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To elaborate the nature of fact-checking in the domain of political information by examining how fact-checkers assess the validity of claims concerning the Russo-Ukrainian conflict and how they support their assessments by drawing on evidence acquired from diverse sources of information.

Descriptive quantitative and qualitative content analysis of 128 reports written by the fact-checkers of Snopes – an established fact-checking organisation – during the period of 24 February 2022 – 28 June, 2023. For the analysis, nine evaluation grounds were identified, most of them inductively from the empirical material. It was examined how the fact-checkers employed such grounds while assessing the validity of claims and how the assessments were bolstered by evidence acquired from information sources such as newspapers.

Of the 128 reports, the share of assessments indicative of the invalidity of the claims was 54.7%, while the share of positive ratings was 26.7%. The share of mixed assessments was 15.6%. In the fact-checking, two evaluation grounds, that is, the correctness of information and verifiability of an event presented in a claim formed the basis for the assessment. Depending on the topic of the claim, grounds such as temporal and spatial compatibility, as well as comparison by similarity and difference occupied a central role. Most popular sources of information offering evidence for the assessments include statements of government representatives, videos and photographs shared in social media, newspapers and television programmes.

As the study concentrated on fact-checking dealing with political information about a specific issue, the findings cannot be extended to concern the fact-checking practices in other contexts.

The study is among the first to characterise how fact-checkers employ evaluation grounds of diverse kind while assessing the validity of political information.

The purpose of this research is to evaluate the extent to which credibility of news sources and fact-checkers individually and jointly influence online users' beliefs and intended behaviors regarding online misinformation. The broader goal is to understand why fact-checking seems to have inconsistent effects on the beliefs and behavioral intentions about disinformation. 10;

An online experiment was conducted in a public health (COVID-19) context with 429 validated participants to test three hypotheses linking the main and interaction effects of two independent variables (news source credibility and fact-checker credibility) on three dependent variables (users' believability, reading intention and sharing intention of online news claims). The data was analyzed using multilevel (fixed effects) models controlling for individual differences, claim differences and order effects.

The author observed a nuanced pattern of effects; news source credibility had a positive main effect on believability but negative effects on reading and sharing intention; fact-checking credibility had a positive main effect on believability, but no effects on reading or sharing intentions, but negatively moderated the effects of source credibility on all three dependent variables.

This paper introduces, conceptualizes and tests whether a more credible fact-checker shapes the beliefs and intentions about online misinformation differently from less credible fact-checkers, especially when examined concurrently with similar effects of the original sources of misinformation claims. Additionally, it suggests that, on average, users have a low perception of credibility for fact-checkers (even reputed ones), which may explain why fact-checking is often ineffective in shaping the beliefs and intended behaviors.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how contemporary fact-checking is discursively constructed in Swedish news media; this serves to gain insight into how this practice is understood in society.

A selection of texts on the topic of fact-checking published by two of Sweden’s largest morning newspapers is analyzed through the lens of Fairclough’s discourse theoretical framework.

Three key discourses of fact-checking were identified, each of which included multiple sub-discourses. First, a discourse that has been labeled as “the affirmative discourse,” representing fact-checking as something positive, was identified. This discourse embraces ideas about fact-checking as something that, for example, strengthens democracy. Second, a contrasting discourse that has been labeled “the adverse discourse” was identified. This discourse represents fact-checking as something precarious that, for example, poses a risk to democracy. Third, a discourse labeled “the agency discourse” was identified. This discourse conveys ideas on whose responsibility it is to conduct fact-checking.

A better understanding of the discursive construction of fact-checking provides insights into social practices pertaining to it and the expectations of its role in contemporary society. The results are relevant for journalists and professionals who engage in fact-checking and for others who have a particular interest in fact-checking, e.g. librarians and educators engaged in media and information literacy projects.

A topic currently receiving significant academic and practitioner attention is called evidence-based management. The purpose of this paper is to suggest that this approach is sometimes over-sold and may be a fad. Additionally, evidence-based management fails to fully recognize the importance of tacit knowledge, what Kahneman calls system 1. Evidence-based management does provide tools to better use what Kahneman calls system 2, rationality. Decision-makers need to take advantage of both rational and beyond rational processes.

This is an essay, it is not a report of a study. At this point in time, this paper needs thinking, reflection, pondering, more than a data-based study.

Advocates promote evidence-based management in part to help avoid fads, yet evidence-based management itself has many of the characteristics of a fad. Evidence-based management is based on an objective rational view of the world and suggests highly rational methods of decision-making. However, a rational fact-based might not give sufficient credit to instinct and feelings. Decision-makers should take into account facts, evidence, when making decisions, but not ignore intuition, hunches and feelings. This study is learning that decisions use a galaxy of approaches, with both cognitive and affective flexibility.

As with any opinion-based paper, this lacks empirical support. Proponents ask us to believe in evidence-based management. Neither we, the authors of this paper, nor the proponents of evidence-based management can empirically support the ideas offered. An additional limitation is that the paper is written in one language, English. Translation into another language might yield different meanings.

There are advantages for scholars and practitioners to look at the best available evidence. There can be disadvantages in overlooking non-quantifiable factors.

Those who use evidence-based management should also take into account feelings, ethics, aesthetics, creativity, for the betterment of society. To solve wicked problems one needs more than facts and rational analysis.

The overwhelming majority of those writing about evidence-based management are supporters. This study offers a different view. This paper brings new ideas and new thinking to both the extensive fad literature and the huge evidence-based management literature. Evidence-based management is discussed widely. Google Scholar lists more than two million papers in 2019, 2020 and 2021 on evidence-based management. Readers of this journal should critically evaluate this popular set of ideas.

The pandemic has enhanced the global phenomenon of disinformation. This paper aims to study the false news concerning COVID-19, spread through social media in Spain, by using the LatamChequea database for a duration from 01/22/2020, when the first false information has been detected, up to 03/09/2021.

A quantitative analysis has been conducted with regard to the correlation between fake news stories and the pandemic state, the motive to share them, their dissemination in other countries and the effectiveness of fact checking. This study is complemented by a qualitative method: a focus group conducted with representatives of different groups within the society.

Fake news has been primarily disseminated through several social networks at the same time, with two peaks taking place in over a half of the said false stories. The first took place from March to April of 2020 during complete lockdown, and we were informed of prevention measures, the country’s situation and the origin of the virus, whereas the second was related to news revolving around the coming vaccines, which occurred between October and November. The audience tends to neither cross-check the information received nor report fake news to competent authorities, and fact-checking methods fail to stop their spread. Further awareness and digital literacy campaigns are thus required in addition to more involvement from governments and technological platforms.

The main limitation of the research is the fact that it was only possible to conduct a focus group of five individuals who do not belong to generation Z due to the restrictions imposed by the pandemic, although a clear contribution to the analysis of the impact of fake news on social networks during the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain can be seen from the privileged experiences in each of the fields of work that were identified. In this sense, the results of the study are not generalizable to a larger population. On the other hand, and with a view to future research, it would be advisable to carry out a more specific study of how fake news affects generation Z.

This research is original in nature, and the findings of this study are valuable for business practitioners and scholars, brand marketers, social media platform owners, opinion leaders and policymakers.

This paper explores the role that the control system – understood as a set of financial and non-financial mechanisms – introduced by the Ministerial Decree of 15th February 1860 played in promoting the ethical tolerance of prostitution in the Kingdom of Italy.

A qualitative research method was adopted. Specifically, this study draws on literature on accounting and deviant behaviors and on Suchman's theories of legitimation (1995) to interpret empirical evidence collected from archival primary sources as well as secondary sources.

The paper highlights how the accounting mechanisms introduced by the law were molded to limit the serious consequences of prostitution from a public health standpoint and to demonstrate that the State neither profited from prostitution nor used public money to fund it. This should have stimulated ethical tolerance of the law itself and, consequently, of the prostitution that was regulated.

This paper opens a new research avenue in the field of accounting history by exploring the connection between accounting and prostitution. Moreover, unlike the extant literature on accounting and deviant behaviors, this study delves into the role played by accounting mechanisms to promote ethical tolerance rather than to activate normalization processes.

This paper aims to explore the impact of brand authenticity dimensions (i.e. aesthetic, symbolism, heritage, originality, quality commitment and virtue) on consumer engagement in the context of social media. This study answers to the need of scholars to understand consumer behaviour towards family and non-family firms’ brand authenticity constructs and for practitioners to find the correct levers to increase consumer engagement.

Top 10 European family firms with a retrievable Facebook (FB) page from the Global Family Business Index have been selected. Then, the study analysed family firms’ social media consumer engagement versus their non-family business direct competitors on a sample of 21.664 FB posts over a four-year period, leveraging multi-group analysis.

The results outline that three out of six brand authenticity dimensions posted on FB are statistically arousing more interactions respect to non-authenticity-related contents when posted by family firms. However, there are no statistically significant findings when brand authenticity content is posted by the non-family competitors.

This research is helpful for practitioners and entrepreneurs who might want to strengthen their social media brand strategies. With this regard, the study provides insights on which elements of brand authenticity are perceived by consumers as more engaging and which levers to use when communicating the familiness of the company.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is one of the earliest studies crosscutting the family business and brand authenticity literature streams to conduct an empirical analysis based on official FB data with a data set of over 20,000 observations. Moreover, this study assesses that not every dimension of the brand authenticity construct is relevant in the context of social media and that its effectiveness depends on the firms’ familiness.

The purpose of this paper is the need to build a novel approach that would allow flexible modeling and solving of food supply chain management (FSCM) problems. The models developed would use the data (data-driven modeling) as early as possible at the modeling phase, which would lead to a better and more realistic representation of the problems being modeled.

An essential feature of the presented approach is its declarativeness. The use of a declarative approach that additionally includes constraint satisfaction problems and provides an opportunity of fast and easy modeling of constrains different in type and character. Implementation of the proposed approach was performed with the use of an original hybrid method in which constraint logic programming (CLP) and mathematical programming (MP) are integrated and transformation of a model is used as a presolving technique.

The proposed constraint-driven approach has proved to be extremely flexible and efficient. The findings obtained during part of experiments dedicated to efficiency were very interesting. The use of the constraint-driven approach has enabled finding a solution depending on the instance data up to 1,000 times faster than using the MP.

Due to the limited use of exact methods for NP-hard problems, the future study should be to integrate the CLP with environments other than the MP. It is also possible, e.g., with metaheuristics like genetic algorithms, ant colony optimization, etc.

There is a possibility of using the approach as a basis to build a decision support system for FSCM, simple integration with databases, enterprise resource planning systems, management information systems, etc.

The new constraint-driven approach to FSCM has been proposed. The proposed approach is an extension of the hybrid approach. Also, a new decision-making model of distribution and logistics for the food supply chain is built. A presolving technique for this model has been presented.

This article examines the accuracy and bias inherent in the wisdom of crowd effect. The purpose is to clarify what kind of bias crowds have when they make predictions. In the theoretical inquiry, the effect of the accumulated absolute deviation was simulated. In the empirical study, the observed biases were examined using data from forecasting foreign exchange rates.

In the theoretical inquiry, the effect of the accumulated absolute deviation was simulated based on mathematical propositions. In the empirical study, the data from 2004 to 2011 were provided by Nikkei, which holds the “Nikkei Yen Derby” competition. In total, 3,657 groups forecasted the foreign exchange rate, and the first prediction was done in early May to forecast the rate at the end of May. The second round took place in June in a similar manner.

The average absolute deviation in May was smaller than that in June. The first round of prediction was more accurate than the second round one. Predictors were affected by the observable real exchange rate, such that they modified their forecasts by referring to the actual data in early June. An actuality bias existed when the participants lost their diverse prospects. Since the standard deviations of the June forecasts were smaller than those of May, the fact-convergence effect was supported.

This article reports novel findings that affect the wisdom of crowd effect—referred to as actuality bias and fact-convergence effect. The former refers to a forecasting bias toward the observable rate near the forecasting date. The latter implies that predictors, as a whole, indicate smaller forecast deviations by observing the realized foreign exchange rate.

This paper aims to analyze the connectedness between Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) stock market index and cryptocurrencies. It investigates the relevant impact of RavenPack COVID sentiment on the dynamic of stock market indices and conventional cryptocurrencies as well as their Islamic counterparts during the onset of the COVID-19 crisis.

The authors rely on the methodology of Diebold and Yilmaz (2012, 2014) to construct network-associated measures. Then, the wavelet coherence model was applied to explore co-movements between GCC stock markets, cryptocurrencies and RavenPack COVID sentiment. As a robustness check, the authors used the time-frequency connectedness developed by Barunik and Krehlik (2018) to verify the direction and scale connectedness among these markets.

The results illustrate the effect of COVID-19 on all cryptocurrency markets. The time variations of stock returns display stylized fact tails and volatility clustering for all return series. This stressful period increased investor pessimism and fears and generated negative emotions. The findings also highlight a high spillover of shocks between RavenPack COVID sentiment, Islamic and conventional stock return indices and cryptocurrencies. In addition, we find that RavenPack COVID sentiment is the main net transmitter of shocks for all conventional market indices and that most Islamic indices and cryptocurrencies are net receivers.

This study provides two main types of implications: On the one hand, it helps fund managers adjust the risk exposure of their portfolio by including stocks that significantly respond to COVID-19 sentiment and those that do not. On the other hand, the volatility mechanism and investor sentiment can be interesting for investors as it allows them to consider the dynamics of each market and thus optimize the asset portfolio allocation.

This finding suggests that the RavenPack COVID sentiment is a net transmitter of shocks. It is considered a prominent channel of shock spillovers during the health crisis, which confirms the behavioral contagion. This study also identifies the contribution of particular interest to fund managers and investors. In fact, it helps them design their portfolio strategy accordingly.