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This paper aims to expand the emerging literature on COVID-19 and the financial markets by searching for a relationship between the uncertainty of the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic experienced through social media and the extreme volatility of the Italian stock market.

The authors analyze the relationship between social media and stock market trends during the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of social theory and Baudrillard's simulacra and hyperreality theory. The authors conducted the data analysis in two phases: the emotional and Granger correlation analysis by using the KPI6 software to analyze 3,275,588 tweets for the predominant emotion on each day and observe its relationship with the stock market.

The research results show a significant Granger causality relation between tweets on a particular day and the closing price of the FTSE MIB during the first phase of the COVID-19 epidemic. The results highlight a strong relationship between social media hyperreality and the real world. The study confirms the role of social media in predicting stock market volatility.

The findings have theoretical and practical implications as they reveal the relevance of social media in our society and its relationship with businesses and economies. In an emergency, social media, as an expression of users' feelings and emotions, can generate a state of hyperreality that is strong correlated with reality. Since social media allows users to publish and share messages without any filter and mediation, the hyperreality generated is affected by highly subjective elements.

This research is different from the previous ones on the same topic because unlike previous studies, conducted under normal or simulated scenarios, this study is focused on the first phase of an unpredictable and unforeseen emergency event: the COVID-19 pandemic. This research adopts a multidisciplinary approach and integrates previous studies on the economic and financial effects generated by social media by applying well-known theories to a new and unexplored context. The study reveals the significant impact generated by social media on stock markets during a global pandemic.

This paper introduces the second part of a AAAJ special issue on accounting, accountability and management during the COVID-19 emergency. The authors analyse the themes that emerge from the second part of the special issue, which allows us to identify the diverse accounting and accountability practices across different geographical and organisational contexts. The authors also provide an overall picture of the contributions of the special issue, with insights into avenues of future research.

Building on the first part of the AAAJ special issue, the paper draws together and identifies additional emerging themes related to research into the COVID-19 pandemic and how it impacts accounting, accountability and management practices. The authors reflect on the contributions of the special issue to the interdisciplinary accounting research project.

The authors identify two macro-themes and outline their contributions to the accounting literature. The first deals with the changes and dangers of accounting and accountability practices during the pandemic. The second considers accountability practices in a broader sense, including reporting, disclosure and rhetorical practices in the management of COVID-19.

The paper shows the pervasive role of accounting and accountability in the unprecedented and indiscriminate health crisis of COVID-19. It highlights the important role of special issues in producing timely research that responds to unfolding events.

This paper contributes to current debates on the roles of accounting and accountability during COVID-19 by drawing together the themes of the special issue and identifying future interdisciplinary accounting research on the pandemic's aftermath.

The role of microcomputers and their applications in industrial robotics is illustrated. The special case of an intelligent robot is examined in detail. The design of a microcomputer to be used for automatic spatial ordering of objects is presented, and the experimental results are briefly exposed and critically evaluated.

The purpose of this paper is to primarily focus on labor in maintenance areas, addressing human rights issues, labor standards and safety standards. The main issue is to investigate how these factors are considered to drive the prioritization of maintenance interventions within maintenance plans. In particular, a method for criticality analysis of production equipment is proposed considering specific labor issues like age and gender, which can be useful to steer maintenance plans toward a more social perspective.

The authors focus on the two main social issues of SA 8000 norms, age and gender, exploring how these issues may drive the selection of maintenance policies and the relative maintenance plans. The research is conducted through fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (AHP) implemented within a failure mode effects analysis (FMEA).

The research is conducted through fuzzy AHP implemented within a FMEA. The maintenance plans resulting from the FMEA driven by social issues are evaluated by a benchmark of three different scenarios. The results obtained allowed the firm to evaluate maintenance plans, considering the impact on workers’ health and safety, the environment, social issues like gender and age.

One of the main limitation of this research is that it should also encompass maintenance costs under social and safety perspective. The method developed should be extended by further study of maintenance planning decisions subject to budget constraints. Moreover, it would be worth evaluating the effect of adopting more proactive maintenance policies aimed at improving plant maintainability in view of what emerged during the test case in the presence of an aged workforce and the subsequent need to prevent and/or protect people from hidden risks.

With reference to the results obtained from the two models of this scenario, the authors observed an increase of equipment criticality, from B class to the A class, and similarly from C class to B class. No equipment has reduced its criticality. This depends on the particular context and the relative weights of drivers indicated in its AHP matrixes.

The paper addressed the main social implication as well as other social issues represented by age and gender factors, which are normally neglected. The Action Research (AR) proved the effects resulted from considering either gender factor or gender and age factors at the same time for maintenance policy selection. All in all, an increase of criticality is evident even if “people” is a driver with less importance than “environment” and “structures.”

The present work focussed on a new definition of a criticality ranking model to assign a maintenance policy to each component based on workers’ know-how and on their status. The approach is conceived by the application of a fuzzy logic structure and AHP to overcome uncertainties, which can rise during a decision process when there is a need to evaluate many criteria, ranging from economic to environmental and social dimensions.

The COVID-19 outbreak has profoundly plagued the world, and current health efforts are focused on providing prevention and ensuring access to intensive services for people with the most severe symptomatology. Many reports have already described substantial psychological distress in the general population. Nevertheless, disasters tend to affect vulnerable subjects disproportionately, and individuals with intellectual disabilities/autism spectrum disorder with high and very high support needs (PwID/ASD-HSN) seem to be counted among the hardest hit populations. The present paper aims to provide a comprehensive discussion and evaluation of COVID-19 related issues specific to PwID/ASD-HSN.

Commentary on available literature and analysis of new preliminary data on PwID/ASD-HSN’s physical and psychic vulnerability factors. This knowledge is fundamental to provide families and caregivers special advice to counteract the risks associated with the current pandemic.

PwID/ASD-HSN represent one of the most vulnerable population to the COVID-19 outbreak and the associated factors of mental distress for several reasons, including multimorbidity, low levels of health literacy, difficulties to understand and communicate, reliance on other people for care, low compliance with complex hygiene rules, the strong need of routine/sameness and low adaptive skills.

In the present work, the authors analyze the specific factors of physical and mental vulnerability in PwID/ASD-HSN, corroborating the dissertation with a discussion on the first data published worldwide and with preliminary data collected on the Italian territory for what concerns prevalence rates of COVID-19 and complications in persons with PwID/ASD-HSN and signs and symptoms of psychic distress during the mass quarantine period.

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.

The purpose of this article is to investigate factors related to the time students spent on remote activities during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in 2020. Specifically, it analyzes whether the school’s relationship with the family and the guardians’ support are associated with longer study times for children and youth.

This was performed using an ordered logit model on data from two waves of the survey Remote Education in the Perspective of Students and Their Families (PENP) with a nationally and regionally representative sample of Brazilian public school students.

Results show the importance of contact between the school and the family and, to a greater extent, the direct support of parents or guardians. The odds of learners spending more hours studying increase 36% when schools provide guidance for parents and guardians; in turn, when they provide support for students during activities, these odds increase 144%.

Moreover, students spend more time doing school activities in the later years of elementary school, high school and when they attend a state school.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a model for assessing the audit evidence of the going-concern (GC) assumptions underlying the preparation of financial statements.

This research analyses 678 audit opinions of Italian listed firms from 2007 to 2016 and uses a multiple linear discriminant analysis to create a GC score, which includes variables suggested by the international standards on auditing (ISA) 570 and by literature on GC.

The model provides three cut-off scores which can orient auditors towards issuing the most appropriate GC audit opinions (unmodified opinion, unmodified opinion, which includes emphases of matter, qualified opinion or disclaimer of opinion).

The development of the model is mainly based on public data and does not assess confidential information that is not disclosed in audit opinions.

This model can enable auditors to identify the most appropriate GC opinion and align auditor’s opinions in similar circumstances, thereby reducing their reliance on discretion and increasing the reliability of their judgement with a higher degree of accuracy. Moreover, this research lists additional events or conditions that may individually or collectively cast significant doubt on GC assumptions.

This study goes beyond the traditional decision-making process, apparently binary in nature, between “continuity” and “failure” or between “unmodified” and “modified” opinions. It is conceived to detect the different degrees of uncertainty that affect GC evaluations to orient auditors’ professional judgements.

Are radically novel practices more likely to attract recognition when the evaluating audience is composed of external evaluators? Our baseline argument asserts that radical novelty is more likely to be positively evaluated by an external audience and that peripheral (rather than core) producers have higher incentives to adopt novel practices that depart from tradition. Yet, because peripheral producers often lack the necessary support and legitimacy to promote novelty, audiences play a critical role in recognizing their innovative efforts. How can peripheral producers mitigate the challenges associated with novelty recognition? To answer this question, we explore how peripheral producers’ collaboration with acclaimed consultants affects the process of external audience recognition in the context of the Italian wine field from 1997 to 2006. Our findings suggest that radical novelty is positively received by an external audience composed of critics, although we do not find a significant difference between core and peripheral producers. However, external audiences are more open to recognizing peripheral producers’ use of novel practices when they collaborate with well-connected consultants. We find that the use of central consultants produces a “boosting” effect that accentuates the differences between evaluations of peripheral producers who embrace novelty and evaluations of those that follow the tradition. Our study thus advances theory by providing empirical evidence of the value of considering third-party actors such as consultants, who sit at the nexus between the agency required for innovation and external audiences’ recognition of novelty, when studying novelty evaluation and recognition.