Globalization and related technological developments have increased competition and put organizations in a struggle to survive in an extremely difficult market condition. Organizations adopt their technologies and infrastructures to today’s conditions to gain a sustainable competitive advantage and maintain their existence. However, all these efforts of organizations are easily imitated by rival companies and may cause the loss of competitive advantage.

The resource-based view provides additional information that strategic human resource is the scarce, valuable, inimitable and non-substitutable resources of organizations, thus enabling them to gain a competitive advantage. According to this view, the competitive advantage of the organization is achieved by combining valuable internal resources. Nowadays, sustainable competitive advantage is provided not by environmental factors or physical capital but by human capital (employees) efficiency. In this context, the attitudes and behaviors of employees who make up human resources are important for their organizational success. Many studies emphasize that positive attitudes and behaviors (e.g. innovative work behavior, work engagement, job satisfaction) in employees have important contributions to the success of the organization, while similarly negative attitudes and behaviors (e.g. organizational silence, turnover intention) are one of the main reasons for the failure of the organization.

In our book, literature has been created on the definition, antecedents, and organizational results of new and current concepts that are newly conceptualized in the literature and are still in their infancy. It is considered that this cumulative literature within the book will be a source for future studies on these subjects and will provide important insights for practitioners.

This study examines the effects of financial and moral incentives on employee performance within telecommunication organizations, focusing on Asiacell Company in Iraq.

The results indicate that a balanced incentive system integrating both financial and moral rewards generates higher levels of employee motivation, job satisfaction, and productivity compared to reliance on a single incentive type. Overall, the study concludes that while financial incentives are more effective in enhancing short-term performance, moral incentives—such as recognition, career development opportunities, and a supportive organizational culture—are essential for sustaining long-term employee engagement, loyalty, and innovation. Accordingly, the study recommends adopting a dual incentive strategy to strengthen sustainable performance and competitive advantage in the telecommunications sector.

This study, which is based on a PhD thesis; examines, with an integrative perspective, the effects of employees’ perceptions about the empowering behavior of their immediate supervisor on employees’ psychological empowerment, and the effects of employees’ psychological empowerment on their job satisfaction, extrinsic reward satisfaction, affective commitment towards their organizations, turnover intentions; and task performance and organizational citizenship behavior. In addition, this study makes comparisons between the strength of some of the hypothesized relationships.

The primary finding of the study is that there is a strong relationship between enhancing meaningfulness- providing autonomy dimension of empowering behavior of supervisors and employees’ psychological empowerment. Another important finding is that there are positive relationships between empowering behavior of supervisors and employees’ job satisfaction, extrinsic reward satisfaction, and affective commitment.

The results also indicate that the impact of empowerment on job satisfaction is stronger than that on extrinsic reward satisfaction, and the impact of job satisfaction on turnover intention is stronger than that of extrinsic reward satisfaction. Finally, there are negative influences of empowerment on employees’ task performance and organizational citizenship behavior.

The book “Digital Transformation in Banking Industry – Financial Security, Audit and Business Perspective” explores the effect of digital transformation on Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regime by focusing on digital Know Your Client (eKYC), artificial intelligence in AML, crypto currency, and virtual assets by drawing attention on ongoing compliance challenges in “virtual assets era”. Furthermore, it explores Fintechs and future of conventional banking as well as remote auditing in banking industry.

This edition explores Fintechs and the future of conventional banking. This is to examine the Fintech structures that have recently gained great importance in the world and to evaluate the possible effects of the developments on traditional banking in the future. Considering the innovations that Fintech structures bring to payment systems, their impact on credit markets and the structure of blockchain-linked contracts, it is expected that they will have greater effects on the financial system in the future. In this context, the book analysis the effects of these structures on traditional banking by including the recent literature on the subject.

Remote auditing is one of the common methods that is suitable for today’s world with its flexible and technology-based structure. In our book we have dedicated a chapter which explores remote auditing (also known as virtual audit) and challenges as well as advantages of applying it.

A chapter is dedicated to AML Programs in Banking Industry in Covid-19 Era, which identifies challenges, good practices, and policy reactions to new ML/TF risks which can be also defined as financial security risks arising during the Covid-19 pandemic crisis and due to impact of digital transformation in banking industry.

A special attention is dedicated to the artificial intelligence in AML structures in banking and the role of artificial intelligence for detecting money laundering cases by decreasing the number of “false alerts” and increasing the quality of “real matches”. The book explores the role of artificial intelligence on increasing the efficiency and decreasing the manual work on daily basis for AML Compliance Officers.

The book explores virtual currency and blockchain by identifying ongoing compliance challenges from decentralized platforms, peer-to-peer cryptocurrency exchangers, anonymity-enhanced cryptocurrencies, and “jurisdictional arbitrage” (the ability of criminal actors to route their activity through countries with weak AML/CFT regimes). Blockchain/ Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) applications aside, certain properties of Virtual Currencies (including VCs associated with Initial Coin Offering – ICOs) entail special Financial Crimes Compliance (FCC) risks, some of which are detailed in our book.

Nowadays the Digital Identity (DI) services help financial institutions, especially banking industry, to offer several services efficiently and properly to their clients. By keeping this in mind, the measures for Covid-19, offering services in distance remains the best solution in the market. The DI provides provable and sharable identity, which is particularly important when on-boarding clients but also has a key protection role to play when users are transacting. In our book we have dedicated a chapter related to digital ID system and eKYC.

We believe this edition contributes to current literature for the effect of digital transformation in banking industry from the financial security, audit and business perspective and it is important for compliance officers and bankers, policy makers, strategists, academics, students, and professionals in the field of compliance.

SMEs have been recognized as important actors of commercial activity most specifically since the second half of the 20th century. Although understanding its customer potential has been named a top priority among many sectors, there is a limited body of knowledge regarding the buying behaviour of SME’s. Many studies and industry practices frame the context within corporate or individual buying behaviour, however few researchers mention SME’s. When mentioned they tend to tie with elitist attributes and consider them as small versions of big enterprises. Studies and industry practices are conformist and assume that SME’s buying behaviour consists of nothing but -ignoring impulsive tendencies- ‘normative’ or ‘conservative’ typologies. However, the lack of application makes this dichotomy untested, which is also what this book aims to scrutinize.

The change of the geopolitical realities, the emergence of new regional dynamics and the perception of security in Central Asia have also changed current perspectives in the region. Fully revised and updated to cover the latest informations and developments, the book will provide comprehensive, accessible and successful introduction for those who are interested in the Central Asia region. As the editors, we have filled a long-neglected gap by producing a volume that authoritatively covers the states of the region. The book will become a definitive text for the teaching as it presents in-depth explorations of systemic and sophisticated way of understanding the actors and processes and offers case study encompassing many subjects about Central Asia. It conbines old and new perspectives with discerning care.

This book –The Changing Perspectives of Central Asia in the 21^st Century- has provided readers with prominent knowledge of independence period, actors, minority issues, nation-state building process, energy, security, water, boundary, regional integration and foreign policies of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan with each other and with Russia, China, America, the EU and Turkey. The book claims that geopolitical realities, regional dynamics and the perception of security in Central Asia have changed. Thus, the book focuses on environmental degradation, cyber insecurity and social unrest triggered by sovereign debt traps. These discussions highlight the necessity to reconsider the traditional perception of security as the analysis has to go beyond the state to address a wide range of security threats.

Dr. Murat YORULMAZ is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Management and Organization at Trakya University, Edirne.

Dr. Serdar YILMAZ is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University, Muğla.