A number of government agencies have started deploying the Metaverse to connect better with their constituents. The Metaverse provides a rich interaction environment and has the potential to engage with, especially, the younger generation. However, the Metaverse's potential impact on the government sector has been given limited attention. This discussion paper aims to fill this void by reviewing the state of the art, analyzing possible roles of the Metaverse for governments and providing research directions. We found six facilitators and nine barriers and risks. The Metaverse offers much more than a virtual presence or copy of the physical world; significant transformations are needed in government to reap the benefits. Given the evolution of the Metaverse, government presence also needs to evolve, and different governments make different decisions about their Metaverse presence. We recommend more research into the nature, use, applications, transformations, and implications of the Metaverse on government functioning.

Achieving impact from academic research is a challenging, complex, multifaceted, and interconnected topic with a number of competing priorities and key performance indicators driving the extent and reach of meaningful and measurable benefits from research. Academic researchers are incentivised to publish their research in high-ranking journals and academic conferences but also to demonstrate the impact of their outputs through metrics such as citation counts, altmetrics, policy and practice impacts, and demonstrable institutional decision-making influence. However, academic research has been criticized for: its theoretical emphasis, high degree of complexity, jargon-heavy language, disconnect from industry and societal needs, overly complex and lengthy publishing timeframe, and misalignment between academic and industry objectives. Initiatives such as collaborative research projects and technology transfer offices have attempted to deliver meaningful impact, but significant barriers remain in the identification and evaluation of tangible impact from academic research. This editorial focusses on these aspects to deliver a multi-expert perspective on impact by developing an agenda to deliver more meaningful and demonstrable change to how “impact” can be conceptualized and measured to better align with the aims of academia, industry, and wider society. We present the 4D model - Design, Deliver, Disseminate, and Demonstrate - to provide a structured approach for academia to better align research endeavors with practice and deliver meaningful, tangible benefits to stakeholders.

Transformative artificially intelligent tools, such as ChatGPT, designed to generate sophisticated text indistinguishable from that produced by a human, are applicable across a wide range of contexts. The technology presents opportunities as well as, often ethical and legal, challenges, and has the potential for both positive and negative impacts for organisations, society, and individuals. Offering multi-disciplinary insight into some of these, this article brings together 43 contributions from experts in fields such as computer science, marketing, information systems, education, policy, hospitality and tourism, management, publishing, and nursing. The contributors acknowledge ChatGPT's capabilities to enhance productivity and suggest that it is likely to offer significant gains in the banking, hospitality and tourism, and information technology industries, and enhance business activities, such as management and marketing. Nevertheless, they also consider its limitations, disruptions to practices, threats to privacy and security, and consequences of biases, misuse, and misinformation. However, opinion is split on whether ChatGPT's use should be restricted or legislated. Drawing on these contributions, the article identifies questions requiring further research across three thematic areas: knowledge, transparency, and ethics; digital transformation of organisations and societies; and teaching, learning, and scholarly research. The avenues for further research include: identifying skills, resources, and capabilities needed to handle generative AI; examining biases of generative AI attributable to training datasets and processes; exploring business and societal contexts best suited for generative AI implementation; determining optimal combinations of human and generative AI for various tasks; identifying ways to assess accuracy of text produced by generative AI; and uncovering the ethical and legal issues in using generative AI across different contexts.

The metaverse has the potential to extend the physical world using augmented and virtual reality technologies allowing users to seamlessly interact within real and simulated environments using avatars and holograms. Virtual environments and immersive games (such as, Second Life, Fortnite, Roblox and VRChat) have been described as antecedents of the metaverse and offer some insight to the potential socio-economic impact of a fully functional persistent cross platform metaverse. Separating the hype and “meta…” rebranding from current reality is difficult, as “big tech” paints a picture of the transformative nature of the metaverse and how it will positively impact people in their work, leisure, and social interaction. The potential impact on the way we conduct business, interact with brands and others, and develop shared experiences is likely to be transformational as the distinct lines between physical and digital are likely to be somewhat blurred from current perceptions. However, although the technology and infrastructure does not yet exist to allow the development of new immersive virtual worlds at scale - one that our avatars could transcend across platforms, researchers are increasingly examining the transformative impact of the metaverse. Impacted sectors include marketing, education, healthcare as well as societal effects relating to social interaction factors from widespread adoption, and issues relating to trust, privacy, bias, disinformation, application of law as well as psychological aspects linked to addiction and impact on vulnerable people. This study examines these topics in detail by combining the informed narrative and multi-perspective approach from experts with varied disciplinary backgrounds on many aspects of the metaverse and its transformational impact. The paper concludes by proposing a future research agenda that is valuable for researchers, professionals and policy makers alike.

The desk rejection of submitted articles can be a hugely frustrating and demotivating process from the perspective of the researcher, but equally, a time-consuming and vital step in the process for the Editor, tasked with selecting appropriate articles that meet the required criteria for further review and scrutiny. The feedback from journal Editors within this editorial, highlights the significant gaps in understanding from many academics of the journal assessment process and acceptance criteria for progression to the review stage. This editorial offers a valuable “lived-in” perspective on the desk rejection process through the lens of the Editor, via the differing views of nine leading journal Editors. Each Editor articulates their own perspectives on the many reasons for desk rejection, offering key insight to researchers on how to align their submissions to the specific journal requirements and required quality criteria, whilst demonstrating relevance and contribution to theory and practice. This editorial develops a succinct summary of the key findings from the differing Editor perspectives, offering a timely contribution of significant value and benefit to academics and industry researchers alike.

Purpose: Blockchain technology (BCT) can be used for a wide variety of applications across domains and can bring many benefits. BCT-based applications can be beneficial for the government as well as businesses. Despite the many promises, BCT implementation lags behind. The purpose of this research is to identify a roadmap of critical implementation challenges that influence BCT implementation by governments. Design/methodology/approach: The study develops an ISM-based model spread across seven levels to analyze the inter-relationship among the selected BCT challenges. The MICMAC analysis further helps in evaluating the variables based on their driving power and dependencies. Findings: The findings show that all challenges have a strong impact on implementing BCT. The foundation for implementation BCT is to define standards and develop appropriate regulations. Next, the findings show the need for a shared infrastructure meeting the basic technical and societal requirements and developing viable business models to advance BCT implementation. Many challenges hinder the development of blockchain applications meeting the technical and ethical requirements. Originality/value: Existing research has analyzed the relationship among challenges. To the best of the authors' knowledge this is the first paper to collate these implementation challenges and incorporate them to develop a hierarchical model using interpretive structural modeling technique. The results can be used to prioritize the tackling of the challenges.

Governments worldwide invest heavily in digital initiatives to develop information societies with connected and actively engaged citizens, but problems like lacking sustained engagement and quality of participation still plague them. We undertook a systematised literature review on the Scopus and Web of Science (WoS) databases, covering dispersed literature surrounding Digital Citizen Empowerment (DCE) from the past two decades.Categorising the literature under four thematic categories or strategies of DCE: Digital Activism (DA), Multi-channel Service Delivery (MCSD), Participatory Budgeting (PB), and Deliberative Governance (DG) critical comparative analysis is done. A conceptual model of DCE, covering how theories from different inter-disciplinary areas of political, social, and information science influence the development of information societies and DCE is presented. Action points in our conceptual model are mapped to policy objectives targeting improved delivery of empowering policy goals by practitioners, and future research opportunities in the context of DCE are discussed.

Purpose: Citizen satisfaction with the government is a longstanding and continuous concern in public administration. However, past research did not investigate the effect on satisfaction with the government in the context of mobile government (m-government). The purpose of this paper is to evaluate how the social benefits of citizens using m-government affect their satisfaction with the government. Design/methodology/approach: Grounded in the uses and gratifications theory (UGT), the authors suggest that the satisfaction in m-government should be constructed in terms of the satisfaction with m-government and the satisfaction with the government. The research model of citizen satisfaction in the context of m-government is tested through partial least squares (PLS) (SmartPLS 2.0) based on data collected from a survey study in China. Findings: The results indicate that the three important social benefits, e.g. convenience, transparency and participation, are positively associated with process gratification, whereas only convenience is positively associated with content gratification. The results suggest that both process gratification and content gratification are positively associated with citizen satisfaction with the government. Furthermore, the research suggests that process and content gratification have a mediating role, whereas compatibility has a moderating role. Practical implications: This research provides insights to practitioners on how to facilitate citizen satisfaction by increasing citizens’ social benefits and improving process and content gratification. Originality/value: This study contributes to the literature by offering a framework for analyzing the impact of citizens’ use of m-government on their satisfaction with the government. The work also contributes to UGT by categorizing user gratifications into process gratifications, content gratifications and citizen satisfaction with the government.

The development of mobile technology is facilitating the transformation in a way that governments deliver their services. Mobile government is one area that has received very little research, but it can have a tremendous impact on the way citizens engage with their government. This research analyses the data gathered from 81 respondents through online survey on the various aspects of mobile government and collects their views on some of the key questions related to the use of mobile government. The findings showed that although citizens are aware of the possibilities they hardly used mobile devices as a direct communication channel with government. Most users tend to use social media platforms and social media is used as an intermediary between government and citizens. The findings of this research also indicated that although the users are well aware of m-government services and own smartphones, only a handful of them use their mobiles for accessing government services.

Purpose: The wider use of Internet of Things (IoT) makes it possible to create smart cities. The purpose of this paper is to identify key IoT challenges and understand the relationship between these challenges to support the development of smart cities. Design/methodology/approach: Challenges were identified using literature review, and prioritised and elaborated by experts. The contextual interactions between the identified challenges and their importance were determined using Interpretive Structural Modelling (ISM). To interrelate the identified challenges and promote IoT in the context of smart cities, the dynamics of interactions of these challenges were analysed using an integrated Matrice d’Impacts Croisés Multiplication Appliqués à un Classement (MICMAC)-ISM approach. MICMAC is a structured approach to categorise variables according to their driving power and dependence. Findings: Security and privacy, business models, data quality, scalability, complexity and governance were found to have strong driving power and so are key challenges to be addressed in sustainable cities projects. The main driving challenges are complexity and lack of IoT governance. IoT adoption and implementation should therefore focus on breaking down complexity in manageable parts, supported by a governance structure. Practical implications: This research can help smart city developers in addressing challenges in a phase-wise approach by first ensuring solid foundations and thereafter developing other aspects. Originality/value: A contribution originates from the integrated MICMAC-ISM approach. ISM is a technique used to identify contextual relationships among definite elements, whereas MICMAC facilitates the classification of challenges based on their driving and dependence power. The other contribution originates from creating an overview of challenges and theorising the contextual relationships and dependencies among the challenges.

As far back as the industrial revolution, significant development in technical innovation has succeeded in transforming numerous manual tasks and processes that had been in existence for decades where humans had reached the limits of physical capacity. Artificial Intelligence (AI) offers this same transformative potential for the augmentation and potential replacement of human tasks and activities within a wide range of industrial, intellectual and social applications. The pace of change for this new AI technological age is staggering, with new breakthroughs in algorithmic machine learning and autonomous decision-making, engendering new opportunities for continued innovation. The impact of AI could be significant, with industries ranging from: finance, healthcare, manufacturing, retail, supply chain, logistics and utilities, all potentially disrupted by the onset of AI technologies. The study brings together the collective insight from a number of leading expert contributors to highlight the significant opportunities, realistic assessment of impact, challenges and potential research agenda posed by the rapid emergence of AI within a number of domains: business and management, government, public sector, and science and technology. This research offers significant and timely insight to AI technology and its impact on the future of industry and society in general, whilst recognising the societal and industrial influence on pace and direction of AI development.

Elections are among the most critical events in a national calendar. During elections, candidates increasingly use social media platforms to engage voters. Using the 2016 US presidential election as a case study, we looked at the use of Twitter by political campaigns and examined how the drivers of voter behaviour were reflected in Twitter. Social media analytics have been used to derive insights related to theoretical frameworks within political science. Using social media analytics, we investigated whether the nature of social media discussions have an impact on voting behaviour during an election, through acculturation of ideologies and polarization of voter preferences. Our findings indicate that discussions on Twitter could have polarized users significantly. Reasons behind such polarization were explored using Newman and Sheth's model of voter's choice behaviour. Geographical analysis of tweets, users, and campaigns suggests acculturation of ideologies among voting groups. Finally, network analysis among voters indicates that polarization may have occurred due to differences between the respective online campaigns. This study thus provides important and highly relevant insights into voter behaviour for the future management and governance of successful political campaigns.

Having its origin in public administration, trustworthiness is a significant concept in digital government research, influencing the relationships between citizens and governments. However, the interrelationships between the facets of trustworthiness are given inadequate attention. Therefore, the aim of this research was to develop a theory detailing the factors affecting citizens’ perceptions of e-government trustworthiness. A comprehensive review of public administration and information systems literature highlighted 20 pertinent variables. The interrelationships of these variables were identified and categorized according to their driving and dependence power by employing interpretive structural modelling. The proposed model was then drawn based on the level partitioning of variables and interrelationships of the variables determined using the final reachability matrix. The findings reveal that current conceptualizations of digital government trustworthiness take a too narrow view. The findings can help government policy makers with understanding the interrelated factors associated with trustworthiness in the context of digital government services and implement them in effective strategic planning.

Elections are the most critical events for any nation and paves the path for future growth and prosperity of the economy. Due to its high impact, a lot of discussions take place among all stakeholders in social media. In this study, we attempt to examine the discussions surrounding USA Election, 2016 in Twitter. Further we highlight some of the domains influencing the voter behaviour by applying the outcome of Twitter analytics to Newman and Sheth’s model of Voter Choice. Through the analysis of 784,153 tweets from 287,838 users over 18 weeks, we present interesting findings on what may have affected the polarization of USA elections.

In electronic government (hereafter e-government), a large variety of technology adoption models are employed, which make researchers and policymakers puzzled about which one to use. In this research, nine well-known theoretical models of information technology adoption are evaluated and 29 different constructs are identified. A unified model of e-government adoption (UMEGA) is developed and validated using data gathered from 377 respondents from seven selected cities in India. The results indicate that the proposed unified model outperforms all other theoretical models, explaining the highest variance on behavioral intention, acceptable levels of fit indices, and significant relationships for each of the seven hypotheses. The UMEGA is a parsimonious model based on the e-government-specific context, whereas the constructs from the original technology adoption models were found to be inappropriate for the e-government context. By using the UMEGA, relevant e-government constructs were included. For further research, we recommend the development of e-government-specific scales.

Innovation is vital to find new solutions to problems, increase quality, and improve profitability. Big open linked data (BOLD) is a fledgling and rapidly evolving field that creates new opportunities for innovation. However, none of the existing literature has yet considered the interrelationships between antecedents of innovation through BOLD. This research contributes to knowledge building through utilising interpretive structural modelling to organise nineteen factors linked to innovation using BOLD identified by experts in the field. The findings show that almost all the variables fall within the linkage cluster, thus having high driving and dependence powers, demonstrating the volatility of the process. It was also found that technical infrastructure, data quality, and external pressure form the fundamental foundations for innovation through BOLD. Deriving a framework to encourage and manage innovation through BOLD offers important theoretical and practical contributions.