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This study aims to investigate the influence of the service concept on customer acquisition and when the relationship is moderated with manager’s experience in Savings and Credit Cooperative Societies (SACCOS) within Dar es Salaam City, Tanzania.

The study adopts a cross-sectional research design and utilizes simple random sampling to select 226 respondents, all of whom are managers of SACCOS in Tanzania. Data were collected through a questionnaire and analyzed using a partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

The findings indicate that service concept have a highly statistically significant impact on customer acquisition, with a p-value of less than 0.05. Conversely, managers’ experience also influences customer acquisition by the p-value of less than 0.05. The result also confirms the significance influence of positive moderating effect of manager’s experience on the relationship between service concept and customer acquisition, with a p-value of less than 0.05, therefore it shows that manager’s experience facilitate the influence of service concept to customer acquisition.

The findings of this study provide valuable insights for SACCOS aiming to thrive and attract more customers. By understanding the nuances of service concepts, these institutions can refine their strategies for customer acquisition effectively.

The study’s insights into the composite effect of service concepts hold significance for SACCOS seeking to enhance their customer acquisition strategies enhanced by manager’s experience. These findings contribute new perspectives to the SACCOS and other related financial services sector, offering fresh insights into innovation and customer-centric approaches.

The purpose of this study is to identify the reasons for visiting the urban park Antonis Tritsis in Athens, Greece, focusing on visitors’ motives and perceived characteristics of the park. When urban parks are located in areas that are particularly densely populated are characterized as green lungs and are easily accessible to the residents of the municipality. Therefore, the aim of the study is to analyze both the motives and perceived characteristics that visitors attribute in the case of the biggest urban park in Athens, Greece.

The survey was conducted from August 2018 to March 2019 and the responses of 377 visitors were collected. Antonis Tritsis Park is the largest metropolitan park in the Attica, Greece. A principal component factor analysis was used and two-factor models were developed to determine the reasons for visiting the Tritsis Park.

The application of factor analysis revealed the presence of three components in case of the motives for the visit and six components concerning the perceived characteristics of the park. Results suggest that visitors’ motives are related to environmental and social benefits. The park contributes to increased real estate value. Educational and cultural activities are also found as important benefits, whereas lack of safety and limited infrastructure are considered important barriers to revisit the park.

Recognizing the motivations of visitors, policymakers will be able to configure the park infrastructure according to the stated preferences.

Recognizing the motivations of visitors and the perceived characteristics of the park, policymakers will be able to configure the park infrastructure according to the stated preferences. If the services provided by the Tritsis Park are based on the preferences of its visitors, their satisfaction can be maximized and consequently improve the quality of life and contribute to sustainable development.

The innovation of the study is to analyze not only the perceived positive characteristics of the park but also barriers that affect visitors’ revisit intention toward the urban park of Antonis Tritsis. This is important in the case of metropolitan areas because the researchers understand what benefits are provided to them and how public administration should manage barriers to visiting urban parks so as to promote effective sustainability.

The Open University (OU) United Kingdom manages two platforms for hosting Open Educational Resources (OER): OpenLearn, delivering the OU’s OER, reaching over10 million learners a year, attracting a mostly UK audience, and OpenLearn Create, reaching 3 million learners a year, where anyone can create and share OER, attracting a mostly international – non-UK – audience. Both platforms release OER using a Creative Commons license and afford accessibility to learning materials specifically catering to the needs of underserved groups, in other words, individuals or groups who may have limited access to education or continuing professional development (CPD) either as recipient or as educator. Using case studies, research data analytics and survey data, this chapter reveals how the approach to delivering OER on OpenLearn Create fosters community engagement and outreach across a broad spectrum of projects in a range of languages and format often to those with restricted access to professional development within organizations. The chapter discusses weaknesses in the platform’s usability for delivering online courses, but strengths and recommendations for its use as an adaptable project-based tool. Research data also reveal that where an institution is prepared to minimally support the provision of such a platform, the contribution to humanizing education for OER projects globally is great.

The purpose of the paper is to show that traditionally, kefir was obtained by fermenting milk with kefir grains. Wide variation in microflora of kefir grains makes it difficult to obtain an optimal and uniform starter culture necessary for obtaining a quality kefir. Reviewed literature on microbiological and technological innovations in kefir production would enrich the scientific knowledge resulting in production of kefir with superior physical, chemical, nutritional, therapeutic and sanitary qualities.

An attempt is made to highlight the microbiological and technological aspects of kefir production with regard to the microflora of kefir grains, suitability of different types of milk, treatment of milk, starter inoculation and incubation, packaging, storage and post‐production treatment of kefir as well as methods of preservation of kefir grains.

Diverse microflora of kefir grains is the prime cause for the wide variation in kefir quality. Production of kefir is based on symbiotic relation between lactic acid bacteria and yeasts and the type of milk, their heat‐treatment, size of inoculating starters and temperature of incubation influence their metabolic activities. Application of a suitable combination of lactic acid bacteria and yeasts would enable production of kefir with more uniform product with specific properties Packaging of kefir in a suitable container and storage at low temperature are suggested to retain its qualities.

Fermentation of milk with a suitable starter combination consisting of lactic acid bacteria and yeasts rather than application of kefir grains during the production of kefir would be more scientific to yield a product with enhanced nutritional and therapeutic qualities.

Kefir, the self‐carbonated beverage, possesses nutritional attributes due to its content of vitamins, protein and minerals and therapeutic attributes contributed by its antibacterial spectrum, gastro‐intestinal proliferation, hypocholesterolemic effect, anti carcinogenic effect, L(+) lactic acid content, β‐galactosidase activity and bacterial colonization. Inclusion of kefir in the diet as a dietetic beverage may confer nutritional and therapeutic advantages to the consumers.

By reviewing the literature the chemical, microbiological, nutritional and therapeutic characteristics of kefir have been highlighted to justify its consumption as a dietary beverage.

Kefir grains, kefir starter and kefir beverage vary considerably in microflora of bacterial and yeasts. The nutritional attributes of kefir are due to its chemical ingredients such as vitamins, protein and minerals and fermentation induces further enhancement in its nutritional profiles. Kefir exhibits varied therapeutic attributes due to possession of different therapeutic components. Kefir can be recommended for consumption by normal and sick adults as well as infants as a dietetic beverage.

Due to various nutritional and therapeutic attributes of kefir, it may occupy an important place in the diet of those consumers inclined towards dietetic foods.

Both technological and human-centric perspectives need to be acknowledged when combining lean production practices and Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies. This study aims to explore and explain how lean production practices and I4.0 technologies may coexist to enhance the human-centric perspective of manufacturing operations in the era of Industry 5.0 (I5.0).

The research approach is an explorative and longitudinal case study. The qualitative data collection encompasses respondents from different job functions and organizational levels to cover the entire organization. In total, 18 interviews with 19 interviewees and five focus groups with a total of 25 participants are included.

Identified challenges bring forth that manufacturing organizations must have the ability to see beyond lean production philosophy and I4.0 to meet the demand for a human-centric perspective in socially sustainable manufacturing in the era of Industry 5.0.

The study suggests that while lean production practices and I4.0 practices may be considered separately, they need to be integrated as complementary approaches. This underscores the complexity of managing simultaneous organizational changes and new digital initiatives.

The research presented illuminates the elusive phenomena comprising the combined aspects of a human-centric perspective, specifically bringing forth implications for the co-existence of lean production practices and I4.0 technologies, in the transformation towards I5.0.

The study contributes to new avenues of research within the field of socially sustainable manufacturing. The study provides an in-depth analysis of the human-centric perspective when transforming organizations towards Industry 5.0.

Institutional economics at the societal level focuses on the examination of interpersonal and impersonal economic, political and social institutions within a given polity and how such institutions might change and evolve over time. Such examination is critical to both international business scholars and practitioners if they are to successfully navigate variations in the rules of the game in international trade and commerce. Whilst institutional economics offers an immense body of literature on institutions, it offers surprisingly few theoretical or conceptual tools for empirical analysis. This chapter discusses five extant frameworks and proposes an ontological theoretical framework developed from interdisciplinary sources to underpin extant frameworks and thereby guide international business researchers in designing more effective research instruments for examining institutional change across and between cultures.

This survey covers 1977–78 and presents a brief overview of some of the publications that have had, and will continue to have, impact on biology. Excluded are: 1) applied areas such as agriculture, medicine, and veterinary medicine; and 2) botany. The botanical reference literature has been voluminous as usual during this period and deserves an individual review which will appear in a later issue of RSR.