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The present chapter analyzes land inequality's role in expanding mass literacy between North and South America. According to the central claims, countries with low land inequality, organized in family farms linked to commercial elites, such as the United States, have consistently shown higher literacy levels than latifundia countries with high land inequality and landed elites, such as Latin American countries, where literacy has tended to be blocked. To analyze this hypothesis, a new and original database of landginis, large holding ratio, and illiteracy rates has been calculated from the original censuses of each country, offering the most extensive collection of data on land inequality and literacy for America in this period. By employing panel ordinary least squares, fixed and random effects approach, it is found that, historically, countries with higher land inequality and latifundia systems had worse literacy levels. Nevertheless, not all Latin American countries had latifundia systems, high land inequality, and high illiteracy.

Furthermore, in the United States, some states had higher levels of land inequality and illiteracy than some Latin American regions. Moreover, the results suggest that land inequality accentuated illiteracy more among adults than younger ones. Land inequality acted as a barrier to literacy.

This study evaluates parental time investments in adolescents with disabilities relative to their siblings and to nondisabled youth in other families. Parents with several children must allocate time and attention to each, which may not be equal due to the challenges that arise from child disabilities, possibly reinforcing preexisting differences between siblings. In contrast, parents may seek to compensate for health deficiencies by allocating more parental time to a child with disabilities. Using the nationally representative American Time Use Survey (ATUS) (2008–2019) and ordinary least squares (OLS) regression to make across-family comparisons of parental time with disabled children relative to families in which no children had disabilities (N = 18,140), the study further focused on families with a disabled child and used fixed effects regression to evaluate within-family sibling comparisons of parental time investments (N = 648). Results indicate for families with a child with a disability, and parents spend the most one-on-one time with children who have disabilities and less one-on-one time with their other children. One-on-one time with children with disabilities is also higher than one-on-one time in families without children with disabilities. Differences were most pronounced in households in which a child had both cognitive and physical disabilities and in households in which no parent had a bachelor’s degree. Additional parental time for youth with disabilities aligns with theories of compensation and likely promotes development for these youth. Parental time investments may also be a plausible mechanism for explaining some difficulties experienced by siblings of disabled youth.

This study aims to examine the association between audit partner busyness and audit quality. Moreover, this research investigates whether boardroom gender diversity moderates the relationship between audit partner busyness and audit quality in Australia.

The study sample consists of all public companies listed on the Australian Stock Exchange from 2005 to 2014. The data is obtained from SIRCA and the Morning Star databases. The study uses fixed effects and logistic regression techniques to test the relationship between audit partner busyness, boardroom gender diversity and audit quality.

The collected empirical evidence shows that audit partner busyness is negatively associated with audit quality. In contrast, boardroom gender diversity moderates the relationship between audit partner busyness and audit quality. More specifically, the results suggest that board gender diversity mitigates the negative impact of audit partners’ busyness on the audit quality. The results are robust to endogeneity and alternative definitions of audit partner busyness, boardroom gender diversity and audit quality.

The study’s findings will be of interest to policymakers, regulators and investors in the Australian market. The results show the importance of gender-diverse boards in companies’ audit functions, particularly in the presence of busy audit partners, and hence support the call for more women on corporate boards in Australia. Moreover, the results call for a cap or upper limit on the number of clients an audit partner can take on based on their capacity.

The authors contribute to the growing literature on board gender diversity, audit partner busyness and audit quality. Although a plethora of prior literature suggests a negative association between audit partner busyness and audit quality, the results suggest that women in the boardroom positively moderate the relationship between audit partner busyness and audit quality.

The purpose of this study is to empirically investigate the role of dynamic capabilities, specifically the sequence of sensing, seizing, and transforming capabilities, in highly uncertain, emerging technology environments. Focusing on the extended reality industry, the study aims to understand the antecedents to these dynamic capabilities, their sequential nature, and their subsequent impact on innovation and company performance.

Based on a survey of 130 German companies in the extended reality sector, we built a structural equation model that explores the relationship between dynamic capabilities, their antecedents, and their effect on innovation and company performance.

The analysis suggests that sensing capabilities positively influence seizing and transforming capabilities, while seizing directly contributes to transforming. Transforming capabilities are linked to improved innovation performance, which in turn boosts company performance. Organizational ambidexterity, market orientation, and technology orientation are found to be crucial antecedents, accounting for 33.1% of the variance in sensing capabilities.

This research illuminates the interdependence of dynamic capabilities in highly uncertain business environments, such as emerging technology markets. It contributes original insights by elucidating the sequential nature of dynamic capabilities and identifying their vital antecedents. It also enlarges the understanding of how dynamic capabilities impact firms’ innovation performance.

This study aims to investigate how cultural factors – specifically power distance (PD) and uncertainty avoidance (UA) – affect employees’ use of neutralization techniques to rationalize deviant information systems (IS) behaviors. The goal is to enhance strategies for managing insider threats and improving security policies.

A cross-sectional survey was used to examine how national culture affects neutralization strategies related to IS misuse. A scenario-based survey was used to gather data from 292 employees, stressing four top ranked IS deviant behaviors in Ethiopian organizations. Using SmartPLS 4.0 software, the study validates measurement and structural models using partial least squares structural equation modeling. It then uses bootstrapping procedures to assess hypotheses that predict the use of justifications in situations of IS misuse.

The research finds that all four neutralization techniques – appeal to higher loyalty, claim of normalcy, defense of necessity and denial of responsibility – significantly predicted employees’ IS deviant use intention behaviors. PD and UA cultures also significantly influence IS deviant use intention, with neutralization techniques mediating this relationship, validating the model’s predictive relevance.

The reliance on self-reported data and a cross-sectional design may limit the accuracy and causal inference of the findings. Additionally, the focus on Ethiopian respondents may restrict generalizability, highlighting the need for research in diverse contexts. Future studies could explore longitudinal or experimental designs and examine neutralization techniques and knowledge management to understand IS security.

This study introduces a novel model illustrating how cultural values, such as PD and UA, influence employees’ use of neutralization techniques to justify deviant behavior in Ethiopian organizations. It emphasizes the mediating role of these techniques and the need for culturally tailored anti-neutralization strategies and effective security awareness programs.

The purpose of this study is to test for the mediating effect of debt literacy in the relationship between microcredit access and the survival of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) owned and operated by young women in rural sub-Saharan Africa post COVID-19.

This study uses a five-point Likert scale questionnaire to collect data from young women entrepreneurs with MSMEs located in rural northern Uganda. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and SmartPLS with bootstrapping are used to test the magnitude and level of the mediation effect as recommended by Baron and Kenny (1986) and Hair et al. (2022).

The results reveal that debt literacy increases the impact of microcredit on the survival of young women entrepreneurs with MSMEs in rural sub-Saharan Africa post COVID-19 based on data collected from rural northern Uganda.

A questionnaire was used to collect data for this study. Future studies could collect data using interviews and the experimental research design to evaluate the effect of debt literacy over time.

This study provides valuable insights on the importance of debt literacy in microcredit access and the survival of MSMEs. The results of this study can be used to inform policy and guide practitioners on how to integrate debt literacy into the national educational and literacy curriculum.

This study brings into the limelight the important role of debt literacy in helping young women microentrepreneurs learn to be more cautious when taking on future debts and helping them become more resilient in the post COVID-19 pandemic situation. This topic of debt literacy is limited in the microcredit literature and the theory of microfinance in rural Uganda post COVID-19.

The purpose of the paper is to discuss the potential of AI to impact organizational buying behavior. Potential impacts on organizational communication, Organizational Buying Center (OBC) structure and dynamics are discussed.

This research is conceptual in nature and uses narrative literature review to develop testable propositions derived from a technology overview and incorporates existing organizational buying behavior theory.

The article's conclusion suggests that significant changes are likely due to the adoption of AI. The nature of organizational buying is anticipated to undergo a shift toward increased reliance on AI-generated input. Additionally, it is expected that the size of OBCs may decrease, with reduced vertical and lateral involvement, while promoting greater coordination and less conflict among members.

This paper aims to conceptualize the effects of AI technology adoption on organizational buying situations and the structure and dynamics of OBCs. For practitioners, this conceptualization may equip them to navigate the impacts of the AI technological advancements effectively.

To determine which proxy institutional quality variables are most significant for a country’s economic growth, the paper aims to investigate the effect of institutional quality on economic growth in upper-middle-income African nations between 2002 and 2021.

In an attempt to account for countries' heterogeneity, the study uses a random and fixed effect model estimated by the generalized least squares.

The empirical findings demonstrate that the institutional quality measures of political stability, voice and accountability, corruption control and violence absence are statistically and favorably significant factors influencing the economic growth of upper-middle-income African countries.

This paper is unique in that it uses both random and fixed effects models to determine the effect of institutional quality on economic growth in the context of upper-middle-income African countries between 2002 and 2021.

As artificial intelligence (AI), big data, and the diverse interconnected systems transform the operations of industries worldwide, a significant mismatch between the skills taught by educational institutions and those demanded by the labour market emerges. In view of the urgency to close the gap resulted from digital transformation, this chapter thus delves into the challenges faced by industries in Malaysia. Particularly, it looks at how local institutions can bridge such gaps on one hand; while it also discusses how industries in Malaysia can remain competitive before discussing the skills new graduates and the existing workforce need to acquire on the other hand. The discussion will thus emphasize on technical skills, such as AI, data science, and cybersecurity, alongside employability skills, such as critical thinking, communication, and problem-solving. The chapter then examines the role of government interventions, including Malaysia’s Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) programmes and other global skill-development initiatives in addressing the skills gap. The role of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which often struggle to provide adequate training opportunities, is also accounted for. It focusses on government programmes which are aimed at supporting workforce development. To foster a future-proof workforce, this chapter then calls for a stronger alignment between educational curricula, industry needs, and government policies. By promoting digital competencies and lifelong learning, nations can be assured that their economies are being well-protected so that they can all thrive in the evolving global landscape driven by the Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR 4.0) technologies.