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Independent component analysis (ICA) is a widely-used blind source separation technique. ICA has been applied to many applications. ICA is usually utilized as a black box, without understanding its internal details. Therefore, in this paper, the basics of ICA are provided to show how it works to serve as a comprehensive source for researchers who are interested in this field. This paper starts by introducing the definition and underlying principles of ICA. Additionally, different numerical examples in a step-by-step approach are demonstrated to explain the preprocessing steps of ICA and the mixing and unmixing processes in ICA. Moreover, different ICA algorithms, challenges, and applications are presented.

The present study examines the initial working capital policy (WCP) and its evolution for newly established manufacturing firms.

Using panel data of 162 firms over a period of 10 years, the study analyses the persistence-cum-convergence in WCP over the subsequent years through descriptive analysis and difference of means test. Further, the prevalence of ß – convergence, and σ-convergence has been examined using standard least squares regression, dynamic panel analysis and the Wald test.

The results indicate that sample firms continue to follow the initial WCP in the subsequent years with a gradual convergence in the WCP. Alternatively, the firms with aggressive (conservative) WCP at the time of incorporation will continue following it. Further, the firms with aggressive initial WCP have witnessed higher growth than those with conservative initial WCP.

Findings will assist managers and practitioners to understand the dynamics of WCP over the life cycle of the firm and select appropriate WCP as certain policies lead to certain growth paths.

Though working capital management has been recognized as a critical managerial decision, limited research is available on its evolution, especially for newly established manufacturing companies in an emerging economy. Current research attempts to fill this gap and provide valuable insights for the effective management of liquidity.

This study investigates the relationship between feelings of loneliness in the workplace, life satisfaction, affect, hope and expressivity among hotel employees.

The research model was tested via structural equation modeling based on the empirical data collected from hotel employees in Antalya, Turkey.

The research findings suggest that emotional deprivation and social companionship have a significant impact on life satisfaction, that life satisfaction has a significant impact on positive and negative emotions, and that positive and negative emotions have the same impact on pathways and agencies.

The research findings should assist researchers and practitioners to understand the behaviors of hotel employees in continuous interaction and relationship with individuals to motivate them while providing more effective services.

This study aims to investigate the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in reducing employees’ negative emotions. Based on social information processing, a new conceptual framework was developed and tested in the Indian context.

Cross-sectional design was used in the study. A total of 240 managers of financial institutions were surveyed through a self-administered questionnaire, and the responses were collected using a convenience sampling technique.

The findings indicated that CSR induces compassion and reduces employees’ negative emotions. Contrary to expectations, compassion did not emerge as a mediator in the relationship between CSR and negative emotions.

The findings contribute to the literature by scrutinizing the persuading influence of CSR on employees’ negative emotions directly and indirectly through compassion. Furthermore, this study also tested the moderating effects of positive emotion in the relationship between CSR and negative emotions. The linkage between CSR and negative emotions was established by introducing the social information processing mechanism, adding another novelty to the literature.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has had a tremendous negative effect on the economies around the world by infusing uncertainty into supply chains. In this paper, the authors address two important research questions (RQs): (1) did COVID-19 wage subsidies impact small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to become more flexible towards the SMEs' business customers and (2) can such flexibility be a source for greater resilience to the crisis? As a result, the authors investigate the relationship between governmental wage subsidies and SMEs' flexibility norms towards the SMEs' business customers (study 1). The authors further uncover when and how flexibility towards existing customers contributes to SME resilience (study 2).

The authors frame the inquiry under the resource dependence theory (RDT) and behavioural additionality principle. The authors use survey methodology and test the assumptions in study 1 (n = 225) and study 2 (n = 95) on a sample of SMEs from various business-to-business (B2B) industries in Croatia.

Overall, in study 1, the authors find that SMEs that receive governmental wage subsidies have greater flexibility norms. However, this relationship is significantly conditioned by SMEs' competitive profile. SMEs that strongly rely on innovation are more willing to behave flexibly when receiving subsidies, whereas SMEs driven by branding do not. Study 2 sheds light on when flexibility towards existing customers increases SME resilience. Findings show that flexibility norms are negatively related to resilience, but this relationship is becoming less negative amongst SMEs with lower financial dependence on the largest customer.

This study extends RDT in the area of firm–government relationships by showing that wage subsidies became a source of power for the Government and a source of dependency for SMEs. In such cases, the SMEs receiving those subsidies align with the governmental agenda and exhibit higher flexibility towards the SMEs' customers. Drawing arguments from behavioural additionality, the authors show that this effect varies due to SMEs' attention and organisational priorities resulting from different competitive profiles. Ultimately, the authors showcase that higher flexibility norms can contribute to resilience if the SME restructures its dependency by having a less-concentrated customer base.

This study offers an empirical framework for how hotel employees CSR perceptions affect their job satisfaction by incorporating the parallel mediating roles of organizational identification and psychological contract fulfillment. In addition, it examines the moderator effects of employees' CSR-induced attributions on the constructed mediated model, providing a powerful lens through which to evaluate when and how employees' CSR perceptions influence organizational identification and psychological contract fulfillment.

The study use PLS-SEM techniques to analyze a sample of 520 employees from 49 luxury hotels with 4–5 stars in Khanh Hoa province, Vietnam.

The results show that CSR positively influences job satisfaction through the mediating role of psychological contract fulfillment and organizational identification. Besides, attachment styles also play moderator role in the relationship between CSR and psychological contract fulfillment/organizational identification.

The discoveries elucidated within this research endeavor proffer actionable discernments to be earnestly contemplated by professionals entrenched in the hotel industry, earnestly aspiring to ameliorate the contentment of their workforce and, concomitantly, augment the overarching efficacy of their organizational operations.

This study provides human resource departments with insights and suggestions for maximizing the efficacy of CSR implementation in the hotel industry.

The purpose of this study is to empirically examine the relationships between barrier-breakers and customers’ intention to fully adopt digital payment methods (DPMs).

Survey data were analyzed using statistical methods focusing on hypothesis testing with an ordinal regression model and moderation analysis using the PROCESS macro extension. Participants were divided into two groups of customers in Sweden: adopters-accepters, i.e. young bank customers and adopters-resisters, i.e. members of a formally organized group opposed to a cashless society.

The findings revealed that only the credibility barrier-breaker could increase the adopters-accepters’ intention to fully adopt DPMs. Credibility also seemed to be an important barrier-breaker for the adopters-resisters, as were perceived usefulness and social influence. Additional analyses showed that the impersonalization barrier reduces the impact of the barrier-breakers on DPM adoption.

Retail banks and merchants can use these results as a guide to what barrier-breakers might affect various customers’ intention to fully adopt DPMs, and to act accordingly. The impersonalization barrier also merits attention when creating an emotional connection to customers who use DPMs.

This study provides empirically based knowledge of the influence of barrier-breakers on the intention of customers, categorized as adopters-accepters and adopters-resisters, to fully adopt DPMs, and highlights the importance of maintaining a human touch in the post-COVID-19 digital era.

The purpose of this research is the exploration of online complainants' revenge based on their consumer-brand relationship strength and received webcare. The authors introduce inter-failures (i.e. the perceived number of earlier independent service failures that a customer has experienced with the same brand involved in the current service failure) as the central frame condition.

To test our hypotheses, both a scenario-based online experiment (n = 316) and an online survey (n = 492) were conducted.

With an increasing number of inter-failures, online complainants with a high-relationship strength move from the “love is blind” effect (no inter-failures) to the “love becomes hate” effect (multiple inter-failures), when they ultimately become more revengeful than their low-relationship strength counterparts. In addition, the authors show that in the case of no or few inter-failures, accommodative webcare has a lasting positive effect over no/defensive webcare for both low- and high-relationship complainants. More importantly, however, when consumers have experienced multiple inter-failures, accommodative webcare becomes ineffective (for low-relationship complainants) or boomerangs by cultivating revenge towards the brand (among high-relationship complainants), but not strategic avoidance.

The findings have pronounced implications for the literature on customer–brand relationships following service failures and the literature, which predominantly emphasizes the unconditionally positive effects of accommodative webcare.

This study is the first that simultaneously considers the prior customer–brand relationship, inter-failures and webcare to explain online complainants' revenge.

This paper aims to demonstrate that online complainants’ reactions to a company’s service recovery attempts (webcare) can significantly vary across two different types of dissatisfied customers (“vindictives” vs “constructives”), who have dramatically diverging complaint goal orientations.

Online multi-country survey among 812 adult consumers who recently had a dissatisfying brand experience and turned to a marketer-generated social media site to voice an online complaint for achieving their ultimate complaining goals. Scenario-based online experiment for cross-validating the survey findings.

Results suggest that “vindictive complainants” – driven dominantly by brand-adverse motives – are immune to any form of webcare, while “constructive complainants” – interested in restoring the customer-brand relationship – react more sensitively. For the latter, “no-responses” often trigger detrimental brand-related reactions (e.g. unfavorable brand image), whereas “defensive responses” are likely to stimulate post-webcare negative word-of-mouth.

This research identifies the gains and harms of (un-)desired webcare. By doing so, it not only sheds light on the circumstances when marketers have to fear negative effects (e.g. negative word-of-mouth) but also provides insights into the conditions when such effects are unlikely. While the findings of the cross-sectional survey are validated with an online experiment, findings should be interpreted with care as other complaining contexts should be further investigated.

Marketers have to expect a serious “backfiring effect” from an unexpected source, namely, consumers who were initially benevolent toward the involved brand but who received an inappropriate response.

This research is one of the first research studies that enables marketers to identify situations when webcare is likely to backfire on the brand after a service failure.

The purpose of this study is to empirically investigate the relationship between a set of functional and social–psychological barriers and bank customers’ intention to fully adopt digital payment methods (DPMs).

The data were collected via an online questionnaire sent to two samples of Swedish bank customers, namely, adopters-accepters (i.e. young bank customers) and adopters-resisters (i.e. a group opposing a cashless society). Hypotheses were tested by applying an ordinal regression model.

Regarding the adopters-accepters, privacy and access barriers can be obstacles to the full adoption of DPMs. The adopters-resisters perceived all five studied barriers as significant, though only the impersonalisation barrier seemed to matter when the barriers were related to their intention to fully adopt DPMs. Moreover, the results suggest that barriers have a stronger negative effect on the intention to fully adopt among those with extensive experience of DPMs.

Based on the barriers affecting the intention of particular groups of bank customers to adopt DPMs, banks could implement customised measures to promote the ongoing development of digital financial services.

In this under-researched area, this study provides empirical knowledge of the influence of various barriers on the intention of bank customers characterised as adopters-accepters and adopters-resisters to fully adopt DPMs.