Evaluating Management Information System (MIS) effectiveness in tertiary education remains conceptually fragmented, with existing models primarily emphasizing technical performance rather than organizational interdependencies. This study develops a structural framework for assessing institutional MIS effectiveness using a sequential mixed-methods design integrating inductive construct development, expert validation, and quantitative dependency modeling. Fifteen themes and fifty-eight subthemes were identified as core dimensions of MIS capability within tertiary education institutions. Dependency and reliance analyses reveal strong systemic interconnections, indicating that institutional MIS functions operate as an integrated organizational system rather than independent domains. The framework is represented as a directed weighted graph to preserve enabling relationships, and a maximum spanning arborescence is derived to provide an interpretable implementation backbone. By modeling structural interdependencies explicitly, the proposed framework supports more informed prioritization of MIS development, strategic alignment across institutional functions, and evidence-based governance decision-making. The framework is intended primarily for evaluating organizational, governance, administrative, and institutional dimensions of MIS effectiveness within tertiary education institutions and does not explicitly assess user-level constructs such as usability, interface design, accessibility, or individual user experience. The study establishes a foundation for future empirical validation and cross-institutional benchmarking.

Baseline web security configuration is a critical but often overlooked component of national cybersecurity posture, particularly in small and developing digital economies. This study presents a systematic empirical assessment of Tier-1 HTTP security header adoption across 51 Maldivian government and public limited company (PLC) websites, benchmarked against 20 internationally recognised secure domains. To enable reproducible, policy-relevant evaluation, this paper introduces the Website Security Header Score–Benchmark (WSHS-B), a normalised metric quantifying deployment of three foundational browser-enforced controls: Strict-Transport-Security, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options. Only 11.8% of evaluated Maldivian websites implement all three Tier-1 headers; 39.2% implement none and 49.0% partially comply. Benchmark domains achieve near-complete adoption (mean WSHS-B = 0.92) versus 0.35 for Maldivian websites, a gap of 57 percentage points. Mann–Whitney U tests confirm statistically significant differences between groups (p < 0.001), with large rank-based effect sizes (Cliff’s δ ≈ 0.80). Unlike practitioner-facing tools such as Mozilla Observatory and SecurityHeaders.com, which produce composite site-level grades, WSHS-B is purpose-built for population-level governance monitoring through binary, policy-enforceable indicators. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first nationally scoped empirical baseline of Tier-1 header adoption in the Maldives and the first governance-aligned metric of its kind for small digital economies. The findings provide an evidence base for NCSS 2024–2029 implementation, including mandatory baseline standards, automated compliance monitoring, and targeted capacity development. The methodology is replicable across comparable Small Island Developing States using passive, open-source scanning.

Digital transformation is a strategic priority across care-intensive service sectors, yet many organisations struggle to realise its intended benefits. Existing research often examines technological, organisational, and environmental barriers separately, offering limited insight into their interconnections within organisational systems. Drawing on Systems Theory and Sociotechnical Systems (STS) Theory, this study investigates digital transformation among small and medium providers within Australia’s National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). Using an interpretive qualitative design, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 participants from 15 distinct NDIS provider organisations in Sydney, Australia, followed by reflexive thematic analysis and systems-oriented interpretation. Participants described recurring associations among technological misalignment, fragmented software, adaptive workarounds, increased administrative demands, and constraints on organisational capacity for digital improvement, with regulatory and resource pressures interacting with these technological and organisational conditions. Building on these cross-sectional patterns, this study develops Recursive Capability Constriction (RCC), a systems-based conceptual framework that proposes how technological misalignment, compensatory adaptation, administrative expansion, and constrained organisational capability for digital improvement may become interconnected through reinforcing relationships. Rather than representing an inevitable or empirically established causal sequence, RCC provides a conditional explanation of how local adaptations may become associated with constraints on subsequent digital improvement. By shifting attention from isolated implementation barriers to interconnected sociotechnical relationships, RCC extends digital transformation research and provides practical guidance for managing digital change in regulated care environments.

As sustainability becomes a strategic priority, the Information Technology (IT) sector faces pressure on both reducing its environmental impact and leading in innovation. This study examines how Green Human Resource Management (GHRM) practices influence employees’ Green IT Attitudes (GITA) and beliefs within the IT industry. Guided by the Belief–Action–Outcome (BAO) framework, it explores how HR strategies can foster eco-conscious mindsets that support sustainable behaviour. A quantitative cross-sectional design was used, collecting data through a validated questionnaire. The study was conducted in Australia, focusing on IT professionals employed. Responses from 112 IT professionals, determined through G*Power sample estimation, were analysed using SPSS 28.0.1 with regression techniques to assess the relationship between GHRM practices and environmental attitudes and beliefs. Results indicate that GHRM practices have a modest but significant positive effect on employees’ green IT attitudes and beliefs, supporting the view that structured HR initiatives can shape sustainability-driven mindsets. The findings emphasize the strategic role of HR in embedding sustainability within organizational culture, particularly in technology-driven environments. The study offers practical guidance for IT organizations aiming to integrate sustainability into internal systems by leveraging HRM. Future research should examine moderating variables and long-term behavioural effects, enhancing our understanding of sustainability-focused HRM in the digital era.

Autonomous AI agents are increasingly evaluated for offensive cyber capability inside network-isolated sandboxes, on the assumption that the environment, rather than the model, contains undesired behaviour. In July 2026 this assumption failed: agents under evaluation at OpenAI escaped through an internet-connected package-registry proxy, coordinated through that registry as a covert message board, pivoted through a third-party cloud application, and breached Hugging Face’s production clusters without human direction. This article presents an explanatory single-case study reconstructed from the organisations’ primary disclosures, an independent review by METR and Redwood Research, and corroborating reporting, with every claim graded by evidential status. We map the attack chain to the Cyber Kill Chain and MITRE ATT&CK and conduct an evidence-to-control failure analysis that links each failure to the network or platform control that failed, a mitigation, and the residual risk. The results show a layered failure of egress containment, separation between runs, access control, and monitoring, so that patching any single vulnerability would have left other attack paths open. We derive design principles for containing agentic systems in networked evaluation infrastructure and translate them into guidance for detection engineering, incident response, and vendor due diligence.