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This study investigated the role of brand experience dimensions (behavioral, intellectual, sensory and affective) to predict consumer loyalty (repurchase intention (RPI), word of mouth (WOM) and willingness to pay more (WPM)) through the mediating role of perceived brand authenticity (PBA) in the global branding context.

A total of 422 consumers participated in this study and provided feedback on top authentic global brands after completing a self-administered online survey. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to conduct the data analysis.

This study discovered that brand experience dimensions positively influenced PBA (predominantly sensory and intellectual experiences), which significantly predicted consumer loyalty (RPI, WOM and WPM).

This research uncovered some limitations that can be used to investigate new research possibilities. From a theoretical standpoint, this study offers new insights into brand experience dimensions (BEDs), PBA and consumer loyalty in order to develop consumer-brand relationships.

This study offered several managerial recommendations. By considering brand authenticity as a positioning tool, global managers can effectively develop and implement various experiential marketing strategies to develop long-term relationships with consumers to attain their loyalty.

This is a new study that uses Fournier's relationship theory to investigate BEDs on PBA to predict consumer loyalty in the context of authentic global brands.

Self-localization of an underwater robot using global positioning sensor and other radio positioning systems is not possible, as an alternative onboard sensor-based self-location estimation provides another possible solution. However, the dynamic and unstructured nature of the sea environment and highly noise effected sensory information makes the underwater robot self-localization a challenging research topic. The state-of-art multi-sensor fusion algorithms are deficient in dealing of multi-sensor data, e.g. Kalman filter cannot deal with non-Gaussian noise, while parametric filter such as Monte Carlo localization has high computational cost. An optimal fusion policy with low computational cost is an important research question for underwater robot localization.

In this paper, the authors proposed a novel predictive coding-biased competition/divisive input modulation (PC/BC-DIM) neural network-based multi-sensor fusion approach, which has the capability to fuse and approximate noisy sensory information in an optimal way.

Results of low mean localization error (i.e. 1.2704 m) and computation cost (i.e. 2.2 ms) show that the proposed method performs better than existing previous techniques in such dynamic and unstructured environments.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this work provides a novel multisensory fusion approach to overcome the existing problems of non-Gaussian noise removal, higher self-localization estimation accuracy and reduced computational cost.

This study aims to identify, review and synthesize existing literature on key theories, drivers and barriers affecting consumer adoption or resistance to artificial intelligence (AI) in the hospitality sector.

This study aims to conduct a complete literature review of the accrued knowledge generated so far on AI in the hospitality sector. To attain the overall objectives of this study, we used the systematic literature review (SLR) method. This method systematically handles the diversity of knowledge in a specific topic to answer precise research questions. It also generates new visions through a synthesis of the literature, to identify the knowledge gaps, set the new directions for the future researcher and provide sufficient guidance to inform the policy and practice.

The findings of this study are presented in three sections, as follows: descriptive analysis, content analysis and synthesized framework. The findings highlighted the state-of-the-art mapping of the existing research in terms of publication frequency over time and across publication outlets, key theories, methods and geographies. In addition, literature on consumer adoption (or resistance) of AI in hospitality is content analyzed to highlight key drivers and barriers. Moreover, this review critically evaluates extant literature and sets future agendas by postulating specific research questions for further knowledge development in this field of study.

The SLR focused on consumer adoption or resistance to use AI in hospitality literature. The future researcher may include additional streams to get better results.

The study findings will help multiple stakeholders to understand the underlying causes of customer resistance or barriers to the intention to use/adopt AI services in the hotel sector. Furthermore, study results will allow them to better analyze the relationship between customer barriers, intents or consumer decision behaviors.

First, this study provides a comprehensive synthesis of the literature on the consumer adoption or resistance of AI in hospitality. This study categorizes the existing diversified literature in two main themes – drivers and barriers – to present a simplistic picture of the existing literature. Second, the review highlights the gaps and limitations in existing research and provides guidance for future scholars. Third, the key contribution of this review is the development of a unified framework on the consumer adoption or resistance of AI in the hospitality sector. That is, this study puts forward the behavioral reasoning theory framework and suggests that future research using this lens will immensely contribute to existing literature. Finally, this study facilitates the practitioners to understand the key motivating and hindering factors affecting the adoption and resistance behavior.

To deal with the issue of irresponsible consumer behavior, this study aims to find out the significant determinants that direct sustainability in consumers' responsible behavior.

The study is quantitatively designed (survey approach) and targeted 520 respondents by deploying multistage sampling technique. The collected data is statistically analyzed in SEM-path analysis technique through Smart PLS 3.

The outcomes of study indicated that awareness of wasteful consumption (ß = 0.27, p = 0.00) and wastophobia (ß = 0.73, p = 0.00) strongly influence consumers’ mind to bring sustainability in responsible behavior.

This study suggests that the empirically tested wastophobia model can pave foundations in the theoretical literature to manage waste other than electricity waste, including time, food, water, agriculture, garbage, hazardous environmental pollution and natural reservoirs waste.

The study originates that promoting various conscious and unconscious aspects of wasteful consumption by focusing on fearful consequences of electricity waste supports to bring sustainability in consumers’ responsible behavior.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether companies with high audit quality (AQ) are expected to use trade credit (TC) as a financing source. Traditionally, vendors are most likely to extend TC to creditworthy customers.

The author uses the data from 134,099 firm-year observations of nine Asian emerging markets from 2001 to 2017. Further, to check the impact of AQ on trade credit, the authors employ ordinary least square (OLS) with fixed effects, cluster effect regression and random effect.

The findings indicate that vendors extend more TC to the companies audited by the BIG4 auditors as, these independent practitioners have greater competencies, expert intellectual capital, global networking connections, and high investment in information technology. The authors, therefore, conjecture that the company's use of TC increases with their improved AQ, especially audited by BIG4. The results are found consistent with this prediction and robust to the alternative measures of trade credit. Similarly, this positive association is more pronounced with the BIG4 partner's unqualified audit opinion.

This study uses the sample of Asian Emerging countries but the researchers cannot generalize the results to developed countries or other regions.

This paper's findings have significant implications for the management, board of directors, shareholders and suppliers. Further, results are in favor of appointing BIG4 auditors to gain the trust of suppliers.

Despite the wide-ranging literature that discusses the importance of quality audits in enhancing the firms' financial disclosures that leads to better access to finance through investors and lenders. But the TC as a financing source is ignored in relation to AQ. The study’s results extend the literature associating companies' AQ with financial decisions.

This study aims to examine the associations between socioeconomic status, types of rigging (pre- polling-day and post-), politics and voting behavior, vote casting and perceptions of rigging in Pakistan’s most recent elections, and attitudes toward electoral integrity.

Data were collected from students at three different universities. In all, 748 units of analysis (488 male and 260 female) recorded their responses by means of a self-structured questionnaire. Linear regression was applied to measure the associations between variables, and the reliability and validity of the scales were tested.

A significant relationship was found between pre-poll rigging, post-poll rigging, politics and voting behavior, socioeconomic characteristics (i.e. age, education, father’s education, background or place of residence and monthly household incomes), the perception of rigging in the last elections and attitudes toward electoral integrity.

Pakistan’s history has been blemished by electoral malpractices during both de facto and de jure regimes. Attention has formerly been paid to either polling-day or post-election rigging. The relationship of electoral integrity with different factors explored in this study have usually been ignored or overlooked. The findings of this study would help policy-makers, youth experts and academicians to reorient their behaviors to strengthen political stability, the rule of law and the continuation of democracy via their participation in the system.

To the researchers’ best knowledge, there has not been a single peer-reviewed study of Pakistan which has explored the associations between the variables examined for this study. The main academic challenge the researchers faced was to find a standardized and contextualized scale or tool to explore how different types of vote-rigging affected attitudes toward electoral integrity. Thus, the structured scales for types of rigging and electoral integrity developed here would be useful for future studies in the field of electoral integrity in democratic countries.

The present study aims to examine the current digital information literacy (DIL) skills of female online shoppers in Lahore city of Pakistan. Data were gathered from a purposive sampling of women, aged between 20–50 years who were buying products online, not from the traditional retail stores. Out of 309 received questionnaires, 269 responses were useable and were utilized for data analysis. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to deduce inferences.

Quantitative research approach was employed for this study, and a survey was conducted to collect the data from the study's respondents. For data analysis, descriptive and inferential statistics were used.

Results revealed that the digital information literacy skills of women were good to a moderate level. However, they were not confident in applying advanced searching options. In accordance with what was hypothesized in a directional hypothesis, DIL was found to be a strong predictor of online shopping behavior of women, consequently highlighting the importance of such competencies in modern life. Other findings illustrate that participating women rarely engaged in online shopping and felt hesitation in using credit/debit card for online transactions.

These observations highlight the important role of information professionals in creating digital literacy among different population groups, specifically women, by planning digital information instruction through courses, workshops and trainings. This could eventually be possible with the dynamic role of librarians or information professionals in the society.

The present study adopts the unique approach of measuring online shopping behavior of female shoppers in connection with their digital information literacy skills.

This era is the time for upskilling and producing workforce that is capable of effectively dealing with the day-by-day increasing demand of the industry. As the world is changing, its needs are changing in the same way and at the same speed. The world has become more digitized now. Moreover, we have a dramatic shift from Education 1.0 to Education 4.0 these days. The world now is practicing the internet of things, cloud storage, cyber-physical system and artificial intelligence. The purpose of this study is to identify the factors that affect the level of motivation toward the integration and implication of Industrial Revolution (IR) 4.0 in the education system of Pakistan by considering the Government policies.

For analyzing these factors, 150 research articles were sought out, out of which 84 were chosen for reviewing purpose based on the authentication of and relevance to this study by considering the Pakistani context. All the research articles have been selected from reputed indexed journals from databases (Scopus and Web of Science).

The findings of this review suggest that many factors affect the motivation toward integration and implementation of IR 4.0. These factors mainly include human factors, intrinsic values and influencing factors. Moreover, there is no such framework that provides the base to Education 4.0 in Pakistan because the things exist but are not systematic. Educators are motivated, but there are no resources; policies are there, but there is no practice or implementation. Pakistan is lacking in the latest trends related to Education 4.0 and even has no experience because people are used to doing things manually, but technology is the need of this era. Furthermore, the findings of this study will be useful for developing a systematic plan or a framework of the integration and implication of IR 4.0 that ultimately gives rise to Education 4.0 in the education system of Pakistan.

To the authors’ knowledge, no other study has been conducted on this topic in Pakistan. Also, there is a very little work done on this topic anywhere else in the world. The world is still exploring the IR 4.0, and our topic is solemnly related to these resolutions. Thus, there is a very little amount of literature related to this study.

Mental health is a universal issue nowadays, and poor mental health is detrimental to any individual's optimal health and well-being. Instead of keeping up with mental health, most civilization encounters the opposite continuum of mental health, a.k.a. mental illness. Unfortunately, mental health issues are more intense during the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on public organizations and public servants more severe while rendering their social services to the Malaysian citizens despite the danger of the pandemic to them and their family’s well-being. Hence to cure the disease, manifold ways and means are presented. Most public servants are Malay Muslims and hence recommended treatments are originated from Islam teachings, thus proposing the Islamic Mental Health model to improve their mental health during this intense situation is proper. The model emphasizes on fulfilling the deeds of habluminallah and habluminannas. Habluminannas complements habluminallah as the formation of a complete mental health model from Islamic perspective. Habluminallah focuses on the person's relationship to his Creator, while habluminannas focuses on the person's relationship with others. These two types of morals, that is morals to Allah (habluminallah) which is indicated by the command that Muslims must establish a good relationship with Allah by not associating Allah with others and Muslims also must show morals toward fellow human beings (habluminannas) shown by the command to do good to both parents, close relatives, orphans, poor people, near neighbors and distant neighbors, peers, people on the way, and servants. Habluminallah and habluminannas are two sides of a coin that cannot be separated. The two are the foundation of comprehensive mental health in Islam. So Islam encourages its people to practice both worshiping of the Creator as well as encourages social relations, such as paying attention to the fates of the weak. Even if referred to the pillars of Islam, there is a combination of habluminallah and habluminannas, a combination of vertical and horizontal relations.

This paper aims to show that zakat solves the collective action problem by changing the framework of giving. An additional purpose of this paper is an attempt to fill a critical gap in the Islamic economics literature. This gap concerns the nature and role of zakat in effectively delivering aid to those in need while mitigating the potential for free riding. There is also a general gap in the current literature on Islamic economics that the issues of zakat and charity have not received the same attention as the focus remained mostly on money, banking and the issues of interest and usury. The paper is also an attempt to provide a refocus.

This paper attempts to build an argument to show how zakat can function as a unique solution to the free-rider problem in voluntary charity. The author’s argument is based on a precise theoretical framework, namely the “free-rider problem,” and how zakat can function as a unique solution to this problem. The author also uses game theory to show how reputation can lead to cooperation in a repeated game. The author uses an example from Pakistan to show how reputation can be a disciplinarian of zakat collection organizations.

Zakat solves both the free-rider problem in ordinary charity and the coordination problem between members in a large group. The free-rider problem is solved by changing the very framework of giving and the coordination problem between Muslims around the globe disappears because the rates and details of levying zakat are centrally created based on divine revelation.

This paper presents an important topic as it addresses one of the most popular giving practices in Muslim societies, called zakat. It also provides a framework in examining the meaning and function of zakat in Muslim societies.