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This chapter reviews Internet of Things (IoT) as a concept with bibliometric analysis using data selected from the Scopus database. The cited references included two clusters. Also, co-occurrence keyword analysis found four groups. The first cluster shows IoT adoption in agriculture, manufacturing, logistics, and supply chain management. The second cluster includes behavioral models of IoT technology acceptance. The third cluster refers to the adoption of IoT and automation technology in intelligent buildings, smart homes, smart cities, and health care. Finally, the fourth cluster contains information management.

Supply chain management (SCM) has evolved to fulfill the demands of the dynamic global business environment. The development of the Internet of Things (IoT), which offers unmatched connectivity and real-time data insights, has further transformed SCM. This chapter provides an overview of SCM development and its integration with IoTs. This integration led to improved inventory control, supply chain optimization (SCO), and visibility which further enhances the conventional SCM and provides benefits, such as more accurate real-time tracking and monitoring, improved data analytics, more efficient logistics and transportation management, and reduced costs and wastages. However, despite these benefits, there are various associated challenges and concerns, like privacy and data security, compatibility and interoperability, implementation costs, returns on investment, trained workforce, and training requirements, which are required to be addressed. Additionally, the outcomes of this study and managerial implications are provided along with the future research scope. Overall, this chapter provides valuable insight into the transformative potential of IoT in SCM and practical suggestions on how managers can successfully navigate difficulties and get benefits from the IoT-SCM integration. Organizations can enhance their supply chain operations, efficiency, and innovation by actively confronting challenges and taking advantage of the opportunities provided by IoT technologies. This will ultimately result in the delivery of greater value to both stakeholders and customers.

While oft-ignored, grievances remain a central part of revolutions. We argue that the theorization of grievances requires conceptually unpacking specific complaints and relating them to mobilizing mechanisms. We thus focus on one set of grievances – corruption – that is especially prevalent in 21st century revolutionary episodes. Drawing on prior conceptualizations of corruption, we hypothesize that four different configurations of corruption influence five different mechanisms of contention. First, everyday street-level corruption creates the potential for sudden and spontaneous protest and creates the basis for widespread, coalitional mobilization. Second, institutional corruption focuses attention on the regime to make it a target of revolutionary claims. Third, competition among elites creates the potential for cross-class alliances but may forestall durable sociopolitical change and, in some cases, even allow for authoritarian consolidation of power through anti-corruption drives. We illustrate these dynamics through one clearly successful case of revolution in Tunisia in 2011, one case of mixed results from political revolution in Ukraine from 2004 to 2014, and a negative case of revolution in China since 2013.

In recent years, a shift in economic focus has occurred, recognizing humans as the primary resource and indispensable element in economic relationships. This shift has given rise to a new economic model known as the knowledge-based economy, which places emphasis on human resources, experiences, skills, ideas, and knowledge generation. The knowledge-based economy relies heavily on information as a strategic commodity to enhance services and national income while increasing employment rates. This economic model has found application across various fields, including education, commerce, medicine, and urban planning. Particularly, the concept of smart cities has emerged as a modern notion linking the knowledge-based economy with urban development. Despite global interest in these concepts, the literature suggests a lack of attention to the knowledge-based economy and smart cities in the Arab Gulf region, including Qatar. This chapter aims to explore the relationship between smart city initiatives and the transformational processes of the knowledge-based economy, especially in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries like Qatar. It argues that smart cities and the knowledge-based economy are mutually interdependent. Smart city initiatives rely on the information and knowledge produced by the knowledge-based economy, while the latter requires better utilization of knowledge by smart applications to flourish. Using the case of Lusail smart city in Qatar, the chapter examines how the integration of smart city technologies contributes to Qatar’s progression toward a knowledge-based economy. It emphasizes the strategic significance, facilitation of innovation, and practical implementation of sustainable urban development strategies in Qatar’s development trajectory.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) has a critical role in boosting agricultural productivity and the growth of emerging economies. The relationship between FDI inflows and environmental factors has not received much attention in identifying its impact on agricultural output. Using annual time series data from 1990 to 2023, this study examines the causal association and short- and long-run effects of FDI inflows, forest coverage and CO2 emissions on the agricultural productivity of the India, China and US (ICU) economies. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) results confirmed that FDI inflows have a significant and positive impact on Indian and Chinese agriculture productivity, whereas CO2 emissions adversely affect US agriculture productivity in the long run. In the short run, CO2 emissions led to agricultural productivity in both China and the US economies. The bound test and error correction model (ECM) result also confirmed the long-run connection and convergence of the equilibrium path among the studied variables except India. The findings of the Granger causality test showed a unidirectional causal link between agriculture productivity and FDI inflows and forest coverage in India and a bidirectional causal link between CO2 emission and agricultural yield and forest coverage and CO2 emission in the Chinese agriculture sector. The study also revealed a unidirectional causal association between forest coverage and agricultural output and between FDI, CO2 emissions and forest coverage in the US agriculture sector. Policymakers were advised to encourage FDI in the agriculture sector and expand the use of environment-friendly technology to decrease carbon emissions and promote forest coverage for sustainable growth and higher agricultural production.

The purpose of our study is to investigate the effects of politically-connected boards (PCBs) on over-(under-)investment in labor. We also examine the impacts of the supervisory board (SB)’s optimal tenure on the association between PCBs and over-investment in labor.

We constructed the proxy for PCBs using a dummy variable set to 1 (one) if a firm has politically-connected boards and zero (0) otherwise. For the robustness check, we used the number of politically-connected members on the boards as the proxy for PCBs.

We find that the presence of PCBs reduces over-investment in labor. Consistent with our prediction, we found no significant association between PCBs and under-investment in labor. We also find that the SB with optimal tenure strengthens the negative association between PCBs and over-investment in labor. In our channel analysis, we find that the presence of PCB mitigates over-investment in labor through a higher dividend payout ratio.

Due to the unavailability of data in firms’ annual reports regarding the number of poorly-skilled and highly skilled employees, we were not able to examine the effect of low-skilled and high-skilled employees on over-investment in labor. Also, we were not able to examine over-(under-)investment in labor by drawing a distinction between general (generalist) and firm-specific human capital (specialist) as suggested by Sevcenko, Wu, and Kacperczyk (2022). Generally, it is more difficult for managers to hire highly-skilled employees, specialists in particular, thereby driving the choice of either over- or under-investing in the labor forces. In addition, in the firms’ annual reports, there is no information regarding temporary employees. Therefore, if and when such data become available, this would provide another avenue for future research.

Our study offers several practical implications and insights to stakeholders (e.g. insiders or management, shareholders, investors, analysts and creditors) in the following ways. First, our study highlights significant differences between capital investment and labor investment. For instance, labor investment is considered an expense rather than an asset (Wyatt, 2008) because, although such investment is human capital and is not recognized on the firm’s balance sheet (Boon et al., 2017). In addition, labor investment is characterized by: its flexibility which enables firms to make frequent adjustments (Hamermesh, 1995; Dixit & Pindyck, 2012; Aksin et al., 2015), its non-homogeneity since every employee is unique (Luo et al., 2020), its direct impact on morale and productivity of a firm (Azadegan et al., 2013; Mishina et al., 2004; Tatikonda et al., 2013), and its financial outlay which affects the ongoing cash flows of a firm (Sualihu et al., 2021; Khedmati et al., 2020; Merz & Yashiv, 2007). Second, our findings reveal that the presence of PCBs could help to reduce over-investment in labor. However, if managers of a firm choose to under-invest in labor in order to obtain better profit in the short-term through cost saving, they should be aware of the potential consequences of facing a financial loss when a new business opportunity suddenly arises which requires a larger labor force. Third, our findings help stakeholders to re-focus on the labor investment. This is crucial due to the fact that labor investment is often neglected by those stakeholders because the expenditure of labor investment is not recognized on the firm’s balance sheet as an asset. Instead, it is written off as an expense in the firm’s income statement. Fourth, our findings also provide insightful information to stakeholders, suggesting that an SB with optimal tenure is more committed to a firm, and this factor plays an important role in strengthening the negative association between PCBs and over-investment in labor.

First, our findings provide a valuable understanding of the effects of PCBs on over-(under-)investment in labor. Stakeholders could use information disclosed in the financial statements of a publicly-listed firm to determine the extent of the firm’s investment in labor and PCBs, and compare this information with similar firms in the same industry sector. Second, our findings give a better understanding of the association between investment in labor and political connections , which are human and social capital that could determine the long-term survival and success of a firm. Third, for shareholders, the appointment of board members with political connections is an important strategic decision to build political capital, which is likely to have a long-term impact on the financial performance of a firm; therefore, it requires thoughtful consultation with firm insiders.

Our findings highlight the role of PCBs in reducing over-investment in labor. These findings are significant because both investment in labor and political connections as human and social capital can play an important role in determining the long-term survival and success of a firm.

Managing public ‘affect’ was a critical component of Aotearoa New Zealand's COVID-19 policy approach, which was predicated on collective emotional feelings of calmness, compassion and trust. A long history of health promotion efforts have involved co-opting children as tools to manipulate (adult) public affect towards motivating behavioural change or accepting health interventions. Little research has yet considered the consequences of objectifying children for affect management in the name of public health. The Pandemic Generation study compared the perspectives of Auckland children aged 7–11, generated through co-drawing comics about their pandemic experience, with a critical discourse analysis of children's representation in New Zealand COVID-19 public health messaging. In this chapter, I argue that by leveraging performative care for children to manipulate an adult public affect, the New Zealand government erased children's subjectivities, their care-giving roles and contributions, further disenfranchising children as members of the ‘public’ in public health.

This paper aims to examine the congruency effects of physically embodied robots in service encounters, which addressed a significant research gap concerning the synthesis of robot design elements (e.g., appearance and voice) and their service purposes.

Grounded in congruity theory and human-robot interaction literature, this study conducted a pretest and two experimental studies revealing the need to view robot design holistically and recognizing the pivotal role of congruity in shaping consumers’ service robot adoption. The moderating role of service purposes (utilitarian vs hedonic) was also investigated in terms of robot design and consumer reactions.

Consumers generally tend to favor robots with congruent designs, particularly for utilitarian service purposes. The serial mediation through perceived congruence and perceived intelligence explains such a favorite tendency.

This study advances service robot design research by highlighting the critical role of congruity in enhancing consumer engagement. It supports the use of comprehensive, congruent designs for services with utilitarian purposes and recommends adaptable designs for hedonic settings.

This study addressed the research gap by examining service robot design from a holistic perspective. The research findings highlight the importance of congruency effects in service robot design and deployment and provide valuable insights and guidelines to industry practitioners for optimal investment in service robots.

Corporate site visits increase labor investment efficiency.

Our empirical model for the baseline analysis follows those of Jung et al. (2014) and Ghaly et al. (2020).

We show that corporate site visits are associated with significantly higher labor investment efficiency; more specifically, site visits reduce both over-hiring and under-hiring of employees. The effect of site visits on labor investment efficiency is more pronounced for firms with higher labor adjustment costs, greater financial constraints, weaker corporate governance and lower financial reporting quality. We also find that site visits mitigate labor cost stickiness.

First, while the literature has suggested how the presence of institutional investors and analysts may affect labor investment decisions, we focus on institutional investors and analysts’ activities and interactions with firm executives. We provide direct evidence that institutional investors and analysts may use corporate site visits to improve labor investment efficiency. Second, our study adds to a line of recent studies on how corporate site visits reduce information asymmetry and agency conflicts. We show that corporate site visits allow institutional investors and analysts to influence labor investment efficiency. We also provide new evidence that corporate site visits reduce labor cost stickiness.

The study aims to examine the extent of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure of Canadian cannabis firms and how they view responsibility. It also explores how cannabis firms build their CSR-based organizational identity through Twitter.

Deductive and inductive content analyses were carried through on tweets for a sample of 18 firms listed on the Canadian marijuana index during the legalization period of the recreational use of cannabis.

The results of this study show that cannabis firms approach responsibility by focusing on consumer and community/local development and by raising awareness and providing product information. The findings also highlight that the firms build their organizational identity mainly around their products’ medical benefits, the scientific efforts behind product development and the continual stigmatization they experience. At the industry level, cannabis firms attempt to build a harmonized identity to neutralize stigma.

This study allowed for a comprehensive understanding on how cannabis firms position themselves within an emergent sin industry and how they create their CSR identity through Twitter. It advances our understanding on the meaning of responsibility about the specific and distinctive features of the cannabis industry. From the methodology side, this study developed two content analysis tools: a coding instrument and a dictionary. These tools could be useful for conducting future studies related to the CSR disclosure of cannabis firms worldwide.