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This study aims to develop a theoretical framework that marketing practitioners and scholars can adopt to enhance their understanding of how firms can effectively deploy and use digital human avatars as part of their global digital marketing strategy. By doing so, we inform investors of ongoing digital transformations of marketing practices that will equip marketeers to provide scalable, tailored, reliable and relevant digital self-service interactions to users, consequently improving the user/customer experience.

Thematic analysis was used to discover factors to enable the successful implementation of digital human avatars, drawing on in-depth interviews with fourteen executives of digital human avatars developer companies worldwide and analysis of ten podcasts and webinars with artificial intelligence (AI) experts.

Digital human avatars revitalise the international dynamic marketing capabilities (IDMCs) of firms by integrating advanced technologies that transform user interactions, improve engagement and facilitate knowledge acquisition, dissemination and usage across various sectors and business units globally. This integration promotes a dynamic approach to international brands, customer relationships and marketing knowledge management capabilities, offering profound value to users and firms.

Our first limitation is a lack of diversity in data sources. As digital human avatars are an emerging field, we had to limit our study to 14 experts in AI and 10 podcasts. While this method provides deep insights into the perspectives of those directly involved in the development and implementation of digital human avatars, it may not capture the views of end-users or consumers who interact with these avatars, which can be an avenue for further research. Our second limitation is the potential bias in the interpretation of our interview data and podcasts. This study’s approach to data analysis, where themes are derived from the data itself, carries a risk of subjective interpretation by the researchers. Future studies are encouraged to investigate the impact of digital human avatars across different organisational contexts and ecosystems, especially focusing on how these technologies are integrated and perceived in various international markets.

The novel framework has direct implications for innovators and marketing practitioners who aim to adopt digital human avatars in their marketing practices to enhance the effectiveness of international marketing strategies.

The adoption of digital human avatars can alleviate loneliest elderly and vulnerable people by being a companion. The human-like characteristics can impact sense of presence and attachment.

The novelty of our study lies in exploring the characteristics of technologies and practical factors that maximise the successful adoption of digital human avatars. We advance and contribute to the emerging theory of avatar marketing, IDMCs and absorptive capacity by demonstrating how digital human avatars could be adopted as part of a firm’s global digital marketing strategy. We focus specifically on six dimensions: outcomes and benefits, enhancements and capabilities, applications and domains, future implications, foundational elements and challenges and considerations. This framework has direct implications for innovators and marketing practitioners who aim to adopt digital human avatars in their marketing practices to enhance the effectiveness of international marketing strategies.

We present a critical literature review debating Brazilian research on social and environmental accounting (SEA). The aim of this study is to understand the role of politics in the construction of hegemonies in SEA research in Brazil. In particular, we examine the role of hegemony in relation to the co-option of SEA literature and sustainability in the Brazilian context by the logic of development for economic growth in emerging economies. The methodological approach adopts a post-structural perspective that reflects Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory. The study employs a hermeneutical, rhetorical approach to understand and classify 352 Brazilian research articles on SEA. We employ Brown and Fraser’s (2006) categorizations of SEA literature to help in our analysis: the business case, the stakeholder–accountability approach, and the critical case. We argue that the business case is prominent in Brazilian studies. Second-stage analysis suggests that the major themes under discussion include measurement, consulting, and descriptive approach. We argue that these themes illustrate the degree of influence of the hegemonic politics relevant to emerging economics, as these themes predominantly concern economic growth and a capitalist context. This paper discusses trends and practices in the Brazilian literature on SEA and argues that the focus means that SEA avoids critical debates of the role of capitalist logics in an emerging economy concerning sustainability. We urge the Brazilian academy to understand the implications of its reifying agenda and engage, counter-hegemonically, in a social and political agenda beyond the hegemonic support of a particular set of capitalist interests.

This study aims to estimate the overall SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence and evaluate the accuracy of an antibody rapid test compared to a reference serological assay during a COVID-19 outbreak in a prison complex housing over 13,000 prisoners in Brasília.

The authors obtained a randomized, stratified representative sample of each prison unit and conducted a repeated serosurvey among prisoners between June and July 2020, using a lateral-flow immunochromatographic assay (LFIA). Samples were also retested using a chemiluminescence enzyme immunoassay (CLIA) to compare SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence and 21-days incidence, as well as to estimate the overall infection fatality rate (IFR) and determine the diagnostic accuracy of the LFIA test.

This study identified 485 eligible individuals and enrolled 460 participants. Baseline and 21-days follow-up seroprevalence were estimated at 52.0% (95% CI 44.9–59.0) and 56.7% (95% CI 48.2–65.3) with LFIA; and 80.7% (95% CI 74.1–87.3) and 81.1% (95% CI 74.4–87.8) with CLIA, with an overall IFR of 0.02%. There were 78.2% (95% CI 66.7–89.7) symptomatic individuals among the positive cases. Sensitivity and specificity of LFIA were estimated at 43.4% and 83.3% for IgM; 46.5% and 91.5% for IgG; and 59.1% and 77.3% for combined tests.

The authors found high seroprevalence of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies within the prison complex. The occurrence of asymptomatic infection highlights the importance of periodic mass testing in addition to case-finding of symptomatic individuals; however, the field performance of LFIA tests should be validated. This study recommends that vaccination strategies consider the inclusion of prisoners and prison staff in priority groups.

Some universities have a commitment to both academic education and sustainable development, and the sustainable development goals can support several sustainable actions that universities may take as principles and attitudes. From this perspective, the purpose of this study is to present environmentally sustainable practices at a federal university in Brazil and to analyze and discuss the potential environmental impacts associated with an environmentally sustainable practice implemented using life cycle assessment (LCA) and its benefits for the university’s decision-makers.

To accomplish that, the study combines a description of environmentally sustainable practices at the 13 campuses of the Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná (UTFPR) in terms of education, water and electricity consumption, waste management and emissions. As a result of this analysis, one campus identified that a high volume of disposable plastic cups were being disposed of, for which the use of reusable plastic cups was introduced. In addition, an LCA study (ISO 14040:2006 and 14044:2006) quantified the benefits of the introduction of said reusable plastic cups.

The results show that the university is working on environmentally sustainable initiatives and policies to become greener. At the same time, using a systematic LCA made it possible to measure that replacing disposable plastic cups for reusable ones reduced waste generation but increased water consumption on the campus. Faced with this, a sensitization was carried out to reduce water consumption. Finally, the current study provides lessons on the environmental performance to universities interested in sustainable practices, fostering perspectives for a better world. The findings of this study encourage organizations to accomplish environmental actions toward greener universities. The study shows that institutions need to be reflective and analytical about how even “greening” measures have impacts, which can be mitigated if necessary.

The sustainable practical implications were reported, and an LCA was conducted to assess potential environmental impacts of reusable plastic cups. It was identified that raw material production is the phase that generates most environmental impacts during the life cycle of the product, along with the consumer use phase, due to the quantity of water used to wash the reusable cups. In addition, the practical contributions of this study are to provide insights to institutions that aim to use environmental actions, i.e. suggestions of sustainable paths toward a greener university.

This is one of the first studies to investigate and discuss sustainable practices at UTFPR/Brazil. The study assessed one of the practices using a scientific technique (LCA) to assess the impacts of reusable plastic cups distributed to the students of one of the 13 campuses. Although there are other studies on LCA in the literature, the value of this study lies in expanding what has already been experienced/found on the use of LCA to assess environmental practices in university campuses.

The purpose of this paper is to study individual sustainability competencies and its linkage toward building innovation capabilities. This study explores the interrelations between individual-level competencies with organizational-level capabilities.

Thematic content analysis is used to analyze the qualitative interview data from 22 experts working in the sustainability departments of large corporations in India. The respondents were chief sustainability officers, sustainability managers or general managers responsible for driving sustainability in their organizations.

This study identifies individual sustainability competencies into two sets. First being cognitive competencies and the second being emotional competencies. The cognitive competencies identified are systems thinking, future orientation and perspective-taking (cognitive empathy). The affective or emotional competencies identified are connectedness to nature, sense of transcendence of time and empathic concern. The competencies enhanced innovation through the development of stakeholder capabilities and organizational learning capabilities.

This study provides new insight regarding the link between both cognitive and emotional competencies and organizational capabilities for innovation.

This study appraises the role of individual sustainability competencies on innovation. This study indicates the importance of developing sustainability competencies at the individual level to drive innovation.

This paper provides novel insights on sustainability competencies and its link with innovation. The conceptualization of competencies was made as cognitive and emotional skills. Furthermore, its relationship with innovation capabilities advance the understanding of the individual contribution to innovation.

This paper aims to present a systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis of research papers published on chat generative pre-trained transformer (ChatGPT), an OpenAI-developed large-scale generative language model. The study’s objective is to provide a comprehensive assessment of the present status of research on ChatGPT and identify current trends and themes in the literature.

A total of 328 research article data was extracted from Scopus for bibliometric analysis, to investigate publishing trends, productive countries and keyword analysis around the topic and 34 relevant research publications were selected for an in-depth systematic literature review.

The findings indicate that ChatGPT research is still in its early stages, with the current emphasis on applications such as natural language processing and understanding, dialogue systems, speech processing and recognition, learning systems, chatbots and response generation. The USA is at the forefront of publishing on this topic and new keywords, e.g. “patient care”, “medical”, “higher education” and so on are emerging themes around the topic.

These findings underscore the importance of ongoing research and development to address these limitations and ensure that ChatGPT is used responsibly and ethically. While systematic review research on ChatGPT heralds exciting opportunities, it also demands a careful understanding of its nuances to harness its potential effectively.

Overall, this study provides a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners interested in ChatGPT at this early stage and helps to identify the grey areas around this topic.

Virtually all contemporary scientific papers studying careers emphasize its changing nature. Indeed, careers have been changing during recent decades, for example becoming more complex and unpredictable. Furthermore, hallmarks of the new career – such as individual agency – are clearly increasing in importance in today’s labor market. This led the authors to ask the question of whether these changes are actually visible in the topics that career scholars research. In other words, the purpose of this paper is to discover the trending topics in careers.

To achieve this goal, the authors analyzed all published papers from four core career journals (i.e. Career Development International, Career Development Quarterly, Journal of Career Assessment, and Journal of Career Development) between 2012 and 2016. Using a five-step procedure involving three researchers, the authors formulated the 16 most trending topics.

Some traditional career topics are still quite popular today (e.g. career success as the #1 trending topic), whereas other topics have emerged during recent years (e.g. employability as the #3 trending topic). In addition, some topics that are closely related to career research – such as unemployment and job search – surprisingly turned out not to be a trending topic.

In reviewing all published papers in CDI, CDQ, JCA, and JCD between 2012 and 2016, the authors provide a unique overview of currently trending topics, and the authors compare this to the overall discourse on careers. In addition, the authors formulate key questions for future research.