Yusuf Arslan, Emre Yıldırım, Mustafa Abdül Metin Dinçer and Merve Türkmen Barutçu
The purpose of this paper is to explore how consumers’ reactions lead to anti-consumption (AC) behavior and provide some important clues for the practitioners in the Turkish food…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how consumers’ reactions lead to anti-consumption (AC) behavior and provide some important clues for the practitioners in the Turkish food industry. The reactions are based on consumer complaining behavior in the Turkish food industry.
Design/methodology/approach
In total, 16 brands from the food industry with the highest complaint rates were selected as cases of the study. The consumer complaints from these brands were analyzed through a qualitative content analysis. In this analysis, four categories which are beverage group, food preparation group, junk food group, and delicatessen group were observed as the top complained sectors.
Findings
The authors made up five semantic categories and one emoticon category which are AC/boycott tendency discourse, bad hygiene, bad servicescape, deceptive advertisement and defective products based on consumer complaints and disappointed, astonished, devil, pouting, confounded, angel. The results imply that especially unfamiliar objects in food products, unconcerned customer services, deceptive campaigns and spoiled products make consumers exhibit AC behavior. In addition, consumers coded with emoticons as pouting, devil and disappointed are more inclined than others to stop purchasing, respectively.
Research limitations/implications
Due to the qualitative nature of the study, the authors do not make a generalization for the field. AC behavior, deceptive campaign, spoiled products, brand lose confidence and children sensitivity can be investigated with a quantitative study. And a new scale for this field can be developed. Through this scale development, researchers can reach new dimensions and expand the literature about the AC behaviors.
Practical implications
An important implication which the authors got from the cases of the study is Hygiene. Although all cases have hygiene standards such as hazard analysis and critical control point, International Organization for Standardization (ISO 9001), etc., BH and spoiled products codes have high ranks among the cases. Due to this reason, companies should pay attention to their hygiene standards and increase the control period of the production process. Through the empowerment of the hygiene standards, they can fix their bad image on the customers and increase their dependability among the consumers.
Social implications
In the context of this case study, customer service emerges as an important problem and concept. Insufficient customer service infrastructure should be developed and their institutionalization processes should be empowered by the firms. The authors believe that the deficiency of the institutionalization plays an important role on these problems. And the institutionalization level on the field among the cases of the firms particularly should be investigated by the researchers. Furthermore, companies can increase their complaint management efficiency by joining new complaint websites. Through this manner, they can learn how to deal with different problems and increase their problem-solving skills.
Originality/value
This study provides a comprehensive insight into consumers’ AC behavior. It reveals detailed drivers which may lead to AC behavior and contributes to the existing literature by determining the possible antecedents of AC behavior.
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Mustafa Abdül Metin Dinçer, Yusuf Arslan, Semih Okutan and Esra Dil
This study aims to reveal consumer perceptions towards organic food, particularly emphasizing the confusion and vagueness in the public eye.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to reveal consumer perceptions towards organic food, particularly emphasizing the confusion and vagueness in the public eye.
Design/methodology/approach
In total, 21 well-educated and relatively high-income consumers were selected as cases of the study. The knowledge about the organic food concept and organic food preferences were analyzed through the grounded theory analysis. In this analysis, ten categories which are shopping from the close circle, the product information attitude, do it yourself (DIY), true and false facts and dilemmas, information sources, the most preferred organic products, perception of organic food indicator, market place trends, organic food orientation reasons, and attitude toward the organic products/producers were detected as the main issues.
Findings
The authors chose the cases from well-educated people who have a relatively high income, and it is seen that the knowledge levels of consumers are low regarding organic foods. This low-level knowledge becomes apparent in confused and erroneous answers and actions. The confusion over the organic food concept and the institutional image appear as two main findings of the study. The authors named this false fact as organic confusion and dilemmas in this analysis. According to the study’s results, there is a considerable amount of confusion over healthy and natural food contexts.
Originality/value
This study aims to bring a comprehensive delineation to the general perception of the organic food concept in society. And it reveals a detailed feedback for the institutions and companies on how to solve organic food problems such as confusion, institutional image problem, and false facts. Although organic product knowledge is shown as a critical factor in many studies in the literature, the number of studies that examine this situation in depth is insufficient.
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Ismail Golgeci, Yusuf Kurt, Ksenia Vashchillo-Mollett, René Chester Goduscheit, Ahmad Arslan and Volkan Yeniaras
Research examining the joint role of serial acquisitions and subsidiary autonomy in holistic value provision within servitizing industrial firms is scarce. Thus, this paper aims…
Abstract
Purpose
Research examining the joint role of serial acquisitions and subsidiary autonomy in holistic value provision within servitizing industrial firms is scarce. Thus, this paper aims to investigate the role of serial acquisition and subsidiary autonomy in providing value within servitizing industrial networks.
Design/methodology/approach
A conceptual framework is developed based on the case study of a large Swedish industrial group specializing in selling industrial products and providing industrial solutions to business customers through its numerous subsidiaries.
Findings
The analysis of 14 interviews with the five subsidiaries and seven customer firms and secondary data reveals interesting findings concerning the role of serial niche acquisition strategy and subsidiary autonomy in customer value provision in servitizing organizations. In particular, the authors find that the role of acquisitions in industrial firms extends beyond growth to customer sensing and proximity. Likewise, the authors find that subsidiary autonomy facilitates value provision to customers in industrial networks.
Originality/value
The paper provides a more nuanced understanding of how serial acquisitions and subsidiary autonomy are intertwined and jointly affect industrial firms’ value provision activities amidst the servitization transition in an intraorganizational network.
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Library websites serve as gateways to the information resources and services of their libraries. In today’s digital age, the development of websites is inevitable for libraries as…
Abstract
Purpose
Library websites serve as gateways to the information resources and services of their libraries. In today’s digital age, the development of websites is inevitable for libraries as a means to provide users with online services at their desktops. This case study reports the findings of a usability study of an academic library website from the user’s perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
An online survey on the efficacy of the website and statistical reports from Google Analytics were used as tools to assess and track the use of the Commission on Science and Technology for Sustainable Development in the South (COMSATS) Institute of Information Technology’s (CIIT’s) library website resources by national and international users. A sample of 550 users was invited by e-mail to respond to the questionnaire covering various usability features of the website.
Findings
Findings reveal that users are largely satisfied with the usefulness, convenience, design and quality of CIIT library website. Moreover, the users are mostly making use of the website for accessing research papers through the Higher Education Commission (HEC) digital library, exploring free online open access journals, searching for e-books and examining the library collection via online public access catalog (OPAC). This shows that the library website has a significant role in the pedagogical activities of the CIIT community.
Research limitations/implications
The results are limited to a case study of CIIT, Islamabad campus library website.
Practical implications
The findings of this study will help the library administration to overcome existing deficiencies in the CIIT library website.
Originality/value
The study is a foremost usability evaluation of CIIT, Islamabad campus library website from the user perspective.
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B M Razzak, Bochra Idris, Rahaman Hasan, George Saridakis and Jared M. Hansen
This paper outlines ways in which struggling ethnic minority entrepreneurial service ventures and their owners might respond to unforeseen economic and social shocks. Interviews…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper outlines ways in which struggling ethnic minority entrepreneurial service ventures and their owners might respond to unforeseen economic and social shocks. Interviews with owners of Bangladeshi Curry Houses in the United Kingdom — whom historically have lower performance rates compared to other ethnic minority businesses in the country — reveal that the entrepreneurs' response strategies undertaken to survive and remain in the business despite the challenges faced from operating in a turbulence environment.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted depth phone interviews with owners of Bangladeshi Curry Houses in London during January and February of 2021. The Gioia methodology was applied to the interview scripts to identify which crisis themes exist.
Findings
Despite no advanced educational training, Bangladeshi owners have applied all of the different crisis management techniques present in larger companies: retrenchment, persevering, innovation, and exit. Although the results show that government schemes aimed at helping small businesses have contributed significantly to their survival, concerns regarding the post-health crisis situation remain challenging and threatening for their growth and survivability.
Originality/value
The results indicates that the ethnic minority owned small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are less likely to plan for the future operations; furthermore, they tend not to have formulated a strategy for dealing with an external shock hence affecting and threatening their performance and competitiveness in the marketplace.
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Umar Habibu Umar, Jamilu Sani Shawai, Anthony Kolade Adesugba and Abubakar Isa Jibril
This study aims to evaluate how audit committee (AC) characteristics affect the performance of banks in Africa.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to evaluate how audit committee (AC) characteristics affect the performance of banks in Africa.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors manually generated unbalanced panel data from 78 commercial banks operating in twelve (12) countries whose annual reports were published on the website of African Financials between 2010 and 2020.
Findings
The results indicate that AC size has an insignificant positive association with bank performance (return on equity and Tobin’s Q). AC independence has a significant positive association with bank performance. However, AC gender diversity has a significant negative association with bank performance. Besides, AC financial expertise has a significant positive and negative association with return on equity and Tobin’s Q, respectively.
Research limitations/implications
The study considered only 78 banks that operate in twelve (12) African countries. Besides, the authors consider only four (4) AC attributes.
Practical implications
The findings suggest the need to maintain a smaller AC, appoint more independent members to AC, reduce the number of women appointed to AC and ensure most AC members have financial expertise. These measures could improve bank performance in Africa.
Originality/value
Unlike previous African studies that are mostly restricted to a country level, the study examined how AC attributes influence the performance of banks that operate in Africa.
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Mandeep Saini, Mohammed Arif and Dennis J. Kulonda
The purpose of the paper is to investigate the critical success factors (CSFs) associated with the effectiveness of transfer and sharing of tacit knowledge in lean and agile…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the paper is to investigate the critical success factors (CSFs) associated with the effectiveness of transfer and sharing of tacit knowledge in lean and agile construction processes.
Design/methodology/approach
The study identifies ten CSFs that initiate the transferring and sharing of tacit knowledge. The CSFs are validated through quantitative study. This study recruited project managers, executives, consultants and other managers that are directly involved in the management of a construction project. It recruits the respondents those have background and experience from disciplines such as lean construction, agile construction, construction supply chain (CSC) and knowledge management in lean, agile and CSC. The data collected through self-administrative questionnaire are categorised as ordinal data to analyse in SPSS with frequency and Kruskal–Wallis H test, Spearman’s correlation analysis and a rank-order analysis is done to establish the level of importance of those factors.
Findings
Initially, “Trust between construction organisations” is identified as the foremost CSF. Moreover, other CSFs such as motivation, leadership capabilities, business strategies and organisational capabilities follow trust.
Originality/value
This is the first study that investigates and establishes the CSFs that are essential to initiate transferring and sharing tacit knowledge in a lean and in an agile construction processes.
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Theory is an essential prerequisite in the development and maturation of any scholarly discipline. This study offers insight into theory development in reverse logistics (RL…
Abstract
Purpose
Theory is an essential prerequisite in the development and maturation of any scholarly discipline. This study offers insight into theory development in reverse logistics (RL) studies, provides a synopsis of the theories employed in RL studies, and presents a comprehensive framework for choosing and applying theories in RL studies.
Design/methodology/approach
Using the systematic literature review approach, 265 various RL articles were analysed to discover the trend in using theories in RL studies and classify the individual theories employed. The analysis of the theoretical classification is presented to explain the type and frequency of the usage of theories.
Findings
The analysis discovered 52 specific theories from the sample. These theories were categorised under various categories: competitive, inventory, economic, decision, etc. The institutional, stakeholder, transaction cost economies, resource-based view, natural resource-based view, dynamic capability, agency and theory of planned behaviour were some of the key theories discovered. Finally, a comprehensive framework is provided to aid researchers in choosing and utilising theories.
Research limitations/implications
This study gives authors, reviewers and editors perspectives on utilising theories in RL studies. It will give them the impetus to develop theories in RL and limit the borrowing or extension of theories from other disciplines to RL studies.
Originality/value
To the best of the researcher's knowledge, this is the first attempt to comprehensively provide an anatomical perspective into theory usage in RL studies. Besides, this study's proposed framework for selecting and using theories is a novelty in the domain of RL.
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Funminiyi Peter Oyawole, Adebayo Shittu, Mojisola Kehinde, Gbemisola Ogunnaike and Lois Toluwani Akinjobi
This study assessed the extent of women empowerment and empirically investigated its effect on the adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices at the plot level in Nigeria.
Abstract
Purpose
This study assessed the extent of women empowerment and empirically investigated its effect on the adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices at the plot level in Nigeria.
Design/methodology/approach
Using the empowerment score and women empowerment gap for each household which were derived from the Abbreviated Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index, a multivariate probit model which controlled for the influence of gender and women empowerment on climate-smart agricultural practices' adoption was estimated. The study made use of data from the ECOWAS-RAAF-PASANAO survey conducted in Nigeria in 2017.
Findings
The results show that men are significantly more empowered than women in four out of the five domains of empowerment and are more likely to adopt crop rotation. However, female plot managers have a higher likelihood of adopting green manure and agroforestry, while no significant gender differences in the adoption of organic manure and zero/minimum tillage were found.
Social implications
The results suggest that closing the empowerment gap between women and their spouses would positively influence the adoption of agroforestry.
Originality/value
This study represents the first attempt to examine the adoption of these practices from a gender perspective using a nationally representative plot-level dataset in Nigeria. Furthermore, this study contributes to existing literature on how gender differences influence technology adoption by modelling the effect of empowerment score for each plot manager, and the women empowerment gap for each household on the adoption of five climate-smart agricultural practices.