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The significance of cloud services in information technology (IT) is increasing as a means of achieving enhanced productivity, efficiency and cost reduction. Through cloud-based service, the reliability and scalability of an organization’s systems can be enhanced since organizations such as local governments are able to concentrate on their main business strategies. This research seeks to identify critical factors that may have an impact on the acceptance of cloud-based services, where the organizational context is based on local governments in Australia.

To formulate a more comprehensive IT innovation adoption model for cloud technology, factors from the technology-organizational-environment framework, desires framework and diffusion of innovation model were integrated. Data was obtained from 480 IT staff working in 47 local government organizations.

The research results show that the factors which had a statistically significant and positive impact on the adoption of cloud-based services in local governments were compatibility, complexity, cost, security concerns, expected benefits and organization size. It is likely that the outcomes from this research will provide insights to any organization seeking to make investment decisions on the adoption of cloud-based services.

Limitations include generalizability of the findings since the data is restricted to local government areas in Queensland, Australia. Further, the sample mostly included individuals with managerial positions and may not completely capture the cloud adoption factors relevant for front line IT employees. Another limitation is the possible omission of factors that may be relevant but not considered due to the selected theories. Lastly, this research did not differentiate between different types of cloud adoption such as private, public, community and hybrid models that are possible in this context.

The paper provides a combination framework of cloud-based service adoption based on a literature review on cloud adoption from an IS perspective. It adapts integrated model to establish a more comprehensive innovation adoption framework for cloud technology.

The main purpose of this research study is to investigate and examine the factors that might influence the intention to adopt and use mobile payment and their relationships during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This research study used both mobile payment adoption literature, The Technology Adoption Model and Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology, to propose a conceptual framework for mobile payment adoption. Quantitative method is used in which 306 participants responded to an online survey to validate the proposed conceptual framework.

The introduced integrated model embraced perceived risk, transaction transparency, mobile payment usefulness, social influence, performance expectation as independent variables and usage continuation intention to adopt mobile payment as the dependent variable. The results from data analysis have statistically revealed significant relationships and a positive impact of perceived risk, mobile payment usefulness, social influence and performance expectation. Also, the results identified a negative impact for the transaction transparency factor. As this research study is conducted at a later stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, it adds value to the existing literature by providing insights to business managers on the factors influencing mobile payment usage and other implications related to increasing the market potential for businesses in the new normality of the coronavirus pandemic.

This paper offers a combination conceptual framework of mobile payment adoption based on a literature review on mobile payment adoption from information systems perspective. It adapts integrated model to establish a more comprehensive innovation adoption framework for mobile payment.

Due to the eruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, many universities were forced to shift from the traditional learning practices to digital learning. Hence, the purpose of this study is to evaluate the factors that affect the university student's adoption of mobile technologies for mobile learning (m-learning) in their learning process.

Technology acceptance model (TAM) is incorporated to study the adoption of mobile learning by university students. Quantitative research technique is used as core research approach in this study. Structural equation modelling (SEM), which is a part of quantitative research method, was employed on the congregated data via a set of questionnaire from 268 University students. SEM is used to explore the relationships among the hypothesized constructs. SPSS and AMOS software were used for the analysis of data.

This study validated the updated TAM model and assessed the students' adoption of mobile technologies for m-learning during COVID-19. All the constructs of proposed model were found to be significant with more than 50% average variance extracted. It was found that two external constructs mobile system efficacy and mobile service efficacy appended in technology acceptance model show the direct positive effect on perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use constructs. However, hypothesized relationships were found to be unsupported among perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. Furthermore, perceived usefulness and ease of use during m-learning impact the students' usage attitude which consequently impact the students' adoption behaviour towards adoption of mobile technology.

Six constructs were considered for this study; however, mobile information quality for mobile learning was not included which could affect students' adoption criteria. Additionally, this study is limited to a country where future study needs validation of propose constructs in different demographic settings.

No study allied to the students' adoption of mobile technology for m-learning has accomplished in the context of India during COVID-19. Furthermore, TAM model has been updated with regard to the students' adoption of mobile learning during COVID-19 in Indian higher education setting.

Realistic data bank of aerodynamic and stability derivatives is still missing for hybrid buoyant aerial vehicles. Such vehicles take-off and land similar to an aircraft with their partial weight balanced by the aerostatic lift. The purpose of this paper is to use wind tunnel testing for a better understanding of the aerodynamic and static stability behavior of such vehicles.

The effect of wing on the aerodynamic and static stability characteristics of a clean configuration hybrid buoyant is analyzed. The free stream velocity is 20 m/s, and ranges of angle of attack and side slip angle are from −8° to 12° and ±16°, respectively. Data are corrected to account for the effect of strut interference and zero load condition. The maximum blockage of the model with respect to the cross-section area of the test section is about 2.7 per cent.

A hybrid model manufactured by using wood and metal is an optimum solution with less number of parts. The vehicle is statically, longitudinally and directionally stable. Wings designed to fulfill the partial requirement of lift contribute significantly to counter the huge moment generated by the voluminous hull for centre of gravity location ahead of the leading edge of the wing.

There are number of manufacturing constraints for scaling down a model of a hybrid buoyant aerial vehicle configuration. Specially, the thickness of the wing limits the testing envelop of angle of attack and free stream velocity.

The data presented here are a preliminary guide for further work on larger size models. The data may also be used to build and perform flight tests on small full-scale instrumented models and to obtain flight dynamics data.

The estimated aerodynamic and stability derivatives and slopes can be utilized in future for multidisciplinary design.

This paper makes a novel attempt to estimate the potential impact of credit risk on foreign direct investment (FDI hereafter), thereby focusing on a completely unexplored area in the existing empirical literature.

To provide a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between credit risk and FDI inflows, the study incorporates all the eight-member economies of the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC hereafter) and analyzes a panel data set, over the period 2011 to 2019, extracted from the World Development Indicators, using the suitable econometric techniques for the efficient estimations of the specified models.

The results indicate a negative and statistically significant relationship between the credit risk of the banking sectors and FDI inflows. Similarly, market size and inflation rate appear to be the two other main factors behind the increasing FDI inflows in the SAARC member economies. Interestingly, the size of the market became irrelevant in attracting FDI inflows when the Indian economy is excluded from the sample due to its higher economic weight. On the other hand, FDI inflows are not dependent on the level of trade openness, with most of the specifications showing either an insignificant or negative coefficient of the variable.

The obtained results are unique and robust to alternative methodologies, and hence, the SAARC economies could consider them as the critical inputs in formulating the appropriate policies on FDI inflows.

The findings are unique and original. The authors have established a relationship between credit risk and FDI for the first time in the SAARC context.

This paper empirically examines the impact of terrorism on the insurance–growth relationship in the context of Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, thereby attempting to address the unexplored area in the relevant literature.

The study considered MENA as it has been one of the terribly affected zones in the world during the study period. Panel data for the period (2002–2017) are sourced from reliable sources for 14 member economies of the MENA region.

After employing the suitable econometric procedures on the panel data, the results indicate that terrorism appears to have detrimental impact on the observed positive relationship between insurance and economic growth. In addition, trade openness seems to be the main driving force behind economic growth of the selected MENA countries. Surprisingly, the study suggests a negative association between the growth of physical capital and economic growth. Human capital has played a positive but insignificant role in improving economic growth as it is insignificant in majority of the specifications. The growth of labor force has although positively but insignificantly influenced economic growth. Finally, the results demonstrate that government expenditures and high inflation are harmful for growth.

The study investigated the impact of terrorism on the insurance–growth relationship for the first time, and hence policymakers of the MENA region are expected to be benefited enormously from the findings of the study.

This study aims to investigate the drivers and challenges of integrated reporting (IR) adoption in the Hungarian SME context.

The study uses qualitative methods to conduct an in-depth analysis of small and medium enterprises’ (SMEs) drivers and challenges of IR adoption through semi-structured interviews. Further, the results of the interview are supported by content analysis.

The research highlighted the drivers for IR adoption, including growing the company’s customer base, attracting new investors, boosting competitiveness and increasing the company’s market value by improving the long-, medium- and short-term value creation. Nonetheless, the organizational transformation required to implement IR, a lack of qualified human resources, weak administrative control and poor documentation all serve as impediments to Hungarian SMEs implementing IR. Consequently, the current IR framework needs further clarification and simplification to be practical for SMEs. Integrated thinking, value creation, materiality and stakeholder engagement are the concepts that have been identified as being unclear or inapplicable for SMEs.

Furthermore, the practical implications for standard-setters, regulators and companies may help in the future in mitigating barriers, pushing companies to learn more about the benefits and risks of adopting IR.

The study is one of the few that examines the drivers and challenges of IR adoption in SMEs and responds to several academic requests for IR research on the reasons why SMEs do not participate in IR adoption. Also, the study compiles and evaluates the previous literature’s drivers and challenges for IR adoption. Furthermore, the practical implications for standard-setters, regulators and companies may help in the future in mitigating barriers, pushing companies to learn more about the benefits and risks of adopting IR.

The aim of this study is to evaluate the adoption and quality of integrated reports in the European Union (EU).

The sample consists of 147 listed firms from the 18 EU countries during 2013–2020. This study creates a disclosure index – based on the balanced scorecard (BSC) that reflects the information content of integrated reports. The content analysis method is used to measure the integrated reporting quality (IRQ).

The findings demonstrate that the IRQ increased across the study’s time frame, going from 49.3% in 2013 to 77% in 2020. Furthermore, financial disclosures still get the most attention in the integrated reporting (IR), followed by learning and growth perspective disclosures. In addition, businesses in the financial and industrial sectors rely more on integrated reports. However, the utility sector has the highest IRQ score. By country, Spain has the highest rate of IR adoption, followed by France. Other countries, such as Austria and Hungary, have only implemented IR by one company each.

This study adds to the IR literature a new approach to measure IRQ by linking BSC with the IR framework. Empirically, businesses of any size can use this method to assess the degree of balance between the revealed financial and nonfinancial information in their reports.

Empirically, this study helps IR practitioners in determining how widely IR is used in Europe and in updating the database on the IR website. It helps them update and improve the IR framework by identifying the elements that have the least transparency and quality, investigating the causes and enhancing them.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine the IRQ in EU countries by linking the BSC with IR elements. This is to split the elements into their own pillars, making it easier to track disclosure and evaluate the corporations’ interest in revealing these perspectives, on their own and collectively.

This study aims to explore the status and drivers (including free-floated shares, board size, rule duality and board independence) of corporate risk disclosure (CRD) for the conventional listed banks in the Egyptian stock market from 2010 to 2021, which include the country’s major political upheavals and the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study based on a sample of 117 annual reports of sampled banks from 2010 to 2021. RD index of Al-Maghzom (2016) was developed and adopted to quantify CRD using an unweighted scoring system. The multiple linear regression model was used to validate the hypotheses.

The analysis shows that the COVID-19 pandemic increased insignificantly disclosure of all risks except for segment risks. In addition, findings reveal that all sampled banks adhere highly to the requirements of mandatory RD, with a low level of adherence to voluntary RD. Moreover, the analysis concluded that the board size and free-floating shares positively affect the disclosure of financial, operational, general information.

The study’s limitations include the content analysis methodology, reliance on annual reports, emphasis on financial and non-financial risks, focus on listed conventional banks in Egypt.

Current study’s findings are more likely to be useful for many parties. It informs investors about the characteristics of the boards’ directors of Egyptian listed banks that disclosed risk information. Banks should disclose more comprehensive risk information. For academics, the current study’s limitations can be considered in their future research.

This work fills a new research area in which there is relatively little research in emerging financial markets that adds new evidence to the relationship between RD and both free-floating shares and board characteristics, particularly in Egypt.

While previous strategy research has provided significant attention to resource slack and its important roles in firm performance, particularly through strategic agility and flexibility in responding to environmental conditions, the majority of such theory and empirical work was developed for large business contexts. Therefore, the understanding of the relative contributions of absorbed and potential slack, particularly for resource-constrained small businesses, remains largely under theorized and unexamined. As many small businesses often face internal resource limitations, the ability to access external resources, in addition to internal resources, is likely significant, for firm performance, especially when small firms face high economic uncertainty. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In this paper the authors utilize a data set from National Federation of Independent Business on small business economic trends. The sample consists of approximately 13,000 US-based small and medium businesses.

The findings highlight the importance of resource slack in firm performance offering general support for the applicability of classic management theories to the small business context. Environmental hostility and competitive intensity appear to positively moderate the observed relationship between both absorbed and potential resource slack and performance, but in different ways. Environmental hostility positively moderates the relationship between potential slack and firm performance, while competitive intensity positively moderates the relationship between absorbed slack and firm performance.

Because most classic theories in strategic management were only theorized for, and examined through, large organizations, entrepreneurship research should consider these potential limitations and carefully consider factors differing between large and small firms.

Business owners and managers should be aware that not all types of slack have equal performance implications. Absorbed slack is extremely valuable in highly competitive situation. Therefore, business owners should develop plans to recover absorbed slack during highly competitive situations as a defensive strategy. One the other hand, potential slack forces more accountability, which lowers the possibility of small firms using it to engage in price wars, but it is extremely valuable during worsening economic conditions.

In this paper the authors separate absorbed slack from potential slack conceptually and then test their individual effects on firm performance. Through this study, the authors establish boundary conditions for the important role of resource slack on performance through the moderating roles of environmental hostility and competitive intensity.