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The purpose of this study is to explore the customer shopping experience in the innovative technology setting. Specifically, the purpose is to understand how do innovative technologies influence the customer shopping experience?

This qualitative, explorative study has characteristics of a phenomenological research strategy. The data were collected from four focus groups and ten in-depth interviews with consumers. Abductive approach with an implementation of content analysis was used as a method of analysis.

The results show that there are three critical factors in customer's shopping experience in the context of innovative technologies; (1) channel choice, (2) value dimensions related to convenience and enjoyment, and (3) social interaction. All factors are highly intertwined and influence each other.

This study contributes to customer experience literature by offering a framework for understanding customer shopping experiences in the innovative technology setting. These findings have important implications for retail managers seeking to enhance customer experience and achieve a competitive advantage by utilizing innovative technology.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of foreign direct divestments (FDD) on economic growth and development in South Africa for the period 1991–2019.

The non-linear autoregressive distributed lag technique is used for the empirical analysis. Two regression models are specified, one for economic growth and the other for development which is proxied by poverty.

The empirical results suggest that foreign divestments are detrimental to both economic growth and development. Furthermore, the results suggest that the negative effects of foreign divestments outweigh the positive effects of FDI inflows.

South African policymakers should thus use policies that promote the retention of FDI inflows together with those that attract inflows. Furthermore, policies that promote economic freedom such as transparency and reduction in the time frame for granting government permits for business operations are also of paramount importance.

Most of the available literature on FDD focuses on the firm perspective. Available studies on the effect of FDD on economic growth do not investigate the effect of divestment on economic development. Economic growth is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the achievement of socioeconomic development.

The recent COVID-19 outbreak and severe natural disasters make the design of the humanitarian supply chain network (HSCN) a crucial strategic issue in a pre-disaster scenario. The HSCN design problem deals with the location/allocation of emergency response facilities (ERFs). This paper aims to propose and demonstrate how to design an efficient HSCN configuration under the risk of ERF disruptions.

This paper considers four performance measures simultaneously for the HSCN design by formulating a weighted goal programming (WGP) model. Solving the WGP model with different weight values assigned to each performance measure generates various HSCN configurations. This paper transforms a single-stage network into a general two-stage network, treating each HSCN configuration as a decision-making unit with two inputs and two outputs. Then a two-stage network data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach is applied to evaluate the HSCN schemes for consistently identifying the most efficient network configurations.

Among various network configurations generated by the WGP, the single-stage DEA model does not consistently identify the top-ranked HSCN schemes. In contrast, the proposed transformation approach identifies efficient HSCN configurations more consistently than the single-stage DEA model. A case study demonstrates that the proposed transformation method could provide a more robust and consistent evaluation for designing efficient HSCN systems. The proposed approach can be an essential tool for federal and local disaster response officials to plan a strategic design of HSCN.

This study presents how to transform a single-stage process into a two-stage network process to apply the general two-stage network DEA model for evaluating various HSCN configurations. The proposed transformation procedure could be extended for designing some supply chain systems with conflicting performance metrics more effectively and efficiently.

Alcohol, tobacco, marijuana and other drugs use typically increases in prevalence and frequency during middle and late adolescence. School health instruction often focusses on providing facts and rarely provides tools for addressing the psychosocial risk factors needed to prevent substance use. The purpose of this paper is to report about the effectiveness of a prevention programme delivered in US high school health classes. The intervention augments typical instruction by providing teachers with activities that can be infused in their daily teaching.

In total, 26 schools were randomly assigned to receive the intervention or serve as controls. Pupils were pretested near the beginning of the school year, posttest near the end of the school year and administered a final test near the beginning of the following school year. Teachers in treatment schools were provided with activities designed to target psychosocial variables known to mediate substance use onset and self-initiated cessation. These include normative beliefs, intentionality, lifestyle incongruence, beliefs about consequences of use, peer pressure resistance skills, decision-making skills, goal setting skills and stress management skills.

Hierarchical modelling analytic strategies revealed the intervention to have definable positive impacts on alcohol and cigarette use. Moreover, the intervention had strongest effects on alcohol and cigarette use among pupils who were identified at pretest as being lower-than-average risk.

This research provides support for providing teachers with a strategy for preventing alcohol, tobacco and other drugs that can be used in a flexible manner to augment the instruction they are already mandated to provide.

Educational leadership preparation programs are expected to train graduates who change their practice and produce outcomes for teachers and students. However, programs are challenged to produce evidence of their impact while also evaluating for formative purposes. This paper describes collaboration between an educational leadership program director and a program evaluator to construct an evaluation system that incorporated program theory, processes, and outcomes. The leadership preparation program, grounded in ethical leadership practices, had a unique design with core tenets that informed choices about the evaluation design. Decisions about data sources were informed by evaluation foci, the availability of existing data sources, and resource constraints. The complexity of the evaluation design paralleled the complexity of the program itself. Leadership content expertise, evaluation design expertise, and genuine collaboration were all essential to the successful design of this evaluation plan. Several recommendations are offered for others collaborating to design evaluations of their programs.

Successful knowledge transfer (KT) between younger and older workers (YW and OW, respectively) is critical for organizational success, especially in light of the recent surge in employment volatility among the youngest and oldest segments of the workforce. Yet, practitioners and scholars alike continue to struggle with knowing how best to facilitate these exchanges. The qualitative study offers insight into this phenomenon by exploring how KT unfolds in YW/OW dyads.

The authors performed a reflexive thematic analysis of semistructured interviews with two samples of blue- and white-collar younger/older workers from the USA (N = 40), whereby the authors interpreted the “lived experiences” of these workers when engaged in interdependent tasks.

The analysis, informed by social exchange theory and exchange theories of aging, led to the development of the knowledge transfer process model in younger/older worker dyads (KT-YOD). The model illustrates that, through different combinations of competence and humility, KT success is experienced either directly (by workers weighing the perceived benefits versus costs of KT) and/or indirectly (through different bases of trust/distrust perceived within their dyads). Further, humility in dyads appears to be necessary for KT success, while competence was insufficient for realizing KT success, independently.

In exposing new inner workings of the KT process in YW/OW dyads, the study introduces the importance of humility and brings scholars and organizations a step closer toward realizing the benefits of age diversity in their workplaces.

While known by many names, qualifying exams function as gatekeepers to graduate student advancement to PhD candidacy, yet there has been little formal study on best qualifying exam practices particularly in biomedical and related STEM PhD programs. The purpose of this study is to examine the current state of qualifying exams through an examination of the literature and exploration of university-wide policies.

The authors conducted a literature review of studies on qualifying exams and completed an external evaluation of peer institutions’ and internal institutional qualifying exam requirements to inform our discussion of qualifying exams practices in PhD training at a research-intensive US institutions.

This study identified the need for more research on qualifying exams to establish evidence-based best practices. The authors found a wide variety of qualifying exam formats, with little evidence in support for specific formats. The authors also found little evidence that student expectations are made clear. The lack of evidence-based best practices coupled with insufficient clarity for students has a real potential to disadvantage PhD students, particularly first generation, underrepresented minority, international and/or other trainees who are not privileged or socialized to navigate training environments with vague landmarks such as the qualifying exams.

There are very few studies that evaluate qualifying exams in US doctoral education, particularly in STEM fields, and to the authors’ knowledge, there has been no analysis of campus-wide policies on qualifying exams reported. The lack of evidence for best practices and the need for to evaluate the implementation and effectiveness of qualifying exams are discussed.

The Food Systems Leadership Institute (FSLI) is a 2-year leadership development program consisting of 3 intensive in-person immersion retreats, and a robust and customizable distance-based program. Participants come primarily from land-grant and public universities and learn about personal, organizational and system leadership with a focus on food systems as an organizing theme. For this study, program graduates from FSLI Cohorts 4-6 (n=60) were asked to complete an online retrospective pre- and post-test of skill competency and skill use for 20 competencies addressed in the program, with 47 (78%) completing the survey. Data indicate participants’ ratings of skill competency increased significantly across all 20 targeted areas.Participants further noted that they used these skills more after completing the program as compared to prior to the Fellowship training. Data suggest the FSLI model of leadership development can have a significant impact on participants’ perceived skill level in and use of important skills in both personal and organizational leadership in academic and food system settings.

The purpose of this study is to situate information and communications technology (ICT) “transparency reports” within the theoretical framework of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting. The self-denominated transparency report serves a dual purpose of highlighting an ICT company’s socially responsible behavior while also holding government agencies accountable for surveillance and requests for user data. Drawing on legitimacy theory, neo-institutional theory and stakeholder theory, this exploratory study examines how ICT companies are implementing industry-specific voluntary disclosures as a form of CSR.

A content analysis of ICT voluntary nonfinancial reporting (N = 88) was used to identify motivating principles, the company positioning to stakeholders, the relevant publics and intended audience of these disclosures and the communication strategy used to engage primary stakeholders.

Key findings suggest that most ICT companies used transparency reporting to engage consumers/users as their primary stakeholders and most used a stakeholder information strategy. A majority of ICT companies signaled value-driven motives in their transparency reports while also positioning the company to stakeholders as a protector of user data and advocate for consumer rights.

This study enriches the literature on CSR communication strategies and reporting practices by extending it to an underdeveloped topic of study: novel voluntary disclosures as CSR activities of prominent ICT companies (i.e. “Big Tech”). These polyphonic reports reflect varied motives, varied positioning and varied stakeholders. For market-leading companies, transparency reporting can serve to legitimize existing market power. And for midsize and emerging companies, transparency reporting can be used to signal adherence to industry norms – set by market-leading companies.

The objective of this study is to establish the current state of library and information science (LIS) scholarship pertaining to anti-racism, equity, inclusion and social justice initiatives.

Using comprehensive search strategies, three LIS databases were searched for relevant literature published in the last 10 years and results were exported and de-duplicated using Endnote. Citations were screened by two blinded, independent reviewers based on pre-defined eligibility criteria. Citations in the final data set were then hand coded by three reviewers using deductive coding. Subject terms for all citations were categorized and consolidated to identify major themes across the corpus of included publications. Results were analyzed using bibliometrics and thematic analysis.

A total of 691 unique citations were included in this analysis based on inclusion criteria. Publication productivity has generally increased from 2011 to 2020; findings show publications from 170 source titles and 944 authors representing 33 countries. Prevalent themes included access to information, multiculturalism and social justice. Various populations groups, areas of LIS practice, library types and social justice topics have been addressed in the literature. Over 15% of citations focused on anti-racism efforts in LIS.

This study applied both bibliometric and thematic approaches to analyzing LIS literature at macro and micro levels regarding anti-racism, equity, inclusion and social justice.