Search results

Given that a prerequisite for COVID-19 transmission is the interaction between individuals, it is reasonable to suspect that transportation networks may have contributed to the spread of COVID-19. This study uses the air transportation network to quantify the risk of COVID-19 spread in the United States. The proposed model is applied at the county level and identifies the risk of importing COVID-19-infected passengers into a given county. We also undertake an examination of the factors influencing the spread of COVID-19 in relation to air travel. Utilizing an extensive dataset encompassing various socioeconomic, demographic, and healthcare-related variables, our results indicate a positive relationship between these factors and the relative risk of COVID-19 spread, highlighting the pronounced impact of population density, air travel volume, and larger household sizes on increasing travel-related risk. Conversely, greater healthcare capacity, particularly in terms of hospital and intensive care unit (ICU) beds, is associated with reduced risk. We provide estimates of expected relative risk for each county and a ranking that can be useful for informing public health policies to stem the spread of the virus by devoting resources such as screening and enhanced travel protocols to airports located in at-risk counties.

Malaysian rice wines (tapai) manufactured in small-scale industries are usually formulated based on personal experiences under minimally controlled conditions for generations, especially in Sabah, one of the East Malaysian states. However, the quality and safety of rice wines were receiving increased attention to ensure better quality control, particularly those produced on an industrial scale. Therefore, this research aims to determine the fermentation dynamics and consumers’ acceptance of Malaysian rice wines produced using different sasad (a local term for starter culture from Sabah).

The physicochemical [total soluble solids (TSS), alcohol content, total titratable acidity (TTA) and pH] and microbiological [total yeast and mould count (TYMC) and total lactic acid bacteria (LAB) count] changes in Malaysian rice wines were determined to better understand the fermentation process for future process optimisation. Additionally, sensory evaluations were conducted to determine the consumers’ preferences for the rice wines.

The overall fermentation dynamics of rice wines exhibited similar trends with slight variations between the samples, demonstrating the effect of microbial compositions of sasad on the quality of final rice wines. Additionally, consumer acceptance tests showed that rice wines with darker shades of yellow and a stronger alcoholic aroma were preferable.

This is the first research that provides important insights into both the fermentation dynamics and consumers’ acceptance of Malaysian traditional rice wines, enriching the rice wine literature from the academic perspective and contributing to the production of safe and high-quality rice wines.

Green consumption behaviour (GCB) has been advocated to mitigate the environmental consequences of traditional consumption patterns. Besides the current circumstances, Generation Z college students are a sizable consumer group who are likely to be concerned about the future. Thus, this study aims to examine the factors affecting the college students’ GCB and the moderating effect of government support to provide new evidence from college students in China.

In addition to environmental knowledge and social media influence as the variables, government support was used as a moderator to develop the extended theory of planned behaviour (TPB) model. Purposive sampling was used to obtain 328 valid responses from Chinese college students. The collected data were analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling.

The findings indicated that subjective norms, perceived behavioural control, environmental knowledge and social media influence substantially affect students’ GCB. Notably, the moderation analysis suggested that government support greatly strengthens the relationship between subjective norms and social media influence on the GCB of Chinese college students.

The study provides several significant practical implications as the findings could be referred by stakeholders, such as government and businesses entities, in formulating policies and strategies to encourage the consumers’ GCB in mitigating ecological consequences.

The extended TPB model that integrated environmental knowledge and social media influence with the government support as the moderator contributes to the extant literature with the evidence derived from Generation Z in China.

Organizational research on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is at times siloed; the experience of one minoritized or underrepresented group is treated as completely separate and different from the experience of another group and thus research separately. For example, there are terms that are studied only in the context of one group, and a different term is used to study a very similar (or identical) concept among a different group. Indeed, there are many unique experiences that specific minority groups encounter at work. Because of this end, minority groups should not be fully categorized together, and their individual should not be erased. However, there are shared experiences that many or all minorities experience at work, whether they are a gender minority, racial minority, or a member of any other minoritized group. Recognizing these shared experiences can help scholars develop a deeper understanding of what it's like to be minoritized or underrepresented at work, and therefore help to better serve these communities. To this end, our chapter highlights three such shared but unique minority experiences: three experiences that are common across all minority groups but operationalize slightly differently in different populations. The first experience we discuss is discrimination, as all minorities typically experience some form of negative differential treatment at work. The second experience we discuss is identity management, as many minorities need to actively think about how they present their minority identity to others (regardless of if their identity is “concealable” or not). Finally, we discuss strength through adversity, as many minorities argue that their minority identity is a source of strength and an area that benefits them at work. We conclude the chapter with a call toward intraminority solidarity, suggesting that recognizing shared experiences and working together can help build better workplaces for all minority employees.

Buildability assessment is an important tool used in improving buildability of building designs. Its practice has positive impact on construction project such as cost-saving, material waste reduction, labour-saving technologies, increase in efficiency, saving wasteful efforts and quality improvement as well as cost-effective methods of site construction and future maintenance. However, there are several factors hindering building construction industry to implement buildability assessment. In addition, there are few studies that described the factors impeding the implementation of buildability assessment in construction industry. This study aims to determine the factors impeding buildability assessment implementation in the Nigerian building construction industry

Quantitative research method was adopted for the study. Questionnaires were administered to purposively selected group of architects, engineers, builders and quantity surveyors. A total of 368 questionnaires were distributed among the sampled participants, out of which a total of 219 representing 60% were sufficiently filled and returned. Data elicited were analysed using inferential and descriptive statistics.

The results revealed that “poor co-ordination amongst different design disciplines”, “lack of buildability assessment awareness”, “design review pattern where construction personnel (builders) are invited to assess the building production information”, “unwillingness to invest extra money and effort during the early stage of project” and “designers value aesthetics and functionalities more than buildability in their designs” are the topmost five factors impeding buildability assessment implementation in the Nigerian construction industry.

This study highlights factors impeding the implementation of buildability assessment in construction industry. An understanding of these factors can help stakeholders in the construction industry facilitate the development of strategies required to mitigate the factors impeding buildability assessment implementation in the sector.

Organizational commitment could influence nurses’ turnover intention, but we know little about how effort recognition may enhance all three aspects of nurses’ organizational commitment and consequently reduce their turnover intention. This study adopts the self-affirmation theory to examine how the number of effort recognitions received by a nurse may impact the normative, continuance and affective aspects of their organizational commitment and their turnover intention.

We collected two-wave data from the survey responses of 481 nurses in a large medical center in Taiwan between June and August, 2017 and between January and February, 2018 as well as counting the number of times their efforts were recognized as excellent by using patient/family performance appraisal forms in 2016. Bivariate correlation was used to test the hypotheses.

We found that effort recognition is positively associated with nurses’ normative organizational commitment but not with their continuance or affective commitment. The three aspects of organizational commitment are negatively associated with turnover intention.

Nurse managers who hope to reduce nurses’ turnover intention could consider adequately recognizing nurses’ outstanding performance.

The present study is the first to employ the self-affirmation theory to examine the impact of effort recognition on the three aspects of organizational commitment and turnover intention.

Augmented reality (AR) is an advanced version of the dynamic physical space that is perceived and received via visual, audio, digital and other sensory stimuli. The capabilities of virtual technologies change the field of university and education considerably. The necessity of using virtual technologies in the education field was revealed more in unforeseen disasters such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The adoption of a technology by its users is an important factor in the successful implementation of the technology. The present study evaluates several factors affecting the adoption of AR technology in the realm of tertiary education.

This study is applied in nature, and the necessary data were gathered through a survey questionnaire. The opinions of 621 students were investigated using a simple random sampling method. The multinomial logit test was used in this research.

It was found that individual and social factors such as age, education level, major and economic characteristics such as one’s income in a month, expenses of a person in a month, the level of access to high-speed internet and access to a laptop or smartphone are effective in AR technology adoption in the field of academic education.

The theoretical contribution of this study is to identify the key factors that influence the adoption of AR technology and develop a model specifically applicable to the educational field. The results of this research can be used by university managers and educational policymakers for the efficient and effective use of this technology.

Passive investing has established itself as the dominant force in the world of professionally managed assets, surpassing the concept of index funds. Its meteoric rise is fueled by investors’ preference for its dual benefits of strong diversification and low cost. A comprehensive study of the economic model, addressed areas and market structure has not yet been conducted, despite the existence of numerous studies on more specific topics. To address this gap, this paper examines 943 articles on passive investing published between 1998 and 2022 in SCOPUS and Web of Science.

The study utilizes the most pertinent tools for conducting a systematic review by the PRISMA framework. This article is the result of SLR and extensive bibliometric analysis. Contextualized systematic literature review is used to screen and select bibliographic data, which is then subjected to a variety of bibliometric analyses. The study provides a bibliometric overview of works on passive investment research that are indexed in Scopus and Web of Science. Bibliometrix, VoS Viewer and Cite Space are the tools used to conduct content and network analysis, to ascertain the present state of research, as well as its focus and direction.

Our exhaustive analysis yields important findings. One, the previous decade has witnessed a substantial increase in the number of publications and citations; in particular, the inter-disciplinary and international scope of related research has expanded; Second, the top three clusters on “active versus passive funds,” “price discovery and market structures” and “exchange-traded funds (ETFs) as an alternative” account for more than fifty percent of the domain’s knowledge; Third, “Leveraged ETFs (LETFs)” and “environmental, social and governance (ESG)” are the two emerging themes in the passive investing research. Fourth, despite its many benefits, passive investing is not suitable for everyone. To get the most out of what passive investing has to offer, investors, intermediaries and regulators must all exercise sufficient caution. Our study makes a substantial contribution to the field by conducting a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of the existing literature, highlighting key findings and implications, as well as future research directions.

While the study contributes significantly to the field of knowledge, it has several limitations that must be considered when interpreting its findings and implications. With our emphasis on academic journals, the study analyzed only peer-reviewed journal articles, excluding conference papers, reports and technical articles. While we are confident that our approach resulted in a comprehensive and representative database, our reliance on Elsevier Scopus and Web of Science may have resulted in us overlooking relevant work accessible only through other databases. Additionally, specific bibliometric properties may not be time-stable, and certain common distribution patterns of the passive investing literature may still be developing.

With this study, it has been possible to observe and chart the high growth trajectory of passive investing research globally, especially post-US subprime crisis. Despite the widespread adoption of passive investing as an investment strategy, it is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. Market conditions change constantly, and it frequently requires an informed eye to determine when and how much to shift away from active investments and toward passive ones. Currency ETFs enable investors to implement a carry trade strategy in their portfolios; however, as a word of caution, currency stability and liquidity can play a significant role in international ETFs. Similarly, LETFs may be better suited for dynamic strategies and offer less value to a long-term investor. Lastly, the importance of investor education cannot be underestimated in the name of the highly diversified portfolio when using passive alternatives, for which necessary efforts are required by regulators and investors alike.

The inexorable trend to passive investing creates numerous issues for fund management, including fee and revenue pressure, which forces traditional managers to seek new revenue streams, such as illiquid and private assets, which also implies increased portfolio risk. Additionally, the increased transparency and efficiency associated with the ETF market indicates that managers must rethink the entire value chain, beginning with technology and the way investments interact. Passive investments have triggered changes in market structure that are still not fully understood or factored in. Active management and a range of valuation opinions on whether a price is “too low” or “too high” provide much-needed depth to a market as it attempts to strike a delicate balance between demand and supply forces, ensuring liquidity at all price points.

I hereby certify that I am the sole author of this paper and that no part of this manuscript has been published or submitted for publication.

Work and leisure, as important activity domains, play important roles in the lives of individuals. However, most previous studies focused on only the interference and negative effects of work on leisure, with little focus on the facilitation of work and the positive effects of work on leisure. In view of the shortcomings of previous studies, this study focuses on the facilitation effect of work on leisure and its impact on individual psychology. This study aims to explore the relationship between work–leisure facilitation (WLF) and turnover intention and the role of positive emotions and perceived supervisor support in this relationship.

In this study, the method of multipoint data collection was adopted to measure the subjects; 180 employees were sampled for 5 consecutive working days, and a multilevel structural equation model was established for analysis.

The results show that WLF is negatively related to turnover intention, and positive emotions play a mediating role in this relationship. Perceived supervisor support significantly positively moderates not only the relationship between WLF and positive emotions but also the indirect effect of WLF on turnover intention through positive emotions.

Based on affective events theory, this study explored the relationship between WLF and turnover intention and its mechanism by using the daily diary sampling method for the first time, to the best of the authors’ knowledge. The results not only deepen the understanding of affective events theory but also provide management suggestions for reducing employees’ turnover intentions.

Social media has emerged as a prominent platform for marketers and brands to disseminate brand-related information. This study aims to investigate the impact of color congruence between themes and background on marketing effectiveness, focusing specifically on Instagram.

A laboratory experiment was conducted to investigate how color congruence between themes and background in brand posts influences flow and aesthetic experience, subsequently affecting marketing communication parameters such as brand attitude, visit intention, and eWOM on Instagram. Moreover, Adidas Originals was selected as the focal brand, and blue and white color was chosen as the primary color palette for the experimental material.

This study demonstrates that color congruence, regardless of brand layout or post, significantly influences flow and aesthetic experience, subsequently affecting marketing effectiveness.

This study contributes to the theoretical understanding of congruence theory and social media marketing, providing valuable insights for brands to enhance their communication through photographs and effectively manage their official Instagram accounts.