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An increasing non-drinker population is developing, but much research focusses on alcohol misuse, rather than the experiences of those who abstain or consume little alcohol, particularly within student populations. This student co-constructed qualitative research aimed to understand alcohol abstainer and light drinking students’ university experiences and perceptions of university alcohol cultures, given recent trends in alcohol drinking behaviour.

Ten UK undergraduate students (six males, four females; 21–26 years), five alcohol abstainers and five light alcohol drinkers (AUDIT-C), participated in semi-structured focus group interviews.

Thematic analysis of transcripts identified participants’ negative experiences of pre-university social pressures in navigating no or low alcohol drinking identities, which impacted university expectations. Participants perceived alcohol drinking cultures as remaining prevalent on university campuses and possibly used for profit and recruitment. Alcohol dominant university-sanctioned social events, alongside limited other provisions, impacted initial university transitions and belonging. However, students reported co-existing realities between such cultures and simultaneous peer acceptance of their no or low drinking status, finding similar others and long-term friendships not impacted. Due to this, student participants called for universities to take urgent action in changing pervasive university alcohol cultures, which they felt no longer aligned with changing student behaviours and perceptions.

Guided by findings, we provide important implications for prevention work and future research, including the importance of social context interventions. We also highlight the value of student co-creation and external partnerships within such work.

As construction project designs grow in complexity, the challenges associated with project monitoring also escalate. Therefore, it is recommended that cutting-edge technologies like unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) be incorporated to alleviate some of the issues encountered during the execution of construction projects. This paper examines the utilisation and barriers of UAV applications for health and safety (H&S) management in the construction industry.

Adopting a quantitative method for the study, data were collected from 408 construction professionals in the Ghanaian construction industry (GCI) with a questionnaire using the convenience and snowball sampling techniques. The collected data were analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics.

The study reveals a low level of UAV adoption in the GCI, with most firms not using UAVs for H&S management. Key barriers identified include technical challenges, high costs, lack of training, limited government support and resistance to new technologies. Despite the recognised potential of UAVs in improving construction safety, their adoption remains limited due to these obstacles. Conclusively, this study recommends measures that would propel the espousal of UAVs for H&S management in the construction industry.

The results of this research shed light on a relatively unexplored area within the construction sector, particularly in a developing country like Ghana. By providing empirical evidence and insights, the study contributes to the broader understanding of how innovative technologies can be leveraged for H&S management in emerging economies.

This case was developed from secondary sources. The secondary sources included news reports, industry reports, company websites, annual reports and company websites.

The case discusses the comprehensive renewable energy transition strategy that Lynn J. Good (Good), CEO and President of Duke Energy and the Chairman of its Board, was undertaking. In September 2019, Good revealed a new climate plan aimed at achieving net-zero carbon emissions with zero methane emissions from natural gas operations by 2030 and zero carbon emissions from electricity generation by 2050. Duke Energy is a Fortune 150 company headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina and one of the major energy generation companies in the USA with two reportable business segments – Electric Utilities and Infrastructure (EU&I) and Gas Utilities and Infrastructure (GU&I). Good targeted interim carbon emission reduction targets of at least 50% from electric generation by 2030, 50% for Scope 2 and some Scope 3 upstream and downstream emissions by 2035 and 80% from electric generation by 2040. To achieve this, she invested in large electric grid upgrades and energy storage, as well as in research on zero-emission power generation technologies including hydrogen and advanced nuclear technologies. She helped update the grid system and improved customer experience. As part of the revamped climate strategy, Good invested in crucial energy infrastructure and improved affordability of electricity for customers, especially in the North Carolina region. Despite her efforts at curbing emissions, Good faced criticism from various quarters. This included criticism of Duke’s carbon-cutting plans in 2022 in its core North and South Carolina service zones. The company also faced charges of environmental pollution. Its 2024 strategy, which aimed to address a projected increase in demand for electricity using natural gas plants capable of running on hydrogen, was also met with skepticism by industry groups, advocates, activists and local governments.

Good had to face the conflict between environmental ambitions and technological realities that highlighted the difficulties in transitioning to a cleaner energy future. It remained to be seen whether she would be able to successfully navigate the various hurdles and help Duke Energy reach its 2030 emission targets.

This case was written for use in teaching graduate and postgraduate management courses in entrepreneurship and economics, politics and business environment.

AI-powered digital human avatar influencer (DHAI) is a digitally created character with a human-like appearance and noteworthy social media presence. They mimic human behavior through form, behavior and emotional realism. However, there have been varied viewpoints in the literature about the effect of DHAI realism on consumer response. Therefore, this study aims to examine the effect of form, behavioral and emotional realism on consumer engagement and parasocial relationships that further affect attachment toward DHAI and brand, with the moderating effect of content authenticity.

Using a cross-sectional design, 426 respondents in India were asked to visit the Instagram page of a specific DHAI identified through a pretest study. The authors used the Smart PLS 4.0 version to examine the hypotheses.

Accordingly, based on the social presence theory, the findings of the quantitative study indicated that DHAI’s form, behavioral and emotional realism positively influence customers’ engagement with DHAI, but only the behavior and emotional realism of DHAI positively affect the parasocial relationship. Further, perceived DHAI’s content authenticity moderates the effect of DHAI engagement and parasocial relationship on DHAI sentimental attachment.

This study provides novel and practical insights for developing DHAI by considering realism characteristics for enhanced customer engagement, parasocial relationship and attachment toward DHAI and brands.

This study aims to investigate the attributes of halal tourism with family members by exploring the experiences of Muslims who had travelled with their families to the local islands of the Maldives. This country was chosen as the context of the study as it is a destination with a fully Muslim population, which served as a normative context for studying halal tourism.

A basic qualitative design was adopted as the research methodology, with the data collected through in-depth interviews with the selected Muslim families.

Nine emergent themes unique to the context of halal tourism with family members extend the existing discussion on family tourism and halal tourism. Overall, halal family tourism experience is laden with Islamic family values, characterised by the dimensions of group organisation, safety, practicality, risk management as well as mutual respect and benefit between travellers and providers, and among family members. This experience leads to increased family bonding and the internalisation of Islamic values. Hence, this study highlights halal tourism with family members as a form of dignified tourism.

Travel with the family deserves greater academic attention due to the large market size and the distinctive nature of travel undertaken by groups of individuals bonded through familial relationships. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first to explore the attributes of halal tourism with family members, and the normative Islamic context of the local islands of the Maldives assisted in elucidating the emergent themes and values of this form of halal tourism with family members. Halal family tourism, as a nexus of family tourism and halal tourism, offers a huge potential of future research avenue.

Designed as an educational hub for sustainability, the Irish ecovillage of Cloughjordan is dealing with a significant challenge: creating stronger synergies between its educators to maximize its impact on the mainstream. Based on the empirical findings of a study conducted in this community, this paper aims to identify the principal informational and organisational factors that might encourage the development of such synergies.

Coherently with practice-related and ethnographic methodological principles, data were primarily collected through participant observation and semi-structured, open-ended interviews.

The lack of collaboration and information sharing between educational practices is relatable to different understandings and meanings about education for sustainability that are amplified by some power asymmetries.

The analysis of the community’s educational practices may have been limited by the many interruptions brought by the recent pandemic.

This is the very first study to explore the educational activities of the ecovillage of Cloughjordan, and one of the first ones to combine the notions of “information in social practice” and “communities of practice” to explore a real-life project.

This study aims to examine the relationship between institutional logics and specifications quality, and how this relationship is mediated by the legitimacy of the procurement process and stewardship behaviour.

This study draws on insights from institutional logics theory, and legitimacy and stewardship behaviour literature. We conducted an extended literature review to gain a comprehensive understanding of “institutional logics” and their manifestations in organizational contexts, utilizing the 2000–2024 data collected from the EBSCO, Scopus and Web of Science databases, complemented with Google Scholar. We gather that institutional logics manifest in several forms, and that while some organizations may thrive on a single logic, in certain contexts institutional logics can manifest in combinations – “multiple logics or hybrids”. Based on this understanding, we developed testable research hypotheses, predicting the influences of institutional logics – professional logic, efficient service logic and delivery (market) logic, on legitimacy, stewardship behaviour and specifications quality. We then carried out an empirical study, adopting a quantitative cross-sectional survey design with a self-administered questionnaire to test the hypothesized relationships. The empirical data were obtained from 162 procuring and disposing entities in Uganda and analyzed using the partial least squares structural equation modelling technique.

The study findings reveal that institutional logics exert a strong positive effect on the legitimacy of the procurement process and on stewardship behaviour, which, in turn, both positively influence specifications quality.

The study findings have implications for theory and practice. The study findings provide useful insights that support the conceptual and theoretical development of institutional logics theory and applications in procurement literature. In addition, the study findings enhance procurement managers’ understanding of the mechanisms through which institutional logics can foster specifications quality. However, considering the fact that the study was conducted in a single country context, and focused on the public sector only, the findings of the study might not be generalizable globally.

This study contributes to established knowledge about quality management and procurement by examining the legitimacy of the procurement process and stewardship behaviour of those involved in procurement processes as mechanisms through which procuring entities are able to use institutional logics to enhance specifications quality. In addition, the study highlights areas for future research that may be explored to increase understanding of the value of institutional logics in ensuring specifications quality, and the link between specifications quality and the general performance of procuring entities.

Given the lack of research on the lived experiences of racially minoritized women in academia, this paper provides primary accounts of their experience with impostorization. Impostorization refers to the policies, practices and seemingly innocuous interactions that make or intend to make individuals (i.e. women of color) question their intelligence, competence and sense of belonging.

To explore experiences with impostorization and identify effective coping strategies to counter the debilitating effects of impostorization, 17 semi-structured interviews were conducted with women of color PhD students and faculty at universities throughout the USA and across disciplines.

While impostor syndrome, which refers to feelings of inadequacy that individuals experience and a fear that they will be discovered as fraud, has garnered much attention, the present accounts suggest that the more vexing issue in academia is impostorization, not impostor syndrome. Forms of impostorization include microaggressions, grateful guest syndrome, invisibility and inclusion taxation.

The interviews reveal the implicit and explicit ways in which academia impostorizes racially minoritized women scholars and the coping strategies that they use to navigate and survive within academia. The accounts demonstrate the pernicious effects of labeling feelings of inadequacy and unbelonging as impostor syndrome rather than recognizing that the problem is impostorization. This is a call to change the narrative and go from a fix-the-individual to a fix-the-institution approach.