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Can Facebook Data Predict the Level of Sustainable Development in EU-27?
Abstract
The link between sustainability and digital transformation has been a recurrent topic in the literature and has reached new interest peaks at the beginning of the 2020s. In this context, intelligent data management is not optional, but a requirement if the European Union aims to successfully implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in a timely manner. Since data is such a valuable asset and tool for assessing, reporting, and predicting success, Facebook is one of the big data providers that can contribute to a better understanding of the interest and openness of the population toward the concepts of sustainability and sustainable development. Since Facebook collects personal data related to preferences and actions specific to sustainable behaviors, an emergent research question is whether Facebook data can predict the sustainable development level in the case of regions and countries. The objective of this research was to explore the interest of EU-27 citizens for the topic of sustainability by resorting to Facebook Audience Insight database and connect the results with the statistics of sustainable development of the EU-27 states. In this book chapter, multiple digital profiles of EU-27 citizens were developed and explained for each country, based on many factors: nationality, age, gender, the intensity, and nature of engagement on the social network platform.
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The global socio-economic and sanitary crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has generated many different effects on the links of the global agri-food value chains regarding the production and consumption behaviors of agri-food products. Depending on the link, these effects can be positive, negative, or even a mix of both. However, all these sudden changes, beneficial or not, they result in deepening the economic tensions existing along the agri-food value chains. In this context, the aim of this research was to explore the rising tensions along the Romanian agri-food value chains during the different stages of the COVID-19 crisis in Romania, while bringing the HoReCa industry in the spotlight of this study, and, more specifically, the food service component. This paper brings contribution to the literature concerning the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic at the level of the agri-food value chains based on a statistical analysis carried out with the data available from two open access sources: Google Trends and the Romanian National Institute of Statistics. A short bibliometric analysis was also elaborated on the papers tackling the topic of the rising tensions along the agri-food value chains during the pandemic. Research results show that the Romanian HoReCa industry has been subject to various challenges emerged from the need to limit the spread of the COVID-19 disease. This has generated a lot of concern – not only from the food security perspective, but also from the perspective of the entrepreneurs active in the agri-food value chains. Food-ordering companies with homedelivery have been of high interest during the COVID-19 pandemic, as they connect two major links in the food chain: restaurants and consumers. While consumers have become more dependent than ever on digital solutions to purchase food, a lot of pressure is put on indoor restaurants.
Competitiveness has always been considered a vector of innovation that is centered around economic performance; constantly pushing companies to achieve better performance results. In such a modern society deeply marked by digitization, value creation has expanded its scope and it is no longer involving only harnessing customer satisfaction through the quality of the products or services marketed to customers, but it is also involving the permanent digital connection and engagement between the links of any value chain. Digital platforms, including social networks, are major sources of economic concentration where different forms of value emerge. For example, Facebook Inc. runs a business model that involves selling online media space for companies willing to pay money to have consumers of goods and services engage with the ads displayed on Facebook platforms, based on specific group targeting. Taking all of this into consideration, the scientific interest in exploring the nature of an emergent form of value along the chain is implicit. This paper brings its unique contribution to the existing literature concerning the topic of agri-food value chains by providing a niche marketing approach on a paradigm shift at the level of the nature of value generated in the chain in the case of highly digitized societies. The research objective was to bring the sustainability factor into the spotlight of the analysis concerning the paradigm shift of the nature of the value generated in the agri-food value chain. Research results show that some multinational corporations active in the Romanian agri-food sector use the Facebook Ad Market to reach consumers and call for them to engage in activities specific to building a sustainable agri-food system. Thus, by engaging in such activities, consumers feel that they contribute to the corporations’ effort in achieving sustainability. Consequently, a different form of value is generated along the chain.
Ever since it was adopted in 2015 by the United Nations, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development has acted as the main guideline for European Union Member States in regard
to achieving economic prosperity, environmental sustainability and peaceful, inclusive and
innovative societies. However, in the race for sustainable development, some European
Union Member States are ahead of the others – not only as far as meeting the Sustainable
Development Goals is concerned, but from the perspective of the R&D and innovation
factors as well. In this context, the objective of this research was to explore sustainable
development disparities between the EU-27 Members, based on the previously mentioned
factors. A cross-sectional multiple linear regression model was constructed to facilitate an
in-depth look at the observations. The econometric analysis was carried out based on the
Global SDG Index, the Global Innovation Index and on the percentage of the GDP
allocated to R&D activities. Although the transition to the sustainable development model
requires modern and disruptive approaches at country level, the literature is not rich on
papers fully covering the nature of the existing links between the variables analyzed in the
proposed econometric model. Results show that countries from Northern and Westeren
Europe are leading the change to a more innovative and sustainable path for the European
Union. This implies the responsibility of high levels of R&D expenditure. Although no
European country is on track on meeting the Sustainable Development Goals, Central and
Eastern European Countries have made a lot of catching up to the Northwestern European
leaders. The results of this research help decision-makers improve their strategies by
understanding the impact of R&D and innovation factors on meeting sustainable
development throughout EU-27 at an equitable pace for all European members.
Students dropping out of higher education is a common issue many universities are facing all around the world. This paper complements the existing literature with a unique perspective on the mix of factors influencing first-year students’ dropout decision at the Faculty of Agri-Food and Environmental Economics from Bucharest, Romania. The objective of this research was to explore these factors through the lens of an unprecedented crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The ordinal logistic regression method was used based on data resulted from carrying out an online survey. The results of this econometric research can help decision-makers improve retention, the quality of education and the healthy integration of the first-year economics students in the university environment.
Although agriculture has significantly evolved over the last decades, it is still adapting to the circular, innovative and digital economy; to the upsurge of modern agricultural technologies and to the imminence of environmental greening, especially in the European Union. The links involved in global agri-food value chain are transitioning from being economically competitive to being economically competitive and sustainable. The importance of greening the global agri-food chains along all of its links is instilled in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the European Green Deal, the 2030 Climate Target Plan. In this context, the objective of this research was to design a circular agricultural system in the urban environment, and, more specifically, a solution for managing multidimensional complex issues, right in the campus of the Bucharest University of Economic Studies. A bibliometric analysis was elaborated with the purpose of identifying the favorable context and opportunity for implementing such a solution, grounded in the principles of urban agriculture. The result of this study consists of the authors' envisioned 'agro-urban' ecosystem; more specifically, an urban rooftop community garden that responds to challenges such as: limited resources (water, soil, labor force), unfavorable environmental conditions (specific to urbanization) and others. The proposed model is easily replicable and facilitates the transition to a cleaner, greener, circular economy.
Boosting the externalities across the water, energy, food, and waste (WEFW) sectors is challenging, especially considering tightening constraints such as population growth, climate change, resource-intensive lifestyles, increased waste production, sanitary crises and many others. The nexus approach supports the transition to a more sustainable future because intersectoral trade-offs can be reduced and externalities exploited, making imperative for decision makers, entrepreneurs, and civil society to simultaneously engage, with respect to all the components of the nexus. This research addressed intersectoral synergies and trade-offs in the case of the WEFW nexus in Romania, judging from the perspectives of entrepreneurial activity and economic results. The objective of this research was to explore the nexus in-depth by statistically analyzing the financial and economic indicators reported by active enterprises at county-level, based on the Romanian Ministry of Public Finance data. Research results describe the effects of the policies implemented in the fields of WEFW sectors. At the same time, attention was paid to the quality of the entrepreneurial activity, analyzed from the perspective of economic performance. This paper fills a research gap regarding the WEFW nexus by resorting to an economic and entrepreneurial performance assessment in order to find sectoral pathways toward policy cohesion in Romania. Findings suggested the existence of major trade-offs among sectors, owing to the fact that each county has a different development degree.
Sponsored content on Facebook has become an indispensable tool for implementing political campaign strategies. However, in political communication research, this channel is still unexplored due to its advertising model in which only target audiences are exposed to sponsored content. The launching of the Facebook Ad Library in May 2018 can be considered a turning point in this regard, inasmuch as it now offers users direct access to ads paid for by political parties, among other advertisers. This paper analyzes some aspects of the strategies implemented by six national parties during the campaigns running up to the two general elections held in Spain in 2019, by performing an analysis on a corpus of 14,684 ads downloaded directly from the Facebook Ad Library. It also provides evidence of the different emphasis placed by the parties on sponsored content. For its part, an analysis of ad scheduling shows how the publishing of ads was stepped up as polling day approached, while also revealing the practice of posting political content way in advance of election campaigns.
This study focuses on a modeling framework to support mobility planners and energy providers in the sustainable development of electric mobility in urban areas. Specifically, models are provided to simulate measures for the optimal management of energy demand and thoughtful planning of charging infrastructures in order to avoid congestion on the power grid. The measures, and consequently the models, are classified according to short-term initiatives based on multimodality between electric vehicles and public transport (Park and Ride), as well as medium to long-term initiatives based on the development of an energy-oriented land use of the city. All the models are data-driven, and different sets of floating car data available for the city of Rome (Italy) have been exploited for this aim. The models are currently being implemented in an agent-based simulator for electric urban mobility adopted by the National Agency for Energy and Environment in Italy (ENEA).
We show that malicious COVID-19 content, including racism, disinformation, and misinformation, exploits the multiverse of online hate to spread quickly beyond the control of any individual social media platform. We provide a first mapping of the online hate network across six major social media platforms. We demonstrate how malicious content can travel across this network in ways that subvert platform moderation efforts. Machine learning topic analysis shows quantitatively how online hate communities are sharpening COVID-19 as a weapon, with topics evolving rapidly and content becoming increasingly coherent. Based on mathematical modeling, we provide predictions of how changes to content moderation policies can slow the spread of malicious content.
Digital personal data is increasingly framed as the basis of contemporary economies, representing an important new asset class. Control over these data assets seems to explain the emergence and dominance of so-called "Big Tech" firms, consisting of Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google/Alphabet, and Facebook. These US-based firms are some of the largest in the world by market capitalization, a position that they retain despite growing policy and public condemnation-or "techlash"-of their market power based on their monopolistic control of personal data. We analyse the transformation of personal data into an asset in order to explore how personal data is accounted for, governed, and valued by Big Tech firms and other political-economic actors (e.g., investors). However, our findings show that Big Tech firms turn "users" and "user engagement" into assets through the performative measurement, governance, and valuation of user metrics (e.g., user numbers, user engagement), rather than extending ownership and control rights over personal data per se. We conceptualize this strategy as a form of "techcraft" to center attention on the means and mechanisms that Big Tech firms deploy to make users and user data measurable and legible as future revenue streams.
As the world is striving to recover from the shockwaves triggered by the COVID-19 crisis, all hands are needed on deck to transition towards green recovery and make peace with nature as prerequisites of a global sustainable development pathway. In this paper, we examine the blockchain hype, the gaps in the knowledge, and the tools needed to build promising use cases for blockchain technology to accelerate global efforts in this decade of action towards achieving the SDGs. We attempt to break the “hype cycle” portraying blockchain’s superiority by navigating a rational blockchain use case development approach. By prototyping an SDG Acceleration Scorecard to use blockchain-enabled solutions as SDG accelerators, we aim to provide useful insights towards developing an integrated approach that is fit-for-purpose to guide organizations and practitioners in their quest to make informed decisions to design and implement blockchain-backed solutions as SDG accelerators. Acknowledging the limitations in prototyping such tools, we believe these are minimally viable products and should be considered as living tools that can further evolve as the blockchain technology matures, its pace of adoption increases, lessons are learned, and good practices and standards are widely shared and internalized by teams and organizations working on innovation for development.
The process of reaching carbon neutrality by 2050 and cutting CO2 emissions by 2030 by 55% compared to 1990 as per the EU Green Deal is highly complex. The energy mix must be changed to ensure long-term environmental sustainability, mainly by closing down coal sites, while preserving the energy-intensive short-term economic growth, ensuring social equity, and opening opportunities for regions diminishing in population and potential. Romania is currently in the position of deciding the optimal way forward in this challenging societal shift while morphing to evidence-based policy-making and anticipatory governance, mainly in its two coal-mining regions. This article provides possible future scenarios for tackling this complex issue in Romania through a three-pronged, staggered, methodology: (1) clustering Romania with other similar countries from the point of view of the Just Transition efforts (i.e., the energy mix and the socio-economic parameters), (2) analyzing Romania’s potential evolution of the energy mix from the point of the thermal efficiency of two major power plants (CEH and CEO) and the systemic energy losses, and (3) providing insights on the socio-economic context (economic development and labor market transformations, including the component on the effects on vulnerable consumers) of the central coal regions in Romania.
The great advances produced in the field of artificial intelligence and, more specifically, in deep learning allow us to classify images automatically with a great margin of reliability. This research consists of the validation and development of a methodology that allows, through the use of convolutional neural networks and image identification, the automatic recycling of materials such as paper, plastic, glass, and organic material. The validity of the study is based on the development of a methodology capable of implementing a convolutional neural network to validate a reliability in the recycling process that is much higher than simple human interaction would have. The method used to obtain this better precision will be transfer learning through a dataset using the pre-trained networks Visual Geometric Group 16 (VGG16), Visual Geometric Group 19 (VGG19), and ResNet15V2. To implement the model, the Keras framework is used. The results conclude that by using a small set of images, and thanks to the later help of the transfer learning method, it is possible to classify each of the materials with a 90% reliability rate. As a conclusion, a model is obtained with a performance much higher than the performance that would be reached if this type of technique were not used, with the classification of a 100% reusable material such as organic material.
The COVID-19 emergency has urged companies to operate in new ways to face supply chain interruptions, shifts in customer demand, and risks to workforce health. The organizational ability to respond to critical contingencies is crucial for business leaders in the perspective of continuing business. In our research, we investigate the actions undertaken by 50 world-leading corporations to respond to the pandemic outbreak. Applying content analysis to web pages and social network posts, we extract 77 actions related to 13 sub-areas and integrate these into a five-level framework encompassing operations, customer, workforce, leadership, and community-related responses. We also describe six illustrative company examples of how the emergency can generate opportunities for creating new value. The study advances the scholarly discussion on the impact of emergencies on business continuity and provides managers with a comprehensive view and some insights to define response strategies and actions in the current challenging scenario.
Heavy work investment represents a research area which has been intensively debated in the specialised literature, especially since 2013. On the one hand, heavy work investment can be made in the means of production, in order to increase work productivity. On the other hand, it is correlated with numerous other factors related to the quality of life and the quality of work conditions, among which: the relationship between work – living standard – personal life; workaholism and technology; the decision to retire and so on. The objectives of this research are to identify the correlations between the quality of life and heavy work investment, as well as to assess the social and economic progress from the view point of the need for heavy work investment. The research methods used in the study were mainly of a quantitative nature: bibliometric and econometric analysis (linear regression with cross-section data). The data used in the econometric models constructed were taken over from two sources: Eurostat and the World Bank. The research findings highlight the fact that in the analysed European states, making work investments by increasing the work volume is not a justified measure, because its effects do not reflect directly on the social and economic progress, quantified as the nominal gross domestic product.
Self-tracking is becoming a prominent and ubiquitous feature in contemporary practices of health and wellness management. Over the last few years, we have witnessed a rapid development in digital tracking devices, apps and platforms, together with the emergence of health movements such as the Quantified Self. As the world is becoming increasingly ruled by metrics and data, we are becoming ever more reliant on technologies of tracking and measurement to manage and evaluate various spheres of our lives including work, leisure, performance, and health. In this article, I begin by briefly outlining some of the key theoretical approaches that have been informing the scholarly debates on the rise of self-tracking. I then move on to discuss at length the findings of an international survey study I conducted with users of self-tracking technologies to discuss the ways in which they perceive and experience these practices, and the various rationales behind their adoption of self-tracking in the first place. The article also addresses participants’ attitudes towards issues of privacy and data sharing and protection. These attitudes seem to be dominated by a lack of concern regarding the use and sharing of self-tracking data with third parties. Some of the overarching sentiments vis-à-vis these issues can be roughly categorized according to feelings of ‘trust’ towards companies and how they handle data, a sense of ‘resignation’ in the face of what is perceived as an all-encompassing and ubiquitous data use, feelings of ‘self-insignificance’ which translates into the belief that one’s data is of no value to others, and the familiar expression of ‘the innocent have nothing to hide’. Overall, this article highlights the benefits and risks of self-tracking practices as experienced and articulated by the participants, while providing a critical reflection on the rise of personal metrics and the culture of measurement and quantification.
Sustainable socio-economic development can be looked upon from multiple perspectives, but no longer without considering the roles of urban planning, smart cities and eco-innovative entrepreneurial initiatives. In the context of the COVID-19 crisis, ensuring sustainable socio-economic development is definitely challenging, but not impossible if adopting appropriate measures. This research aimed at analyzing the multidimensional facets of entrepreneurial resilience during times of crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in Romania, while focusing on the effects experienced in the wealthiest areas, specific to urban agglomerations. The research method consisted of constructing a composite indicator comprising appropriate components for assessing the level of wealth and “happiness” of all the Romanian counties. Through the lens of this composite indicator, entrepreneurial resilience was approached in multiple manners according to its diverse forms. Research findings highlight that entrepreneurial resilience tends to be stronger qualitatively and quantitatively in less developed areas than in those that are well developed, mainly due to the lack of entrepreneurial initiatives. Despite being less entrepreneurially resilient, qualitatively, the wealthiest Romanian counties can economically reinvent themselves quicker.
Online tracking in its various forms is a backbone of digitalization that has sparked hopes and fears alike: It opens up new opportunities for users and businesses as it enables individually targeted content. At the same time, the encompassing tracking of often unaware and ill-informed users and the opaque practices of data procession has alarmed critics from multiple sides. How can we better understand but also proactively and constructively shape the emerging Tracked Society? Our special issues seek to shed light on these questions from various perspectives and disciplines. In this introduction, we give a brief overview of the topic in general and our special issue in particular.
(1) Background: The importance of this article is to analyze the technological developments in the field of the Internet and Internet technologies and to determine their significance for sustainable development, which will result in the emergence of Society 5.0. (2) The authors used automated content analysis for the analysis of 552 articles published in 306 scientific journals indexed by SCII and/or SCI - EXPANDED (Web of Science (WOS) platform). The goal of the research was to present the relationship between the Internet and sustainable development. (3) Results: The results of the analysis show that the top four most important themes in the selected journals were “development”, “information”, “data”, and “business and services”. (4) Conclusions: Our research approach emphasizes the importance of the culmination of scientific innovation with the conceptual, technological and contextual frameworks of the Internet and Internet technology usage and its impact on sustainable development and the emergence of the Society 5.0.
Business leaders and policymakers within service economies are placing greater emphasis on well-being, given the role of workers in such settings. Whilst people’s well-being can lead to economic growth, it can also have the opposite effect if overlooked. Therefore, enhancing subjective well-being (SWB) is pertinent for all organisations for the sustainable development of an economy. While health conditions were previously deemed the most reliable predictors, the availability of data on people’s personal lifestyles now offers a new dimension into well-being for organisations. Using open data available from the national Annual Population Survey in the UK, which measures SWB, this research uncovered that among several independent variables to predict varying levels of people's perceived well-being, long-term health conditions, one's marital status, and age played a key role in SWB. The proposed model provides the key indicators of measuring SWB for organisations using big data.
This study investigates the impact of information and communication technology (ICT) on carbon dioxide emissions for a panel of 91 countries over the period 1990 to 2017. The study constructs an ICT index through principal component analysis and tests for the presence of cross-sectional dependence (CSD) in the data. The study employs pooled ordinary least squares, fixed-effects model, and system-generalized method of moments estimation techniques with panel-corrected standard errors (PCSE) to tackle the issues of CSD in the data. The findings of the study show that ICT reduces CO2 emissions for the full sample of countries. However, the comparative study of developed and developing countries depicts that ICT encourages environmental sustainability in developed countries whereas opposite results are found for developing countries. Moreover, presence of the environmental Kuznets curve is confirmed for the full sample as well as for developed and developing countries. It suggests that with higher levels of development of a country, it would be possible to contribute towards environmental sustainability along with ICT diffusion. Therefore, the outcome of this study may be helpful for policymaker and policies may be designed to encourage ICT investments in developing countries, as ICT will take care of environmental sustainability with higher levels of development.
Digital platforms increasingly propose business models that improve economic organisation -by better coordinating supply and demand under imperfect information- and attain higher efficiency levels. At the same time, the energy generation gradually reshapes into decentralised network with lower capacity, but able to manage demand and supply in real-time. However, the penetration of online platforms within the energy sector poses policy questions that are specific to platforms' business models. This study investigates a sample of 217 digital platforms running energy-related activities across the EU regional markets. These energy platforms make about 20% of the world energy platforms. By observing their characteristics and those of their surrounding markets, it appears that the digital platforms in the European energy sector still tend to be relatively small and concentrated in specific regions, often in the neighbourhood of capital cities. Furthermore, the quantitative analysis suggests that market size, digital readiness and regulatory quality are the most important features relating to platforms' presence in the EU regional markets. This paper offers empirical evidence and reflections to provide energy policy with key information to best ripe the potential of new technologies while being aware of their inherited complexities.
Educational institutions, especially universities, have been major pillars in societal transformation throughout society’s history. They have been leading change through their discoveries, research results, and foremost, their example. Nowadays, universities have once again taken the role of leading change in a world that is profoundly determined to have a sustainable approach to life, paying attention to the long-term effects of their actions. In this sense, under the impact of deep digitalization, this paper advocates for the sustainable development of universities regarding campuses’ expansion to rural areas. Moreover, it was demonstrated that sustainable development can be achieved by embracing the potential of digitalization. Based on a multicriteria analysis of the Romanian development regions, the research results showed that the rural area might be a welcoming environment for campuses of sustainable universities, based on digitalization at the level of the rural area in all activity fields, which is an initiative that would generate positive outcomes on many levels for different types of stakeholders, such as universities, students, staff, rural area population, and the nearby business environment. Future research aims to approach and explain the compounded effects of such an approach in depth and establish an even clearer picture of how beneficial such an expansion could prove to all factors considered under a knowledge-based society with digitized information as a vital pillar.
Background:
The COVID-19 pandemic has evolved into one of the most impactful health crises in modern history, compelling researchers to explore innovative ways to efficiently collect public health data in a timely manner. Social media platforms have been explored as a research recruitment tool in other settings; however, their feasibility for collecting representative survey data during infectious disease epidemics remain unexplored.
Objectives:
This study has two aims 1) describe the methodology used to recruit a nationwide sample of adults residing in the United States (U.S.) to participate in a survey on COVID-19 knowledge, beliefs, and practices, and 2) outline the preliminary findings related to recruitment, challenges using social media as a recruitment platform, and strategies used to address these challenges.
Methods:
An original web-based survey informed by evidence from past literature and validated scales was developed. A Facebook advertisement campaign was used to disseminate the link to an online Qualtrics survey between March 20-30, 2020. Two supplementary male-only and racial minority- targeted advertisements were created on the sixth and tenth day of recruitment, respectively, to address issues of disproportionate female- and White-oriented gender- and ethnic-skewing observed in the advertisement's reach and response trends.
Results:
In total, 6602 participant responses were recorded with representation from all U.S. 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. The advertisements cumulatively reached 236,017 individuals and resulted in 9609 clicks (4.07% reach). Total cost of the advertisement was 0.09 per click and $0.18 per full response (completed surveys). Implementation of the male-only advertisement improved the cumulative percentage of male respondents from approximately 20 to 40%.
Conclusions:
The social media advertisement campaign was an effective and efficient strategy to collect large scale, nationwide data on COVID-19 within a short time period. Although the proportion of men who completed the survey was lower than those who didn't, interventions to increase male responses and enhance representativeness were successful. These findings can inform future research on the use of social media recruitment for the rapid collection of survey data related to rapidly evolving health crises, such as COVID-19.
Industry 4.0 has had a strong influence on the debate on the digitalization of industrial processes, despite being criticized for lacking a proper definition. However, Industry 4.0 might offer a huge chance to align the goals of a sustainable development with the ongoing digital transformation in industrial development. The main contribution of this paper is therefore twofold. We provide a de-facto definition of the concept “Industry 4.0” from a sociotechnical perspective based on its most often cited key features, as well as a thorough review of how far the concept of sustainability is incorporated in it.
Big Tech's unregulated roll-out out of experimental AI poses risks to the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with particular vulnerability for developing countries. The goal of financial inclusion is threatened by the imperfect and ungoverned design and implementation of AI decision-making software making important financial decisions affecting customers. Automated decision-making algorithms have displayed evidence of bias, lack ethical governance, and limit transparency in the basis for their decisions, causing unfair outcomes and amplify unequal access to finance. Poverty reduction and sustainable development targets are risked by Big Tech's potential exploitation of developing countries by using AI to harvest data and profits. Stakeholder progress toward preventing financial crime and corruption is further threatened by potential misuse of AI. In the light of such risks, Big Tech's unscrupulous history means it cannot be trusted to operate without regulatory oversight. The article proposes effective pre-emptive regulatory options to minimize scenarios of AI damaging the SDGs. It explores internationally accepted principles of AI governance, and argues for their implementation as regulatory requirements governing AI developers and coders, with compliance verified through algorithmic auditing. Furthermore, it argues that AI governance frameworks must require a benefit to the SDGs. The article argues that proactively predicting such problems can enable continued AI innovation through well-designed regulations adhering to international principles. It highlights risks of unregulated AI causing harm to human interests, where a public and regulatory backlash may result in over-regulation that could damage the otherwise beneficial development of AI.
This paper aims at exploring the perspective of sustainability when digital transformation is adopted by one organization, although it was not the first goal targeted. Two different cases are analyzed, covering manufacturing and service industries. In those cases different factors will be analyzed, mainly focused on the positive effects of knowledge creation facilitated by direct or indirect application of digitalization. Specific analysis of different cases were carried out to identify different initiatives and the impact on environmental performance. The positive effects of the institutional dimension were also assessed.
The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) and its progressively wider impact on many sectors requires an assessment of its effect on the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. Using a consensus-based expert elicitation process, we find that AI can enable the accomplishment of 134 targets across all the goals, but it may also inhibit 59 targets. However, current research foci overlook important aspects. The fast development of AI needs to be supported by the necessary regulatory insight and oversight for AI-based technologies to enable sustainable development. Failure to do so could result in gaps in transparency, safety, and ethical standards. Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming more and more common in people’s lives. Here, the authors use an expert elicitation method to understand how AI may affect the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Sustainable development is crucial to humanity. Utilization of primary socio-environmental data for analysis is essential for informing decision making by policy makers about sustainability in development. Artificial intelligence (AI)-based approaches are useful for analyzing data. However, it was not easy for people who are not trained in computer science to use AI. The significance and novelty of this paper is that it shows how the use of AI can be democratized via a user-friendly human-centric probabilistic reasoning approach. Using this approach, analysts who are not computer scientists can also use AI to analyze sustainability-related EPI data. Further, this human-centric probabilistic reasoning approach can also be used as cognitive scaffolding to educe AI-Thinking in the analysts to ask more questions and provide decision making support to inform policy making in sustainable development. This paper uses the 2018 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) data from 180 countries which includes performance indicators covering environmental health and ecosystem vitality. AI-based predictive modeling techniques are applied on 2018 EPI data to reveal the hidden tensions between the two fundamental dimensions of sustainable development: (1) environmental health; which improves with economic growth and increasing affluence; and (2) ecosystem vitality, which worsens due to industrialization and urbanization.
Using a big data approach, this study investigates how climate change NGOs across the world connect and interact on Twitter. It found that despite being members of a global alliance that aims to organize concerted efforts to battle climate change, NGOs rarely connect or interact on Twitter. In addition, the Global North/South hierarchy is perpetuated in the network of these NGOs, with those from Global North and Oceania playing the role of opinion leaders on Twitter and dominating the conversations on climate change. Our social network analysis found that the network density is sparse, with a very low density. It also identified several types of centralities, conceptualized as connectivity, as predictors of an organization’s tweeting frequency and online opinion leadership. Practical and theoretical implications for interorganizational communication and online opinion leadership were discussed.
Purpose
Principled discussions on the economic value of data are frequently pursued through metaphors. This study aims to explore three influential metaphors for talking about the economic value of data: data are the new oil, data as infrastructure and data as an asset.
Design/methodology/approach
With the help of conceptual metaphor theory, various meanings surrounding the three metaphors are explored. Meanings clarified or hidden through various metaphors are identified. Specific emphasis is placed on the economic value of ownership of data.
Findings
In discussions on data as economic resource, the three different metaphors are used for separate purposes. The most used metaphor, data are the new oil, communicates that ownership of data could lead to great wealth. However, with data as infrastructure data have no intrinsic value. Therefore, profits generated from data resources belong to those processing the data, not those owning it. The data as an asset metaphor can be used to convince organizational leadership that they own data of great value.
Originality/value
This is the first scholarly investigation of metaphors communicating economic value of data. More studies in this area appear urgent, given the power of such metaphors, as well as the increasing importance of data in economics.
This study aims to provide social marketers and researchers with some innovative perspectives on the application of social media in disseminating and promoting new sustainability knowledge to targeted audiences including academics, community sustainability stakeholders, and policy-makers. An online survey was used to examine the audiences’ attitudes of and motivations for engaging in LinkedIn and Twitter sites that disseminate sustainability knowledge. Also, the fact-based measurements from LinkedIn and Twitter showing the participants’ reactions to the contents and formats were analyzed. The results suggest that the infographics message format received the highest engagement and response rates. Participants used Twitter to obtain general sustainability knowledge while being engaged in LinkedIn for specific advice on the implementation of community sustainability plans.
The sustainability debate in the food sector has exposed the current food system to critics, encouraging the significant growth of Alternative Food Networks (AFNs), new ways of food production, distribution and consumption that aim to shorten the food chain. Our study is focused on Food Assembly (FA), a special kind of AFN combining the culture of social entrepreneurship and digital innovation to achieve sustainability and a high social impact. The coexistence of a digital platform and a weekly farmers’ market triggers, within this network, mechanisms of knowledge sharing and self-organisation. To date, however, few studies have focused simultaneously on online and on-site interactions within AFNs, especially with quantitative studies. Our paper aims to test the hypothesis that online and on-site knowledge sharing affects the success of a FA measured by customer sustainable behaviour change. To do so, we developed a quantitative analysis based on a regression model. We collected data via a questionnaire submitted to 8497 Italian FA customers, of which 2115 responses were included in our analysis. The results show that online knowledge sharing significantly affects customer change towards more sustainable purchasing and consumption behaviours, while on-site knowledge sharing positively affects sustainable purchasing behaviours.
Finding a pathway between high levels of economic competitiveness and sustainability is challenging. The global economy has been long-calling for a paradigm shift as far as the consumption and production models have been concerned over the last decades. In this regard, transforming our world to the imperative vision described in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development can be made possible if global markets respond efficiently to the goals and targets set in the 2030 Agenda. Taking this into consideration, business models, production patterns, purchasing and consumption habits represent key elements that are connected to the indictors designed to monitor the progress and performance achieved with regard to the SDG 12: tracking resource management efficiency, the circularity of economic activities, production and consumption footprint and others. Given the importance of quantifying results with the aim of ensuring the timely achievement of the SDG KPIs, the objective of this research was to carry out a synoptic quantitative analysis on EU-27’s progress and performance with regard to the targets and indicators of SDG 12—not only from the perspective of the well-defined methodological framework described in Agenda, but also from the perspective of the scientific results published in the papers specific to the field of sustainable production and consumption patterns. Findings highlight the ongoing ardent transition to a more resource-efficient and circular European economic system. In the race for shifting the production and consumption patterns from the conventional model to the one that has the sustainability factor at its core in the EU-27, the vectors of change proved to be Finland, Austria and Latvia.
Enterprise social media (ESM) is an emerging platform based on Web 2.0 that allows employees to communicate and collaborate. Despite its numerous opportunities and benefits, there is a growing awareness of the “dark side” of the improper use of ESM in organizations. However, the findings in this aspect remain fragmented in prior literature. Our study attempts to address this research gap by capturing the dark side of ESM’s misuse from a conflict-based perspective through a comprehensive literature review of existing literature. We systematically classify different conflicts in ESM’s use, their antecedents, and subsequent negative outcomes and propose specific measures to mitigate them. On these grounds, we develop a holistic conceptual framework to clarify the relationship between these research constructs. Our research indicates that the conflicts in ESM’s use are primarily caused by inappropriate use behavior, prompted by technical characteristics. In addition, we synthesize the negative outcomes of the conflicts with a focus on the individual level from both psychological and behavioral perspectives. Our paper identifies possible opportunities for future research and provides a useful basis to further investigate the dark side of ESM’s misuse. Employees and organizations can also use our conceptual framework to better understand the causes and consequences of conflicts in the use of ESM and develop corresponding measures to mitigate them.
Purpose: The paper presents a comprehensive authors’ research which is intended to study the problems of development of the digital economy in various regions of the world. Digital technologies change the mode of economic policy, labor market landscape, break down the market entrance barriers, and represent new models for business operations, primarily in small and medium business. Digitalization contributes to public infrastructure development, which is able to help with overcoming conventional drags on the expansion of the economy and increasing the productivity of labor.
To achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), governments have committed to promote policies towards a sustainable environment regarding the main determinants of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Focusing on the importance of the information and communication technology (ICT) on sustainable environment, this study identifies the long-run relationship between ICT and CO2 emissions in developing countries. This study uses a panel pooled mean group autoregressive distributive lag (PMG-ARDL) model for 58 developing nations from 1990 to 2014. This analysis clearly shows that the use of ICT is environmentally favorable for relatively low-income developing countries, while no evident relationship exists for relatively high-income developing countries. To achieve environmental sustainability, ICT policies need to be more emphasized to mitigate environmental problems in least-developed countries.
Since the last few years there have been a massive spurt of Research on Blockchain Technologies and several attempts at incorporating them for a myriad of Business Applications. Blockchain Technologies promised to bring about decentralized Trust having the potential to disrupt digital ecosystems by providing alternatives to centralized storage and management of data. This has the potential to radically transform industries and services through new models of data storage, transparency, tracking, payment systems amongst other advantages. However, Blockchain Technology is designed to provide other Value Propositions beyond decentralized storage, such as innovative crypto economic and investment models and radical new forms of decentralized participative governance models that could lead to the evolution of new generation of Digital Platforms and multi stakeholder business interactions. In this paper, through a systematic literature review, we present a set of key Blockchain Value Propositions and a discussion on how it can complement to the evolution of Digital Platforms and the Collaborative Economy. We also argue that while some of the value propositions are easier to integrate with existing Digital Platforms, more disruptive value propositions such as Business Automation, Economic and Governance Models present greater challenges but could lead to not just innovation at the technological level, but also metamorphosis of the existing social, economic and governance models.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) within the United Nations 2030 Agenda emerged in 2015, becoming an unprecedented global compass for navigating extant sustainability challenges. Nevertheless, it still represents a nascent field enduring uncertainties and complexities. In this regard, the interplay between digitalization and sustainability unfolds bright opportunities for shaping a greener economy and society, paving the way towards the SDGs. However, little evidence exists so far, about a genuine contribution of digital paradigms to sustainability. Besides, their role to tackle the SDGs research gaps remains unexplored. Thus, a holistic characterization of the aforementioned topics has not been fully explored in the emerging literature, deserving further research. The article endeavors a twofold purpose: (1) categorizing the main SDGs research gaps; (2) coupled with a critical exploration of the potential contribution of digital paradigms, particularly Big Data and Artificial Intelligence, towards overcoming the aforesaid caveats and pursuing the 2030 Agenda. Ultimately, the study seeks to bridge literature gaps by providing a first-of-its-kind overview on the SDGs and their nexus with digitalization, while unraveling policy implications and future research directions. The methodology has consisted of a systematic holistic review and in-depth qualitative analysis of the literature on the realms of the SDGs and digitalization. Our findings evidence that the SDGs present several research gaps, namely: flawed understanding of complexities and interlinkages; design shortcomings and imbalances; implementation and governance hurdles; unsuitable indicators and assessment methodologies; truncated adoption and off-target progress; unclear responsibilities and lacking coordination; untapped role of technological innovation and knowledge management. Moreover, our results show growing expectations about the added value brought by digitalization for pursuing the SDGs, through novel data sources, enhanced analytical capacities and collaborative digital ecosystems. However, current research and practice remains in early-stage, pointing to ethical, social and environmental controversies, along with policy caveats, which merit additional research. In light of the findings, the authors suggest a first-approach exploration of research and policy implications. Results suggest that further multidisciplinary research, dialogue and concerted efforts for transformation are required. Reframing the Agenda, while aligning the sustainable development and digitalization policies, seems advisable to ensure a holistic sustainability. The findings aim at guiding and stimulating further research and science-policy dialogue on the promising nexus amid the SDGs and digitalization.
In recent years, many people are connected with each other via social networking sites such as Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Weibo. Many users on these social networking sites actively add posts or tweets so that they share their activities with their friends or connections. This leads to big social network data. For many of these creators of social network data (i.e., users on the social networking sites), it is not unusual for them to have hundreds or even thousands of friends or connections. Among these friends or connections, some of them care about the users by responding to the users’ posts or tweets (e.g., like these posts, add comments to the posts, or retweet the tweets) while some other are lurkers who just observe do not actively participate in any social network activities. How to distinguish those who care about you from those lurkers? To answer this question, we present in this book chapter big data management and analytics techniques on social network data. Specifically, our techniques help users discover friends or connections who cares most about them on social networking sites such as Facebook.
This paper investigates the literary corpus on the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the construction of sustainable business models (SBMs). It provides a quantitative overview of the academic literature that constitutes the field. The paper discusses the relationships between AI and rapid developments in machine learning and sustainable development (SD). Specifically, the aim is to understand whether this branch of computer science can influence production and consumption patterns to achieve sustainable resource management according to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) outlined in the UN 2030 Agenda. Moreover, the paper aims to highlight the role of Knowledge Management Systems (KMS) in the cultural drift toward the spread of AI for SBMs. Despite the importance of the topic, there is no comprehensive review of the AI and SBM literature in light of SDGs. Based on a database containing 73 publications in English with publication dates from 1990 to 2019, a bib-liometric analysis is conducted. The findings show that the innovation challenge involves ethical, social, economic , and legal aspects. Thus, considering that the development potential of AI is linked to the UN 2030 Agenda for SD, especially to SDG#12, our results also outline the framework of the existing literature on AI and SDGs, especially SDG#12, including AI's association with the cultural drift (CD) in the SBMs. The paper highlights the key contributions, which are: i) a comprehensive review of the key underlying relationship between AI and SBMs, offering a holistic view as needed, ii) identifying a research gap regarding KMS through AI, and iii) the implications of AI concerning SDG#12. Academic and managerial implications are also discussed regarding KMS in the SBMs, where the AI can represent the vehicle to meet the SDGs allowing for the identification of the cultural change required by enterprises to achieve sustainable goals. Thus, business companies, academic research practitioners, and state policy should focus on the further development of the use of AI in SBMs.
Aim
To describe the results of a feasibility phase and the expected results of a new approach to increase the participation rate in Colorectal Cancer Organized Screening Program (CCRSP) through Facebook awareness messages.
Method
This approach targets people aged 50‐74, residing in an urban deprived area and regularly connected to Facebook. The feasibility phase ran over 2 months (December‐2018 and January‐2019) in six municipalities (Seine‐Saint‐Denis, France). The full provisional campaign will run over a year. The approach consists of sending electronic awareness messages using a specific Facebook module. The consenting people complete a test kit application form. Their eligibility is determined by a doctor before sending this kit.
Results
39,900 people were reached by the feasibility phase campaign and 9,200 were able to watch at least one Facebook message/videos. Among them, 4,450 people logged to learn more about the CCRSP, 298 applied for a test kit, 160 test kit applicants were eligible, the test completion rate was 41.9%. According to these feasibility results, 366,120 targeted people would connect regularly in the tested area of which, 141,541 would be interested in a specific promotional message posted on Facebook. 9770 kit requests could be made including 5,246 people eligible. The expected test completion rate is estimated at 42% to 89%. This would represent 5‐11% of the tests carried out in the area during the same period by “classical” CCRSP.
Conclusion
Implementation of the Facebook strategy would improve significantly the CCRSP's participation rate by mobilizing people with no previous participation including younger subjects.
Regardless of the growth in social media and social network advertising (SNA), little theoretical and empirical knowledge exists on the differences between countries, and the perceptions and attitudes towards social network advertising. The purpose of the study is to investigate the relationships between users’ perceptions (personal and societal), their attitudes and their behaviour towards Facebook advertising, across three countries, as well as the moderating role of privacy and general advertising attitudes. Online surveys were administered and a convenience sampling resulted in 1,166 respondents. Structural equation modelling was used to test the proposed model.
The research indicates that the social support theory shows promise for examining the perceptions and attitudes towards SNA. Furthermore, the validity of the conceptual model is confirmed in all three countries; however, the strength of these relationships differs. Additionally, it is evident that consumers’ culture influences the role of privacy and trust in SNA perceptions.
Digital platforms turn traditional approaches of the firm, which relied on the wage relation to explain the major difference between firm and market, upside down and underline the advantages of coordination through organization over coordination through market. This study aims to propose a definition of the firm able to integrate, besides the integrated firm, also hybrid forms such as networks of subcontractor/subcontracting firms as well as atypical forms such as digital platforms. By reactivating the firm-boundary problem, this article suggests putting valorization by labor at the heart of the firm’s decisions concerning integration. It suggests therefore a general definition of the firm as a techno-institutional center of capital valorization, provided that firms make profits by means of the appropriation of labor incorporated into their (productive, structural, intellectual) capital through institutional arrangements. By stressing the relation of production between the owners of the means of production and the direct producers, the approach of the firm supported here should allow to cover the different existing models of the firm, from the classical firm to hybrid models, around which the boundary debate has revolved, to digital platforms.
Digital platforms are a nearly ubiquitous form of intermediary and infrastructure in society. By positioning platforms in the geographical political economy/ecology literature, this paper provides a critical analysis of platforms as a dominant form of rentier in contemporary capitalism. In doing so, I extend this work on rent theory beyond applications to land and nature so that it also includes platforms and data. I argue that the rapid rise of the “X‐as‐a‐service” business model across nearly all sectors of the economy is creating rentier relations by another name. This model is premised on the platform latching onto and inserting itself into the production, circulation, or consumption process, thus creating opportunities to capture value. To better understand the operations and implications of platforms, I outline three key mechanisms: data extraction, digital enclosure, and capital convergence.
Die aktuellen politischen Debatten sind geprägt von der Sorge um den Klimawandel (und damit: nachhaltige Entwicklung) und der Hoffnung auf die Digitalisierung. Es liegt daher nahe zu kombinieren: Kann eine ,,digitalisierte Nachhaltigkeit“ oder ,,nachhaltige Digitalisierung“ weiterhelfen?
Social Network Sites (SNSs) have been found to promote psychological well-being of individuals through bonding and bridging social capital by allowing users to engage in different networking activities with their close and weak ties. However, these findings primarily focus on younger population or adopt simplistic measures of SNS use without distinguishing different activities, leaving how specific SNS uses may affect older users' psychological well-being unclear. This study examined the effects of engaging in different Facebook activities on older users over 50 as compared to younger adults between 18 and 25, using Facebook behavioral data in conjunction with survey data. Drawing from Socioemotional Selectivity Theory and Uses and Gratification theory, it tested different effects of SNS activities on older and younger users’ psychological well-being. We found that compared to younger adults, older adults benefit less from having a large network and more from engaging in directed communication activities.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine both the Latino/Hispanic entrepreneurs’ social media adoption (SMA) for business purposes and the influence of culture on personal versus business social network platform (SNP) selection.
Design/methodology/approach
The Technology Acceptance Model’s (TAM) factors of perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEU) as drivers of Latino/Hispanic entrepreneurs’ social network platform selection are examined as well as the effect of SMA on revenue. Data was collected from 633 small business owners across the United States via an online survey administered in English and Spanish.
Findings
Results indicate that Latino/Hispanic business owners use personal SNP more than business SNP for business purposes. PU and PEU were not found to predict personal SNP for Latino/Hispanic entrepreneurs. However, for Non-Latino/Hispanics, PU was significant while PEU was marginally significant. Findings for PU and PEU as predictors of business SNP indicate similar results for both Latino/Hispanic and non-Latino/Hispanic entrepreneurs, where only PEU was significant. Finally, there was no relationship between either business or personal SNP and revenue for either Latino/Hispanic or non-Latino/Hispanic entrepreneurs.
Practical implications
This research provides more insight into Latino/Hispanic entrepreneurs’ self-directed engagement in personal SNP (Facebook) and business SNP (LinkedIn) for business purposes and invites future research in this population to further examine cultural influence and business performance. The findings support the need for Latino/Hispanic entrepreneurs’ strengthening their competency in social media usage to remain competitive, as doing so will enhance their capability for building customer relationships, brand development, and equity financing.
Originality/value
This investigation 1) examines SMA’s role in Latino/Hispanic small and medium enterprises (SMEs); 2) distinguishes between personal and business social network platforms; 3) investigates TAM’s relevance for Latino/Hispanic entrepreneurs’ use of social media for business; and 4) explores SME social media usage as a predictor of revenue. We seek to provide practitioners with a greater understanding of how they may influence business success and sustainability through better competency development and usage of social media platforms.
Digital transformation has triggered a process of concentration in several markets for information goods with digital platforms rising to dominate key industries by leveraging on network externalities and economies of scale in the use of consumer data. The policy debate, therefore, focuses on the market control allegedly held by incumbents who build their competitive advantage on big data. In this paper, we evaluate the risk of abuse of a dominant position by analysing three major aspects highlighted in economic theory: entry barriers, price discrimination, and potential for technological improvement. Drawing on industrial and information economics, we argue that the very nature of big data, on the one hand, prompts market concentration and, on the other, limits the possibility of abuse. This claim is not an a-priori apologia of large incumbents in digital markets, but rather an attempt to argue that market concentration is not necessarily detrimental when it stimulates continuous innovation. Nonetheless, the concentration of power in a few global players should raise other concerns linked with the supranational nature of these firms, which can easily cherry-pick locations to exploit tax competition among countries or more favourable privacy legislation and the fair use of data.