Search results

As it is known, the accounting information system (AIS) plays a significant role in the business ecosystem by recording and processing financial and accounting data and reporting the produced information to all relevant parties for decision-making. However, its used methods and systems, including double-entry bookkeeping and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, have limitations, especially in terms of trust and reliability concerns for stakeholders and the possible scope for records manipulation and fraud. The application of blockchain technology is believed to enhance the reliability of the AIS and addresses many of its current limitations. Blockchain can offer numerous benefits if used to manage AIS functions through enhanced trust, reliability, and transparency, increased efficiency, reduced costs and fraud, improved accounting information quality and real-time accounting. Nevertheless, the adoption and implementation of blockchain in the AIS are associated with several technical and nontechnical challenges which are not easy to address and could limit the wide technology adoption in the immediate future. Considering that a full understanding of the benefits and challenges of adopting blockchain in the AIS still needs more clarification, this chapter examines blockchain technology and its implications for the AIS. It reviews blockchain characteristics and its benefits to the AIS, discusses its possible integration into the AIS, outlines adoption and implementation challenges, and suggests critical avenues for future research.

With the launch of the Feminist International Assistance Policy (FIAP), the Canadian government named solidarity as a shared value and a driving motivation behind the FIAP. This paper explores how development workers understand and apply solidarity to their work, uncovering the opportunities and constraints they face.

In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 42 development workers from Canada’s federal development agency between 2019 and 2020. Transcribed data were coded by the author to identify how workers made sense of solidarity within the development industry.

The majority of workers were unsure of how to define or operationalize solidarity, demonstrating confusion. Commonality was routinely mentioned as a facet of solidarity, but workers understood this term in diverse ways, with some considering commonality as a precondition that inhibited a sense of solidarity with development partners in the global South due to differences in living conditions. About a quarter identified power and privilege as necessary considerations in the process of building solidarity, showing potential for bonds across the inequalities that define development. About 40% of workers identified the institutional structure of the organization as an obstacle to solidarity.

This paper presents original data from Canadian development workers, providing the first study of their understanding of solidarity as a development ethic. It shows the gaps between rhetoric and practice while recommending ways for development organizations to meaningfully engage with solidarity in their work.

Drawing on value cocreation, this study examines health-care customers’ perceptions of patient-centered care (PCC) in hospital and online primary care settings. This study aims to address how are the key principles of PCC related, how the relationships between key PCC principles and outcomes (subjective well-being and service satisfaction) vary depending on the channel providing the care (hospital/online primary care) and what differences are placed on the involvement of family and friends in these different settings by health-care customers.

This study comprises four samples of health-care customers (Sample 1 n = 272, Sample 2 n = 278, Sample 3 n = 275 and Sample 4 n = 297) totaling 1,122 respondents. This study models four key principles of PCC: service providers respecting health-care customers’ values, needs and preferences; collaborative resources of the multi-disciplinary care team; health-care customers actively collaborating with their own resources; and health-care customers involving family and friends, explicating which principles of PCC have positive effects on outcomes: subjective well-being and service satisfaction.

Findings confirm that health-care customers want to feel respected by service providers, use their own resources to actively collaborate in their care and have multi-disciplinary teams coordinating and integrating their care. However, contrary to prior findings, for online primary care, service providers respecting customers’ values needs and preferences do not translate into health-care customers actively collaborating with their own resources. Further, involving family and friends has mixed results for online primary care. In that setting, this study finds that involving family and friends only positively impacts service satisfaction, when care is provided using video and not voice only.

By identifying which PCC principles influence the health-care customer experience most, this research shows policymakers where they should invest resources to achieve beneficial outcomes for health-care customers, service providers and society, thus advancing current thinking and practice.

This research provides a health-care customer perspective on PCC and shows how the resources of the health-care system can activate the health-care customer’s own resources. It further shows the role of technology in online care, where it alters how care is experienced by the health-care customer.

Work–life conflict (WLC) is widely recognized as having a significant negative impact on construction management. This research seeks to pinpoint the factors contributing to WLC and review how pandemics impact work–life balance specifically within the construction industry.

A comprehensive literature review was carried out to establish a structured framework and theoretical model addressing WLC in construction. The Hunter–Schmidt meta-analysis paradigm, a robust technique based on the random-effects model, was employed to evaluate this framework due to its efficacy of correcting error.

The results indicate the significant relationships between WLC and several factors, including social support, work demands, job autonomy and schedule control, and role blurring. Conversely, the impact of co-worker support remains ambiguous, as evidenced by the broad confidence intervals.

This study introduces a novel theoretical framework for analyzing WLC within the construction sector, addressing sector-specific challenges such as irregular work hours and high-pressure environments. Moreover, it offers practical recommendations for improving health and safety performance in the construction industry.