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Modern unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) are usually equipped with rotors connected to electric motors that enable them to hover and fly in all directions. The purpose of the paper is to design optimal composite rotor blades for such small UAVs and investigate their aerodynamic performances both computationally and experimentally.

Artificial intelligence method (genetic algorithm) is used to optimize the blade airfoil described by six input parameters. Furthermore, different computational methods, e.g. vortex methods and computational fluid dynamics, blade element momentum theory and finite element method, are used to predict the aerodynamic performances of the optimized airfoil and complete rotor as well the structural behaviour of the blade, respectively. Finally, composite blade is manufactured and the rotor performance is also determined experimentally by thrust and torque measurements.

Complete process of blade design (including geometry definition and optimization, estimation of aerodynamic performances, structural analysis and blade manufacturing) is conducted and explained in detail. The correspondence between computed and measured thrust and torque curves of the optimal rotor is satisfactory (differences mostly remain below 15%), which validates and justifies the used design approach formulated specifically for low-cost, small-scale propeller blades. Furthermore, the proposed techniques can easily be applied to any kind of rotating lifting surfaces including helicopter or wind turbine blades.

Blade design methodology is simplified, shortened and made more flexible thus enabling the fast and economic production of propeller blades optimized for specific working conditions.

A review of past scholarly work on pricing issues in hospitality has revealed a lack of focus on customers’ demographic profiles. However, research in other disciplines reveals that understanding price perception differences among groups of customers with different demographics, including culture, is an important consideration when offering pricing strategies. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the body of pricing research by exploring the effect of hotel guests’ demographics on their perception of hotel room prices.

Through Qualtrics, data were collected from 414 respondents who stayed at a mid-scale hotel within the past 24 months. The respondents’ perceived value (PV), perceived fairness (PF) and willingness to pay (WTP) for hotel rooms were examined with MANOVA and ANOVA tests to determine the effects of customer demographics on these variables.

Age, gender and marital status showed a significant effect on PV while age, gender and culture significantly affected PF. However, none of these variables significantly affected WTP. The culture of origin and the culture raised-in influenced PV, PF and WTP similarly.

This study reconciles several divergent results from previous studies and extends the scope of others by introducing different scenarios to each of the three dependent variables. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is also the first research study on this subject to evaluate more than two cultures and their effects on the independent variables.

This study aims to examine how operator type moderates the relationship between hotel information technology (IT) expenditures and operating performance.

By adapting and extending O’Neill et al.’s (2008) and Hua et al.’s (2015) research, this study constructed an empirical model and tested proposed hypotheses, with Newey and West (1994) errors computed to accommodate potential heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation issues.

Operator type moderates the impact of hotel IT expenditures on operating performance. In particular, it appears that the operator type of franchising exerts a stronger moderating effect compared with other operator types explored.

This study, as the first of its kind, shows that the choice of operator type shapes how a hotel can effectively use IT expenditures to improve operating performance. This finding can be beneficial for hotel owners when making operator type decisions. In addition, operator type moderates the direct impact of IT expenditures on revenues and gross operating income. This study’s results show that franchised hotels seem to use IT expenditures more effectively compared with independently owned hotels.

This study contributes both theoretically and practically to understand how operator type moderates the relationship between IT expenditures and hotel performance. The research outcome provides a more holistic view that governs the relationships between IT expenditures, operator type and operating performance.

We propose that in addition to its resources and capabilities, a firm’s capital structure and financial health will act as an important determinant of its attractiveness as an alliance partner. Alliances with leveraged firms are prone to unplanned termination due to financial distress, which puts at risk the value embedded in the collaboration. As a result, ceteris paribus, highly leveraged firms will be viewed as less desirable partners in the market for interfirm collaboration when compared to low leverage firms. In support of this proposition, we find that when forming an alliance firms tend to partner with other firms with similar levels of leverage: low-leverage firms partner with other low-leverage firms while high-leverage firms partner with other high-leverage firms, as well as with lower quality ones. Furthermore, we show that alliances with highly leveraged firms are more likely to involve equity participation as a form of ex post protection, especially when they involve partners with relatively lower leverage. Finally, we show that leverage is negatively related to the intensity of alliance activity, suggesting that firms also maintain lower leverage in their capital structure in order to attract potential partners. Overall our results imply that financial policies regarding capital structure have an important role to play in alliancing activity.

Strategic leadership plays an important role in achieving organizational success in surviving and growing in a challenging business environment. This study aims to examine the role of strategic leadership in responding to a rare moment in the health industry, which is the combination of government regulations that tend to continue to change and the emergence of COVID-19 pandemic.

A total of 358 respondents from 141 type C and D hospitals in Indonesia participated in this research. This study used six latent variables and 27 dimensions, processed using structural equation modeling.

The results of this study confirmed that resilient leaders will not seek new partners by developing network capabilities; but rather choose to save the hospital first, by resources reconfiguration as response to the unanticipated adversity caused by fusing the government regulation and emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study makes an important contribution that enables hospital management to develop action plans in response to national health-care regulations coupled with the emergence and extension of the COVID-19 pandemic; as well as the results of the investigation into organizational resources, and to implement strategic resilience capability more effectively.

Digital transformation becomes the future path for all organizations. Organizations are in need to progress the technology in the event of rapid environmental changes in all aspects. This implies the essential need to adapt to these changes, not only to benefit from the vast opportunities it offers yet even to stay relevant in this instability, complexity, uncertainty and vagueness environment. This paper aims to examine the impact of different variables such as disruptive change, technological process innovation and industry 4.0 (I4.0) on digital transformation. It helps identify the different capabilities needed for digitalization and digital maturity, identify the supporting methods for adopting different technologies and offer answers to overwhelmed those challenges and obstacles resulting in this environment.

A quantitative approach was used in conducting this research, whereas a questionnaire survey strategy was used for this investigation. In total, 450 participants have been surveyed from three major private mining organizations in the Jordanian context. Structural equation modeling was used for the analysis stage and hypotheses testing.

The results of the analysis revealed that support the direct impact of the event of disruptive change, technological process innovation on digital transformation. In addition, the results showed that there is a positive direct impact of the event of disruptive change on technological process innovation. While I4.0 was found to moderate the relationship between the event of disruptive change and digital transformation.

Decision-makers are responsible for directing their organization toward digitalization. This transformation needs capabilities that help organizations in competing and survive in this challenging environment. That is, it is essential to increase process innovation and moving toward more adoption of I4.0. However, the event of disruptive change should be considered as a motivation for the organizations rather than an obstacle. Moreover, different populations, methods and other variables that may affect digitalization may generate novel insights in further research.

Theoretically, novel insights into the event of the disruptive change and its implications have been added to the literature. The models used in the current examination provide new directions for understanding and studying digital transformation and organizational capabilities that are needed for transformation. From the managerial perspective, these findings enhance understanding of practices in which the event of disruptive change supports innovation and highlight the values added through recommending more adopting of I4.0 applications to yield more innovative harvests.