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1 – 10 of 586K. Krishna K., Lorane Scaria and Saju Madavanakadu Devassy
Adolescence is a stage where genetic and environmental vulnerabilities can emerge as behavioural and emotional disorders. Early detection and seeking professional help are…
Abstract
Purpose
Adolescence is a stage where genetic and environmental vulnerabilities can emerge as behavioural and emotional disorders. Early detection and seeking professional help are critical for these groups. This study aims to explore how mental health literacy (MHL) and other demographic variables impact help-seeking behaviour among adolescents in India.
Design/methodology/approach
This quantitative study used a structured questionnaire comprising demographic variables and standardized measurement tools to assess MHL, and help-seeking behaviour among adolescent pupils. Two hundred students aged 14 and above were randomly selected, with informed consent of themselves and their parents, from selected public and private schools in Ernakulam district, Kerala, India.
Findings
The mean age of the sample was 14.5 and 67% belonged to nuclear families with the majority being male (64%). The help-seeking attitude was negatively associated with the ability to recognize disorders among male students and positively associated with attitudes that promote recognition or appropriate help-seeking behaviour among female students. Additionally, hailing from extended families was associated with help-seeking behaviour among adolescent boys, but this relationship was not significant for girls.
Originality/value
The current study has identified that targeted interventions for male adolescents should focus on enhancing disorder recognition and leveraging family support, while those for female adolescents, the programs should promote positive attitudes towards recognizing mental health issues and help-seeking behaviours, integrating families and schools in the process.
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Qazi Imran Ahmad, Nosheen Fatima Warraich and Amara Malik
This study aims to investigate the everyday life information seeking behavior of transgender people in Pakistan.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the everyday life information seeking behavior of transgender people in Pakistan.
Design/methodology/approach
A quantitative study, based on a survey design, was conducted to explore the everyday information needs of transgender people along with the types and frequency of using information sources. This study further explored the barriers to seeking everyday life information. Data were collected from 378 transgender people from Pakistan.
Findings
Music related information was the most important daily life information need and television appeared as one of the primary information sources frequently consulted by the transgender people. The respondents revealed a variety of challenges in accessing information including lack of education, lack of understanding about available information sources, biased treatment by the public and lack of technological skills. Furthermore, a statistically significant difference was found in everyday information needs and sources consulted on the basis of their age and education.
Originality/value
The findings provide a guideline to educate information providers, government agencies and other stakeholders about the information needs of this marginalized community in Pakistan. This study also suggests ways in which stakeholder may improve information systems and services to better assist transgender people.
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Hyoseok (David) Hwang, Hyun Gon Kim and Jung Yeun (June) Kim
This paper shows that local mutual funds lead firms to engage in corporate social activities locally – corporate community investment (CCI).
Abstract
Purpose
This paper shows that local mutual funds lead firms to engage in corporate social activities locally – corporate community investment (CCI).
Design/methodology/approach
Using an extensive US sample of 3,691 firms for the period of 2005–2018, we find that mutual funds investing in local firms tend to increase CCI. To address endogeneity concerns, we employ an instrumental variable (IV) approach with the S&P 500 Index and Russell 1000/2000 Indexes, which suggests a causal effect of local mutual funds on CCI. Our robustness tests include alternative measures of CCI and local ownership as well as different samples using sole-HQ firms, time lags and a matching sample analysis. In addition, we employ alternative approaches for causality tests.
Findings
We find that mutual funds investing in local firms tend to increase CCI. In addition, our results indicate that CCI tends to increase firm performance measured with Tobin’s Q and operating cash flow, especially in the consumer-oriented industries where customer relations are critical. The findings imply that CCI is considered as building reputational and relationship capital in communities (i.e. strategic intangibles related to stakeholders). Local mutual funds can help firms develop such strategic intangibles that promote shareholder value.
Originality/value
Our study is the first to investigate the role of local institutional shareholders as a driving force of a firm’s community investments.
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Xiaoshuai Peng, Shoufeng Ji, Lele Zhang, Russell G. Thompson and Kangzhou Wang
Modular capacity units enable rapid reconfiguration, providing tactical flexibility to efficiently meet customer demand during disruptions and ensuring sustainability. Moreover…
Abstract
Purpose
Modular capacity units enable rapid reconfiguration, providing tactical flexibility to efficiently meet customer demand during disruptions and ensuring sustainability. Moreover, the Physical Internet (PI) enhances the potential of modular capacity in addressing efficiency, sustainability, and resilience challenges. To evaluate the sustainability and resilience advantages of the PI-enabled reconfigurable modular system (PI-M system), this paper studies a PI-enabled sustainable and resilient production-routing problem with modular capacity.
Design/methodology/approach
We develop a multi-objective optimization model to assess the sustainability and resilience benefits of combining PI and modular capacity in a chemical industry case study. A hybrid solution approach, combining the augmented e-constraint method, construction heuristic, and hybrid adaptive large neighborhood search, is developed.
Findings
The experimental results reveal that the proposed solution approach is capable of obtaining better solutions than the Gurobi and the existing heuristic in a shorter running time. Moreover, compared with the traditional system, the PI only and traditional with modular capacity systems, PI-M system has significant advantages in both sustainability and resilience.
Originality/value
To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to integrate the PI and modular capacity and investigate sustainability and resilience in the production-routing problem.
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Jessica Paule-Vianez, Carmen Orden-Cruz, Camilo Prado-Román and Raúl Gómez-Martínez
This study aims to analyse the effects of Economic Policy Uncertainty (EPU) on the return of growth/value and small/large-cap stocks during expansionary and recessionary periods…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to analyse the effects of Economic Policy Uncertainty (EPU) on the return of growth/value and small/large-cap stocks during expansionary and recessionary periods across a conditional distribution.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors selected a sample covering the period between 01/1995–05/2021. Quantile regressions were applied to the EPU and Russell indices. Business cycles were established following the NBER.
Findings
The results show that EPU has a negative effect on stocks with the intensity of the effect depending on the stock's profile. Small-cap and growth stocks were found to be most sensitive to EPU, especially during recessions. The negative effect is moderated by the economic cycle but is progressively diluted at the lower tail of the stock return distribution.
Practical implications
The findings shed more light on investment strategies for growth/value investors that pursue opportunities arising from a changing economic cycle.
Originality/value
This study makes the following contributions: (1) explores the impact of EPU on the return of different stocks across a conditional distribution, and (2) provides evidence on how the economic cycle influences EPU impact on growth/value stocks and small/large stocks.
研究目的
:本研究擬分析跨條件分佈、以及於擴張期和衰退期,經濟政策不確定性對成長型股票/價值股和小盤股/大型股的收益的影響。
研究設計/方法/理念
我們選擇了涵蓋1995年1月與2021年5月期間的樣本進行研究。我們於經濟政策不確定性指數和羅素指數上採用分位數迴歸法進行研究; 並跟隨著美國國家經濟研究局,建立了多個經濟週期。
研究結果
研究結果顯示,經濟政策不確定性對股票是有負面影響的,而影響的強度則視乎股票的投資組合而定。我們發現,小盤股和成長型股票對經濟政策不確定性是非常敏感的,尤其是在經濟衰退期間。這負面影響會被經濟週期緩和,唯這緩和作用卻會在股票收益的低尾處逐漸減輕。
實務方面的啟示
研究結果使我們更容易理解為尋找因經濟週期改變而衍生的機會的增長/價值投資者所提供的投資策略。
研究的原創性/價值
本研究有以下的貢獻:(一) 、 探究了經濟政策不確定性對跨條件分佈、不同的股票收益的影響; (二) 、為經濟週期會如何左右經濟政策不確定性對成長型股票/價值股和小盤股/大型股的影響,提供了證據。
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This work concerns William Norman Illingworth [1902–1980]. Disillusioned with teaching in conventional schools and inspired by Rudolf Steiner [1861–1925] he founded Sangreal…
Abstract
Purpose
This work concerns William Norman Illingworth [1902–1980]. Disillusioned with teaching in conventional schools and inspired by Rudolf Steiner [1861–1925] he founded Sangreal School, in 1947, and operated this until the early 1970s. Sangreal was what I describe as a “conservative alternative school”, employing methods and pursuing goals not found in most British schools of the period but, unlike avowedly progressive establishments, guided by socially conservative principles. The purposes of the work are both to rescue his/Sangreal’s story from obscurity and to encourage research to establish if other such schools have existed and, if so, to describe and analyse them in an effort to give the category conservative alternative school the recognition it properly deserves.
Design/methodology/approach
The method is a combination of life history/biography and case study of a specific school.
Findings
The story is interesting in its own terms and points to the existence of a hitherto unnoticed category in history of education.
Research limitations/implications
This work may lead to the proper recognition of a neglected category.
Originality/value
This work deals with a school hitherto unknown to most people and may lead to the recognition of a new category.
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This study examines the impact of physical environmental factors on customer retention in fast-food restaurants/cafeterias. Furthermore, this study examines the mediating effect…
Abstract
Purpose
This study examines the impact of physical environmental factors on customer retention in fast-food restaurants/cafeterias. Furthermore, this study examines the mediating effect of customers’ positive emotions on this relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, the stimulus-organism-response model developed by Mehrabian and Russell (1974) is applied within the context of the fast-food restaurant/cafeteria industry. Data were collected from a sample of 250 consumers who have patronized establishments within this industry. The assessment model entailed employing the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) approach, which involved a two-stage procedure: measurement model and structural model evaluation.
Findings
The study’s results underscore the key role of customer positive emotions in influencing customer retention. Notably, physical environmental factors, encompassing elements like table setting, layout, and service staff, emerge as significant determinants in shaping these positive emotions. Furthermore, the findings indicate that these physical environmental factors exert a direct influence on customer retention, with customer positive emotions acting as mediator role in the relationship between these factors and retention.
Originality/value
This study is the first to use physical environment, customer emotions and customer retention variables together in the fast food restaurant/cafeteria industry.
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Ken-Zen Chen, I. Kim Wang and Russell J. Seidle
Digital technologies promise efficiency gains and untapped opportunity. Adoptions of digital technology lead firms to rethink their organizational setup and existing practices…
Abstract
Purpose
Digital technologies promise efficiency gains and untapped opportunity. Adoptions of digital technology lead firms to rethink their organizational setup and existing practices. This paper aims to present a management innovation-based framework that describes new processes and practices for digital transformation.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a structural equation modeling approach to test the framework with survey responses from a sample of 901 Taiwanese organizations – both local firms and multinational subsidiaries – to explore the linkages between adoption of digital technologies and digital maturity.
Findings
The results reveal that management innovation mediates the relationship between digital technology adoption and digital maturity. Moreover, fast-paced environments have a greater impact of management innovation toward digital maturity than slow-paced environments.
Originality/value
This study adds to emerging research that considers the role of organizational learning in digital transformation efforts. The extent to which organizations link the lessons from direct experience to digital routines through which management innovation is implemented determines to a large extent whether this strategic initiative is optimized by the firm. More generally, the findings point to the mutual importance of digital maturity and experiential learning efforts, and suggest a specific means by which learning processes are mobilized by innovating organizations. This study contributes to digital transformation research by providing insight into how a firm can restart failed transformation initiatives of this kind.
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Alejandro J. Sottolichio, Hector R. Ponce and Germán Rojas Cabezas
We examine negative emotions’ influence on consumer satisfaction and loyalty when repurchasing a product or service after experiencing failures in the financial services sector.
Abstract
Purpose
We examine negative emotions’ influence on consumer satisfaction and loyalty when repurchasing a product or service after experiencing failures in the financial services sector.
Design/methodology/approach
The sample comprised 735 valid surveys of customers who encountered such service failures. An initial model incorporating 14 negative emotions was narrowed down to the most robust one, comprising three emotions, after data collection and statistical validation.
Findings
Consumer dissatisfaction is explained by affective (pleasure) rather than cognitive factors (disconfirmation) in the financial services context. Loyalty is influenced only by affective (pleasure and activation) rather than cognitive elements (disconfirmation) in the dissatisfaction generation process, indicating that loyalty is not a cognitive but an affective one. Finally, an affective judgment (activation) rather than a cognitive one (disconfirmation) explains consumer’s recommendation of a product or service despite encountering failures.
Originality/value
This is the first study to focus exclusively on negative emotions, revealing that the pleasure dimension is a significant antecedent of dissatisfaction. By demonstrating that emotional factors rather than cognitive assessments dominate both satisfaction and loyalty responses, this study offers a unique contribution to understanding consumer behavior after service failures in financial services, with practical implications for service recovery strategies.
Propósito
Este estudio examina el impacto de las emociones negativas en la satisfacción y lealtad del consumidor al volver a adquirir un producto o servicio después de experimentar fallas en el sector de servicios financieros.
Diseño/metodología/enfoque
La muestra incluyó 735 encuestas válidas de clientes que enfrentaron dichas fallas en el servicio. Un modelo inicial que incorporaba 14 emociones negativas se redujo, tras la recolección de datos y la validación estadística, a un modelo más robusto que comprende tres emociones.
Hallazgos
La insatisfacción del consumidor se explica por factores afectivos (agrado) en lugar de cognitivos (desconfirmación) en el contexto de servicios financieros. La lealtad está influenciada únicamente por elementos afectivos (agrado y activación) y no por elementos cognitivos (desconfirmación) en el proceso de generación de insatisfacción, lo que indica que la lealtad no es de naturaleza cognitiva, sino afectiva. Finalmente, un juicio afectivo (activación), más que uno cognitivo (desconfirmación), explica la recomendación de un producto o servicio por parte del consumidor, incluso tras haber enfrentado fallas.
Originalidad/valor
Este es el primer estudio que se enfoca exclusivamente en las emociones negativas, revelando que la dimensión de agrado es un antecedente significativo de la insatisfacción. Al demostrar que los factores emocionales, más que las evaluaciones cognitivas, dominan tanto las respuestas de satisfacción como de lealtad, este estudio ofrece una contribución única para comprender el comportamiento del consumidor tras fallas en los servicios financieros, con implicaciones prácticas para las estrategias de recuperación del servicio.
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Muhammad Bilal Farooq, Khwaja Naveed, Fahad Khalid, Anil Kumar Narayan and Ibrahim Mustafa Khudir
Given growing concerns about water scarcity, this study aims to investigate the extent and quality of corporate water management disclosures (hereafter water disclosures) in…
Abstract
Purpose
Given growing concerns about water scarcity, this study aims to investigate the extent and quality of corporate water management disclosures (hereafter water disclosures) in countries and jurisdictions facing extremely high water-stress levels. Contextual factors, at a macro/country, meso/stock exchange and micro/company level, influencing water disclosures, are examined.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors adopted an institutional perspective, integrating multi-level organizational fields, including micro/company-level, meso/stock exchange-level and macro/national-level influences while considering factors such as corporate governance (CG), regulatory stringency, cultural traits, advocacy for environmental management, environmental performance and sustainability indices. The authors use a GRI 303-based index to evaluate water disclosures of the top 100 listed companies from 12 stock-exchanges based in extremely high water-stress countries over a five-year period from 2016to 2020. While checking for robustness, the authors evaluate the impact of normative, coercive and mimetic forces on water disclosures at country, stock exchange and company levels.
Findings
Overall, water disclosure rates/extent and quality remain low with only incremental improvements observed over the five-year period. In terms of drivers, at a micro-level, the authors find that robust CG positively impacts water disclosure quality. At a meso level, regulatory stringency, environmental advocacy and the presence of a sustainability index positively influence water disclosure quality. At a macro level, power distance, uncertainty avoidance and masculinity negatively impact water disclosure quality, whereas long-term orientation and uncertainty avoidance positively impact it. Furthermore, countries characterized by robust governance and high environmental performance negatively influence disclosure quality in water sensitive industries.
Practical implications
The findings may prove useful to policymakers and regulators, including stock exchanges, in strengthening water disclosure requirements. Standard-setters may consider introducing more guidelines to assist reporters in improving the quality of their disclosures. Practitioners (managers and assurance providers) may use the findings to benchmark corporate reporting practices.
Social implications
The research provides insights that can inform policies promoting transparency and accountability around corporate use of societies’ scarce water resources. The study advances responsible water stewardship, aligning corporate actions with global sustainability goals, particularly around water scarcity. In doing so, these findings have implications that extend beyond corporate disclosure practices, impacting broader environmental conservation and resource management efforts.
Originality/value
The study examines corporate water disclosure rates and qualities in extremely high water-stress countries and jurisdictions. The evaluation of these disclosures using a GRI 303-based index generates a unique dataset that is analysed from a multi-level institutional perspective (micro, meso and macro) to provide insights into the factors influencing corporate water disclosure practices.
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