Impulse buying is something most of us have experienced—walking into a store with no plans to shop and walking out with a bag full of clothes. This study looks closely at what drives that kind of spontaneous behavior, focusing specifically on fashion physical retail in Portugal. The researchers surveyed 411 consumers and used a structural model to analyze how different traits and marketing stimuli influence impulse buying. They looked at factors like sensation seeking, self-identity, shopping motivations (both for pleasure and practicality), how involved people are with fashion, how sensitive they are to price, and how much they’re influenced by store promotions and ambiance. A key part of the study is the role of self-control. The findings show that self-control acts as a kind of filter—helping people resist external triggers like sales promotions or appealing store environments. While fashion involvement, hedonic motives, and price sensitivity directly encourage impulse buying, self-control weakens the impact of other factors. In fact, it completely mediates the effects of store ambiance and promotions. This means that those elements only influence buying behavior when someone’s self-control is low. The study offers valuable insights for fashion retailers. Retailers who want to increase sales should focus on creating enjoyable shopping environments and running sales promotions because these strategies work best with customers who have low self-control. The study deepens our comprehension of impulse buying by showing how motivations interact with environments and internal self-regulation.

Grid-impact studies treat battery electric vehicles as loads, and ask when network capacity will be exhausted. This paper reverses the question: how much of the fleet must operate bidirectionally, and with what probability will an achievable participation rate suffice, for the network to remain within its limits? A conceptual framework adds a vehicle-to-grid and vehicle-to-building flexibility term to the balance between available and required power, nests the authors’ earlier deterministic model for twenty municipalities in Northern Portugal as its zero-flexibility special case, derives a closed-form break-even participation rate per municipality and year, and keeps the simultaneity assumption of that model explicit as a coincidence factor. Participation, location, plug-in and export parameters follow beta-PERT distributions calibrated on published trials and surveys, propagated by Monte Carlo simulation without new field data. The framework is an apparent-power balance per municipality, so its outputs are an upper bound on usable flexibility, not a feeder-level feasibility check. An enrolled vehicle provides about 11 kVA of peak relief, over nine tenths from not charging rather than exporting. Under worst-case simultaneity, observed participation rates, if in place from the outset, halve the 2028 shortfall probability but cannot prevent shortfall by 2030; under realistic coincidence the regional network is not constrained and only eight of twenty municipalities remain critical. The network balance is replicable wherever municipal substation data exist; behavioural parameters require local calibration.

Organizations increasingly measure and report sustainability, yet the impacts they report are produced in projects. This paper proposes a relational reconceptualization of sustainability maturity in project management, as the coupling of measurement means to the project decisions where sustainability ends are produced, and examines it against practitioners’ accounts. Sixty interviews (from an initial corpus of 62) with project management practitioners across six sectors and three organizational scales were analyzed through hybrid qualitative content analysis (27 codes; blind double coding, κ = 0.70). Practitioners rated their organizations readily but on improvised scales that were differentiated internally and narrated as trajectory, including regression; no participant invoked any named maturity model. In this sample, measurement accumulates at the organizational level while the project level frequently goes unmeasured: 26% of the 54 organizations, and 47% of the multinationals among them, maintain corporate measurement with no project-level measurement. This asymmetry is an observable signature consistent with vertical, means–ends decoupling; whether the corporate measurement that exists fails to inform project decisions is an inference the present design cannot test. External requirements dominate the reported drivers and are frequently welcomed as resources for growth; in exploratory sector comparisons, construction shows the highest project-level measurement and IT the lowest. The findings are consistent with the coupling conception, which they were used to develop rather than to test, and point to measurement attachment, rather than instrument availability, as the likely binding constraint in sustainability management systems.

The rapid adoption of computing technologies and the Internet has transformed various aspects of society, including education, communication, commerce, and governance. While computer and communication technologies offer significant benefits, they also present complex ethical and security challenges. This paper explores the ethical and security dimensions of computing technologies, focusing on issues such as data privacy, algorithmic bias, cybersecurity threats, and digital well-being. Through a detailed analysis of these challenges, the paper examines how data collection, automated decision-making, and digital surveillance can undermine user autonomy, exacerbate inequalities, and compromise user privacy. The discussion is guided by ethical frameworks, including deontological and consequentialist perspectives, providing a balanced view of the ethical implications of technology use. The paper also proposes best practices for ethical technology integration, including clear data protection policies, bias mitigation strategies, transparent AI design, and user education programs. By promoting digital literacy and fostering a culture of ethical technology use, institutions can harness the benefits of computing technologies while minimizing risks. This paper emphasizes the need for a collaborative approach involving educators, administrators, developers, and policymakers to ensure that technology serves as a tool for empowerment rather than exploitation.

Purpose

This study examines the influence of corporate governance, firm-level characteristics, external factors and risk-taking on bank credit ratings in three distinct regions: Africa, the EU13 and Latin America/Caribbean.

Design/methodology/approach

This research analyzes a panel dataset comprising 752 banks from 95 countries from 2011 to 2020, using ordered logistic regression.

Findings

The results reveal that corporate governance factors, including board size, board age, and board gender diversity, significantly impact credit ratings. Firm-specific characteristics, including age, market discipline, and opacity, negatively correlate with credit ratings. External factors, particularly the presence of the Big Four audit firms and economic growth, positively influence credit ratings. Institutional quality negatively impacts credit ratings, while risk-taking shows a significant positive association.

Practical implications

This study encourages banks and policymakers to re-evaluate governance structures, risk management strategies, and region-specific approaches to credit assessment. A thorough understanding of credit rating determinants is essential for fostering a resilient and sustainable financial environment.

Originality/value

This study underscores the critical role of robust corporate governance, institutional quality, and audit oversight in shaping credit ratings within the global banking sector. It challenges the prevailing one-size-fits-all approach to credit-rating assessments and supports the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8, Target 10, which aims to strengthen financial institutions. The findings also contribute to the ongoing discourse on credit ratings within the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa framework.