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The purpose of this study is to explore the motivations and experiences of university academics who engage in open access publishing for survival and academic development.

This study employs a multiple-case qualitative approach, drawing on Bourdieu’s theory of practice to investigate the activities and experiences of seven academics as they strived to publish in indexed open access journals. Data were collected through in-depth interviews and observation, focusing on the academics’ strategies for obtaining cultural capital.

Findings reveal that they viewed this publishing community more as an imagined or virtual community from which they could obtain cultural capital and seek the sense of belonging to compensate for the outsider identity and peripheral positioning within their institutions. The acquired cultural capital not only helped them feel more connected but also influenced their institutional status, as increased visibility and recognition from publishing successes began to alter how they were perceived within their professional environments, sometimes enhancing their standing but also occasionally reinforcing marginalisation.

This study contributes to the existing literature by providing a refined understanding of the motivations and experiences of academics engaged in open access publishing. It offers a unique perspective on the formation and functioning of non-institutional communities in academia, highlighting the role of cultural capital and identity negotiation in shaping these communities. Furthermore, it sheds light on the challenges and opportunities faced by academics seeking to publish open access and provides insights for institutions seeking to support their faculty in this endeavour.

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.

Purpose: This study aims to explore the efforts of several Asian countries adopting blockchain-enabled letter of credit (LC) processes and highlight the key challenges hindering blockchain adoption into the entire LC system.

Need for the study: As trade volume among countries grows, nations should agree on the technology’s application mechanism to prevent disputes over discrete practices. As blockchain is a borderless approach, the global context of the applications should be considered, incorporating the cases of Asia, the hub of intraregional collaboration in trading.

Methodology: This chapter has surveyed the existing literature to identify the dichotomy between blockchain-enabled LC and traditional LC. Ten Asian countries were selected considering their adaptation motivations, number of use cases, and economic outlook. The case-study method was applied to compare the counties.

Findings: Countries reported blockchain-enabled LC as time-efficient, less costly, and secure. Interoperability, scalability, the absence of legal and administrative infrastructure, stress for new skills, and cyber security concerns are the most cited challenges among users. Instances of regulatory sandbox and collaborative effort were found among some countries, although some countries have yet to publish application guidelines.

Practical implication: The study provides comparative pictures of blockchain-enabled LC systems adopted by several Asian countries. This will contribute to future collaboration between Asian countries to create a unified and standardised trade financing platform. The study will also contribute to the future formulation of guidelines for administrative methodologies of the permissioned blockchain application in the trade finance section.

We aim to provide a systematic literature review of the determinants and consequences of labor investment efficiency in an international context. First, we offer a theoretical discussion of labor investment efficiency, followed by an examination of its measurement. Next, we review the determinants of labor investment efficiency, categorizing them into firm fundamentals including financial reporting quality, governance and controls, corporate social responsibility/environmental regulation and macroeconomic determinants. Finally, we review the limited empirical literature on the consequences of labor investment efficiency. We also provide some suggestions for future research.

We perform a systematic literature review using the Preferred Reporting Items for a Systematic Review of Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines to examine archival studies investigating the determinants and consequences of labor investment efficiency. Using a Boolean search strategy on the Scopus and PRISMA selection criteria, we review 86 published archival research articles from 2014 to the end of August 2024.

Our review highlights that firm-level fundamental factors including financial reporting quality have profound implications for labor investment efficiency. Effective governance mechanisms also help mitigate agency conflicts and information asymmetries and alleviate labor investment inefficiencies. Furthermore, the influence of regulations including ESG-related regulations and macroeconomic factors play a crucial role in shaping labor investment decisions. We find very little research on the consequence of labor investment efficiency.

Our review has highlighted that well-functioning corporate governance tools are effective in mitigating inefficient labor investments. Stakeholders, therefore, should ensure that firms have effective internal governance mechanisms in place and that external governance regulations complement and where necessary act as substitutes for internal governance mechanisms to optimize labor investments.

To the best of our knowledge, this study represents the first systematic review of extant research on labor investment efficiency. Our review highlights some research gaps, particularly about the consequences of labor investment efficiency and offers some suggestions for future research.

This study aims to define a “technological statecraft” concept to distinguish tech-based measures/sanctions from an array of economic measures ranging from restrictions of rare earth elements and natural gas supplies to asset freezes under the wider portfolio of economic statecraft. This concept is practically intended to reveal the USA’s “logic of choice” in its employment of technology as an efficient instrument to deal with China in the context of the great power rivalry.

This study follows David A. Baldwin’s statecraft definition and conceptualization methodology, which relies on “means” rather than “ends.” In addition to Baldwin and as an incremental contribution to his economic statecraft analysis, this study also combines national political economy with statecraft analysis with a particular focus on the utilization of technological measures against China during the Trump administration.

The US rationale for choosing technology, namely, emerging and foundational technologies, in its rivalry against China is caused at least by two factors: the nature of the external challenge and the characteristics of the US innovation model based largely on radical innovations. To deal with China, the USA practically distinguished the role of advanced technology and followed a grammer of technological statecraft as depicted in the promulgated legal texts during the Trump administration.

Despite a growing volume of literature on economic statecraft and technological competition, studies focusing on countries’ “logic of choice” with regard to why and under what conditions they choose financial, technological or commodity-based sanctions/measures/controls are lacking. Inspired from Baldwin’s account on the “logic of choice” from among alternative statecrafts (i.e. diplomacy, military, economic statecraft, and propaganda). This study will contribute to the literature with a clear lens to demonstrate the “logic of choice” from among a variety of economic statecraft measures in the case of the US technological statecraft toward China.

The aim of this paper is to investigate and define employees' professionalism in the hotel industry. A professional employee has specific core competencies and personal attributes that improve the quality of service by resolving guest complaints, ensuring guest satisfaction and gaining a competitive advantage. In the hospitality industry, interaction with customers necessitates providing services of high standards that are characterised by professionalism.

This research deployed a quantitative methodology with self-administering questionnaires to hotel managers of 4-star and 5-star hotels.

The results of the study suggest that employees' professionalism in hotels includes skills combined with personality characteristics along with a passion for the profession. Thus, to attest to professionalism, managers must ensure that skills are adjusted to subject-specific knowledge and expertise while incorporating “social consciousness” as a constituent dimension of professionalism.

This study investigates the concept of professionalism as the main prerequisite for the delivery of exceptional hotel services and introduces the notion of “social consciousness” as an additional dimension of professionalism.

Food waste among young consumers is a significant concern that threatens food sustainability due to consumption behaviour. This study has integrated the Theory of Interpersonal Behaviour to extend the Theory of Planned Behaviour to measure young consumer’s intention to reduce food waste in a developing country context. Bringing in emotion, habits, and facilitating conditions to predict the consumers' attitudes, this study assesses the intention to reduce food waste for corporate sustainability from the perspective of consumption.

Using a quantitative approach and purposive sampling, 205 samples were collected from the young generation aged 18 to 30, who frequently have meals at home. The PLS-SEM technique was employed to examine the hypothesised model.

The findings supported all the hypotheses mentioned where attitudes, subjective norms (SN) and perceived behavioural control (PBC) affect the intention to reduce food waste among young consumers. Furthermore, the other variables, namely, habits, emotions and facilitating conditions, also significantly impact the attitudes of the young generation.

Understanding young consumers' food waste behaviour is vital from the social, economic, and environmental perspectives. This study showcases a comprehensive food waste behaviour model among young consumers by integrating the Theory of Interpersonal Behaviour and the Theory of Planned Behaviour to examine the intention to minimise food waste. Practically, this study offers insights to business practitioners and communities in managing food waste from the young consumer perspective. Socially, this study supports the United Nations' (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 12 by contributing to global food waste reduction efforts.

Know your customer (KYC), accounting standards, issuance, clearing, and trade settlement became the major barrier to implement accounting, accountability and assurance process in supply chain finance (SCF). Blockchain technology features have the potential to solve accounting problems. This research focuses on exploring how blockchain technology provides solutions to overcome the barriers of accounting process in SCF. The benefits, opportunities, costs and risks related to blockchain adoption are also explored.

Multi-case study and qualitative methods are used with a framework based on blockchain role to overcome the accounting process barriers. Ten blockchain projects in SCF and 29 interviews of participants as a unit of analysis are considered.

The findings indicate that blockchain technology offers solutions to solve accounting, accountability and assurance problems in SCF. Validity, verification, smart contracts, automation and enduring data on trade transactions potentially solve those barriers. However, it is also necessary to consider costs such as implementation, technology, education and integration costs. Then there are possible risks such as regulatory compliance, operational, code development and scalability risk. This finding reflects the current status of blockchain technology roles in SCF.

This study unveils blockchain's SCF accounting potential, emphasizing multi-case method limitations and future research prospects. Diverse contexts challenge findings' applicability, warranting cross-industry studies for deeper insights. Addressing selection bias and integrating quantitative measures can enhance understanding of blockchain's accounting impact.

Accounting professionals can get an idea of the future direction and impact of blockchain technology on accounting, accountability and assurance processes.

This study provides initial findings on the potential, costs and risks of blockchain that is beneficial for parties involved in SCF, especially for banks and insurance underwriters. In addition, the findings also provide direction for the contribution of blockchain technology to accounting theory in the future.

Consumers often prefer sustainable goods and services but fail to follow through with purchases that reflect these espoused values. The green intention–outcome gap is studied in many contexts but has yet to inform deathcare decisions. Industry reports suggest that most Americans prefer sustainable deathcare options, yet unsustainable corpse dispositions dominate the market. The purpose of this paper is to understand how history informs this phenonea.

This study looks to the past – using historical narrative analysis of deathcare trends and influential intermediaries – to understand the future of sustainable deathcare and the prospective role that marketers can play in bridging the gap between decedents’ preferences and survivors’ purchase outcomes.

Historical ritualization, medicalization and commercialization have resulted in the monopolization of traditional deathcare services. Mortuary professionals remain unresponsive to consumer preferences for sustainable alternatives.

Socioeconomic shocks can allow humanity to reflect and transition from consumerism to sustainability. COVID-19 has led to greater awareness of self-mortality, and death has become less taboo. The slow market penetration of sustainable deathcare services suggests a lack of communication between a decedent and their survivors. Marketing scholars need to help marketing practitioners bridge the preference-outcome gap.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is amongst the first to examine how history informs the sustainable action–outcome gap for deathcare preferences in a post-COVID environment and the role that marketers can play in perpetuating change.

This study aims to critically assesses how Spanish PhD holders working outside academia perceive and value their past PhD training experiences within academic PhD programs, addressing the growing need for skills applicable in various sectors.

Using a retrospective interpretative design, the authors collected qualitative data from 35 PhD holders who have transitioned to non-academic careers. Through multimodal interviews, the authors gathered in-depth perceptions to understand the strengths and weaknesses of existing PhD training in relation to non-academic employability.

The findings highlight a significant disconnect between academic-oriented training and the practical demands of non-academic jobs, particularly in non-research roles. While PhD training was valued in research-related non-academic positions, especially in STEM fields, it was considered insufficient for those in managerial or other non-research roles unless the training included specific industry-related projects. Participants suggested a cultural shift in PhD programs towards a more balanced academic and non-academic focus, integrating societal concerns and broader competencies like effective communication and managerial skills. These changes are seen as crucial for better-preparing PhD candidates for diverse professional environments, emphasising the need for PhD programs to evolve continually in response to the changing dynamics of the labour market and societal needs.

This study contributes to the ongoing discussion about the need for PhD programs to evolve by offering a unique perspective from within the Spanish context. It underscores the necessity for educational reforms incorporating comprehensive skill training, aligning more closely with the career opportunities available to PhD graduates.