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This study aims to explore the link between prevalent risk factors for early childhood diarrhea, including hygiene, feeding, weaning practices and maternal education and the occurrence and severity of early childhood diarrhea in Saudi Arabia.

A case-control study was conducted, involving 98 mothers from the Eastern Region of Saudi Arabia (51 cases and 47 controls). Data were collected from both hospital and community sources. The collected data were statistically analyzed and depicted using descriptive statistics and frequency tables.

Demographic data revealed that 60% of mothers were housewives, 75% had normal deliveries and all babies were full term. In the study cohort, 44% of children aged one to two years. Four domains were compared: diarrheal management, hygiene, weaning and feeding practices. Diarrheal management was suboptimal in some cases: 29% increased fluid intake, 10% maintained adequate food intake, 50% sought medical advice, 58% were familiar with oral rehydration solutions and only 37% used them. Hygiene practices were deficient, with 35% using wipes or sanitizers, 64% handwashing before feeding and 52% adhering to the recommended 10-s duration. Controls exhibited better hygiene practices. Weaning practices were generally similar, with no significant differences between the two groups.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to collectively report on the risk factors linked to early childhood diarrhea in Saudi Arabia. This study yields significant insights, highlighting the crucial role of managing diarrhea, educating mothers and implementing proper household practices in impacting the occurrence and severity of this perilous ailment.

The role of inventors' creativity is crucial for technological innovation within enterprises. The mobility of inventors among different enterprises is a primary source for companies to acquire external knowledge. The mechanism of “learning-by-hiring” is widely recognized by companies. Therefore, it is important to determine how to allocate network resources to enhance the creativity of inventors when companies hire mobile inventors.

The study suggests an analytical framework that analyzes alterations in tie strength and structural holes resulting from the network embeddedness of mobile inventors as well as the effect of the interaction between these two variables on changes in inventor’s creativity after the mobility. In addition, this paper examines the moderating impact of cognitive richness of mobile inventors and cognitive distance between mobile inventors and new employers on the correlation between network embeddedness and creativity.

This study found that: (1) The increase of tie strength has a significant boost in creativity. (2) Increasing structural holes can significantly improve the creativity of mobile inventors. (3) When both the tie strength and the structural holes increase, the creativity of the mobile inventors significantly increases. (4) It is important to note that when there is a greater cognitive distance, stronger tie strength promotes the creativity of mobile inventors. Additionally, cognitive richness plays a significant role in moderating the relationship between changes in structural holes and the creativity of mobile inventors.

These findings provide theoretical guidance for firms to effectively manage mobile inventors and optimize collaborative networks within organizations.

Pre-positioning and distributing relief items are important parts of disaster management as it simultaneously considers activities from both pre- and post-disaster stages. This study aims to address this problem with a novel mathematical model.

In this research, a bi-objective mixed-integer linear programming model is developed to tackle pre-positioning and distributing relief items, and it is formulated as an integrated location-allocation-routing problem with uncertain parameters. The humanitarian supply chain consists of relief facilities (RFs) and demand points (DPs). Perishable and imperishable relief commodities (RCs), different types of vehicles, different transportation modes, a time window for delivering perishable commodities and the occurrence of unmet demand are considered. A scenario-based game theory is applied for purchasing RCs from different suppliers and an integrated best-worst method-technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution technique is implemented to determine the importance of DPs. The proposed model is used to solve several random test problems for verification, and to validate the model, Iran’s flood in 2019 is investigated as a case study for which useful managerial insights are provided.

Managers can effectively adjust their preferences towards response time and total cost of the network and use sensitivity analysis results in their decisions.

The model locates RFs, allocates DPs to RFs in the pre-disaster stage, and determines the routing of RCs from RFs to DPs in the post-disaster stage with respect to minimizing total costs and response time of the humanitarian logistics network.

In social marketplaces, follower ego networks are integral social capital assets for online sellers. While previous research has underscored the positive impact of the follower number on seller performance, little attention has been given to the structure of follower networks and their value implications. This research investigates two structural properties of follower networks—network centralization and density—and examines their main and contingent effects on sellers’ sales performance.

A 13-month panel dataset of 1,150 sellers in Etsy, a social marketplace for handmade and vintage products, was collected and analyzed. A fixed effects model was adopted to validate the hypotheses on the main effect of centralization and density, as well as the moderating effects of two store attributes: store age and product diversification.

We find that both network centralization and density negatively impact sellers’ sales performance, and these effects vary across store age and product diversification levels. Specifically, the negative effect of network centralization is less pronounced for older stores than young ones, whereas the negative effect of density is more severe for stores with high product diversification.

This research contributes to social commerce research by highlighting the significance of network structure, alongside network size, in assessing the value of followers and offers practical guidance for sellers in social marketplaces seeking to optimize their follower networks.

Competition in the modern, knowledge-based economy is utterly pendant on innovation, rendering it indispensable in virtually every organisation. Knowledge workers, therefore, must remain vigilant, spanning novel ways to innovate. Given the relevance of innovation orientation (IO) in knowledge work, it is imperative to possess an extensive understanding of the concept. Therefore, this study aims to develop and validate a measurement scale to gauge employees’ IO.

Considering that the instruments now in existence exhibit insufficiency for measuring knowledge workers’ IO in its entirety, the mixed-method approach used in this study draws on both qualitative and quantitative findings across various studies, to address this problem. This study has been organised into five stages: item generation, scale purification, scale refinement, nomological validation and generalizability.

This study establishes and verifies a second-order, reflective–reflective IO measure founded on multiple samples, encompassing the dimensions of creative orientation, learning orientation, first-mover orientation, trust orientation and agility orientation. The resultant IO scale serves as a robust and reliable tool that is capable of being leveraged to explain, assess and enhance IO for knowledge workers.

The rigorous methodology used in this scale development procedure serves as a benchmark for prospective scale development methodologists. From a managerial stance, this study serves managers/leaders concerning how to foster an innovation-oriented work environment to uncover employees’ hidden innovators. Organisations can leverage this study to discover, cultivate and capitalise on knowledge workers’ IO.

Although there exists an abundance of research on IO viewed from an institutional standpoint, research centred on the IO of knowledge workers is scarce. To bridge this gap, this study has developed and validated a scale for measuring knowledge workers’ IO.

This study aims to investigate the impact of local windfall gains from the Spanish Christmas lottery on household consumption behavior.

The study applies differences-in-differences to assess permanent income hypothesis (PIH) validity, examining pre- and postlottery consumption effects. Additionally, it also uses an instrumental variable regression, using the lottery shock as an instrument for total expenditures, to estimate the Engel curves.

The paper finds a PIH violation; households in winning region notably increase consumption on durable and nondurable goods compared to nonwinning ones. Moreover, durable goods consumption is responsive to lottery winnings, while nondurable goods consumption are unit-elastic to expenditure shocks.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first paper analyzing the effects of winning regions of the Spanish Christmas lottery in all types of consumption goods, testing its consequences in the PIH and estimating its effects in the Engel curves.

The purpose of this paper is to explore leadership succession in families in business. Although there is a vast amount of research on leadership succession, no attempt has been made to understand this phenomenon by using an intergenerational learning approach. By applying the Double ABC–X model, the authors discuss how resilience is developed through intergenerational learning during family leadership succession in business.

Based on a single case, the authors define pre- and post-event parameters of the business family under study and use the Double ABC–X Model as an analytical framework. Individual and pair interviews, as well as a family firm workshop, were undertaken following an action research approach using multiple interventions. The qualitative data were collected by reflective journals, field notes and observation protocols. Finally, the authors analyze the data according to a circular deconstruction strategy.

The authors find specific pre-event stressor parameters related to mutual mistrust, independent decision making and non-strategic transmission of power, knowledge and responsibility from predecessor to successor. The intervention based on the intergenerational approach during the post-crisis phase focuses on problem solving and coping within the new situation of co-habitation among the two generations. The intergenerational learning approach based on pile-up of demands, adaptive resources and perception is the source of family adaptation. Additionally, the power of the narrative to reflect past events and project the future seems to the point where the family starts developing resilience.

The way family businesses deal with critical and stressful events during leadership succession may lead to intergenerational learning, which is a source of resilient families. The authors apply the Double ABC–X model to understand family leadership succession in business and further develop it to explain how families develop resilience.

Customers will develop a stronger desire to purchase when more people are waiting in line for service due to the herding effect. However, this also leads to longer queue times, causing customers to experience a waiting patience time. This study examines these two psychological aspects of delay-sensitive customers in service systems, considering both homogeneous and heterogeneous customer scenarios to explore the optimal pricing strategy for service providers.

Using queueing theory, we construct and optimally solve the customer's service utility function and the service provider's service revenue function. Further, the model is extended to account for heterogeneous customers, solving the utility and revenue functions accordingly.

Results show that service revenue increases with the intensity of herding behavior and the length of patience time. If customers have low herding intensity and short patience time, the service provider only needs to serve a portion of the customers. For heterogeneous customers, if a large proportion exhibits high herding intensity, the service provider should focus on serving them. Otherwise, the service provider should serve all high-intensity herding customers while striving to attract low-intensity herding customers.

This paper considers the combined utility of multiple customer psychology and examines homogeneous and heterogeneous customers. The findings provide valuable managerial insights for service providers' pricing and service strategies.

Previous research has shown that terror attacks affect a variety of outcomes. However, one outcome that has remained relatively neglected is crime. In the current study we examine the immediate effect of terrorism on crime, and discuss several behavioral mechanisms that might explain this effect.

We use data from 190 Israeli localities over 12 years (1999–2011). Applying a fixed-effects Poisson regression model, we assess the effect of terror attacks on recorded crimes of three types – property, domestic violence, and fraud – on the days following the attack. We also examine whether the effect is conditioned on geographical proximity to the attack.

We find the occurrence of terror attacks has a significant and negative effect on recorded cases of the three crime types. This effect grows stronger as geographical proximity to the attack increases.

Our results suggest that terrorism has an immediate negative effect on crime. This effect might be explained by changes in the behavior of police officers, offenders, and citizens.

The construction industry has long been criticized for unethical conduct. The owner usually manages the contractor's opportunistic behaviors by employing a professional supervisor, but there is a risk of covert collusion between the supervisor and contractor. Based on the principal–agent theory and collusion theory, this paper aims to investigate optimal collusion-proof incentive contracts.

This paper presents a game-theoretic framework comprising an owner, supervisor and contractor, who interact and pursue maximized self-profits. Built upon the fixed-price incentive contract, cost-reimbursement contract, and revenue-sharing contract, different collusion-proof incentive contracts are investigated. A real project case is used to validate the developed model and derived results.

This paper shows that the presence of unethical collusion undermines the owner's interests. Especially, the possibility of agent collusion may induce the owner to abandon extracting quality information from the supervisor. Furthermore, information asymmetry significantly affects the construction contract selection, and the application conditions for different incentive contracts are provided.

This study still has some limitations that deserve further exploration. First, this study explores contractor–supervisor collusion but ignores the possibility of the supervisor abusing authority to extort the contractor. Second, to focus on collusion, this paper ignores the supervision costs. What's the optimal supervision effort that the owner should induce the supervisor to exert? Finally, this paper assumes that the colluders involved always keep their promises. However, what if the colluders may break their promises?

Several collusion-proof incentive contracts are explored in a project management setting. The proposed incentive contracts can provide the project owner with effective and practical tools to inhibit covert collusion in construction management and thus safeguard construction project quality.

This study expands the organization collusion theory to the field of construction management and investigates the optimal collusion-proof incentive contracts. In addition, this study is the first to investigate the effects of information asymmetry on contract selection.