Antonia Egli, Theo Lynn, Pierangelo Rosati and Gary Sinclair
Automated social media messaging tactics can undermine trust in health institutions and public health advice. As such, we examine automated software programs (ASPs) and social…
Abstract
Purpose
Automated social media messaging tactics can undermine trust in health institutions and public health advice. As such, we examine automated software programs (ASPs) and social bots in the Twitter anti-vaccine discourse before and after the release of COVID-19 vaccines.
Design/methodology/approach
We compare two Twitter datasets comprising user accounts and associated English-language tweets featuring the keywords “#antivaxx” or “anti-vaxx.” The first dataset, from 2018 (pre-COVID vaccine), includes 3,154 user accounts and 6,380 tweets. The second comprises 327,067 accounts and 545,268 tweets published during the 12 months following December 1, 2020 (post-COVID vaccine). Using Information Laundering Theory (ILT), the datasets were examined manually and through user analytics and machine learning to identify activity, visibility, verification status, vaccine position, and ASP or bot technology use.
Findings
The post-COVID vaccine dataset showed an increase in highly probable bot accounts (31.09%) and anti-vaccine accounts. However, both datasets were dominated by pro-vaccine accounts; most highly active (59%) and highly visible (50%) accounts classified as probable bots were pro-vaccine.
Originality/value
This research is the first to compare bot behaviors in the “#antivaxx” discourse before and after the release of COVID-19 vaccines. The prevalence of mostly benevolent probable bot accounts suggests a potential overstatement of the threat posed by anti-vaccine accounts using ASPs or bot technologies. By highlighting bots as intermediaries that disseminate both pro- and anti-vaccine content, we extend ILT by identifying a benevolent variant and offering insights into bots as “pathways” to generating mainstream information.
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Belverd E. Needles, Mark L. Frigo, Marian Powers and Anton Shigaev
Prior research shows that companies that achieve high performance excel at certain financial objectives. This chapter addresses the question: Do companies that excel at these…
Abstract
Purpose
Prior research shows that companies that achieve high performance excel at certain financial objectives. This chapter addresses the question: Do companies that excel at these financial performance objectives also excel in integrated reporting and sustainability reporting?
Methodology/approach
We compare a sample of high performance companies (HPC) with a sample of companies that purport to support integrated reporting, and a sample that purport to support sustainability reporting. Our hypotheses are that HPC will equal or exceed the integrated reporting and sustainability reporting practices shown by International Integrated Reporting Committee (IIRC) and Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) companies and US companies will be less at these practices than non-US companies.
Findings
Our findings indicate that IIRC companies and GRI companies generally do not meet the high financial performance measures of the HPC. Based on an integrated reporting and sustainability reporting matrix, we show that HPC exhibit equal performance on the practices of sustainability and integrated reporting compared to GRI companies, but both HPC and GRI are lower on these practices than IIRC companies. Also, US companies disclose less information in sustainability reports and integrated reports as compared to non-US companies. Overall, all three groups fall short of full compliance with standards of integrated reporting and sustainability reporting.
Originality/value
This chapter provides evidence as to the financial performance and the current state of integrated reporting and sustainability reporting among HPC, GRI, and IIRC companies. This chapter highlights the global need for a generally accepted set of standards for sustainability and integrated reporting practices.
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Belverd E. Needles, Marian Powers, Mark L. Frigo and Anton Shigaev
This study establishes a baseline evaluation of sustainability reporting (SR) and integrated reporting (IR) practices among groups of companies globally using a combined…
Abstract
This study establishes a baseline evaluation of sustainability reporting (SR) and integrated reporting (IR) practices among groups of companies globally using a combined evaluation matrix. We evaluate a sample of high performance companies (HPC), global reporting initiative (GRI) companies, international integrated reporting committee (IIRC) companies, and a control group of companies that do not belong to any of these groups. We test for high performance and compliance with a 30-point evaluation matrix for financial reporting, corporate governance, integrated disclosure, SR, and assurance developed from the standards set by GRI and IIRC. This chapter provides evidence as to the current IR and SR states, and shows that considerable variation exists even among companies that have pledged to improve reporting in this arena. The analysis also shows that companies that belong to no special group do in fact score on a level that shows that SR and IR standards are being implemented by many companies in the world, not just those in special groups like the HPC, GRI, and IIRC. Finally, this study provides direction for global regulators and professional associations, and to the management of companies that aspire to HPC status while meeting the IR and SR standards.
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Derek Adam‐Smith, David Goss, Adele Sinclair, Gary Rees and Karen Meudell
The issue of AIDS/HIV is currently a concern of many employingorganizations. Considers the contextual factors which surround AIDS as aworkplace issue in terms of legislation…
Abstract
The issue of AIDS/HIV is currently a concern of many employing organizations. Considers the contextual factors which surround AIDS as a workplace issue in terms of legislation, state policy, and trade union and employer positions. This is followed by an analysis of current UK corporate AIDS policies. Identifies two approaches to policy formulation: definsive and humanistic. The former regards AIDS/HIV largely in instrumental terms whereas the latter frames the issue as one of social justice and responsibility. Considers the implications of each position and explores the prospects for future research and practice.
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The way of thought and vision and memory is that they often come upon you unexpectedly, presenting nothing new but usually with a clarity and emphasis that it all seems new. This…
Abstract
The way of thought and vision and memory is that they often come upon you unexpectedly, presenting nothing new but usually with a clarity and emphasis that it all seems new. This will sometimes happen after a long period of indecision or when things are extremely difficult, as they have long been for the country, in most homes and among ordinary individuals. Watching one's life savings dwindle away, the nest‐egg laid down for security in an uncertain world, is a frightening process. This has happened to the nation, once the richest in the world, and ot its elderly people, most of them taught the habit of saving in early youth. We are also taught that what has been is past changing; the clock cannot be put back, and the largesse—much of it going to unprincipled spongers—distributed by a spendthrift Government as token relief is no answer, not even to present difficulties. The response can only come by a change of heart in those whose brutal selfishness have caused it all; and this may be a long time in coming. In the meantime, it is a useful exercise to consider our assets, to recognize those which must be protected at all costs and upon which, when sanity returns, the future depends.
Salem Buhashima Abdalla, Emad Mushtaha, Mamun Rashid, Alex Opoku, Rawan Hamad, Fikri Dweiri and Abbas Elmualim
This paper aims to identify the pre-design critical success factors CSFs pertaining to different types of construction projects in the rapidly growing city of Dubai, by adopting…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to identify the pre-design critical success factors CSFs pertaining to different types of construction projects in the rapidly growing city of Dubai, by adopting one of the multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) tools, analytic hierarchy process (AHP).
Design/methodology/approach
A mapping process was utilized to filter and categorize CSFs gathered from a literature review. A total of 5 main and 27 sub-main criteria were derived following RIBA's Plan of Work 2020 (Royal Institute of British Architects). A questionnaire was distributed among experts in the construction industry to assess the development in vicinity of the Sheikh Zayed Road (SZR). An analysis was conducted to prioritize the CSFs as per experts' judgment.
Findings
According to the experts' combined judgment, CSFs linked to client requirements (CR) are the most significant at 22.9% priority weight. Overall project review (OPR), project team (PT), project preparation (PP), previous projects feedback and experience (PPF) success factors achieved 21.4, 19.5, 18.9 and 17.2%, respectively. Within CR, sub-CSFs of client consultation and acceptance (CCA), responsibly matrix for stakeholders (RM), client track record (CTR) and client level of service (CLS) were prioritized by the experts.
Research limitations/implications
This work was carried out by respondents based in UAE only, and focused on one urban stretch of Dubai, this could be replicated by employing experts from other countries and other case study areas within Dubai.
Practical implications
This study would significantly have an impact on the education of current and future project managers, planners, engineers, architects and, most importantly, decision-makers on helpful pre-design strategies for enhancing their project success. This research could assist, direct and educate management, as the management provides/manages the necessary resources for projects. Furthermore, management also has the authority to choose project leaders/consultants that will make the project successful.
Social implications
Consolidating Dubai's phenomenal growth requires prioritizing socio-economic strategies in future development projects at the pre-design and pre-construction stage, which will improve the city's business environment and the quality of life for Dubai's residents. This opens up fresh possibilities over the next few years for integrating robust procedures for successful execution, monitoring and evaluation of future construction developments from the outset.
Originality/value
Although many studies have identified various factors as important for successful building projects, few appear to have done a complete analysis using pre-design criteria to systematically categorize professional views on the relative relevance of CSFs. There is a lack in research examining the factors that led to Dubai's successful construction projects. This study attempts to bridge this gap and provide a prioritized framework reference model to assist project/asset managers and decision-makers.
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Expanding on Harris and Sinclair (2014, p. 5) claim that “the writing of a play is an act of inquiry”, this paper aims to consider the joyful entanglements, messiness and…
Abstract
Purpose
Expanding on Harris and Sinclair (2014, p. 5) claim that “the writing of a play is an act of inquiry”, this paper aims to consider the joyful entanglements, messiness and friction-led use of creative methods within the context of a PhD in education studies.
Design/methodology/approach
Amplifying the voices of both doctoral student and supervisor, the authors explain how the construction of a dramatic script informed the crafting of an alternative format thesis within which “the play’s the thing” (Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2). In responding to the influence of creativity in the lives of both the student and the supervisor, the paper uses creative and reflective writing as a method of inquiry to explore how practice and procedure are navigated in relation to non-standard theses submissions.
Findings
The authors find that academic expectancy continues to influence the structure, form and presentation of the PhD thesis and argue that enduring tensions surrounding the reverence of “tradition” impact the application and nature of creativity.
Originality/value
The piece aims to examine the multiple challenges faced but, importantly, highlights how the creative partnership between supervisor and student has forged changes in contemporary doctoral education in the awarding institution and the implications for future practice within doctoral education more broadly.
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It is widely accepted among critical human–animal scholars that an absolute ontological distinction between humans and animals, the human–animal dualism, is an ideological…
Abstract
It is widely accepted among critical human–animal scholars that an absolute ontological distinction between humans and animals, the human–animal dualism, is an ideological construction. However, even some of the most radical animalists make use of a softer version of it when they explain animal exploitation and domination in capitalism. By criticizing the reintroduction of the human–animal dualism through the back door, I reopen the terrain for a historical–materialist explanation of bourgeois animal exploitation and domination that does not conceptualize them as a matter of species in the first place. Rather, with reference and in analogy to ecosocialist arguments on the greenhouse effect, it is demonstrated that a specific faction of capital – animal capital – which uses animals and animal products as means of production, is the root cause, key agent, and main profiteer of animal exploitation and domination in the current mode of production. Thus, the reworked concept of animal capital presented here differs from the original, postoperaist notion introduced by Nicole Shukin since it is based on a classic sociorelational and value theoretical understanding of capitalism. According to this approach, animals are integrated socioeconomically into the capitalist class society via a relation of superexploitation to capital, which can be called the capital–animal relation.
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Gary E. Gorman and Rowena Cullen
This paper discusses evolving trends in library co‐operation against the backdrop of practices in various Asian countries. Having first reviewed the rationale for co‐operation and…
Abstract
This paper discusses evolving trends in library co‐operation against the backdrop of practices in various Asian countries. Having first reviewed the rationale for co‐operation and both barriers and positive factors, the authors then present an overview of various models for co‐operation, a discussion of key features in successful co‐operative ventures and viewpoints on how such ventures might be managed.