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Extending the elaboration likelihood model (ELM), this study investigates the impact of social media influencers (SMI) on consumer well-being (CW) as well as the influence of CW on purchase intention.

A between-subjects experiment (macro- vs mega-influencer) was conducted to assess the proposed hypotheses. A total of 190 consumers participated in the experiment, and SmartPLS 3.3 was used for multigroup analyses.

Overall, argument quality (AQ), source's credibility (SC) and influencer's kindness positively predict CW, and CW predicts purchase intention. It was also found that SC is more important when information comes from a mega-influencer, whilst kindness is essential for a macro-influencer.

The results of this study imply that CW should be an essential component of influencer marketing strategy. Marketing managers should hire credible and kind influencers who can produce quality arguments. Additionally, the selection of SMI (macro- vs mega-influencer) should be aligned with the marketing objective and type of persuasion required.

This is one of the early attempts to extend ELM by introducing influencer kindness as a peripheral cue. Moreover, the study offers novelty by examining the effects of influencer characteristics (AQ, SC and kindness) on CW and comparing these effects across macro- and mega-influencers.

藉著擴展詳儘可能性模型, 本研究擬探討網絡紅人對消費者福祉的影響, 以及消費者福祉對購買意圖的影響。

研究人員進行被試間實驗 (中網紅對大型網紅) , 以對提出的假設進行評價。190名消費者參與實驗, 研究人員使用SmartPLS 3.3 進行多群組分析。

總的來說, 論點品質、來源可信度和網紅的仁慈體貼, 均能積極預測消費者福祉, 而消費者福祉亦可預測購買意圖。研究人員亦發現, 若資訊是來自大型網紅的話, 來源可信度則更形重要, 而對中網紅來說, 仁慈體貼則是不可或缺的。

研究結果暗示, 消費者福祉應是網紅市場營銷戰略的基本要素。市場經理應僱用可靠、仁慈體貼、並能提出優質論點的網紅。而且, 網絡紅人 (中網紅對大型網紅) 的挑選, 必須與營銷目標和說服的種類互相協調。

本研究為早期的嘗試, 利用引進網絡紅人的仁慈體貼作為周邊線索, 來擴展詳儘可能性模型。另外, 本研究探討網絡紅人的特徵 (論點品質、來源可信度和仁慈體貼) 會如何影響消費者福祉; 研究人員亦跨中網紅和大型網紅, 對這些影響進行比較, 就此而言, 本研究提供了創新的研究意念。

This study investigates the effectiveness of microfinance-backed entrepreneurship as a mechanism for the holistic empowerment of women.

This study employs a mixed-method research-design consisting of quasi-experimental design (quantitative approach) involving women, both entrepreneurs (132) and non-entrepreneurs (238), as well as in-depth semi-structured interviews (qualitative approach).

Quantitative analysis revealed that female entrepreneurs are better off than female non-entrepreneurs in terms of economic, social, political and psychological indicators of empowerment. However, relatively lesser impact was found in terms of political, and to an even smaller extent, social empowerment of women. Analysis of in-depth interviews corroborated these findings confirming that entrepreneurship serves as an effective tool for the holistic empowerment of women. However, non-entrepreneurs also exhibit social empowerment.

Given the restricted geographical ambit of the study, prudence ought to be exercised in drawing inferences applied to alternate contexts. That the vast majority of questionnaire respondents are illiterate presented a notable impediment in the process of collection of accurate responses.

Microfinance intervention ought to be specifically directed to cultivating entrepreneurship among women; in particular, to achieve the full benefits of empowerment, women availing microfinance ought to exert full control over their own business ventures.

In analyzing holistic empowerment through microfinance supported businesses set up by women, the study adds to the existing literature on women entrepreneurship and empowerment.

The purpose of this study to identify the role of women in political agenda at Azad Jammu Kashmir. The political parties are always considered main gatekeepers to women’s political representation. Existing scholarship highlights the significance of centralized political institutions (parties) with structured set up for the effective representation of women at different levels. However, the functioning of these institutions is greatly influenced by the social and cultural context of a country in which they operate.

This paper mainly analyzes social and cultural practices and those informal ways that operate within the exited democratic government setup and creates serious obstacles for women’s effective political representation at the party level. For this purpose, a qualitative research methodology is used to get the full insight of the issue at hand. The authors conducted 25 in-depth interviews with women members of three different political parties.

The results revealed that both (social context and political structure) have a significant impact on women’s nature and level of participation in the political processes in Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

Prevailing social and political context of Pakistan does not support a truly democratic and centralized political system. Parties are weak entities with the less democratic organizational structure, which ultimately have a negative impact on women’s political representation.

The research analyzes the influence of three environmental triggers, i.e. awareness, concern and knowledge on environmental attachment and green motivation that affect tourists' pro-environmental behavior in the Pakistan’s tourism industry. Furthermore, this study has analyzed the moderating role of moral obligation concerning environmental attachment and green motivation on tourists' pro-environmental behavior.

Data were gathered via a structured questionnaire by 237 local (domestic) tourists of Pakistan. Furthermore, the data were examined by employing SmartPLS.

Findings demonstrate that all three environmental triggers have a positive and significant relationship with environmental attachment and green motivation. Accordingly, environmental attachment and green motivation promote tourists' pro-environmental behavior. Furthermore, the moderating role of moral obligations has also been incorporated in the study. The finding reveals a strong and positive relationship among environmental attachment and tourists' pro-environmental behaviors during high moral obligations. In contrast, moral obligations do not moderate association between green motivation and tourists' pro-environmental behavior. Therefore, competent authorities should facilitate tourists to adopt environmentally friendly practices; which will ultimately promote pro-environmental behavior.

This study provides useful insights regarding the role of tourism in fostering environmental attachment and green motivation that sequentially influence tourist pro-environmental behavior. Secondly, this research has employed moral obligations as a moderator to identify the changes in tourists’ pro-environmental behavior based on individuals' ethical considerations. Hence, the study provides an in-depth insight into tourists' behavior. Lastly, the present research offers effective strategies for the tourism sector and other competent authorities to increase green activities that can embed the importance of the environment among individuals.

Diagnosing brain tumors is a process that demands a significant amount of time and is heavily dependent on the proficiency and accumulated knowledge of radiologists. Over the traditional methods, deep learning approaches have gained popularity in automating the diagnosis of brain tumors, offering the potential for more accurate and efficient results. Notably, attention-based models have emerged as an advanced, dynamically refining and amplifying model feature to further elevate diagnostic capabilities. However, the specific impact of using channel, spatial or combined attention methods of the convolutional block attention module (CBAM) for brain tumor classification has not been fully investigated.

To selectively emphasize relevant features while suppressing noise, ResNet50 coupled with the CBAM (ResNet50-CBAM) was used for the classification of brain tumors in this research.

The ResNet50-CBAM outperformed existing deep learning classification methods like convolutional neural network (CNN), ResNet-CBAM achieved a superior performance of 99.43%, 99.01%, 98.7% and 99.25% in accuracy, recall, precision and AUC, respectively, when compared to the existing classification methods using the same dataset.

Since ResNet-CBAM fusion can capture the spatial context while enhancing feature representation, it can be integrated into the brain classification software platforms for physicians toward enhanced clinical decision-making and improved brain tumor classification.

This research has not been published anywhere else.

An increasing demand of agricultural intensification and value addition necessitates the use of improved inputs such as improved seed. Smallholder farmers contribute about 70% of agricultural production in Tanzania. Agriculture sector in Tanzania contributes about 24.1% of the GDP, 30% of exports and 65% of industrial raw materials. Thus, agriculture development, economic growth and industrialization are inseparable. Due to the nature of the product, smallholder farmers cannot judge the overall excellence of seed at the time of buying. This paper assessed quality uncertainty in maize and vegetable seed and its implication for market exchange between farmers and seed sellers in Kilolo district, Iringa Tanzania. The study used a random sample of 130 smallholder farmers and representatives from ten seed companies. Asymmetric information prevails between the two trading sides, i.e. sellers and buyers, leading into quality uncertainty. Moreover, product augmentation is profoundly overlooked whereby most of seed companies have not augmented their products. Because an improved seed is a quintessential example of an experience good, quality uncertainty of some crop varieties under field conditions favored some seed brands to be used more by farmers compared to others. This paper offers a thorough deduction on quality uncertainty under farmers' field condition and its implication on market exchange. It adds information in the body of knowledge on how an improved seed can contribute to sustainable production of food and industrial raw materials, which is a step towards desired industrialization agenda in Tanzania.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of external stakeholders-related corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities (local community and suppliers) on customer value co-creation behavior. This study also aims to examine the mediating role of relationship marketing orientation (RMO) on the relationship of CSR activities and customer value co-creation behavior.

The main problem of dichotomy between customers and the management was existing in banking sector so that’s why through purposive sampling, banking customers were selected for data collection through a self-administered questionnaire. Structural equation modeling was used to test the proposed hypotheses.

The present study found that both local community-related and supplier-related CSR activities have a positive impact on customer value co-creation behavior. Relationship marketing orientation mediates between the link of CSR activities and customer value co-creation behavior. The strength of RMO in CSR supplier and customer value co-creation behavior is found to be more dominant.

This study is restricted to one country under-investigation; therefore, it can be replicated with a larger and more geographically diverse sample.

This study offers insights to the banking sector that local community-related CSR activities contribute to the value co-creation behavior and minimize the social problems of Pakistan.

The findings of this study highlight that top management of banks can enhance the customer’s participation in services by using valuable CSR activities. The results imply the importance of interactions between the recipient of services and service providers. Stakeholder theory has previously been applied to examine stakeholders’ value maximization; this study uses stakeholder theory to examine shareholders’ value co-creation.

Este estudio investiga el impacto de las actividades de responsabilidad social corporativa (RSC) relacionadas con las partes interesadas externas (comunidad local y proveedores) en el comportamiento de co-creación del valor del cliente. Este estudio también tiene como objetivo examinar el papel mediador de la orientación del marketing relacional (OMR) en la relación de las actividades de responsabilidad social corporativa y el comportamiento de co-creación del valor del cliente.

El principal problema de dicotomía entre los clientes y la gerencia existía en el sector bancario, por lo que a través de un muestreo intencional, los clientes bancarios fueron seleccionados para la recolección de datos a través de un cuestionario auto-administrado. Con el fin de verificar las hipótesis propuestas, se empleó un modelo de ecuaciones estructurales.

El presente estudio encontró que tanto las actividades de RSC relacionadas con la comunidad local como las relacionadas con los proveedores tienen un impacto positivo en el comportamiento de co-creación del valor del cliente. La orientación del marketing relacional media entre el vínculo de las actividades de responsabilidad social corporativa y el comportamiento de co-creación del valor del cliente. La fuerza de la OMR en el comportamiento de co-creación del valor del cliente y el proveedor de RSC se encontró que era más dominante.

Este estudio se limita a un único país, por lo tanto, podría ser replicado con una muestra más amplia y con mayor diversidad geográfica.

Este estudio ofrece información al sector bancario de que las actividades de RSE relacionadas con la comunidad local contribuyen al comportamiento de co-creación de valor y minimizan los problemas sociales de Pakistán.

Los resultados de este estudio ofrecen a la alta dirección de los bancos la posibilidad de mejorar la participación de los clientes en los servicios mediante la utilización de valiosas actividades de RSC. Los resultados implican la importancia de las interacciones entre el receptor de los servicios y los proveedores de servicios. La teoría de las partes interesadas se ha aplicado anteriormente para examinar la maximización del valor de las partes interesadas; este estudio utiliza la teoría de las partes interesadas para examinar la co-creación de valor de los accionistas.

Nurses' turnover intention has become a major issue in developing countries with high power distance cultures. Therefore, the authors attempt to investigate how turnover intention among nurses' can be reduced through paternalistic leadership (PL). The authors further investigate the mediating role of job satisfaction between the associations of benevolent, moral and authoritarian dimensions of PL with turnover intention. Finally, the authors examined perceived organizational support (POS) as a conditional variable between job satisfaction and turnover intention.

The authors collected data from 374 nurses working in public and private hospitals of high power distance culture using a questionnaire-based survey on convenience basis.

Structural equation modeling confirms that benevolent and moral dimensions of PL positively affect nurses' job satisfaction which helps them reduce their turnover intention. While the authoritarian dimension of PL negatively affects job satisfaction to further enhance their turnover intention. In addition, the authors noted POS as a conditional variable to trigger the negative effect of job satisfaction on turnover intention.

The authors used a cross-sectional design to collect responses and ensured the absence of common method variance through Harman's Single factor test.

This study identified the mechanism (job satisfaction and POS) through which benevolent, moral and authoritative dimensions of PL predict turnover intention among nurses working in high power distance culture.

護士有離職意向，在擁有高權力距離文化的發展中國家，已成為一個重大的問題。因此，我們擬探討如何可以透過採用家長式領導、把護士離職的意欲減低，繼而研究工作滿足感，在離職意向與家長式領導中仁慈、道德和獨裁這三個層面的關係中所起的中介作用。最後，我們就組織支持感，作為是工作滿足感與離職意向之間的一個條件變數，進行了研究。

本研究透過採用在便利的基礎上進行的問卷調查，從374名在高權力距離文化的公營和私營醫院內工作的護士取得數據，進行分析。

結構方程模型證實了家長式領導中的仁慈和道德這兩個層面，會對可減低護士離職意欲的工作滿足感，產生積極的影響。家長式領導中的獨裁層面、則會對護士的工作滿足程度產生負面的影響，繼而增強其離職意欲。而且，我們確認了組織支持感是一個會增強工作滿足感與離職意向之間負相聯的條件變數。

我們以橫斷面的設計法來收集回應，並透過採用哈曼 (Harman) 的單因素檢定法，來確保共同方法變異不會存在。

本研究確定了一個 (工作滿足感與組織支持感) 機制，透過這機制，家長式領導中的仁慈、道德和獨裁這三個層面可預測於高權力距離文化工作的護士的離職意向。

The purpose of studying the impact of crude oil and natural gas prices on the Vietnamese stock market is to understand the relationship between energy prices and the overall performance of the financial markets. As Vietnam is an energy-dependent country, fluctuations in crude oil and natural gas prices can significantly affect various industries, including manufacturing, inflation, transportation, energy production and economic growth. These sectors are often sensitive to changes in energy costs, which can lead to shifts in corporate profitability and investor sentiment. By analyzing how crude oil and natural gas prices influence the Vietnamese stock market, policymakers and investors can provide deeper insights into the economic risks and opportunities related to energy price volatility. This paper can also provide valuable information for decision-making in sectors such as economic forecasting, risk management and investment strategies.

Using monthly data from January 2006 to March 2024, data were collected from the Vietnamese stock market and the OPEC organization for oil prices, while data on natural gas were obtained from the EIA. The data were analyzed using vector error correction (VEC) model, impulse response function, variance decomposition test and asymmetric reactions method; the study tries to ascertain the short-term and long-term dynamic relationships between the shocks of the crude oil price and natural gas prices and their effects on the movement of the stock price. In addition, the GARCH model is applied to measure the volatility of crude oil and natural gas prices.

Crude oil price shocks have a statistically significant impact on most Vietnamese real stock market indices, except for the utility and consumer indices and some energy companies. Conversely, natural gas price shocks do not significantly affect on Vietnamese stock market indices, except for the energy index and some energy companies. Some “important” of both crude oil price and natural gas price shocks tend to depress the stock returns of energy companies. An increase in both crude oil and natural gas volatility can lead to heightened speculation in certain indices, particularly the energy and industrial indices, as well as in some energy companies. This heightened speculation often results in elevated of their stock returns.

This study provides valuable insights into the field of study examining how fluctuations in the prices of oil and gas, particularly during major crisis periods such as global financial crisis, COVID-19 pandemic and the Russo-Ukrainian War, affect financial markets.

This paper critically reviews and analyzes the trends in waqf studies within the Islamic economics literature. It analyzes the recent developments and debates in waqf reform and advances the argument for prioritizing research on waqf economics; the waqf dimension that is concerned with modelling how to utilize it to enhance productivity, consumption, redistribution, investment and saving, and generally contribute sustainably towards poverty reduction, economic empowerment and development.

The paper is conceptual in nature, focusing on a systematic historical analytical review of waqf studies in Islamic economics literature.

Despite the documented historic role of waqf in constructing the Muslim socio-economic architecture as the third economic sector and a mechanism for civilizational development and renewal, it received little attention in the early writings on modern Islamic economics. While the past one decade has witnessed a renewed interest in waqf research, most studies focus on its legal, juristic and administrative aspects in addition to the nostalgic reflections on its past glories. Little attention is comparatively given to the socio-economic aspect, which represents the actual raison d’être for its institutionalization.

An important task ahead of the current generation of Islamic economists is to formulate waqf-based development models that are rooted in proper diagnosis and deep understanding of the current socio-economic realities of the OIC member countries for the purpose of uplifting living standards and stimulating sustainable socio-economic development.

The paper contributes to the debate on priorities in waqf studies and practice and can trigger further discourses and research on the future of research in waqf economics.