To Örebro University

This paper investigates how institutional fragilities shape cross-border cyber risk in financial systems, using the 2016 Bangladesh Bank heist as an illustrative case from a developing-country context. Drawing on a scoping review of the multidisciplinary literature on cybersecurity governance, financial cybercrime, and cross-border cyber risk, combined with an exploratory case study, the Bangladesh Bank heist is explored through a multi-level analytical lens encompassing macro-level institutional and geopolitical factors, meso-level ecosystem interdependencies, and micro-level organizational vulnerabilities. The analysis suggests that the 2016 heist was not solely a technical intrusion but was also associated with broader governance, regulatory, infrastructural, and organizational weaknesses. Fragmented governance arrangements, digital dependencies, limited operational resilience, inadequate cybersecurity controls, and human-factor vulnerabilities emerged as important dimensions of risk. Comparison with selected incidents from other developing and emerging economies indicates that similar patterns may occur across different institutional settings, although their manifestation remains context dependent. Rather than advancing a general theory, the highlights the importance of strengthening governance capacity, regulatory coordination, and cyber resilience within globally interconnected financial systems.

The dominance of national culture in organisational environments has been widely acknowledged. This study aims to explore the impact of national culture on information security awareness by examining cultural characteristics in the public sector. Drawing on Hofstede's model, a literature review was conducted to analyze existing knowledge and identify cultural traits in selected countries. Empirical data were collected through semi-structured interviews conducted in Sweden, France, and Tunisia. The data were analyzed using the Human Aspects of Information Security (HAIS) model, revealing distinct patterns and emphasising the role of culture in shaping behaviours. The findings underscore the importance of involving Swedish employees in the policy design process to effectively enhance information security awareness. For French employees, it was found that learning from past experiences and respecting hierarchical structures are crucial factors in raising awareness. Conversely, in Tunisia, information security initiatives should take into account the social and relational aspects to promote awareness effectively. These insights provide valuable guidance to managers in multinational organisations, enabling them to comprehend the underlying forces and dynamics in countries with similar characteristics.

Retailers play a pivotal role in advancing digital commerce in emerging markets, yet their adoption of digital payment systems remains inconsistent. Drawing on the Technology–Organization–Environment (TOE) framework, this study examines how technologica lreadiness, organizational capability, and environmental influences shape retailers’ adoption behavior in Saudi Arabia. Survey data from retailers in Riyadh indicates that transaction speed, convenience, and perceived usefulness function as key enablers, while transaction fees, limited digital skills, and security concerns act as barriers. Although institutional trust and supportive government initiatives encourage adoption, many retailers remain unaware of formal compliance expectations, illustrating a pattern of compliance without awareness. To account for this dynamic, the TOE framework is extended by incorporating regulatory literacy and institutional trust as contextual dimensions. The study therefore offers theoretical refinement to TOE in policy-driven adoption settings and provides practical implications for improving merchant training, usability support, and regulatory communication to better sustain digital payment usage in emerging digital commerce ecosystems.

The objective of this chapter was to examine the characteristics of child helplines in relation to bullying, with a particular emphasis on ethnic-cultural bullying within the broader European setting. Data was collected from 18 countries, resulting in insights pertaining to 69 helplines. Finland and Germany emerged from the analysis as having the highest number of helplines, while countries such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus, Macedonia, and Turkey had a limited number of options available. Helplines were accessible through various channels, including phone calls, text messages, and emails. However, the majority of helplines were not exclusively dedicated to addressing bullying; instead, they encompassed a broader spectrum of issues affecting children. Moreover, none of the identified helplines were specifically tailored to tackle ethnic-cultural bullying. The findings underscore the need for collaborative endeavours between helpline organizations and the scientific community to enhance responses to bullying, particularly in the context of peer violence associated with ethnicity or culture.

The adoption of cloud services offers manifold advantages to public organizations; however, ensuring data privacy during data transfers has become increasingly complex since the inception of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This study investigates privacy concerns experienced by public organizations in Sweden, focusing on GDPR compliance. A qualitative interpretative approach was adopted, involving semi-structured interviews with seven employees from five public organizations in Sweden. Additionally, secondary data were gathered through an extensive literature review. The collected data were analyzed and classified using the seven privacy threat categories outlined in the LINDDUN framework. The key findings reveal several significant privacy issues when utilizing public cloud services, including unauthorized access, loss of confidentiality, lack of awareness, lack of trust, legal uncertainties, regulatory challenges, and loss of control. The study underscores the importance of implementing measures such as anonymization, pseudonymization, encryption, contractual agreements, and well-defined routines to ensure GDPR compliance. The findings emphasize the importance of implementing measures such as anonymization, pseudonymization, encryption, contractual agreements, and well-defined routines to ensure GDPR compliance. Furthermore, this research highlights the critical aspect of digital sovereignty in addressing privacy challenges associated with public cloud service adoption by public organizations in Sweden.

Sweden is practically becoming a cashless society and possesses a clear sign of future competitiveness in cashless payment which has a wider impact on businesses and society at large. However, according to the existing research, there is a lack of comprehensive understanding of how this cashless society has shaped up and how such competitiveness can be sustained over time. There has been much research on consumer adoption of cashless payment systems, but the research on adoption by merchants is scant. Thus, considering the critical role they play in the cashless payment ecosystem, this study aims to understand the factors influencing the adoption of cashless payment systems from Swedish merchants’ perspective. The study used qualitative thematic analysis to identify seven factors: convenience, cost, trust, risks, norm, regulation, and customer preference. The findings contribute to limited knowledge of cashless payment systems in the context of Sweden and can be transferable to other countries.

Organizations use the ISO/IEC 27001 standard to establish an information security management system (ISMS). This standard outlines specific security measures and requirements that organizations can implement to effectively manage their information assets. However, the effectiveness of the standard’s problem-solving capabilities has raised some questions. Consequently, there is a continuous development of new governance methods that demand fresh approaches to validate security operations and measures. In light of this, research is being conducted to examine the application and impact of ISO/IEC 27001, as well as to analyze the challenges and knowledge gaps through theoretical perspectives. By employing stakeholder theory, the focus shifts towards integrating business and social issues and exploring how non-business pressures can influence stakeholder motivations in implementing standards. Additionally, it investigates the impact of these standards on an organization’s reputation, performance, and operations. Therefore, the objective of this study is to investigate the output legitimacy of ISO/IEC 27001 from the perspective of stakeholder expectations. To accomplish this, an interview-based study was conducted, involving relevant stakeholders engaged in information security management within private organizations in Sweden. The findings reveal eight key information security objectives. The results indicate that the level of output legitimacy of the standard varies across these objectives, ranging from high to medium to low. To achieve a high level of output legitimacy for ISO/IEC 27001, stakeholders must understand that the standard is not solely a technical document. Furthermore, stakeholders need to possess the appropriate knowledge and skills in information security to effectively navigate their work while leveraging the support provided by the standard.

This paper aims at investigating the issues and challenges experienced by remote learning among the students of higher education in the context of Sweden during COVID-19. The pandemic situation influenced the emergence of a new learning context and the effectiveness of the computer-mediated remote learning from the sudden transition of traditional approaches poised many interesting issues. The empirical part of the study was based on a web-based survey conducted among 1767 anonymous students studied at 30 higher educational institutions in Sweden during the pandemic period in mid-2020. The results are presented in line with Zimmerman’s (2000) triadic (personal, environmental and behavioural) forms of self-regulation. The survey indicated that the perceived worries students experienced were oriented towards the students’ own personal situation, and future possibilities rather than the general state and welfare of the global society. The fast transition to online classes and seminars led to a lot of students being worried about their abilities to maintain efficiency in their studies. The findings of this study could provide refined insights into the issues that we should have in mind while formulating strategies for effective remote learning in such a changing environment during a crisis period not only in Sweden but also in some international contexts.  

The interplay between finance and technology with the use of the internet triggered the emergence of digital payment technologies. Such technological innovation in the payment industry is the foundation for financial inclusion. However, despite the continuous progress and potential of moving the payment landscape towards digital payments and connecting the population to the ubiquitous digital environment, some critical issues need to be addressed to achieve a more harmonious inclusive and sustainable cashless society. The study aims to provide a comprehensive literature review on the emerging digital payment technologies and associated challenges. By systematically reviewing existing empirical studies, this study puts forward the state-of-the-art classification of digital payment technologies and presents four categories of digital payment technologies: card payment, e-payment, mobile payment and cryptocurrencies. Subsequently, the paper presents the key challenges in digital payment technologies categorized into broad themes: social, economic, technical, awareness and legal. The classification and categorization of payment technologies and associated challenges can be useful to both researchers and practitioners to understand, elucidate and develop a coherent digital payment strategy.

Purpose: This research, therefore, examines internal as well as external factors that may influence ICO’s return on investment (ROI) by collecting data from 100 ICO companies with positive ROI between 2018 and 2020.

Design/Methodology/Approach: Overall, this is mixed-method research. Based on a literature review a conceptual research model has been proposed which includes internal and external factors ( incl. 9 hypotheses) that affect ICO ROI. A multiple regression analysis was employed to examine the causal relationships in the proposed research model.

Findings: The results indicate that internal factors such as publication of source codes on GitHub, relevant ICO expert ratings, ETH platform usage, and pre-ICO processes and external factors such as Google search data and number of tweets positively influence ICO ROI. The findings reveal that expert ratings and the number of tweets are the most critical internal and external factors.

Practical Implications & value: The findings and suggestions provided in this study will help the relevant investors for increasing public trust in the ICO market and enhancing investors' interest in this are areas of investment.