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The paper aims to examine the impact of social capital on the size of the shadow economy in the BIRCS countries over the period 1995–2014.

The authors employ the Bayesian linear regression method to uncover the relationship between social capital and the shadow economy. The method applies a normal distribution for the prior probability distribution while the posterior distribution is determined using the Markov chain Monte Carlo technique.

The results indicate that the unemployment rate and tax burden positively affect the size of the shadow economy. By contrast, corruption control and trade openness are negatively associated with the development of this informal sector. Moreover, the paper's primary finding is that social capital represented by social trust and tax morale can hinder the size of the shadow economy.

This study is limited to the case of the BRICS countries for the period 1995–2014. The determinants of the shadow economy in different groups of countries can be heterogeneous. Moreover, social capital is a multidimensional concept that may consist of various components. This difficulty of measuring the social capital calls for further research on the relationship between other dimensions of social capital and the shadow economy.

Many studies investigate the effect of economic factors on the size of the shadow economy. This paper applies a new approach to discover the issue. Notably, the authors use the Bayesian linear regression method to analyze the relationship between social capital and the shadow economy in the BRICS countries.

This study examines the influence of stock liquidity on stock price crash risk and the moderating role of institutional blockholders in Vietnam’s stock market.

Crash risk is measured by the negative coefficient of skewness of firm-specific weekly returns (NCSKEW) and the down-to-up volatility of firm-specific weekly stock returns (DUVOL). Liquidity is measured by adjusted Amihud illiquidity. The two-stage least squares method is used to address endogeneity issues.

Using firm-level data from Vietnam, we find that crash risk increases with stock liquidity. The relationship is stronger in firms owned by institutional blockholders. Moreover, intensive selling by institutional blockholders in the future will positively moderate the relationship between liquidity and crash risk.

Since stock liquidity could exacerbate crash risk through institutional blockholder trading, firm managers should avoid bad news accumulation and practice timely information disclosures. Investors should be mindful of the risk associated with liquidity and blockholder trading.

We contribute to the literature by showing that the activities of blockholders could partly explain the relationship between liquidity and crash risk. High liquidity encourages blockholders to exit upon receiving private bad news.

Engaging learners is one of the most important responsibilities of an educator. Finding opportunities to connect with individuals in a meaningful way is a powerful tool, particularly for leadership educators. The purpose of the study was to determine whether there were any statistically significant relationships between different demographic groups and core self-evaluations among a sample of adult agricultural leadership development program participants. The results of the study found that gender, educational attainment, and geographic region were not statistically significantly related to core self-evaluations. However, there was a statistically significant difference between groups in both the age and organizational level demographic clusters. A recommendation is for educators to use the findings as a starting point to inform learning interventions and to strive to accommodate the needs of individual learners accordingly.

With the advancement of technology, microlearning has emerged as a promising method to improve the efficacy of teaching and learning. This study aims to investigate the document types, volume, growth trajectory, geographic contribution, coauthor relationships, prominent authors, research groups, influential documents and publication outlets in the microlearning literature.

We adapt the PRISMA guidelines to assess the eligibility of 297 Scopus-indexed documents from 2002 to 2021. Each was manually labeled by educational level. Descriptive statistics and science mapping were conducted to highlight relevant objects and their patterns in the knowledge base.

This study confirms the increasing trend of microlearning publications over the last two decades, with conference papers dominating the microlearning literature (178 documents, 59.86%). Despite global contributions, a concentrated effort from scholars in 15 countries (22.39%) yielded 68.8% of all documents, while the remaining papers were dispersed across 52 other nations (77.61%). Another significant finding is that most documents pertain to three educational level categories: lifelong learning, higher education and all educational levels. In addition, this research highlights six key themes in the microlearning domain, encompassing (1) Design and evaluation of mobile learning, (2) Microlearning adaptation in MOOCs, (3) Language teaching and learning, (4) Workflow of a microlearning system, (5) Microlearning content design, (6) Health competence and health behaviors. Other aspects analyzed in this study include the most prominent authors, research groups, documents and references.

The finding represents all topics at various educational levels to offer a comprehensive view of the knowledge base.

Single-party regimes increasingly use Subnational Performance Assessments (SPAs) – rankings of provinces and districts – to improve governance outcomes. SPAs assemble and publicize information on local government performance to facilitate monitoring and generate competition among officials. However, the evidence are sparse on their effects in this context. The authors argue that built-in incentive structures in centralized single-party regimes distort the positive impact of SPAs.

The staggered rollout of the Vietnam Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI) created a natural experiment. Due to 2010 budget constraints, the first iteration of the PAPI survey covered only 30 of Vietnam’s 63 provinces before covering all in 2011. The PAPI team used matching procedures to identify a statistical twin for each province before randomly selecting one from each pair. The authors use randomization inference to compare the outcomes of these control and treatment groups in 2011.

Exposure to PAPI helped improve almost all aspects of governance; however, significant evidence of prioritization bias exist. The positive effects only persisted for the dimension of administrative procedures, which was the one area of governance that was prioritized by the central government at the time. Other dimensions only registered short-term effects.

Our study provides an examination of the impact of SPAs in a single-party regime context. In addition, the authors leverage the natural experiment to identify information effects causally. The authors also look past short-term effects to compare outcomes for five years after the treatment occurred.

This study examines the efficiency dynamics of public health service providers in Colombia between 2010 and 2021. In order to achieve this objective, a data panel is utilized to assess the effectiveness of 841 institutions across three levels of complexity (1, 2 and 3) in providing patient care, taking into account user satisfaction from 2010 to 2021.

By employing growth mixture analysis (GMA) and other statistical techniques, we may identify unique efficiency profiles among hospitals with different levels of complexity.

The results demonstrate varied efficiency patterns, with certain profiles generally retaining or improving efficiency over time, while others observe fluctuations or reductions. Efficiency outcomes are significantly impacted by factors such as capital investment, operational costs and workforce mix. Efficiency levels can be improved by making strategic investments in capital infrastructure and implementing effective operational cost management.

Changes in the healthcare market conditions in recent years in Colombia have compelled healthcare providers (IPS) to transform themselves into sustainable organizations.

Based on the importance of E-accounting, the purpose of this study is to investigate the determinants influencing information technology and E-accounting among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

A survey method was used to select the sample among SMEs in Oman. Using descriptive statistics, the impact of the determinants on E-accounting practices in SMEs in Oman were tested.

The findings reveal that except information technology (IT) cost, all other possible determinants (IT risk, employee IT skills and employee theoretical knowledge) has a significant influence on E-accounting practice among SMEs.

The link between variables of this study was not analyzed in Oman. Moreover, this study only concentrated on the impact of the fourth determinants, while in reality, there must be other determinants that should also be investigated by other researchers.

This study has added to the literature by examining the E-accounting practices while evaluating the effect of IT determinants on the relationship. Besides, this might add benefits to many SMEs relating to their current accounting practice that might lead to adopting E-accounting practice to ensure application of applicable accounting standards to show fair financial statements to its stakeholders.

This current study is one of the first works in the context of Oman. It has added a new discussion to the body of knowledge in light of the IT determinants and their relationship with E-accounting practices; hence, an approach that is not widely discussed in the literature. Furthermore, conducting such research in the field of accounting provides new insight into the literature among both emerging and developed economies including Oman.

This paper aims to prove the following hypothesis Problem Statement: HYPOTHESIS (1) User Experience collection of mobile applications can be done using the Crowdsourcing mechanism; (2) User Experience collection of mobile applications are influenced by the mindset of Crowdmembers, culture/ethnicity/social background, ease of interface use and rewards, among other factors.

The authors of this paper, did a literature review first to find if Crowdsourcing was applicable and a used method to solve problems in Software Engineering. This helped us to narrow down the application of Crowdsourcing to the Requirements Engineering-Usability (User Experience) collection. User experience collection of two Malayalam language-based mobile applications, AarogyaSetu and BevQ was done as the next step. Incorporating findings from Study I, another study using AarogyaSetu and Manglish was launched as Study II. The results from both cases were consolidated and analyzed. Significant concerns relating to expectations of Crowd members with User Experience collection were unraveled and the purpose of Study was accomplished.

(1) Crowdsourcing is and can be used in Software Engineering activities. (2) Crowd members have expectations (motivating factors) of User Interface and other elements that enable them to be an effective contributor. (3) An individual’s environment and mindset (character) are influential in him becoming a contributor in Crowdsourcing. (4) Culture and social practices of a region strongly affects the crowd-participating decision of an individual.

This is purely self-done work. The value of this research work is two-fold. Crowdsourcing is endorsed significant in Software Engineering tasks, especially in User Experience collection of mobile applications. Two, the Crowd service requesters can be careful about designing the questionnaire for Crowdsourcing. They have to be aware and prepared to meet the expectations of the Crowd. This can ensure the active participation of potential contributors. Future researchers can use the results of this work to base their research on similar purposes.