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This paper uses the cultural figure of Willy Wonka to explore the archetype of the “boy-entrepreneur”, and what the various film manifestations of Wonka (1971–2023) say about changes in entrepreneurial masculinity. We (1) develop an original conceptualisation of boyhood as creatively, socially and gender liminal, (2) analyse the entrepreneurial archetype using literary theories and (3) provide a novel interpretation of Apollonian and Dionysian masculinity to aid future cultural analysis of founder/innovator depictions in children’s media.

Our study conducts a three-stage dramaturgical analysis of the major film adaptations of Roald Dahl’s Willy Wonka (1971, 2005 and 2023). After supplementing the limited literature on boyhood in entrepreneurship with literary and feminist art theory, we identify the significant narrative features which frame the Wonka dramas and produce a framework which tracks thematic changes across the films in terms of the creative, social and gender liminal elements of Wonka’s boy-entrepreneur identity.

Our interpretive analysis reveals a gradual shift in values expressed through Wonka’s boy-entrepreneurialism away from a more hegemonic, Apollonian style of masculinity towards a more Dionysian style embracing emotional expression, intimacy with female characters and kin, and collaborations with nature. Such shifts reflect the growing influence of non-hegemonic entrepreneurial gender expressions, value-driven and relational approaches to new venture creation.

The study contributes to the hugely unexplored area of the “boy-entrepreneur”/“boy-genius”, demonstrating its durability in reality, imagination and popular culture. We provide an in-depth character portrait to provoke further attention to children’s multi-media ways of experiencing early entrepreneurial impressions. We also expand the methodological scope of research on entrepreneurial masculinity beyond real-life founders.

This study aims to investigate the impact of brand engagement on consumer responses to brand extensions, particularly in terms of value perception, attitude and purchase intention in a masstige context. The study examines low-fit/high-functionality and high-fit/low-functionality products. It also explores the crucial role of self-congruence in enhancing brand engagement, which leads to positive consumer responses towards brand extensions.

After establishing the theoretical foundations, pre-tests identified the product types and their fit level. In this quantitative study, 464 questionnaires were administered. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling validated the model and tested the hypotheses for low-fit/high-functionality and high-fit/low-functionality products of a masstige brand.

Data analysis shows that brand engagement positively affects value perception, attitude and purchase intention. However, consumers’ responses to brand extension differed for low-fit versus high-fit products. Moreover, social self-congruence and actual and ideal self-congruence positively impact consumers’ active engagement with masstige brands.

This research shows that low-fit extensions of masstige brands can succeed with high functionality, while high-fit extensions mitigate the negative effects of low functionality, a key attribute of masstige brands. The study adds to the limited literature on self-congruence and engagement by identifying actual and ideal self-congruence as determinants of brand engagement. It is also among the first to demonstrate that social self-congruence drives brand engagement for masstige brands.

Most construction projects are undertaken with the incentive of some form of profit which in business attracts disputes that key disputing parties intend to resolve through mechanisms such as arbitration as early as possible so that they may advance with other activities associated with the project. However, this intention is regularly unfulfilled, disappointing the parties with late arbitration resolution. This study, therefore, explored the duration influencing factors (DIFs) facing arbitration practice in the Tanzania construction industry.

A concurrent convergence mixed methods approach was used where a total of 12 DIFs were identified from the literature, and data were then collected from 39 construction arbitrators, 8 semi-structured interviews and 4 documentary reviews. Descriptive and inferential statistics were employed for quantitative data and directed content analysis for the qualitative data.

Results show that contrary to most people’s convictions, delays in arbitration are regularly caused by the disputing parties rather than the arbitrating party or the authority. The study identified cooperation amongst the tribunal parties, poor accuracy and submission of documents and material evidences, late payment of arbitration fees, and skills, experience, reputation and profession of the arbitrator to be the most critical factors that cause late arbitration resolution.

The use of mixed methods concurrent triangulation convergence approach provides a unique contribution to knowledge by highlighting how the efficacy of arbitration in time performance could be further developed through understanding the critical factors that drive the proceedings duration in the Tanzania construction industry.

We investigate the relationship between Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) and the internationalization pathways of Brazilian franchises. Our aim is to unravel the patterns of firm-level entrepreneurial characteristics vis-à-vis their corresponding processes of internationalization.

We extracted and curated data from the directories of the Brazilian Franchising Association (ABF). Additionally, we scrutinized the International Intensity, International Complexity and EO degree of 27 Brazilian franchises engaged in international activities. Associations between these dimensions were assessed through fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA).

Our findings suggest that franchisees can enhance their international activities by adopting various configurations of EO attributes. This discovery illuminates the intricacies of EO and its association with firms’ operations and performance. Accordingly, we empirically demonstrate that EO is not a monolithic element. Instead, it should be perceived as a multifaceted and dynamic construct.

This study aimed to examine the internationalization process of franchises through the EO lens, a perspective that has not been explored in the existing literature. This unique approach offers novel insights about the internationalization processes of this particular business model. Furthermore, our research delves into the intricate relationship between firm-level EO and the trajectories of firm-level internationalization.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of digital transformation processes for food and beverage companies by investigating how the sustainability-related communication focus (low vs. high) in food waste fighting mobile applications' advertising campaigns influence consumers' intention to use such mobile app, via their environmentalism.

An experimental study has been conducted by using a fictitious mobile app named “Boxy Food!” among a sample of 408 randomly recruited international participants.

Findings reveal that the sustainability-related communication focus in such food waste-fighting mobile apps advertising campaigns (low vs. high) positively affects consumers' intentions to use such mobile apps through the effect of environmentalism. More interestingly, this effect increases in magnitude, becoming higher among those consumers who exhibit a high level of status consumption orientation explaining their behavior as an attempt to “be green, to be recognized from the others.”

This study suggests marketers and managers operating in the food and beverage sector how to design effective strategies to incentivize sustainable behavior through the use of new technologies, by leveraging consumers' individual differences, and specifically on their desire to be recognized as sustainable consumers.

This is the first study demonstrating how the combined effects of the sustainability-related communication focus (low vs. high) may incentivize the use of mobile applications for food waste fighting, by leveraging on consumers' looking to be recognized as green.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has transformed various sectors, including automotive, finance, media, travel and retail by leveraging new-age technologies. Education, banking, health care, social policy and regulation, within the public sector have witnessed significant AI applications and substantial benefits. The importance of AI in the public sector includes enhanced efficiency, improved decision-making, cost savings, citizen-centric services, etc. Despite these advancements, a mindful discussion on the societal impact of AI in the public sector demands comprehension regarding its subjugation. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the role of AI in transforming the public sector using a bibliometric analysis of recent trends and challenges.

This study has used bibliometric analysis to trace the intellectual patterns of previous research. It comprises 231 articles from 2000 to 2024 from Scopus through the Scientific Procedures and Rationales for Systematic Literature Reviews protocol. This protocol has adopted a three-step process for identifying articles, i.e. assembling, arranging and assessing.

The publication trend shows an upward trajectory since 2017, whereas network visualization protrudes with the recent trends and thematic expressions, namely, Global AI ethics and policy challenges in public sectors, AI adoption and governance in public sector, challenges and opportunities of implementing AI in public administration and AI’s role in economic and public transformation.

The findings suggest AI adoption in the public sector enhances transparency and efficiency but demands ethical guidelines, legal frameworks and stakeholder governance to address challenges such as data privacy, algorithmic bias and public trust. Policies should promote responsible AI use, balancing innovation with accountability to improve public service delivery and uphold democratic values.

This paper enhances the limited literature on the integration of AI in the public sector, focusing on emerging themes and trending topics with future research directions to furnish a holistic perspective. It aims to guide researchers and policymakers in exploring areas for further investigation in this domain.

The objective of this work is twofold: firstly, to develop a model for assessing healthcare service quality (HSQ), and secondly, to evaluate the effectiveness of machine learning algorithms in predicting the quality of healthcare services.

In this study, a comprehensive literature review has been performed to identify key quality dimensions in the healthcare services domain. Delphi’s method has been used to confirm the criticality of these dimensions based on experts’ opinions and proposed a novel CIRMQUAL model. Factor analysis techniques have been used to further validate the CIRMQUAL model. Using the data collected through a questionnaire survey, a number of machine learning models have been developed to predict the customer satisfaction level based on the service quality (SQ) performance of a healthcare unit on different dimensions of the CIRMQUAL model.

The study developed a CIRMQUAL model with 14 dimensions (quality of care, safety and security, skill and conduct, staff attitude, tangibles, quality of the atmosphere, patient rights, follow-up, communication, cost of treatment, availability of resources, accessibility, waiting time and services), and these dimensions have been clubbed into four major dimensions, i.e. clinical quality, infrastructural quality, relationship and managerial quality. Furthermore, the application of machine learning algorithms has demonstrated significant accuracy in predicting SQ, highlighting its ability to improve healthcare services and the satisfaction level of patients.

Managers of healthcare units work hard to identify and address the pain points of the patients and improve the working of the healthcare units being managed by them. The availability of many scales with numerous dimensions adds to their confusion in selecting a suitable scale. The current work addresses this confusion and provides four clear areas for assessing the quality of healthcare units. By using this scale, managers can assess the quality of services provided by them, identify the dimensions of low performance, plan and take suitable corrective actions to improve the performance of their healthcare units.

A comprehensive SQ model, i.e. CIRMQUAL has been proposed as a new scale to assess SQ in healthcare units. The model has been developed after analyzing the dimensions used by many researchers available in the literature. This model can be used by future researchers to assess the SQ in healthcare units. Moreover, an attempt has been made to use artificial intelligence-based techniques for predicting customer satisfaction. Such attempts are in the initial stage for healthcare sector. Future researchers can take this concept forward and test the applicability of different machine learning techniques in different functional areas of healthcare.

Good health is of utmost importance for all human beings. In spite of the expenditure of substantial time and efforts by various stakeholders, the service delivery doesn’t match the expectations of patients. Many times, the service providers are not aware of this dissatisfaction and specific aspects of service delivery that need to be improved to reduce dissatisfaction. The model proposed will help the service providers in this regard and the service providers will be able to take focused steps. Such initiatives will definitely improve patient’s satisfaction and their social well-being.

This work is unique because it uses a novel technique to redefine the quality of services in healthcare by using a dual methodology. The research presents a model that includes various factors and it is specially developed to evaluate the quality of services in healthcare settings. This study advances the area’s progress by implementing computational tools for accurate evaluation of HSQ. The healthcare decision-makers may use this novel perspective to evaluate and enhance the quality of service.

This research addressed online customer-to-customer (C2C) incivility during digital service recovery.

To examine the effectiveness of managerial responses to online C2C incivility post a restaurant service failure, a 2 (Managerial response: general vs specific) x 2 (Failure severity: high vs low) quasi-experimental design was employed. A pretest was conducted with 123 restaurant consumers via Amazon Mechanical Turk, followed by a main study with 174 restaurant consumers. Taking a mixed-method approach, this research first asked open-ended questions to explore how participants perceived the restaurant’s motivation for providing a generic versus a specific response. Hayes’ (2013) PROCESS procedure was then performed for hypotheses testing.

The results revealed significant interaction effects of managerial responses and failure severity on perceived online service climate and revisit intention, mediated by trust with managerial responses.

This research yielded unique insight into C2C incivility management literature and industry practices in the context of digital customer service recovery.

To enhance the effectiveness of environmental cause-related marketing (CRM) message design, this study identifies two key factors: descriptive social norms (provincial vs general) and temporal framing (near-future vs distant-future). Drawing upon construal level theory, it examined the synergy between the type of social norms and suitable temporal framing, matched at similar construal levels, to optimize CRM’s impact by positively influencing consumer purchase intentions and engagement in environmentally sustainable behaviors.

A full factorial 2 × 2 online experiment was conducted.

The findings showed that aligning message elements at a low level of construal significantly increases message persuasiveness, enhancing purchase intentions and pro-environmental behaviors. Conversely, matching elements at high levels of construal does not necessarily lead to synergistic effects. Notably, misaligned message elements – where one operates at a higher construal level and the other at a lower level – can generate cognitive resistance, potentially leading to adverse backlash effects. Messages that paired provincial norms with distant future framing were deemed least persuasive, resulting in diminished purchase intentions and pro-environmental behaviors.

This study refines approaches in environmental CRM by illustrating that descriptive social norms alone do not achieve desired impacts. It emphasizes aligning message elements at a low construal level to boost effectiveness and synergistic outcomes. The research also highlights a need to critically reassess matching effects at higher construal levels, thus enriching environmental CRM message strategies.

Consumer well-being (CWB) is a flourishing area of research. It is an important field of study for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG-3 (Good Health and Well-Being). However, despite some recent reviews, there is a lack of a comprehensive overview of the broad themes emerging in the CWB literature. The study aims to thoroughly integrate and organize the fragmented existing literature on CWB by uncovering its emergent themes and their impact.

To address this gap, this study presents a systematic literature review (SLR) of 166 peer-reviewed journal articles from 2013–2023 following the Scientific Procedures and Rationales for Systematic Literature Reviews protocol from the Scopus and Web of Science databases.

This study’s SLR uncovered seven themes: subjective well-being; psychological well-being; food well-being; financial well-being; environmental well-being; social well-being; and societal well-being. Further, this study identifies that these themes impact consumers on three levels: micro, meso and macro. Thus, this study provides a comprehensive overview of the emergent themes along the levels of impact.

This paper anticipates that the study, which is a thorough overview of the CWB literature, will provide managers, academics and students with an introduction to the topic.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first articles that shows the themes of the CWB literature along the respective levels of impact and draws avenues for future research.

El bienestar del consumidor (CWB) es un área de investigación en auge. Es un campo de estudio clave para los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS), en particular el ODS-3 (Salud y Bienestar). Sin embargo, a pesar de algunas revisiones recientes, falta una visión general completa de los amplios temas emergentes en la literatura de CWB. El objetivo de este estudio es integrar y organizar exhaustivamente la literatura existente sobre CWB, revelando sus temas emergentes y su impacto.

Para abordar esta brecha, el estudio presenta una revisión sistemática de la literatura (SLR) de 166 artículos de revistas revisados por pares, publicados entre 2013 y 2023, siguiendo el protocolo SPAR-4-SLR, extraídos de las bases de datos Scopus y Web of Science.

Nuestra SLR reveló siete temas: (a) bienestar subjetivo; (b) bienestar psicológico; (c) bienestar alimentario; (d) bienestar financiero; (e) bienestar ambiental; (f) bienestar social; y (g) bienestar societal. Además, identificamos que estos temas afectan a los consumidores en tres niveles: (i) micro, (ii) meso y (iii) macro. Así, este estudio proporciona una visión completa de los temas emergentes a lo largo de los niveles de impacto.

Anticipamos que este estudio, que ofrece una revisión exhaustiva de la literatura de CWB, proporcionará a gestores, académicos y estudiantes una introducción al tema.

Según nuestro conocimiento, este es uno de los primeros artículos que muestra los temas de la literatura de CWB junto con sus respectivos niveles de impacto y traza rutas para futuras investigaciones.

消费者幸福感(CWB)是一个蓬勃发展的研究领域, 对可持续发展目标(SDGs), 尤其是 SDG-3(良好健康与幸福感), 具有重要意义。然而, 尽管近期已有一些综述, CWB 文献中出现的广 泛主题仍缺乏全面概述。本研究旨在深入整合和组织现有 CWB 文献, 通过揭示其新兴主题及其影响, 填补这一空白。

为解决这一问题, 本研究按照 SPAR-4-SLR 协议, 从Scopus和Web of Science数据 库中选取了 2013 年至 2023 年的 166 篇经过同行评审的期刊文章, 进行系统文献综述(SLR)。

我们的文献综述揭示了七个主题:(a)主观幸福感; (b)心理幸福感; (c)食品幸福感; (d)金融幸福感; (e)环境幸福感; (f)社会幸福感; (g)社会整体幸福感。此外, 我们发现这些 主题在三个层面上影响消费者:(i)微观层面; (ii)中观层面; (iii)宏观层面。因此, 本研究提供 了沿影响层面的新兴主题的全面概述。

我们期待这篇全面概述 CWB 文献的研究能为管理者、学者和学生提供关于该主题的全 面介绍。

据我们所知, 这是首篇阐释 CWB 文献主题及其相应影响层次的文章之一, 并为未来研究指 明了方向。