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Despite the criticality of financial inclusion, population growth and energy intensity in shaping production and consumption, economic and environmental sustainability, less attention has been directed to their collective and integrating role as pathways to sustainable development. This study therefore examines the critical link between financial inclusion and sustainable development in Nigeria, taking into account the role of population growth and energy intensity.

The study employs the Kernelized regularized least squares (KRLS) machine learning approach and Granger causality test to investigate the pathways of financial inclusion, population growth and energy intensity on sustainable development.

Financial inclusion path to sustainable development is not statistically significant. This is because the potential of financial inclusion are eclipsed by broader economic problems Population growth and energy intensity have significant dampening effects on sustainable development. These results have broad ramifications for environmental sustainability and macroeconomic strategies to Nigeria’s quest for achieving sustainable development.

Policies such as improvement of financial literacy and development of responsible financial behavior among the underserved populations can enhance the role of financial inclusion in sustainable development. Similarly, investment in education and human capital development, and adoption of renewable energy technologies can mitigate the effects of population growth and energy intensity.

The present study focuses on the pathway of financial inclusion to sustainable development, taking into account key variables of population growth and energy intensity.

This chapter seeks to make sense of the current anarchical drift of world politics, in which exclusionary ethnonationalisms, intense technological competition and the revival of power politics have been fuelling remilitarisation and major armed conflicts. Using a historical comparative approach, it argues that late-20th century globalisation has reached its political, social and spatial limits. Much like the long breakdown of late-19th century imperial globalisation, which unravelled in the face of a combustible mix of exacerbated nationalisms, disruptive social and economic strains, imperial rivalries and military build-ups, current global disintegration expresses the inescapable material and ideational tensions generated by the uneven distribution of gains and losses between and within states.

With emerging technologies rapidly changing work processes, it is important to understand the skills and characteristics project managers (PMs) need to effectively manage projects in the digital era. This study determines the underlying competencies needed for digitalization among PMs in the construction industry. The study also identified the most significant competencies needed by PMs in the era of digitalization.

The methodology adopted for the research study was quantitative. It was founded on a thorough review of pertinent literature, which went through a pilot survey study from six project management experts in the construction industry. Based on the comment and feedback, a questionnaire survey was developed and distributed to participants through a convenience sampling technique. The data retrieved were from 100 professional PMs out of 130 questionnaires distributed in the Ghanaian construction industry. Data collected were analyzed using fuzzy synthetic evaluation (FSE).

Based on FSE, the three competency parameters (knowledge, skills, personal characteristics) generated significant indices indicating that all three competencies are significant among construction PMs in the digitalization era. Under the knowledge competency parameter, six sub-competencies comprising a total of 12 variables were identified. For skills, seven sub-competencies consisting of 23 variables were identified. Regarding personal attributes, six sub-competencies with 17 variables were highlighted. Under knowledge, technical knowledge was found to be the most important with an index of 4.212. For skills, leadership skills were rated highest with an index of 4.240. Regarding personal attributes, social or interpersonal skills were deemed most critical with an index of 4.199.

The results provide guidance to both industry and academic stakeholders. For PMs and their employers, the study highlights priority areas for competency development and training related to the era of digitalization. It also informs educational institutions on how to structure project management curricula to best prepare students for jobs of the future. This study gives more insight into the competencies that need more attention for PMs in the digitalization era. As a result, firms that adopt the identified competency will benefit from implementing digitalization in project delivery.

This study makes an original contribution as one of the first to empirically investigate the competencies required of construction PMs in the construction industry in the digitalization era. By focusing on the developing country context of Ghana, the study extends knowledge to an under-researched region and market. It provides a foundation for future comparative research across diverse global contexts.

Focusing on the Brazilian equity mutual fund industry, this study analyzes whether including the investor sentiment index in asset pricing models is important for explaining fund alpha.

The investor sentiment index and risk factors in the Fama and French (1993) and Carhart (1997) models were estimated, the risk-adjusted performance of a sample of equity mutual funds in Brazil was evaluated, and a United States (US) sample was included for a complementary perspective. The sample period spans 2010–2019 for Brazil and 2010–2018 for the US.

The results contrasted with those evidenced in the US, where the sentiment index was an important factor in explaining the probability of alpha occurrence, especially in the case of winner funds, defined as those exhibiting a positive and statistically significant alpha at the 5% level. Overall, the findings suggest that, in the Brazilian market, pricing models incorporating investor sentiment as an additional factor fail to adequately capture the outperformance probability of equity mutual funds. These results suggest that the factors influencing fund performance may differ between the two countries and highlight the relevance of developing more suitable investor sentiment indicators for emerging markets.

This study examines the impact of the sentiment index on the performance of equity mutual funds in Brazil, specifically its influence on alpha generation.

This chapter focuses on the meanings that young adults ascribed to their practices on mobile app-based platforms, recurring to diary records. Combining their emic perspectives and etic knowledge, we sought to identify young adults' performances, emotions and beliefs to make sense of contemporary digital practices' social and cultural role. Research has shown that, along with ordering everyday experiences and providing convenience, ease and speed, digital technologies also establish asymmetrical relations between the different actors in the mediation process, with platform affordances enabling or constraining specific actions based on power relations. Adopting this critical standpoint, the conceptual frames they trigger, and the patterns of usages that young adult users regard as distinct and significant, we argue that normalising apps' daily practices should be seen as embedded in broader neoliberal governmentality.

We examine the content of auditors’ going concern opinions (GCOs) to investigate how the market reacts to particular explanations and to the overall number of reasons presented by auditors. We investigate whether the market reacts differentially to explanatory paragraphs alluding to specific financial concerns emphasized in the finance literature: reductions in expected future cash flows, difficulties with short-term liquidity and violations of debt covenants. Finally, we examine whether GCOs that are ex-post accurate, as indicated by a subsequent bankruptcy, are accompanied by more negative reactions.

We regress cumulative abnormal returns on the number of reasons cited by auditors and indicator variables for whether auditors cited concerns pertaining to future cash flows, debt covenant violations or short-term cash holdings. We include an indicator for subsequent bankruptcy and control variables.

The market reaction to GCOs is significantly more negative when auditors offer more reasons or specifically cite a decrease in expected future cashflows or a violation of debt covenants and when GCOs are ex-post accurate.

The results indicate that auditors’ explanations for GCOs contain incremental information content that is useful to investors.

We find that more detailed GCO reports are more informative to investors, supporting the need for regulations requiring auditors to provide detailed justifications when issuing GCOs.

This study is the first to examine how the number of reasons given by auditors affects market reactions to GCOs and to specifically examine how investors react to GCOs that cite violations of debt covenants or reductions in future cash flows as justifications for the GCO.

We propose an alternative rationale for why some firms employ veterans, driven not solely by benevolence but also by the prospect of enhanced outcomes. Financially, hiring veterans could correlate with improved stock market performance for the hiring company while aligning with corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. Our study centers on the stock market performance of companies hiring veterans. It aims to underscore a lesser-known facet of the veteran employment discourse and its connection to the hiring firm's financial performance.

This paper evaluates the stock market performance of three VETS portfolios (made of companies that hire veterans) compared to the benchmark SPDR S&P 500 ETF. Using a modular approach, we create three VETS passive indices: VETSEW (equal-weighted index), VETSPW (price-weighted index) and VETSVW (value-weighted index). The study analyzes the annual returns, portfolio allocations, risk-adjusted performance metrics and style analysis of the portfolios from January 1, 2020, to December 31, 2022.

The findings indicate that all three VETS portfolios outperformed the benchmark, with higher ending balances and superior risk-adjusted ratios such as the Sharpe and Sortino ratios. Notably, the portfolios demonstrated resilience during challenging periods, including the COVID-19 pandemic, subsequent recovery and an inflationary period.

Limitations include the paper's focus solely on stock returns, suggesting a need for broader financial and management ratios. Moreover, a deeper exploration into how veterans contribute during turbulent times is suggested for further investigation. Although the study touches upon the financial performance of veteran-focused companies during challenging economic times, it does not extensively delve into the specific ways in which veterans add value under such circumstances, presenting an opportunity for further exploration.

Firms that employ veterans amid the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrate favorable risk-adjusted returns, underscoring the potential of veterans as valuable crisis-time assets. Our research further underscores the correlation between veteran hiring and enhanced financial prowess. These insights carry significant policy implications, including CSR initiatives for hiring veterans, skill translation and training and collaboration with veteran organizations.

The paper's findings suggest significant implications: (1) Policymakers could incentivize firms to hire veterans through tax benefits or grants, leveraging their skills for organizational resilience. (2) Collaborative efforts between policymakers and firms can promote responsible hiring, boosting a company's reputation through diversity and inclusion, positively impacting society. (3) Support for skill translation from military to civilian jobs is crucial. Programs certifying skills and tailored education aid veterans' successful transition into the workforce. (4) Collaborations between policymakers, veteran organizations and private sector entities can create networks, job placements and support systems for veterans' employment.

Numerous prior studies within the domain of corporate social responsibility have predominantly neglected the contributions veterans offer to businesses and the underlying reasons behind firms' decisions to employ them. Our research uniquely concentrates on the stock market performance of companies that choose to hire veterans.

Inland shipping has been extensively recognised as a sustainable, efficient and good alternative to rail and road modes of transportation. In recent years, various authorities and academic researchers have advocated shifting from road to other sustainable modes like inland waterway transport (IWT) or rail transport. Academic work on modernisation and technological innovations to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of waterborne transportation is becoming apparent as a growing body of literature caused by the need to achieve a sustainable transport system. Thus, it became apparent to explore the research trends on IWT.

A systematic and structured literature review study was employed in this paper to identify the challenges and concepts in modernising inland waterways for freight transportation. The review analysed 94 articles published in 54 journals from six well-known databases between 2010 and 2022.

The key findings of this review are that despite various challenges confronting the sector, there have been successful cases of technological advancement in the industry. The main interest among scholars is improving technical and economic performance, digitalisation, and safety and environmental issues. The review revealed that most of the literature is fragmented despite growing interest from practitioners and academic scholars. Academic research to address the strategic objectives, including strengthening competitiveness (shipbuilding, hydrodynamics, incorporating artificial intelligence into the decision-making process, adopting blockchain technology to ensure transparency and security in the transactions, new technologies for fleets adaptation to climate change, more effective handling, maintenance and rehabilitation technologies), matching growth and changing trade patterns (intermodal solutions and new logistics approaches) are major causes of concerns.

By employing the approach of reviewing previously available literature on IWT review papers, this review complements the existing body of literature in the field of IWT by providing in a single paper a consolidation of recent state-of-the-art research on technological developments and challenges for inland waterways freight transport in the intermodal supply chain that can act as a single resource to keep researchers up to date with the most recent advancements in research in the domain of inland waterway freight transport. Additionally, this review identified gaps in the literature that may inspire new research themes in the field of IWT.