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In this paper, I discuss the personalities of several representative crypto YouTube celebrities and Bitcoin aficionados, such as George Tung from CryptosRUs, Mike Jenkins (Guy) from Coin Bureau, Lark Davis, Andreas M. Antonopoulos, and Richard Heart. I look closely at their online performances to reveal the character of a trickster, the ambivalent mythological figure that symbolizes chaos, creativity, and disruption. Based on the core literature on the subject, I trace how the figure of a trickster has transformed into the jester in medieval times, and then into the adventurer in the new modern times, and how this transformation is relevant for today. A variety of examples demonstrates that the jester, the trickster, and the adventurer all reveal themselves in different facets of crypto influencers’ performances. However, the most popular YouTubers are also comparatively tame: they produce educational content on cryptocurrencies and blockchain, as compared to “get rich quick” schemes, which are typically presented with a higher degree of tricksteriness. There are also crucial differences and omissions: crypto influencers do not demonstrate queerness, which is inherent to the trickster, and they do not balance praise with abuse, as jesters do. The modern type of an adventurer is more fitting, although it is mostly found in the virtual Wild West of blockchain entrepreneurship, rather than on the most popular YouTube channels.

South Africa is the leading market for luxury goods in Africa – a fact evident from the statistics on luxury retail and the expanding footprint of international and local luxury brands. In a market that is dominated by prominent international brands, indigenous South African brands are seldom the subject of empirical research. This study addresses this gap by analysing the consumer-based brand equity (CBBE) of South African luxury fashion brands and its outcomes on the purchase/repurchase intention of consumers of South African luxury fashion brands.

The study adopted quantitative research methods and utilized survey questionnaires to acquire data from 130 respondents. Structural equation modelling was used in testing the proposed alternative hypotheses.

The study affirmed the relevance of Aaker's (1991) CBBE model for luxury goods in the emerging economy of South Africa. It established perceived quality and behavioural loyalty as significant predictors of brand equity while affirming the prevalence of hedonism and behavioural loyalty in South Africa's luxury fashion market.

The small sample size and the limited geographic scope of the study had a significant adverse impact on the broad application of the study's outcome. Furthermore, Aaker's (1991) CBBE model, while adequate, may have diminished the probability of a nuanced outcome.

This study advances the frontiers of interdisciplinary research by applying the marketing framework of CBBE to fashion studies in South Africa. The validated measurement scale, which emphasises the relevance of hedonism and behavioural loyalty in South Africa, may be useful for a similar study on luxury fashion brands in other emerging economies.

Over the years, the impact of the business cycle on firm strategy has been neglected in the area of strategic management and remains one of the most important but least developed research streams in management scholarship. Studies in this area are scattered across time and domains, therefore, there is a need to consolidate this fragmented literature to provide a comprehensive review and thus avenues for further research. This study aims to address this gap.

In this study, the systematic literature review (SLR) method is used to select and examine research articles in the area of firm responses and decisions during recession. This SLR examines 127 studies and carries out a thematic synthesis of the literature.

Based on the SLR and thematic synthesis of the literature, the themes identified in this study include – severity of recession impact (Theme 1); firm specific characteristics (Theme 2); resource adjustment activities (Theme 3); and firm performance (Theme 4), based on these themes and analysis this paper maps and proposes various relationships and linkages in this research domain that can be explored further for the development of scholarship in this field of study.

This paper fulfills the need for a systematic review of the extant literature on firms’ responses during recession. The study synthesizes literature and carries out a thematic analysis from 1980 till the period February 2024 to provide directions to advance this domain of literature.

Any credible agenda that seeks to eradicate global poverty must seek to correct the structural injustices and inequities that cause and perpetuate endemic poverty. Such an agenda must aim not merely to aid the poor with grants, welfare, and subsidies (that indirectly perpetuate poverty) but seek to enhance self-sufficiency and productive skills of the poor by ensuring them comparable access to opportunities of the market economies to participate, on more equitable terms, in the dynamic process of overall economic growth. In this context, we apply critical thinking to identify and recognize the structured injustices of the market system, which not only cause poverty but also compromise human dignity via social inequalities and inequities arguably caused by the free market and corporate capital systems of the world. Global poverty that affects more than a quarter of the human population is a pernicious self-serving system connected to the injustices of the business and political systems of the world. The persistent nature of poverty is in direct proportion to our inability to eradicate it as a whole in the cosmic system. Eradication of global desperate poverty and its unjust structural causes can be achieved, we submit, by tracing the roots of global poverty to corporate and free enterprise capital systems and their unexamined structures of social injustice and social inequalities.

The main aim of the present study is to assess the moderating effect of joint audit (JA) on the relationship between audit committee effectiveness (ACEFF) and audit quality (AQ) in Egypt.

The sample included 61 non-financial corporations listed on the Egyptian Exchange from 2016 through 2020. The results are estimated using panel data analysis with fixed-effect models.

The findings exhibit that audit committee (AC) independence, ACEFF; and audit firm size negatively affect AQ. Conversely, the influence of AC meetings on AQ is positive and significant. The findings also reveal that JA moderates the relation between the ACEFF and AQ.

The study offers theoretical contributions to corporate governance mechanisms, JA; and AQ by using data from listed firms in Egypt. The study is the first one that examines the moderating role of JA on ACEFF and AQ.

The study has practical implications for investors, board members, practitioners, academicians; and policymakers. Moreover, the study contributes using a composite measure for the ACEFF score.

The findings, supported by agency, resource dependence; and signaling theories, contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between ACEFF, AQ; and JA. The evidence about JA is still unknown in developing countries. Further, revisiting AQ with different measures, particularly accounting conservatism, has not been a subject of prior studies.

This chapter explores the vast array of fintech opportunities. The industry commanded approximately $250 billion in revenue in 2022, which is predicted to grow to $1.5 trillion by 2030. Fintech firms are involved in everything from digital currencies to payment systems, lending platforms, and embedded finance. Firms use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to create personalized financial products. One of the most important benefits to society is that fintech makes finance more inclusive to the traditionally underserved. However, fintech has its challenges. Regulations evolve, making compliance a challenge. Also, the industry is vulnerable to cyberattacks and money laundering. Companies hold large amounts of sensitive data, making them obvious targets for bad actors. As with many industries, governance, compliance, and transparency are essential for fintechs as they transform the financial services landscape.

This paper explores the emergence of cryptocurrencies like Dogecoin and Shiba Inu in the “crypto-carnival” and their ties to the Trickster archetype. It discusses the concept of tokens and the surge of tokenization in the crypto-summer of 2020–2021. This paper explains how Shiba Inu became a purely recursive token with no external measure of value. It also explores the creation of egregores, which are created intentionally or unintentionally by groups of people who share a common belief or interest. Finally, this paper discusses how digital assets born out of a countermovement may eventually fall prey to the same system they were trying to escape from, using the carnivalesque to trigger the emergence of an egregore that brings monetary value to worthless objects.

The present study aims to propose a framework elucidating the attributes of mobile augmented reality (AR) shopping apps (i.e., spatial presence, perceived personalization and perceived intrusiveness) and how they translate to downstream consumer-related outcomes (i.e., immersion, psychological ownership and stickiness to the retailer).

By conducting a questionnaire-based survey, 308 responses were collected, and the data were submitted to partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and artificial neural network (ANN) analyses.

A few important findings were generated from the present study. First, attributes of mobile augmented reality shopping apps (i.e., spatial presence, perceived personalization and perceived intrusiveness) influence stickiness to the retailer through immersion and consumer empowerment in serial. Second, immersion positively influences psychological ownership. Third, the optimum stimulation level moderates the relationship between spatial presence and immersion. Lastly, a post-hoc exploratory finding yielded by the multigroup analysis uncovered the moderating effect of gender.

This study offers a novel contribution to the smart retail literature by investigating the role of mobile AR shopping apps in predicting consumers' stickiness to the retailer. A holistic framework elucidating the serial mediating effect of immersion and consumer empowerment, and the moderating roles of optimum stimulation level and gender were validated.

Using surveys of Amazon and Tmall Global users, this paper aims to empirically investigate the issue of platform technological selection. We explore the impact of switching costs on users’ intentions to use an app-enabled cross-border e-commerce (CBEC) platform based on an extended technology acceptance model (TAM). The results suggest that the higher the switching cost of a platform is, the greater the users’ satisfaction and intention to use this platform. Therefore, for the platform, a moderate switching cost will be beneficial for retaining users.

Based on the TAM, this paper takes the switching costs as the starting point and focuses on exploring the relationships among switching costs, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived reliability, satisfaction and intention to use. Online surveys of users of Amazon and Tmall Global are adopted as the main instruments of this research. We collected a total of 408 valid responses from Amazon users and 490 from Tmall Global users. For the data analysis, this study conducts frequency analysis, a test analysis of the reliability and validity of the measures, correlation analysis, and path analysis using a structural equation model.

The results show that switching costs positively affect the users’ satisfaction and intentions to use a CBEC platform through perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and perceived reliability.

The questionnaire respondents were predominantly Chinese due to the constraints of the survey conditions. In fact, China has a high penetration rate in CBEC, and Chinese users have rich experience using the Amazon and Tmall Global platforms.

The development of CBEC has ups and downs, and users frequently switch platforms. Considering how platforms can stand out from the crowd and retain users, we believe that a moderate increase in the switching cost of the platform is helpful for companies to address these problems, and the implications of the results are particularly valid for decision-makers of CBEC platforms and companies.

Amazon and Tmall Global are the two largest CBEC platforms in the world. Using these two companies as examples for comparison can effectively identify the differences between the platforms and the conclusions are representative. We suggest that platforms can improve user satisfaction and willingness to use by establishing VIP communities, issuing coupons, providing shipping services as well as convenient after-sale complaint channels, and improving the platform’s easy-to-use interface, as ways to further enable the platform to retain more users and stand out in fierce competition.

This paper addresses an interesting and practical issue related to the effects of introducing switching costs in an extended TAM applied to CBEC platforms.

Drawing on an ethnographic case of video production at the tourist sites of Angkor Wat, this chapter assesses how the researched travel influencers maintained a balance between work and leisure during their travels. The temple complex is comprised of multiple place assemblages that are connected to YouTubers and their audiences. Video-making practices in tourist places empower place-making activities from below. The video shoot described therein demonstrates the evolution of organic place-making through bottom-up local video production. Touristic video-making practices leave an imprint in the imaginaries about travel destinations. Articulating their voices as embedded first-person narrators, the travel influencers under investigation sought to provide their audiences with travel advice on accommodation, restaurants, and landmarks.