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This article describes the significance of mutual aid and self‐help groups for employee assistance programmes (EAPs). In an era of dwindling resources, groups can be valuable adjunctive resources. Examples given are a recovery network of AA members at the workplace willing to act in a 12‐step fashion with EAP clients, a co‐dependency assessment and support group, a supervisor′s mutual aid support group and a peer support group diversity network. The benefit to EAP professionals of developing these groups is an expanded range of referral resources, increased visibility for the EAP and an opportunity to engage in community building within the workplace.

Liberalisation and deregulation of financial markets, lower currency volatility and the introduction of the euro have reduced transaction and bankruptcy costs for multinationals in Europe. Internal European transfers of cash have become easier and cheaper. This has enabled the centralisation of cash management activities. The centralisation at headquarters of multinational enterprises has also opened the road to financial disintermediation. These trends may have helped to create conglomerate benefits in Europe. The case of the cash management at the Netherlands‐based Royal Philips Electronics is used to illustrate these tendencies.

We examine the role of communication in stimulating consumer attitudes and buying behavior regarding corporate social responsibility (CSR).

We review the literature on communicating CSR to consumers through (1) messages constructed and verified by the company (such as product claims and corporate advertising), (2) messages constructed by the company, but verified by a third party (such as disclosures), and (3) messages constructed and verified by a third party (such as independent consumer guides and publicity).

Communication messages constructed and verified by the company can be quite effective in persuading consumers, if they are communicated in a credible way. The latter can, for example, be done by including specific behaviors and/or outcomes in the message. Messages constructed by the firm, but verified by a third party tend to have a higher credibility, but risk containing either too little information or too much. Finally, messages constructed and verified by a third party can be seen as highly credible, but can sometimes be seen as merely PR. In addition, both messages focusing on deontological responsibility (the firm’s motives and behavior), and messages focusing on consequentialist responsibility (the outcomes of the firm’s behavior) seem important to consumers.

The results offer suggestions on how to communicate about CSR to consumers.

The chapter provides the first comprehensive overview of the literature on communication about CSR to consumers.

The purpose of this paper is to examine Gen Y consumers' responses to American Apparel's use of two advertising message strategies – fair labour and sex appeal, using the theory of reasoned action to predict intent to patronize American Apparel and comparing the utility of the classic reasoned action model with an extended model that included variables external to the theory.

A questionnaire was administered to 425 consumers, who were randomly assigned to one of four advertisement exposure groups. Group 1 evaluated an American Apparel ad (Ad No. 1) that promoted fair labour practices. Groups 2, 3, and 4 evaluated Ad No. 1 as well as one of three additional ads that featured messages employing sex appeal of varied intensities.

Participants' attitudes toward American Apparel were more positive when they were exposed to the fair labour message, only, than when they were exposed to the fair labour message in conjunction with one of the three sex appeal messages. In the classic reasoned action models, intent to patronize American Apparel was consistently predicted by attitude toward the retailer. Extending the models increased the explained variance for Groups 1, 2, and 3, with several variables adding predictive utility.

A fair labour message may contribute to positive evaluations of apparel advertisements and may build positive attitudes toward apparel retailers. Thus, when appropriate, apparel retailers might consider using a fair labour message strategy, rather than a sex appeal message strategy.

The study explores consumer responses to two distinct advertising message strategies not often used simultaneously by a single company within the contemporary marketplace and examines the influence of these responses and other variables on patronage intention.

The purpose of this paper is to find the specific competitive industries in emerging industries of strategic importance of each province in China in order to provide references for industrial cultivation and development.

This paper uses quantitative analysis methods on RCA and R&D efficiency.

Different provinces have specific competitive emerging industries of strategic importance. Taking biotechnology, equipment manufacturing, and new generation of information technology industry as examples, this paper finds: for the advanced equipment manufacturing industry, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Guizhou, Tianjin, Liaoning, Heilongjiang and Jiangxi provinces have obvious characteristics and relatively high R&D efficiency; for bio‐technology, Jiangsu, Henan, Jiangxi, Hunan, Zhejiang and Shandong provinces have obvious characteristics and relatively high R&D efficiency; and for the next generation of the information technology industry, Jiangsu, Guangdong, Fujian, Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai provinces have obvious characteristics and relatively high R&D efficiency.

This study is limited by lack of industrial comprehensiveness so that more statistical data about emerging industry of strategic importance is needed for more in‐depth analysis.

The identification of specific competitive emerging industry of strategic importance of each province will give managers and policy makers train of thought for the cultivation and development of strategic emerging industry and make future policies more targeted.

The paper contributes to the research on the differentiated cultivation and development tactics of strategic emerging industry by, respectively, finding out the specific competitive emerging industries of each province in China.

This study aims to explore the influence of creative tourist experiences (CTE) on tourists’ recommendation intentions (RCI) toward creative tourist destinations. This study examines the roles of tourist engagement and satisfaction in this relationship, proposing a sequential mediation model based on the cognitive-affective-conative model.

The research surveyed travelers to Kinnaur, Himachal Pradesh, India, using a structured questionnaire. Through purposive sampling data were collected from 413 generation Z (Gen Z in short) tourists. The study used exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and sequential mediation analysis. The present research used Model 6 by Andrew Hayes in the SPSS process macro to test the serial mediation.

The findings emphasize the importance of active engagement in creative tourism and its potential to transform cultural heritage into enriching experiences, thereby influencing tourists’ recommendation behaviors. Results of sequential mediation analysis show that there is a significant and positive impact of CTE on tourist’s RCI. Further, results showed the sequential mediation effect of tourist engagement and satisfaction on the relationship between CTE and RCI.

The findings offer valuable insights for destination managers and policymakers in creative tourism. Enhancing tourist engagement and satisfaction through creative experiences can effectively increase RCI, contributing to the sustainable management of cultural resources and preventing the over-commercialization of cultural heritage.

This research contributes to the literature on creative tourism by empirically testing the sequential mediation model and highlighting the pivotal role of tourist engagement and satisfaction in transforming creative experiences into positive behavioral outcomes. This study provides a nuanced understanding of the factors influencing tourists’ RCI in creative tourism contexts.

Trade credit is an important business-to-business marketing tool for building firms’ competitive advantage. Many studies explore the determinants of trade credits from a trust-based view, but the role of political connections is largely overlooked, despite their potential influence in assessing firms’ trustworthiness in the context of emerging economies. This study aims to fill this gap by examining how political connections affect the capacity of emerging economy firms (EEFs) to grant and receive trade credit.

This study tests a conceptual model using secondary data collected from 1,149 Chinese privately owned listed manufacturing firms between 2008 and 2016.

This study finds that political connections reduce EEFs’ accounts receivable and payable; their philanthropic activities alleviate this negative effect for accounts payable, while patent applications reduce it for accounts receivable. These findings suggest the effect of political connections can spillover to EEFs’ relationship with their up- and down-stream partners.

This study has implications EEF managers, particularly in pointing to the detrimental effect of political connections on relationships with buyers and suppliers, and highlights the need to adopt suitable approaches to offset this effect.

This study sheds new light on the negative effect of political connections on EEFs’ capacity to grant and receive trade credit in their exchanges with up-stream and down-stream partners. It enriches the trust-based view of trade credit by revealing the significant influence of EEFs’ political connections, while also advancing a contingency view by testing the moderating role of corporate philanthropic activities and patent applications.

The connection between urbanization and energy consumption in the context of cross-country and cross-sector analyses is poorly understood, especially in the Association of South East Asian (ASEAN). This paper aims to present the first extensive multi-level analysis of the relationship between urbanization and energy consumption in ASEAN countries from 1995 to 2013.

The multi-level (across country and sector) index decomposition method is used to analyze urbanization, energy mix, energy intensity and activity effects on energy demand. Urbanization is measured by two representative factors, name the urban population and the number of non-agriculture workers.

Despite the decreasing rate of urbanization, its effect on energy consumption has played the most important role since 2000. Since then, the effect has continued to increase at the national and sectoral levels across the whole region. The strongest urbanization impacts are encountered in the residential sector, followed by transportation and industrial sectors with much weaker effects in the commercial sector. The way in which urbanization impacts energy consumption depends strongly on the income level of the country studied.

The results provide quantitative relationships between urbanization and energy demand. For example, if the urban population and the non-agriculture workers decreased by 0.1 per cent per year, this would reduce energy demand by 1.4 per cent and 2.6 per cent per year respectively.

This contribution provides detailed quantitative insights into the relationships between urbanization and energy demand at sectoral, national and international levels, which are invaluable for policymakers in the region.

Today′s high‐technology, global marketing environment has made consumer product information available across national boundaries. Explores how six multinational consumer product firms (Colgate‐Palmolive, Kraft GF, Nestlé, Procter & Gamble, Quaker Oats and Unilever) maintain, change or adapt different brand names for identical or similar products. Field research was conducted in supermarkets, medium‐sized grocery stores, department stores and drug stores from 1993‐1995 in 67 countries on five continents. Brand and country data were utilized to identify global, regional, spillover and single country brands. Additional information was collected on country of origin as well as point of sale. Product and brand distribution were analyzed by firm and product type. Less than 1% of brands were global brands (those found in 90% or more of the countries surveyed). Procter & Gamble has the most global brands, with 8% of the brands studied distributed in 50% or more of the countries. The majority of brands (50‐72%) are available in three or fewer countries.

Encouraging employees to exhibit innovative behaviour at the workplace is the need of the hour. Prior studies reported the impact of organisational justice on innovative behaviour; however, the majority of these studies are from the Western context. Moreover, the underlying mechanism linking these variables, namely, the role of knowledge sharing, is sparse. The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating role of knowledge sharing in the relationship between organisational justice and innovative behaviour through the lens of social exchange theory in the Indian context.

Mediation analysis using PROCESS macro was performed on a sample of 288 employees using three structured questionnaires. Participants were recruited from various manufacturing organisations in India. The validity of the hypothesised model was established using AMOS software.

Organisational justice impacted both knowledge sharing and innovative behaviour. It was also illustrated that knowledge sharing influenced employees’ innovative behaviour. The most important finding is the partial mediation of knowledge sharing in the organizational justice–innovative behaviour relationship.

This study tries to demystify the organisational justice–innovative behaviour relationship by highlighting knowledge sharing as an underlying mechanism. The existing theoretical framework that describes the effects of organisational justice is enriched.