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Social media-based brand communities (SMBBCs) have emerged as one of the most significant marketing tools due to their ability to create and maintain close relationships between SMBBCs and consumers. However, past studies have ignored intimacy toward SMBBCs, particularly the role of individual variances in their development. Researchers have revealed the significant impacts of individual differences in attachment styles on the development of brand–consumer relationships based on attachment theory. Accordingly, this study aims to explore the drivers of intimacy toward SMBBCs from the perspective of attachment theory.

This study examines a proposed model that integrates two attachment styles – attachment avoidance and attachment anxiety – self-disclosure on social media and intimacy toward SMBBCs through two samples in the context of brands’ Facebook fan pages.

The results show that attachment avoidance and attachment anxiety have significantly negative and positive effects on self-disclosure on social media, respectively, which contribute to intimacy toward SMBBCs.

The results offer brand managers significant implications for segmenting markets and developing relationship marketing strategies for their brand communities on social media.

This study is the first attempt to explore the driving factors of intimacy toward SMBBCs from the attachment theory perspective.

Effective social inclusion of people from refugee backgrounds in host communities is vital to the success of their resettlement. This study focused on how an NGO-organised care-oriented programme may foster the social inclusion of migrant women from refugee backgrounds in Australia.

We looked at how the programme’s adoption of an ethics-of-care approach might affect migrant women’s social capital, hence social inclusion. About 55 migrant women from a regional city in Australia were recruited for the study, and quantitative and qualitative data were collected.

The study revealed that the NGO’s adoption of the care ethics and principles to design and implement the physical activity program significantly increased refugee migrant women’s bonding and bridging social capital, which in turn promoted their social inclusion in the host community.

This study highlights the importance of adopting care ethics and care practices to inform initiatives designed to promote the social inclusion of marginalised groups such as refugee migrant women settling in regional cities in Australia. It also emphasises the need for NGOs and other organisations supporting new migrant groups to focus on increasing opportunities for such community groups to develop bonding and bridging relationships with people within and outside their language groups or ethnicity.

Metaverse is going to change the landscape in every field, sector, and business. This chapter aims to explore the role of marketing in the metaverse focusing on each sector and business. This chapter has adopted bibliometrics analysis to explore the importance of metaverse marketing. The results suggest that the publication and citation of articles have seen a huge jump from 2022 onwards. Keyword co-occurrence analysis shows that metaverse with blockchain, marketing, education, and virtual reality (VR) are hot words in the upcoming time. Metaverse marketing shows that innovation, mixed reality, and extended reality will change the landscape of marketing. Analysis suggests that China, the United States, South Korea, and India are the top contributing countries in the research of metaverse. By understanding the implications of the metaverse on purchaser conduct and promoting systems, organizations can draw in the main interest group and gain esteem in this new advanced scene.

In this chapter, we describe the importance of good governance in the metaverse. It offers unlimited opportunities and presents unique governance challenges. First, we describe the concept of good governance and its relevance to the metaverse. We emphasize that the speed of metaverse adoption depends upon the presence or absence of effective governance. Recognizing the metaverse as the next iteration of the internet, we present significant governance issues. Some issues such as interoperability, security, safety, privacy, law, and digital inequality are critical governance issues in the metaverse. Next, we explore the diverse governance frameworks to ensure the implementation of policies and regulations. These frameworks include decentralized governance, cross-sector collaboration, and standards-based governance. We also describe the best practices which are essential for good governance. To materialize the concepts and principles discussed, we present a compelling case study centered on Decentraland. This insightful exploration dissects a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO)-based governance structure, offering valuable insights into the intricacies and stages of governance proposals. We acknowledge both the merits and potential drawbacks inherent to this approach. This chapter aims to offer an all-encompassing view of metaverse governance, essentially serving as a comprehensive roadmap for traversing the multifaceted landscape of this digital frontier.

Thus, this study aims to determine the status-quo of research on the role of IT in M&A from 2010 to 2022 by providing a summative meta-analysis of this phenomenon.

This study presents a meta-analysis of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) research in information systems (IS), aimed at accounting for themes in M&A literature over the past 13 years, research methodology, research frameworks, level of analysis and geographical distribution. A total of 47 articles from 24 peer review articles and 23 conference publications were analyzed from 2010 to 2022.

Findings of the study suggest that M&A research in IS emphasizes IS integration at the expense of other under-explored dimensions such as M&A context, stakeholder involvement and within-firm conditions. Although studies on M&A have increased over the past 10 years, a significant number of studies have not been underpinned by models and theories. Also, a large number of studies adopted the qualitative approach as research methodology compared to quantitative, design science and mixed methods.

This study contributes to the literature on M&A in IS by proposing an M&A in IS research framework that bridges the gap between existing and future studies on M&A in IS research by shedding more light into well research areas and opportunities for further studies.

Following the tradition of scholarship showing that elites institutionalize their tastes via cultural philanthropy, this chapter investigates patronage of Asian art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Drawing on content analysis of museum press releases and other documents, I conceptually elaborate and empirically illustrate different patterns of Asian art patronage among Asian and white patrons as well as among Asian patrons from different ethnic groups. Engaging theory asserting that elites legitimate art tied to their ethnoracial heritage through supporting it at cultural organizations, I elaborate how Asian elites are especially committed to supporting Asian art at the museum. In addition, I illustrate how, compared with each other, Asian elites particularly champion art from their respective ethnic groups – for example, Chinese elites support Chinese art at higher levels than Asian elites who are not Chinese, and Indian elites support Indian art at higher levels than Asian elites who are not Indian. This chapter advances theory about elites and cultural legitimation, elites and organizational contributions, and progressiveness within the elite.

In the supply chain disruption risk, the issue of supplier evaluation and selection is solved by an extended VIKOR method based on regret theory.

Considering the influence of irrational emotions of decision makers, an evaluation model is designed by the regret theory and VIKOR method, which makes the decision-making process closer to reality.

The paper has some innovations in the evaluation index system and evaluation model construction. The method has good stability under the risk of supply chain interruption.

The mixed evaluation information is used to describe the attributes, and the evaluation index system is constructed by the combined method of the social network analysis method and the literature research method to ensure the accuracy and accuracy of the extracted attributes. The issue of supplier evaluation and selection is solved by an extended VIKOR method based on regret theory.

As the complexity and uncertainty of infrastructural megaprojects challenge traditional management models, there is an increasing focus on value co-creation as an organizational strategy to streamline management. However, the role of value co-creation behavior in facilitating the value realization process remains underexplored. This study examines how justice perception (distributive, procedural and interactional justice) improves contractor value co-creation behavior, focusing on the mediating role of psychological ownership.

Ten hypotheses in the proposed research model were tested through partial least squares structural equation modeling using 199 valid questionnaires from China.

The results show that contractor value co-creation behavior is directly and positively influenced by procedural, distributive and interactional justice and indirectly influenced by them through the underlying psychological mechanism of psychological ownership.

The findings fill a knowledge gap by examining the effect of justice perception on contractor value co-creation behavior based on social exchange theory. Discovering justice perception will contribute to contractor value co-creation behavior, and psychological ownership mediates this relationship.

The study aims to examine the impact of cultural dependency stemming from exchange rate fluctuations (specifically the US dollar) on herding behavior in the housing market across 31 provinces of Iran from Q2 2011 to Q1 2022, using a spatial econometrics approach. After confirming the presence of spatial effects, the Dynamic Spatial Durbin Panel Model with Generalized Common Effects (SDM-DPD(GCE)) was selected from various spatial models for these provinces.

The study examines the impact of cultural dependency stemming from exchange rate fluctuations (specifically the US dollar) on herding behavior in the housing market across 31 provinces of Iran from Q2 2011 to Q1 2022, using a spatial econometrics approach. After confirming the presence of spatial effects, the Dynamic Spatial Durbin Panel Model with Generalized Common Effects (SDM-DPD(GCE)) was selected from various spatial models for these provinces.

The model estimation results indicate that fluctuations in the free market exchange rate of the dollar significantly and positively impact the housing market in both target and neighboring regions, fostering herding behavior characterized by cultural dependency within the specified timeframe. Additionally, the study found that variables such as the inflation rate, population density index and the logarithm of stock market trading volume have significant and positive impacts on the housing market. Conversely, the variable representing the logarithm of the distance from the provincial capital, Tehran, significantly and negatively impacts the housing market across Iranian provinces.

Given that housing is a fundamental need for households, the dramatic price increases in this sector (for instance, a more than 42-fold increase from 2011–2021) have significantly impacted the welfare of Iranian families. Currently, considering the average housing price in Tehran is around 50 million Tomans, and the average income of worker and employee groups is 8 million Tomans (as of 2021), the time required to purchase a 100-square-meter house, even with a 30% savings rate and stable housing prices, is approximately 180 years. Moreover, the share of housing and rent expenses in household budgets now constitutes about 70%. The speculative behavior in this market is so acute that, despite 25 million of Iran’s 87 million population being homeless or renting, over 2.5 million vacant homes (12% of the total housing stock) are not used. Therefore, various financial behaviors and decisions affect Iran’s housing market. Herd behavior is triggered by the signal of national currency devaluation (with currency exchange rates increasing more than 26-fold between 2011 and 2021) and transactions at higher prices in certain areas (particularly in northern Tehran) (Statistical Center of Iran, 2023). Given the origins of housing price surges, a price increase in one area quickly spreads to other regions, resulting in herd behavior in those areas (spillover effect). Consequently, housing market spikes in Iran tend to follow episodes of currency devaluation. Therefore, considering the presented discussions, one might question whether factors other than economic ones (such as herd behavior influenced by dependence culture) play a role in the rising housing prices. Or, if behavioral factors were indeed contributing to the increase in housing prices, what could be the cause of this herd movement? Has the exchange rate, particularly fluctuations in the free market dollar rate, triggered herd behavior in the housing market across Iran’s provinces? Or has the proximity and neighborhood effect been influential in the increase or decrease in housing prices in the market?

This study investigates how virtual reality (VR) travel attributes (e.g. sense and quality of information) influence spectators' flow experience, how emotion and past experience affect enjoyment and examines the impact of flow experience and enjoyment on satisfaction and booking or visiting intention.

The VR tour stimuli were fabricated using scenic views from the National Aquarium in the USA. Participants were equipped with Matterport VR and audio headsets and started their virtual travel. Once the participants completed their VR tours, they were asked to complete the questionnaire. Using the stimulus-organism-response theory, 303 valid responses were analyzed using partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

The results showed that the sense and quality of information in VR travel positively and significantly impacted the flow experience. Moreover, emotions and past experiences positively and significantly influenced the enjoyment of VR travel. Similarly, flow experience and enjoyment positively and significantly affect satisfaction. However, satisfaction with VR-related tourism experiences negatively affects users' bookings and visiting intentions.

This study concludes that, from Thai tourists' perspectives, virtual travel should be used as a solution only during the pandemic because, in the long term it can cause a loss to the business chain in the tourism industry.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, no prior research has examined the influence of past experiences and emotions on satisfaction with VR travel.