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This chapter critically evaluates whether football can attain recognition as a national sport in China. Article No. 11, released by the Chinese government in 2015, aimed to develop a new national strategy centralised on the sport of football to foster consumption and enhance national soft power. Consequently, this also means encouraging Chinese football fans to support the national football team. Comparing the significance of local football clubs and the national football team to Chinese football fans is deemed meaningless and unable to generate useful information to comprehend Chinese people's attitudes towards local and national communities. Through literature comparisons with established Chinese national sports such as Chinese martial arts, badminton and table tennis, the discussion reveals that football currently falls short of meeting the general criteria of invention and popularity to be considered a Chinese national sport. In the specific Chinese context, it also proves that football fails to meet the criterion of politics, hindering its identification as a national sport. Consequently, the chapter rebuts the assumption and advocates for the validity of comparing how fans assess their fandom for local and national football teams.

This research aims to analyze the literature on Quality 4.0 and pinpoint the essential factors contributing to its success. Additionally, the research aims to develop a framework that can be used to create a capable workforce necessary for the successful implementation of Quality 4.0.

By following a systematic approach, the authors could ensure that their literature review was comprehensive and unbiased. Using a set of pre-determined inclusion and exclusion criteria, the authors screened 90 research articles to obtain the most relevant and reliable information for their study.

The authors' review identified essential findings, including the evolution of literature in the field of Quality 4.0 and the systematization of previous literature reviews focusing on training and development. The authors also identified several training barriers to implementing Quality 4.0 and proposed a model for building a competent workforce using Kolb's experiential learning model.

The authors' research offers insights into the training barriers that must be considered when building a competent workforce. Using the framework proposed in the authors' research, consultants and managers can better integrate Quality 4.0 into their organizations.

The adoption of Quality 4.0 has significant social implications and is essential for advancing sustainability. It can improve efficiency, reduce waste, minimize environmental impacts and better meet the needs and expectations of stakeholders.

The authors' study stands out as one of the earliest reviews of the literature on Quality 4.0 to incorporate the theory-context-method (TCM) framework, allowing to provide unique insights into future research directions that had not been previously explored.

This study explores how information volume affects crowdfunding success and identifies the signals – operational transparency, past crowdfunding experience, perceived project authenticity and perceived product quality – that moderate this relationship. The goal is to provide insights into managing information overload and enhancing the probability of funding success in various information volume contexts.

Data were collected from 2,681 Kickstarter campaigns and analyzed using fixed effects logit regression models.

The study reveals a curved relationship between information volume and funding success, moderated by factors such as operational transparency, crowdfunding experience, project authenticity and product quality.

This study provides fund-seekers with essential insights into disseminating information effectively.

This study contributes to the literature by elucidating the complex dynamics among information volume, signaling types and crowdfunding success, offering a nuanced understanding of how fund-seekers can optimize their campaigns for better outcomes.

Project management scholars and practitioners have long debated how best to harness social interactions to optimise knowledge exchange and enhance stakeholder alignment and value. This study aims to assist project managers to understand and manage fuzziness and create enduring front-end value. It views the project life cycle as a potential source of co-created value. The paper uses a social capital lens to provide a deeper understanding of the project front-end; it uses a three-dimensional view (structural, relational, cognitive) to explore how stakeholder social capital can overcome front-end fuzziness to enhance decision-making and, thus, value creation.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with senior managers from teleconnections companies, which, when combined with secondary data, established the impact, nature and dimensions of social capital within a project management setting.

The research found that social capital can help to reduce complexity, uncertainty and equivocality in the early stages of projects, making them more clearly defined and thus helping to create greater stakeholder value in the later stages of the project. A surprising finding was that some project team members engaged in intentional equivocality to try to promote their own benefits rather than those of the organisation.

This paper reconceptualises the impact of social capital on stakeholder value creation in the front-end of projects. The paper contributes to a more holistic view of the front-end of project management, focusing social capital to reduce the sources of front-end fuzziness.

The outbreak of COVID-19 significantly disrupted educational activities and forced universities to rapidly transition from the traditional face-to-face (F2F) environment to online learning formats. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of self-directed learning (SDL) on three instructional modalities (F2F, online and HyFlex) among emerging adults. The authors propose that class interaction enjoyment serves as a channel to understand how SDL relates to students’ satisfaction and stress reduction.

An online survey was distributed to the emerging adults, aged 18–25, at six universities across five different US states. Construct validity and reliability were tested by using confirmatory factor analysis. The moderated mediation relationship was examined by calculating the indirect effects of each course delivery format.

The results show that the positive indirect effect of SDL on stress reduction via interaction enjoyment was stronger for F2F classes. In addition, the positive indirect effect of SDL on class satisfaction via interaction enjoyment was stronger for HyFlex classes.

This literature has shown contradictory results: the effects of SDL on student satisfaction and stress reduction prove to be sometimes positive, sometimes non-significant. To better understand this relationship, the authors aim at a mediating variable – enjoyment of class interaction – as a mechanism, and a moderating variable – the instructional modality – as a boundary condition. This research contributes to emerging adults learning literature by involving the interplay among SDL, enjoyment of class interaction and the instructional modality.

This study aims to contribute to understandings of how international universities in China construct institutional narratives to attract Chinese students by leveraging themes of global citizenship and international mobility.

Qualitative analysis of web and other university materials, and mixed-method analysis of social media (WeChat) to identify and quantify recurring themes in the universities’ student-facing presentation.

Despite differing operational models, both universities emphasize Western education’s prestige and global citizenship, primarily appealing to affluent families and positioning themselves as pathways to international postgraduate study.

The research provides new insights into the student recruitment strategies of international universities in China, contributing to the broader understanding of higher education internationalization in non-Western contexts.

In recent years, there has been significant interest in adopting XR (extended reality) technologies such as VR (virtual reality) and AR (augmented reality), particularly in retail. However, extending activities through reality-mediation is still mostly believed to offer an inferior experience due to their shortcomings in usability, wearability, graphical fidelity, etc. This study aims to address the research gap by experimentally examining the acceptance of metaverse shopping.

This study conducts a 2 (VR: with vs. without) × 2 (AR: with vs. without) between-subjects laboratory experiment involving 157 participants in simulated daily shopping environments. This study builds a physical brick-and-mortar store at the campus and stocked it with approximately 600 products with accompanying product information and pricing. The XR devices and a 3D laser scanner were used in constructing the three XR shopping conditions.

Results indicate that XR can offer an experience comparable to, or even surpassing, traditional shopping in terms of its instrumental and hedonic aspects, regardless of a slightly reduced perception of usability. AR negatively affected perceived ease of use, while VR significantly increased perceived enjoyment. It is surprising that the lower perceived ease of use appeared to be disconnected from the attitude toward metaverse shopping.

This study provides important experimental evidence on the acceptance of XR shopping, and the finding that low perceived ease of use may not always be detrimental adds to the theory of technology adoption as a whole. Additionally, it provides an important reference point for future randomized controlled studies exploring the effects of technology on adoption.

Information literacy (IL) is crucial in academia, encompassing the ability to effectively find, assess, ethically use and disseminate information. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of IL on students’ research competency at Noakhali Science and Technology University (NSTU), Bangladesh. The research also aimed to understand the current trends in conducting students’ research at NSTU, to what extent they got research support from supervisors, and highlight the necessity of a research literacy course as a prerequisite before going to the real world.

This study used a mixed-method strategy. As part of quantitative data collection, the population was the research level students (honors final year and masters level), and an estimated 225 respondents of NSTU were surveyed using a convenience sampling technique. Qualitative data was accumulated through interviews with faculty members of 2 institutes and 31 departments at NSTU (a representative from each department) and an interview with the university librarian. Quantitative data were analyzed using SPSS software and qualitative data using thematic codes as well as text.

Results showed that students are aware of diverse information and research literacy aspects. Although almost all the departments contain research methodology-related courses, the contents vary; due to time limitations, it is hard to provide hands-on training to thesis students in every stage of research, from research idea formulation, research design, data analysis, interpretation and ethical use of information to dissemination of research output. This study found a positive correlation between students’ IL with research competency. As there is no prerequisite course in the university curriculum before conducting practical research, therefore, this study proposed a course “Information and Research Literacy” to support novice researchers.

The importance of IL in higher education and its influence on research activities is gaining attention. This research output might be crucial for university authorities to initiate training programs for thesis students to impart IL training. This research would be a worthwhile contribution to the research output of tertiary academic institutions.

IL in academia is not a new area of research. However, research attempts to show the relation between IL effects on students’ research competency are new in nature.

This empirical research aims to provide organisations with useful information on how teleworking has affected employee commuting, allowing organisations to adapt working conditions to the new social context. This research sets out to provide evidence on the behaviour of teleworkers in terms of the mode of transport chosen when commuting to work physically.

This research is based on a survey conducted in Madrid based on a theoretical approach grounded in the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) and discrete choice models. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and discriminant analysis have been used to determine the variables that influence the mode of transport chosen by teleworkers when commuting in person.

The results indicate the prevalence of private car use by teleworkers when working at the office, finding that attitudes and satisfaction with modes of transport significantly influence their choice. The characteristics and frequency of teleworking, however, are not significant, which indicates that teleworkers attach greater importance to their preferred mode of transport, regardless of the disadvantages.

This research provides empirical evidence using an inductive approach to understand the challenges that organisations are facing with regard to teleworking since commuting behaviour has changed for teleworkers. This requires organisations to give significant reconsideration to the issue of commuting as an important component of working time that could condition employee satisfaction and, therefore, the retention or recruitment of talent. Furthermore, residence and mobility changes afford organisations better access for recruitment, notwithstanding urban planning implications.