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Case competitions are growing in popularity, in part because they are believed to build the skills and employment opportunities that higher education institutions are struggling to provide. We add to the nascent research on case competitions and answer calls for more exploration of career-related aspects of case competitions by exploring their employability benefits and opportunities.

We use extant research and experiential learning theory to identify four key benefits and their interrelationships. These are tested using survey data of 212 international case competition students.

We confirm four dominant benefits of learning through feedback, broadened horizons, the development of skills and enhanced employment opportunities, and confirm the interrelationship between them. Importantly, we demonstrate the critical role that feedback plays in the development of skills and broadened horizons.

The findings confirm that HIEs should encourage students to participate in extracurriculars, and in particular, case competitions. The implications provide guidance on how to structure extracurricular and case competition activities to maximize skill development and employment opportunities. Insights are also relevant to coach training.

Prior work has focused on individual benefits and largely ignored the critical role of feedback. We build and test hypotheses on benefit interrelationships and validate the impact of feedback. We thereby extend experiential learning and research on the employability benefits of case competitions and extracurricular activities in general. Our insights are relevant to maximizing the value of extracurriculars and maximizing the value of case training and competitions, in particular to achieve employability advantages.

In the 21st century, libraries are experiencing a significant decline in users due to shifting reading habits and the impact of technology, necessitating library transformation and a heightened emphasis on library marketing. Special libraries, in particular, rely heavily on patrons for survival, often due to their private ownership and limited resources. This paper aims to discuss the aforementioned objectives.

This paper examines the Taste Library, a special library in Hong Kong, and analyzes its current practices based on an interview with its founder, website content, and social media presence. The 7Ps Marketing Mix model is employed to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the library's current market position.

The Taste Library's existing practices exhibit limitations in attracting young patrons. To address this issue, we propose marketing strategies focused on enhancing social network presence, offering digitized content, and engaging in school outreach.

By concentrating on youth marketing, this study offers valuable insights for special libraries in developing strategic plans for transitioning and maintaining sustainability.

Few studies concentrate on marketing small special libraries, particularly in the East, within today's digitized economy.

This study addresses the remarkable research gap in the existing literature on Chat Generative Pre-training Transformer (ChatGPT), which has primarily explored its functional benefits rather than the psychological states of its users. By integrating the self-concept theory and functional theory of attitudes, this study develops a moderated-mediating model to examine the impact of the bandwagon effect on users’ habit formation and subsequent feelings of pride associated with the ChatGPT application.

This study analyzed self-reported survey data from 568 respondents from mainland China using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The findings reveal that the bandwagon effect indirectly influences users’ pride through the formation of habits related to ChatGPT applications. This study also identifies the boundary condition of social-adjustive attitude, which strengthens both the direct relationship between the bandwagon effect and habit formation and its indirect relationship with pride.

This study contributes to the field by offering a novel perspective on ChatGPT adoption, highlighting the role of self-concept and attitudinal functions in driving users’ intentions to utilize the technology, with a focus on the desire for pride as a motivating factor.

Drawing on social exchange and street-level bureaucracy (SLB) theories, the authors of the present paper seek to identify how public banks in Egypt strategically manage their frontline employees to maintain high performance even during periods of economic uncertainty.

The empirical sample comprises semi-structured interviews with 28 frontline employees working in 4 public banks. The authors used the Gioia mechanism to analyze their data.

The authors identified job-related (discretionary power of bank employees, nature of banking jobs and hiring elite individuals for banking jobs); learning-related (continuous learning of bank employees, spread of MBA programs and resilience of bank employees) and context-related categories of factors (career support and more financial rewards during economic uncertainty) that explain the stability of the performance of the frontline bank employees addressed in this study despite the economic uncertainty their country is passing through.

Given the findings of the present paper, the authors propose that the administration of the addressed banks maintain the policy of providing training opportunities to their employees. However, such training should pay more attention to issues such as crisis management, customer-employee engagement and the mental health of employees during crises, among others. Second, as dissatisfaction is very high with other public sector organizations in Egypt, their top management should try to learn from public banks, follow the best practices and collaborate with them to improve their service offerings to the citizens. Finally, for global financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund who are involved in rescuing Egyptian economy should incorporate strategic human resources management implementation in public sector organizations in their recommendations, along with economic reforms package.

This paper contributes by filling a gap in the literature on strategic human resources management and economic uncertainty in which empirical studies of the association between them, particularly in the context of North African countries such as Egypt, have been limited so far.

This paper examines the effect of information and communication technology (ICT) hassles on employee job performance and investigates the mediating effect of well-being and the moderating effect of psychosocial safety climate (PSC).

This study was conducted on a sample of 294 employees working remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. Bootstrap regression and moderated mediation analyses were carried out using the macro PROCESS version 4.2.

The results suggest that ICT hassles negatively affect well-being, which, in turn, impacts job performance. This study also finds that this indirect relationship worsens when employees are in a weak psychosocial safety climate.

As organizations plan to pursue telecommuting on a massive scale in a post-pandemic world, these findings are crucial in informing organizations of the need to create a healthy work environment and to provide optimal virtual working conditions.

As one of the first studies to examine the relationship between ICT hassles and job performance in an unprecedented telecommuting environment, it emphasizes the importance of rebalancing the demands arising from the use of technologies and the resources available to employees.

This paper aims to examine the effects of both transient and chronic loneliness on consumers’ variety-seeking (VS) behavior and to identify the various underlying mechanisms involved.

Four studies were adopted to clarify how transient and chronic loneliness affect consumers’ VS behavior.

Both transient and chronic loneliness promote consumers’ VS behavior. More importantly, the effect of transient loneliness on VS behavior is driven by perceived loss of control, whereas the effect of chronic loneliness on VS behavior is driven by need for uniqueness and sensation-seeking.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first to explore the differential roles of transient and chronic loneliness on VS behavior, which may open new avenues for future research. First, future research could investigate moderators that influence the impacts of transient and chronic loneliness on VS behavior. Second, future research could examine different participant populations and use cognitive neuroscience techniques to further verify the differential roles of these two types of loneliness on VS behavior.

This research contributes to marketing practice by providing practical guidance on how to effectively design different marketing strategies to promote VS for consumers with different types of loneliness. For consumers with transient loneliness, marketers can benefit from a concerted focus on improving consumers’ sense of control. Yet, for consumers with chronic loneliness, marketing strategies that improve consumers’ need for uniqueness will be more effective.

This research contributes to the literature on loneliness and consumer behavior, which has largely overlooked the distinct roles of different types of loneliness (i.e. transient vs chronic loneliness) in influencing consumer behavior. Specifically, this paper conducted a comparative analysis of the impacts of transient and chronic loneliness on consumers’ VS behavior and proposed that transient and chronic loneliness promote consumers’ VS behavior through divergent underlying mechanisms.

The study aims to examine diabetic patients’ switching intentions toward self-monitoring blood glucose devices, incorporating perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, with switching cost as a moderator.

A self-administered questionnaire was developed using established measuring scales. Data from 321 respondents was collected and analyzed using the partial least squares structural equation modeling approach.

Results indicate that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use influence switching intention. Switching cost does not moderate the perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and switching intention. This study reveals important information for healthcare practitioners and device manufacturers.

The significance and originality of this study stem from its pioneering investigation into the switching intentions of diabetic patients regarding self-monitoring glucose devices through the application of the technology acceptance model, thereby addressing a notable gap in the existing literature on diabetes management and technology adoption, which has lacked comprehensive examination of patients’ transition behaviors in this specific context.

Virtual idols have entered the golden period as the main form of future digital people. However, existing studies only focus on a single idol type and partial role relationships related to virtual idols, lacking synthesized insights. To address these gaps, this paper summarizes different types of virtual idols and all role relationships to achieve a comprehensive literature review.

Based on the business ecosystem theory, this paper constructs a business role ecosystem framework for virtual idols from the two subsystems of value co-creation and value realization.

Firstly, we extract common characteristics and the generalized definition applicable to diverse idol types. Secondly, we find that there are commonalities and differences in the significant characteristics of virtual idols in different application fields. Thirdly, literature in the value co-creation subsystem mainly focuses on co-creation mechanisms in the role relationship between idols and demanders (RRID). A few focus on virtual idols’ constructions in the role relationship between producers and idols (RRPI) and co-creation phenomena in the role relationship between demanders and producers (RRDP). Finally, literature in the value realization subsystem mainly focuses on consumer attitudes and realization mechanisms in RRID. A few focus on realization phenomena in the role relationship between producers and tripartite enterprises (RRPT) and RRPI.

This paper points out future implementing directions of industry practitioners, gives strategies to promote economic value realizations and emphasizes the importance of cultural communication.

This paper discusses the existing theoretical gaps and possible future research directions regarding characteristics, applications and role relationships.

This study aims to explore various conceptions of global citizenship education (GCE) and pedagogies among frontline Chinese Hong Kong secondary school teachers under the onset of a new political climate of conservative nationalism.

It utilised interview findings with a purposive sample of about 22 experienced secondary school teachers in 2019, which was shortly before the city was caught in huge waves of protests. Interviewees come from different demographics, such as subsidy types of schools and school sponsoring bodies and admit students of different socio-economic status and academic capabilities.

The findings reveal both liberal and nationalistic orientations on knowledge and values of GCE, including sustainability, in recent school education, and the use of discussion and experiential learning for teaching GCE.

A conceptual framework is developed for further research on teaching GCE in different cultural contexts. Developing pedagogies to instil in learners the values, attitudes and behaviours that support responsible global citizenship should become an international research agenda.

The analysis offers insightful views on what, why and how these teachers teach GCE. The authors also construct a framework of teachers' values and teaching beliefs that cultivate global citizens based on the research findings. This framework can inform school leaders, curriculum planners and teacher trainers in developing a more substantial pedagogical framework for GCE.

A qualitative approach based on grounded theory was utilized, with data collected through 26 semi-structured interviews with social entrepreneurs. Alas’s Triangular Model provided the framework for data analysis and interpretation.

This study explores how Hong Kong social enterprises approached crisis and change management during the COVID-19 pandemic, examining their resilience-building strategies.

The pandemic triggered an existential crisis for many social enterprises, causing severe revenue losses. However, strong leadership and cultures based on social mission enabled resilience. Enterprises demonstrated agility by rapidly transitioning operations online and establishing partnerships. Technology adaptation and social innovation were pivotal to sustaining impact.

As the sample comprises enterprises that survived the pandemic, insights into failed enterprises are lacking. Comparative analysis could illuminate differences in crisis response between successful and unsuccessful cases.

The study’s practical implications suggest that social enterprises should focus on developing flexible crisis management plans, cultivating purposeful leadership, embracing digital transformation, strengthening collaborative networks and prioritizing organizational learning to effectively navigate crises while staying true to their social missions.

Findings demonstrate how shared values and cultures grounded in purpose can anchor organizations amidst upheaval, fostering resilience. This underscores the role of social enterprises in modeling responsiveness to societal needs.

While research has examined social enterprises’ vulnerability in crises, investigation into their crisis management practices is limited. This study enriches understanding of how social enterprises effectively navigate turbulence.