literacy providing an introductory overview and a selected annotated bibliography of publications covering all library types.

This paper introduces and annotates English-language periodical articles, monographs, dissertations, reports and other materials on library instruction and information literacy published in 2018.

The paper provides a brief description of all 422 sources, and highlights sources that contain unique or significant scholarly contributions.

The information may be used by librarians and anyone interested as a quick reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

This study aims to empirically examine the impact of digital finance on spatial urbanization and elucidate its underlying mechanisms.

Using panel data of Chinese prefecture-level cities from 2011 to 2021, and using a spatial dynamic panel model, the authors analyzed the effects of digital finance on spatial urbanization and the mechanism of its action.

The findings of the study reveal that digital finance, along with its sub-dimensions, namely coverage breadth, usage depth and digitization degree, all contribute to the enhancement of spatial urbanization. The information channel effect generated by the development of postal and telecommunication businesses, the goods delivery effect generated by the development of retail businesses and the wealth accumulation effect generated by the accumulation of household wealth are all important channels through which digital finance promotes spatial urbanization. Digital finance exerts a significant promotional effect on spatial urbanization in second-tier cities, third-tier cities and their subsequent tiers. This observation alludes to the regionally inclusive nature of spatial urbanization promotion facilitated by digital finance.

The present study endeavors to fill this void by employing empirical analysis to investigate the ramifications of digital finance on spatial urbanization, thereby shedding light on the pivotal role played by digital finance in expediting the progression of spatial urbanization. This study undertakes an examination of the spatial spillover effects, thus providing a comprehensive exposition of the influence of digital finance on spatial urbanization. This study introduces this crucial dimension, and the empirical findings elucidate that digital finance fosters the evolution of spatial urbanization by broadening the coverage of information channels, augmenting the efficiency of goods distribution and enhancing wealth accumulation efficacy.

Applying digital literacy skills in face-to-face or online classrooms started ringing the changes during the COVID-19 pandemic in recent months. Stating the obvious, well-planned distant learning experiences are different from courses offered online in response to a crisis or disaster. Every institution around the world has worked on preserving instruction throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The extent to which educators being aware of their own and their students’ digital literacy skills perceived how and what kind of information and communication technologies are used under such an emergency remote teaching and learning. The preparedness level of learners in using online information and communication technologies is a naturally regulated phenomenon because they are born to live a life of technology. Yet, educators have applied experience, and practical knowledge in face-to-face classroom settings remains a mere curiosity to remote teaching. This study was conducted to investigate educators’ level of preparedness to use online information and communication technologies for their emergency remote teachings and their experiences from the field by focusing on moderating variables – asserted by Means, Bakia, and Murphy (2014) – like modality, instructor role online, online communication synchrony, source of feedback, and role of online assessments. Based on self-report scaled and open-ended questions in the same questionnaire, the participants were recruited online via convenience and accidental sampling, and the data were analyzed by using Statistical Package for Social Sciences software version 22.0 and thematic analysis. Within this study, how educators experience remote teaching during the global pandemic and what they prefer to carry out for the same effectiveness of the courses are discussed based on their digital literacy skills and digital readiness.

The purpose of this chapter is to examine the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and mixed technology as ontology for self and distance learning in the state of Meghalaya in North East India. The points of reference are the population of the state, the men/women ratio, gender ratio of learners, the tele-density of the state, the number of colleges and the rural urban divide. Data and statistics are taken from secondary sources. The chapter highlights the specific use of mixed technologies to address the new breed of learners today; a hybrid of text and hypertext; the digital learner, with his or her penchant for technology; and the mobile phone. Distance education is now gradually merging with online ontology of teaching/learning. The chapter has come up with suggestions for improving delivery of educational services in the state of Meghalaya in North East India. The originality/value of this chapter lies in the cross currents of using technology for learning in the mid of the rural urban divide, strongly advocating the course of digital learners in a state of India besotted with poor road connectivity and envisaging mixed technologies: the computer, radio and the mobile phone as integrated methods of learning.

Deglobalization and the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic have severely hindered multinational enterprise (MNE) investment. At the same time, digital technology is seriously challenging it with traditional production factor flows. Few studies have realized that the impact of digitalization is not limited to either transaction costs or the location-boundness of firm-specific advantages (FSAs), but extends to profound changes in the fundamental essence of MNEs. There is still limited understanding of this body of knowledge as a whole, including how its subtopics are interrelated. This study took the production factor change perspective to review MNE theory in the digital era. Therefore, this study aims to identify any upcoming and undeveloped themes in order to provide a platform suited to direct future research.

This paper presents a summary and a review of 151 articles published between 2007 and 2020. Such review was conducted to systematically explain the connotations and influential mechanisms of digital empowerment on MNE theory. This was achieved by using the CiteSpace citation visualization tool to build a keyword co-occurrence network.

The research findings pertain to how digitalization expands, breaks through, and even reshapes traditional MNE theory from four distinctive angles: the influential factors of internationalization, the process of internationalization, competitive advantage, and location choice. The findings are followed by the presentation of future research directions.

This paper presents an examination of MNE theory in the digital era from the perspective of production factor change. In doing so, it identifies significant theoretical innovation opportunities for future scholarly research priorities.

Online privacy pertains to an individual’s capacity to regulate and oversee the gathering and distribution of online information. Conversely, online privacy concern (OPC) pertains to the protection of personal information, along with the worries or convictions concerning potential risks and unfavorable outcomes associated with its collection, utilization and distribution. With a holistic approach to these relationships, this study aims to model the relationships between digital literacy (DL), digital data security awareness (DDSA) and OPC and how these relationships vary by gender.

The participants of this study are 2,835 university students. Data collection tools in the study consist of personal information form and three different scales. Partial least squares (PLS), structural equation modeling (SEM) and multi-group analysis (MGA) were used to test the framework determined in the context of the research purpose and to validate the proposed hypotheses.

DL has a direct and positive effect on digital data security awareness (DDSA), and DDSA has a positive effect on OPC. According to the MGA results, the hypothesis put forward in both male and female sub-samples was supported. The effect of DDSA on OPC is higher for males.

This study highlights the positive role of DL and perception of data security on OPC. In addition, MGA findings by gender reveal some differences between men and women.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-03-2023-0122