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This study uses bibliometric visualization techniques to comprehensively review the intertwined concepts of dark tourism, thana tourism and ghost tourism from 2000 to 2023. The research seeks to clarify the ambiguity and inconsistencies arising from the interchangeable use of these terms and sets forth a roadmap for future research endeavors.

This study meticulously extracts research keywords from 634 scholarly papers in the Scopus database. It undertakes a thorough bibliometric analysis utilizing the visualization of similarities (VOS) viewer and RStudio to map the interconnectedness of these tourism phenomena.

The study identifies and explores contemporary theories such as self-categorization theory, stimulus-organism-response theory, embodiment theory, self-determination theory, socio-cognitive theory, risk perception theory, services theory, dark tourism theory, social and cultural theory, push-pull theory, performance theory, and wound culture theory. The research reveals four primary clusters through keyword co-occurrence and bibliographic coupling analyses: dark tourism insights, dynamics of dark tourism, dark tourism review and dark tourism experiences, illustrating their interrelationships and robustness.

Dark tourism insights can guide ethical practices, ensuring respectful site management and accurate historical representation. Integrating dark tourism into broader destination strategies can diversify offerings, attract niche markets and contribute to preserving historical memory through reflective experiences.

This study's outcomes significantly contribute to tourism literature by enhancing our understanding of the overlapping terminologies associated with dark, thana and ghost tourism. This improved comprehension sheds light on the importance of the research agenda surrounding the concept of dark, thana and ghost tourism.

This study aims to explore the global issues of impulse buying, compulsive purchasing and materialism. It examines how materialism relates to self-esteem and the tendencies for impulsive and compulsive buying. In addition, the study delves into the impact of religiosity on self-esteem and materialistic values in an Islamic country.

Enumerators visited universities, distributing 415 questionnaires and receiving 397 in return. Due to the unavailability of a sample frame for the target population, the study used nonprobability sampling for statistical analysis, which included assessments of normality, reliability, validity and bootstrapping for the structural model, the researchers used Smart PLS.

The study confirmed 13 hypotheses while rejecting four. The unsupported hypotheses are: (i) materialism negatively impacts impulsive purchasing behavior, (ii) impulsive purchasing does not mediate the relationship between materialism and compulsive purchasing, (iii) materialism does not mediate the relationship between religiosity and impulsive purchasing and (iv) in an Islamic country, neither materialism nor impulsive purchasing significantly mediates the relationship between religiosity and compulsive purchasing.

This study was conducted in a city within a developing Islamic nation, focusing on college students. It suggests that future research could include more cities, a diverse population segments and multicultural perspectives. The research primarily examined the direct relationships between religiosity and factors such as self-esteem, materialism and impulsive purchasing. Future studies could explore religiosity as a mediating factor. This study highlights that materialism (M), impulsive buying (IB) and compulsive buying (CB) are not only closely interconnected but also adversely affect individual, family and societal well-being, raising global concerns. While occasional impulsive behavior is common among individuals in Islamic nations, repeated indulgences in the same behavior could lead to an obsession with excessive purchasing.

This study holds significant implications for consumers and retailers. Excessive and unnecessary spending can increase financial burden and adversely affect family welfare. Often, families and acquaintances inadvertently teach children to engage in extreme purchasing behaviors. To combat this, families and religious leaders should educate individuals about the detrimental effects of impulsive and compulsive purchasing. In addition, colleges and other institutions should organize seminars and workshops to address these issues. Retailers, whose sales largely depend on impulsive and compulsive consumers, should employ interpersonal influencers and brand advocates to connect with this customer segment effectively.

This study examined the relationship between religiosity, materialism, self-esteem and impulsive and compulsive purchasing behaviors. This study thoroughly tested 17 hypotheses, encompassing direct, mediating and multimediating relationships. The findings reveal that materialism’s impact on impulsive behavior is negligible compared to previous research, corroborating the findings presented in the cited literature.

This study aims to present a sustainable approach in the natural dyeing of cellulose fabric followed by nanosilver finishing through a green crosslinker of citric acid for potential antibacterial surgical gown fabrication.

The nanosilver finish was reproduced using the chemical reduction method. The fabric dyeing was performed on a lab-scale dyeing machine, whereas silver nano-finishing through a pad-dry-cure approach. Citric acid was used as an eco-friendly crosslinker. The specimens were characterized for antibacterial activity, surface chemical, textile, color properties and finish release trend.

The results demonstrated the successful application of curcumin dye followed by silver nano-finishing. The resultant fabric exhibited appropriate textile, dyeing performance indicators, hydrophobic behavior and sustainable broad-spectrum antibacterial activity.

The prepared nanosilver-finished/curcumin-treated fabric expressed desirable properties for potential applications in the fabrication of surgical gowns.

The authors found no reports on an extensive examination of nanosilver finishing on the color parameters of curcumin-dyed cellulose fabric while retaining its textile and comfort properties for possible surgical gown fabrication.

This study aims to analyze the impact of board gender diversity (BGD) on a bank’s financial stability. Moreover, it also examines whether digitalization and income diversification act as mediators (individual and serial) in this relationship.

Hypotheses were tested using data from Pakistan’s banking sector financial statements from 2017 to 2021. A two-step analytical approach was used: panel regression in STATA for initial hypothesis examination, followed by mediation analyses using bootstrapping in SPSS. In addition, mixed-effect ML regression was conducted to verify causation and ensure robust findings.

Results demonstrate that BGD, digitalization and income diversification are positively associated with higher financial stability. Moreover, as hypothesized, both digitalization and income diversification individually and sequentially mediate the relationship between BGD and banks’ financial stability.

It is important to acknowledge the study’s limited five-year timeframe. Further investigation is needed to determine the optimal board compositions, especially considering the study’s inclusion of up to 25% female directors on boards.

Policymakers and top management should prioritize increasing the number of female directors on boards for diversity. Banks that involve female directors can benefit from the synergies between gender diversity and digitization, along with the unique perspectives these women offer. This cooperative dynamic enables banks to explore and capitalize on innovative income diversification opportunities, enter new markets and ensure financial stability.

Research findings emphasize promotion of gender equality and meritocracy through increased female director representation. This fosters a more inclusive and cooperative decision-making culture, benefiting individual banks and setting a model for other sectors. Ultimately, it contributes to greater social acceptance of women executives.

The study reveals a novel mechanism, emphasizing the revolutionary impact of active female directors in tandem with digitalization, amplifying chances for income diversification and accelerating increased bank viability.

This paper aims to examine the connections between young Finnish consumers’ stimulation values, impulsive buying, financial problems and life satisfaction.

Path analysis with maximum likelihood robust standard errors estimation was used to examine relationships between variables and composite variables, as well as to explore indirect connections among them. The data set included 2,297 respondents aged 18–29 years in Finland.

Results show that stimulation values were directly positively associated with greater life satisfaction and indirectly linked to lower life satisfaction through impulsive buying and financial problems. Findings also reveal the connections between stimulation values and impulsive buying and between impulsive buying and financial problems.

This study extends the authors’ understanding of Schwartz’s values theory by showing how consumers’ stimulation values have both positive (i.e. higher life satisfaction) and negative (i.e. lower life satisfaction) outcomes.

This study brings recommendations for educators to reinforce young consumers’ media literacy and financial literacy to prevent the youth from developing a tendency toward impulsive buying and to seek stimulation more constructively. Also, from a public policy perspective, it would be beneficial to include more financial literacy and financial skills courses in young people’s curricula to help them recognize and resist impulsive buying tendencies, which can further reduce financial problems.

This study broadens the knowledge of the important connections between young consumers’ stimulation values, impulsive buying, financial problems and life satisfaction, an area where the authors’ understanding has been limited.

The study aims to explore the impact of ownership concentration (OC) on bank financial distress (FD). Furthermore, the bank’s financial stability levels determine the association between the two.

Bank data of 33 Indian commercial banks are procured for ten years (2013–2022). The panel data econometrics is applied for empirical estimations. The quantile regression approach is used to determine the association between OC and FD at different quantiles of the FD. Non-normalcy of the data is checked and ensured before applying the quantile regression.

Surprisingly, it is found that promoters have a nonlinear impact on the firm’s stability. The inverted U-shape result implies that as promoters cross a threshold level, the benefit of increasing promoters’ stake takes a beating and a further increase in promoters’ stakes adversely impacts the stability of the banks. Moreover, this threshold value increases while moving from low to high levels of stability in a quantile regression application.

This study uses promoters as the proxy for OC. Other existing definitions of OC are not used in the study, which can further improve the robustness of the results. Additionally, the use of the type of ownership (private, public or foreign) is also not adopted in the present study. Both the limitations can be the study’s future scope on the topic.

The high OC is supposed to influence corporate governance adversely. Therefore, policymakers recommend low OC for better governance. However, the present study finds evidence that a higher OC (high threshold of OC as the stability increases) would be better for financial stability. This situation demands a trade-off between governance and financial stability regarding OC.

The authors do not observe any study having the nonlinear impact of OC on financial stability (opposite of FD). Moreover, the threshold of OC for the optimum level of financial stability increases as stability goes high. This evidence using quantile regression and finding the turning point using a quadratic equation is also not seen in the literature.

This study attempts to assess the role that institutional quality (IQ) plays in influencing inflows and outflows of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) for BRICS nations as burgeoning FDI is flowing into and out of these countries. Moreover, this paper explores the impact of individual governance indicators separately on the FDI flows.

The study analyses this nexus for these emerging economies for the period 1996–2019 using autoregressive distributed lag technique.

The study indicates a significant and positive coefficient for IQ in India and South Africa, suggesting that improving IQ would enhance the IFDI. However, for outward FDI (OFDI)–IQ linkage, the results show a negatively significant impact of IQ on OFDI for Brazil and Russia. Additionally, the authors observe control of corruption as a significant institutional component for attracting inward FDI for Brazil, India and South Africa, whereas it is an insignificant factor for Russia and China. Further, the authors notably find that upgrading the governance indicators will decrease the level of OFDI for Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa. On the contrary, findings suggest that improving the IQ will foster the OFDI for India.

This study uses time-series analysis instead of cross-country analysis (used extensively in literature), avoiding heterogeneity. Further, this study explores the IFDI–IQ link for BRICS nations, which are captivating a significant chunk of IFDI, and still not given much attention in the extant literature. Moreover, the authors identify the impact of IQ on the OFDI, neglected by the existing studies.

This study proposes the integrated Qardhul Hasan and equity-based microenterprise development (IQEMD) model, a financial model for microenterprises in Muslim nation such as Afghanistan. This study aims to overcome the significant challenges these businesses face in securing financial resources, offering a tailored, sustainable solution to enhance their operations.

This study collected primary data via a survey from 466 microentrepreneurs in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Data analysis was performed using partial least squares with SmartPLS 4 software. The study’s validation of the proposed financial model among microenterprises was grounded in the theory of reasoned action, ensuring a solid theoretical basis for its findings.

The findings of this research revealed that the attitudes and subjective norms of Afghan microentrepreneurs positively influence their intention to use IQEMD Model. These findings provide important guidance for financing ventures and policymakers, highlighting the IQEMD model’s potential to improve financial strategies and practices for microenterprises in Afghanistan.

This study focuses solely on microenterprise development in Afghanistan, with its sample size and study area being clear constraints. Therefore, caution is advised when interpreting the results, which may not be broadly applicable. The reliance on current factors may also restrict the exploration of other important determinants affecting microenterprises’ behavioral intentions toward using the IQEMD model. Future research should consider incorporating new factors to optimize the IQEMD model and include interviews with more stakeholders to increase its validity.

The findings of this paper offer microenterprises an alternative source of financing to start or expand their businesses. This study holds implications for government and policymakers. By incorporating a nonprofit organization as suggested in this model, it assists the government in reducing expenditures associated with the development of microenterprises.

This study is a pioneering effort in merging Qardhul Hasan and equity-based financing for microenterprise development. It significantly contributes to existing research by underscoring the effectiveness and impact of such financing as a viable source for these enterprises. These strategies could notably boost productivity, employment and gross domestic product growth. The study enhances understanding of alternative financing models in the microenterprise sector.

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted existing business models, forcing managers in the manufacturing industry to look for new strategies that could help their firms bounce forward. The situation calls for a rethink, redesign, and development of new business models (BMs) using digital capabilities. Drawing from the dynamic capability theory, this paper investigates how digital transformation (DT) influences business model innovation (BMI) through technology orientation (TO). The paper further examined the moderating role of competitive intensity (CI) in the DT-TO link.

The model was tested using survey data from 208 senior managers in manufacturing firms in Ghana. SPSS 23 and structural equation modeling (SEM) were used for the analyses.

The results revealed that both DT and technology orientation directly influence all four dimensions of BMI. The result further showed that technology orientation indirectly mediates the relationship between DT and all four dimensions of BMI. The findings further showed that the DT-BMI link is amplified at varying levels of competitive intensity.

Although recent research has highlighted the pertinence of embracing DT to foster innovation, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study among the first few attempts to shed light on the role of DT for sensing, seizing, and (re) configuring firms’ resources to renovate manufacturing business models to stay competitive. In addition, to date, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no study exists that has examined the conditions and mechanism through which optimal BMI can be achieved through DT. The paper offer practical guidance to managers of manufacturing firms by developing an actionable framework to effectively leverage digital transformation for business model innovation through enhanced technology orientation, offering clear guidelines for assessing and aligning organizational capabilities with digital strategies.