Search results

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how three organizational factors – affiliation, sufficient capital and company age – related to 323 Malaysian foodservice companies' diffusion of six information technology (IT) applications. The IT applications, basic or advanced, respectively, represent two innovation diffusion levels, adoption and implementation.

This study drew on a survey of chief executive officers, owners, information system/technology managers, operations managers, and account/financial managers in 323 Kuala Lumpur and Selangor foodservice companies. The study conducted logistic regression to examine factors related to the adoption and implementation of IT applications.

IT adoption and implementation related significantly to sufficient capital. Company age and affiliation showed an insignificant relation with adopting and implementing IT applications.

To the authors' knowledge, this is the first hospitality study to examine simultaneously the diffusion of basic and advanced IT applications. Most studies investigate the adoption of one or two innovations, such as spreadsheets, web sites, and e‐mail, without considering diffusion stages. This study demonstrates multiple innovations, multiple diffusion stages and multivariate analyses.

This study aims to examine the causal relationship between tourism and overall well-being. The main objective of this research is to inform the policymakers that tourism can play a vital role in shaping the overall well-being in the developing economies.

This investigation used several time series techniques and procedures that include bounds test and autoregressive distributed lag mechanism to analyze the relationship between tourism and overall well-being in Pakistan by using time series data for the period 1980-2016.

The findings suggest a significant positive relationship between tourism and overall well-being both in the short and long run. The authors find that tourism and overall well-being affect each other positively.

This research indicates that policymakers and government can improve the overall well-being through tourism development. However, tourism policies and long-term planning should be focused on sustainable developments for achieving long-term goals. Besides, special incentives should be provided to the private sector for tourism development.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first investigation that examines the causal relationships between tourism and overall well-being through objective indicators in a developing economy. This study fills the immense literature gap and provides new directions to scholars to investigate the mentioned relationship through objective indicators.

The purpose of the present study is to understand the role of auxin and cytokinin in stimulating the production of pigmented callus in Orthosiphon stamineus and to gain correlation between the callus colours with their antioxidant capacity and bioactive constituents.

In this study, plant tissue culture was used to induce production of callus of various colours from leaf explants of O. stamineus, via manipulation of plant hormones (0-2.0 mg L⁻¹ indole-3-acetic acid [IAA] and Kinetin [Kin]). The coloured callus was subjected to solvent extraction and used for quantification of its carotenoid, chlorophyll, anthocyanin and phenolic contents. The 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) scavenging activity of the extracts was also evaluated, before and after four weeks of storage at −20°C.

The highest mean (per cent) explants that produced roots (93.33 ± 0.05 per cent) were observed when the cultures were supplemented with 2.0 mg L⁻¹ IAA. The colour of the callus changed with time, from green to cream to brown after two and four months of culture, respectively. Optimum production of green callus was achieved with addition of 2.0 mg L⁻¹ Kin plus 1.0-2.0 mg L⁻¹ IAA to the media, while cream callus in 0.5 mg L⁻¹ Kin plus 2.0 mg L⁻¹ IAA and brown callus in 0.5 mg L⁻¹ Kin plus 1.5 mg L⁻¹ IAA. Green callus was found to contain the highest amount of chlorophylls, carotenoid and anthocyanin, while cream callus contained the highest amount of phenolic compounds. The amount of pigments and secondary metabolites in the callus extracts decreased after four weeks of storage, except anthocyanin. The antioxidant potential of the extracts also increased after storage.

The major compounds identified in the methanolic extracts of O. stamineus-coloured callus are chlorophylls, carotenoids, flavonoids and phenolic acids. Future research work should include improvements in the extraction and identification methods which may lead to detection of other compounds that could attribute to the antioxidant capacity, to complement the findings of the current study.

This analysis provides valuable information on the application of IAA and Kinetin (Kin) to manipulate the content of major pigments with medicinal benefits in O. stamineus by using the plant tissue culture system.

A comparative study on antioxidant capacity and bioactive constituents of pigmented callus from O. stamineus leaves is original. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first attempt of comparative evaluation on antioxidant potential of O. stamineus-coloured callus produced using IAA and Kin.

The complexity of projects has become a serious issue and obstacle in their successful completion. In order to overcome these complexities, it has become imperative to identify the relevant management competencies of project managers. The purpose of this paper is to address the problem of cost, time and scope in engineering infrastructure projects due to their complexities through management competencies.

In the first phase of the study, 32 experts were interviewed through semi-structured pre-tested questionnaire. In this phase, essential elements of complexities were identified initially. This was followed by finding required dimensions of competencies to counter these complexities and to acquire improved performance. In the final stage, required levels of competencies for specific elements of complexity were identified. In the second phase, 85 “project managers” were also approached to get feedback about their recently completed public sector engineering infrastructure projects in Pakistan.

The study identified additional dimensions, i.e. honesty, enthusiasm and dedication, in the case of competencies and adverse law and order situation, political instability, land issues, energy crisis and weak authorization of project managers in the case of complexities. Leadership, management skill, communication skill, effectiveness and result orientation were identified as top quality traits required. The study concluded that there is a significant impact of management competencies and complexities on project performance.

The study contributes to a better understanding of how to improve performance in complex engineering infrastructure projects through adopting management competencies. It also empirically illustrates the relations among project management competencies, complexities and project performance. Although the research is grounded on public sector infrastructure projects, its findings may also be helpful for practices in project management of other sectors.

The purpose of this paper is to argue that “being Islamic” is already embedded in the decision frame of the Muslim consumers when choosing their Islamic banks, and hence, the bank selection criteria of these Muslim consumers will be dominated by non-faith-based factors.

This study took the context of retail consumers of Islamic banks of Bangladesh—the fourth largest Muslim populated country in the world, having great potential of developing an Islamic ecosystem. The study employed survey method using structured questionnaire on 311 respondents from 35 branches of six Islamic banks in Dhaka—the capital city of Bangladesh. Exploratory factor analysis, followed by multivariate regression analysis, was conducted to identify the determinants of satisfaction among Muslim retail bank customers.

The study forwards three important findings. First, faith-based bank selection criterion (i.e. Islam) is not a stand-alone factor anymore; rather, the items of this factor are embedded into other non-faith-based factors. Second, among the non-faith-based factors, commitment of the bank, competence and compassion of the bank employees have topped the list of bank selection criteria. Third, competence, commitment and corporate image of the bank had relatively more influence on satisfaction when compared to compassion and convenience.

Since Shari’ah compliance is already embedded in Islamic banking system, Islamic bankers should now focus on strategic targeting of their customers based on non-faith-based operational determinants.

This study presents that non-faith-based selection criteria are more influential in Islamic bank selection decision.