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This paper compares governmental accounting and budgeting in two European Union (EU) member states, analysing the developments in each country as to how they “fit” into the EU's harmonization project and the push towards the implementation of accrual accounting compliant with the International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS).

An explanatory multiple case study is used to describe the structures and changes in governmental systems (accounting and budgetary) in Malta and Poland. The methodology takes a qualitative interpretative approach, examining the underlying legislations and related ministerial publications as secondary sources.

Focusing on the output from financial accounting and budgetary systems, the results illustrate how organizations respond in a different manner to similar institutional pressures. In particular, Poland shows no inclination to adopt the IPSAS, but emerges with a sophisticated budgeting system while Malta is more focused on developing its financial reporting in line with the IPSAS. The theoretical lens highlights that while both countries tend towards pragmatic legitimacy, Poland appears more inclined towards exchange legitimacy, and Malta is more subject to influence legitimacy.

At a practical level, this study should be read by public sector accounting standard setters. It illustrates how EU member states are engaging with the IPSAS, emphasizing the ambitious nature of the EU's harmonization project, in spite of the structural legitimacy that the EU institution emanates.

Previous comparative international governmental accounting studies have examined accounting reform processes and developed or applied various theoretical models to try to understand the process. This study looks at the output from such reform processes. The two countries are seemingly experiencing the same type of pressures exerted by the demands of EU membership. However, the translation of the same external macro-forces at macro-level to micro (organizational)-level results in different compliance with the desired harmonization of governmental accounting systems.

It has been a decade, as the collaboration between the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC) and the Ghana Library Authority (GhLA) to extend information and communication technology (ICT) and library services to rural deprived, unserved and underserved communities in Ghana dubbed the library connectivity project. This paper aims to evaluate this initiative from the perspective of relevant key stakeholders and through the lens of the digital inclusion model.

The study adopted a qualitative approach to evaluate the library connectivity project offered to deprived communities in the Upper East Region of Ghana. Interviews were conducted with the head librarians, ICT teachers and school librarians. Focus group discussions were held with pupils from four beneficiary schools of the project. The researchers also witnessed four of the outreach programmes and training sessions and observed the mode of instruction.

The study brought to fore the enormous benefits of the library connectivity project as it aided school pupils to acquire practical ICT skills, which were found to be useful towards their final exam. Despite the enormous benefit of the project, it was bereft with a lot of challenges such as inadequate logistics and personnel thereby restricting the project to very few schools. Low staff motivation and unmotorable roads were also found to be a challenge, which could all be as a result of lack of funds.

The paper underscores the importance of computer and information literacy and reveals how the GhLA is using innovative mobile library services to bridge the digital divide through the library connectivity project.

This paper makes a further contribution to the paucity of literature on the role of mobile libraries in the promotion of computer and information literacy.

The significant contribution and relevance of Comparative and International Education (CIE) mainly depends on how closely it studies the interplay between society and education, considering what is dubbed as the global and the local. Many CIE studies including critical reviews seems to dwell on the topic, purpose, conceptual, and methodological aspects of the field, magnifying what appears to be the global. Our understanding of the role particular sociocultural, economic, and political contexts play in education seems inconclusive. Using appropriate analytical frameworks that delineate society–education dynamics, this study further problematizes the comparative and international elements of CIE area studies, with a focus on context analysis. The critical review considers area studies published over the last seven years in leading CIE journals and answers this question: How and to what extent do CIE area studies operationalize context analysis? The aim is not so much to bring consensus but to further highlight tensions and issues in conducting context-sensitive comparative and international education studies. The findings indicate that CIE research over the last seven years does not seem to live up to the expectation of producing meaningfully contextualized knowledge. The role of context analysis in CIE research seems ill defined and practiced. Alternative explanations for this and considerations for further scholarship are discussed.

This study aims to examine the effects of risk disclosure and call to action (i.e. encouraging individuals to consult a health provider before they make any purchase decision) on young adults’ cognitive and behavioral responses to dietary supplement advertising.

A 2 (risk disclosure: absence vs presence) × 2 (call to action: absence vs presence) between-subjects online experiment was conducted with 124 college-attending young adults.

Including risk disclosure in probiotic supplement advertising increased young adults’ perceived message credibility, intentions to ask a medical doctor and sense of confidence in decision-making. The addition of call to action in probiotic supplement advertising improved perceived message credibility, trust in advertised brand, favorable attitude toward brand, intention to ask a medical doctor and purchase intention; however, a significant joint effect was not found between risk disclosure and call to action.

Although risk disclosure and call to action are significant techniques in pharmaceutical and health-care marketing, they have been overlooked by both research and practice of dietary supplement marketing. This study closes this gap by providing empirical evidence to generate a clear idea about the benefits of including risk disclosure and call to action in dietary supplement advertising.

Scarcity appeals in advertising can increase consumer purchase intentions. This study aims to examine the impact of different online scarcity message appeals and the association with consumer attitudes for functional and symbolic aspects of vitamins and supplements.

This survey of 789 participants evaluated the scarcity appeals of high-demand message, limited-time message, low-stock message and countdown timer and the association with consumer attitudes for functional and symbolic aspects of vitamins and supplements.

The results showed that high-demand messages as compared to regular advertising messages was significantly associated with increased functional and symbolic scale scores. African Americans, Hispanics and Asian/Asian Americans were each significantly associated with increased functional and symbolic scale scores as compared whites. Advertising deception of veracity was significantly negatively associated with symbolic scale score but not associated with functional scale score. Advertising deception of ethical was significantly positively associated with symbolic scale score but not associated with functional scale score.

In conclusion, high-demand messages may be a particularly useful type of scarcity appeal to use in online advertising for vitamins and supplements.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study of online advertising message scarcity types and how they are associated with consumers attitudes for functional and symbolic aspects of vitamins and supplements.

This study investigated how consumers' confidence in medicine and health information seeking and usage could be related to purchase intentions and satisfaction.

A panel of 18 food supplements consumers were interviewed using soft laddering. Qualitative data were coded and used to develop a structured survey. Participants (N = 363) were recruited on a voluntary basis among the customers of an Italian company in this sector. Hypotheses were tested by linear regressions and generalized models.

Results showed that consumers' confidence in medicine interacted with health information seeking and usage influencing both purchase intention and satisfaction. Consumers with high confidence behave differently from those with low confidence.

The authors used a sample based on one company's customer base.

Companies should segment their customers based on their level of confidence in medicine and adopt different marketing strategies for different segments.

A broader knowledge of consumers' attitudes towards food supplements and medicines can improve the public policies aimed at increasing quality of life.

From a theoretical viewpoint, findings suggest to consider consumers' confidence in medicine along with other subjective and contextual variables in socio-cognitive models aimed at explaining food supplements' consumer behavior. From a marketing viewpoint, results suggest to consider confidence in medicine as a precious variable in segmentation strategies. While some communication strategies are valid for all customers (i.e. using experts as advisors, using scientific contents in ads), others (i.e. relying on the advice of trustworthy people, explaining the consequences of consumption) were proved to have different impact on consumers depending on their degree of confidence in medicine.

The purpose of this paper is to consider historical shifts in the mobilisation of the concept of radical in relation to Australian schooling.

Two texts composed at two distinct points in a 40-year period in Australia relating to radicalism and education are strategically juxtaposed. These texts are: the first issue of the Radical Education Dossier (RED, 1976), and the Attorney General Department’s publication Preventing Violent Extremism and Radicalisation in Australia (PVERA, 2015). The analysis of the term radical in these texts is influenced by Raymond Williams’s examination of particular keywords in their historical and contemporary contexts.

Across these two texts, radical is deployed as adjective for a process of interrogating structured inequalities of the economy and employment, and as individualised noun attached to the “vulnerable” young person.

Reading the first issue of RED alongside the PVERA text suggests the consequences of the reconstitution of the role of schools, teachers and the re-positioning of certain young people as “vulnerable”. The juxtaposition of these two texts surfaces contemporary patterns of the therapeutisation of political concerns.

A methodological contribution is offered to historical sociological analyses of shifts and continuities of the role of the school in relation to society.

The Malaysian movement control order is a series of national lockdowns implemented by the Malaysian federal government to contain the spread of Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19). The government has made it mandatory for all non-essential sectors to work remotely to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. The eating behavior of working adults may have altered following the changes in working norms. This study aimed to assess the eating behavior of remote working adults during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A total of 159 remote working adults were recruited through a convenience sampling approach. Bodyweight and body height were self-reported by the respondents. Body mass index was calculated according to the cut-off of World Health Organization standards. The eating behavior was evaluated using the eating behavior questionnaire.

Results revealed more than half of the remote working respondents did not practice meal skipping. Irrespective of the gender, more than 70% of the respondents consumed either breakfast, lunch or dinner every day. Most of the respondents consumed vegetables, bread/rice/noodles and meat/chicken at least two times per day. Regression analysis revealed meal skipping was associated with younger people, overweight status and median monthly household income.

Many sectors adopted remote working systems during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is postulated that working remotely will be a new normal even after this pandemic. Until now, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, little or no data are available on assessing the eating behavior of remote working adults during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study could provide an insight into the eating behavior of adults during remote working.

The consequences of corporate corruption control (CCC) have either been investigated outside the firm (e.g. foreign direct investment inflows) or inside the firm (e.g. profitability). Yet prior research addresses these implications separately, treating them as distinct phenomena, ignoring questions at their intersection. However, corruption control can be leveraged to benefit both organizations (internally) and environments (externally). In line with open systems theory, this study aims to explore a ripple effect of corruption control not only inside organizations (efficiency through adoption of sustainable resource management practices) but also outside [community-centered corporate social performance (CSP)].

Using a longitudinal sample of multinational enterprises from Forbes list of “The World’s Largest Public Companies,” the authors use a cross-lagged panel design to provide clarity regarding causal effects.

Results confirm causal directionality and support the positive effect of corruption control on resource management and community CSP, contributing toward understanding implications at the organization–environment interface.

The authors examine both internal and external implications of CCC. The use of a cross-lagged design that is relatively novel to the management field allows to check for casual effects between CSP elements that were previously assumed to have reciprocal casual effects.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether differences in media exposure regarding corporate corruption appear to influence companies’ anti-corruption disclosures. The authors also examine whether the level of press freedom in firms’ home countries affects disclosure and the impact of media exposure in different ways.

The authors use Transparency International’s 2012 ratings of anti-corruption disclosure by the 105 largest multinational firms in the world, press freedom assessments from the non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders, and media exposure measures based on a search using the Dow Jones Factiva database. The authors assess relations using regression analysis controlling for other firm-specific factors potentially impacting disclosure choices. Finally, the authors consider the potential effect of other country-level factors.

The results indicate that media exposure, using either an existence or an extensiveness measure, is positively related to differences in sample companies’ anti-corruption disclosures. The authors also find that disclosure is more (less) extensive where home country press freedom is less (more) restricted and that reduced press freedom appears to reduce the impact of media exposure on the disclosure. The authors further document that press freedom levels explain more difference in anti-corruption disclosures than other country-level factors potentially influencing the practice.

Because the investigation is limited to very large international firms for a single year, the degree to which the findings apply to other companies and time periods cannot be assessed. Further, the authors cannot determine how the findings would hold using an alternative disclosure rating scheme. Finally, the authors do not assess whether differences in the source of media exposure impact the findings.

The findings suggest that, to the extent that improved anti-corruption disclosure reflects greater corporate attention to corruption issues, the media may be a powerful player in addressing this social ill. Unfortunately, the results also indicate that media efforts may not be sufficient to bring about change in locations where the freedom of the press is limited. Further, the results suggest that disclosure appears to be a function of exposure to social and political exposures, and the authors therefore question whether it will actually lead to improved corruption performance.

The study is the first to consider the impacts of media exposure and press freedom on corporate social disclosures.