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Mixed-target brands with strong gender identities, whether it be feminine or masculine, are not always successful at targeting both men and women, particularly in symbolic product categories. While attempting to maximize their sales for both targets, managers often struggle to capitalize on a single brand, and they hesitate between different naming strategies. This paper aims to build on brand gender literature and understand these brands’ (i.e. brands targeting both men and women) potential to adopt an endorsed brand strategy rather than a branded house strategy.

The paper uses a before/after experimental design to examine the effect that introducing a gender-incongruent endorsed brand (i.e. feminine endorsed brand name of masculine master brands and masculine endorsed brand name of feminine master brands) can have on consumers’ brand attitude.

First, adopting an endorsed brand strategy increases the perceived brand femininity of masculine master brands, but there is no increase in feminine master brands’ perceived brand masculinity. Second, this strategy has a negative impact on consumer attitude toward the master brand, with a stronger negative effect for feminine master brands than for masculine master brands, which is mediated by the brand gender perception change. Third, a negative feedback effect on the brand’s gender-congruent users is revealed.

One limitation of this work is that the focus is on one sole extrinsic brand characteristic (i.e. brand name) in our experimental design, which artificially influences the relative brand name importance for consumers. Moreover, the studies offered a short text to introduce the renaming. This may have made the respondents focus on the brand more than they would have in real-world conditions.

This research provides many insights for masculine or feminine mixed-target brands managers in symbolic product categories, as it shows that changing from a branded house strategy to an endorsed brand strategy appears to be unsuccessful in the short run, regardless of master brand’s gender. Moreover, the study reveals negative feedback effects on the attitude toward the initial master brand, following its renaming, in the short run.

This research provides a warning to managers trying to gender-bend their existing brands because it can lead to brand dilution. It also emphasizes the asymmetrical evaluation of masculine vs feminine master brands, as manipulating a brand’s perceived masculinity appears very difficult to do successfully.

This paper aims to explore brand sexual associations and to understand the antecedents of these associations by drawing from an anthropomorphic view of consumption and a socio-psychological perspective.

An exploratory qualitative analysis based on 18 semi-structured interviews was conducted. Following symbolic interactionism and inter-subjectively reflective approaches, three main methods were used: interviews, projective drawings and a pen-and-paper exercise.

The results of this paper strongly confirm that a brand is perceived by consumers as having a sex, a gender and a sexual orientation. These findings point toward a crucial distinction between these three constructs. Construct conceptualizations are developed and definitions are suggested. Nine antecedents for brand sexual associations are studied.

French subjects constitute the sample. Future studies might investigate the transferability of our results to other cultures. The three constructs broadens the existing brand-as-a-person metaphor and brand gender literature.

Managers need to consider the construction of their brands’ sexual identities, namely, the sexual associations that brand strategists desire to create and maintain. The study of the antecedents of brand sexual associations provides brand managers the opportunity to manage actively those specific types of associations.

This research contributes to the brand-as-a-person metaphor and to the brand gender literature with new insights about the nature and structure of brand sexual associations. This paper moves the conceptualization of these constructs forward.

This research seeks to explore the nature and the structure of brands' masculine dimensions; to develop a reliable and a valid scale to measure brand masculinity and to explore the different brand masculine patterns.

A series of four studies developed and validated a two-factor, five-item measurement scale for brand masculinity using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Content and face validities; reliability and internal validity; convergent and discriminant validities were established. Generalisability of the two dimensions across the gendering of product categories was assessed. A cluster analysis was used to explore brand masculine patterns.

The results indicate that brand masculinity is a bi-dimensional construct (i.e. “Male chauvinism” and “Heroic” dimensions). A cluster analysis performed on 45 brands revealed four brand masculine patterns: hegemonic, emerging, chivalrous and subaltern.

French student subjects constitute the sample. Future studies might investigate the transferability of the results to other cultures. The classification scheme broadens the existing brand personality and brand gender literature and its derived brand taxonomies.

The results provide brand managers with a marketing tool to measure their brands' masculinity and allow them to adapt specific, previously developed gendered marketing strategies.

This research contributes to the brand personality and brand gender literature with new insights about the nature and structure of brands' masculine dimensions. The study moves the conceptualisation of this construct forward rejecting thus previous monolithic approaches to brand masculinity.

In recent years, a shift in economic focus has occurred, recognizing humans as the primary resource and indispensable element in economic relationships. This shift has given rise to a new economic model known as the knowledge-based economy, which places emphasis on human resources, experiences, skills, ideas, and knowledge generation. The knowledge-based economy relies heavily on information as a strategic commodity to enhance services and national income while increasing employment rates. This economic model has found application across various fields, including education, commerce, medicine, and urban planning. Particularly, the concept of smart cities has emerged as a modern notion linking the knowledge-based economy with urban development. Despite global interest in these concepts, the literature suggests a lack of attention to the knowledge-based economy and smart cities in the Arab Gulf region, including Qatar. This chapter aims to explore the relationship between smart city initiatives and the transformational processes of the knowledge-based economy, especially in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries like Qatar. It argues that smart cities and the knowledge-based economy are mutually interdependent. Smart city initiatives rely on the information and knowledge produced by the knowledge-based economy, while the latter requires better utilization of knowledge by smart applications to flourish. Using the case of Lusail smart city in Qatar, the chapter examines how the integration of smart city technologies contributes to Qatar’s progression toward a knowledge-based economy. It emphasizes the strategic significance, facilitation of innovation, and practical implementation of sustainable urban development strategies in Qatar’s development trajectory.

The study aims to capture customers’ different price expectations by constructing a multidimensional price perception in Islamic banking setting and the impact on customer satisfaction and behavioral intention, as a single price perception approach cannot reflect heterogeneity of price expectations. The study conceptualized customers’ price expectation into price reliability, price confidence, price transparency, relative price, price–quality ratio and price fairness.

An online questionnaire was distributed to Islamic banking customers in Indonesia to test seven proposed hypotheses of price perceptions on customer satisfaction and behavioral intention. The instrument used a five-point Likert-type scale to capture customer perception on the instrument variables and analyzed the functional relation of the model using multiple regression analysis.

Empirical findings reveal that customers experienced more price expectations in their banking decision-making process. The number and complexity of price expectations depend primarily on the customers’ interest, particularly on price transparency, relative price and price–quality ratio, and these dimensions affect satisfaction and behavioral intention. Islamic banking customers in Indonesia are highly aware of price transparency, have “relative thinking” on price differences and put price–quality ratio in their assessment.

The study was conducted in Indonesian Islamic banking industry; the extension to other different countries may reveal difference in price complexity and implication to behavioral consequences. Any difference in customer attitude would bring managerial implication for different Islamic bank managers. Additionally, this study developed and examined five price dimensions, however, there may be additional price dimensions in different environment contexts. Further research is needed to identify any other price expectations that may affect customers’ behavior.

The results of this research allow bank practitioners to develop relevant pricing strategy to fulfil customers’ different price expectations in their decision-making process. Appropriate measures to different price expectations improve satisfaction, loyalty and, in turn, increase bank profits. Furthermore, this research provides useful information for future researchers in different settings.

This paper provides empirical analysis of pricing strategy by Indonesian Islamic banks and insights on customers’ experience toward different price expectations.

Given the evolution that knowledge management (KM) has undergone since the advent of the digital transition, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate how KM processes have changed as a result of agile organisations’ adoption of digital technologies.

Years have passed since the onset of the fourth industrial revolution, and the technologies unique to this revolution have permeated every organisation to varying degrees. Whether organisations have been at the forefront of technological innovation or have had to adapt to much more advanced digitised processes, they have had to change how they manage operations internally and with the remainder of the supply chain they serve. These changes have been much more significant for agile organisations, which rely heavily on digital systems and have strong supplier and customer interactions. Due to the large amount of data generated, these organisations are referred to as knowledge-intensive businesses, and as a result, their KM processes are of the utmost importance. For this reason, a multiple case study with a grounded theory approach has been implemented to carry out a field analysis.

The results show that Industry 4.0 technological advances can be included in the scientific debate on KM and agile innovation, given the effects that such technologies have on organisations.

In today’s increasingly connected world, these findings have the potential to generate significant economic value by improving coordination and collaboration in KM processes.

This study investigates the impact of board characteristics on the stock liquidity of Pakistani listed non-financial firms for the period 2007–2016.

The study uses fixed-effects regression model on a sample of 170 non-financial firms listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange for regressing the impact of board attributes on stock liquidity while for addressing the endogeneity two-stage least-square (2SLS) and lagged structure models are used.

The study finds that board meetings (BM), directors' attendance (DAT) at BM, board gender diversity, the number of board subcommittees (NBC) and board foreign diversity (BFD) positively affect stock liquidity. Checking the robustness through 2SLS and lagged structure models, it is suggested that the findings are robust to the problem of endogeneity.

Outcomes of the study signify the role of novel board attributes in improving the stock liquidity which has implications for investors, the board of directors and policymakers.

The authors are the first to investigate the impact of novel board attributes–BFD, directors' remuneration (DR), DAT and the number of board sub-committees on stock liquidity. Up to the best of researchers' knowledge, these board attributes have never been examined before in relation to stock liquidity.

The development of green economy is of academic and policy importance to governments and policymakers worldwide. In the light of the necessity of renewable energy to sustain green economic growth, this study aims to examine the relationship between renewable energy consumption and green economic growth, controlling for the impact of trade openness for Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries over the period 1990-2015, within a multivariate panel data framework.

To investigate the long-run relationship between variables, panel cointegration tests are performed. Panel Granger causality based on vector error correction models is adopted to understand the short- and long-run dynamics of the data. Furthermore, ordinary least square (OLS), dynamic OLS and fully modified OLS methods are used to confirm the long-run elasticity of green growth for renewable energy consumption and trade openness. Moreover, system generalized method of moment is applied to eliminate serial correlation, heteroscedasticity and endogeneity problems. The authors used the panel Granger causality test developed by Dumitrescu and Hurlin (2012) to infer the directionality of the causal relationship, allowing for both the cross-sectional dependence and heterogeneity.

The results suggest that renewable energy consumption and trade openness exert positive effects on green economic growth. The results of long-run estimates of green economic growth reveal that the long-run elasticity of green economic growth for trade openness is much greater than for renewable energy consumption. The estimated results of the Dumitrescu and Hurlin (2012) test reveal bidirectional causality between green economic growth and renewable energy consumption, providing support for the feedback hypothesis.

This paper provides strong evidence of the contribution of renewable energy consumption on green economy for a wide range of countries. Despite the costs of establishing renewable energy facilities, it is evident that these facilities contribute to the green growth of an economy. Governments and public authorities should promote the consumption of renewable energy and should have a support policy to promote an active renewable energy market. Furthermore, the regulators must constitute an efficient regulatory framework to favor the renewable energy consumption.

Many countries focus on increasing their GDP without taking the environmental impacts of the growth process into account. This paper shows that renewable energy consumption points to the fact that countries can still increase their economic growth with minimal damage to environment. Despite the costs of adopting renewable energy technologies, there is still room for economic growth.

This paper provides evidence on the contribution of renewable energy consumption on green economic growth for a wide range of countries. The paper focuses on the impact of renewable energy on economic growth by taking environmental degradation into consideration on a wide scale of countries.

There is a growing awareness of the dangers of climate change and global warming due to increasing energy consumption and associated greenhouse gas emissions. Campus universities are critical for implementing low-carbon development efficiently, given the large population and socio-economic activities concentrated on campus. This paper aims to explore the existing campus management initiatives and recommends holistic driving elements towards successful low-carbon campus development.

This study’s triangulation of information was supplemented by contributions from 116 respondents on the UiTM Shah Alam campus and eight professional interviews with stakeholders involved in low-carbon campus projects.

The study reported that low-carbon strategies had been implemented on the UiTM Shah Alam campus, with most existing programmes and activities focusing on low-hanging fruit initiatives. Moreover, the findings indicate that financial, cultural, behavioural, organisational and physical constraints are critical challenges to effectively implementing low-carbon approaches. The proposed techniques suggest that generating green funding, defining clear targets, developing standard procedures for carbon assessment and monitoring, also boosting education and outreach programmes lead to the improvement of low-carbon campus efforts.

The outcomes of this paper offer perspective to campus administration and community into an evaluation of current approaches and strategies for merging low-carbon systems. The effectiveness of low-carbon implementation was ensured by addressing issues concerning low-carbon uptake and fostering low-carbon improvement.

Besides providing a better understanding of techniques to implementing low-carbon development in Malaysia, the critical hurdles and driving factors, the output from this study adds to the existing knowledge available concerning the campus community’s existing comprehension.

The purpose of this study is to develop a novel hybrid approach that incorporates the structural equation model (SEM) and fuzzy cognitive map (FCM) to investigate the impacts of the variation in project complexity on project success.

This study adopts SEM to identify and validate a correlation between project complexity variables and PS. Standardized causal coefficients estimated in SEM are used to construct an FCM model to illustrate the effect of complexity on PS with linkage direction and weights. Predictive and diagnostic analyses are performed to dynamically model the variation in project complexity on the evolution of PS.

Results indicate that (1) the hybrid SEM–FCM approach is capable of modeling the dynamic interactions between project complexity and PS; (2) information, goal and environmental complexities are negatively correlated with PS, and technological, task and organizational complexities are positively correlated with PS and (3) the recommendations of complexity management for construction projects are put forward under the guideline of success monitoring.

This research contributes to (1) the state of knowledge by proposing a hybrid methodology that can model the dynamic interactions between project complexity and PS and (2) the state of practice by providing a new perspective of PS evaluation to enhance the probability of success in complex construction projects.