ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown pushed people to buy more online. With the increase in online shopping, there was also an increase in ethical issues with electronic retailers resulting from problems with products, misleading price practices, lack of customers' personal and financial data protection, non-delivery of goods, and misleading advertising. This study aimed to determine whether consumers' perceptions of e-retailers' ethics influence online customer experience and satisfaction when purchasing products and services. A research model was developed based on the literature on ethics in e-commerce. To fulfill the objective, a research model on consumer perceptions of ethics in online retailing was tested based on answers of 501 Brazilian online shoppers. Data were gathered through an online questionnaire and analyzed using structural equation modeling with an estimation of minimum least squares. The results indicated significant relations between the e-retailer's ethics, the online experience, and customer satisfaction with the mediation of ethical beliefs, suggesting that the e-retailer's ethics can potentially stimulate a good online consumer experience and satisfaction when purchasing on the internet and may contribute to the relationship between the consumer and the e-retailer. Furthermore, ethical beliefs can mediate these relations, collaborating with the effect of e-retailers' ethics on the consumer's experience and satisfaction. These results represent an advance in the study of new ethical dimensions in electronic retail, which currently are reduced to security and privacy issues. In practice, this study resulted in new knowledge about ethical practices that can guide electronic retailers in the adoption of new customer prospecting strategies. It also highlights the importance of improving regulations that prevent certain behaviors from happening. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd
ABSTRACT
The rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated infection control measures imposed by governments caused a major disruption to traditional workflows, leading to an immense increase in remote work. At the same time, innovation activities became more collaborative and digitalized than ever before, as firms worldwide were forced to shift from physical to virtual innovation spaces literally overnight and suddenly had to adapt and practice "remote innovation". By means of a systematic literature review based on 80 selected articles, this paper contributes to the academic discussion in three ways: First, the paper explores the synthesis between open innovation and remote work and uncovers a set of necessary determinants that form the basis for practicing remote innovation. Second, the paper offers a conceptual framework based on Chesbrough's open innovation model and extended by various determinants of open innovation in a remote work environment to provide initial advice to managers on how to innovate in times of social distancing. Third, the study concludes by identifying several promising areas for future research in the field of remote innovation management, a hitherto under-researched but highly topical field. © 2022 World Scientific Publishing Company.
ABSTRACT
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has accelerated the growth of the digital therapeutics (DTx) market;therefore, development strategies for new DTx products are necessary to satisfy market needs. However, data-driven methods for recommending digital healthcare technologies for novel DTx applications are scarce. We propose a technology opportunity discovery framework that recommends 1) potential technologies as new DTx products, and 2) the applicable target disorders. We applied BERTopic and PatentSBERTa to patents filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office and calculated the score of potential technologies on the basis of their thematic characteristics with respect to their digital capabilities and similarity to DTx technologies. By identifying the target disorder of similar technologies, specific disorders were proposed that can be treated with the proposed technique. By applying the proposed framework to psychiatric disorders—one of the largest therapeutic areas of DTx, we recommend digital monitoring technologies applicable to poor breathing or sleeping patterns for cognitive impairment. Furthermore, we provide strategies to utilize the recommended digital technologies for DTx for specific disorders to facilitate a direct intervention or treatment, which can contribute to the planning of roadmaps for DTx. © 2022 Elsevier Inc.
ABSTRACT
Purpose: This study aims to explore the differences in the travel behaviour of Indonesian youth of Generations Y and Z in the pre-, during and post-travel stages and their associated use of information and communication technology. Design/methodology/approach: Data were gathered through a questionnaire that was distributed via the internet for six weeks;569 people provided their full responses. Chi-square tests and linear regression were used for data analysis. Findings: These generations use digital media and word of mouth differently when searching for travel information. The differences are also apparent in the pre-, during and post-travel stages. Generation Z tends to use digital media and share travel experiences through a certain social media platform more frequently than Generation Y. Research limitations/implications: This study covers the travel history prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic and equalises the situation in these two periods. The number of samples was relatively small to capture the current population of both generations. Practical implications: This study promotes a new understanding of the travel behaviours of the two generations based on the stages of the travel examined. The findings suggest that the travel industry can distinguish between promotional media and types of services to serve each of the generational cohorts more effectively. Originality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to reveal differences in travel behaviour between Generations Y and Z in Indonesia. © 2022, Janianton Damanik, Tri Kuntoro Priyambodo, Moh Edi Wibowo, Putu Diah Sastri Pitanatri and Suci Sandi Wachyuni.
ABSTRACT
Organizations worldwide have shifted to working from home, requiring managers to engage in distance management using information and communication technologies (ICT). Studies show that managers experience high job demands and inadequate guidance during COVID-19;therefore, the transition to distance management raises questions about the increase in managerial job demands and the impact on managers' well-being. This study aims to explore first-line managers' perceptions of job demands and available resources during the first year of the pandemic and understand the implications for first-line managers' well-being. First-line managers face complex and conflicting demands, making them more challenged in their management task than other management levels. We used the job demands–resources model in this qualitative, longitudinal empirical study. The study draws on 49 semi-structured interviews with seven first-line managers from a large pharmaceutical company in Denmark, whom we followed throughout the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, from May 2020 to May 2021. Our findings suggest that the first-line managers perceived increased emotional and practical demands. While the managers appreciated the initial guidance provided by the organization, they perceived the organizational support as outdated and superficial. As a result, to cope with the uncertainty caused by the pandemic and the shift to distance management, the managers relied on work engagement enablers such as social support. Even though the COVID-19 pandemic portrays unique circumstances in transitioning to distance management that require further exploration outside the COVID-19 context, the insights from this study can assist organizations in developing awareness about transitions to better support first-line management to embrace changes in the future. © 2022 by the authors.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has shattered the whole world, and due to this, millions of people have posted their sentiments toward the pandemic on different social media platforms. This resulted in a huge information flow on social media and attracted many research studies aimed at extracting useful information to understand the sentiments. This paper analyses data imported from the Twitter API for the healthcare sector, emphasizing sub-domains, such as vaccines, post-COVID-19 health issues and healthcare service providers. The main objective of this research is to analyze machine learning models for classifying the sentiments of people and analyzing the direction of polarity by considering the views of the majority of people. The inferences drawn from this analysis may be useful for concerned authorities as they work to make appropriate policy decisions and strategic decisions. Various machine learning models were developed to extract the actual emotions, and results show that the support vector machine model outperforms with an average accuracy of 82.67% compared with the logistic regression, random forest, multinomial naïve Bayes and long short-term memory models, which present 78%, 77%, 68.67% and 75% accuracy, respectively. © 2022 by the authors.
ABSTRACT
Since Covid-19 was declared a pandemic, academic researchers have tried to maintain the continuity of scientific processes and overcome the difficulties of field work;this motivated the exploration of new forms of data collection adapted to the changes imposed by the pandemic. The methodology used was exploratory-documentary, focused on the new media used by academic research and the way in which the instruments have had to adapt to the social limitations imposed on nations. The results show that thanks to teleworking and information and communication technologies, it has been possible to continue collecting data from virtual environments, which has involved reconsidering criteria and tools. It is concluded that the existence of renewed forms of data collection is marked mainly by the media, highlighting that the use of social and academic networks has expanded its borders, which has been used by researchers to have an approach to reality in the contemporaneity. © 2023, Universidad del Zulia. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Several innovative methods have been deployed worldwide to curb the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of the study is to investigate which innovative methods are used to monitor COVID-19 health issues in Europe and related legislative and ethical aspects. An online questionnaire was administered to European countries' representatives of the project Population Health Information Research Infrastructure. Additional information was obtained from websites and documents provided by the respondents;an overview of the literature was also performed. Respondents from 14 countries participated in the study. Digital tools are used to monitor the spread of COVID-19 (13/14 countries) and vaccination coverage (12/14);for research, diagnostics, telehealth (14/14);to fight disinformation (11/14) and forecast the pandemic spread (4/14). The level of implementation of telehealth applications was mostly low/medium. Legislative and ethical issues were encountered in many countries, leading to institutional distrust. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for timely and accurate health data for research purposes and policy planning. However, the use of innovative methods for population health monitoring and timely data collection has posed challenges to privacy and online security globally. Adequate regulatory oversight, targeted public health interventions, and fight against disinformation could improve the uptake rate and enhance countries' emergency preparedness. © 2022 by the authors.
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This paper investigates transnational families' experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak and the accompanying sudden and unexpected travel restrictions. Our data consist of written stories collected in April–June 2020 from migrants with ageing kin living in another country. For many respondents, the situation provoked an acutely felt urge for physical proximity with their families. By analysing their experiences of ‘not being there', we seek to understand what exactly made the urge to ‘be there' so forceful. Bringing into dialogue literature on transnational families with Jennifer Mason's recent theoretical work on affinities, we move the focus from families' transnational caregiving practices to the potent connections between family members. We argue that this approach can open important avenues for future research on families—transnational or otherwise—because it sheds light on the multisensory and often ineffable charges between family members that serve to connect them. © 2022 The Authors. Global Networks published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
ABSTRACT
Due to the recent coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, rapid technological innovation and nursing practice transformation exposed a deepening divide in the knowledge and awareness of information and communication technologies (ICT) among nurses. This technological skills gap undermines the benefits of ICT to nursing practice such as increased nurse satisfaction, improved care quality, and reduced costs. Nurse leaders are positioned to promote the use of ICT among nurses but may suffer from the same knowledge deficit of ICT as their followers. Guided by Locsin's technological competencies as caring in nursing theory, Staggers and Parks' nurse-computer interaction framework, and Covell's nursing intellectual capital theory, this DNP scholarly project was conducted to determine if an educational intervention focused on ICT increases knowledge and awareness among nurse leaders in a federal clinical research hospital. Twenty-eight (N = 28) voluntary participants completed a pretest and posttest on the content of a virtual group learning session about ICT and nursing practice. Using a Wilcoxon Signed Rank test to estimate data measuring learning, an increase in knowledge of ICT (z = -4.72, p < 0.001), an increase in awareness of the benefits of ICT to nursing practice (z = -3.50, p < 0.001), and an increase in awareness of the role of nurse leaders to promote ICT (z = -3.57, p < 0.001) were indicated. This project contributes to positive social change by increasing the knowledge and awareness of ICT among nurse leaders, thereby, narrowing the technological skills gap in the nursing workforce and paving the way for increased nurse satisfaction, improved care quality, and reduced costs. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Disparities in COVID-19 information and vaccine access have emerged during the pandemic. Individuals from historically excluded communities (eg, Black and Latin American) experience disproportionately negative health outcomes related to COVID-19. Community gaps in COVID-19 education, social, and health care services (including vaccines) should be prioritized as a critical effort to end the pandemic. Misinformation created by the politicization of COVID-19 and related public health measures has magnified the pandemic's challenges, including access to health care, vaccination and testing efforts, as well as personal protective equipment. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has been demonstrated to reduce the gaps of marginalization in education and access among communities. Chatbots are an increasingly present example of ICTs, particularly in health care and in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. OBJECTIVE: This project aimed to (1) follow an inclusive and theoretically driven design process to develop and test a COVID-19 information ICT bilingual (English and Spanish) chatbot tool named "Ana" and (2) characterize and evaluate user experiences of these innovative technologies. METHODS: Ana was developed following a multitheoretical framework, and the project team was comprised of public health experts, behavioral scientists, community members, and medical team. A total of 7 iterations of ß chatbots were tested, and a total of 22 ß testers participated in this process. Content was curated primarily to provide users with factual answers to common questions about COVID-19. To ensure relevance of the content, topics were driven by community concerns and questions, as ascertained through research. Ana's repository of educational content was based on national and international organizations as well as interdisciplinary experts. In the context of this development and pilot project, we identified an evaluation framework to explore reach, engagement, and satisfaction. RESULTS: A total of 626 community members used Ana from August 2021 to March 2022. Among those participants, 346 used the English version, with an average of 43 users per month; and 280 participants used the Spanish version, with an average of 40 users monthly. Across all users, 63.87% (n=221) of English users and 22.14% (n=62) of Spanish users returned to use Ana at least once; 18.49% (n=64) among the English version users and 18.57% (n=52) among the Spanish version users reported their ranking. Positive ranking comprised the "smiley" and "loved" emojis, and negative ranking comprised the "neutral," "sad," and "mad" emojis. When comparing negative and positive experiences, the latter was higher across Ana's platforms (English: n=41, 64.06%; Spanish: n=41, 77.35%) versus the former (English: n=23, 35.93%; Spanish: n=12, 22.64%). CONCLUSIONS: This pilot project demonstrated the feasibility and capacity of an innovative ICT to share COVID-19 information within diverse communities. Creating a chatbot like Ana with bilingual content contributed to an equitable approach to address the lack of accessible COVID-19-related information.
ABSTRACT
Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) economies are facing a substantial increase in the information and communication technology (ICT) investments in the context of rapid spread of the Coronavirus Disease-2019 (COVID-2019) pandemic and constraints of emissions reduction. However, the mechanism of the impact of ICT investments on carbon dioxide is still unclear. Therefore, by employing the decoupling-factor model and Generalized Divisia Index Method, we explore the decoupling states of ICT investments and emission intensity, and the driving factors of ICT investments' scale, intensity, structure, and efficiency effects on carbon emissions in 20 OECD economies between 2000 and 2018. The results indicate that the number of economies with an ideal state of strong decoupling rose to nine between 2009 and 2018 compared to no economies between 2000 and 2009. The emission intensity of ICT investments contributes to a significant increase of carbon emissions, and the structure and efficiency of ICT investments always restrain the growth of carbon emissions. Significant emissions changes caused by the driving factors are shown in many economies before and after the crisis, reflecting the differences in the strategic choices of ICT investments and the impact on emissions due to the crisis such as the COVID-2019 pandemic. And policy implications for energy and carbon dioxide mitigation strategies in the post-COVID-2019 era are also provided.