Explore the vast range of titles available.

The service sector currently accounts for the largest share, both in terms of GDP and employment, of all developed economies, as well as many of the so-called emerging or developing ones. In spite of this, it has been the subject of far less research than manufacturing, although the situation has started to change in the past three decades and it must be pointed out that some activities -such as finance, commerce, transport and those most closely linked to tourism- do have significant analytical literature. In any case, this sector is undergoing very notable changes deriving from new technologies and the progress of digitalization, as well as economic globalization, in which services are playing a particularly relevant role. These changes demand specific and in-depth analyses to explain their causes and to understand their spatial and territorial effects. The objective of this work is to underscore the need for greater research effort focusing on the regional and urban aspects of services, and to suggest certain facts and trends that seem particularly relevant. Undoubtedly, services should occupy a privileged position in the new frontiers of Regional and Urban Analysis. This work aims to justify that need and pose some topics of interest for new research.

Despite the increasing use of digital technology in industrial production, how industrial digitalization affects the environmental performance of production activities remains unclear. This research contributes to the literature on the relationship between industrial digitalization and enterprise environmental performance by employing a large sample of Chinese manufacturing enterprises. Results indicate that the environmental performance of manufacturing enterprises has been significantly improved in the process of industrial digital transformation. Structural and technology effects are the transmission channels; additionally, structural effect is the main contributor to the positive environmental effects of information and communications technology (ICT) penetration. Industrial digitalization reduces the production scale of heavy-polluting enterprises and improves product innovation and green total factor productivity, but it has an insignificant effect on total factor productivity. Moreover, industrial digitalization improves enterprise environmental performance by introducing front-end cleaner production technologies, rather than by increasing pipe-end pollutant treatment facilities.

Increasing the efficiency of water supply networks is essential in arid and semi-arid regions to ensure the supply of drinking water to the inhabitants. The cost of renovating these systems is high. However, customized management models can facilitate the maintenance and rehabilitation of hydraulic infrastructures by optimizing the use of resources. The implementation of current Internet of Things (IoT) monitoring systems allows decisions to be based on objective data. In water supply systems, IoT helps to monitor the key elements to improve system efficiency. To implement IoT in a water distribution system requires sensors that are suitable for measuring the main hydraulic variables, a communication system that is adaptable to the water service companies and a friendly system for data analysis and visualization. A smart pressure monitoring and alert system was developed using low-cost hardware and open-source software. An Arduino family microcontroller transfers pressure gauge signals using Sigfox communication, a low-power wide-area network (LPWAN). The IoT ThingSpeak platform is used for data analysis and visualization. Additionally, the system can send alarms via SMS/email in real time using the If This, Then That (IFTTT) web service when anomalous pressure data are detected. The pressure monitoring system was successfully implemented in a real water distribution network in Spain. It was able to detect both breakdowns and leaks in real time.

This paper aims to discuss the digitalization of European listed companies in the context of the European Green Deal. The digital transformation can support companies in the field of corporate social responsibility, particularly in terms of environmental protection. Companies’ digitalization may have a beneficial impact by adopting ‘smart’ technologies that allow for the efficient use of natural resources and the reduction of pollution, enabling the transformation of business models into sustainable ones within the circular and digitized economy. Based on a large sample of companies listed on the main European Union financial markets, this paper aimed at analysing the extent to which digitalization efforts are part of the companies’ general tendencies of becoming good corporate citizens, especially in regard to environmental protection. The study also showed that digitalization efforts are rewarded in financial markets, with investors providing more capital to companies that digitize their activities and are more socially responsible.

Over recent decades, people’s (rural and urban) communities are facing numerous social and economic changes and challenges. Some of those challenges have been increasingly addressed through the lenses of technological developments and digitalization. In this paper, we have made a review of already existing practices while focusing on the existing implementations of the Smart Village concept and the importance of digital transformation for rural areas. We give special attention to EU policies that we are using as an already existing framework for understanding our own forthcoming examples. We have shown the parallels between the findings and insights from different regions and made an evaluation of presented practices. Our main argument stems from our own previous experiences and experiences of other research approaches, and is grounded on the argument that rural areas are not uniform, and that smart rural development has to be applied in combination with place-based approach. We present the cases of Slovenian pilot practices and support our argument by proposing the FabVillage concept.

The article examines job satisfaction among higher education teachers amid digitalization. It analyzes theoretical approaches from international, Russian, and Kazakhstani researchers, including Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory, Deci and Ryan’s Self-Determination Theory, Maslach’s Burnout Theory, and kazakhistan’s research on pedagogical motivation and professional identity. To quantitatively assess job satisfaction among university teachers under digitalization conditions, the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire was used. This tool allows the determination of both general and specific levels of professional satisfaction, based on a wide range of parameters, including working conditions, opportunities for career development, interaction with administration and colleagues, and the degree of autonomy and recognition. The use of this questionnaire is justified by its high validity and reliability, as well as its international recognition as one of the most valid methods for assessing employees’ subjective attitudes toward their professional activities. Given the study’s specific focus on digitalization, the questionnaire was adapted to better reflect the current professional environment. This adaptation preserved its diagnostic accuracy and enabled broader analysis, allowing job satisfaction to be correlated with respondents’ age and their ICT competence level. This made it possible to identify correlations between digital factors and teachers’ psychological well-being and to clarify how organizational and technological factors affect teachers’ perceptions of their work. The findings show that ICT competence is positively associated with job satisfaction (mean = 4.3), while increased workload and insufficient institutional support are key sources of dissatisfaction. The authors emphasize the need to improve ICT skills, create mentoring programs, and prevent emotional burnout among teachers. The conclusions show that job satisfaction depends on many factors and offer recommendations to improve teachers’ well-being in a digital environment.

The digital economy is an alternative to the traditional economy, an area of the future on which investment and RD efforts are focused both by European forums and by Member States, which have understood the importance of the domain with the onset of the pandemic crisis. The aim of the research is to analyze and predict, on the one hand, the impact of digitalisation on EU Member States’ economies by means of the three scenarios for the evolution of the digital component of the economy for the horizon 2025 (the baseline scenario, the high growth scenario and the challenge scenario), and, on the other hand, the Member States’ ability to achieve the targets proposed by these scenarios. The analysis covers the period 2013-2025 and quantifies the dynamics of the digitalisation phenomena and processes based on dedicated statistical analyses (frequency series analysis, application of the unicriterion critical probability test, application of the Enter method, performing Pearson correlation tests) by means of the IBM-SPSS 25 software. The purpose of this research is the provision of relevant solutions to decision makers in the development of digitalisation. The study highlighted the placing of the results in favourable scenarios, the current trend regarding digital economy evolution, and presented the most likely scenario to be achieved in terms of knowing the provider offer and the needs of service users. The topicality of the study targets a new approach on the foundations of financial allocations for the sustainable development of the digital economy needed in the current conditions of the global crisis and of the pandemic for the implementation of digital economy development policies. A novelty of this research is the conceptualization, validation and testing of an econometric model capable of quantifying the realism of the scenarios proposed by the European Union regarding the development of the digital economy.

Telework and ICT-based mobile work (TICTM) arrangements have emerged in response to technological changes driven by digitalisation, increasing flexibility within the labour market, and globalisation. As telework becomes more widespread, these flexible models of work are rapidly expanding to new categories of employees, changing the factors traditionally found to be important for telework eligibility. The aim of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of new profiles of teleworkers, examining main factors that increase or decrease the likelihood of different TICTM arrangements. We apply multinomial logistic regression models to a sample of more than 20,000 workers from the 6th European Working Conditions Survey. Our findings confirm the heterogeneity in the profiles of teleworkers, particularly distinguishing by TICTM arrangement. Occasional teleworkers are usually male managers or professionals, but a relevant percentage of highly mobile teleworkers are technicians and associate professionals, while clerical support workers amount to a large group of home-based teleworkers. The majority of occasional and highly mobile teleworkers are still men, but this can no longer be said of home-based teleworkers. The correlations between telework and permanent contracts, full-time jobs, and living in urban areas are weak, showing that TICTM is spreading into more precarious, temporary, and lower-paid jobs, especially among home-based teleworkers and highly mobile teleworkers.

As shown in research and practice digitalization processes are many times limited to implementation of digital technologies without pedagogical and organizational change. In this study it is argued for a broader perspective on the concept of digitalization, viewing it as a process involving change and transformation in different stages and several organizational levels. Based on cultural–historical activity theory and the concept of levels of learning, this study will elaborate on the concept of digitalization as well as how schools are dealing with digital and educational change. Two schools known for their large-scale digitalization processes are analyzed. In the analysis, it is indicated that the object of digitalization harbors an idea that influence how digitalization is planned for and enacted within the school organization. How schools conceptualized—what is theoretically and practically meant by digitalization—influence how they plan their budget, professional development, and organizational change. With this backdrop, it is a concluded need for explicit discussions and conceptual clarifications on what digitalization is and what it involves in different school contexts.

Indirect environmental effects of information and communication technology (ICT) are those effects of ICT that change patterns of production or consumption in domains other than ICT, or more precisely, the environmental consequences of these changes. Digitalization as the societal process of ICT-driven change has created increasing interest in the indirect environmental effects of this technology. Assessments of indirect effects face various methodological challenges, such as the definition of the system boundary, the definition of a baseline as a reference or the occurrence of rebound effects. Existing studies use various approaches or methods to assess a spectrum of ICT use cases in several application domains. In view of the large number of assessments that have been conducted, the choices made when applying assessment methods, and the variety of ICT use cases in different application domains investigated, we present a systematic literature review of existing assessments of indirect environmental effects of ICT. The review provides a state-of-the-art overview of the methods used in the research field and is intended to support researchers in designing sound assessments which yield significant results. We identified 54 studies in seven main application domains using 15 different assessment approaches. The most common application domains are virtual mobility (e.g., telecommuting), virtual goods (e.g., digital media), and smart transport (e.g., route optimization). Life-cycle assessment, partial footprint, and the “ICT enablement method” are the most common approaches. The major part of the assessments focuses on patterns of production (e.g., production of paper-based books vs. e-books), a smaller part on patterns of consumption (e.g., changes in media consumption). Based on these results, we identify as a research gap the investigation of ICT impacts on consumer behavior, which could, for example, focus on social practices, and account for the dynamic implications of change. Elaborating such an approach could provide valuable insights into ICT’s impact on society and the resulting environmental consequences.