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The objective of this study is to compare the perceptions of Chinese and Hong Kong auditors towards auditor independence. There is growing concern about auditors' independence in the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) as a result of the rapidly changing business environment. These include the fast economic growth, changes in the accounting and auditing requirements including increases in demand for auditing services, competition and the status of accounting profession in the PRC. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether these changes affect the perceptions of auditor independence. The factors used in this study include the size of audit fee, provision of management advisory services, tenure of services provided and the relationship between the client and the auditor. The data were analyzed using analysis of variance (ANOVA). The overall hypothesis of a difference in the perceptions of Hong Kong and Chinese auditors was found to be significant. The results provide some indications of the stage of development of the accounting profession in China and the directions in harmonizing with international practices. Though there are some limitations of this study, it provides information for limited research in the accounting profession in China and highlights several areas for future study.

The world revolves around sound. Children who are deaf/hard of hearing (D/HH) lack access to sound, thus need careful monitoring and planning to ensure they have access to adequate language models and supports to develop a strong language foundation. It is this foundation that is needed to ensure D/HH children are able to achieve developmental and academic milestones. Research is emerging to suggest specific intervention strategies that can be used to support D/HH children from birth throughout their educational career. In this chapter, we highlight several strategies that can be used to support communication, language, academic, and social/emotional growth. We freely admit that this is in no way a comprehensive and exhaustive list, but rather only scratches the surface. The field of deaf education and related research and technology is constantly changing. To ensure adequate educational access, it is highly recommended that a professional specialized in hearing loss be a part of the educational team any time a child is identified as having any degree or type of hearing loss.

This paper seeks to address an underdeveloped aspect of entrepreneurship education (EE), which is still criticised for not explicitly linking educational practice with established educational theory. As such, the purpose of this paper is to propose a novel educational framework – Authentic Alignment – that the authors evolved based on their own EE practice, as well as two major educational theories.

A review of a range of conceptual educational frameworks in EE revealed a gap in the current literature, referring to the fact that practice is not sufficiently linked to sound educational theory. The paper combines a range of educational theories – predominantly Constructive Alignment (CA) and Authenticity – to develop a novel conceptual framework, termed “Authentic Alignment”. The discussion of Authentic Alignment draws upon EE literature, as well as student feedback and the reflections and experiences of the practitioners and academics involved in delivering a higher education unit underpinned by Authentic Alignment.

It is argued that Authentic Alignment coherently and explicitly links educational practice to major established educational theories and as such presents a valuable approach to education through entrepreneurship as it aligns authentic approaches to instruction, learning and assessment that strike a balance between resembling and being relevant for real entrepreneurial activity.

The paper invites educators to draw upon Authentic Alignment for their own entrepreneurship units/programmes by customising the specific approaches to their own requirements, while retaining the underlying principle of constructively aligned authentic education.

By explicitly linking EE to CA and Authenticity, this paper introduces a novel educational framework that provides a valuable structure for education through entrepreneurship. The customisability of Authentic Alignment, however, suggests a wider applicability and is thus valuable also for education about and for entrepreneurship.

Conducts two studies, one among working women and one among the employed physically handicapped, to assess their feelings about the recent introduction of equal opportunity legislation in Hong Kong. Provides some background statistics on Hong Kong and outlines the development of anti‐discrimination legislation. Asks 78 women and 10 physically handicapped people if they thought discrimination was serious in Hong Kong and if the anti‐discrimination legislation and the Equal Opportunities Commission were effective in combating discrimination. Describes the methodology used and discusses the results. Reveals that both groups surveyed were ambivalent about discrimination, stating that legislation enforces behavioural changes but that they are only skin deep. Points out also that it is difficult to quantify discriminatory practices. Notes similarities between east and west, particularly with research suggesting that the only way forward in promoting equality is to reduce status distinctions for everyone and to make organizations much more democratic.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the usability effectiveness of a webware for electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) in Nigerian repositories. The webware (etdsearch.com.ng) is a web application system that curates ETDs from three sampled Federal government-owned universities. The system also links users to the repositories where the theses and dissertations are hosted.

The case study research strategy was adopted for the study. Sixty postgraduate students from three universities were randomly selected. A usability evaluation questionnaire based on the ISO 9241-11 framework was used to collect data after performing pre-defined queries/tasks based on the informational and transactional query models. The research questions were analysed using the median of the performance score (f_x) of the three universities for each item evaluated, while the Kruskall–Wallis test by ranks was used to test the null hypothesis at a 5% level of significance.

The study answered two research questions and tested two null hypotheses on the usability effectiveness of the webware based on the informational and transactional queries. The participants found the ETD search system effectively useable. In addition, there was no significant difference in the opinions of the participants.

The webware used simulated repositories as a feed bed for the ETDs in order to have control over the workability of the repositories. Thus, the results may differ slightly when “live” repositories are used.

The effectiveness of a webware that aggregates ETDs in Nigerian repositories will present libraries in Nigeria with evidence on how these systems work and can be improved upon.

There is a dearth of literature on practical usability studies of digital information systems in Nigerian libraries.

Age is one of the critical factors used by many organizations to determine employees' performance. It is being considered in the retirement process of construction professionals. However, age as a critical factor is not considered in the recruitment of a specific set of workers in the construction industry. Therefore, this study investigated the significant relationship between the ages of tradespeople and their performance in construction projects. The study also explored the age at which performance begins to decline and proposes strategies that can be used to sustain their effectiveness before the official retirement age.

Mixed methods research designs were adopted in the study. To be precise, physical observations, interviews and questionnaires were the instruments used for data collection in the mixed methods research design.

The outcomes of the study revealed that the age groups of tradespeople in the Nigerian construction industry are 16–30 (group one), 31–45 (group two) and 46–58 (group three) respectively. Group three is the prevalent age group. It was also discovered that performance begins to decline at 53 years. The age-performance decline of tradespeople in Nigerian construction projects can be delayed through certain strategies such as regular strength training exercises and an adequate nutritional lifestyle.

The study enables construction managers to have an adequate understanding of the negative influence of old age on the performance of tradespeople in construction projects. This will enable construction firm managers to recruit from the age range of 16–52 and stop retiring employees within this age bracket, consequently curbing the skills gap which is prevalent in the study context and the global construction industry. The study is limited to tradespeople performance in construction firms in Abuja, Nigeria where there are several ongoing projects on a daily basis.

The study enables project managers to estimate the number of tradespeople required for a particular task and consequently save the aged tradespeople from health risks associated with excessive workloads.

This paper is the first of its kind to be conducted in the study context, to establish the specific age at which performance begins to decline among construction tradespeople.

This study aims to explore children’s cognitions about data flows online and their understandings of algorithms, often referred to as algorithmic literacy or algorithmic folk theories, in their everyday uses of social media and YouTube. The authors focused on children ages 8 to 11, as these are the ages when most youth acquire their own device and use social media and YouTube, despite platform age requirements.

Nine focus groups with 34 socioeconomically, racially and ethnically diverse children (8–11 years) were conducted in California. Groups discussed data flows online, digital privacy, algorithms and personalization across platforms.

Children had several misconceptions about privacy risks, privacy policies, what kinds of data are collected about them online and how algorithms work. Older children had more complex and partially accurate theories about how algorithms determine the content they see online, compared to younger children. All children were using YouTube and/or social media despite age gates and children used few strategies to manage the flow of their personal information online.

The paper includes implications for digital and algorithmic literacy efforts, improving the design of privacy consent practices and user controls, and regulation for protecting children’s privacy online.

Research has yet to explore what socioeconomically, racially and ethnically diverse children understand about datafication and algorithms online, especially in middle childhood.

In the aviation sector adversity faced by female pilots stemming from stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination are well documented. Such adversity in the workplace can cause occupational stress, which may be greater for female pilots, and this influences individual resiliency, impacting job performance and wellbeing. Resilience may be a mitigating factor for coping with occupational stress and individual resilience can be factored into an organisation’s resilience as a whole. When organisations face challenges, there is a need for resilience in order to survive and adapt during disruption and adversity. Resilience with respect to employee and workplace contexts includes both personal resources among the employees as well as workplace resources that are connected to the workplace and organisational environment. As resilience continues to emerge as part of a human capital management strategy, the need to understand the role of the workplace is magnified. For aviation, understanding resilience can potentially inform organisational interventions to address the known occupational stressors and workplace adversity to increase employee performance and well-being. The role of workplace adversity and perceptions of workplace resource availability including supportive environments are discussed in relation to how they influence employee resilience specifically in the aviation industry. The aim of this chapter is to define resilience specific to employee and workplace contexts, introduce personal and workplace resources to influence employee resilience, and discuss the role of occupational stressors specifically for women in male-dominated career fields such as aviation.

Creativity is a strongly context related, collective and collaborative task across multiple boundaries that are of immaterial and material nature. Numerous factors play a role in the emergence of creativity. Leadership styles and diversity have undoubtedly an impact on team creativity. Creative teams face many processes inherent paradoxes which leaders and members need to balance and overcome together. According to the observations and research findings discussed in this chapter, effective management of diversity for creativity requires a ‘humble leadership’ style as well as different communication competencies and strategies. This book chapter provides theoretical and practical insights for those responsible for diversity management in creative teams, based on two empirical studies conducted between 2019 and 2022. Competencies and strategies are presented that may help leaders and teams navigate through highly dynamic, paradoxical interaction processes and, thus, turn their diversity into a creativity asset. In addition, a glimpse of the Team Creativity Navigator (TCN) is offered, which is a new assessment and development tool that supports leaders’ and team members’ learning processes for inclusive, creativity enhancing collaboration. As such, our chapter is an empirically based conceptual contribution with the objective of providing practitioners (and researchers) with insights into appropriate strategies to boost creativity in diverse teams.

Purpose: The purpose of this chapter is to provide research-based information to foster positive discussions about the need for phonics and phonemic awareness instruction in the primary grades. In order to read, students must possess secure knowledge of the alphabetic principle (i.e., that speech sounds are represented by combinations of letters in the alphabet) as well as the ability to aurally separate the distinct sounds (phonemes) that make up words.

Design: In this chapter, the authors provide essential definitions of phonics and phonemic awareness terms, highlight peer-reviewed research and best instructional practices, and clarify findings in relation to the recently renewed controversy over how to effectively teach reading to young children. The authors draw from respected research journals and years of classroom experience to provide recommendations to literacy teachers.

Findings: Explicit, systematic phonics instruction is crucial for beginning readers because most children will not intuit phonics concepts. To set the stage for phonics instruction (connecting speech sounds with their written representations), students must understand how to separate sounds in words. Therefore, instruction in phonemic awareness must be given independently of alphabetic representations; that is, students need to be able to hear the distinct sounds before mapping them onto written words. Once a student has mastered this understanding, however, instructional time need not be devoted to its development.

Practical Implications: This chapter contributes to the literature on phonics and phonemic awareness by clearly explaining the differences between the two concepts and their necessary inclusion in any beginning reading program. It includes practical activities teachers can use to develop these understandings in the classroom and provides research evidence to support their use.