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This study aims to identify how objective indicators of destination country risk differentiate business study abroad programs from those in other academic disciplines.

The authors trained a neural network model on six years of student-initiated inquiries about study abroad programs at a large US university. The model classified business versus nonbusiness study abroad programs using objective measures of destination country risk as the primary inputs.

The model correctly classifies business and nonbusiness study abroad programs with over 70% accuracy. Business programs were found to be 20% less likely to include destinations where the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend nonroutine vaccinations and favor countries with higher Global Peace Index scores.

These results underscore the need to consider destination country risk in the design and administration of study abroad programs. An understanding of student preferences for lower risk destinations can contribute to improved planning, execution and student experiences in these programs.

Better planning and management of study abroad programs based on understanding of destination country risk can lead to enhanced student safety and experiences.

This study offers a unique perspective on understanding study abroad programs by focusing on objective measures of destination country risk rather than risk perceptions. It also is, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the first to use a neural network to classify study abroad programs as business versus nonbusiness using objective measures of country-specify risk indicators.

Loan officer decisions are of particular importance to entrepreneurial firms which rely heavily on debt financing as a primary source of capital. The authors investigate whether social purpose in these firms impact loan officer response to the violation of a debt covenant and whether there is a differential response in decision making between loan officers that work at local banks and those that work at national banks.

In total 332 loan officers from cities in the South and Midwest United States participated in a quasi-experiment comparing entrepreneurial firms that violated their debt covenants. The loan officers were asked to evaluate loan materials and decide whether they would enforce loan covenant provisions of renegotiated interest rate and by what magnitude. In the treatment group, the loan officer evaluated loan materials of an entrepreneurial firm that included information related to the firms social purpose within their community. In the control group, the evaluation materials did not include this information.

Consistent with social capital theory, the results suggest that loan officers view community involvement as beneficial to entrepreneurial firm value. Loan officers were less likely to increase interest rates among firms that demonstrated social purpose. Loan officers that decided to increase interest rates punished socially purposeful firms less severely than non-socially purposeful firms. Additionally, loan officers at community banks were less likely to increase interest rates than those at national banks.

While the prior literature examines loan covenant violations, the authors focus on the impact of loan officer decision making in entrepreneurial firms specifically around covenant enforcement. Loan officer decisions have important implications for debt financing but are typically not observable to researchers. Prior work examining the relationship between social purpose and debt financing focuses on large public firms. This study recognizes that social purpose in entrepreneurial firms is less formalized and explicit and thus should be studied separately from large firms.

While known by many names, qualifying exams function as gatekeepers to graduate student advancement to PhD candidacy, yet there has been little formal study on best qualifying exam practices particularly in biomedical and related STEM PhD programs. The purpose of this study is to examine the current state of qualifying exams through an examination of the literature and exploration of university-wide policies.

The authors conducted a literature review of studies on qualifying exams and completed an external evaluation of peer institutions’ and internal institutional qualifying exam requirements to inform our discussion of qualifying exams practices in PhD training at a research-intensive US institutions.

This study identified the need for more research on qualifying exams to establish evidence-based best practices. The authors found a wide variety of qualifying exam formats, with little evidence in support for specific formats. The authors also found little evidence that student expectations are made clear. The lack of evidence-based best practices coupled with insufficient clarity for students has a real potential to disadvantage PhD students, particularly first generation, underrepresented minority, international and/or other trainees who are not privileged or socialized to navigate training environments with vague landmarks such as the qualifying exams.

There are very few studies that evaluate qualifying exams in US doctoral education, particularly in STEM fields, and to the authors’ knowledge, there has been no analysis of campus-wide policies on qualifying exams reported. The lack of evidence for best practices and the need for to evaluate the implementation and effectiveness of qualifying exams are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss two parallel but distinct subfields of marketing that share common interests (enhancing consumers’ lives and improving well-being): social marketing and transformative service research. The authors also suggest a research agenda.

The paper offers a conceptual approach and research agenda by comparing and contrasting the two marketing fields of transformative service research and social marketing.

Specifically, this paper proposes three opportunities to propel both fields forward: 1) breaking boundaries that inhibit research progress, which includes collaboration between public, private and nonprofit sectors to improve well-being; 2) adopting more customer-oriented approaches that go beyond the organizational and individual levels; and 3) taking a non-linear approach to theory development that innovates and co-creates solutions.

This paper presents the challenges and structural barriers for two subfields seeking to improve human well-being. This paper is the first to bring these subfields together and propose a way for them to move forward together.

The purpose of this study is to find the influence of brand experience on brand equity with the mediation of hedonic emotions, utilitarian emotions and brand personality among the smartphone users in Pakistan.

The survey based on empirical method was used to administrate the questionnaire. The data were collected from a millennial generation in Sargodha city. Skewness, Kurtosis’s, correlation and regression techniques were used to analyze data.

The finding of this study shows that the hedonic emotions, utilitarian emotions and brand personality mediate the relation between brand experience and brand equity. The study will help brand managers and academia in understanding the hedonic and utilitarian emotional pattern, and the congruence between the personality and smartphone brand users and behavior pattern of young users.

Research support the argument that promoting emotional aspects is significant for the sustainability of brand equity of the smart-phone brands. Segments other than young consumers would be more interesting to study.

This paper provides implications for smart phone marketers on smart phone consumption behavior. Marketing managers must link products attributes to the personality of the user and promote them that will emotionally attach users to the product.

This paper presents key findings on smart phone buying experience using utilitarian value approach followed by hedonic consumption approach and found to be significant predicators.

Social entrepreneurship represents an unconventional, but increasingly prevalent, activity in developed and emerging economies. Social entrepreneurs devise novel business models that blend business and social missions with the aim of (co-)producing value with two primary stakeholder groups, beneficiaries and customers. Although interactions between social entrepreneurs and their beneficiaries are well-studied, the relationship between social ventures and consumers has received almost no extended attention.

Using a qualitative, partially-inductive approach based on interviews with 40 social entrepreneurs, a study of how social entrepreneurs market their ventures to consumers was conducted.

Findings reveal the ways in which marketing is relevant for social entrepreneurs, the unique challenges and opportunities entrepreneurs face in their interactions with customers, and the tactics entrepreneurs use to understand and educate their consumers.

The study’s findings contribute to work on social entrepreneurship and the entrepreneurship and marketing interface and have practical implications for social entrepreneurs.