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This study analyses the advantages and weaknesses of using Facebook to aid the learning of Japanese as a foreign language.

A questionnaire survey was conducted to collect data from 100 Hong Kong Japanese language learners (who are generally fluent in Chinese and English), ranging from total amateur to advanced learners (Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) qualified at different levels).

The authors' results suggest that the advantages of using Facebook to help learn Japanese include: (1) serving as a free-of-charge, casual, and convenient learning platform; (2) enriching learners' knowledge beyond the language learning and (3) encouraging interactive and collaborative learning with other users for practicing the language. However, the low credibility and unstructured educational materials posted on Facebook and being easily distracted by other Facebook feeds are the major weaknesses of learning a language through Facebook. Furthermore, the authors' result shows that Facebook is especially effective for Japanese learning when learners fall into either one of the following groups: young, female, or intermediate (N2/3) learners.

Scant studies focus on the aid of learning Japanese via Facebook, especially Hong Kong learners' perceptions, or generally in the East. Therefore, this study aims to fill this research gap. The authors' findings will facilitate the students, teachers, and language institutions from Hong Kong and other countries to improve the students' effectiveness in learning and teaching Japanese.

While the library has remained a preferred place of learning and received a positive perception in all aspects, the current space planning, as categorized in the “four-space model,” does not seem to address user needs well. The purpose of this article is to explore the correlations of user perceptions, academic library usage and social capital.

This research presented a new approach to understanding the academic library's role by surveying 120 users about their preferred place on the campus, actual usage, and perceptions of the library physically and remotely. Correlation analysis between library use and user activities was performed.

The findings indicate that the library demonstrates attributes from all four levels in the learning space hierarchy, providing an ideal learning space for students. However, our results do not support academic libraries as the breeding ground of social capital.

As the data of this study were collected during the COVID-19 pandemic period, the findings may provide us with insights on how library users have adjusted themselves in using these public facilities with social distancing in their minds. The findings also provide implications for re-designing the library places to meet the users' needs and make it favorable learning commons to students in both the pandemic and post-pandemic eras.

Our nation at last seems to be rousing herself to put forth her full strength, and the organisation of industry is receiving at the hands of the new National Government no less attention than the armies that are springing into being under the magnificent direction of the new Knight of the Garter, Lord Kitchener. Hearts are beating high with hope and determination to help in every way possible in this vast effort to uphold the right, and the call comes afresh to each one of us to do everything in our power at this time of National need. In the present number we gladly publish more names of comrades who have joined the forces, but could wish they were still more numerous. Are there not others who can and who will join the noble army of heroes prepared to face the enemy in the field for faith and Motherland?

This chapter conceptualizes forms and processes of erasure and visibility of migrant domestic workers through the analysis of interview data, media coverage, and public policy. This chapter builds on the existing literature on foreign domestic labor by synthesizing a framework to better represent the mechanisms that produce instances of visibility and erasure; these include transnational forces of erasure like sexism, xenophobia, and domestic labor stigma that interact with country-specific policies and norms. Within this framework of visibility and erasure, we also delineate different aspects of each, such as spatial erasure, erasure in the media, and self-erasure. Finally, this chapter explores how each of these components interconnect into a system of erasure, each aspect enabling another aspect in dampening the individuality of migrant domestic workers. This chapter is intended to illuminate the realities of erasure with careful specificity, while still crediting domestic workers for their resilience and creativity in promoting their own visibility.

Mobile information technology devices (MITDs) are of special interest for researchers who seek to understand the role of these devices on employees’ work-life balance (WLB). The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of MITDs on employees’ WLB.

This paper uses semi-structured interviews to investigate the role of MITDs on employees’ WLB.

The findings underscore the important role of MITDs in terms of the attainment of flexibility (how, where, and when work is done), which is significant for achieving WLB. However, the use of MITDs has blurred the division between work and non-work domains. This has inadvertently lengthened employees’ working hours, has affected their family relationships, and affected their general health and well-being. The evidence suggests that MITDs have the potential to improve WLB but could also lead to work-life conflict if not properly managed.

The study calls for a re-examination of WLB policies and practices, specifically border theory, in order to ensure that MITDs can enhance productivity without inadvertently resulting in poor WLB.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the features of health misinformation on social media sites (SMSs). The primary goal of the study is to investigate the salient features of health misinformation and to develop a tool of features to help users and social media companies identify health misinformation.

Empirical data include 1,168 pieces of health information that were collected from WeChat, a dominant SMS in China, and the obtained data were analyzed through a process of open coding, axial coding and selective coding. Then chi-square test and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were adopted to identify salient features of health misinformation.

The findings show that the features of health misinformation on SMSs involve surface features, semantic features and source features, and there are significant differences in the features of health misinformation between different topics. In addition, the list of features was developed to identify health misinformation on SMSs.

This study raises awareness of the key features of health misinformation on SMSs. It develops a list of features to help users distinguish health misinformation as well as help social media companies filter health misinformation.

Theoretically, this study contributes to the academic discourse on health misinformation on SMSs by exploring the features of health misinformation. Methodologically, the paper serves to enrich the literature around health misinformation and SMSs that have hitherto mostly drawn data from health websites.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a novel resource availability assessment for supply chain (SC) configuration. This approach involves understanding both local resource availability and the demand-side implications of supplying global/regional markets as part of a more holistic SC design activity that incorporates local environmental factors.

The proposed framework was derived from literature analysis, bridging relevant literature domains – natural capital theory, industrial ecology and SC configuration – in order to develop design rules for future resource-constrained industrial systems. In order to test the proposed framework, an exploratory case study, based on secondary data, was conducted.

Research findings suggest that this approach might better identify relationships and vulnerabilities between natural resource availability and the viability of regional/global SCs. The research suggests that natural resource availability depends upon three elements – local resource consumption, global resource demand and external environmental factors.

The framework has two main limitations. The current work is focussed on a single industry case study used to exemplify the approach. Second, the framework does not consider other possible industries, which might enter or leave the specific location during the company’s operation. Furthermore, no assessment was made of the migration of populations within the area.

For practitioners, such as those in the agri-food sector, the resource availability assessment framework informs SC configuration design. For policymakers, the research aims to provide policy guidelines, which can help to improve water-saving strategies for a particular region. At a broader societal level, the research raises awareness of resource scarcity amongst industrial players and the wider public.

A resource availability assessment framework has been proposed, suggesting that the dynamics of both global and local resource demand, in conjunction with changing local environmental factors, can over time significantly deteriorate a firm’s natural resource impact on the local environment. Thus, the framework seeks to deliver mechanisms to evaluate potential vulnerabilities and solutions available to firms using a more proactive SC design method and to apply reconfiguration processes that account for natural resources, based primarily on network and resource attributes.

The purpose of this paper is to validate Tsiotsou’s (2012) sport team brand personality scale in a new country (Australia) and segment (Generation Y) and extend its use from sport teams to individual athletes. This paper also explores the scale’s predictive power in an athlete’s role model influence.

An online panel survey with 560 responses from Australian Generation Y consumers was obtained. Structural equation modelling was used to test and validate the scale.

This paper confirmed the sport team brand personality scale can be applied to an individual athlete. Three dimensions of the scale, namely, competitiveness, morality and authenticity, were found to have predictive power in an athlete’s role model influence. Authenticity was the strongest predictor, followed by morality and competitiveness.

Individual athlete brand personality is powerful in influencing how Australian Generation Y consumers identify with their favourite athlete as a role model. These insights assist brand and marketing managers to use athletes as part of their communication strategies regarding brand and product endorsements.

This research addresses Tsiotsou’s (2012) call to test the robustness and external validity of the sport team brand personality scale and to empirically test how the scale can predict outcomes. The authors succeeded in validating and extending the sport brand personality scale to an individual athlete level in a new country and consumer segment. The scale was found to have predictive power in an athlete’s role model influence.

Waiting in services commonly reduces customer satisfaction and has a considerable and enduring negative effect on the overall evaluation of a service. Waiting may even lead consumers to abandon a service or to avoid that service on future occasions. This paper aims to advance the understanding of the role played by culture in shaping the perceptions of waiting in services. In doing so, the study aims to demonstrate that solutions for managing waiting in services should be culturally appropriate.

This study uses in-depth interviews and consumer diaries. The sample includes expatriates from most continents living in Catalonia, Spain.

The study confirms existing theories on cultural differences in time orientations in a services marketing context. It uncovers a range of culture-bound rules of waiting and differences in cultural interpretations of what it means to wait and even whether waiting is occurring or not.

This study questions the applicability of some standard waiting solutions across cultural contexts. Companies that operate in different cultures should consider their approach to managing waiting times according to the cultural time orientations of their customer base. The cultural aspects of time-based service guarantees and time-rationing strategies are considered.

This paper takes an innovate approach to “uncovering” the implicit rules of waiting by asking expatriate consumers about their waiting experiences while living abroad. Expatriates are in a unique position to identify these differences, as they have a cultural point of comparison with their home countries.

This study aims to distinguish between Muslim and non-Muslim consumers regarding celebrity influence on brands and purchase intention, and assess the relative importance of celebrity credibility, in terms of physical attractiveness, trustworthiness, expertise and product–brand congruency. The study also researches attitudes towards brands, and purchase intention and their ability to predict consumers’ religion.

The research aim was achieved through an empirical study involving a self-administered questionnaire distributed to members of the public recruited from the Federal Territory of Labuan, Malaysia. Data were collected from 250 Muslim and non-Muslim consumers using a convenience sampling method. Their participation was purely voluntary. Multiple discriminant analysis via Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) computer program version 20 was used to answer the research questions.

Empirical results of the multiple discriminant analysis indicated that celebrity expertise and attitudes towards brands strongly predict allocation to Muslim consumers rather than non-Muslim consumers. The relative importance of the celebrity credibility aspects from Muslim consumers’ perspectives was: celebrity expertise, celebrity attitudes towards brands, purchase intention, product–brand congruency and physical attractiveness. Muslim consumers are found to choose expertise but not trustworthiness. Muslim consumers’ faith or trust may be linked to the perception that products and services endorsed by the celebrities are in line with Shariah principles which are consistent with Islamic principles.

Respondents were randomly drawn from the Muslim and non-Muslim population of the Federal Territory of Labuan, Malaysia. Consequently, they may not represent the entire population of Malaysia. Future researchers could overcome the limits of generalizability by increasing sample coverage.

The paper empirically justified the discriminating function among celebrity credibility elements in terms of physical attractiveness, trustworthiness, expertise, and product–brand congruency of Muslim and non-Muslim consumer attitudes towards brands and purchase intention. Thus, the results of this study offer a new forward motion to the findings of prior studies on consumer perception of celebrity credibility, which is not much covered in the literature in the Malaysian context between Muslim and non-Muslim consumer perspectives. The findings are able to add literature on Muslim consumer behaviour in the use of celebrities, as these celebrities could act as inspirational to the consumers.