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This study aims to investigate the effects of COVID-19 working arrangements on role stress, burnout and turnover intentions in public accounting professionals. Additionally, while all professionals have had to adapt to this rapid change in working environment, this paper explores whether the impact of this transition differs depending on demographic factors, namely, rank, gender, firm size and service line.

The authors survey 159 public accountants working in audit and tax on their perceptions of role stress, burnout and turnover intentions before COVID-19 and since. The survey used validated instruments from prior literature to capture these measures.

Results show that role stress, burnout and turnover intentions increased significantly since remote work began. Specifically, the rank of accountants significantly affects this association, with staff experiencing the most significant increases in role stress and burnout and seniors reporting significantly higher intentions to leave their current firms. Females experience a significant increase in feelings of emotional exhaustion and turnover intention, while males experience a significant increase in feelings of depersonalization and role overload. Finally, there is a positive association between firm size and burnout, with employees from national/midsize firms experiencing the largest increase in feelings of emotional exhaustion, reduced personal accomplishment and depersonalization.

Given that all prior research on role stressors, burnout tendencies and turnover intentions in the context of public accounting was conducted in the pre-COVID-19 work environment, this paper examines a timely and significant event that is likely to have a long-lasting impact on the way in which people work. As accounting firms seek to develop new working models and promote well-being among their employees, they should take note of the findings of this study that gender, rank and firm size result in differential impacts on role stress, burnout and turnover intentions.

The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which HTTPS encryption and Google Analytics services have been implemented on academic library websites, and discuss the privacy implications of free services that introduce web tracking of users.

The home pages of 279 academic libraries were analyzed for the presence of HTTPS, Google Analytics services and privacy-protection features.

Results indicate that HTTPS implementation on library websites is not widespread, and many libraries continue to offer non-secured connections without an automatically enforced redirect to a secure connection. Furthermore, a large majority of library websites included in the study have implemented Google Analytics and/or Google Tag Manager, yet only very few connect securely to Google via HTTPS or have implemented Google Analytics IP anonymization.

Librarians are encouraged to increase awareness of this issue and take concerted and coherent action across five interrelated areas: implementing secure web protocols (HTTPS), user education, privacy policies, informed consent and risk/benefit analyses.

Third-party tracking of users is prevalent across the web, and yet few studies demonstrate its extent and consequences for academic library websites.

The scientific literature on career counseling has been amassing, over more than 100 years, a vast collection of theories, models and approaches to career design, construction, and development. However, neither theories, nor research or practice concerning career issues, have consistently produced scientifically valid, socially just, or individually adjusted responses. This is especially salient when it comes to migration cases, which are by nature complex and diversified, and even more so when applied to refugees whose integration depends on models and strategies that are culturally sensitive. This chapter pursues a comprehensive review of existing models of career guidance and their supporting research and applies them to the specific needs of refugees. It also provides suggestions for intervention that address this issue in a culturally sensitive manner. In this vein, the authors present an example of the international project Live2Work, aimed at increasing the chances for successful integration of people in situations of professional vulnerability.

Health scientists and urban planners have long been interested in the influence that the built environment has on the physical activities in which we engage, the environmental hazards we face, the kinds of amenities we enjoy, and the resulting impacts on our health. However, it is widely recognized that the extent of this influence, and the specific cause-and-effect relationships that exist, are still relatively unclear. Recent reviews highlight the need for more individual-level data on daily activities (especially physical activity) over long periods of time linked spatially to real-world characteristics of the built environment in diverse settings, along with a wide range of personal mediating variables. While capturing objective data on the built environment has benefited from wide-scale availability of detailed land use and transport network databases, the same cannot be said of human activity. A more diverse history of data collection methods exists for such activity and continues to evolve owing to a variety of quickly emerging wearable sensor technologies. At present, no “gold standard” method has emerged for assessing physical activity type and intensity under the real-world conditions of the built environment; in fact, most methods have barely been tested outside of the laboratory, and those that have tend to experience significant drops in accuracy and reliability. This paper provides a review of these diverse methods and emerging technologies, including biochemical, self-report, direct observation, passive motion detection, and integrated approaches. Based on this review and current needs, an integrated three-tiered methodology is proposed, including: (1) passive location tracking (e.g., using global positioning systems); (2) passive motion/biometric tracking (e.g., using accelerometers); and (3) limited self-reporting (e.g., using prompted recall diaries). Key development issues are highlighted, including the need for proper validation and automated activity-detection algorithms. The paper ends with a look at some of the key lessons learned and new opportunities that have emerged at the crossroads of urban studies and health sciences.

We do have a vision for a world in which people can walk to shops, school, friends' homes, or transit stations; in which they can mingle with their neighbors and admire trees, plants, and waterways; in which the air and water are clean; and in which there are parks and play areas for children, gathering spots for teens and the elderly, and convenient work and recreation places for the rest of us. (Frumkin, Frank, & Jackson, 2004, p. xvii)

This paper sets out to contribute to the growing literature analysing the broader impacts of event hosting. The purpose of this paper is twofold: the first is to add to the growing literature concerned with the spatial impact of immediate (economic) impacts on host locations; the second, in line with the dynamic element introduced by Chalip (2004), is to identify the implications for business leveraging of mega events in the more medium term.

The methodological approach involved analysis of documentary evidence and observational analysis on site before and during the event. The findings are primarily derived from a survey of 150 businesses located across Galway city and its suburbs alongside a thematic analysis of six interviews with the organisers of the event and survey responses.

The authors find that the aspirations to spread the benefits of hosting ultimately proved unsuccessful. Key to this is the power held by global event organisers relative to local organisers. The authors also identify a degree of mismanagement and a lack of adequate support for the organisation of leveraging activities. The authors note a unique geography of impact that does not follow a linear path of decrease from the event site.

The work highlights the tensions that can exist between the aspirations of hosting cities and their local organisers against those of international brands responsible for the organisation of global events. The results on the geography of impact also highlight a unique spatial trend, one that sees economic impact increase on the outer limits of the city.

This paper aims to investigate how product upgrades influence consumers’ hedonic responses to currently owned products, focusing on the underlying attentional mechanism.

Six experiments were conducted, including one pilot study and five main studies, employing various stimuli and methodologies. These experiments used longitudinal designs, manipulated upgrade awareness and measured hedonic decline over time. Mediation and moderation analyses were performed to test the proposed attentional mechanism.

The studies demonstrate that awareness of product upgrades induces consumers to experience a faster hedonic decline with their current possessions. This effect occurs because upgrades prompt consumers to shift their attention away from the currently owned product. The research provides both mediation-based and moderation-based evidence for this attentional mechanism.

The study primarily focused on product upgrades, and future research could explore this effect in nonproduct domains and investigate potential boundary conditions.

The findings have implications for both consumers and companies in managing product enjoyment and upgrade cycles. Consumers can make more informed decisions about upgrades, while companies can develop strategies to maintain customer satisfaction with current products.

This work offers a novel perspective on the influence of upgrades on consumer behavior by introducing an attention-based account of hedonic adaptation and the consequent upgrade phenomenon, contrasting with previous research that relied on justifiability or contrast effects.