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Since Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX) was signed into law, the landscape of sport in the United States has changed dramatically, not only in terms of sport participation rates for girls and women but also increased levels of support, sponsorship, viewership, competition and media coverage. While educational institutions were slow to develop and implement policies to comply with Title IX, decades later, girls' and women's sports have shown clear signs of having reaped the benefits of the law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex or gender in educational programmes receiving federal funding. As girls' and women's participation in scholastic and collegiate sport has grown, however, so too have reported incidents and public exposure of harmful hazing activities among female athletes. The purpose of this chapter is to examine hazing practices in girls' and women's sports, including the perspectives of female athletes and the broader community. Based on quantitative and qualitative survey data, interviews with college female athletes and public responses to hazing reports in the media, this chapter presents an analysis of hazing in girls' and women's sports 40+ years post-Title IX. Findings showed mixed opinions about the dangers and perceived utility of hazing ceremonies, highlighted athletes' ideas to promote positive team interactions in lieu of hazing and considered the impact of contemporary social and cultural shifts on athletes' ability and willingness to speak out against hazing and other forms of violence and abuse in sports.

This research aims to contribute substantively and methodologically to our understanding of CSR communications in the pharmaceutical sector targeted to employees. Of specific concern is how companies can most effectively communicate their CSR activities to employees.

Multi-methods were used to identify CSR-related communication trends and relationships in the largest pharmaceutical companies by market cap. Replicatable data are ROA from Bloomberg, ESG scores, employee satisfaction from Indeed.com and content of CSR and similar reports.

Significant findings include the content of CSR reports related to employee behaviors and human resource processes. Both HR behaviors and HR processes are related to return on assets ROA. Multinational differences were found in Indeed satisfaction scores and in trends in communications from the CSR reports.

One of the limitations was that not all pharmaceutical companies consistently reported their data.

Given that the pharmaceutical sector is comprised of a high proportion of uniquely qualified types of employees, this type of information can be used by prospective employees to consistently include more HR processes. Especially missing is recruitment and selection data that can reasonably be expected to facilitate identifying prospective employees who align with the CSR mission.

The methodology used in this study allows for replication in the pharmaceutical sector. Moreover, it encourages using similar disaggregated ESG data sources to study CSR in other sectors.

This opening chapter introduces key debates in relation to informality in policymaking, laying the theoretical and conceptual groundwork for the individual empirical chapters, beginning with a provocation for how informality can alternatively be understood. Through illustrating where gaps in understanding within current literature exist for how informality acquires meaning, and the physical and material relevance for how it manifests across contexts, this chapter introduces the three thematic clusters that thread through the book’s chapters: boundaries, knowledge mastery and networks. In doing so, it briefly positions each chapter in relation to these flexible and overlapping categories, drawing attention to how each chapter presents a different understanding of informality. Key to this chapter is our contention that while informality escapes definition, without binary or fixed conceptualisations of this concept we are better able to take in its fluidity and envisage how it is interwoven in everyday policy work and its human and non-human enactment. Underpinning this contention is a key contribution of this work, a proposition for a re-conceptualising of informality and formality as in|formality. Methodologically, this chapter argues that informality is better ‘shown’ than ‘told’ – and that this can be achieved through interpretive and socio-material approaches woven through disciplines that foreground narrative, ethnographic and creative approaches to research.

Suspicions about space technologies can be regarded as instances of “space skepticism,” i.e. the broadly pessimistic view that human activities in space are untimely or liable to be counterproductive. Section 1 will explain that contemporary space skepticism is focused upon negative societal role rather than the physical possibility of the activities proposed. Such skepticism is a complex pool of familiar claims unevenly drawn upon rather than a single theory. Section 2 will suggest that contemporary space skepticism tends to integrate with a broader set of doubts and fears about technologies of the Anthropocene. Section 3 will draw out a tension within the skeptical complex between the idea that concern for space is irrelevant to our societal problems and the idea that it is likely to make such problems worse. Section 4 will briefly outline why the publicly dominant forms of space skepticism carry a growing capability for merger with political activism and why the publicly dominant skepticisms are not necessarily those with the greatest plausibility, but rather those with the strongest motivational force. Finally, Section 5 will set aside the issue of popular motivational force and focus instead upon the skepticisms with the greatest plausibility. It will briefly outline why the relevant fears and suspicions (about military tensions and geoengineering) are outweighed by other considerations. This response to plausible skepticisms will not aim to be comprehensive but indicative of the direction of travel for more detailed critique. It will provide a framing context for a large metaphor about space technologies allowing the Earth to breathe.

This paper evaluates the risk-adjusted returns, selectivity, market timing skills and persistence of the performance of Nigerian pension funds.

Annual return data of 23 pension funds that operated in Nigeria between 2018 and 2022 were obtained from the National Pension Commission (PenCom). Risk-adjusted return was appraised using the Treynor ratio, Sharpe ratio and Jensen alpha, while the Treynor–Mazuy and Henriksson–Merton multiple regression models were applied to decompose selective and timing skills. Performance persistence was assessed using the contingency table and rank correlation models.

Evidence shows that pension funds deliver excess risk-adjusted returns and exhibit selective skills. However, the evidence does not support the presence of timing skills, and there is overwhelming evidence that good (bad) performance does not repeat.

An evaluation of the investment performance of pension funds is crucial for ensuring the financial stability of retirees, maintaining economic stability and making informed investment decisions. It serves the interests of pensioners, pension fund managers, regulators and the broader economy. Our evidence that pension funds generate positive excess returns is a departure from most of the literature on managed funds. We recommend that more Nigerians should leverage the pension fund industry to grow their wealth and prepare for retirement.

This study, to our knowledge, is the first to appraise all the key facets of the investment performance of pension funds in the Nigerian context.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how and through which social-cognitive constructs, emotions influence healthy food shopping behaviors. Direct effects of those constructs, as well as indirect effects of consumer emotions are considered.

An altered version of the Social Cognitive Theory, including intention, socio-structural factors, outcome expectancies and self-efficacy with the addition of consumer emotions was analyzed using structural equation modeling. Data of 1,181 volunteers were collected in Germany in 2021 through an online survey.

Intention was the most important positive predictor of food choice, while socio-structural factors had the biggest impact on intentions. Those were mostly influenced by self-efficacy, which was strongly predicted by consumer emotions. Outcome expectancies did not influence the current model in any way. Consumer emotions did not directly influence intention, nor actual choice, however showed to be influencing those variables through indirect effects.

Marketers could benefit from these results by incorporating the current findings into existing marketing strategies through targeting a combination of social cognitive constructs, as well as consumer emotions to facilitate healthier food shopping behavior.

Affect has received increasing attention in regards to its impact on healthy eating behaviors in recent years. Less attention has been paid to the mechanisms through which emotions influence healthy nutrition behavior, specifically how consumer emotions influence healthy food shopping behavior.

Effective customer journey design (ECJD) is considered a key variable in customer experience management and an essential source of brand meaning and pro-brand behavior. Although previous research has confirmed its importance for driving brand attitudes and loyalty, the role of consumer-brand identification as a social identity-based influence in this relationship has not yet been discussed. Drawing on construal level and social identity theories, this paper aims to investigate whether effective journeys and the resulting overall journey experience are equally powerful in driving brand loyalty among customers with different levels of consumer-brand identification.

The present article develops and tests a research model using data from the European and US service sectors (N = 1,454) to investigate how and when ECJD affects service brand loyalty.

Across two cultural contexts, four service industries and 33 service brands, the results reveal that ECJD is a crucial driver of service brand loyalty for customers with low consumer-brand identification. Moreover, the findings show that different aspects of journey effectiveness positively impact the valence of customers’ experience related to those journeys – a process that is ultimately decisive for their brand loyalty.

This study is unique because it generates theoretical and practical knowledge by combining the literature streams of customer journey design, customer experience and branding. Furthermore, this work demonstrates that consumer-brand identification is a critical boundary condition to be considered in the relationship between ECJD and brand loyalty in services.

The unethical use of natural resources is contributing to the increasing environmental degradation. The depleting environment poses a threat to the sustainability of present and future generations. This paper aims to investigate the impact of social media on the green purchase intention of consumers. The research adopts the theory of reciprocal determinism to integrate the variables of social media, green product knowledge, green consumption values and drive for environmental responsibility, assessing their collective impact on green purchase intention.

Data were gathered from a sample of 310 young consumers using a structured close-ended questionnaire. The proposed hypothesis was tested by employing PLS-SEM.

The study validates that social media (SM) has the ability to shape consumers' intention to choose more eco-friendly products. In addition to social media, green consumption values and the drive for environmental responsibility exert a significant influence on green purchase intention. However, green product knowledge did not have a significant impact on green purchase intention nor did mediate the relationship between social media and green purchase intention.

The existing scholarly literature indicates that researchers have employed a variety of theories as the basis for their studies aimed at predicting intentions and behaviors related to environmentally conscious purchases. To our knowledge, this is the first study to incorporate social media in the theory of reciprocal determinism. Notably, the paper represents the inaugural investigation in the context of an emerging economy to incorporate green product knowledge as a mediating variable.

This paper aims to determine the impact of perceived virtuality on team dynamics and outcomes by adopting the Input-Mediators-Outcome (IMO) framework. Further, it also investigates the mediating role of team processes and emergent states.

The authors collected survey data from 315 individuals working in virtual teams (VTs) in the information technology sector in India using both offline and online questionnaires. They performed the analysis using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM).

The authors investigated two sets of hypotheses – both direct and indirect (or mediation interactions). Results show that psychological empowerment and conflict management are significant in managing VTs. Also, perceived virtuality impacts team outcomes, i.e. perceived team performance, team satisfaction and subjective well-being.

The interplay between the behavioural team process (conflict management) and the emergent state (psychological empowerment) was examined. The study also helps broaden our understanding of the various psychological variables associated with teamwork in the context of VTs.

Findings from this study will aid in assessing the consequences of virtual teamwork at both individual and organisational levels, such as guiding the design and sustainability of VT arrangements, achieving higher productivity in VTs, and designing effective and interactive solutions in the virtual space.

The study examined the interplay between behavioural team processes (such as conflict management) and emergent states (such as psychological empowerment). The study also theorises and empirically tests the relationships between perceived virtuality and team outcomes (i.e. both affective and effectiveness). It may serve as a guide to understanding team dynamics in VTs better.

This exploratory study attempts to enhance the current understanding of the research and practice of VTs within a developing economy.

Crowdfunding is a rapidly growing phenomenon in theory and practice. A significant gap exists between theoretical literature and empirical evidence regarding the volumes of crowdfunding and the quality of firms that use crowdfunding.

This is one of the first articles that offers a theory of entrepreneurs' choice between debt, equity and crowdfunding (reward-based). It uses a game-theoretic model where information about the expected quality of products developed by entrepreneurs is asymmetric.

We argue that in most cases crowdfunding is at the end of pecking order. The payments in the form of pre-orders come before the project investment is made making the entrepreneur's profit independent of actual quality of the product creating a strong ground for cross-subsidies of low-quality entrepreneurs by high-quality entrepreneurs in a pooling equilibrium.

The paper is consistent with some well-known empirical phenomena on crowdfunding, e.g. relatively small volumes of crowdfunding vs traditional funding, low volumes of reward-based crowdfunding vs debt-based and equity-based crowdfunding and excess entry of low-quality firms to crowdfunding market. We further compare this approach with an approach based on asymmetric information about the cost of production/investment (as in Belleflamme et al. (2014) and some other papers) and argue that even though some predictions maybe close under some general assumptions both approaches lead to qualitatively different results.