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The Use of Sustainable Financial Instruments in Relation to the Social Impact Investment: ESG Policies, Capital Markets’ Approach and Investors’ Protection: An Innovative Perspective for a Global Surveillance Authority
No full textSocial Impact Investment (SII) refers to the provision of finance to organizations addressing social needs. It is intended to achieve both a social impact as well as garner financial returns. Thus, SII may be understood as a business case for what was previously considered mostly philanthropic activities. In the case of SRI (Sustainable and Responsible Investment), investors decide in which company to invest on the basis of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) criteria. They consider a company's performance with respect to its effects on nature, its relationships with employees, clients and society, and the transparency of its governance. Where possible, companies should provide quantitative, comparable and forward-looking performance metrics to facilitate ESG integration. It is recommended that companies should use credible indicators which are included in internationally recognised reporting frameworks like GRI, SASB, IIRC, TCFD, CDP or UNGC. Companies should disclose their methodology and provide explanations to support quantitative indicators (ESG metrics), establishing the link between ESG and financial performance. The investor perspective is in important issue, which should be taken under consideration by European and local supervising authorities, under the provisions of the Market Abuse Directive and the MiFID, especially after the introduction and use of ESG and sustainable financial instruments, in both, Banking and Capital Markets. Therefore, SII can be a very useful tool for achieving EU Social Policy objectives. EU efforts (DG EMPL/FISMA) can be targeted at four specific aims that concern impact measurement: 1) promotion of the standardisation of impact measurement through the further development of the taxonomy regulations to include social objectives or the creation of standardised guidelines or the further development of ESG metrics; 2) capacity building in the area of impact measurement; 3) increasing the availability of the data needed; and 4) the promotion of additional and more specialized sustainable financial instruments linked to the Banking Sector and Capital Markets, which in turn will leverage more the total investment amount derived from the InvestEU tool and offer to all stakeholders more flexibility. Therefore, the global liquidity will be increased, and a strong economic turmoil could be avoided under the surveillance of a theoretically established Global Surveillance Authority. The use of sustainable financial instruments by a P.E.S. (social enterprise) under a public-private partnership (PPPs) is also feasible and socially rewarding.1418712
Trust recovery tactics in financial services: the moderating role of service failure severity
No full textPurposeGiven the fierce competition in financial services, service failure management and trust restoration tactics are becoming strategic priorities. Studies investigating trust restoration have increased over the years due to the significance of trust in services and the frequency of trust violations. Drawing on the sense-making and defensive approaches of attribution theory, this study aims to explore the effectiveness of various trust recovery tactics (e.g. apology, explanation, and investigation) in financial services considering the prevalence of service failure severity.Design/methodology/approachBased on a scenario-based survey, this study gathered data from 402 consumers of different banks in Pakistan. The study analyzed the data using ordinary least square regressions and structural equation modeling.FindingsThe study indicated that explanation is more effective in repairing character-competence and commitment-based trust, while investigation remained highly effective for inducing congruence-based trust. Interestingly, an apology was more effective for communication-based trust repairing, while context-based trust recovery was unaffected against all recovery tactics. Despite the prevalence of severe service failure, recovery actions proved fully effective for character-competence and commitment-based trust while partially effective for congruence-based trust recovery. This study also found that severe service failure undermines the effectiveness of recovery actions in repairing communication and context-based trust.Originality/valueThe study extends the literature on trust recovery by integrating sense-making and defensive attribution theory. The sense-making approach contributes to the existing knowledge on trust recovery by elucidating how consumers and service providers develop a shared understanding to facilitate the recovery mechanism of multidimensional trust in financial services
Investigating the Relationships among High-Performance Organizations, Knowledge-Management Best Practices, and Innovation: Evidence from the Greek Public Sector
No full textThe paper aims to investigate the relationships among high-performance organizations (HPOs), knowledge-management (KM) best practices, and organizational innovation in the Greek public sector. To achieve this goal, we employed the PLS-SEM method to validate and assess the research model. A total of 270 responses were collected from employees in the Greek public sector. The results indicate that KM best practices serve as mechanisms for developing organizational innovation within the relationships between HPOs and organizational innovation in the Greek public sector. Additionally, positive relationships among the model constructs were observed. This research holds significant implications and contributions for both theory and practice. It offers novel theoretical insights by being the first study to investigate this relationship and explore the connections of HPOs with other managerial constructs such as KM. Moreover, the research findings hold importance for decision-makers in the public sector, equipping them with insights to formulate more-effective strategies for enhancing performance, quality, and innovation within their organizations.15181381
Special Issue on New Challenges in Serious Game Design
No full textSerious games are games that have a “serious” purpose, besides entertainment. As any game, they motivate players through their scenario and game mechanics and engage them in achieving the underlying “serious” goals, while being entertained. Serious games are being used in various sectors, such as education, cultural heritage, health care, engineering, emergency management, behavior change, and so on. In most cases, positive results are reported from using serious games. However, we are far from creating standards regarding the successful design and evaluation of serious games, which is a challenging task. Several issues have to be investigated, and several questions seek answers:
What measures should be taken for designing a serious game that achieves the right balance between its serious purpose and entertainment?
Do existing serious/educational game design frameworks adequately support the design process?
What methods are used for evaluating the effects of a serious game and validating/revising its design?
Does the scenario and/or genre of a game affect the achievement of its serious goals/purposes? If yes, what type of scenario and game genre is considered more effective based on the purpose of the serious game, and what factors should be taken into account for an informed selection?
What techniques are used in entertainment games for achieving an interesting and undisturbed player experience? How can they be applied to serious games?1313767
A Medical Image Visualization Technique Assisted with AI-Based Haptic Feedback for Robotic Surgery and Healthcare
No full textA lesson learned during the pandemic is that social distancing saves lives. As it was shown recently, the healthcare industry is structured in a way that cannot protect medical staff from possible infectious diseases, such as COVID-19. Today’s healthcare services seem anachronistic and not convenient for both doctors and patients. Although there have been several advances in recent years, especially in developed countries, the need for a holistic change is imperative. Evidently, future technologies should be introduced in the health sector, where Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Artificial Intelligence, and Tactile Internet can have vast applications. Thus, the healthcare industry could take advantage of the great evolution of pervasive computing. In this paper, we point out the challenges from the current visualization techniques and present a novel visualization technique assisted with haptics which is enhanced with artificial intelligent algorithms in order to offer remote patient examination and treatment through robotics. Such an approach provides a more detailed method of medical image data visualization and eliminates the possibility of diseases spreading, while reducing the workload of the medical staff.136359
Security and Privacy Issues in IoT-Based Big Data Cloud Systems in a Digital Twin Scenario
No full textDue to its unique type of services, Cloud Computing could operate as a “base technology” for other technologies; this attracts researchers to develop sustainable Cloud systems. It is a new generation of services that offers an opportunity for users to access and manage their information, applications, and data regardless of place and time. Nevertheless, there is a type of service that can include large amounts of data, called Big Data, and it consists of the rapid use of the Internet of Things (IoT) to produce large data sets. In this work, initially, we present Cloud Computing (CC) and Big Data (BD) exported from IoT, focusing on the security and management challenges of both. Notably, we combine the two aforementioned technologies to examine their related characteristics and discover new perspectives and opportunities for their integration and to achieve a sustainable environment called a Digital Twin scenario. Subsequently, we present how Cloud Computing contributes to IoT-based Big Data, aiming to fill a scientific gap in the sector of their integration regarding security and privacy. Finally, we additionally survey the security challenges of the integrated model of BD and CC and then propose a novel security algorithm for sustainable Cloud systems in a Digital Twin scenario. The experimental results presented are based on the use of the encryption algorithms AES, RC5, and RSA, and our proposed model extends the advances of CC and IoT-based BD, offering a highly novel and scalable service platform to achieve better privacy and security services.13275
Financial reforms and innovation: A micro–macro perspective
No full textWe develop a horizontal R&D growth model to investigate the different channels through which financial reforms affect R&D investment and patent activity. First, a “micro” reform that abolishes barriers-to-entry in the banking sector leads to a decrease in lending rates which stimulates R&D investment and growth. Second, a “macro” reform that removes restrictions on banks’ reserves and credit controls. While this reform increases liquidity, it also increases the risk of default, potentially raising the cost of borrowing. This we dub the “reserves paradox” – this makes banks offset the rise in the default rate with a higher spread between loans and deposit rates. Thus our model suggests that whilst micro reforms boost innovation, macro reforms may appear negative. We find empirical support for these propositions using a sample of 21 OECD countries.13210282
Promoting Strategic Flexibility and Business Performance through Organizational Ambidexterity
No full textThe purpose of this paper is to develop a comprehensive structural model to understand the outcomes of organizational ambidexterity (OA) within the manufacturing and service sector. It focuses on evaluating the effects of OA on business performance and strategic flexibility while also exploring the under-researched relationship between strategic flexibility and business performance. To accomplish this objective, an empirical survey was carried out among a sample of 370 Greek manufacturing and service firms. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were utilized to extract and validate the latent constructs examined. Finally, the structural relationships among these latent constructs were determined using structural equation modeling (SEM). The study’s findings reveal the significant contributions of OA to both firm performance and strategic flexibility. Additionally, the results demonstrate the positive influence of strategic flexibility on business performance. This research sheds light on the multifaceted impacts of ambidexterity, offering valuable implications for managers, decision-makers, and practitioners. The outcomes underscore the importance of ambidexterity in various dimensions of business performance and highlight its role in fostering strategic flexibility. This study stands out by offering a holistic model that explicates the outcomes of OA within the manufacturing and service sector. It places particular emphasis on the interplay
between business performance and strategic flexibility, an area that has received limited attention in prior research. By empirically examining these relationships and providing practical guidelines, the proposed model enriches our understanding of ambidexterity’s significance and supports further research in this domain within organizations.151299711
Digital innovation and entrepreneurship through open data-based platforms: Critical success factors for hackathons
No full textDespite the fact that hackathons and digital innovation contests have emerged as substantial intermediaries in open innovation and entrepreneurship, knowledge about how hackathons and digital innovation contests impact innovation in cities is restricted. There is also a scarcity of models that aid in the organization and evaluation of digital innovation contests. The purpose of this article is to examine the stages for organizing hackathons and digital innovation contests and identifies factors leading to the successful implementation of open data hackathons and digital innovation competitions. Three hackathons and innovation contests held in Thessaloniki between 2014 and 2018 were studied. The proposed framework provides practitioners with options to hold digital contests while also advancing the state of the art in the fields of open data and innovation competitions. Organizers of hackathon events may find this paper useful because they can learn about the factors that must be taken into account to ensure the success of these events.94e1486
The Pioneer Neuropharmacologist Alfred Fröhlich (1871–1953) and the Origins of Neuroendocrinology: A Sesquicentennial Remembrance
No full textThe birth of neuroendocrinology as a scientific discipline is traced back to 1900–1901, when Joseph Babinski, Alfred Fröhlich, and Harvey Cushing independently identified adiposogenital dystrophy (Fröhlich syndrome), and related gonadal underdevelopment and obesity to a tumor near the pituitary gland. This discovery prompted decades of research into the brain mechanisms responsible for the control of peripheral metabolism and endocrine functions. On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Fröhlich’s birth, this study traces the origins of his intellectual formation and his association with renowned contemporaries in Austria, England, Italy, and finally Cincinnati, Ohio, where he sought refuge after Austria’s annexation by Nazi Germany. Fröhlich interacted with seminal figures in biomedicine, including Lothar von Frankl-Hochwart, Hans Horst Meyer, Ernst Peter Pick, Harvey Cushing, John Newport Langley, and the Nobel laureates Charles Scott Sherrington and Otto Loewi. Alfred Fröhlich, one of the 20th century’s most emblematic physicians, left his mark on neurophysiology and neuropharmacology with important works, and published authoritative manuals of drug dispensing and clinical therapy. He confronted the calamities of two World Wars with remarkable resilience like many of his Viennese colleagues who, overcoming the constraints of National Socialism, settled overseas to fulfil their calling as physicians, researchers, and teachers.291192