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This study aims to understand the lapse behavior of life insurance policyholders. Despite being accessible for nearly two centuries, only a small fraction of individuals purchase such policies and many of those who do let them lapse. The belief hypothesis model (BHM) is introduced to elucidate the correlation between policyholders' beliefs and their decisions regarding life insurance lapses.

BHM establishes a comprehensive linkage between core beliefs, external data and the lapse behavior exhibited by policyholders. To derive policyholders’ core beliefs about life insurance lapses, the authors conducted a semistructured, in-depth interview with 42 policyholders and 11 insurance advisors, using a grounded theory approach with zero-order, first-order and second-order coding.

The study's findings reveal that policy lapsation is influenced by various factors such as policyholders' beliefs about life insurance, process-related attitudes, trust in insurers and advisors and personal financial viewpoints. Policyholders who consider life insurance unnecessary or misunderstand its purpose are likelier to lapse their policies. Cumbersome documentation processes and technical issues also contribute to policy lapsation, emphasizing the significance of simplified procedures. Trust in insurers and advisors, personal financial literacy and payment preferences influence policy lapsation.

The findings of this research can be practically applied by companies to improve customer retention and by regulatory bodies to encourage policyholders to honor their insurance commitments.

Distinguishing itself from conventional hypotheses-driven and factor-centric models, BHM integrates consumer beliefs, thus enriching comprehension and decision-making insights.

The purpose of this study is to identify Offshore Wind Energy (OWE) as a key technology that could drive countries toward achieving climate goals. However, there are multiple challenges that this sector faces.

This study aims to identify the challenges faced by the sector globally by systematically reviewing the existing literature in global context and portraying it in the Indian context. Factors are identified using content analysis.

Results suggest high levelized cost of energy as the most discussed challenge for the growth of OWE. Insufficient financial support and policy, initial capital and inadequate technology formed the second, third and fourth most discussed challenges respectively.

To reduce the cost of OWE, the distribution companies in India could adopt feed-in tariffs (FiTs) in the early stages of development and make OWE procurement mandatory. The renewable purchase obligation (RPO) in India is specific to solar and non-solar; policy should accommodate offshore wind-specific RPO targets for each state to reach the 2030 target of 30 GW from OWE.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first attempt to study the challenges of OWE development from a global perspective and portray these major challenges in the Indian context and uses content analysis from the existing literature to ascertain the major roadblocks for the development of OWE.

The study identifies the unexplored gap in literature that includes futuristic challenges for OWE from climate change. Future studies can explore the possibilities of forecasting based on climate change scenarios and rank the challenges based on their relevance caused by possible damages.

This paper aims to report the effect of titanium oxide (TiO₂) particles on the physical, mechanical, tribological and water resistance properties of 5% NaOH-treated bamboo fiber–reinforced composites.

In this research, the epoxy/bamboo/TiO₂ hybrid composite filled with 0–8 Wt.% TiO₂ particles has been fabricated using simple hand layup techniques, and testing of the developed composite was done in accordance with the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) standard.

The results of this study indicate that the addition of TiO₂ particles improved the mechanical properties of the developed epoxy/bamboo composites. Tensile properties were found to be maximum for 6 Wt.%, and impact strength was found to be maximum for 8 Wt.% TiO₂ particles-filled composite. The highest flexural properties were found at a lower TiO₂ fraction of 2 Wt.%. Adding TiO₂ filler helped to reduce the water absorption rate. The studies related to the wear and friction behavior of the composite under dry and abrasive wear conditions reveal that TiO₂ filler was beneficial in improving the wear performance of the composite.

This research paper attempts to include both TiO₂ filler and bamboo fibers to develop a novel composite material. TiO₂ micro and nanoparticles are promising filler materials; it helps to enhance the mechanical and tribological properties of the epoxy composites and in literature, there is not much work reported, where TiO₂ is used as a filler material with bamboo fiber–reinforced epoxy composites.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly applied by businesses to optimize their processes and decision-making, develop effective and efficient strategies, and positively influence customer behaviors. Businesses use AI to generate behaviors such as customer retention (CR). The existing literature on “AI and CR” is vastly scattered. The paper aims to review the present research on AI in CR systematically and suggest future research directions to further develop the field.

The Scopus database is used to collect the data for systematic review and bibliometric analysis using the VOSviewer tool. The paper performs the following analysis: (1) year-wise publications and citations, (2) co-authorship analysis of authors, countries, and affiliations, (3) citation analysis of articles and journals, (4) co-occurrence visualization of binding terms, and (5) bibliographic coupling of articles.

Five research themes are identified, namely, (1) AI and customer churn prediction in CR, (2) AI and customer service experience in CR, (3) AI and customer sentiment analysis in CR, (4) AI and customer (big data) analytics in CR, and (5) AI privacy and ethical concerns in CR. Based on the research themes, fifteen future research objectives and a future research framework are suggested.

The paper has important implications for researchers and managers as it reveals vital insights into the latest trends and paths in AI-CR research and practices. It focuses on privacy and ethical issues of AI; hence, it will help the government develop policies for sustainable AI adoption for CR.

To the author's best knowledge, this paper is the first attempt to comprehensively review the existing research on “AI and CR” using bibliometric analysis.

The paper aims to enhance the understanding of robust food supply chains (FSC) by exploring the capabilities of various digital technologies and examining their interactions.

This study finding shows that digital technology enhances the resilience of the FSC by improving visibility, traceability and adaptability. This resilience provides a competitive advantage, ultimately enhancing the overall business performance.

In developing countries, inadequate infrastructure, poor Internet connectivity and diverse stakeholder systems pose challenges to implementing advanced digital solutions in the FSC.

This paper is among the first to investigate the impact of digital technology on FSC resilience, exploring visibility, flexibility and collaboration.

The practices of sustainable and responsible investment (SRI) among Islamic financial institutions (IFIs) nowadays still rely on the existing environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria. However, based on observation, some of the existing criteria listed by the reports of certain authorities and organizations do not seem to be aligned with Shariah principles. Therefore, this study aims to investigate those criteria to help develop Islamic-SRI (i-SRI) criteria based on the ESG concept.

This study adopted the qualitative method via content analysis of documents and interviews with experts.

Based on the analysis, a set of i-SRI criteria is developed based on the ESG concept, of which 33 elements are environmental, 50 elements are social and 26 elements are governance issues. Overall, this study finds that there is no obvious contradiction with the Islamic philosophy in the existing ESG criteria, with the exception of four criteria, i.e. promoting human rights, freedom of expression, freedom of censorship and freedom of association under social criteria. These four existing criteria are not aligned with Islamic teaching and not appropriate with Islamic ESG criteria.

The creation of Islamic ESG criteria can assist relevant authorities to improve the current ESG criteria and to embed an Islamic perspective within it.

This study developed a set of i-SRI criteria, which may be suitable as a source of reference to relevant parties.

This literature review aims to portray the thematic landscape of the Pacific Accounting Review (PAR) from 2013 to 2023. This paper also synthesises the special issues in PAR and identifies the main research streams that facilitate contemplating the dialogic interactions between PAR and real-world challenges. Furthermore, this paper aligns these streams with the emerging concerns in Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and technological disruptions to propose impactful future directions for publications in PAR.

This review adopts bibliometric analysis to establish the main research streams and objective measures for directing future publications. This paper acquires the data of 310 PAR articles from the Web of Science and ensure the data integrity before the analysis. Based on this technique, this paper also analyses PAR’s productivity, authorship and local and global impacts.

Our bibliometric analysis reveals three key research streams: (1) ESG practices and disclosures, (2) informal institutions in accounting and (3) accounting in transition. This finding affirms PAR’s relevance to real-world accounting challenges. Using a thematic map, this paper portrays the current state of PAR’s topics to identify potential directions for future publications. Further, this paper proposes three future paths for PAR: (1) the research agenda for non-financial reporting, (2) research relating to and from diverse countries considering both formal and informal contemporary contextual factors and (3) the future of the evolving accounting profession.

This study adds value to the existing PAR reviews by extending our knowledge with the latest publications, demonstrating an objective and replicable approach, and offering future directions for PAR publications.

Following the recent rise in generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools, fundamental questions about their wider impacts have started to reverberate around various disciplines. This study aims to track the unfolding landscape of general issues surrounding GenAI tools and to elucidate the specific opportunities and limitations of these tools as part of the technology-assisted enhancement of mechanical engineering education and professional practices.

As part of the investigation, the authors conduct and present a brief scientometric analysis of recently published studies to unravel the emerging trend on the subject matter. Furthermore, experimentation was done with selected GenAI tools (Bard, ChatGPT, DALL.E and 3DGPT) for mechanical engineering-related tasks.

The study identified several pedagogical and professional opportunities and guidelines for deploying GenAI tools in mechanical engineering. Besides, the study highlights some pitfalls of GenAI tools for analytical reasoning tasks (e.g., subtle errors in computation involving unit conversions) and sketching/image generation tasks (e.g., poor demonstration of symmetry).

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study presents the first thorough assessment of the potential of GenAI from the lens of the mechanical engineering field. Combining scientometric analysis, experimentation and pedagogical insights, the study provides a unique focus on the implications of GenAI tools for material selection/discovery in product design, manufacturing troubleshooting, technical documentation and product positioning, among others.