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The main purpose of this paper is to explore access to full-text documents in libraries through Sci-Hub and consider whether it is a blessing in disguise to library users.

Sci-Hub has been a valuable resource for accessing full-text documents. Sci-Hub is potentially problematic from a legal standpoint but has provided a “blessing in disguise” to library users who lack access to academic resources. Sci-Hub has gained significant popularity among scholars and researchers; it has democratized access to academic research. The ability to access scholarly publications for free has provided an important avenue for research and has allowed for greater efficiency and effectiveness in research projects. The legality of the service, concerns about the quality and accountability of the available materials, and the unclear long-term sustainability of the service are some of the challenges associated with using Sci-Hub in libraries.

This paper highlights how the Sci-Hub improves access to full-text scholarly publications for library users. The blessings and challenges associated with using Sci-Hub in libraries and recommendations are discussed.

The current scourge of COVID-19 in educational enterprise requires that libraries tame the wave of the pandemic through effective leadership. This paper aims to investigate library leadership in Nigeria and COVID-19 pandemic.

Descriptive research design was used for the study. A structured questionnaire designed with Google Form and administered online was used to elicit data from 137 heads of academic and public libraries and their deputies in South West, Nigeria.

It was found that transformational and transactional leadership styles were more effective than laissez-faire style in managing libraries during crisis. Library operations were reduced during the COVID-19 era, and communication and meetings were conducted via social media. The spread of the pandemic was curtailed through enforcement of the use of face mask and nose covers and awareness campaign through posters and handbills.

It is the library heads with effective leadership styles that will be productive in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study is novel, as it approaches the handling of COVID-19 in libraries from the perspective of the leadership styles of the library leaders. No studies have emanated from Africa in this area. The few available narratives are centred around the Western countries. Meanwhile, managers of libraries in Nigeria are not immune to leadership crisis in the handling of the COVID-19 in their respective libraries.

The objective of this research was to propose and validate a holistic framework for information security culture evaluation, built around a novel approach, which includes technological, organizational and social issues. The framework's validity and reliability were determined with the help of experts in the information security field and by using multivariate statistical methods.

The conceptual framework was constructed upon a detailed literature review and validated using a range of methods: first, measuring instrument was developed, and then content and construct validity of measuring instrument was confirmed via experts' opinion and by closed map sorting method. Convergent validity was confirmed by factor analysis, while the reliability of the measuring instrument was tested using Cronbach's alpha coefficient to measure internal consistency.

The proposed framework was validated based upon the results of empirical research and the usage of multivariate analysis. The resulting framework ultimately consists of 46 items (manifest variables), describing eight factors (first level latent variables), grouped into three categories (second level latent variables). These three categories were built around technological, organizational and social issues.

This paper contributes to the body of knowledge in information security culture by developing and validating holistic framework for information security culture evaluation, which does not observe information security culture in only one aspect but takes into account its organizational, sociological and technical component.

The paper aims to describe the construction of this AAAJ special issue as an exercise in creating and consolidating social space for innovative accounting research.

A review of prior literature and the events leading to this AAAJ issue are used to provide a context for the articles appearing in the issue.

The paper suggests that accounting research is implicated in subalternity in complex ways, both through its construction of the subject of research and in its attempts to reproduce accounting researchers habituated to Western academic norms and practices.

The paper sets out some conditions for innovative accounting research on less developed countries and indigenous peoples.

This journal issue is an attempt to expand research space by bringing together authors from different areas of accounting research, as well as a consolidation of vibrant existing streams of research. The paper introduces the special issue.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate management accounting research in developing countries and formulate suggestions for its progression.

This is a desk based study of existing literature analysed through a framework of management control transformation in developing countries derived from the authors' research.

Research is growing, especially on accounting in state‐owned and privatised enterprises but more is needed on small and micro enterprises, agriculture, non‐governmental organisations, and transnational institutions.

This is the first review of this area and thus should help intending and existing scholars.

Employability skills have transformed from the acquisition of university degrees to possessions of cognate skills other than only degrees that can help employees secure employment in contemporary work environments. This study evaluates essential skills that will prepare millennia of youths and graduates for employment in the present job market. The study investigated four major hypotheses to underscore the employability opportunities of graduates in challenging 21st-century work environments.

To clearly gain an understanding of women’s disparity in society, the study employed a qualitative approach to evaluate the incidence of gender prejudice in a men’s dominant world. The study utilised two distinguished sampling strategies, purposive and snowballing sampling techniques, which were deemed suitable and useful due to the nature of the study. The study recruited 42 participants by conducting semi-structured interview sessions for the study. The study employed a deductive approach to analyse the data obtained from participants. A thematic content analysis was used to take away prejudice and establish an overarching impression of the interviewed data. Atlas.ti was used to analyse the transcribed interview data from the participants to establish common themes from the surveyed informants.

The results of this investigation indicated that there is a deep-rooted trend of institutionalised men’s dominance in politics and religious leadership. Women perceived less representation and men dominated the two domains of existence in their local environment. The study established that women are optimistic about a turnaround narrative on gender equality in politics and religious leadership. They expressed their concern about strengthened public debate and campaigns on women’s representation, and against gender discrimination. The study further shows that women are influencing the ethical and moral sense for change against women’s neglect in society. They expressed their concerns against the selection of people into political offices for elected political posts and observed the peculiarity of political godfathers fixing their favourite men into those offices.

The study discovered that women are leading campaigns for their representation in politics as well as church leadership today. The novelty of this study bothering around two domains of women’s lives – politics and religion, in particular, church leadership. These have not been evidence before in a study.

With corporate social responsibility (CSR) becoming mandatory, several firms in India have been compelled into spending resources on CSR while their business strategy and processes were unprepared to take up CSR activities, effectively. In this light, the CSR relationship with other business functions would be altered. Using Thomson Reuters data from 2010 to 2018 (pre-mandate to post-mandate) this study aims to re-examine the relationship between CSR and financial performance.

The current study is rooted in the bandwagon-bias effect theory and uses a long-term data (2010–2018) of Indian firms. It uses Refinitiv Thomson Reuters ESG rating to measure CSR and accounting measures for financial performance (FP) to make a pre-post analysis of the impact that mandatory CSR regime has had on firms performance. The study uses the weighted panel regression method.

The relationship between CSR and FP is different when CSR was voluntary than when it has been mandated by Law. CSR has a positive effect over the FP during the voluntary phase but this positive relationship weakens during the mandatory phase. The waning effect of CSR over FP substantiates the presence of bandwagon bias effect which can be explained by the crowding-in of several companies engaged in CSR activities because of the mandatory CSR law.

Few countries have made CSR mandatory therefore CSR literature is limited. But mandating CSR is a growing phenomenon so this study augments to the body of knowledge. Until now literature generally converged on a positive relationship between CSR performance and FP but the current study shows altering directions to this relationship in a changing CSR environment. The use of the bandwagon-bias theory contributes to the theoretical approaches. Theoretically, the findings add to the body CSR literature and offer impetus to the evolving domain of impact measurement and reporting.

Results of the study offer a clear indication to managers that they need to re-strategise their CSR activities during the mandatory CSR environment if they wish to draw instrumental benefits of a positive impact on the FP of their firms. CSR expenditure is now a leveller so managers may either exceed the mandatory 2% expenditure as some firms did during the voluntary CSR phase or else design their CSR implementation plans to bring about a more impactful positive change. Communicating the impact of CSR to influential and powerful stakeholders beyond the mandatory reporting to the government is yet another way through which managers can draw benefits of CSR activities. Additionally to draw positive results from CSR activities firms may consider adopting international reporting and benchmarking standards such as the GRI and ISO 26000. Finally, the results of the study can be used by policymakers to make a note that the CSR law is causing a weakening of the financial benefits and therefore.

The results of the study can be used by policymakers also need to make a note that the CSR law is causing a weakening of the financial benefits and therefore firms are adopting shortcuts, by donating the required amount of funds. But donation of funds defeats the real purpose of mandatory CSR which is social impact, therefore the regulators may want to make the necessary changes unplug the gaps in the CSR law to ensure better adherence to the law in spirit and a real impact on the ground activities.

While CSR–FP relationship has been extensively explored but limited studies have explored this relationship in a mandatory CSR environment and no other work presents a comparative view of the CSR–FP relationship, namely, before and after the mandatory CSR policy. The current study is one of the limited few studying the impact of mandatory CSR policy on FP, and the only one that uses the bandwagon-bias effect to explain the phenomenon of weakening impact of CSR on FP of firms. Bandwagon-bias effect has been used in studying consumer behaviour, where group effect impacts behaviour of individuals and with mandatory CSR policy, firms following the other firms leading to crowding in. Using the bandwagon-bias effect has found limited attention from the CSR scholars, the current study uses this theoretical basis and therefore augments the CSR literature.

The index case of COVID-19 in Nigeria was reported on 27 February 2020. Subsequently, the exponential increase in cases has brought about the partial and total lockdown of cities, the closure of all schools and the shutdown of government offices in order to curtail the spread of COVID-19. COVID-19 and its subsequent drastic curtailment policies have implications on vulnerable groups, especially, informal workers who constitute about 70% of the active working population in Nigeria. This reflective discourse critically engages the plight of informal workers in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria.

The research was guided by the epistemology of pandemic interpretationism. It engages contextual reflections of the plight of economically vulnerable informal workers in Nigeria. Data were collected from secondary sources while rapid case studies were conducted with ten informal workers in Lagos and Ibadan. Afterwards, data were contextually analysed.

Economically vulnerable informal workers in Nigeria have contextually interpreted COVID-19 as an elite disease, imported into Nigeria by the wealthy. In addition, the mass population views COVID-19 containment measures such as lockdowns, movement restrictions and stay-at-home orders as elitist policies, which are aimed at protecting the wealthy and frustrating the poor and economically vulnerable who live on the fringes of poverty. Many informal workers have slipped below the poverty line while struggling to supply livelihood needs, as they were unable to earn daily income and cannot access palliatives. Consequently, they are of the opinion that “Hunger Virus is deadlier than Corona Virus”.

This paper is a contextual reflection on the plight of economically vulnerable informal workers during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown and movement restrictions in Nigeria. It presents pandemic interpretationism as an epistemological guide and reflectively examines the poverty impact of COVID-19 on the Nigerian informal sector via contextual analyses of secondary data and rapid case studies. The paper uncovers various COVID-19 livelihood experiences and the responses of the informal workers; furthermore, it provides policy recommendations.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the quality and sensory properties of cookies produced from wheat flour using avocado puree as fat substitute.

Cookies were produced from wheat flour using avocado puree as fat substitute in ratio 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%, respectively. The formulation of margarine and avocado puree blends was done by using D-Optimal Mixture Design. In all, 20 samples were produced from each substitution level and analyses were done in triplicates to obtain mean values using standard methods. Means were separated by Duncan’s multiple range test, and significances were accepted at less than 5% confidence level (p < 0.05). Proximate and functional analyses were conducted on the flour samples, while cookie samples were subjected to proximate and sensory analyses.

The results of this study revealed that the values of loose bulk density, packed bulk density, oil absorption density, water absorption capacity, swelling power, solubility and dispersibility of the flours at p < 0.05 are 0.3–0.4 g/ml, 0.5–0.7 g/ml, 16.9%–94.0%, 39.7%–80.6%, 461.2%–618.2%, 6.0%–29.8% and 69.0%–82.8%, respectively. The moisture, protein, fat, total dietary fiber, total ash and carbohydrate contents of the cookies at p < 0.05 are 3.6%–16.7%, 6.5%–9.9%, 2.5%–19.2%, 1.7%–1.9%, 1.1%–3.0% and 65.0%–70.7%, respectively. The taste, color, crispiness, texture and overall acceptability of the cookies at p < 0.05 are 7.4–7.8, 6.9–7.5, 7.2–7.9, 7.3–7.7 and 7.4–8.3, respectively. The sensory scores showed that panelists preferred the taste, crispiness and texture of the cookies produced from wheat flour using avocado puree as fat substitute at varying proportion. The sensory characteristics of sample WF⁴ (100% avocado puree) were rated overall best in all the parameters tested followed by sample WF³ (75% avocado puree). Hence, this study established the possibility of producing cookies from wheat flour using avocado puree as fat substitute without a negative impact on the sensory characteristics and the consumers’ acceptability.

The cookies produced from this study are not meant for vegetarians because eggs were added in the formulations and recipes but could be valuable to ovo-vegetarians that may take food with eggs without restriction. The major challenge of this study was that avocados are very expensive in much of the world, so this is only suitable and viable where there is an excess of the fruit.

This study examined the use of avocado puree as fat substitute in cookie production. Effects of avocado puree on proximate composition and functionality of cookies produced from wheat flour were also determined. This approach was novel, and it will encourage the use of avocado for value-added in industrial food production.

This study examines the impact of intellectual capital efficiency and corporate governance mechanisms on the annual report readability of Oman's financial sector companies.

The study uses a sample of 150 firm-year observations of listed financial sector companies in the Muscat Securities Market, Oman, from 2014 to 2018. Flesch Reading ease and Flesch Kinkaid Index are used as proxies for annual report readability. As part of sensitivity analysis, the study also uses the natural logarithm of annual report pages as alternative readability measures. The investigation is conducted using random effects regression analysis and supported with system GMM estimation for robustness.

The findings of this study demonstrate a decrease in intellectual capital efficiency associated with better readability of annual reports for the financial sector firms. Alternatively, banks report a positive association of intellectual capital efficiency with the Flesch Reading ease score of the annual report. The structural capital and capital employed efficiency are also found to be negatively associated with annual report readability. Corporate governance mechanisms such as dispersed ownership and audit committee size also result in easy-to-read annual reports that support agency theory.

The research was conducted for financial firms of Oman, and thereby the findings can be generalized to the financial sector of countries with similar settings, such as the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region.

The policy implications arising from this study suggest a strengthening of the intellectual capital efficiency and corporate governance mechanisms to improve the readability of the firms and thereby increase investor confidence.

This paper's uniqueness is in the model used to investigate the impact of intellectual capital efficiency and corporate governance mechanisms on the annual report readability of an emerging market.