World, Volume 7, Issue 7 (July 2026) – 24 articles

Professional online communities increasingly function as digital social infrastructures during societal disruption, yet less is known about how their support practices reorganize during prolonged crises. This study examined how social support, engagement patterns, and support-seeking behavior changed in a large Hebrew-language professional Facebook group for Israeli educators across routine and crisis periods. Quantitative content analysis was conducted on an analytic sample of 1008 posts published between January 2022 and July 2025, covering the pre-war period and the wartime period following October 2023. Posts were coded for informational, emotional, and instrumental support and for support-seeking, and negative binomial and logistic regression models examined engagement and predictors of support-seeking. Informational support was dominant (69.3%), followed by support-seeking (30.7%), emotional support (12.8%), and instrumental support (4.4%). During wartime, support-seeking and instrumental support were less frequent, whereas informational and emotional support were more frequent. Informational posts received approximately three times more likes, while support-seeking posts received fewer likes but sustained comment activity. Anonymous authors were more likely to seek support, but posts by anonymous authors received fewer comments. The findings suggest an aggregate pattern of support flexibility in the analytic sample, reflected in a relative shift from reactive support-seeking toward proactive informational sharing and emotional processing as part of collective resilience-building during sustained societal crisis. Full article

This study examines spatial inequalities in job accessibility in Porto Alegre, Brazil, through a multimodal perspective that incorporates walking, cycling, and public transport within the 15-minute city framework. Accessibility was assessed using cumulative opportunity measures with a 15-minute travel threshold, combining open data on employment, transport networks, and demographics into hexagonal grids. Travel-time matrices were generated using the R5 routing engine via the r5r package in R, accounting for realistic multimodal routing conditions, including transfers and waiting times. The resulting accessibility measures were then integrated with socioeconomic and racial indicators for subsequent analysis. The analysis identified four accessibility profiles structured by a center–periphery divide: a low-accessibility southern periphery, a transitional northern belt with strong transit but limited active mobility, a central corridor with consistently high multimodal access, and a hyper-accessible core with exceptional walking and cycling opportunities. Income-elasticity analysis revealed stronger associations between income and active mobility accessibility than with public transport, highlighting how proximity to jobs privileges wealthier, centrally located households. High-skilled employment was concentrated in central areas, reinforcing cumulative advantages and deepening inequalities for low-income and racially marginalized populations. The findings underscore the urgency of integrated mobility and land-use policies to expand active and public transport infrastructure and decentralize employment opportunities, ensuring equitable access to jobs. Full article

Transport infrastructure is commonly viewed as a key driver of development, although its actual contribution remains debated and appears to be dependent on geographical and economic context. This study investigates the impact of transport infrastructure on regional economic growth in Romania, with a particular focus on spatial spillover effects. Using panel data for Romanian regions over the period 2000–2024, the analysis applies spatial econometric techniques to capture both direct and indirect effects of transport infrastructure and economic factors. A structured model selection procedure, based on Lagrange Multiplier tests and robust diagnostics, supports the use of the Spatial Autoregressive Model (SAR) as the preferred specification. The results reveal significant spatial dependence in regional economic performance, indicating that growth processes extend across regional boundaries. Nonetheless, the findings show that transport infrastructure does not exert a statistically significant direct effect on economic growth once spatial and structural factors are controlled. Instead, labor and private gross capital formation emerge as the primary drivers, generating both strong local impacts and substantial spillover effects. These results suggest that transport infrastructure acts mainly as an enabling factor rather than a standalone driver of growth, making the concept of “political mythification” of transport infrastructure effectiveness relevant in the Romanian context. Full article

Savings and credit cooperatives support financial inclusion, community-based economic participation, and the social economy in emerging countries, yet their protection mechanisms are often discussed through models designed for commercial banks. This article examines whether bank-based deposit insurance is institutionally suitable for Indonesian savings and credit cooperatives and how alternative protection arrangements can be designed without weakening cooperative governance. Using conceptual institutional analysis and comparative policy analysis, the article combines institutional economics, financial safety net theory, cooperative governance literature, Indonesian regulatory developments, and comparative lessons from European cooperative banking systems, particularly Germany’s Institutional Protection Scheme. The analysis shows that direct transplantation of bank-centric deposit insurance may create institutional mismatch because cooperative members may simultaneously act as owners, savers, borrowers, users, and governance participants. The article develops the Contextualized Cooperative Deposit Protection Design (CC-DPD) framework, integrating external protection with federated risk pooling, tiered eligibility, peer monitoring, early intervention, and governance-aligned incentives. It contributes to debates on institutional resilience, social economy sustainability, and inclusive financial governance by showing that financial safety nets are not institutionally neutral; their effectiveness depends on governance congruence between regulatory design and the organizational logic of the institutions they protect. In this article, cooperative deposit protection refers specifically to protection of member-savings claims rather than cooperative equity or ordinary commercial bank deposits. Full article

Understanding multidimensional deprivation requires consideration not only of who experiences overlapping disadvantages but also of how those disadvantages vary geographically. This study provides a comprehensive descriptive assessment of geographic variation in multidimensional deprivation across the United States using pooled 2022–2023 American Community Survey (ACS) Public Use Microdata Sample data and a Multidimensional Deprivation Index (MDI) constructed using the Alkire–Foster methodology. The MDI incorporates eight indicators spanning four equally weighted dimensions of well-being: economic security, education, health, and housing. Variation is examined across four nested geographic scales—Census regions, Census divisions, states, and all 2487 Public Use Microdata Areas (PUMAs)—using the Headcount Ratio (H), Average Deprivation Intensity (A), and the MDI. The results reveal substantial geographic differences in multidimensional deprivation across the United States, with progressively finer geographic scales revealing increasingly localized patterns. Geographic areas with similar overall MDI values often differ substantially in the composition of deprivation, underscoring the importance of examining the composition as well as the overall level of deprivation. Across all geographic scales, differences in multidimensional deprivation primarily reflect variation in deprivation incidence rather than deprivation intensity, while the PUMA-level analysis suggests that important local variation is obscured by broader regional and state averages. The principal contribution of this study is its integrated multiscale framework. Rather than developing a new deprivation measure or evaluating formal spatial dependence, the analysis applies an established Alkire–Foster methodology to recent nationally representative ACS microdata. This framework provides a consistent descriptive assessment of multidimensional deprivation across multiple nested geographic scales. The findings establish a descriptive empirical benchmark for geographically informed policy discussions and for demonstrating that both the level and composition of multidimensional deprivation vary systematically across geographic scales and that important local variation is obscured by broader regional and state averages. Full article

Persistent development constraints and material-intensive production have become central features of Southern Africa’s economic landscape. Globalisation has simultaneously intensified the region’s vulnerability to external shocks and heightened pressure to enhance resource efficiency and transition toward sustainable development. This study examines the effect of economic globalisation on resource productivity among members of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), a highly integrated, resource-dependent, and economically diverse regional bloc. Using a panel econometric approach covering 1996–2023, the analysis employs a dynamic common correlated effects estimator and panel causality tests to identify long-run elasticities and causal relationships. Results indicate that economic globalisation exerts a significant and negative effect on resource productivity in SACU, with these effects driven primarily by the de jure dimension of the integration process. The findings reveal important complexities within this nexus, including core–periphery dynamics and the internal architectural characteristics of the customs union, with notable feedback loops also identified. The study contributes to the literature by demonstrating that it is not merely the extent of integration that matters for resource efficiency, but the quality and nature of that integration. In doing so, it offers a nuanced understanding of how regional institutional frameworks interact with globalisation to shape sustainability outcomes. Full article

Assessing sustainability in complex adaptive systems (CAS) is still considerable challenge, due to the prevalence of dynamic non-linear interdependent socio-ecological processes. Traditional assessment approaches often target a single outcome and have a limited ability to model the interactions and feedback loops that influence system behavior. To overcome this limitation, this research proposes a hybrid methodological framework that integrates the Ecotourism Opportunity Spectrum (ECOS), the Delphi method, and key components of CAS theory. The framework allows for the systematic identification, organization, and validation of sustainability indicators in a structured way. It uses a layered approach where indicators are first conceptualized within an integrated framework, then adapted through expert agreement, and subsequently interpreted through the theoretical perspective of CAS to better understand interdependencies and adaptive dynamics. The findings demonstrate strong expert agreement across the identified sustainability indicators and highlight the importance of understanding sustainability dimensions as interdependent rather than isolated assessment components. The CAS-based interpretation further revealed that sustainability indicators operate through adaptive and interconnected relationships, where changes in external environmental, institutional, or socio-economic conditions may influence multiple sustainability dimensions simultaneously. This study contributes to the improvement of sustainability assessment tools and supports decision-making in a more informed, flexible, and context-specific manner by providing a structured but still flexible decision-support approach. Full article

Artificial intelligence is increasingly reshaping leadership practices and organizational decision-making, yet its implications for innovation outcomes remain insufficiently understood. Existing research largely assumes that AI-driven leadership enhances innovation while paying limited attention to its effects on the human capabilities required to sustain innovation quality. This study examines whether AI-driven leadership creates an innovation paradox in which increased innovation activity is accompanied by declining innovation quality. Cross-sectional self-reported data were collected from 2990 employees working in digitally intensive organizational environments. A split-sample EFA–CFA validation procedure was applied, and the proposed framework was tested using structural equation modeling. AI-Driven Leadership was positively associated with Innovation Activity and Human Capital Erosion. Human Capital Erosion was negatively associated with Innovation Quality, while Innovation Activity was also negatively associated with Innovation Quality. Mediation analysis indicated a substantial indirect association between AI-Driven Leadership and Innovation Quality through Human Capital Erosion. Organizational Learning Erosion did not significantly influence Innovation Quality and did not mediate the proposed relationships. The findings suggest an innovation paradox whereby AI-driven leadership is associated with higher innovation activity while simultaneously being associated with greater human capital erosion, potentially reducing innovation quality. Accordingly, preserving human capital may be important for sustaining innovation quality in AI-enabled organizations. Full article

Electric vehicles (EVs) are central to ongoing decarbonisation strategies, yet marketing communications frequently emphasise operational benefits while omitting upstream lifecycle impacts associated with battery production, electricity sourcing, and end-of-life processing. Such selective disclosures, commonly labelled as greenwashing, operate as signals under conditions of information asymmetry and can shape consumer attitudes and purchase intentions. This study is positioned as a conceptual framework supported by preliminary pilot qualitative observation with an aim to synthesise the literature on greenwashing taxonomies, lifecycle assessment (LCA) evidence for EVs, signalling theory, and corrective research to develop an Integrated Signalling–Greenwashing Model (ISGM). The ISGM conceptualises greenwashed marketing as potentially deceptive low-cost signals and corrective LCA materials or documentary excerpts as higher-cost counter-signals. The pilot study provides an extended literature review, theoretical development, a detailed theoretical model with propositions and boundary conditions, and a discussion of implications for theory, policy and managerial practice in policy-active contexts such as the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). Full article

China’s Recording and Review system has emerged as a central mechanism of constitutional supervision and has attracted increasing scholarly attention over the past decade. Although constitutional review has been extensively studied in comparative constitutional law, research on China’s R&R system remains fragmented and lacks a systematic synthesis. This article presents a systematic review of the legal literature on the Recording and Review system. Organized around three stages of the Recording and Review system, the review synthesizes the principal doctrinal debates, identifies areas of scholarly consensus and disagreement, and highlights unresolved theoretical questions. It shows that existing scholarship has primarily focused on the institutional foundations and constitutional legitimacy of the Recording and Review system, while issues relating to review methods, review standards, and corrective mechanisms remain comparatively underexplored. By providing an analytically structured assessment of the existing literature, this review contributes to a deeper understanding of China’s legislature-centered model of constitutional supervision and establishes an agenda for future theoretical and empirical research. Full article

Environmental damage assessment has become an important institutional component of regional sustainability transitions, especially in resource-dependent northern territories where industrial risks, fragile ecosystems, sparse monitoring networks, and limited institutional capacity intersect. Existing oil-spill valuation approaches provide well-developed legal, economic, and ecosystem-service tools; however, their use as decision-support instruments for compensation governance, prevention investment, monitoring design, and regional resilience policy remains insufficiently operationalized. This article addresses this gap by developing a modular institutional framework for selecting and combining established environmental damage valuation methods under the ecological, legal, data-related, and socio-cultural constraints of the Russian North. The study applies a transparent narrative methodological review and framework-building design based on international and Russian literature, official regulatory sources, natural-resource damage assessment practice, ecosystem-service valuation studies, and publicly available evidence on the 2020 Norilsk diesel fuel spill. The analysis organizes six established valuation approaches into three complementary modules: direct harm, indirect and opportunity-related losses, and non-market ecosystem-service losses. The Norilsk case is used as an illustrative plausibility check rather than a full empirical recalculation. It shows that legally recognized compensation can provide a liability signal, but indirect losses and ecosystem-service components require separate evidence, sensitivity analysis, and double-counting control. The contribution of the article is to adapt established valuation methods into a transparent decision-support protocol that links environmental liability, compensation governance, prevention, monitoring, institutional resilience and regional sustainability transitions in Arctic and sub-Arctic resource regions. Full article

Geopolitical instability is increasingly affecting the development and deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure by disrupting energy systems, semiconductor supply chains, and digital infrastructure networks. While existing research has explored geopolitical risk, digital sovereignty, and AI governance, little attention has been paid to understanding how geopolitical factors are integrated into the valuation and strategic allocation of AI infrastructure. This theory-building study introduces the concept of geopolitical repricing, defined as the process through which firms, investors, governments, and infrastructure operators revise their assessment of the economic value, risk profile, and strategic importance of AI infrastructure in response to geopolitical instability. Drawing on literature on geopolitical risk, AI infrastructure, digital sovereignty, geo-economics, and investment under uncertainty, the paper develops a four-stage analytical framework that links geopolitical shocks, transmission channels, revaluation, and strategic reallocation. The framework identifies three interconnected transmission channels: energy volatility, supply-chain disruption, and infrastructure vulnerability, and explains how their cumulative effects may influence valuation judgments, investment criteria, and infrastructure allocation decisions. The study further proposes a set of theoretically derived propositions and operational indicators to guide future empirical research. The paper contributes to the emerging political economy of AI by providing a conceptual explanation of how geopolitical instability may shape infrastructure valuation beyond the immediate effects of disruption. It lays the groundwork for future research on the connections between geopolitical factors, infrastructure strategies, and AI development. Full article

This study conducts a comprehensive investigation into prospective policy alternatives within Pakistan’s power sector using the PAK-TIMES model, targeting the critical challenges of energy scarcity and environmental degradation. Focused on the period from 2022 to 2050, the research evaluates the impact of various policies on energy consumption, supplies, carbon emissions, and expenditures in alignment with Pakistan’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) directed at combatting climate change. The study explores three distinct scenarios: a business-as-usual (BAU) scenario, along with five policy (5% Eff, 10% Eff, 15% REN, 30% REN, 50% REN) scenarios categorized into energy efficiency and renewable integration. The first scenario concentrates on the deployment of energy-efficient devices, while the second scenario delves into diverse levels of renewable energy integration. Key results reveal that energy demand is projected to surge substantially under the BAU scenario, increasing significantly from 3459 PJ in 2022 to 7912 PJ by 2050. In contrast, scenarios prioritizing energy efficiency can potentially curb the total energy supply by 2.3%, while renewable energy integration can expand up to 1.3% compared to business-as-usual by 2050. These alternative scenarios also exhibit the potential to slash greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the power sector by up to 15%. Notably, the PAK-TIMES model emerges as a valuable decision support tool for the Pakistani government to facilitate the execution of energy efficiency and renewable energy policies aimed at fulfilling its NDCs, while also contributing to the fulfillment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 7 (affordable and clean energy) and 13 (climate action). The study underscores the pivotal role of policy interventions in simultaneously mitigating energy challenges and combatting climate change for sustainable development. Full article

This study aims to map and compare the demand for green skills across four selected African countries by analyzing online job vacancies. Accordingly, the study addresses four research questions: (RQ1) how green skills demand has evolved over time; (RQ2) which sectors exhibit the highest demand for green skills; (RQ3) which occupations are most associated with green skills; and (RQ4) which green competencies are most frequently requested by employers. A Big Data and Labour Market Intelligence approach is employed based on secondary data provided by the online job vacancies (OJV). The results reveal a general upward trend in green skills demand, although with significant cross-country variation. Sectorally, sustainable energy dominates across all countries, followed by more context-specific areas such as agriculture, tourism, and production. At the occupational level, environmental engineers and other technical professions are most strongly associated with green skills. The thematic analysis highlights renewable energy, energy efficiency, and environmental sustainability as the most prominent skill domains, alongside emerging competencies in sustainable mobility, circular economy, and green digital skills. The study contributes to the literature by providing empirical evidence from an underexplored African context and demonstrating the value of online job vacancy data for monitoring labour market transformations. Full article

Traditional shellfish harvesting plays a crucial role in food security, local livelihoods and the preservation of cultural heritage in coastal communities. This study examined environmental, socioeconomic and circular economy perceptions associated with the artisanal fishery of the “black chinese” snail (Hexaplex nigritus) in the Navachiste Lagoon system, located in the south-eastern Gulf of California. A quantitative, exploratory–descriptive approach was employed using a structured Likert-scale questionnaire administered to 225 fishers. Four analytical dimensions were evaluated: environmental perception, personal-family-social, economic, and circular economy perception. Given the multidimensional nature of the questionnaire, the results were interpreted through item-level response patterns. An exploratory hierarchical cluster analysis using Ward’s method suggested greater similarity between environmental and economic perception profiles, without establishing a definitive relationship. The descriptive results indicated moderate environmental concern ($\overline{\mathrm{x}}$ = 3.12), high sociocultural value ($\overline{\mathrm{x}}$ = 4.49), a negative economic perception ($\overline{\mathrm{x}}$ = 2.32) associated with low income and dependence on intermediaries, and limited adoption of circular economy practices ($\overline{\mathrm{x}}$ = 1.36). It is concluded that, despite its cultural importance, surveyed fishers perceive that the fishery faces environmental pressures and economic constraints and shows an almost total lack of integration of circular economy practices. These findings underscore the potential importance of developing comprehensive policies to promote sustainable management, strengthen marketing, and foster a circular economy for the H. nigritus fishery with the aim of contributing to its long-term sustainability in the region. Full article

Human Resource Analytics (HRA) is expected to improve workforce decision-making, yet many organisations struggle to translate people analytics into strategic and governance value. This article draws on a focused qualitative re-analysis of 13 semi-structured interviews from a broader exploratory mixed-method study of HRA in Portugal’s commercial airline sector. The analysis shows that strategic misalignment emerged inductively as a central explanation for limited HRA adoption. Three barriers were identified: HR’s marginal role in strategic decision-making, fragmented data and cross-functional silos, and inconsistent executive sponsorship for analytics-driven people management. These conditions restrict HRA to descriptive reporting, weaken evidence-based governance of workforce decisions, and limit its contribution to organisational sustainability. The study contributes to the HRA literature by positioning strategic alignment as an emergent antecedent of analytics impact in operationally complex and highly regulated sectors. It shows that HRA creates organisational value only when workforce capability, operational resilience, and business priorities are connected through governance arrangements and executive commitment. Full article

Climate change threatens global food security through shifts in temperature and precipitation regimes, greater frequency of extreme weather events, and cascading effects on agricultural input markets and institutional capacity. Policymakers require nationally comparable diagnostic tools that are reproducible, transparent, and grounded in open data. This study presents an interpretable machine learning framework for country-level crop yield prediction and climate sensitivity screening, using publicly available FAOSTAT-derived panel data spanning 101 countries and 10 staple crop types over 1990–2013. A gradient-boosted decision tree model (XGBoost 2.1.4) is trained on observations from 1990 to 2008 and evaluated on a strictly held-out temporal window (2009–2013), using annual mean temperature, annual precipitation, total pesticide use (as a rough proxy for agricultural input management intensity), crop type and country identifiers, and temporally lagged yield values as predictive features. The optimized model yields high predictive accuracy on held-out data (R² = 0.982; RMSE = 11,183 hg/ha; MAE = 4396 hg/ha). Ablation analysis reveals that model performance depends primarily on temporal yield persistence and crop identity, with performance declining to R² = 0.940 when lagged features are omitted, while climate-only variables explain limited variation (R² = 0.119). Notably, an ordinary least squares (OLS) baseline achieves comparable performance (R² = 0.984), suggesting that the dominant predictive signals arise from a stable temporal–cross-sectional structure rather than nonlinear modeling flexibility. SHAP-based feature attribution identifies regime-dependent temperature effects, with larger (more negative) marginal contributions under high-temperature conditions. Stylized sensitivity perturbations (+1 °C, +2 °C, −20% pesticide inputs) indicate modest mean yield changes (−1.3% to −1.6%) but substantial cross-national heterogeneity. Systematic residual analysis identifies countries exhibiting consistent over- or under-prediction patterns, offering diagnostic signals for further institutional investigation. This framework is designed as a transparent, scalable screening tool for evidence-based prioritization rather than a validated causal or forecasting instrument. It complements localized agronomic expertise and supports SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) and SDG 13 (Climate Action). Full article

This paper analyzes the water management practices that were implemented by the Athenian city-state of the Classical period (508–323 BC) from an economics perspective. These were based on the following diptych: investing water management infrastructure and introducing effective relative institutions. Infrastructure included extensive public works such as the building of public wells, aqueducts, fountains, springs and cisterns, as well as the building of underground water supply and sewage networks. Institutions included the introduction of three categories of public magistrates who implemented the city-state’s water management policy. By implementing Elinor Ostrom’s Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework, this paper examines how rules-in-use and administrative incentives structured the action arena, arguing that the success of the Athenian water management policy should be attributed to an institutional matrix that perfectly aligned administrative incentives with environmental realities. Finally, we discuss how the Athenian water management practices, based on a system of motives and disincentives, could be seen as a useful historical paradigm for our modern societies. Full article

Global value chains (GVCs) are undergoing significant reconfiguration in a context of slower trade growth, rising geopolitical tensions and repeated supply chain disruptions. This article examines how these pressures have shaped the sourcing geography of Spanish apparel imports between 1999 and 2023. Drawing on a panel of the 25 main supplier countries (625 country-year observations), it analyses the changing structure of sourcing through three restructuring dynamics widely discussed in the recent literature: nearshoring, diversification and friendshoring. The results show that diversification, rather than regionalization, has been the main response to recent disruptions. While Spain’s apparel sourcing has become less concentrated, this shift has not led to a sustained shortening of supply chains or to a clear reduction in dependence on Asia. Geopolitical alignment has limited explanatory power at the aggregate level, although it becomes more relevant among semi-proximity suppliers competing on the basis of speed, flexibility and political reliability. Overall, the findings suggest that post-pandemic restructuring in Spanish apparel is better understood as a selective form of risk management within an existing buyer-driven GVC than as a broad move toward nearshoring. Full article

In recent sustainability discussions, the link between policy uncertainty and environmental consequences has received significant attention. This study investigates the impact of sustainability uncertainty on the ecological footprint (EF) in G7 countries between 2002 and 2024. The recently developed ESG-Based Sustainability Uncertainty Index (ESGUI) is used as the primary explanatory variable. The control variables are economic growth, trade openness, and renewable energy consumption. Two complementary estimators capable of addressing cross-sectional dependence, slope heterogeneity, and degrees of mixed integration are applied: CS-ARDL and the AMG estimator. The CS-ARDL results demonstrate that the ESGUI and renewable energy have a weakly significant negative long-term effect on the EF, a result that reverses the positive raw correlation observed in the descriptive statistics, which is driven by the confounding effect of GDP. Moreover, economic growth has a strong positive effect on the EF. Nevertheless, the AMG estimator reveals that the ESGUI is negative but not statistically significant. Furthermore, economic growth contributes to environmental degradation by increasing the EF, while renewable energy and trade openness have a mitigating effect on this EF. Taken together, these results demonstrate that sustainability uncertainty plays only a limited role on average, while economic growth remains the dominant driver of EF. Consequently, policy efforts should focus on decoupling economic growth from resource use, strengthening carbon border regulation mechanisms, and prioritizing fossil fuel substitution rather than simply expanding renewable energy supply. Full article

Implementing technological change in rural or culturally distinct settings requires moving beyond the modernization bias that treats Western technical solutions as universally applicable. This article develops a process-based reflection on culturally grounded co-design for sustainable technology, drawing on social design, just transition principles, and appropriate technology. Rather than evaluating final project outcomes, the article examines how technology and social organization can be approached as context-specific practices that must be negotiated, adapted, and maintained with local actors. The discussion is informed by the O-Waste Project in The Gambia, which is used as an illustrative case to examine the role of local councils, women’s organizations, market committees, and implementing partners in shaping technological adoption. By emphasizing vernacular knowledge, locally maintainable systems, and participatory decision-making, the article argues that sustainable innovation depends on technical performance as well as cultural legitimacy, institutional trust, and procedural justice. The analysis suggests that development in diverse cultural contexts requires a careful balance between external technical expertise and community appropriation. The O-Waste case therefore offers process-based insights into how sustainable technologies can be introduced without reducing local communities to passive recipients of modernization. Full article

The use of European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) represents a major change in corporate sustainability reporting, particularly through the formalisation of the double materiality principle. Despite its regulatory relevance, empirical evidence on how organisations disclose double materiality remains limited, especially during the first reporting cycle. This study provides early empirical indicative evidence on the application of double materiality in disclosure following the initial ESRS reporting. It examines how leading European water-sector companies and environmental service providers with urban water activities integrated this approach into their 2024 sustainability disclosures. A mixed-methods design is applied, combining qualitative content analysis with descriptive quantitative checks of sustainability, ESG, and integrated reports. The disclosed material topics are assessed against the ESRS thematic framework. The findings indicate a strong convergence on the key environmental issues reported, notably climate change, water management, and circular economy-disclosed practices, including companies not yet fully subject to ESRS requirements. In contrast, social and governance disclosures suggest greater heterogeneity. Overall, the results suggest that broader material coverage does not necessarily imply higher information quality, as this reflects the breadth of disclosure rather than its quality, reinforcing double materiality as a sector-driven prioritisation mechanism. Full article

This study examines how value is constructed in sustainable rural tourism through the integration of local gastronomy and spatially embedded accommodation. Although sustainability is commonly treated as an evaluative dimension, limited attention has been given to how it is experienced and internalized within tourism contexts. Addressing this gap, the study develops and empirically tests a process-based model in which Local Gastronomic Authenticity initiates a sequential pathway through Spatial Immersion, Perceived Sustainability Value, and Experiential Enrichment, ultimately shaping Behavioral Intention. Data were collected from 3181 respondents with direct rural tourism experience in the Emilia-Romagna region (Italy), within Slow Food-based gastronomic settings and Albergo Diffuso accommodation systems. The findings indicate that value emerges through interconnected stages rather than isolated attributes. Gastronomic authenticity enhances spatial immersion, which strengthens sustainability perception and contributes to experiential enrichment—the strongest predictor of behavioral intention. The results further show that authenticity acquires behavioral relevance through successive stages involving immersion, sustainability perception, and experiential enrichment, without exerting a direct effect on behavior. The study advances a process-oriented understanding of tourism experience formation by explaining how authenticity becomes behaviorally relevant through successive experiential stages and offers practical implications for designing integrated and sustainable rural tourism systems. Full article

The research explores the application of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) within the context of Greek public administration to see whether its legislative transposition has had real impacts on enhancing good governance, accountability, and the protection of data subjects’ rights. Following a doctrinal and comparative approach to law, based on principles of public and administrative law, it analyses the rules governing data protection both at the EU level, as well as the corresponding national implementing legislation (Law 4624/2019), and the practices of supervision authorities, focusing especially on the procedural aspect of GDPR transposition, supported by an empirical examination of selected decisions of the Hellenic Data Protection Authority (HDPA) (2025–2026). Within such a framework, compliance with GDPR becomes one of the main aspects of the European administrative governance system, being associated not with mere legislative requirements, but also with other important elements, such as transparency, proportionality, institutional trust, and efficiency of public services. Greece provides a relevant context for examining the implementation of the GDPR through the high standards of HDPA within public administration. The findings indicate that GDPR compliance in public administration is primarily a matter of governance rather than merely legal alignment. The comparative analysis with recent European Data Protection Board (EDPB) opinions and coordinated supervisory activities further demonstrates that the governance challenges identified in Greece are broadly consistent with those observed across the European Union. The findings suggest that the Greek supervisory framework operates within the wider European system of GDPR governance and exhibits a level of institutional maturity and regulatory alignment comparable to contemporary European supervisory practice. Full article