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The term customer intimacy has been used both in academia and business, albeit lacking clear definition and empirical validation. The authors in this paper aim to develop a measure of customer intimacy in business‐to‐business contexts and to assess its reliability and validity, as well as its relevance, within a nomological relationship marketing network.

A multi‐method (qualitative/exploratory and quantitative/confirmatory structural modelling), multi‐staged (test, re‐test) research approach is used and applied in the UK and Germany.

The results show that customer intimacy is a second order construct reflected by the three formative dimensions of mutual understanding, closeness, and value perception. The results also show that customer intimacy is a relevant relationship indicator, distinct from the central relationship indicators of trust and commitment. It impacts relationship commitment levels, customer induced word‐of‐mouth, repurchase intentions, information disclosure, customer availability, and leads to an advisor status with the customer. Moreover, customer intimacy mediates relationship marketing's central trust commitment link.

The main limitations that should be addressed by future studies are: reliance on the key informant technique on one side of the supplier‐buyer dyad; cross‐sectional design.

This study shows that achieving and managing customer intimacy is a relevant managerial goal and task for firms and shows managers how it can be measured and managed.

This study, for the first time, presents a measure for customer intimacy and assesses its quality and impact empirically. The measure will be of significant value in making customer‐centric, relationship management approaches more accountable.

To contribute to the development of a theoretically grounded measure of organizational internet use (OIU) by conceptualizing and operationalizing it as a theoretical construct, and by empirically assessing its reliability and validity

The focal construct OIU was conceptualized as an abstract collective object with three components, forming an index with formative, causal indicators. A multi‐method research design – including a cross‐sectional drop‐and‐collect survey among small technology‐based firms (STBFs) in Germany and an observational study of web sites – was applied to assess empirically the theoretically developed construct OIU. This was achieved by using the component‐based partial least squares (PLS) structural modeling technique using PLS‐Graph.

The empirical assessment of the scale, applied to the international business domain, proved to be reliable and valid in the structural model and across assessment methods.

The focal construct was assessed among a very specific population. This limits the claims that can be made with regard to applying it in other industries, countries, and firms. Future research should address this by applying OIU in maximally different research contexts.

The developed construct has important implications for both managers and researchers. It should help in assessing levels of organizational internet use in a consistent fashion across populations and studies. It can be used for benchmarking purposes – of specific interest to managers – and it can be used to explore antecedents and consequences of organizational internet use – of specific interest to researchers.

Internet research is moving from anecdotal and exuberant internet euphoria to internet pessimism to internet realism. Only theoretically grounded, reliable and valid measures can support such a required transition. With this paper we have made an initial contribution for such a development to occur.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of the affordable housing shortage in the Greater Kuala Lumpur from the suppliers’ perspectives.

Primary data were collected through a cross-sectional survey questionnaire comprising 21 determinants and 111 experts in the housing industry.

The affordable housing shortages are consequences of regulations and policies on land allocations, building materials and the affordable housing market. The government should provide more lands to the developers or the government should directly build affordable housing on their lands. To lower the cost of construction, the government should reduce the importation tax and procedures, and the housing industry should find alternative building materials.

Theoretically, the research provided fresh insights into the causes of housing shortages and reasons for the increase in housing prices. The results will be useful to policymakers towards affordable housing delivery and to the developers and contractors on measures to increase profit margins and increase housing supply.

The service effort behavior (SEB) of health professionals may be impeded by many factors. This study aims to draw upon the conservation of resources and stressor–strain–outcome theories to test a moderated mediation model that explores how work–family conflict (WFC) influences SEB. The mediating effect of emotional irritation (EI) and the moderating effect of organizational identification (OI) was also tested.

Data was collected over two waves from 524 health professionals working across India and was tested using SPSS PROCESS macros and Amos 24.

The results revealed that WFC has a significantly negative relationship with SEB, and EI mediates the relationship between the two variables. The mediation process was further moderated by OI.

There is an absolute scarcity of evidence that has explored the association of WFC and SEB with the mediating role of EI. Along with offering a nuanced understanding of these relationships, this study also presents some interesting insights to health-care administrators.

This paper aims to present recently published resources on library instruction and information literacy (IL). It provides an introductory overview and a selected annotated bibliography of publications organized thematically and detailing study populations, results and research contexts. The selected bibliography is useful to efficiently keep up with trends in library instruction for academic library practitioners, library science students and researchers wishing to learn about IL in other contexts.

This paper annotates 374 English-language periodical articles, dissertations, theses and reports on library instruction and IL published in 2023. The sources were selected from the EBSCO platform for Library, Information Science and Technology Abstracts (LISTA), Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), Elsevier SCOPUS and ProQuest Dissertations and Theses. Sources selected were published in 2023 and included the terms “information literacy,” “library instruction” or “information fluency” in the title, subject terms or author-supplied keywords. The sources were organized in Zotero. Annotations were made summarizing the source, focusing on the findings or implications. Each source was then thematically categorized and organized for academic librarians to be able to skim and use the annotated bibliography adeptly.

The paper provides a brief description of 374 sources from 159 unique publications and highlights publications that contain unique or significant scholarly contributions. Further analysis of the sources and authorship are provided such as country affiliation and institutional Carnegie classification.

The information is primarily of use to academic librarians, researchers and anyone interested as a convenient and comprehensive reference to literature on library instruction and IL published within 2023.

This paper aims to examine real estate price volatility in Hong Kong. Monthly data on housing, offices, retail and factories in Hong Kong were analyzed from February 1993 to February 2019 to test whether volatility clusters are present in the real estate market. Real estate price determinants were also investigated.

Autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity–Lagrange multiplier test is used to examine the volatility clustering effects in these four kinds of real estate. An autoregressive and moving average model–generalized auto regressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) model was used to identify real estate price volatility determinants in Hong Kong.

There was volatility clustering in all four kinds of real estate. Determinants of price volatility vary among different types of real estate. In general, housing volatility in Hong Kong is influenced primarily by the foreign exchange rate (both RMB and USD), whereas commercial real estate is largely influenced by unemployment. The results of the exponential GARCH model show that there were no asymmetric effects in the Hong Kong real estate market.

This volatility pattern has important implications for investors and policymakers. Residential and commercial real estate have different volatility determinants; investors may benefit from this when building a portfolio. The analysis and results are limited by the lack of data on real estate price determinants.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first study that evaluates volatility in the Hong Kong real estate market using the GARCH class model. Also, this paper is the first to investigate commercial real estate price determinants.

A rapid increase in global smartphone ownership and digital health technologies offers the potential for mobile phone applications (apps) to deliver mental health interventions. The purpose of this paper is to bring together evidence reporting on mental health mobile apps to gain an understanding of the quality of current evidence, the positive and adverse effects of apps and the mechanisms underlying such effects.

A systematic search was carried out across six databases, for any systematic reviews or meta-analyses conducted up to 2020. Review quality was assessed using the Assessment of Multiple Systematic Reviews.

Across a total of 24 articles, a variety of clinical outcomes were assessed. Most compelling support was shown for apps targeting anxiety symptoms; some evidence favoured the use of apps for depression symptoms. Less evidence was available for the remaining clinical symptoms such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder, sleep disorders and substance use. Overall, there was limited evidence pertaining to adverse effects and change mechanisms and a lack of quality reporting across a large proportion of included reviews. The included reviews demonstrate the need for further robust research before apps are recommended clinically.

This paper makes a valuable contribution to the current status of research and reviews investigating mental health mobile apps. Recommendations are made for improved adherence to review guidelines and to ensure risk of bias is minimised.