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This study aims to develop a comprehensive framework for discussing sustainability within the insurance industry, extending the traditional Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) dimensions to include economic and technological considerations. This inclusion is vital, recognizing that financial stability and the adoption of innovative technologies are fundamental to meeting other sustainability targets.

We base our findings on an extensive literature review, case studies, and interactive workshops with key stakeholders in the insurance industry. Our analytical framework employs Porter's (1985) insurance-specific value chain, complemented by Berliner's (1982) insurability criteria, to distinguish between insurable and non-insurable risks.

Our results show that the insurance industry is sustainable because it actively incorporates and contributes to sustainability goals across environmental, social, economic, and technological dimensions. This is illustrated through the identification of 50 distinct contributions across the insurance value chain, showcasing the sector’s unique position to significantly influence the sustainability discourse.

Addressing the pressing challenges of sustainability and insurability necessitates a strategic, collective response from the global insurance and risk management community. This paper proposes several policy recommendations, including enhancing risk assessment methodologies, diversifying insurance product offerings, encouraging cross-sectoral collaboration, and prioritizing investments in resilience and preventive measures.

By broadening the sustainability discussion to encompass economic and technological facets, this paper enriches the dialogue surrounding the insurance industry’s role in sustainability. It aims to inform decision-makers across the industry, political spheres, and broader society about the necessity of sustainability, fostering pertinent political discussions and highlighting avenues for future research.

This paper applies an original construct of “subjective risk intelligence (SRI)” to the small business context. By leveraging on its multidimensionality, it aims to shed light on the existing ambiguities in the analysis of the relationship between the entrepreneurial attitude towards risk evaluation and firms’ financial stability.

The empirical investigation refers to the Italian context, where an ad hoc survey has been administered to a sample of small businesses. Based on both a linear and a semiparametric regression, results show a significant relationship between SRI and firm’s financial structure, and that such relationship is basically nonlinear.

Evidence shows that entrepreneurs with a high level of risk intelligence run highly leveraged firms. Moreover, in the light of the non-linearity of such relationship, higher levels of risk intelligence are associated with a greater capacity of the entrepreneur to govern the financial balance of the enterprise only up to a certain threshold. Over this threshold, risk intelligence generates overconfidence leading the entrepreneur to a reckless behaviour in taking financial risks.

From a theoretical point of view, the paper contributes to the literature by shedding lights on the complexity of the relationship between risk intelligence and small businesses. From a policy point of view, findings suggest that, to train new entrepreneurs, the educational system aims should focus on the development of two specific “soft skills”: the ability to manage emotions and the ability to glimpse opportunities even in uncertain situations.

The purpose of this paper is threefold. First, to explore the importance of specific work environment facets for the overall job satisfaction (JS) of primary full-time permanent teachers (PTs) and substitute/temporary teachers (STs). Second, to highlight the similarity or difference in JS patterns among PTs and STs. Third, to provide guidelines for effective evidence-based human resource management (HRM) interventions targeting to boost PTs and STs JS levels by considering: (1) the perceived importance of individual work facets for them and (2) the school's performance in providing a satisfactory work environment.

Data on overall and important JS facets (i.e. satisfaction with opportunities for self-fulfillment, work intensity/load, salary/income, leadership and collegial relations) were collected from a sample of 438 PTs and STs in Greece. Moreover, MUSA, a method that combines Multi-Criteria Decision (MCDA) and Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA), was applied to uncover the critical work environment facets of PTs and STs overall JS that call for interventions.

The findings suggest that PTs seem to value, more than STs, the transactional and economic aspects of the school environment. More precisely, on the part of PTs, self-fulfillment and salary/income are the main contributors to their JS, whilst leadership is the least important facet of JS. For STs self-fulfillment and collegial relationships are the aspects of work that contribute the most to their overall JS, whilst salary/income is the least important contributor. The study results further indicate that self-fulfillment is the strong attribute of Greek schools' work environment in boosting TJS regardless teachers' status, whilst salary/income and workload are potential threats.

It is one of the few studies that provide insights into the differing JS patterns of STs and PTs through the application of a MCDA/IPA method. Therefore, it offers evidence-based guidelines that take into consideration both the school's performance (overall and facet JS) and importance of core aspects of the work experience for STs and PTs.

The purpose of this quantitative study was to fill the knowledge gap and to investigate relationships between cultural background and various demographic factors influencing parental involvement behaviors that prompt them to engage in their children's academic activities.

A quantitative research method was used to collect data to answer research questions and explore relationships between variables (Fraenkel et al., 2015). The researchers created the survey on Qualtrics and conducted a pilot study to improve the survey based on the recommendations of the pilot study's participants. Some items were reworded suggested by an expert committee to finalize the instrument. This survey mainly consisted of two sections to collect data on participants' demographics and cultural background. The participants used multiple-choice options to answer items pertaining to family demographics. They were asked to use a 5-point Likert scale: very often = 5, often = 4, sometimes = 3, rarely = 2 and never = 1 to respond to survey items regarding cultural background and parental involvement behaviors.

The correlation coefficient showed a statistically significant relationship between parents' expectations, educational level and their involvement behaviors in children's academic achievement. However, parents' income and cultural background had no statistically significant relationships with parental involvement in their children's academic achievement.

The results of this study have potentially broad implications for educational leaders, policymakers, educators and parents to develop policies for diverse students to enhance their educational achievements.

The researchers reviewed extensive literature and found the gap in regional studies particularly related to one of the fastest-growing, financially stable and highly educated ethnic groups in the country. The researchers developed a brand new instrument on Qualtrics and distributed a survey via online and direct administration to collect primary data from 200 participants.

Prior research reveals that teachers have lower job satisfaction when they have more Black students, but this work does not consider how different aspects of work conditions – and the increasing diversity of students beyond a Black/White binary – may matter. This study aims to examine the relationship between teachers’ perceptions of work conditions and the racial/ethnic compositions of the classes they teach.

This study leverages data from the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) study. Analyses consist of both descriptive statistics and multilevel regression modeling.

Findings show that teachers’ satisfaction with working conditions varies in relation to the racial/ethnic composition of their students. Increase in the percent of Black, Latinx and Asian American students in a teacher’s classroom, was associated with a decrease in satisfaction with community involvement and student behavior. For increase in Latinx and Asian American students, this study finds significant decrease in satisfaction with measures of pedagogical and job support. For measures of school leadership and responsiveness to professional development needs, this study sees no significant relationship, which suggests that perceptions of some working conditions are more strongly tied to classroom demographics than others.

This work adds nuance to previous research on teacher job satisfaction by exploring satisfaction with various working conditions and how it varies in relation to classroom racial composition. This study concludes with a discussion of potential explanations for observed differences in teacher satisfaction, as well as potential ways to address these differences.

This paper examines the impact of extreme rainfall shocks on the performance in test scores of students living near at-risk urban areas in Brazil.

To identify the causal effect, we consider the exogenous variation of rainfall at the municipal level conditioned on the distance from the school to risk areas and the rainfall intensity in the school months.

The results suggest that extreme precipitation shocks, defined as a shock of at least three months of high-intensity rainfall, have an adverse impact on both math and language performance. Through a heterogeneous effects analysis, we find that the impact varies by student gender, with girls being more affected. In addition, among students who study near at-risk areas, those with better previous school performance and higher socioeconomic status are more negatively affected.

Our results suggest that extreme weather events can increase the differences in human capital accumulation between the population living near risk areas and those living more distant from these areas.

Micro and small enterprises (MSE) play a critical role in the Swiss economy but had no meaningfully adopted working from home (WFH) policy before the COVID-19 crisis. The timing of the study’s data collection allowed a unique assessment of Swiss MSEs’ adoption of WFH enabled by the adoption of digital technologies due to the first government-mandated COVID-19 lockdown. The study also set out to assess the permanence of any changes in the adoption of WFH by MSEs after initial government COVID-19 restrictions ended.

The study uses a threefold theoretical framework combining social, technical and spatial dimensions. Data were collected via telephone interviews. The utilised sampling frame included 153,000 small businesses with 4–49 employees, and the realised sample for the study was 503 interviews with MSE owners and managing directors (MDs).

The Swiss government’s COVID-19 crisis lockdown policies accelerated the digital transformation of work by employees in Swiss MSEs by increasing the number of employees WFH. However, the number of MSEs with WFH employees decreased after the first lockdown ended. Small business leadership is an important influence on the persistence of any increases in WFH.

The data collection uniquely captures the effects of externally driven digital transformation of work in small businesses by the adoption of WFH. The findings show that small businesses can rapidly learn new ways of working and support the claim that Swiss MSE MDs play a critical role in the adoption of WFH. They also confirm the importance of digital leadership and culture for realising the potential of WFH in small businesses.

This chapter discusses the role of school leadership in the face of climate disasters and environmental injustices. These disruptions to schooling are emblematic of an increasing global uncertainty. School leaders play a pivotal role mitigating uncertainty following an environmental crisis or disaster through leadership activities that support their communities. However, preparing school leaders for unexpected disruptions to schooling has often been overlooked by preparation programs and professional development. The goal of this chapter is to equip school leaders with an essential understanding of both the influence of environmental injustice on schools and the tools to respond effectively to these events. First, the chapter contextualizes environmental injustice and inequality as a factor that influences school and student performance, especially for students living below the poverty line and students of color. Next, it synthesizes how school leaders have responded to prior instances of climate disasters and environmental injustices. Finally, it presents key considerations for school leaders confronting future occurrences.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of iCoaching during reading intervention. An interventionist received mentoring support to implement iCoaching. The goal of the study was to increase teacher-delivered, behavior-specific praise (BSP).

Using a single-case multiple-probe design across participants (Gast, 2010; Horner and Baer, 1978), iCoaching was implemented in a two-part package of (1) professional development (PD) and (2) live iCoaching sessions where three teachers received preemptive coaching comments to increase BSP delivery during reading intervention. Visual analysis identified changes in teacher behavior.

Findings demonstrated the iCoaching intervention package increased teacher knowledge and implementation of evidence-based practices (EBPs; i.e. BSP) during tiered reading intervention groups. Most student participants made gains in reading skills (accuracy, words per minute and composite score) across the areas measured.

Teacher absences, observation scheduling, an ongoing global pandemic, IEP meetings during intervention time, and other changes in the schedule were limitations of this study. The first set of earbuds lost the audio signal several times, and researchers lost the ability to hear the instruction occurring in the classroom; the earbuds were replaced by the first intervention phase.

Previous iCoaching literature demonstrates iCoaching provides implementation support for EBPs learned in PD. Peer coaching can have a positive impact on EBP implementation when iCoaching is non-evaluative, which supports teachers with EBP implementation with minimal disruption to teaching.

This manuscript extends iCoaching research (Randolph et al., 2020, 2021) from small group special education settings to general education intervention groups. Additionally, research shows iCoaching can be extended with mentoring.

This study aims to identify the factors influencing the adoption of extended reality (XR) applications in libraries for sustainable innovative services and reveal the challenges of adopting XR technology in libraries.

A systematic literature review was applied to address the study’s objectives. The 26 most relevant seminal studies published in peer-reviewed journals were selected to conduct the study.

The findings showed that access to digital collections, skill development, marketing, innovation and sustainable development factors influence the adoption of extended reality applications in libraries. The study illustrated that technical challenges, financial challenges, the unavailability of staff expertise and lack of institutional support caused barriers to the adoption of XR in libraries.

The study has added valuable literature to the existing body of knowledge. It has provided a framework to efficiently adopt extended reality in libraries for the delivery of sustainable, innovative services to library patrons.