Search results

This paper argues that a coordinated network of independent producers is crucial in creating an immersive metaverse. A digital asset layer that is beyond the control of any single counterparty, along with reliable definition and exchange of fungible and non-fungible digital objects, is important for individual digital creative expression to flourish. Non-fungible digital objects are essential in creating an asset layer for a metaverse that approximates the full range of independent human creative expression. The development of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) alongside cryptocurrencies, governed by distributed and transparent control, can create an intermediation layer that is separate from the control of a platform intermediary.

The purpose of this paper is to nurture reflections on the colonization of the future in the present with a particular focus on Africa. This paper aims at exploring how participatory research and particularly anticipatory action research can contribute to a decolonising process.

Considering the future as a public good, this paper develops a reflection on the colonization processes that can turn it into a club or a private good. This paper mobilizes the notions of participatory knowledge production and local action research as a way to decolonize the future and empower imagination. This paper revisits the tenets of participatory action research as a means to achieve this objective and discusses the main features of a non-colonial anticipatory action research in the context of African futures.

This paper highlights the challenges associated with connecting anticipatory endeavours focusing on action research, the creation of collective intelligence and co-design, with the intention of encouraging the decolonisation process. It includes design principles and anticipates a possible process of counter-decolonization.

This is a conceptual paper, which does not provide field-tested evidence. Yet, the authors hope it serves as an input enabling to design methodologies that will prevent the colonisation of the future when engaging in future-oriented research activities in Africa and elsewhere.

This paper provides an integral approach to the colonisation of the future, as a renewed old question. This paper also connects this process with a reflection on the nature of what could be non-colonizing anticipatory action research.

This study examines the impact of urbanization on growth and the role of international financial flows in the urbanization-growth nexus.

The study applies the panel least square estimation to examine the impact of urbanization on growth using panel data from 50 developing countries from 1980 to 2016. Further, addressing the endogeneity issues in panel estimations, the study applies the dynamic System-GMM approach to investigate the role of financial flows in urbanization and their impact on economic growth in developing countries.

Contrary to the conventional literature, we found a non-linear (U-shaped) relationship between urbanization and growth. Our findings demonstrate that growth is reduced at a lower level of urbanization due to less availability, concentration, and synchronization of production factors. The concentration of physical and human capital and technological advancement in urban areas help developing countries achieve economic growth at a higher level of urbanization. Robust estimations divulged that foreign aid spent on infrastructure development and expanding urban regions helps promote economic growth. Nevertheless, as a resilient factor, remittances buffer the rapid pace of urbanization and reduce growth by resisting the migration of labor and capital from rural to urban areas.

The paper's findings suggest policymakers promote urban infrastructure and development using local and international funds since its increased level spurs economic growth. Further, the results advise policymakers to reduce aid dependency, attract FDI, and facilitate the easy and low-cost transfer of money to promote remittance inflows since both FDI and remittances positively contribute to economic growth.

The paper contributes significantly to the literature by determining the U-shaped relationship between urbanization and growth and highlighting the role of international flows in the urbanization-growth nexus.

The paper studies how the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) positioned itself in the process through which capacity building in developing countries was interpreted and enacted within the global development aid agenda from 1999 to 2016.

The paper is an in-depth case study drawing on a comprehensive analysis of publications, reports and archival materials.

The paper unveils how IFAC shaped the interpretation of capacity building and its associated practices in a manner aligned with its expansionary aims thereby transforming itself into a prominent actor within, what we term, the capacity building issue-based field. It unpacks the strategies pursued by IFAC as it mobilised economic, social and cultural resources in support of its global capacity building ambitions for the accountancy profession. It reveals how key interactions between actors in the international development exchange field and the professional exchange field of accounting underpinned IFAC’s infiltration of, and impact on the evolution of, the capacity building issue-based field. We show how IFAC increased its influence in this field despite initially operating on the periphery of the global development aid agenda.

The paper reveals how the global accountancy profession’s engagement with the capacity building activities of international development agencies became central to its commitment to serving the public interest. Our analysis suggests that deeper explorations of capacity building by the global accountancy profession in specific developing countries are required in order to determine whether these efforts have effectively catered to the needs of the citizens of those countries.

The work of professional accountancy organizations (PAOs) operating at the global level in the area of capacity building has been addressed in a fragmented fashion in prior research. This paper presents a unique analysis of developing alliances between the global accountancy profession and international aid agencies aimed at supporting the globalising efforts of IFAC within the realm of capacity building in international development aid. Theoretically, the paper advances prior work exploring the evolution of issue-based fields, in particular the role of inter-field relations in interstitial spaces within these processes.