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To assist contractors in Hong Kong to review their past financial performance and to formulate new strategies for their business survival in the coming years.

The financial accounting ratios and distress scoring are very useful tools to measure the financial performance. These tools are also useful to compare the performance among themselves and over the years. The mathematical analysis together with a review of the current business environment and the characteristics of construction industry will assist contractors in Hong Kong to formulate new strategies for their own business survival in the coming years.

The results have shown that the financial performance of most contractors in Hong Kong have been deteriorating very fast in the past few years. The results of all financial ratios, together with the prevailing situation of over competition, inelasticity of construction costs and reduced aggregate demand in Hong Kong, has revealed the extreme difficulty of reversing the financial performance in the coming years.

Contractors in Hong Kong now understand that their own financial performance have been deteriorating to an alarming limit. There is an urgent need to review their business environment and to formulate new corporate strategies.

This paper applies the directional distant function and the meta-frontier to analyze the efficiency and technology gap ratio (TGR) of 20 publicly traded restaurant companies based on the stock market of the United States (US) from 2009 to 2016. The efficiency scores and TGRs are first computed by restaurant types (i.e. quick-service and full-service) and then by marketing strategies (i.e. single-brand and multi-brand). There are three major findings. First, employee utilization has the greatest room for improvement, and restaurant owners and managers should prioritize the improvement of this input. Second, the average TGR of quick-service restaurants (QSRs) is higher than that of full-service restaurants (FSRs), indicating that the inputs of FSRs need to be adjusted in comparison to QSRs. Third, the average TGR is higher in restaurants with a multi-brand strategy in comparison to a single-brand strategy, and the inputs of multi-brand strategy restaurants need to be adjusted accordingly.

Forward-thinking companies are interested in promoting Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) while remaining profitable. Some critics have raised concerns regarding the motivations of companies that engage in CSR, suggesting that inauthentic efforts are little more than “green-washing.” However, when efforts are integrated into the core values of a company, it is likely that CSR can result in important benefits for companies and communities. In this study, we present a case study of Cotopaxi, an outdoor products company located in Salt Lake City, UT. During the early spring and summer of 2016, Cotopaxi developed a computer coding and filmmaking workshop for refugee youth to assist them in learning marketable skills for future employment. During the course of the workshop, the authors volunteered with individuals from Cotopaxi, Adobe, Goldman Sachs, and local universities to assist in the workshop. We interviewed volunteers to determine what motivated them to participate. By analyzing the interviews, we identified three specific volunteer types: Experienced Volunteers, Kindred Spirit Volunteers, and Emerging Volunteers. We suggest that by understanding these volunteer types, organizations can leverage overlapping values between volunteers and the organization to create more authentic CSR efforts.

Edible insects are increasingly recognized as great food resources of the future. Entomophagy, the practice of eating insects, has a predicted market by 2030 of nearly $8 billion. But this market could grow even more with the acceptance of insects as food by Western consumers, as an alternative to conventional protein sources. In this context, the authors aim to collect and analyze information about consumers' perception of insects as food in Brazil, through the word association task.

In total, 751 participants agreed to complete the word association task in relation to entomophagy through an online questionnaire. They had to write down the first five words or terms that came to their minds when they thought of eating insects.

Individual mentions were categorized according to their similarities and/or proximity. Based on this grouping the authors identified six dimensions, with emphasis on “hedonic attitudes and feelings”, “cultural aspects” and “exotic”. The study concludes that Brazilians see insect consumption as belonging to another culture, not Western.

Few studies have explored the association of words in relation to entomophagy, especially in Brazil. This article aims to fill this gap, using this methodology applied to the Brazilian public.

This narrative study seeks to explore cultural identity (CI) construction of Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers in light of Tong and Cheung's (2011) definition of CI.

Ten language teachers were selected using purposeful sampling. Data were collected through reflective teacher journals and focus group interviews. Murray's (2009) data analysis procedures were utilized to analyze the data, which included coding the transcripts of data, looking for connections between codes and grouping codes into categories, configuring the participants' story from the data, sending the story to the participants for their comments, carrying out a cross-story analysis and noting themes as they emerge from the stories.

The inductive analysis of data led to the emergence of three core themes: cultural engagement, openness to differences in L2 cultural values and social practices and navigation of a hybrid CI. That is, the EFL teachers defined their CIs in terms of their commitment to both native and target-language cultures as well as their preservation of cultural diversity.

Findings revealed that L2 acquisition leads to changes of soft cultural forms such as food, clothes and houses as well as modifications of hard cultural forms such as institutional systems and spiritual values. In fact, the participants of this study spoke of the crucial effects of the English language and its culture with regard to both soft and hard cultural forms such as values and standards that brought so many positive changes into their previous lifestyles, attitudes and behaviors.

Since 2018, millions of students have mobilised as organisers, advocates and activists for action on global warming in movements like the School Strike 4 Climate. In Australia, an estimated 500,000 school students, some as young as five, and predominantly girls and young women, have taken part in coordinated school strikes, protest actions online and in cities and towns around the country (Hilder & Collin, 2022). While children and young people have long been central to politics, this more recent mass mobilisation raises new questions about how the various new forms of political participation and expression adopted by young people are significantly reshaping political norms, values and practices in ostensibly liberal democratic regimes like Australia. In this chapter, we propose that close attention be given to whether young people’s political views and demands for political recognition, rights and climate justice is re-constituting politics and whatever passes for ‘democracy’ in contemporary societies. Drawing on a study of the student climate movement in Australia, this chapter briefly describes the emergence of the movement globally and locally. Deploying Isin’s notion of ‘acts of citizenship’ (Isin, 2008), we examine the ways young climate activists are engaged in critical, performative, political practice, making claims for political recognition, rights and climate justice.

The influence of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) information, such as online reviews, on consumers’ decision making is well documented, but it is unclear if online reviews still matter in post-purchase evaluation and behaviours. The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which online reviews (aggregate rating (AR) and individual reviews (IR)) influence consumers’ evaluation and post-purchase behaviour by considering the valence congruence of online reviews and consumption experience (CE).

Following social comparison theory and relevant literature, the authors conduct an online experiment (pre-test: n=180; main study: n=347). The authors rely on a 2 (CE valence) ×2 (AR valence) ×2 (IR valence) between-subjects design.

Congruence/incongruence between the valences of CE, AR and IR affects consumers’ post-purchase evaluation at the emotional, brand and media levels and review-writing behaviour. In comparison to aggregated rating, IR are more important in the post-purchase stage. Similarly, consumers have a higher eWOM-writing intention when there is congruence between the valences of CE, AR and IR.

The authors demonstrate the importance of service providers continually monitoring their business profiles on review sites to ensure consistency of review information, as these influence consumers’ post-purchase evaluation and behaviours. For this reason, the authors illustrate the utility of why media owners of review sites should support the monitoring process to facilitate the engagement of both businesses and customers.

The authors break new ground by empirically testing the impact of online review information post-purchase seen through the theoretical lens of social comparison. The approach is novel in breaking down and testing the dimensions of post-purchase evaluation and behavioural intentions in understanding the social comparison elicited by online reviews in the post-purchase phase.

Examines the recent research on advertising in mainland China over the 1979‐1998 period. Suggests that findings show a sustained effort in academic research/publications on advertising in China is in the early stage of its development and whilst many areas have been researched, there are many more yet to be touched. Concludes that the research is seldom based on established theoretical or conceptual framework and the research methods and types of analysis used have not been very advanced when compared to general advertising research.

COVID-19 and its precautions, including social distancing, have revolutionized traditional retailing- and consumption patterns. In this turbulent environment, the purpose of this study is twofold. First, this paper explores the direct effect of consumers’ internal/external health locus-of-control on their hygiene consciousness, which, in turn, affects their social distancing behavior. Second, this study posits that social distancing, in turn, impacts consumers’ current online grocery shopping behavior and their future online grocery shopping intentions, thus uncovering important insight.

To address these gaps, this paper develops a model that links consumers’ internal/external health locus-of-control to their adoption of e-tailing-based grocery services. Data collected through a web-based survey was analyzed by using partial least squares-based structural equation modeling.

The results indicate that consumers’ health locus-of-control indirectly affects the way they shop for their groceries during the pandemic. In particular, consumers’ internal (external) health locus-of-control drives higher (lower) hygiene consciousness and greater (lower) social distancing behavior. In turn, consumers’ online grocery shopping behavior was found to increase during the pandemic, with their corresponding intent to continue this behavior in the future. Moreover, this study finds the effects of consumers’ social distancing on their current grocery shopping behavior and future intentions to be contingent on consumer age, with stronger effects identified for older consumers.

This study shows how consumers’ internal/external health loci-of-control exert opposing effects on their social distancing behavior, as mediated by hygiene consciousness. Overall, the empirical analyzes corroborate the association of consumers’ social distancing- and online grocery shopping behavior (for consumers of different age profiles), both during and after the pandemic.

This study aims to understand and analyze the aspects influencing students’ attitudes and behavior toward the use of metaverse in education. The metaverse is currently viewed as technology with immense prospects. However, the practice of the metaverse for educational motives is rarely deliberated.

To assess the effect of the metaverse on students' knowledge and use of resources, general interests and attitudes toward the metaverse in education, a survey was conducted. The collected data were analyzed using a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) in the first phase to address the various validity parameters. In the second phase, path analysis of the model was performed using structural equation modeling (SEM).

The study investigated how students intended to behave while using the metaverse for learning. The attitude toward adopting metaverse as technology is influenced by perceived utility and simplicity of use. This leads to behavioral intention as well. Studies reveal that the aspect of perceived usefulness is considered to be more significant in assessing the intention of use.

This quantitative study contributes to the literature on metaverse, which is in the growing stage. In the educational sector, the existing studies are scarce; hence, the addition to the literature on metaverse is quite significant in the education domain.

The study benefits the students and the academicians because metaverse is largely considered an integral part of technology platforms, which has to be included in the learning systems eventually. There are few courses where the use of metaverse is already initiated at an introductory level, thus opening a broad spectrum of opportunities at all levels. It can provide scholars access to a massive array of resources, including multimedia presentations, interactive objects that support the delivery of lessons, videos, images and audio recordings.

This study adds to the existing literature by examining the impact of metaverse in education. The research focused on the students pursuing higher education who were mostly aware of metaverse and were open to the idea of learning and understanding through technology inclusion.