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Nowadays, the use of WCMS (web content management systems) is widespread. The conversion of this infrastructure into its semantic equivalent (semantic WCMS) is a critical issue, as this enables the benefits of the semantic web to be extended. The purpose of this paper is to present a FLERSA (Flexible Range Semantic Annotation) for flexible range semantic annotation.

A FLERSA is presented as a user‐centred annotation tool for Web content expressed in natural language. The tool has been built in order to illustrate how a WCMS called Joomla! can be converted into its semantic equivalent.

The development of the tool shows that it is possible to build a semantic WCMS through a combination of semantic components and other resources such as ontologies and emergence technologies, including XML, RDF, RDFa and OWL.

The paper provides a starting‐point for further research in which the principles and techniques of the FLERSA tool can be applied to any WCMS.

The tool allows both manual and automatic semantic annotations, as well as providing enhanced search capabilities. For manual annotation, a new flexible range markup technique is used, based on the RDFa standard, to support the evolution of annotated Web documents more effectively than XPointer. For automatic annotation, a hybrid approach based on machine learning techniques (Vector‐Space Model + n‐grams) is used to determine the concepts that the content of a Web document deals with (from an ontology which provides a taxonomy), based on previous annotations that are used as a training corpus.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse three dimensions of leadership behaviour in professional environments by disclosing the specific competency profile developed by those who actually lead in work organizations.

Using data from a graduate survey oriented to provide evidence on the transition from higher education to labour market, a structural equations model (SEM) is specified and estimated to explain leadership behaviour at work in terms of the competency profile developed by individuals and its determinants. The competency profile behind leadership behaviour is the combination of two elements: the competency accumulated through professional experience and the competency profile of individuals five years before, which was partially a result of higher education. The relationships are tested on two subsamples of graduates from engineering and business/economics fields, and on a sample of graduates from all study fields.

Estimates show evidence of significant direct and indirect effects of a specific competency profile on three connected dimensions of leadership behaviour at work: tasks, relations and change. The results show direct effects of competency profiles at the time of graduation on competency profiles five years later, and of specific higher education ways of teaching and learning on competency profiles at the time of graduation. The effects are also significant by field of study with slight differences on estimates size and on the composition of effects.

The analysis brings together leadership behaviour, competency development and education production literatures to help scholars and managers to better understand the relationships between the process of competency development and individual leadership behaviour in working environments.

The purpose of the present study is to determine how the cash conversion cycle (CCC) affects the financial performance of manufacturing companies in Bangladesh.

The authors have collected data of 61 Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE)-listed firms from the 10 distinct manufacturing industries of Bangladesh for 18 years, from 2003 to 2020. The data have been analyzed through the two-steps system generalized method of moment (GMM) regression model, using profitability indicators return on asset (ROA) and earnings per share (EPS) as dependent variables, while CCC has been used as the independent variable, whereas asset turnover (ATO) and financial leverage (LEV) were used as control variables to assess the relationship between the CCC and financial performance.

The findings indicated that CCC has a negative connection with profitability – ROA and EPS, with the connection between CCC and EPS being highly significant. This indicates that reducing the inventory conversion time, reducing the period of receivable collection and making payments to creditors with potential delays might help Bangladeshi manufacturing firms boost their profitability. In addition, the firm-specific characteristics, namely ATO and LEV significantly affect the firm's profitability.

The research was based only on secondary sources and information was scarce. This research was conducted to determine the impact of the CCC on the corporate profitability of the manufacturing sector solely. There might be many other working capital variables that are still unexplored through this study.

The current study's findings are consistent with the traditional rule that minimizing the firm's days of the cash cycle may optimize financial performance. The results of this research have added to the existing body of knowledge on the topic of working capital management (WCM). Future research endeavors can be initiated for assessing the impact of the CCC on the firm's profitability in other industrial sectors or to identify other working capital variables that have much impact on corporate profitability.

This study is an original work of the researchers and adds value to the current literature in the domain of WCM and corporate profitability. The present study is the first one that covers firms in all the manufacturing industries in Bangladesh. The corporate managers, creditors, investors and other concerned stakeholders will be benefited from the findings of the present study.

The purpose of this study is to examine determinants of profitability of non-financial firms listed small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK from 2012 till 2020. It has been argued that profitability plays a key role in economic development and growth. Despite the important role that SMEs play in developed economies like UK, academic research into SMEs profitability determinants in developed countries is not extensive.

The methodologies used include dynamic panel data estimation techniques. Relationship of nine independent variables with profitability was examined. Two models are created using return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE) as dependent variables. Size, age, efficiency, working capital, liquidity, leverage and volatility of the firm represent firm-specific independent variables. Two macroeconomic variables, namely, gross domestic product and inflation are also used as independent variables. Data obtained from Thomson Reuters Data Stream for 93 listed SMEs companies in the UK from 2012 to 2020. Fixed effects, random effects and generalized method of moments were used in data analysis.

All variables showed significant influence on profitability, except liquidity reflecting insignificant impact on profitability in two regression models conducted for 93 firms under study. Efficiency, liquidity and leverage are the only three independent variables with similar impact on both ROA and ROE.

Identifying determinants of profitability will help stakeholders and corporate executive make sound decisions to ensure sustainability and stability at the firm level. This is particularly important given the key role played by SMEs in economic development and growth. The findings of this study would help direct financial management practices to ensure a favorable sustainable organizational performance.

This study differs from previous studies that focused mainly on developing countries; with limited research conducted on profitability of SMEs in developed economies. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study to examine factors influencing profitability of SMEs in UK. Previous studies concentrated on service sector like insurance and hotel firms.

We have come to a point where the common way to characterise what is taking place presently, or, better yet, for the past almost two years, is with the term ‘pandemic’. The task of this chapter is to bring to awareness certain critical reflections with the hope of disturbing the normalised discourse which excepts the authentic meaning of pandemic, a meaning which affects the totality of the human existence. Following the thoughts of Agamben, Baudrillard, and Heidegger, the hypothesis that this chapter is advancing revolves around the idea that the term ‘pandemic’ has been appropriated by biological thinking excepting its authentic meaning, that is, the ultimate reality of the human existence which is death.

This paper aims to practically guide privacy impact assessment (PIA) implementation by proposing a PIA process incorporating best practices from existing PIA guidelines and privacy research.

This paper critically reviews and assesses generic PIA methods proposed by related research, data protection authorities and standard’s organizations, to identify best practices and practically support PIA practitioners. To address identified gaps, best practices from privacy literature are proposed.

This paper proposes a PIA process based on best practices, as well as an evaluation framework for existing PIA guidelines, focusing on practical support to PIA practitioners.

The proposed PIA process facilitates PIA practitioners in organizing and implementing PIA projects. This paper also provides an evaluation framework, comprising a comprehensive set of 17 criteria, for PIA practitioners to assess whether PIA methods/guidelines can adequately support requirements of their PIA projects (e.g. special legal framework and needs for PIA project organization guidance).

This research extends PIA guidelines (e.g. ISO 29134) by providing comprehensive and practical guidance to PIA practitioners. The proposed PIA process is based on best practices identified from evaluation of nine commonly used PIA methods, enriched with guidelines from privacy literature, to accommodate gaps and support tasks that were found to be inadequately described or lacking practical guidance.

In recent years, there has been much debate about the value generated by the firms’ investments in information technology (IT). Although literature suggests that technology itself will rarely create superiority, web infrastructure can be critical for knowledge sharing and the formation of virtual teams to execute innovation processes which, in turn, may enhance e-innovation and business value. Building on these antecedents, the purpose of this paper is to explore whether and how web infrastructure and e-innovation can create business value by complementing each other.

Based on the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm this paper develops a conceptual model to assess the effects of web infrastructure and e-innovation on business value as well as the complementarity between these resources. To test the associated hypotheses, a regression model was estimated and tested on a large sample of Spanish firms from different industries.

The results show that web infrastructure is not positively related to business value, but on the contrary e-innovation has a positive impact on business value. However, support for complementarity between web infrastructure and e-innovation was not found.

The present study tests the RBV logic, arguing that not all IT resources are source of competitive advantage. In the same vein, this study shows that e-innovation, as it requires combination of IT infrastructure with other unique intangible resources, is much more difficult to imitate, leading to competitive advantages.