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Millennials, a cohort of young consumers, are the primary group of shoppers via e-commerce. This study aims to identify Chinese individual cultural values in millennials and examine the role of perceived shopping (hedonic and utilitarian) values in creating e-loyalty.

Data were collected from 296 Chinese millennials who use online shopping websites and apps. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to examine the validity and reliability of the methodology. Structural equation modeling was employed to test the proposed hypotheses.

All hypotheses were supported except one: the respondents rejected the impact of the face value on utilitarianism. The findings confirmed that Chinese individual cultural characteristics (face and Yuan) impact perceived shopping values (hedonic and utilitarian). Furthermore, these shopping values significantly influence e-loyalty.

The study's findings suggest some implications that academicians and market practitioners should consider. Additional implications for business managers focus on cultural characteristics, strong local teams, market-based approaches and long-term strategies.

The present work highlights the online shopping behavior of Chinese millennials by exploring e-loyalty, considering its two dimensions.

This study is undertaken to examine the role of information and communication technology (ICT), e-service quality and e-information quality towards brand image of universities by concentrating on students’ e-learning, e-word of mouth and satisfaction.

The target population was the students of public and private universities in Pakistan. Data collected using an e-questionnaire by 408 students were subjected to PLS-SEM for analysis.

Findings revealed that ICT, e-service quality and e-information quality are positively contributed toward students' e-learning which ultimately leads to create positive e-word of mouth and students' satisfaction. Meanwhile, results also identified that e-word of mouth and students' satisfaction lead to generate a positive brand image of universities.

This study has unique implications for universities to develop an e-learning platform to facilitate their students in this situation of COVID-19. It provides guidelines for educational institutions to implement the learning management system effectively with a view to facilitate the students with education.

This study has novel contribution in literature in the domain of digital learning. It is unique in a way to integrate the usage of technology with students' e-learning and satisfaction that ultimately create brand image of universities.

Big data analytics capabilities are the driving force and deemed as an operational excellence approach to improving the green supply chain performance in the post COVID-19 situation. Motivated by the COVID-19 epidemic and the problems it poses to the supply chain's long-term viability, this study used dynamic capabilities theory as a foundation to assess the imperative role of big data analytics capabilities (management, talent and technological) toward green supply chain performance.

This study was quantitative and cross-sectional. Data were collected from 374 executives through a survey questionnaire method by applying an appropriate random sampling technique. The authors employed PLS-SEM to analyze the data.

The findings revealed that big data analytics capabilities play a significant role in boosting up sustainable supply chain performance. It was found that big data analytics capabilities significantly contributed to supply chain risk management and innovative green product development that ultimately enhanced innovation and learning performance. Moreover, innovation and green learning performance has a significant and positive relationship with sustainable supply chain performance. In the post COVID-19 situation, organizations can enhance their sustainable supply chain performance by giving extra attention to big data analytics capabilities and supply chain risk and innovativeness.

The paper specifically emphasizes on the factors that result in the sustainability in supply chain integrated with the big data analytics. Additionally, it offers the boundary condition for gaining the sustainable supply chain management.

The purpose of this paper is to solve the problem of tuning of EKF parameters (process and measurement noise co-variance matrices) designed for attitude estimation using Global Positioning System (GPS) aided inertial sensors by employing a Human Opinion Dynamics (HOD)-based optimization technique and modifying the technique using maximum likelihood estimators and study its performance as compared to Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and manual tuning.

A model for the determination of attitude of flight vehicles using inertial sensors and GPS measurement is designed and experiments are carried out to collect raw sensor and reference data. An HOD-based model is utilized to estimate the optimized process and measurement noise co-variance matrix. Added to it, few modifications are proposed in the HOD model by utilizing maximum likelihood estimator and finally the results obtained by the proposed schemes analysed.

Analysis of the results shows that utilization of evolutionary algorithms for tuning is a significant improvement over manual tuning and both HOD and PSO-based methods are able to achieve the same level of accuracy. However, the HOD methods show better convergence and is easier to implement in terms of tuning parameters. Also, utilization of maximum likelihood estimator shows better search during initial iterations which increases the robustness of the algorithm.

The paper is unique in its sense that it utilizes a HOD-based model to solve tuning problem of EKF for attitude estimation.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the importance of trade-offs between the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and creating a holistic, integrated approach.

This study uses secondary data including official reports from three companies: Accor Hotels, Scandic Hotels and Atlantica Hotels. Third party references from research sources are included.

This study concludes that companies are adopting corporate social responsibility practices focussed on stakeholders’ needs. Additionally, the general trend in the case study hotel companies is towards similar sustainability approaches though less progress is reported in addressing the more complex issues relating to SDG 8 and SDG 10 because sustainability targets are more difficult to determine, implement and measure.

The three selected companies were chosen based on location criteria. Accor has a worldwide presence whereas the other two companies could be considered as multinational companies. Scandic is a Swedish company operating in Scandinavian countries whereas Atlantica is a Cyprus-based company operating in Greece and Egypt. The contrast among the selected companies displays different considerations regarding their commitment to SDGs.

Predicting the critical velocity is crucial at the instability threshold for shell and tube heat exchangers in order to prevent tube failure due to vibrations. In this study, the vibration response of an aluminum tube bundle subjected to water cross flow was analyzed experimentally. Aluminum tubes are preferred over steel tubes because of aluminum tubes' excellent corrosion resistance, ease of manufacture, and high thermal efficiency.

The fluid elastic instability and vortex shedding mechanisms in a finned tube array of aluminum tubes with a base tube diameter of 19.05 mm and pitch of 34 mm were investigated. The current study considers parallel triangular finned tube arrays with fin heights of 3 mm and 6 mm with a uniform fin thickness and fin pitch. The plain tube array was tested to compare the finned tube array results. The tube vibration response was measured using an accelerometer mounted on the middle tube of the third row. In order to define the fluid elastic instability behavior of various tube arrays, the critical velocity at the instability threshold is measured. By finding the Strouhal number at the small peaks before instability, the vortex shedding behavior of the tube arrays is examined.

The results reveal that the critical velocity at instability for coarse finned tube arrays increases as the fin height increases. The effect of the tube material is evaluated by comparing the results with those previously reported for parallel triangular tube arrays made of steel. Finally, the occurrence of vortex shedding in a tube array is confirmed based on the Reynolds number and Strouhal number relationship. The instability constant K for the plain tube array of steel and aluminum material are 4.97 and 4.87, respectively.

This paper provides the research findings on the effect of fin height on coarse density finned tube array. This will add substantial knowledge to the literature in the field of fluid elastic instability and vortex shedding, which is needed for the safe functioning of shell and tube heat exchangers.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework for the identification, categorization and prioritization of social sustainability barriers in health-care supply chains.

An exploratory survey tool is used to identify barriers that are relevant to a health-care supply chain. The identified barriers are grouped into five main categories and experts’ opinions were applied to validate the content. Finally, an analytical hierarchical process (AHP) is used to prioritize the main categories and sub-categories of the barriers.

The exploratory phase identified 34 barriers that are relevant to a health-care supply chain. These barriers were grouped into the following categories: poor infrastructure, organizational culture, poor coordination, stakeholder disparity, and uncertainty. Organizational culture and poor coordination were assigned the highest priority through the AHP. Overall, lack of management support, lack of commitment and lack of coordination were found to be the top relevant barriers to a health-care supply chain.

This study only explored and prioritized the barriers of social sustainability. Future research should explore the impact of the identified barriers on the overall performance of the hospital supply chain.

The findings of this study may be of value to the local health-care industry in achieving their objectives by overcoming social sustainability barriers, which would in turn facilitate the implementation of social sustainability programs that can positively contribute to the overall supply chain performance.

Social sustainability has grown in importance as a pressurizing issue to push supply chain managers to assess their social impacts on the communities. This is especially important in service supply chains such as health care, where human element is a part of every stage.

Despite practitioners’ and academics’ growing emphasis on the social dimension of sustainability, the categorization and prioritization of social sustainability practices across health-care supply chains and general service care supply chains have not been addressed. This study aims to cover this gap by contributing to both the academic literature and the practical health-care environment.

The basic intention of this research is to investigate the role of information transparency of financial institutions and psychological attitude of the individuals toward their attention to saving and borrowing. This study also tries to know how an individual's psychological factor affects a person's attitude to motivate them to save or borrow and contribute to well-being by giving them confidence that they can face financial challenges. So, the main concern of this study is to explore different factors that ultimately contribute to the financial well-being (FWB) of individual.

A survey was conducted by using a well-structured questionnaire to collect data and test the developed hypotheses by using SmartPLS. Data were collected from 120 customers of seven different commercial banks in Pakistan.

The findings of this study show that perceived information transparency positively affects FWB. It is also because transparent shared information creates positive change in individuals' perceived self-efficacy and leads to FWB. Furthermore, an individual's psychological attitude toward borrowing and saving did not contribute to the FWB of people who belong to Pakistan.

The research area is limited to one city of Pakistan and analysis is done with small numbers of sample, it can be increased and more areas can be explored.

This research provides significant implications for people and economists by providing awareness about the antecedents of FWB. The policymakers or managers who work in financial institutions should provide more transparent information and create less risky opportunities to improve the individual's well-being. If person, manager and financial institution can properly utilize the information of this study, then they are able to improve their FWB. By providing more transparent services and favorable experience with your dealings, it could help to obtain and retain more loyal internal (employees) and external customers. The loyal customers and sincere employees can increase the productivity level of organization. The more productive organizations in countries means better society and progress in the economy.

This research contributes to the body of knowledge that how perceived information transparency and psychological attitude of borrowing create improvement and upward changes in the FWB of a person.

The construction industry activities play a key role in achieving socio-economic development and sustaining economic growth in many countries. Increased awareness about the role of human resource management in employee performance has led construction firms to evaluate and focus on high-performance work practices (HPWPs) components, which intend to cultivate employee and organizational performance. This study aims to explain HPWPs affect employee performances through the mediating influence of trust in management in Aqaba, Jordan.

A questionnaire survey was administered to collect data among the contractors Grade1 across Aqaba, Jordan. This research was designed as a quantitative study and data were collected at one point of time. In total, 311 questionnaires were returned and only 279 completed questionnaires to test the relationship between HPWPs and employee performances according to the ability, motivation and opportunity conceptualized framework. The partial least squares technique was adopted to test the proposed relationships.

The results present that extensive training, rewards based on performance and job security have a significant relationship with trust in management. Trust in management exerts partial mediation effects between HPWPs (extensive training, rewards based on performance and job security) and employee performance (creativity and innovation).

The findings of the study provide useful and original information to improve the overall performance of construction firms.

The purpose of this paper is to study the self-perceptions of university information professionals about continuous professional development (CPD) opportunities regarding their soft skills.

A qualitative design using in-depth interviews was used. The population was all the information professionals working in the public sector universities of Pakistan, but the geographic range of the population, to reduce travelling expenses and to complete the study in time, the interviews were restricted to the universities of the capital city Islamabad and provincial capital Peshawar. A total of 21 interviews were conducted using a snowball sampling technique to select information professionals.

The findings revealed that only three information professionals attended CPD opportunities in soft skills. More than half of the information professionals stated that CPD programmes have an overall “good” impact on the development of their soft skills. Similarly, more than half of the participants stated that CPD training opportunities on soft skills are very limited. The majority of the participants held professional associations responsible for the development of information professionals’ soft skills. It was also found that communication and persuasion skills, self-management skills and interpersonal skills were the top three soft skill categories for which they urged CPD programmes.

During interviews, most of the Assistant Librarians were not expressive and comfortable. This might be because of a lack of their soft skills knowledge, poor communication skills and interview anxiety.

According to the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first of its kind in Pakistan that dealt with the CPD opportunities regarding soft skills of university information professionals using a qualitative research design.