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Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) accreditation encourages business schools to exhibit alignment within their mission, strategies and outcomes to achieve success. The present study aims to explore the idea of mission alignment and how it may serve as an important moderator to the relationship between organizational resources and school performance as measured through business school rank.

Our study utilizes the AACSB International business school survey (BSQ) data to analyze the mission statements of accredited business schools and capture data on organizational resources. We also created an index of mission alignment to gauge congruency between the stated mission and strategic focus. Our performance measure was the U.S. News and World Report undergraduate business school programs ranking value.

Our results show mission alignment on its own has little direct impact on organizational performance. However, when mission statement alignment and resource allocations are combined, they interact to influence organizational performance.

Our research demonstrates that resource allocation decisions and mission alignment are two important attributes of an organization and that mission alignment has the potential to leverage an organization’s resources and capabilities to improve performance.

This paper aims to examine the structure and content of religious tourism destination image through the reviews of visitors to Makkah and Medina, two of the world’s most popular Muslim pilgrimage sites.

This is an exploratory netnographic study of the 913 reviews posted on TripAdvisor from 2018 to 2022. The structure (dimensions and attributes) and content (variables) comprising the construct of religious tourism destination image emerge through manual thematic analysis and confirmed through content analysis.

Religious tourism destination image is a three-dimensional – cognitive, affective and conative – construct comprising both religion-specific, generally sacred and secular variables in a single, indivisible crystallization of experience.

Destination marketing organizations and marketers of tourism enterprises should regularly analyze visitor reviews posted on social media and carefully manage all variables of the religious tourism destination image, specifically stressing the religious aspect.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first systematic analysis of the structure and content of religious tourism destination image based on detailed consumer evaluations and unprompted storytelling.

Controversy has long swirled over the claim that Donald Trump's base has deeply rooted authoritarian tendencies, but Trump himself seems to have few doubts. Asked whether his stated wish to be dictator “on day one” of second term in office would repel voters, Trump said “I think a lot of people like it.” It is one of his invariable talking points that 74 million voters supported him in 2020, and he remains the unrivaled leader of the Republican Party, even as his rhetoric escalates to levels that cautious observers now routinely call fascistic.

Is Trump right that many people “like” his talk of dictatorship? If so, what does that mean empirically? Part of the answer to these questions was apparent early, in the results of the 2016 American National Election Study (ANES), which included survey questions that we had proposed which we drew from the aptly-named “Right-Wing Authoritarianism” scale. Posed to voters in 2012–2013 and again in 2016, those questions elicited striking responses.

In this chapter, we revisit those responses. We begin by exploring Trump's escalating anti-democratic rhetoric in the light of themes drawn from Max Weber and Theodor W. Adorno. We follow this with the text of the 2017 conference paper in which we first reported that 75% of Trump's voters supported him enthusiastically, mainly because they shared his prejudices, not because they were hurting economically. They hoped to “get rid” of troublemakers and “crush evil.” That wish, as we show in our conclusion, remains central to Trump's appeal.

In additive manufacturing (AM), “complexity for free” is often cited as a major technological benefit. This generalized view has been found inaccurate by several authors dealing with the evaluation of part complexity. However, the term “complexity” is not defined uniformly. The reasons for this are the various AM processes and different evaluation factors used by the respective authors. This is critical because build time heavily depends on the impact of complexity on the additive process through the processing tool (point-to-point-, line- and mask-based) defining competitiveness. This study aims to define appropriate complexity indicators and evaluate the impact on productivity of PBF-LB/P (laser sintering).

An assessment methodology for geometric complexity is developed for point-to-point-based processes using the PBF-LB/P process. First, an overview of part characteristics and their interrelationships with the generation process is provided. In this way, relevant factors, e.g. part volume and perimeter length, are identified. Subsequently, these are used to create a metric to select and manufacture test samples to quantify the impact on build time.

The results indicate a strong impact of geometrical complexity on build time and build-up rate. Consequently, optimizing the geometry in the early design stage and adjusting process parameters during production planning allow to influence the build-up rate.

This paper demonstrates the effects of geometric complexity using manufacturing jobs. As a result, the suitability of existing methods and KPIs is shown to be insufficient. Hence, meaningful indicators for laser sintering, such as contour length vs hatch length, contour length vs part volume and number of hatches vs part volume, are defined and verified.

This research explores the concept of omnichannel fulfillment steering (OFS) and demonstrates how retailers can influence a consumer’s fulfillment decisions through commonly used financial incentives such as discounts, credits and the opportunity to avoid home delivery fees.

We present insights from two theoretically grounded experiments to examine how different types of financial incentives can be used by omnichannel retailers to steer consumers from home delivery toward three alternative order fulfillment methods (AOFM) – buy-online-pickup-in-store, curbside-pickup and ship-to-locker.

Our analysis suggests that an opportunity to avoid shipping fees (penalty-avoidance) is a more effective OFS nudge than offering discounts or store credits (rewards). No difference was observed between offering discounts or credits as steering mechanisms; further, no omnichannel steering benefits were observed among the tested AOFMs. Collectively, these findings provide possible justification for retailers’ prioritization of credits to foster customer in-store visits, thus encouraging greater customer engagement and facilitating cross-selling opportunities. Finally, we uncover a penalty-avoidance endowment effect for “free shipping” of purchases over the current industry-standard free shipping threshold.

Retailers might prioritize store credits over discounts as nudges to steer customers toward an AOFM, with buy-online-pickup-in-store offering the greatest benefits for most retailers. Furthermore, using penalty-avoidance OFS incentives over a typical free shipping threshold may increase AOFM selection rates but engender adverse customer reactions.

Advancing the concept of OFS, this study directly informs retailers’ omnichannel incentive programs to nudge customers back into the store. Countering intertemporal choice theory, we could not demonstrate that delayed incentives are less effective than immediate ones. Based on prospect theory, we identify a free shipping endowment effect at a specific reference point along a purchase amount continuum.

The purpose of this study is to test whether presenting organizational change in a way that promotes the status quo will result in increased employee support for the change.

Using quantitative methodology, categorical data were collected through an online cross-sectional survey in which 222 adult respondents participated. The items used vignette-based question blocks with fixed response options. Item responses were analyzed using an exact binomial test – focusing on the relationship between status quo bias and other responses to change communications.

The findings demonstrated that status quo bias has an association with employee sensemaking. These results suggest that status quo bias can be utilized by organizational leaders and change practitioners to endorse change efforts. Furthermore, it not only appears that promoting what is staying the same but also including a small reason to justify the change can bring additional advantage. Advertising a vision of radical transformation is problematic as it may actually heighten employee resistance.

This research explores and presents a convergence between organizational change management and behavioral economics – specifically, status quo bias. No other comparable study collecting data across a number of organizational change themes and critiquing existing change management models could be found during the preparation of this research effort.

Disruptive technologies have changed the way that firms model their business approach. The aim of this study is to analyse the influence of novel digital technologies (artificial intelligence [AI] and machine learning [ML]) and big data analytics on the digital transformation of digital marketing firms. This research study is based on a review of the extant literature, using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). Gaps in the extant research literature were identified and emerged that are directly linked with the impact of AI, ML and big data analytics on digital transformation for digital marketing firms. Potential opportunities for digital transformation in digital firms were also unlocked, as well as related challenges. The research informs practice and policy for the current trends and provides future research directions. The study was limited to the application of the PRISMA methodology, which is incapable of fully providing testable results for a given study. Complementary cross-sectional research studies using the same methodology in different areas of study with the same topic can be applied to check for relevancy and applicability. This study contributes to digital marketing, information communication technologies, information systems practice and theory building. In addition, it provides researchers with an agenda for future digital transformation research directions.

Police corruption – the use or misuse of entrusted power for personal, institutional or third-party advantage – is widespread in emerging economies. Encounters with justice officials in developing nations often involve the payment of bribes, which undermines justice delivery and impedes socioeconomic development. Efforts to tackle or address corruption are usually complex due to the secretive nature of corruption, its perceived benefit to both victims and perpetrators and a lack of consensus on the causes. This article investigates the causes of police corruption from the viewpoint of Ghanaian police officers.

The study draws on data from a survey of police officers across three regions in Ghana. Descriptive, correlational and linear regression analyses are used to address the issues.

The results show that factors contributing to police corruption are classified into financial, cultural, institutional and oversight/guidance. We found that police officers’ consideration of a factor as a cause of police corruption is influenced by their perceptions of other factors as causes of corruption.

The results show that corruption causes should not be tackled in isolation as they depend on each other. This suggests that a holistic approach needs to be taken when developing strategies to address the causes of police corruption.

This paper contributes to the debate on the causes of police corruption from an African perspective, where there is little quantitative research exploring the causes of police corruption. Control variables do not impact officers’ perceptions of causes of corruption, which contradicts previous studies and contributes to the debate, literature and theory development.

Over its almost 25 years of existence (1964–1988), the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS, or Centre) was chronically understaffed, at times thriving academically and politically, and all too often on the edge of closure. It however left a tangible trace in the history of academia and political activism, not only by laying the groundwork for a new research field, that of cultural studies, but also by having been a place of nearly constant pedagogical freedom and experimentation. By being a space of cooperation and confrontation both within and without, the Centre has been deeply influenced by political events and university reforms alike. It became a democratic space: guarding the walls of an unstable academic praxis, reinventing itself over and over, redefining its aims and objects, publishing ground-breaking research in the realm of social science and doing field work in constant relationship to left wing politics. This paper aims at situating the CCCS and analysing the ways in which it has invested the concept of fragmented powers: first, by replacing the Centre in the wider context of British post-war politics, then by retracing its steps alongside the evolution of the British university system over the second half of the 20th century and finally by examining its administrative, pedagogical and publishing practices, as so many instances of fragmented powers inside a university research study.

Over halfway through the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, SDG16’s promise of access to justice for all remains a distant pipe-dream. Progress has been limited as the COVID-19 pandemic, new armed conflicts, and rising authoritarianism have in many jurisdictions exacerbated justice problems and hobbled institutional responses. Reversing these negative trends and closing the justice gap will require new ways of conceptualizing and delivering justice services, taking a people-centered, problem-solving approach that draws on data about people’s justice needs and marshals multi-disciplinary expertise, cross-sectoral collaboration, and innovative policy tools to solve them. Drawing on the analysis of an unprecedented global legal needs survey covering over 100 countries, this chapter describes this challenge and highlights the critical role that institutions of higher education can play in stimulating and supporting the much-needed transformation of our justice systems. It profiles exemplary initiatives at colleges and universities bringing their capabilities to bear on the justice challenge and draws lessons learned for institutions looking to follow suit. In doing so, institutions of higher education can not only help close the justice gap but also build trust in justice institutions and contribute to a rejuvenation of the human rights movement.