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This study investigates the relationship between feelings of loneliness in the workplace, life satisfaction, affect, hope and expressivity among hotel employees.

The research model was tested via structural equation modeling based on the empirical data collected from hotel employees in Antalya, Turkey.

The research findings suggest that emotional deprivation and social companionship have a significant impact on life satisfaction, that life satisfaction has a significant impact on positive and negative emotions, and that positive and negative emotions have the same impact on pathways and agencies.

The research findings should assist researchers and practitioners to understand the behaviors of hotel employees in continuous interaction and relationship with individuals to motivate them while providing more effective services.

The purpose of this study is to seek to re-examine the threshold effects of public debt on economic growth in Africa.

This study applies panel smooth transition regression approach advanced by González et al. (2017). The method allows for both heterogeneity as well as a smooth change of regression coefficients from one regime to another.

A debt threshold in the range of 62–66% is estimated for the whole sample. Low debt is found to be growth neutral but higher public debt is growth detrimental. For middle-income and resource-intensive countries, a debt threshold in the range of 58–63% is estimated. As part of robustness checks, a dynamic panel threshold model was also applied to deal with the endogeneity of debt, and a much higher debt threshold was estimated, at 74.3%. While low public debt is found to be either growth neutral or growth enhancing, high public debt is consistently detrimental to growth.

The findings of this study show that there is no single debt threshold applicable to all African countries, and confirm that the debt threshold level is sensitive to modeling choices. While further analysis is still needed to suggest a policy, the findings of this study show that high debt is detrimental to growth.

The novelty of this study is twofold. Contrary to previous studies on Africa, this study applies a different estimation technique which allows for heterogeneity and a smooth change of regression coefficients from one regime to another. Another novelty distinct from the previous studies is that, for robustness checks, this study divides the sample into low- and middle-income countries, and into resource- and nonresource intensive countries, as debt experience can differ among country groups. Further, as part of robustness checks, another estimation method is also applied in which the threshold variable (debt) is allowed to be endogenous.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the optimal inflation targets for an appropriate exchange rate policy in 15 major oil exporting countries in Sub-Saharan African (SSA).

Dynamic heterogeneous panel threshold techniques are used via threshold-effect test and threshold regression. This procedure is achieved through a grid search and bootstrapping replications method to stimulate the asymptotic distribution of the likelihood ratio test of the null hypothesis on no-threshold as against the alternative hypothesis. The p-values validate the threshold estimates.

Findings revealed that the optimal inflation target has a turning point and its impact on the real exchange rate is up to a threshold level of 14.47 per cent. Furthermore, the inflation rate above the threshold level overwhelmingly revealed its effect on real exchange regimes.

It would have been a good idea to investigate optimal inflation targets for all African countries but due to inadequate data the selection criteria was narrowed to oil-exporting countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Inflation targeting beyond the threshold level would have serious implications on the monetary policy.

To the best of the knowledge, this is the first study to look at optimal inflation targets for 15 major oil exporting countries in general and SSA countries in particular. The findings provide a critical analysis of an inflation regime for a typical oil-producing country that oil exports being their source of revenue.

Our findings indicate that workers with more financial education were more prepared to face the negative effects on their finances from COVID. This ability reduces the probability of becoming financially fragile and experiencing financial stress.

The authors applied a survey questionnaire to 856 Colombian adults and used principal component analysis to build an index for each factor. Then, the authors used a linear regression model with the indexes to test our hypotheses and verify our results using a structural equation model.

Our findings indicate that workers who have more financial education are more prepared to face the negative effects on their finances, which reduces the probability of becoming financially fragile and having financial stress.

The authors found that there is no significant relationship between financial literacy and financial fragility, neither between financial literacy and financial stress, so a better financial education will not lower financial fragility and stress unless it is being applied by households through better financial preparedness.

It is important to highlight that the pandemic not only taught us to improve biosecurity measures but also that financial strength, ability to work remotely and income diversification were key factors in facing this adverse shock, the authors show that high levels of financial education have a positively relationship with the ability of individuals to manage their resources, so private and public institutions  have to  promote better financial education.

This is the first study that applies the four different indexes to an emerging country (i.e. Colombia), and the first one to create and use a financial stress index.

The main purpose of this study was to evaluate students’ perception of blended learning instructional design in a Higher Education Institution (HEI) in the Sultanate of Oman. A course in a bachelor degree was offered using blended learning instructional mode, and students’ feedback was obtained on the impact of blended learning. The study was conducted in Ibra College of Technology, one of the seven colleges under the Ministry of Manpower in the Sultanate of Oman. A course in Business Strategy and HR Management was offered during Summer 2016 using a combination of traditional and online instructional design. A structured questionnaire was administered at the end of the semester to solicit feedback from students. The results of the study highlighted a positive attitude among students towards blended learning courses. The research stressed the requirements for proper infrastructure, training and development initiatives for staff and students, shift to a more focused practical assessment methods to measure the graduate attributes. Student engagement, learner autonomy, connection of learning to real life environments and flexibility all appeared to benefit from the blended learning course.

This study aims to examine the hysteresis hypothesis in unemployment using monthly data from 13 countries in transition.

Stationarity in the unemployment rate of selected transition economies was analyzed using four different group unit root tests, namely, linear, structural breaks, non-linear and structural breaks and non-linear.

The empirical results show that the unemployment hysteresis hypothesis is valid for the majority of transition economies, including Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, the Kyrgyz Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovenia. However, the results strongly reject the null hypothesis of unemployment hysteresis for the Kazakhstan and the Slovak Republics.

This study revealed that, for countries in transition, advanced unit root tests exhibit greater validity when compared to standard tests

Most empirical papers on threshold effects between debt and growth focus on developed countries or a mix of developing and developed economies, often using public debt. Evidence for developing economies is inconclusive, as is the analysis of other threshold effects such as those probably caused by the level of relative development or the repayment capacity. The objective of this study was to examine threshold effects for developing economies, including external and total debt, and identify them in the debt-growth relation considering three determinants: debt itself, initial real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita and debt to exports ratio.

We used a panel threshold regression model (PTRM) and a dynamic panel threshold model (DPTM) for a sample of 47 developing countries from 1970 to 2019.

We found (1) no evidence of threshold effects applying total debt as a threshold variable; (2) one critical value for external debt of 42.32% (using PTRM) and 67.11% (using DPTM), above which this factor is detrimental to growth; (3) two turning points for initial GDP as a threshold variable, where total and external debt positively affects growth at a very low initial GDP, it becomes nonsignificant between critical values, and it negatively influences growth above the second threshold; (4) one critical value for external debt to exports using PTRM and DPTM, below which external debt positively affects growth and negatively above it.

The outcome suggests that only poorer economies can leverage credits. The level of the threshold for the debt to exports ratio is higher than that found in previous literature, implying that the external restriction could be less relevant in recent periods. However, the threshold for the external debt-to-GDP ratio is lower compared to previous evidence.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the institutional threshold effects of foreign aid on foreign direct investment (FDI).

This paper develops a theoretical model from an extended Solow model that introduces the conductive effect of institutions in an aid recipient country towards the capacity of attracting FDI. This study evidences threshold effects with the most recent panel threshold models that consider endogeneity issues. The data on economic institutions and foreign aid are decomposed into disaggregated level to reveal the detailed threshold pattern. Several sample subsets are used for a heterogeneity analysis.

Conducting empirical research on a sample of 62 countries during the period 2003–2016, this study finds robust evidence of the existence of an institutional threshold in the aid–FDI nexus which a country must attain to reap the full attraction of FDI by foreign aid providing financial resources. Furthermore, foreign aid tends to promote FDI in institutions characterized by a right-sized government, a strengthened legal system and an appropriate regulatory environment. On the other hand, aid may crowd out FDI. The results are robust to regional combinations and a subset of low and lower-middle-income countries. In addition, this study finds that aid targeted at social infrastructure and services has a positive effect regardless of institutional threshold.

This paper contributes to the literature by introducing a non-linear and discontinuous effect of aid on FDI, i.e. a threshold effect, highlighting the relevance of legal systems and regulations and the possibility of a crowding-out effect on FDI for specific institutional regimes. The thresholds provide a guide for donor countries to ensure aid effectiveness at the risk of being counterproductive and for recipient countries to better assess the institutional dimensions that need to be improved.

Researchers agree that collaboration networks can be an important implement in a firm’s innovation process, but there is limited empirical evidence on actually how they facilitate the new product development (NPD). The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Using longitudinal and multisource data on a sample of firms engaged in the Chinese automobile industry, the authors examine the structural properties of collaboration networks and their possible influences on firms’ NPD performance.

The results indicate that the structural features of the technology-based collaboration networks in the automobile industry have a low degree of collaborative integration and they influence firms’ NPD performance in diverse ways. The authors find that the direct ties, indirect ties and structural holes of the collaboration networks are all positively associated with firms’ number of new products. However, the authors have not found the evidence that the number of direct ties can moderate the relationship between the indirect ties and the NPD performance.

First, previous researches concerning the network mainly focused on their influence on technology innovation, few scholars studied the relationship between collaboration network and NPD. Second, the data used in this paper are true and valid, they are all from relevant departments of the Chinese government. Third, the empirical research of new products in China’s manufacturing industry is relatively new.