bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Utilising machine learning to investigate actor engagement in the sharing economy from a cross-cultural perspective
Authors: Barari Mojtaba , Ross Mitchell , Thaichon Sara , Surachartkumtonkun Jiraporn 
Published: August 2023

PurposeRecent literature on customer engagement has introduced the concept of “actor engagement,” which serves as the foundation for this study. The study aims to investigate the formation of engagement and engagement's impact on the performance of sharing economy platforms in an international context.Design/methodology/approachThe study analyses unstructured data from 145,434 service providers and 1,703,266 customers on Airbnb across seven countries (USA, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa, China and Singapore). Machine learning techniques are used to measure actor engagement, and the research model is tested using structural equation modelling (SEM).FindingsThe findings suggest that actor engagement, encompassing the reciprocal relationship between customer engagement and service provider engagement, has a significant impact on platform performance. The moderator analysis highlights the role of cultural differences in the relationship between customer engagement and service provider engagement and between actor engagement and platform performance. Specifically, the study reveals that actor engagement exhibits a more pronounced impact on platform performance in Western countries (such as the USA, Australia and the UK), compared to Eastern countries (such as China and Singapore).Research limitations/implicationsThe analysis of the conceptual model is based on the utilisation of behavioural data obtained from the Airbnb website. Due to the nature of the available data, proxies are employed as measures for variables such as platform performance.Originality/valueThis research is amongst the first to provide empirical evidence for actor engagement formation and the function's role in platform performance in the sharing economy. The global nature of Airbnb as a platform facilitates the investigation of country-level factors, specifically cultural values, across seven diverse countries and highlight differences from business to customer (B2C) business models.
Decision-making in international marketing: past, present and future
Authors: Oliveira João S. , Hultman Magnus , Boso Nathaniel , Hodgkinson Ian , Hughes Paul , Nemkova Ekaterina , Souchon Anne 
Published: August 2023

PurposeThis special issue seeks to create an interdisciplinary community of researchers applying decision-making theory to the international marketing context. The articles published in this special issue contain cutting-edge conceptual and empirical studies that enhance existing knowledge on international marketing decision-making.Design/methodology/approachThirty-six (36) manuscripts were submitted to the editorial office focusing on a broad range of international marketing decision-making. Following a thorough review process, a collection of five original empirical studies on different facets of international marketing decision-making from multiple theoretical, contextual and methodological perspectives are included in this Special Issue.FindingsOverall, the combined evidence presented in this Special Issue shows that the general field of international marketing decision-making is starting to mature. Evidence from the contributors to this Special Issue shows that researchers have taken inspiration from both the past and the present when designing and crafting their research and, by doing so, they have collectively contributed to new knowledge in terms of international marketing decision-making principles, decision-maker personality traits, the consequences of international marketing decisions and cross-cultural differences with regards to decision-making influences and behavior.Originality/valueWith few exceptions, not much is known about how international marketing decisions are made. Yet, the way international marketing decisions are made is critical for international marketing success. This sphere of international marketing decision-making research, while relatively anemic, is typically underpinned by behavioral economic theories of decision-making, such that a duality in decision-making processes is identified. Nevertheless, international marketing and management studies are dominated by the planning paradigm, while in practice, managers often see the attempt to deviate from planning as irresponsible and dangerous. The articles included in this special issue have addressed major unanswered questions regarding the content and processes of international marketing decision-making.
Ego-depletion is in the way: the challenges of controlled communication and the role of the regulatory focus theory in sustainable goals pursuit
Authors: Anisimova Tatiana , Billore Soniya , Kitchen Philip J. 
Published: August 2023

PurposeVia the lens of the ego-depletion phenomenon (Baumeister et al., 1998) and Higgins' (1998) regulatory focus theory, this paper seeks to explain why current controlled communications are failing to achieve coherence between people's free will and their actions pursuing sustainable goals in a society. This paper explains how ego-depletion triggered by controlled communications can lead to confusion and decision fatigue in a society, thus potentially sabotaging people's participation in sustainable behaviour.Design/methodology/approachThe authors applied Jaakkola's (2020) theory synthesis approach to integrate concepts from previously unconnected disciplines in order to generate novel insights in the area of controlled communication management.FindingsThe authors develop a theoretical framework and present research propositions that can help advance research and the discourse at the intersection of controlled communication and self-regulation theories.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper possesses the limitations associated with conceptual papers, e.g. the lack of empirical support of the study’s conceptual arguments.Practical implicationsThis paper generates novel insights to assist communication practitioners and policymakers to improve vehicles and mechanisms of controlled communication with the public regarding sustainable goals pursuit.Originality/valueTo the best of authors' knowledge, this is one of the first papers that has merged the domains of self-regulation, ego-depletion, and controlled communication in an integrative framework in order to explain the mechanisms of how to enhance the effectiveness of controlled communication associated with sustainable goals pursuit.
Recruitment to social care roles in remote and rural contexts; strengthening the weakest link in integrated care?
Authors: Gibb Stephen 
Published: August 2023

PurposeRecruitment to social care roles can be the weakest link in many integrated systems, with vacancy rates being very high compared to other sectors, especially in remote and rural places. Analysis of Employer Value Propositions (EVPs) in social care can capture and challenge perceptions of care work.Design/methodology/approachThis study of EVP in four organisations in a rural setting in Scotland focussed on young people as a target demographic. This study interprets recruitment challenges in social care in three contexts, the technical-instrumental, the hermeneutic and the emancipatory.FindingsEVP articulation is at present not effective. Refreshed and new messaging has potential to attract, employ and nurture young people to the social care sector in remote and rural places.Research limitations/implicationsRecruiting to social care vacancies is crucial for sustainable social care. Improving the recruitment of young people is a key part of the longer-term solution. More studies on recruitment in a variety of remote and rural contexts, with a range of demographics, are needed.Practical implicationsThe potential impact is attracting more young people to the social care workforce, enhancing capacity for integrated care improving lives for people who receive care and for paid care workers and unpaid carers.Social implicationsRemote and rural areas often feature a generational imbalance, with more older people from in-migration and fewer young people from out-migration. Employment in social care has the capacity to redress that to some extent.Originality/valueThis study is original in outlining the messages and methods that can be adopted to boost recruitment to social care.
Student think tanks for responsible management – a learning experience
Authors: Birnkraut Gesa , Eimterbäumer Marlene 
Published: August 2023

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe a case study from the master program management in nonprofit organizations at the University of Applied Sciences in Osnabrück, Germany and show how this case of innovative teaching helps to educate responsible managers for the world of tomorrow.Design/methodology/approachThe authors developed a model of a think tank to create a surrounding for students to learn about models and theories such as systems thinking and social innovations and work with practical instruments like the business canvas and design thinking. The objective was for the students to work on solutions for societal challenges.FindingsThe main findings were twofold: First, it is clear that the objective of the case was met. The evaluation at the end of both iterations made it clear, that the result is important for the students and something that they can embrace as their own. Second, the students show intense problems with the freedom that they get. It is very interesting how students are primed to perform in the regulation given by professors. Once these frameworks are loosened, they seem lost.Originality/valueThe value lies in the creation of a model that can be used by multiple professors in very different management studies. Through the model students can be taught to solve societal problems.
Moving toward sustainable development: the influence of digital transformation on corporate ESG performance
Authors: Yang Peng , Hao Xiuzi , Wang Liang , Zhang Shizhao , Yang Li 
Published: August 2023

PurposeAmidst the rapid development of the global digital economy, digital transformation has become a strategic choice that firms must use to respond to the changing times. This study analyzes the impact of digital transformation on corporate environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance.Design/methodology/approachThis study analyzes the impact of digital transformation on corporate ESG performance.FindingsUsing panel data from Chinese A-share-listed companies from 2010 to 2019, the authors found that digital transformation has a positive impact on corporate ESG performance, especially for high-tech firms and state-owned firms. In particular, the authors find that the digital production and digital marketing exert a positive effect on corporate ESG performance. Mechanism tests showed that digital transformation helps promote corporate green innovation, improve information transparency and improve corporate governance, thus enhancing ESG performance. A moderating effect analysis revealed that the positive impact of digital transformation on ESG performance is more significant in firms with government subsidies and chief executive officers (CEOs) with rich career experience.Originality/valueMost existing research has confirmed the positive effect of digital transformation on firms' financial performance, whereas fewer studies have focused on the impact of digital transformation on the non-financial performance of firms.
A multiperspective approach to paradoxical leadership: the moderating effect of intelligence and trait emotions on leader behavior
Authors: Collins Michael D. 
Published: August 2023

PurposeParadoxical leadership concerns competing yet interrelated leader behaviors in response to conflicting workplace demands. Emerging research examines the outcomes of paradoxical leadership, yet less is known about its antecedents. This article aims to examine the combined effect of leader fluid intelligence, trait anxiety and trait anger, on transformational leadership and abusive supervision as contrasting paradoxical leader behaviors.Design/methodology/approachThis study involves 157 leader–manager dyads, and 137 leader–follower teams utilizing a cross-correlational, time-lagged, online survey design.FindingsResults indicate that leader fluid intelligence moderates the relationship between leader trait emotions and behavior such that low fluid intelligence and high trait anxiety results in manager perceptions of low transformational leadership, while low fluid intelligence and high trait anger results in follower perceptions of high abusive supervision.Originality/valueThe results suggest that fluid intelligence is a common factor that determines how leader trait emotions (anxiety and anger) are expressed through paradoxical leader behaviors as perceived by different hierarchical observers (i.e. a leader's superior and subordinates).
Project leader's interactive use of controls, team learning behaviour and IT project performance: the moderating role of process accountability
Authors: Mir Farzana Asad , Rezania Davar 
Published: August 2023

PurposeThis study aims to understand how project leaders' interactive use of the project management control systems (MCS) impact IT project performance, by examining the mechanisms through which this relationship is enacted.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from a cross-sectional survey of 109 IT project managers working in Canadian and USA-based organizations. A moderated mediation model was analysed by hierarchical component reflective-formative measurement modelling using PLS-SEM.FindingsResults suggest that the leader's interactive use of project MCS is associated with IT project performance, and this relationship is partially mediated by team learning behaviour. In addition, the relationship between the interactive use of project MCS and team learning behaviour is moderated by the organization's emphasis on process accountability, with the effect being stronger under the conditions of higher emphasis on process accountability.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the literature on the use of controls in the IT project-based business environments by explaining how the project leader's style of use of controls influences project team learning behaviour that in turn impacts project performance. Additionally, this study extends the project governance and accountability literature by identifying and empirically examining how the perceptions of project leader's institutionalized organizational accountability arrangements moderate the impact of the interactive use of control systems on team learning behaviour. A methodological contribution of the study is the scale development to measure leader's perceptions about the organization's emphasis on process accountability.
Host exposure to a common pollutant can influence diversity–disease relationships
Authors: Buss Nicholas , Hua Jessica 
Published: August 2023

Abstract

Hosts and parasites are embedded in communities where species richness and composition can influence disease outcomes (diversity–disease relationships). The direction and magnitude of diversity–disease relationships are influenced by variation in competence (ability to support and transmit infections) of hosts in a community. However, host susceptibility to parasites, which mediates host competence, is not static and is influenced by environmental factors, including pollutants. Despite the role that pollutants can play in augmenting host susceptibility, how pollutants influence diversity–disease dynamics is not well understood.

Using an amphibian–trematode model, we tested how NaCl influences diversity–disease dynamics. We predicted that NaCl exposure can alter relative susceptibility of host species to trematodes, leading to cascading effects on the diversity–disease relationship. To test these predictions, we exposed hosts to benign or NaCl environments and generated communities that differed in number and composition of host species. We exposed these communities to trematodes and measured disease outcomes at the community (total infections across all hosts within a community) and species levels (average number of infections per host species within a community).

Host species differed in their relative susceptibility to trematodes when exposed to NaCl. Consequently, at the community level (total infections across all hosts within a community), we only detected diversity–disease relationships (dilution effects) in communities where hosts were exposed to NaCl. At the species level, disease outcomes (average number of infections/species) and whether multi‐species communities supported lower number of infections relative to single‐species communities depended on community composition. Notably, however, as with overall community infection, diversity–disease relationships only emerged when hosts were exposed to NaCl.

Synthesis. Pollutants are ubiquitous in nature and can influence disease dynamics across a number of host–parasite systems. Here, we show that NaCl exposure can alter the relative susceptibility of host species to parasites, influencing the relationship between biodiversity and disease at both community and species levels. Collectively, our study contributes to the limited knowledge surrounding environmental mediators of host susceptibility and their influence on diversity–disease dynamics.
Implementation of inclusive education in Ghana: The mission of SENCos
Authors: Okai Martha‐Pearl 
Published: August 2023

AbstractThis article investigates the roles of special education needs co‐ordinators (SENCos) in the implementation of inclusive education (IE) in Ghana. The mixed‐methods approach, specifically the convergent design, was adopted. Seventy‐three SENCos responded to a questionnaire, and 15 SENCos were interviewed. The census approach was used for selecting the respondents for the quantitative phase, while the purposive sampling technique was used for the selection of participants in the qualitative phase. A semi‐structured interview guide was used in collecting the qualitative data. Frequencies, percentages, means and standard deviations were used in analysing the quantitative data. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the qualitative data. The study concluded that SENCos are ‘directors’ of the implementation of IE; hence, the Ministry of Education should clearly state their roles in the IE policy.
Art education under development in Palestine: de‐ and repoliticization via universal values, institutional critique, and reflexive practice
Authors: Underhill Helen 
Published: August 2023

AbstractThis article studies ways in which art education is mobilized to modify subjective and aesthetic performances of Palestinian students, considering debates surrounding depoliticization and development funding in Palestine. It explores the subject matter and critical stance deemed appropriate for self‐directed art projects within a Ramallah art school. Moving beyond arguments put forward within existing literature on the depoliticizing impact of aid funding by drawing on ethnographic detail, the article explores how students experience and respond to this education. Despite being shaped by structures of control that arguably encourage depoliticization, many students understood this education as also opening a space for unpicking and critical examination of such structures. The article locates instances in which this repoliticization was invoked by students, in balance with their awareness of the complexity and contingency of this process.
Family matters: same‐sex relations and kinship practices in Kenya
Authors: Andrikopoulos Apostolos , Spronk Rachel 
Published: August 2023

AbstractGuided by social justice and sexual health concerns, scholars of same‐sex sexualities in Africa have mainly examined related conflicts and inequities, generating an unbalanced emphasis on homophobia. Following Stella Nyanzi's plea for a broader exploration of queer sexuality in Africa, we move beyond the strictly sexual sphere to study the kinship arrangements of same‐sex couples in Kenya. These couples rely on the different possibilities afforded by kinship – in both its inclusive and exclusive capacities – to create accommodation and acceptance. Capturing the complexities and paradoxes of social life, the ethnographic study of kinship practices in everyday life shows how homophobia and accommodation can co‐exist. Furthermore, the embeddedness of same‐sex relationships in kinship structures and the subscription of same‐sex couples to the same norms held by cross‐sex couples clearly indicates the difficulty of construing these forms of relatedness as essentially different from other kinship formations. Thus ‘queering queer Africa’ requires not only taking a broader perspective and looking beyond what is usually classified as ‘queer’ but also un‐queering what at first appears as queer and thus ‘queerying’ the barriers and the range of possibilities that characterize the lives and subjectivities of people with same‐sex desires.
Biosemiotics and Hominidae history: technicity, animals, and the limitations of human exceptionalism
Authors: Alter Joseph S. 
Published: August 2023

AbstractThis article is focused on problematic distinctions of difference among animals in the lineage of great apes. It combines several theoretical perspectives on evolutionary relationships, technological innovation, the development of body parts as tools, and a semiotic interpretation of what André Leroi‐Gourhan called technicity. Foundational questions in social theory are developed using biosemiotics, particularly as concerns a materialist understanding of religion and the magical aspects of cultural representation. This, it is argued, provides a framework for theorizing social history in terms of real ecological relations, embodied meaning, and the transference of meaning onto objects. Understood semiotically, the material history of Hominidae, encompassing animals with different kinds of motility, dexterity, and techno‐semiotic orientations towards the world, is inclusive and relational rather than exclusively anthropocentric, as is the case for social theory based on the artifice of language and articulations of belief, creativity, and cultural distinction that are thought to be distinctive of the genus Homo.
ALGORITHMIC SUTURING: Platforms, Motorcycles and the ‘Last Mile’ in Urban Africa
Authors: Pollio Andrea , Cirolia Liza Rose , Ong'iro Odeo Jack 
Published: August 2023

AbstractThe ‘last mile' is not only a powerful metaphor of contemporary life, but also the tangible site of a challenge, whether for governments wanting to reach their citizens or companies wanting to reach their customers. In urban Africa this challenge is compounded by the fragmented material condition of cities. As a result, a growing number of tech companies have been compelled by the possibility of creating digital platforms that address the unique logistical configurations of African cities, often enrolling informal systems such as motorcycle taxis to address spatial and economic fragmentation. Through the perspective of three Nairobi‐based startups that incorporate motorcycle taxis into their last‐mile platforms, this article illustrates how processes of ‘algorithmic suturing’ knit together the loose ends of splintered urban networks thanks to platform business models that visualize the last mile as a site of optimization. In parallel with common understandings of suturing within African infrastructure debates which foreground makeshift practices of the urban poor, this article argues that algorithmic suturing is a speculative endeavour through which urban fractures are made legible as sites of value. By stitching together city fragments, these platforms envision large data‐driven urban economies which interface with informal mobility networks and the shifting urban demographic of the lower‐middle class.