On 2 June 2022 in Stockholm, an UN-backed coalition of 1,000 stakeholders from over 100 countries launched an Action Plan to steer digitalization towards accelerating environmentally and socially sustainable development. The Coalition for Digital Environmental Sustainability aims to help reorient and prioritize the application of digital technologies to meet the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and address the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste. Inspired by this Agenda, we have directed our research interest toward the search for approaches to sustainable digital transformation for the environment. This Research Topic is a part of our initiative at the annual international scientific conference ‘Digital Transformation in Industry’ (DTI), held by the Institute of Economics of the Ural Branc

With the world facing increasingly serious global climate change and resource scarcity issues, ecology and the environment have received much attention in recent years. As a major factor in human activity, design plays an important part in protecting the environment, as does the role of digital technology in finding solutions to the pressing problems faced in this regard. This book presents the proceedings of ISWED2023, the International Symposium on World Ecological Design, held on 17 December 2023 in Guangzhou, China. Sponsored by the World Eco-Design Conference (a UN Consultative NGO), the conference provides a platform for professionals and researchers from industry and academia to present and discuss recent advances in the field of ecological design. This year, the conference focused on the four topics of digital technology and health, digital technology and transportation, digital technology and energy, and digital technology and the environment. A total of 518 submissions on these topics were received for the conference, of which 125 were accepted for presentation and publication here. Providing a current overview of research and innovation in ecological design around the world, the book will be of interest to all those working in the fields of ecological design and digital-technology integration.

Africa's contributions to global technological advancements are often overlooked, with many scholars claiming that the continent has yet to contribute significantly to digital technology. This misconception stems from a need for more understanding and recognition of Africa's indigenous knowledge and its role in shaping the modern world. The education curriculum inherited from colonialism must differentiate Africa's values and culture from Western ideals, leading to a devaluation of Africa's mineral wealth in technological advancements. Additionally, the impact of historical events such as the Atlantic slave trade and colonialism on Africa's indigenous knowledge remains largely unexplored, further contributing to the misunderstanding of Africa's technological contributions. Contributions of Africa's Indigenous Knowledge to the Wave of Digital Technology: Decolonial Perspectives offers a comprehensive exploration of Africa's indigenous knowledge and its crucial role in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). By taking a decolonial perspective and examining the literature on African Studies, the book aims to shed light on Africa's significant contributions to digital technology. Through a qualitative research design and an exploratory approach, the book will collect and analyze data from secondary sources to showcase Africa's rich technological advancements and history of innovations.

Communication defines political representation. At the core of the representational relationship lies the interaction between principal and agent; the quality of this relationship is predicated upon the accessibility of effective channels of communication between the constituent and representative. Over the past decade, congressional websites have become the primary way constituents communicate with their members and a prominent place for members to communicate with constituents. Yet, as we move toward the third decade of the 21st century, little work has systematically analyzed this forum as a distinct representational space. In this book, Jocelyn Evans and Jessica Hayden offer a fresh, timely, and mixed-methods approach for understanding how the emergence of virtual offices has changed the representational relationship between constituents and members of Congress. Utilizing strong theoretical foundations, a broad historical perspective, elite interviews, and rich original datasets, Evans and Hayden present evidence that virtual offices operate as a distinct representational space, and they demonstrate that their use has resulted in unprecedented and ill-understood changes in representational behavior. Congressional Communication in the Digital Age contributes to the scholarship on representation theory and its application to the contemporary Congress. It is valuable reading for students and researchers interested in American politics, political communication, and legislative politics.

This book offers the latest research on formation of modern workers in the context of digitalization: from constant improvement of new training technologies to growing requirements for employees in workplace, as well as an assessment of specialists' digital skills and dynamics of changes over the past years. The book proposes to look at the pool of these problems through the prism of acquisition of new digital competencies and requirements for a modern worker. This book is intended for both young and experienced scientists who want to get acquainted with latest trends and data to use them in their research.

This book focuses on how firms should engage ethical choices in developing and deploying digital technologies. Digital technologies are devices that rely on rapidly accelerating digital sensing, storage, and transmission capabilities to intervene in human processes. While the ethics of technology is analyzed across disciplines from science and technology studies (STS), engineering, computer science, critical management studies, and law, less attention is paid to the role that firms and managers play in the design, development, and dissemination of technology across communities and within their firm. This book covers the topic from three angles. First, it illuminates diverse facets of the intersection of technology and business ethics. Second, it uses themes to explore what business ethics offers to the study of technology and, third, what technology studies offers to the field of business ethics. Each field brings expertise that, together, improves our understanding of the ethical implications of technology. Chapter “A Micro-ethnographic Study of Big Data-Based Innovation in the Financial Services Sector: Governance, Ethics and Organisational Practices", chapter ”The Challenges of Algorithm-Based HR Decision-Making for Personal Integrity" and chapter “Female CEOs and Core Earnings Quality: New Evidence on the Ethics Versus Risk-Aversion Puzzle" are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license via link.springer.com.

Digital technology covers digital information in every form. The world lives in an information age in which massive amounts of data are being produced to improve our daily lives. This intelligent digital network incorporates interconnected people, robots, gadgets, content, and services all determined by digital transformation. The role of digital technologies in children’s, adolescent’s, and young adult’s lives is significantly increasing across the world. New and emerging devices and services promise to make their lives easier as they create new ways of connecting, creating, and relaxing. They also promise to support learning at home and school by enabling ready access to information and new and exciting pathways for young people to follow their interests. Yet, alongside these conveniences come trade-offs with implications for privacy, safety, health, and well-being. Impact and Role of Digital Technologies in Adolescent Lives provides a deeper understanding of how digital technologies impact the lives of children, adolescents, and young adults; this includes the navigation of developmental tasks and the issues faced when utilizing these technologies. Covering topics such as adolescent stress, cyberbullying, intellectual disabilities, mental health, obesity, social media, and mindfulness practices, this text is essential for sociologists, psychologists, media analysts, technologists, academicians, researchers, students, non-government and government organizations, and professors.

Global emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and environmental concerns, have challenged the readiness of societies and forced them to operate in more innovative ways. In response, the world has witnessed new technologies emerge and researchers continually finding better solutions to cope with these situations. It is crucial that these innovations are investigated so that we may better the world during times of crisis. Impact of Disruptive Technologies on the Socio-Economic Development of Emerging Countries provides relevant case studies, innovative disruptive applications, and the latest empirical research findings in the digital technology space. Additionally, it provides accounts of the design, development, and usage of digital solutions that have an impact on addressing societal problems in emerging economies. Covering topics such as e-social work, social media addiction, and adaptive testing, this premier reference source is an essential resource for government officials, entrepreneurs, politicians, business leaders, students and educators of higher education, sociologists, librarians, researchers, and academicians.