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The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework for the assessment of service quality of bus fleet services based on the service quality influencing factors. The paper also tries to evolve a quantitative measure for fleet service quality in the form of a fleet service quality index.

A graph theoretical approach is employed in this paper for bus fleet service quality assessment. Modelling of fleet service quality factors and their interrelations with due attention towards their structure is achieved through graph theory. A directed graph (digraph) of the service quality is developed, where its nodes represent factors influencing the quality while its edges show the degree of interrelationships. A matrix, which is equivalent to the digraph, is established that will generate a service quality function that will result in the development of a fleet service quality index (FSQI).

Attaining customer satisfaction through assurance of quality is the cornerstone of the existence and survival of any business organization, and bus fleet services are no exception to this. Several influential factors are there for the bus fleet service quality. This research paper has identified factors such as fleet management practices, operational characteristics, safety and reliability features, travel comfort, bus maintenance and environmental concerns that affect fleet service quality. Every factor is composed of distinct sub-factors. Furthermore, these factors are linked with one another. A higher value of the fleet service quality index indicates the adequate performance of the bus fleet service organization.

The methodology is useful for not only evaluating but also for comparison of service quality of different fleet agencies or organizations. The perceptions would be useful to the fleet service managers to create procedures and arrangements for improving the service quality.

The paper identifies various service quality factors of the bus fleet and an evaluation scheme for those factors has been developed. Based on these, a framework had been developed for the assessment of the service quality of different fleet service providers.

This study aims to identify the key attributes of esports venues as perceived by spectators. Using the stimulus-organism-response framework, it also examines how these attributes influence customer experience, satisfaction and re-attendance intentions.

This mixed-methods research comprises two main stages. In the qualitative stage (Stage 1), we conducted a literature review, interviews with live esports event attendees and observations at two esports events to identify key esports venue attributes from spectators’ perspectives. In the quantitative stage (Stage 2), we recruited 564 esports game attendees at two live events to validate a measurement scale developed from the qualitative procedures. We also examined the relationships between venue attributes and the three spectator outcomes by using structural equation modeling.

Five key perspectives of esports venue attributes emerged from the qualitative analysis: (1) stage and stage lighting, (2) Internet infrastructure, (3) visibility of display screens, (4) concourse layout and (5) seating comfort. These dimensions were validated through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and were found to directly influence spectator experience and satisfaction, but not re-attendance intentions.

This study provides pioneering insights into the specific esports venue attributes that drive spectator outcomes. The findings offer valuable directions for future esports research and practical strategies for esports venue management.

This study aims to discover the key performance indicators (KPIs) of the agricultural cold supply chain (ACSC) and analyze their consequences on the performance of ACSC within the bounds of Indian topography.

The KPIs have been explored based on the literature review both in global and Indian context and domain expert's opinions. The interdependency characteristics and cause–effect relationship among the KPIs have been analyzed using a fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (f-DEMATEL) approach.

The findings extracted from the empirical assessment of the problem find strong compliance with the notions of theoretical model assessment. The results highlight that the cost of product waste and operating and performance costs are the two most important performance indicators of an Indian ACSC. Furthermore, governmental policies and regulations and the effectiveness of cold chain (CC) equipment also have a high degree of influencing characteristics on ACSC performance.

To connect the study with practicalities, the assessment of the KPIs is allied with real-time practices by clustering the beliefs of Indian professionals. Therefore, the decision-making behavior of the experts might be influenced by geographical constraints. However, the key findings provide advantages to the ACSC players, a bright hope for future food security and a significant profit for farmers.

The presented paper encompasses various aspects of the ACSC, including theoretical and empirical perspectives exercised to contemplate the system dynamics, which inculcates the essence of the associated practicalities. Thus, this study has various practical contributions relevant to managerial and societal perspectives.

This study aims to determine the extent to which the textile industry considers ecological issues in the supplier evaluation process by examining the relationships between environmental and operational criteria.

The supplier evaluation process within the industry was examined using the Fuzzy DEMATEL-based Analytic Network Process (FDANP) hybrid method. Criterion relationships were determined using the Fuzzy DEMATEL method. Two different ANP processes (the classical DANP approach and the new DANP approach) were used to assess the criterion weights, and the analysis results were compared. The satisfaction levels of suppliers with whom businesses collaborated were also examined using IPA analysis.

The results of the hybrid approaches with different steps in the study also differ. While the classic FDANP approach prioritizes cost and quality in the green supplier evaluation process, green products and EMS come to the fore according to the new FDANP approach. In addition, while businesses are satisfied with the operational performance of suppliers, their environmental performance remains below average.

This study was conducted in a sector-specific context, limited to Denizli province and green raw material suppliers.

This study revealed important findings regarding environmental awareness in buyer-supplier relations in the textile industry and offers a practical decision-making tool for decision- makers.

The results of this study may help industrial enterprises gain an environmental perspective when planning their operations to create a more sustainable environment.

This study contributes to the literature from a holistic perspective by examining the role and importance of operational and environmental criteria in the green supplier evaluation process in the textile industry.

Given the potential benefits of gamification in running apps, it is necessary to explore the impact of users’ gameful experience on their intention to continue using running apps. This study aims to empirically investigate this relationship along with the roles of brand attitude as a mediator and negative online reviews as a moderator.

The study surveyed 332 running app users in China. The reliability and validity of measures were confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The proposed hypotheses were verified by Process Macro.

The results show that (1) gameful experience positively impacts intention to continue using running apps, (2) brand attitude mediates the relationship between gameful experience and intention to continue using running apps and (3) negative online reviews moderate the relationship between gameful experience and brand attitude but not the relationship between brand attitude and intention to continue using running apps. Specifically, the effect of gameful experience on brand attitude decreases as users’ perception of negative online reviews increases.

These findings have both theoretical and practical implications for understanding the relationship among users’ gameful experience, brand attitude and intention to continue using running apps, as well as for developing effective gamification strategies to enhance user engagement and retention in running apps.

Grounded in social cognitive theory, social exchange theory and “cognition-emotion-behavior intention” analysis framework, a theoretical model of cause-related sport marketing (CRSM) affecting consumers’ purchase intentions was constructed through a case study. This model was then empirically validated to confirm CRSM's impact on consumers' purchase intentions.

This study embraces a mixed-methods approach that combines both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies to investigate the mechanisms through which CRSM influences consumers' purchase intentions.

The results indicate that: (1) consumers’ perception of CRSM has no direct impact on purchase intentions; (2) consumers’ perception of CRSM directly affects gratitude; (3) consumer gratitude acts as a complete mediator between perceived CRSM and purchase intentions.

These findings shed light on the role of gratitude in CRSM and offer practical guidance for sports enterprises in improving their philanthropic marketing strategies.

In the process of providing quality healthcare services, identifying the important healthcare attributes and their operational performance is crucial in the healthcare industry. Highlighting this, the authors have aimed to find the importance of certain healthcare attributes and their respective performance from the customers’ perspective in the Indian private tertiary healthcare facilities by conducting an importance-performance analysis (IPA).

For this study, the authors have derived 10 healthcare attributes from the literature and responses regarding their importance and performance were taken from 350 inpatients from 6 hospitals.

The analysis resulted in identification of the most and least important, high and low performing healthcare attributes as perceived by the patients. In terms of attribute importance, the doctors’ competencies and provision of safe and effective patient care have been ranked most important, whereas the doctors’ competencies and accessibility have been rated high in terms of performance. In addition, the importance ranks and performance scores helped in the development of a two-dimensional IPA grid.

The IPA grid helped in identifying the areas for improvement, hence determining the need for implementation of significant strategies in the process of cost-effective high-quality healthcare service provision.

There is a paucity of IPA studies with a focus on the Indian healthcare system in identifying and demonstrating the healthcare components that need to be addressed for improvement. Emphasizing the gap, this is one of the pioneering studies that captured various healthcare attributes’ importance and their respective performance from the lens of hospital inpatients, which helped in the development of an IPA grid by clearly outlining the areas that need attention, especially in the post-pandemic scenario.

The study aims to develop and test a supply chain wide green product development framework of focal firms and their major suppliers, in the context of the Chinese automotive industry.

An in-depth case studies approach is adopted for this study. Three automotive sector upstream supply chains involving 17 firms and 51 experts as respondents were interviewed on the importance and implementation effectiveness of 6Rs (reduce, redesign, recover, remanufacture, reuse and recycle) across the manufacturer and their respective tier 1 and tier 2 suppliers.

The results indicate that the Chinese automotive sector supply chains are mainly focused on “reduce” practices with immediate environmental and economic benefits. The investigated firms however had future implementation plans for “redesign” and “recovery” practices to become comprehensive in green product development (GPD).

The study facilitates automotive firms, industry policymakers and researchers the understanding of incorporating comprehensive GSCM practices across the upstream supply chain to achieve circularity. The study focused on upstream supply chain due to the concentration of major production practices in this section of the supply chain. However, the downstream supply chain equally deserve attention as well as the need to understand the mediating and moderating roles of the different Rs to tease out the pros and cons of achieving overall environmental sustainability.

There are very limited studies on comprehensive GPD for achieving optimal GSCM and sustainability. By simultaneous looking at a focal firm and its upstream supply chains GSCM practices, this study addresses a system-wide comprehensive GPD issues from implementation of 6Rs perspectives in the supply chain.

This study introduces a novel approach to conducting importance-performance analysis (IPA) and importance-performance competitor analysis (IPCA) by utilizing online reviews as an alternative to traditional survey-based marketing research.

In order to conduct IPA and IPCA utilizing online reviews, the following three steps were executed: (1) Extract key attributes of the product/service with latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) topic modeling. (2) Measure the importance of each attribute with keyword analysis. (3) Measure the performance of each attribute with KoBERT-based sentiment analysis.

By utilizing LDA, we were able to identify significant attributes identified by real users’ reviews. The approach of evaluating attribute importance using keyword metrics offers the advantage of straightforward computations, reducing computational expenses and facilitating intuitive metric assessments. The evaluation of BERT-based performance involved adapting pre-trained language models to the specific analysis domain, resulting in substantial time savings without compromising accuracy, ultimately bolstering the dependability of the metrics. Lastly, the case study’s findings indicate a growing emphasis on the aesthetic aspects of mobile banking apps in South Korea while highlighting the pressing need for enhancements in critical areas such as stability and security, which are particularly pertinent to the finance industry.

Previous studies have limitations in assessing significance solely based on sentiment scores and review ratings, resulting in an inability to independently measure satisfaction and importance metrics. This research addresses these limitations by introducing a keyword frequency-based importance metric, enhancing the accuracy and suitability of these measurements independently. In the context of performance measurement, this study utilizes pre-trained large language models (LLMs), which provide a cost-effective alternative to previous methods while preserving measurement accuracy. Additionally, this approach demonstrates the potential for industry-wide competitive analysis by enabling comparisons among multiple competitors. Furthermore, the study extends the application of review data-based IPA and IPCA, traditionally used in the tourism sector, to the evaluation of financial mobile applications. This innovation expands the scope of these methodologies, indicating their potential applicability across various industries.

The study investigates the information-related challenges as well as the practices adopted by early-career researchers during transitions between roles and institutions. Its primary goal is to delve into how information behaviors serve as scaffolding during significant life shifts. Moreover, the research aims to provide actionable insights based on this scaffolding concept for individuals navigating transitions.

This preliminary and exploratory study took a phenomenological approach to examine the role of information seeking and personal information management (PIM) behaviors during life transitions. In-depth semi-structured interviews were held with 15 early-career researchers from various disciplines, who were about to finish their PhDs or had recently graduated.

By employing information seeking and PIM practices, participants were able to address three main information challenges that arose during the transition process: the timing of information behavior, the nature of information and the social components of the transition. The use of networked and independent information seeking/validation practices enabled to establish a sustainable network of transition-related information, reducing uncertainty. PIM practices helped planning the transition, maintaining information over the long-term and gaining control over personal information.

This study underscores the significance of information behaviors, encompassing both information seeking and PIM, as scaffolding mechanisms during crucial life transitions. It offers essential insights that can guide the creation of impactful interventions and resources. Additionally, the research illuminates the pressing demand for more in-depth exploration in this domain.