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In light of the burgeoning interest in the Metaverse within educational contexts, this study provides a comprehensive review to address the knowledge gap prevalent among K-12 and higher education teachers and educators. The increasing integration of the Metaverse into classroom settings necessitates a systematic exploration of its impact on subject-specific pedagogy, assessment methods, research methodologies and overall learning outcomes.

The research design involves a systematic review of 34 selected studies published between 2009 and 2023. The inclusion criteria prioritize investigations into Metaverse applications in classroom teaching, with a focus on subject disciplines, pedagogical approaches, measurement metrics and research methodologies. The selected studies undergo a detailed analysis and synthesis to extract meaningful patterns and trends.

The analysis reveals a predominant concentration on higher education, encompassing both science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and non-STEM disciplines. However, few studies adopt comprehensive experimental designs. This suggests a gap in the methodological rigor of current research on Metaverse integration in education. While the Metaverse's impact on higher education is evident, the study underscores the need for more robust experimental designs and comprehensive research methodologies.

The limited exploration of students' experiences with the Metaverse in educational settings highlights a nascent research area that warrants further investigation. Future research should prioritize measuring students' perceptions and performance through indicators such as test grades to enhance our understanding of the Metaverse's efficacy in educational contexts.

The study aims to offer insights into the current state of Metaverse integration in education and identify areas for further research and development.

This paper studies how employee effort depends upon the manager’s level of narcissism and the framing of the manager’s incentive scheme. In an online experiment with 356 employee participants, the authors manipulate the description of the manager narcissism (high or low) and the framing of the manager’s compensation scheme (bonus or penalty) and examine the joint effect of these two factors on employee effort to help the manager reach their objectives. Results show that employees exert less (more) effort when manager narcissism is high (low). This effect is mediated by employees’ feelings of envy toward the manager. In line with recent research on the cascading effect of management compensation, the authors also find that a manager’s penalty contract has a negative effect on employee effort when manager narcissism is high. The results have important implications for compensation design in business practice.

This paper aims to explore the hierarchy of motivations behind Chinese young wine consumers’ wine-purchasing behavior.

This study used a random and snowball sampling technique to collect data from Chinese young wine consumers. Ultimately, 840 participants were included, representing diverse geographic regions across China. The gathered data was analyzed to explore wine customer behavior using SPSS and AMOS.

The hierarchical structure of motivations guiding young consumers’ wine consumption becomes apparent when analyzed across ascending levels: from considerations of health benefits and emotional assessments to social interactions and status symbols. These factors wield significant influence over the purchase of wines among Chinese young wine consumers. Moreover, these consumption motivations notably impact consumption behavior by mediating through consumption intentions.

This study integrates the theory of planned behavior with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, systematically identifying four primary motivations that hierarchically influence wine consumption among Chinese young wine consumers. It empirically validates the relationships between motivations, intentions and behaviors, underscoring intentions as a mediating factor linking motivations and behaviors.

Limited research exists on the perceptions of police within specific ethnic minority groups. The primary purpose of this study is to investigate the experiences of Korean and Korean American residents in the Metro Atlanta area regarding their perceptions of cooperation with the police, particularly in relation to hate crimes, along with their perceptions of police legitimacy and other relevant factors. By focusing on this specific population, the study aims to shed light on their unique perspectives and contribute to a deeper understanding of the complex dynamics between ethnic minorities and law enforcement.

The authors’ sample comprised 128 Korean residents who were asked about their demographics, victimization experiences, self-rated English proficiency and police legitimacy. Multiple linear regression analyses were employed to investigate the impact of police legitimacy, victimization experiences and English-speaking skills on the participants' level of cooperation with the police.

Police legitimacy and self-rated levels of English proficiency emerged as the most significant factors in predicting the level of cooperation among residents with the police. Furthermore, individuals who have experienced crime victimization in the past were more willing to cooperate with the police compared to those who have not. Additionally, men showed a higher tendency to cooperate with the police compared to women participants.

The findings of this study suggest important implications for the policies and strategies aimed at enhancing the relationship between the Korean American community and the police. These implications include the need for improved language support for non-English speaking community members and the importance of building trust and fostering mutual understanding to cultivate positive police-community relations. By implementing measures based on these findings, it is recommended to promote a more inclusive and effective approach to policing within the Korean American population.

Given the rising popularity of mobile commerce among young consumers, this study aims to examine the effect of mobile applications service quality (MASQ), service convenience (SERCON) and satisfaction contributing to the retention of young consumers towards mobile applications.

Primary data were collected from 213 active online young smartphone users who have used mobile apps for shopping through a structured questionnaire. Structural equation modelling is used to analyse the data.

The results of this study reveal that both MASQ and SERCON strongly support satisfaction, which leads to the retention of young customers.

This study is one of the few relevant pieces of research that would benefit mretailers encompassing mobile commerce applications to improve their MASQ and SERCON with cutthroat competition in gaining and retaining young customers for shopping through smartphone applications.

Financial experience is very important in today’s dynamic world of constant globalization with the upsurge in sophisticated financial products entering the financial markets, especially in developing countries. This is because it helps the illiterate unbanked poor women owners of micro businesses to make wise financial judgments and options guided by psychology and cognition. This paper aims to ascertain how financial experience can promote microfinance lending and the continued existence of women micro businesses in rural Uganda through an intervening role.

The paper employs a structural equation model through SmartPLS software to ascertain how financial experience can promote microfinance lending and the continued existence of women micro businesses in rural Uganda through an intervening role.

The empirical findings from this study indicated that financial experience, as a significant and positive mediator, improves microfinance lending and the continued existence of women micro businesses in rural Uganda.

Owing to the geographical ambit of the current study and sample source from only one developing country, future studies may collect data from other regions of the world for comparative analysis to give more insights on the role of financial experience in rural financial markets.

The government of Uganda should promote financial literacy to enhance the financial experience of women owners of micro businesses to help them make better financial judgements in the rural financial markets. This may increase microfinance lending and the continued existence of vibrant women micro businesses in rural areas. As a result, this could lead to the creation of more jobs for the ever-growing younger population in Uganda.

This study is motivated by the lack of understanding and experience about key financial concepts among more than 3.5 billion adults, mostly women. It applies the Experiential Learning Theory grounded in psychology and cognition to show how the financial experience of women who run micro businesses derived from repeated retrieval of knowledge and reflection, can help them to make sound financial judgments to become financially included by rural-based microfinance institutions. Learning-by-doing allows women owners of micro businesses to repetitively take prudent saving, borrowing and investment selections that help them to generate income to meet timely loan repayment to access more microcredit for the continued existence. This is inadequate in the current theory of microfinance lending in rural financial markets.

Children are beginning to socialize as consumers earlier than ever, highlighting the importance of their saving behavior as an effective form of consumer protection. The paper explored the influence of parents, peers, attitudes, knowledge, past behavior, allowance and self-efficacy on saving intention.

With the aim to explore a range of determinants of adolescent saving and to specify the potential mechanisms through which different determinants operate, we adopted a multitheoretical approach based on theories of planned behavior, consumer and financial socialization, and self-efficacy. The paper investigates the formation of the saving intentions on a sample of 1,476 children 10–15 years old in Croatia.

The results indicate strong importance of parental influence and self-efficacy, implying that saving intention among tweens requires a supportive family structure as well as beliefs in the tweens themselves that they are able to save money and face difficulties.

This paper investigates the very nature of saving intention formation at a crucial developmental stage; it investigates the interplay of mechanisms through which determinants of savings operate at that developmental stage; and it explores the age-variance of the mechanism and the interplay of relevant variables, shedding light on the nature of the mechanism of development.

This paper aims to develop a cross-border regional brand management model to help enhance cooperation for developing such localities. It analyzed its applicability in the Brazil–Argentina and Italy–Austria cross-border regions comprising several cities.

A systematic literature review was conducted to obtain a theoretical basis and select elements for creating the cross-border regional brand management (CRBM) model. To apply the model, in-depth interviews were conducted with 19 specialists of different nationalities and distinct expertise on cross-border governance and regional branding. In addition, to validate the proposed model, a focus group was carried out, and specialists were consulted using forms, providing 22 additional opinions.

The results show good managerial practices and gaps that must be overcome to create and manage the brands from the two regions analyzed.

The theoretical contributions consist in extending the literature in place branding by presenting the first CRBM model and the conceptual explanation of each of the model's elements.

The study's practical implications occur through the suggestion of good management practices for the studied localities arising from the applicability of the CRBM model. Furthermore, it is expected that the model developed can be applied in other locations, bringing practical contributions to the management and creation of cross-border regional brands in other countries.

This study presents the first CRBM model and its applicability to two cross-border regions.

This study aims at building a framework for the electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) response under the social media environment. The elaboration likelihood model was adopted to explain how message source credibility and message appeal jointly influence the eWOM response process, while source credibility provides a central route and message appeal plays a peripheral route for information processing.

This study used a scenario design to test the decision behavior in the Facebook environment through message content manipulation. A convenience sampling method was adopted in this study. We collected 203 valid questionnaires and tested this research model with LISREL 8.8. This study used a two-stage structural equation modeling data analysis method with LISREL 8.8, by which the measurement model was assessed through confirmatory factor analysis for the reliability and validity of the research model, and the causal relationship among factors was assessed through exploratory factor analysis .

The results showed that 53% variance of eWOM responses could be explained by message source credibility and emotional message appeal from the elaboration likelihood model perspective. Message source credibility plays a central role in the social media environment. The model was further tested with a demographic profile analysis for both gender and age. It is found that a female user is influenced by both source credibility and emotional appeal, but a male user is only influenced by message source credibility. The mature age group is more responsive to eWOM messages.

The sample might not represent all social networking sites (SNS) users. The participants represent a small segment of the Facebook population around the globe. Secondly, this research design could be improved by using more recreational messages to test the effects of message appeal and message source credibility. Thirdly, the mobile phone is a type of physical product rather than an experiential product. Future studies could try to identify the same eWOM determinants with different SNS functions, for example, the inbox message function. Similarly, Facebook users are allowed to use both text and pictures to disseminate promotional messages.

This study provides an insight for SNS administrators regarding the determinants of driving more customer responses toward a message. Message source credibility and message appeal are identified as the antecedents for eWOM responses in SNS. Companies could make use of this finding to improve their marketing communication strategy in SNS. The finding can inform administrators of the importance of focusing on both customers’ psychological state and message attributes during the dissemination of promotional messages to improve the efficiency of the promotional effort. Companies aimed at receiving different types of eWOM responses in SNS may need to consider other factors for creating their promotional messages.

Previous studies have mainly identified factors influencing eWOM responses from the people-centered variables such as personal traits and social relationships. This study proposes that the eWOM response is a dual information processing process that can be explained by the ELM. When a user processes information in SNS, he follows both the central route and the peripheral route (i.e. source credibility and message appeal) which can influence the eWOM response. It is the first time that the source credibility is investigated as the central route in ELM model.

In an era of blurred moral boundaries, brands face “moral dilemma crises”, which are distinguished from traditional crises. Based on expectancy violations theory, this study aims to explore how consumers interpret (inferred goodwill) and evaluate (consumer regret) the precrisis committed brands, reinforced by corporate ability and responsibility (expectancies) during moral dilemma crises and whether self-brand connection moderates this relationship.

The main study used a scenario-based online survey with a purchased beauty brand, analyzed via structural equation modeling and PROCESS macro, to examine the effects of corporate ability and responsibility on regret, mediated by inferred goodwill and moderated by self-brand connection. A validation study with a fictitious brand used an online experimental design, analyzed with t-tests and ANCOVAs.

When corporate ability and corporate responsibility are considered together, corporate ability negatively impacts inferred goodwill (boomerang effect), whereas corporate responsibility positively impacts inferred goodwill (buffering effect). Inferred goodwill acts as a mediator that reduces regret. The negative impact of corporate ability on inferred goodwill and regret becomes stronger among consumers with strong self-brand connections. However, self-brand connection does not moderate the relationship between corporate responsibility and inferred goodwill.

This research extends the application of expectancy violations theory to moral dilemma crises, differentiates between the effects of corporate ability and responsibility, highlights the role of inferred goodwill and regret and explores the moderating effects of self-brand connection, providing tailored insights for brand management.