Promise versus reality: a systematic review of the ongoing debates in people analytics

PurposeAccording to the significant growth of literature and continued adoption of people analytics in practice, it has been promised that people analytics will inform evidence-based decision-making and improve business outcomes. However, existing people analytics literature remains underdeveloped in understanding whether and how such promises have been realized. Accordingly, this study aims to investigate the current reality of people analytics and uncover the debates and challenges that are emerging as a result of its adoption.Design/methodology/approachThis study conducts a systematic literature review of peer-reviewed articles focused on people analytics published in the Association of Business School (ABS) ranked journals between 2011 and 2021.FindingsThe review illustrates and critically evaluates several emerging debates and issues faced by people analytics, including inconsistency among the concept and definition of people analytics, people analytics ownership, ethical and privacy concerns of using people analytics, missing evidence of people analytics impact and readiness to perform people analytics.Practical implicationsThis review presents a comprehensive research agenda demonstrating the need for collaboration between scholars and practitioners to successfully align the promise and the current reality of people analytics.Originality/valueThis systematic review is distinct from existing reviews in three ways. First, this review synthesizes and critically evaluates the significant growth of peer-reviewed articles focused on people analytics published in ABS ranked journals between 2011 and 2021. Second, the study adopts a thematic analysis and coding process to identify the emerging themes in the existing people analytics literature, ensuring the comprehensiveness of the review. Third, this study focused and expanded upon the debates and issues evolving within the emerging field of people analytics and offers an updated agenda for the future of people analytics research.

The Communist Party of Cuba and Present Challenges: Reflections on the Eighth Party Congress

The Eighth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba—held from April 16 to 19, 2021—offers salient questions, issues, and other themes of the current reality of Cuba from the view of revolutionary militants. Let us take heed.

Social Media and Library Services

The chapter discussed the integration of social media to library and information services rendered in libraries. The authors paid more attention to how this is possible in Nigeria reviewing what other authors have done in related areas and the current reality in our libraries. The authors gave a background information of what social media, library, and library services are. The chapter is broken down into the following sub-headings for easier discussion and understanding: overview and types of social media that libraries can adopt, services rendered by libraries social media can be integrated into, benefits of social media to library services, challenges of social media use in Nigerian libraries, and the future of social media in a world of changing technologies.

The Effectiveness of the Educational Programs of the European Union in Developing the Palestinian Higher Education "the Erasmus+ Program as a Model"

The study aims at identifying the degree the educational programs of the European Union affect developing the Palestinian higher education. This study focuses on the most successful and widespread program, which is the Erasmus + program as one of the European Union programs in supporting and developing the higher education in Palestine and improving the opportunities of employment for the alumni of Palestinian universities, as well as measuring the effectiveness of the program in encouraging the mutual development in human resources among universities. The analytical descriptive approach, based on data collection, is used in this study to analyze the current reality of the participation of universities in the program depending on the objectives of the current study. The main results of the study were as follows: the Erasmus+ program has a great role in developing the Palestinian higher education, and it has a positive impact on the international recognition of the Palestinian universities, as the program paved the way for the establishment of strong and varied partnerships between the Islamic University and partner countries in the European Union. Furthermore, there was a great turnout of the students towards the program, as a result of the program’s role in qualifying the student for work and employment.

In the Labyrinth of Forgetfulness: Charley Grainger’s Joycean Journey in Christine Dwyer Hickey’s Cold Eye of Heaven

Cold Eye of Heaven (2011) shows pre-Brexit Dublin steeped in the post-Celtic Tiger anxieties. The novel narrates the life of a contemporary Everyman, Charley Grainger, known as Farley, from his final moments back to his childhood. Thus, Farley’s journey envisages both a Joycean interior monologue depicting his old-age bafflement in the meanders of memory and a realistic description of the character’s bewilderment at the changes in the cityscapes of the Dublin of 2010. The present paper is a comparative study of the first two chapters of the novel in reference to the history of the city present in the entire text, through the use of the tropes of the mental and urbane labyrinths. Imbued with the allusions to current reality, i.e., the presence of immigrants, Hickey’s observations are in line with Joycean anti-nationalism, as the story offers a nostalgia-stricken picture of the inevitable economic transformation of the metropolis.

Self-Awareness of Soviet Lithuanian Architects in Their Creative Power and Social Significance

The field of contemporary Lithuanian architecture is influenced by architects from different periods with different attitudes. This is manifested by increasing miscommunication between generations of architects and a crisis of values. Various tensions in the community of architects triggered the idea to look to the past and examine the self-awareness of professional architects in Soviet society. In this study, we delved into their understanding of the architect’s mission, role, status, and significance in society through their expectations, powers, impact, and perceived responsibility. This study is based on semi-structured in-depth interviews with 9prominent and influential architects who received their professional education in post-war Lithuania and were actively working in the Soviet period (1955–1990) and later. In general, Lithuanian architects managed to withstand Soviet doctrine and remained loyal to Western cultural values. The study’s findings reveal five components of the architect’s self-awareness, which define the dual scope of this field, where architects perform their direct professional tasks and where they express themselves as people of culture. The self-awareness crisis becomes prominent in the main axis of the architect’s choice of art creator vs. service provider, where Lithuanian modernists position themselves as artist–creator’, leading to frustration regarding the current reality.

The Legal Nature of Smart Contracts

The article discusses about the smart contract, its concept and legal nature, as well as the place of smart contracts in the Technology Law, which means a discussion on the important issues covered by this topic. At the same time, smart contracts are com- pared to the usual standard contract, where their pros and cons are discussed. The importance and necessity of both types of contracts in relation to the current reality will also be discussed. At the same time, the article discusses about the revolutions – from where they begin and how long the world has passed before today's reality, why blockchain is considered as the fourth-generation revolution and how important it is to develop and implement it. The article also discusses about the types of contracts, which means how a standard contract can be divided, in the other words, we talk about consensual and real contracts. The definitions of each of them and their need related to the smart contracts are analyzed in the article. Therefore, we use the relevant chapters and articles of civil law to be able to explain what is meant and to what extent it is possible to follow the same norms in the case of the smart contract.

Human Rights in Vietnam – A Current Reality

The article is based on recognized human rights standards, using concrete examples in real life, thus showing the actual picture of human rights in Vietnam today. Vietnam is willing to cooperate and strives to realize the values in the Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations in 1948 and other international conventions on human rights. It tries to answer questions about human rights in Vietnam: Why is the human rights situation in the country making much progress, although the US still regularly puts Vietnam on the list of countries particularly concerned about human rights? Most importantly, this colorful picture will delve into human rights values that Vietnamese people are enjoying. With vivid images, the article also points out the difficulties that Vietnamese people are going through to join the international community to be more aware of the human rights issues that they actively address.

Many-Sided Vietnam

The article presents the survey of the reports on Vietnam delivered at the All-Russian scientific-practical conference of the 7th Gubers scientific readings Southeast Asia: Historical Past and Current Reality held from October 5 to 6, 2021. Researchers of different academic, research and training institutes took part in the conference hosted by the Chair of History of the Far Eastern and Southeast Asian countries of the Institute of Asian and African Studies at M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (IAAS MSU). Numerous reports were devoted to Vietnam; the subjects of the papers varied, which allowed to show various sides of such an interesting country.

Drifting the goals archetype: a systemic study

PurposeManagerial decision-making is an area of interest to both academia and practitioners. Researchers found that managers often fail to manage complex decision-making tasks and system thinkers assert that generic structures known as systems archetypes help them to a great deal in handling such situations. In this paper, it is demonstrated that decision makers resort to lowering of goal (quick-fix) in order to resolve the gap between the goal and current reality in the “drifting the goals” systems archetype.Design/methodology/approachA real-life case study is taken up to highlight the pitfalls of “drifting the goals” systems archetype for a decision situation in the Indian two-wheeler industry. System dynamics modeling is made use of to obtain the results.FindingsThe decision makers fail to realize the pitfall of lowering the goal to resolve the gap between the goal and current reality. It is seen that, irrespective of current less-than-desirable performance, managers adopting corrective actions other than lowering of goals perform better in the long run. Further, it is demonstrated that extending the boundary and experimentation results in designing a better service system and setting benchmarks.Practical implicationsThe best possible way to avoid the pitfall is to hold the vision and not lower the long term goal. The managers must be aware of the pitfalls beforehand.Originality/valueSystems thinking is important in complex decision-making tasks. Managers need to embrace long-term perspective in decision-making. This paper demonstrates the value of systems thinking in terms of a case study on the “drifting the goals” systems archetype.