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This study aims to examine the socio-economic and environmental impacts of mining activities as perceived by communities in Ghana, with data being drawn from primary and secondary sources.

A total of 90 community residents were interviewed, with 15 from each of the six selected different communities.

The findings revealed a positive perception that corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices of mining companies contribute to the development of mining communities in Ghana by creating jobs and generating income. However, it became clear that mining activities, particularly small-scale mining, create many social and environmental challenges as well. This includes land degradation, which reduces the fertility of community-owned land suitable for agricultural use. In addition, pollution of waterways and streams intensifies the plight of community residents living in mining areas.

Since 2011, the mining industry has invested between US$12m (in 2013) and US$44m (in 2011) in Ghana’s communities. The amount spent in 2019 was US$24m. The funds were spent by the industry in areas such as roads, education, health and electricity, among others. Still, it seems more effort is needed by the mining companies to harmonise the CSR practice and gain better impression by local people. In spite of the mining industry’s investment levels, more than half of the community respondents said it was insufficient. One-third of the respondents went as far as suggesting the mining companies had a negative impact on infrastructure improvement and community development.

There is a growing concern in recent years regarding climate change risks to real estate in the developed and developing countries. It is anticipated that the property sector could be affected by variable climate and related extremes as well as by the strategies adopted to combat greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This paper aims to analyse the current knowledge regarding future climate changes to understand their possible impacts on the real estate sector of Malaysia with an aim to help stakeholders to adopt necessary responses to reduce negative impacts.

Available literature is reviewed and data related to climatic influences on buildings and structures are analysed to understand the climate change impacts on real estate in Malaysia.

The study reveals that temperature in the Peninsular Malaysia will increase by 1.1 to 3.6°C, rainfall will be more variable and river discharge in some river basins will increase up to 43 per cent during the northeast monsoon season by the end of this century. These changes in turn will pose risks of property damage and increase property lifecycle costs. Furthermore, property prices and the overall growth of the property sector may be affected by the government policy of GHG emission reduction by up to 45 per cent by the year 2030. This study concludes that the property sector of Malaysia will be most affected by the implementation of GHG emission reduction policy in the short term and due to the physical risk posed by variable climate and related extremes in the long term.

The study in general will assist in guiding the operational responses of various authorities, especially in terms of those interventions aimed at climate change risk reduction in the property sector of Malaysia.

Drawing on the adapted unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT2) framework in the bottom of pyramid (BoP) context, this paper examines the number of causal recipes that foster m-health adoption in a developing country (Bangladesh). This paper aims to propose an extended UTAUT2 model along with identifying the necessary and sufficient factors affecting the m-health adoption intention in the BoP market.

The research model was empirically tested, combining two approaches: structural equation modelling (SEM) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). Data were collected from 221 housemaids and female security guards who earn around US$6 per day.

The SEM results revealed that while performance expectancy (PE), effort expectancy (EE), social influence (SI), facilitating conditions, perceived cost (PC) and technology anxiety (TA) significantly influence the behavioural intention of BoP markets, hedonic motivation is the non-significant predictor. The fsQCA revealed that the two necessary conditions, PC and SI, can be combined with TA to increase the possibility of the success of m-health adoption in the BoP market.

For practitioners concerned with fostering the m-health adoption intention in BoP markets, the present study, which points out equifinality, recommends integrating the PC and SI in several combinations with PE, EE and TA.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no previous studies using the UTAUT2 theory examined the m-health services in the BoP market. This study contributes empirical data to the predominantly theoretical literature by offering a deeper understanding of the inclusion of TA and PC in several combinations with other UTUAT2 factors as predictors for explaining the m-health adoption intention of BoP markets.

As women perform most household chores and other nonproductive work, gender-based division of labor in the home has now been identified as a barrier to gender equality. The objective of this study is to assess the effects of gender distribution of housework especially for women and investigate the factors influencing the total hours spent on house chores in Bangladesh.

This study adopted a quantitative approach based on survey data obtained from 200 households in the Madaripur and Gopalganj districts of Bangladesh. To analyze the obtained data, the partial least squares (PLS) regression was used.

According to this study, demographic and socioeconomic factors of women, and gender are influencing the total hours spent in housework. Women were observed to have a positive relationship with empowerment but a negative relationship with social perception. Social perception was further observed to have a significant impact on the total number of hours expended by women on house chores.

The study suggests that the importance of sharing the burden of household work be taught in schools and community-based awareness programs so that it becomes ingrained as a social and cultural practice. Furthermore, the government should conduct a proper assessment that recognizes unpaid housework by women as an important factor in inclusive sustainable development.

Issues of inequality in the division of labor in household activities are barely recognized in Bangladesh. Therefore, this study collected primary data to assess the effects of gender on the distribution of housework. The findings of the study will help policymakers and academicians to better understand the gender-based division of household labor.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-03-2023-0195.

This study aims to understand the determinants of online pharmacy or epharmacy adoption among young consumers in Bangladesh using an extended unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) model.

A structured Google Docs questionnaire was sent out to 420 respondents using messenger service; 285 useable responses were finally extracted. Data were empirically validated using the two-staged structural equation model (SEM)-neural network analysis approach.

The robustness of the classical UTAUT model remains intact in the context of online pharmacy adoption. Among the integrated variables, while perceived trust and health literacy were found significant, perceived risk and personal innovativeness were found insignificant in determining consumers’ intention to adopt online pharmacy. The neural network analysis provided further verification of these findings derived from the SEM.

The findings of this study would facilitate in devising better strategies for entering or expanding online pharmacy business in developing countries such as Bangladesh.

The originality of the current study relates to the two-fold contributions of this study. First, while this study extended the classical UTAUT model by incorporating perceived risk, perceived trust, personal innovativeness and health literacy, the inclusion of the following two variables is fresh within the extant online pharmacy literature. Second, by using a two-staged SEM-neural network analysis approach, this study advances the past studies on e-commerce adoption in pharmaceutical settings and provides a general understanding of the customers of developing countries.

The purpose of this research is to empirically examine the critical factors that are influencing international students’ perception in the selection of a destination for education tourism.

This research seeks to develop a comprehensive framework embedded with service quality, destination image and spirituality behavior. The data were collected by administering a self-administered questionnaire to a sample of 220 respondents who were studying at the universities in Peninsular Malaysia. The constructs and items used in the questionnaire were adapted from the literature review. This research applied confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling to test the proposed hypotheses.

The outcome of this research indicated that there is a substantial relationship between service quality and the choice of a destination for education tourism. This research also explored that destination brand image significantly relates to the selection of a destination for education, tourism when the destination loyalty variable plays a strong mediation role. Interestingly, the direct relationship between spirituality behavior and selection of destination was not significant. On the other hand, a significant relationship was discovered between spirituality behavior and choice of destination when the tourists’ intention plays as a mediating function.

First, the limitation is in the scope of this study, as only five constructs were examined. Future research may include other types of variables in exploring the antecedents of destination selection for education tourism. Second, the sample size was only 220 and respondents were restricted to only a few universities. Future research should be done on a bigger sample size and on more diverse sample.

Managers of the respective higher learning institutions need to focus on tourists’ satisfaction by providing a memorable experience. International students who have satisfactory experience with the respective higher learning institutions will spread a positive word of mouth about the destinations to other prospective foreign students. Today, tourists have a strong urge to see the spiritual side of their liveliness. Policymakers need to offer services with the comportment of the spiritual settings in their respective educational environment to extend the spiritual experience toward international students.

There is a need for more research on how to build a comprehensive model for selection of a destination in educational tourism. The results of this empirical research are of particular significance to policymakers, as it better informs them as to how best to use the antecedents in designing the destination choice for education tourism to establish it as more practical regardless of the diverse spiritual beliefs.

This research is one of the initial attempts on part of the researchers in Malaysian education tourism context where spirituality has been taken into consideration.

This study examines the relationships between collaboration capability (CC) and supply chain risk management (SCRM) and the mediating role of supply chain alignment (SCA) between CC and SCRM. It also investigates the moderating role of data-driven culture (DDC) on the path joining CC and SCA.

A survey was conducted via a structured questionnaire among the 297 managers of Business-to-business (B2B) firms. The data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

The result found a positive and significant relationship between CC and SCRM, CC and SCA, and SCA and SCRM. The research found a significant mediating role of SCA between CC and SCRM. The study also found a significant moderating role of DBC between CC and SCA.

The outcomes demonstrate the management and societal relevance of the study from the viewpoint of businesses in developing nations. To cope with dynamic shifts, managers and decision makers need to take initiative for collaboration among the supplier, to align with their supply chain operations and enhance preparedness of DDC to overcome supply chain-related risks in the future.

The results of this empirical study have the significant potential to provide valuable guidance and insights about the B2B firms’ CC to develop SCA to enhance SCRM as risk management for the supply chain can aid in loss prevention and provide an edge over competitors. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, these relationships based on the dynamic capability view (DCV) add to existing studies on B2B firms’ supply chains in a novel way.

The present work investigated the effect of corporate social responsibility and top management support on employee ecological behaviour (EEB) with the mediating role of green culture and green commitment. Social identity theory (SIT) was used to describe the association between green culture, green commitment and EEB. Further, a conceptual model that summarises the interaction between perceived corporate social responsibility, top management support, green commitment, green culture and the adoption of ecological behaviour was developed.

The paper opted for a quantitative design using convenience sampling by collecting the data through a structured questionnaire gathered from 308 academics working in five Malaysian higher education institutions.

Corporate social responsibility and top management support positively influence green culture and commitment. Moreover, green commitment positively influenced EEB and fully mediated the relationship between corporate social responsibility and EEB and between top management support and EEB.

The academic staff of universities was the target population of this research. Nevertheless, universities have a diverse population with complex activities that can affect the implementation of a sustainable workplace within the campus. Future research should also examine non-academic staff, including administrative, technical and operational staff, due to different employees' perceptions.

As far as the authors know, this is the first study to assign the mediator role to green culture in a relationship between top management support and EEB amongst academic staff in the Malaysian context. Future research should consider other intervening variables that influence adopting ecological behaviour.

Few well-documented studies have explained the importance of researching firms' marketing analytics capability (FMAC). In spite of its significance, there is scant attention to conceptualising and empirically investigating FMAC and its consequences in a data-driven business context. Thus, this study aims to develop and test a conceptual model that relates FMAC and its repercussions in the data-rich business environment.

This study analysed the data from 250 managers amongst large and medium-sized manufacturing and service-intensive firms. Furthermore, this research performed an empirical study by using operationalised questionnaire survey method to verify the hypotheses and reach its theoretical and managerial implications. Structural equation modelling with maximum-likelihood estimation method was applied to verify the validity of the proposed research model.

Multivariate analysis results show that FMAC significantly influences firms' competitive marketing performance (FCMP) with the presence of holistic marketing decision-making (HMDM) as a mediator. Moreover, adoption of artificial intelligence (AAI) enhances the relationship of FMAC-HMDM and FMAC-FCMP linkages.

This study analyses how FMAC can enhance FCMP and contributes to resource-based views and technological capability theories. From a managerial perspective, guidelines are provided for marketers to adopt advance technologies, such as AI, to optimise FMAC and HMDM to achieve competitive marketing performance.

Believing that “how to be competitive in marketing performance under data-rich-environment”, this research is the first to use the data of a firm manager to facilitate the understanding of FMAC, which provides a new direction for improving marketing performance. In addition, HMDM and AAI are also proposed for firms to optimise FCMP.