Search results

The purpose of this study is to analyze the integration of sustainable practices in the strategies and operations of world-class higher education institutions (HEIs) under the theoretical guidance of Max Weber's instrumental and value rationalities.

The results of the Quacquarelli-Symonds World University Ranking, Times Higher Education World University Rankings, THE Impact Rankings and GreenMetric World University Ranking rankings from 2019 to 2022 were paired, and the correlation between them was verified. Institutions with simultaneous occurrence in the four rankings in at least one of the years were also classified. A quantitative and qualitative methodology was used to explore how elite HEIs integrate sustainable practices into their operations and strategies, under the theoretical guidance of Max Weber's instrumental and value rationalities. Furthermore, multivariate regression models with supervised data mining techniques were applied, using the SMOReg algorithm on 368 instances with multiple attributes, to predict the numerical value of sustainability in the rankings. Coefficients were assigned to variables to determine their relative importance in predicting rankings.

The results of this study suggest that although many HEIs demonstrate a commitment to sustainability, this rarely translates into improvements in traditional rankings, indicating a disconnect between sustainable practices and global academic recognition.

The research has limitations, including the analysis being restricted to data from specific rankings between 2019 and 2022, which may limit generalization to future editions or rankings. The predictive models used selected data and, therefore, cannot cover the full complexity of metrics from other rankings. Furthermore, internal factors of HEIs were not considered, and the correlations identified do not imply direct causality. The limited sample and potential methodological biases, together with the heterogeneity of the rankings, restrict the generalization of the results. These limitations should be considered in future studies.

The theoretical contributions of this study include an in-depth understanding of the intersection between academic excellence and environmental and social responsibility. From a management perspective, guidance is provided on integrating sustainability into HEI strategies to enhance visibility and classification in global rankings, while maintaining academic integrity and commitment to sustainability.

This highlights the importance of reassessing academic rankings criteria to include sustainability assessments, thereby encouraging institutions to adopt practices that genuinely contribute to global sustainable development.

The originality lies in the predictive analysis between these rankings, examining the link between the level of sustainability of an HEI and its classification as a World Class University. Furthermore, it combines theories of rationality with the analysis of sustainability integration in elite HEIs, introducing new analytical perspectives that can influence future educational policies and institutional practices.

This paper investigates the relationship between the sustainable finance disclosure regulation (SFDR) and the performance of unlisted real estate funds.

While existing literature has primarily focused on the impact of voluntary sustainability disclosure, such as certifications or reporting standards, this study addresses a significant research gap by constructing and analyzing the financial J-Curve of 40 funds under the SFDR. The authors employ a panel regression analysis to examine the effects of different SFDR categories on fund performance.

The findings reveal that funds categorized under Article 8 of the SFDR do not exhibit significantly poorer performance compared to funds categorized under Article 6 during the initial phase after launch. On average, Article 8 funds even demonstrate positive returns earlier than their peers. However, the panel regression analysis suggests that Article 8 funds slightly underperform when compared to Article 6 funds over time.

While investors may not anticipate lower initial returns when opting for higher SFDR categories, they should nevertheless be aware of the limitations inherent in the existing SFDR labeling system within the unlisted real estate sector.

To the best of our knowledge, this study represents the first quantitative examination of unlisted real estate fund performance under the SFDR. By providing unique insights into the J-Curves of funds, our research contributes to the existing body of knowledge on the impact of sustainability regulations in the financial sector.

This study aims to assess how ethical sales behaviour affects switching costs typology, mediated by trust and moderated by brand affiliation, monthly contributions and the number of dependent beneficiaries in medical schemes in South Africa.

A quantitative study targeted a non-probability judgement sample of 250 main members of medical schemes, elicited near health-care facilities in South Africa’s Gauteng province. Data was collected in a face-to-face survey and analysed using structural equation modelling on AMOS version 29 and PROCESS procedure for Statistical Package of Social Science release 2.041.

The results show that ethical sales behaviour negatively affects trust and positively affects evaluation, monetary and personal relational loss costs. Trust positively affects personal relational loss costs, economic risk, evaluation, monetary and benefit loss costs. Moreover, trust mediates the effect of ethical sales behaviour on evaluation, monetary and personal relational loss costs. Finally, the number of dependent beneficiaries, monthly contributions and brand affiliation significantly moderate these interactions.

The paper validates the application of commitment-to-trust theory in mediating how the effects of the general theory of marketing ethics on switching costs typology differ according to the number of dependent beneficiaries, monthly contributions and brand affiliation with medical schemes.

The global music industry has witnessed a tumultuous development in recent years with the emergence of music streaming services (MSSs) which played a pivotal role in rescuing the industry from persistent losses caused by piracy. MSSs are predominantly accessed via mobile applications making it imperative for the music streaming service providers (MSSPs) to focus on enhancing their app-based service quality. Furthermore, the sphere of music streaming has received only limited attention in research thus far, and to address this research void, this study contributes to the existing body of literature by introducing a scale to measure the service quality of music streaming apps, i.e. the MSASQ scale.

A mixed-method approach encompassing both qualitative as well as quantitative research techniques involving two-stage data collection was adopted. Items for the scale were collected via secondary (reports, articles, customer reviews, etc.) as well as primary sources (focus groups and interviews). The scale was tested on a sample of 1,129 Music Streaming App (MSA) users for reliability and validity.

A multidimensional MSASQ scale with 36 items measuring nine dimensions (hedonic quality, efficiency, user interface content, customer support, personalisation, ease of use, privacy/security and quality of ad exposure) was developed and validated.

The research endeavours to explore new perspectives on service quality within the music streaming industry, particularly in relation to the freemium model.

Organizations experience various issues with the optimum use of data. This study is qualitative research to identify and provide a helpful pattern for increasing the performance of sustainable supply chain management (SSCM).

The statistical population in the qualitative section includes managers and experts in the supply chain (SC) and food production. The data were collected via semi-structured interviews, and data saturation happens after the tenth interview. Then, the data were coded using grounded theory and qualitative research analysis. 384 questionnaires were distributed among employees via random sampling. SmartPLS software is used to investigate and analyze the relationships in the mentioned model through 13 core categories.

The findings indicate that organizational productivity and SC deficiencies are among the effective factors in the SSCM primarily identified by this study. Moreover, the findings propose that industry SC, macro policies, organizational performance, social factors, economic factors, organizational factors, political factors, technological factors, production and customer are likely to positively impact the SSCM, which have previously been documented by studies.

The model and concepts extracted from the responses of research participants show well that there are reasons and motivations for increasing the performance of SSCM. Also, the designed model shows well that the motives and reasons for turning to this system are satisfied due to its implementation.

This study aims to investigate how framing a news article differently could affect the public’s stigma towards autism.

A total of 117 adult participants were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions where they read a news article framed: (1) episodically; or (2) thematically. The news articles as experimental stimuli were derived from a real news article on Channel NewsAsia that had received the most views on the topic about autism over the period 2022 to 2023. Participants filled out the pre- and post-test questionnaires including the Bogardus Social Distance scale as the measure of stigma towards autism.

Results indicated that reading the news article, either thematically or episodically framed, significantly increased the public’s stigma towards autism, reflected on the social distance measure. Reading a news article framed episodically increased public’s stigma towards autism more than reading a news article framed thematically. Qualitative feedback suggests that participants thought the news articles were generally negatively written, which could have contributed to the increased stigma.

This study was an initial attempt to experimentally examine how news articles written in different ways could influence the public’s stigma towards autism. The findings highlight that the issue regarding media coverage of autism deserves more attention.

Metaverse is one of the decade’s most exciting and transformative technological innovations. While the metaverse holds immense promise, it has potential risks and dark sides. This research aims to investigate and identify the crucial dark dimensions associated with the metaverse platforms.

Employing a qualitative phenomenological methodology, the authors interviewed 45 metaverse users to unravel dark dimensions related to the metaverse. Analyzing the themes extracted from the participants' insights revealed an alignment with the underpinnings of the Technology Threat Avoidance (TTA) theory.

The findings of this study revealed seven major dark dimensions: addiction and dependency, isolation and loneliness, mental health issues, privacy and security, cyberbullying and harassment, digital identity theft and financial exploitation.

The study helps organizations and metaverse platforms understand the crucial dark dimensions of the metaverse. This study concludes by synthesizing prevalent themes and proposing propositions, offering insights for practical application and policy considerations.

This study provides a deeper understanding of the dark side of the metaverse environment from a user perspective using the underpinnings of TTA theory.

The article aims to show the relationship between agricultural sustainability practices and the competitive strategies of Argentine wineries. It presents the strategic decisions, resources and capabilities of those Argentine wineries performing a sustainable agricultural approach.

Wineries in all wine regions of Argentina were surveyed to assess the interaction between wineries’ dynamics and characteristics, as well as their business and agronomical practices. The dataset accounts for 204 wineries, a representative sample of Argentinean wineries. We developed an agricultural index representing the degree of application of sustainable practices of an Argentine winery based on answers related to two items from the production phase: soil maintenance and phytosanitary protection. We then relate the index to exogenous explanatory variables in terms of business practices: resources and capabilities (price, income from other activities, technological resources, human resources and export activities) and Robinson and Pearce's competitive strategies (innovation strategy, marketing strategy, strategy efficiency and service strategy). A microeconometric model is proposed since it best fits this research’s objective and data type, specifically a logit/probit model.

The results show that wineries in Argentina performing agricultural sustainability practices have more technological and human resources and implement innovative product strategies. However, the results also show that wineries that receive more than 50% of their income from other activities do not show much concern about agronomical sustainability practices.

Wineries in Argentina that address objectives to reduce agricultural and environmental impact have more technological and human resources. Innovative wineries from Argentina that perform these sustainable agricultural practices develop a competitive advantage that shows consumers these sustainable agricultural practices worldwide as a differentiator. This attribute makes them different and helps them cope with their demands. The article delves into these new practices that are now reaching Argentina after being established in Europe for many years.

This article specifies the theoretical influence of future time perspective (FTP) on the behavior of the parties involved in organizational dispute resolution processes.

This study employed a novel qualitative systematic reinterpretation methodology. A software-assisted qualitative content analysis for the systematic reinterpretation of 141 academic publications on organizational conflicts, dispute resolution, and dispute system design processes was performed to elicit crucial points at which FTP that was not originally specified is theoretically emerged in those processes.

The sorted findings detail 829 critical points (themes) in those processes where FTP has theoretically emerged. The results confirm that FTP has a comprehensive theoretical presence (81.3%) in the discourse on organizational conflicts, dispute resolution and dispute system design processes. Furthermore, when the relevant parties’ FTP is operative, their conflict prevention approach is widespread, and the parties perceive workplace relationships and dispute resolution processes as dominant.

The novelty of this study is related to its effort to identify and diagnose theoretical situations within the discourse on organizational dispute resolution processes in which the effect of FTP (either positive or negative) on the present-time behavior of parties within those processes is demonstrated. This work addresses this issue through unique qualitative systematic reinterpretation, which differs from other types of research syntheses of secondary data.

The study aims to access, monitor and visualize the scientific progress of Twitter-based research through a bibliometric analysis of scientific publications.

The data was retrieved from 2006 to February 23, 2022 using the Web of Science, a leading indexing and abstracting database. In response to the authors’ query, 6,193 items with 101,037 citations, an average citation of 16.31 and an h index of 126 were received. The “Biblioshiny” extension of the “Bibliometrics” package (www.bibliometrix.org) of R software was used to evaluate and visualize the data.

The present study highlighted the scientific progress of the field evolved over a period of time. The obtained results uncovered the publication trends, productive countries and their collaboration pattern, active authors who nurture the field by making their contribution, prolific source titles adopted by authors to publish the literature on the topic, most productive language in which literature was written, productive institutions, funding agencies that sponsor the research, influential articles, prominent keywords used in publications were also identified which will aid scientists in identifying research gaps in a particular area.

This study comprehensively illustrates the research status of Twitter-related research by conducting a bibliometric analysis. The study’s findings can assist relevant researchers in understanding the research trend, seeking scientific collaborators and funding for their research. Further, the study will act as a ready reference tool for the scientific community to identify research gaps, select research topics and appropriate platforms for submitting their scholarly endeavors.