bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
How to empower analytics capability to tackle emergency situations?
Authors: Akter Shahriar , Bandara Ruwan J. , Sajib Shahriar
Published: July 2021

Purpose

Analytics thrives in navigating emergency situations. Emergency operations management needs to develop analytics empowerment capability (ANEC) to prepare for uncertainty, support continuity and tackle any disruptions. However, there is limited knowledge on ANEC and its effects on strategic emergency service agility (SESA) and emergency service adaptation (ESAD) in such contexts. Drawing on the dynamic capability (DC) theory, we address this research gap by developing an ANEC model. We also model the effects of ANEC on SESA and ESAD using SESA as a mediator. We also assess the moderating and quadratic effects of ANEC on two higher-order DCs (i.e. SESA and ESAD).

Design/methodology/approach

Drawing on the literature on big data, empowerment and DC, we develop and validate an ANEC model using data from 245 service systems managers in Australia. The study uses the partial least squares-based structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to prove the research model. The predictive power of the research model is validated through PLSpredict (k = 10) using a training sample (n = 220) and a holdout sample (n = 25).

Findings

The findings show that analytics climate, technological enablement, information access, knowledge and skills, training and development and decision-making ability are the significant components of ANEC. The findings confirm strategic emergency service agility as a significant partial mediator between ANEC and emergency service adaptation. The findings also discuss the moderating and quadratic effects of ANEC on outcome constructs. We discuss the implications of our findings for emergency situations with limitations and future research directions.

Originality/value

The findings show that building ANEC plays a fundamental role in developing strategic agility and service adaptation in emergency situations to prepare for disruptions, mitigate risks and continue operations.
Reducing retail supply chain costs of product returns using digital product fitting
Authors: Gustafsson Emmelie , Jonsson Patrik , Holmström Jan
Published: July 2021

Purpose

This paper investigate how fit uncertainty impacts product return costs in online retailing and how digital product fitting, a pre-sales fitting practice, can reduce fit uncertainty.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper analyzes the current performance of a retailer's e-commerce and return operations by estimating costs generated by product returns, including product handling costs, tied-up capital, inventory holding costs, transportation costs, and order-picking costs. The estimated costs were built on 2,229 return transactions from a Scandinavian fashion footwear retailer. A digital product fitting technology was tested with the retailer’s products and resulted in estimations on how such technology could affect product returns.

Findings

The cost of a return is approximately 17% of the prime cost. The major cost elements are product handling costs and transportation costs, which together amount to 72% of the total costs. If well calibrated, the fitting technology can cut fit-related return costs by up to 80%. The findings show how customers reacted to the fitting technology: it was unable to verify fit every time, but it serves as a useful and effective support tool for customers when placing orders.

Research limitations/implications

Virtual fit verification using digital product fitting is key to retailers to reduce fit-related returns. Digital product fitting using three-dimensional scanning is more appropriate for some products, but it is unsuitable for products that are difficult to measure and scan.

Originality/value

The paper contributes an empirical estimate of retail supply chain costs associated with fit uncertainty, as well as theoretical understanding of the role of pre-sales fit verification in avoiding product returns.
“I am OK when you are with me” – Understanding the well-being and innovative behavior in the digitized workspace
Authors: Karani Anushree , Mehta Swapnil Abhishek
Published: July 2021

Purpose

The study aimed at understanding the relationship between supervisor and coworker support, psychological contract fulfillment, work engagement, well-being (different forms) and innovative behavior in the digitized workspace during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected via a structured questionnaire through Google Docs from 239 respondents working in the sales department of the consumer durable industry through snowball sampling.

Findings

Supervisor and coworker support was positively contributing to psychological contract fulfillment. Further, psychological contract fulfillment was positively contributing to work engagement. Along with innovative behavior, four forms of well-being, i.e. emotional, psychological, workspace and life were studied as outcome variables. Work engagement positively contributes to innovative behavior and well-being.

Research limitations/implications

The study examined the relationship between various organizational variables in consumer durable industry. Future work should involve studying the effect in other industries and functional areas.

Practical implications

The study examined how the supervisor and coworker act as an enabler in fulfilling the psychological contract in the digitized workspace. Organizations also understand the importance of work engagement in maintaining well-being and innovative behavior.

Originality/value

The paper initiates the important debate on well-being and innovative behavior in the digitized workspace for the sales employees of the consumer durable industry.
The moderating effect of person–organization fit on the relationship between job stress and deviant behaviors of frontline employees
Authors: Junaedi Marliana , Wulani Fenika
Published: July 2021

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between job stress and deviant behaviors, which include organizational and frontline deviance, and the moderating effect of person–organization (P-O) fit on these relationships.

Design/methodology/approach

The sample consists of 259 frontline employees working in Surabaya, Indonesia. Respondents were asked to complete a questionnaire distributed by survey assistants. This present study conducts partial least squares structural equation modeling to examine hypotheses.

Findings

The results indicate that job stress has positive correlations with organizational and frontline deviance. P-O fit has a moderating effect on the relationship between job stress and frontline deviance; the lower the P-O fit, the stronger the relationship between job stress and frontline deviance. P-O fit does not moderate the relationship between job stress and organizational deviance.

Practical implications

Companies must be more careful in the recruitment and selection process and continuously perform activities to communicate their values and norms to employees.

Originality/value

This study introduces the moderating effect of P-O fit on the relationship between job stress and frontline employees' deviant behaviors, which has not been revealed in previous studies. It provides an understanding of the importance of considering the compatibility between individual and organizational values as one of the company's efforts to reduce stressed employees' responses by engaging in workplace deviance.
A unified blockchain-based platform for global e-waste management
Authors: Sahoo Swagatika , Mukherjee Arnab , Halder Raju
Published: July 2021

Purpose

The rapid technological growth, changes in consumer demands, products’ built-in obsolescence, presence of more non-repairable parts, shorter lifespan, etc., lead to the generation of e-waste at an unprecedented rate. Although a number of research proposals and business products to manage e-waste exist in the literature, they lack in many aspects such as incomplete coverage of product’s life cycle, access control, payment channels (in few cases), incentive mechanisms, scalability issues, and missing experimental validation. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a novel blockchain-based e-waste management system aiming to mitigate the above-mentioned downsides and limitations of the existing proposals.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper proposes a robust and reliable e-waste management system by leveraging the power of blockchain technology, which captures the complete life cycle of e-products commencing from their manufacturing as new products to their disposal as e-waste and their recycling back into raw materials.

Findings

While the use of blockchain technology increases accountability, transparency and trust in the system, the proposal overcomes various challenges and limitations of the existing systems by providing seamless interactions among various agencies.

Originality/value

This paper presents a prototype implementation of the system as a proof-of-concept using solidity on the Ethereum platform and this paper performs experimental evaluations to demonstrate its feasibility and effective performance in terms of execution gas cost and transaction throughput.
Challenges of customer experience management in social commerce: an application of social network analysis
Authors: Jami Pour Mona , Hosseinzadeh Mahnaz , Mansouri Narjes Sadat
Published: July 2021

Purpose

As social media applications have turned into popular platforms for interacting with customers, creation of a consistent customer experience in social commerce has attracted the attention of many practitioners and academics. The migration to create and manage customer experience in social commerce has become an essential issue that will bring new challenges for companies. Despite the increasing investment in this area, few studies have been conducted on the challenges of managing customer experience in social commerce. To fill this theoretical gap, the current study aims at comprehensively exploring the main challenges of customer experience management (CEM) in social commerce and investigating their importance and possible effects in relation to each other.

Design/methodology/approach

Using the mixed method, first, the main challenges regarding CEM in social commerce were identified by reviewing the related literature. Then the challenges were enriched and categorized by expert opinions. Next, the challenges and the categorizations were confirmed by conducting a survey analysis applying thet-test and the factor analysis method. Afterwards, the main challenges were identified and weighted. Finally, the Social Network Analysis (SNA) approach was applied to investigate the causal relationship network among the challenges.

Findings

The results indicated that the main challenges of CEM in social commerce can be categorized into eight groups. Their weights and causal effects were calculated to identify the high priority challenges. By calculating the main SNA metrics such as degree and betweenness centralities, the high priority challenges of CEM in social commerce were identified. It was revealed that challenges with high out-degree centrality can create many other challenges and those with high betweenness centrality act as intermediary points, through which cause challenges may create effect challenges.

Research limitations/implications

The research results can help marketers to get a big picture of the challenges to successfully implement CEM in social commerce and select the appropriate migration strategies more effectively. They are further recommended to pay due attention to customers' issues as well as the organizational challenges of CEM in social commerce.

Originality/value

Social media has become a priority for businesses to create and improve the customer experience; yet there is no tool to identify the challenges of CEM in this context. This study addresses the overlooked but critically important area of social commerce. The most important contribution of this research is an attempt to provide a comprehensive and integrated framework of the challenges in implementing CEM in social commerce and explore the causal effects they may have on creation of other challenges using SNA.
Interpretable video tag recommendation with multimedia deep learning framework
Authors: Yang Zekun , Lin Zhijie
Published: July 2021

Purpose

Tags help promote customer engagement on video-sharing platforms. Video tag recommender systems are artificial intelligence-enabled frameworks that strive for recommending precise tags for videos. Extant video tag recommender systems are uninterpretable, which leads to distrust of the recommendation outcome, hesitation in tag adoption and difficulty in the system debugging process. This study aims at constructing an interpretable and novel video tag recommender system to assist video-sharing platform users in tagging their newly uploaded videos.

Design/methodology/approach

The proposed interpretable video tag recommender system is a multimedia deep learning framework composed of convolutional neural networks (CNNs), which receives texts and images as inputs. The interpretability of the proposed system is realized through layer-wise relevance propagation.

Findings

The case study and user study demonstrate that the proposed interpretable multimedia CNN model could effectively explain its recommended tag to users by highlighting keywords and key patches that contribute the most to the recommended tag. Moreover, the proposed model achieves an improved recommendation performance by outperforming state-of-the-art models.

Practical implications

The interpretability of the proposed recommender system makes its decision process more transparent, builds users’ trust in the recommender systems and prompts users to adopt the recommended tags. Through labeling videos with human-understandable and accurate tags, the exposure of videos to their target audiences would increase, which enhances information technology (IT) adoption, customer engagement, value co-creation and precision marketing on the video-sharing platform.

Originality/value

The proposed model is not only the first explainable video tag recommender system but also the first explainable multimedia tag recommender system to the best of our knowledge.
Pricing and coordination of vaccine supply chain based on blockchain technology
Authors: Liu Ruihuan , Tan Chunqiao , Zhao Chengwei
Published: July 2021

Purpose

Vaccine safety is a major issue in the world. Blockchain technology is the right solution to this worldwide problem. The impact of introducing blockchain technology on the operational efficiency of the vaccine supply chain is unclear. Therefore, from the perspective of game theory, this paper aims to construct a vaccine supply chain model consisting of a vaccine manufacturer, a vaccine traceability service platform based on blockchain technology and a vaccination unit to discuss its pricing and coordination.

Design/methodology/approach

This study analyzes the pricing and coordination of the vaccine supply chain based on blockchain technology, compares the decision-making of fixed charge scenario and proportional charge scenario and reveals the impact of blockchain on the vaccine supply chain.

Findings

Results demonstrate that the revenue-sharing contract can coordinate the vaccine supply chain when the proportion of revenue sharing meets certain conditions. The fixed charge scenario is more beneficial to the vaccine supply chain than the proportional charge scenario. The introduction of blockchain technology increases the total profit, consumer surplus and social welfare of the vaccine supply chain. Therefore, the operational efficiency of the vaccine supply chain is improved.

Originality/value

This study not only provides important support for enterprises to adopt blockchain technology but also provides some guidance for decision-makers to implement scientific and feasible vaccine supply chain management schemes.
Types of politically connected firms and analysts' earnings forecast
Authors: Kamarudin Khairul Anuar , Wan Ismail Wan Adibah , Harymawan Iman , Shafie Rohami
Published: July 2021

Purpose

This study examined the effect of different types of politically connected (PCON) Malaysian firms on analysts' forecast accuracy and dispersion.

Design/methodology/approach

The study identified different types of PCON firms according to Wong and Hooy's (2018) classification, which divided political connections into government-linked companies (GLCs), boards of directors, business owners and family members of government leaders. The sample covered the period 2007–2016, for which earnings forecast data were obtained from the Institutional Brokers' Estimate System (IBES) database and financial data were extracted from Thomson Reuters Fundamentals. We deleted any market consensus estimates made by less than three analysts and/or firms with less than three years of analyst forecast information to control for the impact of individual analysts' personal attributes.

Findings

The study found that PCON firms were associated with lower analyst forecast accuracy and higher forecast dispersion. The effect was more salient in GLCs than in other PCON firms, either through families, business ties or boards of directors. Further analyses showed that PCON firms—in particular GLCs—were associated with more aggressive reporting of earnings and poorer quality of accruals, hence providing inadequate information for analysts to produce accurate and less dispersed earnings forecasts. The results were robust even after addressing endogeneity issues.

Research limitations/implications

This study found new evidence of the impact of different types of PCON firms in exacerbating information asymmetry, which was not addressed in prior studies.

Practical implications

This study has a significant practical implication for investors that they should be mindful of high information asymmetry in politically connected firms, particularly government-linked companies.

Originality/value

This is the first study to provide evidence of the impact of different types of PCON firms on analysts' earnings forecasts.
Characteristics of the health information seeking behavior of LGBTQ+ individuals: a systematic review on information types, information sources and influencing factors
Authors: Jia Romy Menghao , Du Jia Tina , Zhao Yuxiang Chris
Published: July 2021

Purpose

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer/questioning (LGBTQ+) individuals' health information seeking is an important topic across multiple disciplines and areas. The aim of this systematic review is to create a holistic view of sexual and gender minority individuals' health information seeking reported in multidisciplinary studies, with regard to the types of health information LGBTQ+ individuals sought and information sources they used, as well as the factors influencing their health information seeking behavior.

Design/methodology/approach

The review is based on the literature search in 10 major academic databases. A set of inclusion and exclusion criteria was applied to identify studies that provide evidence on LGBTQ+ individuals' health information seeking behavior. The studies were first screened by title and abstract to determine whether they met the inclusion criteria. The full texts of each relevant study were obtained to confirm whether the exclusion criteria were met. The reference lists of the included studies were manually scanned. The relevant information was then extracted from selected articles and analyzed using thematic content analysis.

Findings

A seed set of 3,122 articles published between 1997 and 2020 was evaluated, and 46 total articles were considered for further analysis. The review results show that two major categories of health information sought by LGBTQ+ individuals were sexual and nonsexual, which were further classified into 17 specific types. In terms of health information sources, researchers have reported that online resources, interpersonal sources and traditional media were frequently used. Moreover, 25 factors affecting LGBTQ+ individuals' health information seeking were identified from the literature.

Originality/value

Through evidence-based understanding, this review preliminarily bridged the knowledge gap in understanding the status quo of studies on LGBTQ+ individuals' health information seeking and proposed the potential research directions that information science researchers could contribute to this important area.
Enhancing supply chain resilience by counteracting the Achilles heel of information sharing
Authors: Tan Hwee-Chin , Soh Keng Lin , Wong Wai Peng , Tseng Ming-Lang
Published: July 2021

Purpose

In the face of information leakage, this study aims to demonstrate pathways to supply chain resilience (SCR) during information sharing by deploying organizational ethical climate (OEC) and information security culture (ISC) as non-punitive mitigation approaches.

Design/methodology/approach

This empirical study was conducted to verify the framework using a questionnaire distributed to Malaysian multinational corporations (MNCs) of the manufacturing sector. The data were analysed using structural equation modeling (SEM) techniques with the AMOS software.

Findings

This study has confirmed the adverse impact of intentional and unintentional leakages on information sharing effectiveness. The findings showed ISC could reduce the impact of information leakage, but an OCE could not. This study provides evidence that information sharing effectiveness could impact SCR. The former is a mediator between information leakage and SCR, with information leakage moderated by information security culture. These findings convey that multinationals should set up an ISC to reduce information leakage and enhance their SCR.

Originality/value

Prior studies lacked the explanation of the impact of mitigating factors on information leakage in information sharing effectiveness affecting SCR. A framework that explains the relationships add value to organizations making available strategic decisions to curb information leakage and manage SCR.
The role of customer brand engagement in the use of Instagram as a “shop window” for fashion-industry social commerce
Authors: Molina-Prados Aida , Muñoz-Leiva Francisco , Prados-Peña M. Belén
Published: July 2021

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how fashion consumers behave when they make purchases using social media platforms – specifically, Instagram. In particular, the work examines the role played by consumer–brand involvement and self–brand connection (SBC) as predictors of customer brand engagement (CBE).

Design/methodology/approach

In this paper, social commerce-adoption is modeled, using three variables: customer engagement, SBC and fashion-consumer brand-involvement. Using a personal online survey, data on social media users classified as millennials and Generation Z were collected. The model is analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM).

Findings

Consumer involvement in fashion has a positive effect on cognitive processing and activation, but not on affection. SBC has a positive effect on all three analyzed dimensions. Finally, gender is found to exert a moderating effect on the relationship between the “CBE activation” dimension and brand loyalty.

Research limitations/implications

The research was conducted during the lockdown imposed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which may have influenced the responses. Other limitations and potential lines of research for the future are presented at the end of the paper.

Practical implications

Some of the results of this study can directly inform the social media strategies of fashion companies that use Instagram as a channel of communication with their customers. They can also contribute to incentivizing co-created content and increasing consumption among both men and women.

Originality/value

The present study contributes to addressing the scarcity of studies dealing with CBE and social commerce in the fashion sector and, in particular, fashion-consumer behavior on social media (specifically, Instagram).
Passive leadership and deviant behaviors: the moderating effect of power distance and collectivism
Authors: Wulani Fenika , Junaedi Marliana
Published: July 2021

Purpose

This study investigates the relationship between passive leadership and deviant behaviors targeted to supervisors (supervisor-directed deviance) and coworkers (interpersonal deviance), and the moderating effect power distance and collectivism have on these relationships.

Design/methodology/approach

This study uses a survey questionnaire. Respondents were 310 non-managerial employees working in various industries in Surabaya, Indonesia. This study uses partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to examine hypotheses.

Findings

This study indicates that passive leadership has a positive relationship with supervisor-directed deviance, but not with interpersonal deviance. Moreover, power distance moderates these relationships. Additionally, the findings show that collectivism moderates the relationship between passive leadership and interpersonal deviance, but not with supervisor-directed deviance.

Practical implications

Managers need to be aware of the roles and responsibilities of their positions and understand their subordinates' expectations, specifically related to their cultural values.

Originality/value

Few studies have investigated the relationship between passive leadership and deviant behaviors, especially those directed at supervisors and coworkers. Also, there is little study that explored the role of cultural values in these relationships. The present study provides new insight regarding the moderating role power distance and collectivism have in the relationship between passive leadership and deviant behaviors.
Progressive maintenance policy for multiple repairable systems with imperfect maintenance
Authors: Sharma Garima , Rai Rajiv Nandan
Published: July 2021

Purpose

Degradation of repairable components may not be similar after each maintenance activity; thus, the classic (traditional-time based) maintenance policies, which consider preventive maintenance (PM), age-based maintenance and overhauls to be done at fixed time interval, may fail to monitor the exact condition of the component. Thus, a progressive maintenance policy (PMP) may be more appropriate for the industries that deal with large, complex and critical repairable systems (RS) such as aerospace industries, nuclear power plants, etc.

Design/methodology/approach

A progressive maintenance policy is developed, in which hard life, PM scheduled time and overhaul period of the system are revised after each service activity by adjusting PM interval and mean residual life (MRL) such that the risk of failure is not increased.

Findings

A comparative study is then carried out between the classic PM policy and developed PMP, and the improvement in availability, mean time between failures and reduction in maintenance cost is registered.

Originality/value

The proposed PMP takes care of the equipment degradation more efficiently than any other existing maintenance policies and is also flexible in its application as the policy can be continuously amended as per the failure profile of the equipment. Similar maintenance policies assuming lifetime distributions are available in the literature, but to ascertain that the proposed PMP is more suitable and applicable to the industries, this paper uses Kijima-based imperfect maintenance models. The proposed PMP is demonstrated through a real-time data set example.
Impact of propensity to trust on the perception of police: an integrated framework of legitimacy perspective
Authors: Lee Sung , Lee Jina
Published: July 2021

Purpose

The study aims to examine whether a baseline trait-level characteristic, in this case propensity to trust, impacts peoples' perception of procedural justice, police legitimacy, trustworthiness, obligation to obey and cooperation.

Design/methodology/approach

Using Hamm and colleagues' (2017) integrated framework of legitimacy (IFL) as the theoretical framework, the current research explores whether individual trait characteristic differences matter. Using a Korean survey in 2019 with 2188 samples aged 19 to 28, this study conducted structural equation modeling to assess the impact of propensity to trust on the latent factors of the IFL.

Findings

The results support the findings of the original IFL. Specifically, when it comes to citizens' perception of police legitimacy, propensity to trust positively and significantly impacts latent factors such as procedural justice, trustworthiness, trust and obligation to obey. However, it fails to impact cooperation in any capacity.

Originality/value

Perception of police legitimacy has been researched extensively by various scholars. Specifically, Tyler's (1990) procedural justice model has been the main focus of police legitimacy research for the past 30 years. However, the current study aims to explore the possibility of trait-level characteristic that may influence peoples' perception of police legitimacy. Specifically, the authors aim to assess individual propensity to trust tendency and its impact on police legitimacy.
Is the library open? How the pandemic has changed the provision of virtual reference services
Authors: Hervieux Sandy
Published: July 2021

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of the pandemic on the questions received via chat reference at a Canadian university library.

Design/methodology/approach

A qualitative analysis using coding of chat transcripts and a quantitative analysis of the length of chat interactions were used in this study.

Findings

The author determined that the types of questions received changed slightly during the pandemic due to the new library services offered. The complexity level of questions did not change significantly nor did the presence of instruction. The length of individual chat interactions and the total amount of time spent on chat increased, most likely due to the extended hours of the service and the number of patron questions present in one interaction.

Originality/value

This is the first study to investigate the potential impact of the pandemic on virtual reference services at a university library. The findings could lead to practical implications for libraries who need to close their in-person reference desk or need to respond to building closures.
Critical success factors and challenges for Lean Startup: a systematic literature review
Authors: Lizarelli Fabiane Letícia , Torres Alexandre Fonseca , Antony Jiju , Ribeiro Renan , Salentijn Willem , Fernandes Marcelo Machado , Campos Afonso Teberga
Published: July 2021

Purpose

The term Lean Startup (LS) was coined by Eric Ries, and his 2011 book has popularized the concept with organizations, both startups and established organizations, implementing LS. However the empirical grounding is thin and for a long time this subject has been neglected by academia. The purpose of this paper is to present a systematic literature review (SLR) on LS, while highlighting core knowledge and identify gaps.

Design/methodology/approach

A SLR was carried out based on the Preferred Reporting for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) protocol of Scopus and Web of Science databases. In total, 45 articles published in journals and conferences over 10 years were collected which revealed a number of LS research gaps.

Findings

The SLR revealed the tools and methods associated with LS, most cited pros and cons, reasons that cause LS failure, the challenges that companies face in the implementation of LS, and critical success factors (CSFs) that can support these challenges and minimize the reasons for failure.

Practical implications

The findings of the study can be beneficial to practitioners and senior managers in organizations who wish to delve into the journey of LS. The study also discloses challenges and barriers that can hinder the implementation of LS.

Originality/value

Academic publications regarding LS are sparse and this SLR is one of the first SLRs to explore both the critical failure factors (CFFs) and the CSFs based on peer-reviewed journal and conference proceedings.
Surviving and growing in the post-Covid world: the case of Indian hotels
Authors: Majumdar Raju
Published: July 2021

Purpose

As the world tries to come to terms with the exact economic and human cost of the Covid-19 pandemic, businesses are trying to discern and act on the implications of the “new normal” in order to survive and grow. Amongst all the industries impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, travel and tourism has been the hardest hit. Operators across the value chain are trying to innovate and improvise in order to mitigate the impact of the pandemic on cash flows and working capital. The primary purpose of this paper then is to take a closer look at the measures adopted by the Indian hotel industry to restore revenues, conserve resources and attain greater operational and cost efficiencies in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis. The article also brings to the fore the growth-enhancing measures adopted by the industry in anticipation of a “new normal” in the post-Covid world.

Design/methodology/approach

This study is based on primary data collected via a survey, followed by a series of interviews with a select group of senior finance managers from a wide spectrum of hotels based in India.

Findings

Our findings suggest that Indian hotels have adopted several measures to enhance cash flows/revenues, reduce operating costs and cash outflows and conserve resources in order to tide themselves over during the crisis. Prominent cash flow–enhancing measures include price drops on special offers and reductions on list prices. Cost-cutting measures include economizing on energy consumption, reductions in labour costs and the postponement of maintenance expenses and discretionary spending. Resource conservation measures that have been adopted focus on postponement of capital expenditure and an increasing shift to localizing supply chains. Growth-enhancing measures adopted by the industry in anticipation of the long-term “new normal” include restructuring of the workforce and measures aimed at attracting domestic tourists and increasing product diversity.

Originality/value

This study attempts to understand the short-term and long-term financial management strategies adopted by Indian hotels in the face of unprecedented disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first of its kind in the Indian context.
Fear of missing out and self-disclosure on social media: the paradox of tie strength and social media addiction among young users
Authors: Sultan Abdullah J.
Published: July 2021

Purpose

Past research has examined the extent to which users disclose personal information on social media, but the influence of fear of missing out (FOMO) or other factors on self-disclosure has received little attention. To fill this gap in the social media literature, this paper aims to examine the interrelationships among FOMO, social media addiction and self-disclosure among young users in Kuwait. In addition, the moderating effect of tie strength on the examined relationships is explored.

Design/methodology/approach

A conceptual framework is developed and tested by applying two-stage structural equation modeling using AMOS to examine the results of an online survey distributed to 1,347 social media users in Kuwait, 25 years of age and younger.

Findings

Path analysis confirmed an indirect effect of FOMO on self-disclosure mediated by social media addiction. Moreover, the path between FOMO and social media addiction and the path between social media addiction and self-disclosure are moderated by users’ tie strength. That is, higher levels of FOMO are more likely to increase social media addiction and, in turn, self-disclosure activities on social media among young users with weaker ties (compared to stronger ties). Overall, the findings provide support for a moderated mediation model.

Practical implications

Ethicists and consumer protection agencies should increase public awareness of the danger to young users with weaker ties of over disclosing personal data on social media and developing FOMO and social media addiction. Mitigation programs are needed to assist these addicted users in gaining control over their social media behaviors, leveraging social media as a powerful social change tool and preventing further damage to their psychological well-being.

Originality/value

Although previous research has demonstrated that FOMO, in general, is positively correlated with self-disclosure and social media addiction, the current research provides empirical evidence that these relationships are dependent on users’ tie strength. Additionally, this paper is the first to show a paradoxical effect of tie strength on self-disclosure: tie strength enforces the positive relationship between FOMO and self-disclosure in the absence of social media addiction but weakens this relationship when social media addiction is introduced as a mediator.
Plant diversity ameliorates the evolutionary development of fungicide resistance in an agricultural ecosystem
Authors: Yang Li‐Na , Nkurikiyimfura Oswald , Pan Zhe‐Chao , Wang Yan‐Ping , Waheed Abdul , Chen Ruey‐Shyang , Burdon Jeremy J. , Sui Qi‐Jun , Zhan Jiasui
Published: July 2021

The evolution of fungicide resistance in agricultural and natural ecosystems is associated with the biology of pathogens, the chemical property and application strategies of the fungicides. The influence of ecological factors such as host diversity on the evolution of fungicide resistance has been largely overlooked but is highly relevant to social and natural sustainability. In this study, we used an experimental evolution approach to understand how host population heterogeneity may affect the evolution of fungicide resistance in the associated pathogens.

Potato populations with six levels of genetic heterogeneity were grown in the same field and naturally infected by Phytophthora infestans. Pathogen isolates (~1,200) recovered from the field experiment were molecularly genotyped. Genetically distinct isolates were selected from each population and 142 isolates were assayed for their tolerance to two fungicides differing in the mode of action. Tolerance was determined by calculating the relative growth rate of the isolates in the presence and absence of fungicides and the effective concentration for 50% inhibition.

The evolution of fungicide resistance in P. infestans was affected by the genetic variation of host populations. Higher potato diversification increased the sensitivity of P. infestans to both fungicides and reduced genetic variation of the pathogen available for the development of fungicide resistance. These mitigating effects are independent of biochemical properties of fungicides and are likely caused by host selection for pathogen strains differing in the ability of fungicide influxes, effluxes or detoxification rather than mutations in fungicide target genes.

Synthesis and applications. The development of fungicide resistance greatly threatens food security and ecological sustainability, and it is urgent need to develop agricultural practices which can ameliorate this problem. Our results show that potato crop with a higher genetic diversity is associated with a late blight pathogen of higher fungicide sensitivity and lower potential of developing fungicide resistance, indicating that agricultural diversification such as through cultivar mixture can reduce the application dose and frequency of fungicides needed to achieve the same level of disease control, which, in turn, further reduce the selection pressure acting on the pathogen populations and the evolutionary risk of developing fungicide resistance in pathogens. Together with benefits documented in other studies, our results indicate that crop diversification is an eco‐friendly approach that not only ameliorate fungicide resistance but also help achieve social and ecological sustainability by balancing the interaction among food security, socio‐economic development and ecological resilience and should be promoted.
Importance of collaboration and contextual factors in the development and implementation of social participation initiatives for older adults living in rural areas
Authors: Levasseur Mélanie , Routhier Sonia , Demers Karine , Lacerte Julie , Clapperton Irma , Doré Chantal , Gallagher Frances
Published: July 2021

Introduction

To encourage isolated and vulnerable older adults to accomplish meaningful social activities, occupational therapists and other healthcare workers must collaborate with community organisations and municipalities to develop and implement initiatives fostering social participation. In a rural Regional County Municipality in Quebec (Canada), four social participation initiatives were selected and implemented: (1) Benevolent Community, (2) urban transportation system, (3) creation of a website on social participation activities, and (4) social participation workshop. Little is known about contextual factors such as the structures and organisations, stakeholders, and physical environment that influence the development and implementation of such initiatives.

Methods

Led by an academic occupational therapist, an action research to implement social participation initiatives was initiated by community stakeholders. The 26 stakeholders were involved in a Management and Partnership Committee, two focus groups and an interview with a trainer, which documented and analysed contextual factors and the implementation process.

Findings and discussion

Development and implementation were facilitated by stakeholder collaboration, mission of the community organisations, and stakeholders' shared desire to reduce older adults' isolation and vulnerability. The established partnerships and predefined orientations as well as the leadership, motivation, and professional skills of the stakeholders also fostered the initiatives. Among the challenges encountered, the stakeholders' limited involvement in implementation tasks was attributable to important changes in the key stakeholders' organisations and structures and the number of organisations involved. Difficulty reaching a consensus resulting from the different attitudes, vision, and understanding of the stakeholders delayed the development and implementation of some initiatives. Despite regular meetings between stakeholders, geographic distance limited spontaneous exchanges.

Conclusion

This action research highlighted the importance of collaboration and contextual factors in developing and implementing social participation initiatives with community organisations and municipalities.
Linking soil bacterial diversity to satellite‐derived vegetation productivity: a case study in arid and semi‐arid desert areas
Authors: Liu Jie , Wang Changkun , Guo Zhiying , Liu Ya , Pan Kai , Xu Aiai , Zhang Fangfang , Pan Xianzhang
Published: July 2021

Increasing studies have begun to focus on biodiversity–productivity relationships for soil microorganisms through molecular ecology methods. However, most of these studies involve controlled experiments, and whether the relationship remains at large spatial scales is still largely unknown. To unravel this issue, archived desert soils from long‐term experiments were analysed using high‐throughput sequencing, and satellite‐derived vegetation datasets were acquired to quantify productivity. Most of the abundant genera were significantly different between low‐ and high‐productivity conditions, and soil bacterial communities were strongly impacted by productivity. Soil bacterial biodiversity, including observed operational taxonomic units and the Chao1, Shannon, and Faith's PD indexes, increased rapidly with productivity at low levels and then reached a relatively stable state, and similar phenomena were observed at multiple taxonomic ranks and for most of the dominant groups. Furthermore, we discovered that the mechanisms resulting in the observed relationship might be ecosystem resource availability in large‐scale regions and species competition in local regions. Collectively, these results enhance our understanding of the linkage between belowground microorganisms and aboveground vegetation in arid and semi‐arid areas and confirm the potential value of satellite‐derived datasets in research on soil microbial diversity at large spatial scales.
A cognitive approach to spelling production in historical sources: explaining the variation between <ɛ, αι> and <ο, ω> in Greek documentary papyri
Authors: Stolk Joanne Vera
Published: July 2021

The Greek documentary papyri (300 bce – 700 ce) provide an interesting corpus for linguistic study due to the large amount of linguistic variation. Variation in spelling is traditionally used as evidence for phonological changes in the post‐Classical Greek language. The interchange of graphemes, however, does not only depend on the pronunciation of the corresponding phoneme. In this paper I examine the cognitive processes behind the production of non‐standard Greek orthography in more detail by applying an interactive dual‐route model for spelling. If two graphemes are pronounced identically in the spoken language, the final choice between one grapheme or the other is likely to be based on cognitive and social aspects, such as the general frequency and probability of spelling patterns in the language, previous exposure of the writer to other lexemes and morphemes in the language and local scribal conventions, to name just a few factors. On the basis of examples of the frequent interchanges of  and , I show how these other factors can contribute to a better interpretation of spelling production in documentary papyri.
Application of viewshed analysis and probability mapping for search area determination based on the Moors murders on Saddleworth Moor, the United Kingdom
Authors: Lockwood Eleanor , Masters Peter
Published: July 2021

Geographical Information System (GIS) is underutilized within the forensic discipline, especially concerning the discovery of clandestine graves. GIS, viewshed analysis, and probability maps are being introduced into desk‐based research both for archaeology and forensic purposes. This study aims to investigate how useful GIS can be to narrow down large search areas when locating clandestine graves. Combining GIS, viewshed analysis, and probability maps allows for the exploration of potential areas of concealment and diggability on Saddleworth Moor to find the remaining missing Moors victim, Keith Bennett. Methods included viewshed analysis consisting of what is visible and not visible from a certain location while the probability map registers the likelihood of penetrability across the Moors landscape. Using two GIS software programs, QGIS and ArcGIS Pro, maps were constructed examining the A635 on Saddleworth Moor and the potential location of Keith Bennett. This takes into consideration the geology, terrain, water networks, and road systems. Analysis of the GIS maps demonstrated that two possible areas were likely to be able to conceal Keith Bennett's body. It then aids to identify areas for further investigation. This study also indicates that GIS data analysis has the potential to aid in criminal and civil investigations and helps narrow down search areas to manageable sizes. Not only does it aid in cold case criminal investigations but it can also be utilized within everyday desk‐based research on recent investigations.