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Scholars and practitioners alike are paying attention to entrepreneurial orientation (EO) as an antecedent of the financial performance of SMEs. Other factors foster and improve SMEs' financial performance. This paper aims to shed the light on other two different strategic orientations that may help enhance SMEs' financial performance in addition to EO, namely; market orientation (MO) and brand orientation (BO).

The three different important strategic orientations are explored through two different studies. The first study was conducted to determine the different effects of the three orientations on SMEs' financial performance. Data were collected using a questionnaire among a convenient sample (131) of business owners/managers, and next PLS-SEM was used for data analysis. The financial performance of firms in the second study is hypothesized to be an outcome of a combination of different strategic orientations; therefore, the fsQCA method is applied to explore the causal recipes of those orientations.

The paper concluded that the three different strategic orientations are collectively, of paramount importance to strategic managers of SMEs.

The brand, market and EOs have been discussed discretely in previous studies and this study attempted to provide managers/owners of SMEs with a holistic view of the three different orientations and the amalgamation among them to be beneficial for better financial performance.

This paper aims to map the antecedents and precursory contexts regarding the four principles of management. Moreover, a description of its codification and coalescence as a unified teaching framework is provided, critically reviewing key theoretical underpinnings of management principles in academic research and management textbooks.

A historiographic approach reviewed seminal works for theory origins of the four principles of management, by analyzing 260 management textbooks from 1935 to 2013 to document their adoption in management education. This study used critical hermeneutics (Prasad, 2002) to explore the framework’s progression by providing the context of cultural, political and economic influences.

This research study tracked and mapped the creation of the four principles of management, as it became the commonly accepted teaching framework in management education. Today, every predominant management principles textbook uses the four principles of management – plan, lead, organize and control – as the basis for teaching students.

There is limited research on the application of the four principles of management in contemporary management, despite its ubiquity in management education. The study’s historical account of its formation provides insights into its adoption and utilization in modern education context. The study’s primary limitation stems from the generalization of the representative sample of textbooks used in the study (1917–2013). However, data saturation was achieved for the scale of textbooks and writings which was reviewed.

Through a critical analysis into the formation of the four principles of management, this research not only provides a historical account of its construction but, as importantly, the influencing factors that led to its development. This research fills a gap in critical literature, as a post mortem exegesis has never been conducted on the four principles of management in the afteryears of its amalgamation.

The relationship between the various existing smell taxonomies and the smell impacting factors has been established. The ideology is to identify the most critical smell influencing factors in the vicinity of various software development environments.

To fulfill the said task, the utilization of the amalgamation of two multicriteria decision-making techniques, namely, Entropy method and CODAS method, is presented.

Through this article, the most critical smell impacting criteria with respect to the smell taxonomies is identified. Furthermore, the behaviour of 4 software development principles was then analysed, and their working state has been successfully assessed.

The ideology to study design-related smells in the software system has been studied by a lot of researchers. Some of them have worked upon their detection and the corresponding refactoration process with the help of several algorithms like machine learning and artificial intelligence. But how and to what extent these design-related smells impact the software development environment has remained out of the limelight till now. Through this article, this research gap has been identified, and an attempt to fill it has been made.

This paper addresses a crucial research need by examining the influence of compatibility, a pivotal design element for hotel concierge apps, on the socio-psychological dynamics of digital hotel guests. While prior research has examined the constructs, their application to digital concierge apps introduces a unique context. We posit that compatibility significantly influences central variables rooted in theory of planned behaviors (TPBs) and technology acceptance model (TAM), fostering positive usage intentions.

Analyzing data from 668 four-star hotel guests through PLS-SEM substantiates compatibility’s role, endorsing the theoretical amalgamation of affordance, TPB, and TAM frameworks.

Compatibility positively affected perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and attitude toward behavior. Besides, usage intention positively affected willingness to pay a price premium and revisit intention.

This paper adopts compatibility as a unifying force for integrating TPB and TAM; the predictive ability of digital concierges' usage intentions on revisit intentions to upscale hotels. Further, this paper is the first attempt to highlight employing compatibility as a pivotal design factor for digital concierge apps in the hospitality setting.

High-tech enterprises, as the national innovation powerhouses, have garnered considerable interest, particularly regarding their technological innovation capabilities. Nevertheless, prevalent research tends to spotlight the impact of individual factors on innovative behavior, with only a fraction adopting a comprehensive viewpoint, scrutinizing the causal amalgamations of precursor conditions influencing the overall innovation proficiency of high-tech enterprises.

This paper employs a hybrid approach integrating necessary condition analysis (NCA) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to examine the combinatorial effects of antecedent factors on high-tech enterprises' innovation output. Our analysis draws upon data from 46 listed Chinese high-tech enterprises. To promote technological innovation within high-tech enterprises, we introduce a novel perspective that emphasizes technological innovation networks, grounded in a network agents-structure-environment framework. These antecedents are government subsidy, tax benefits, customer concentration, purchase concentration rate, market-oriented index and innovation environment.

The findings delineate four configurational pathways leading to high innovative output and three pathways resulting in low production.

This study thereby enriches the body of knowledge around technological innovation and provides actionable policy recommendations.

Given the increasing importance of engineering insurance, it is still unclear which specific factors can enhance the role of engineering insurance as a risk transfer tool. This study aims to propose a hybrid approach to identify and analyze the key determinants influencing the consumption of engineering insurance in mainland China.

The empirical analysis utilizes provincial data from mainland China from 2008 to 2019. The research framework is a novel amalgamation of the generalized method of moments (GMM) model, the quantile regression (QR) technique and the random forest (RF) algorithm. This innovative hybrid approach provides a comprehensive exploration of the driving factors while also allowing for an examination across different quantiles of insurance consumption.

The study identifies several driving factors that significantly impact engineering insurance consumption. Income, financial development, inflation, price, risk aversion, market structure and the social security system have a positive and significant influence on engineering insurance consumption. However, urbanization exhibits a negative and significant effect on the consumption of engineering insurance. QR techniques reveal variations in the effects of these driving factors across different levels of engineering insurance consumption.

This study extends the research on insurance consumption to the domain of the engineering business, making theoretical and practical contributions. The findings enrich the knowledge of insurance consumption by identifying the driving factors specific to engineering insurance for the first time. The research framework provides a novel and useful tool for examining the determinants of insurance consumption. Furthermore, the study offers insights into the engineering insurance market and its implications for policymakers and market participants.

The aim of this study is to explore and elucidate the influence of polygamy on the succession dynamics of family businesses in the Arab world, offering insights that may be underrepresented or overlooked in traditional, Western-focused literature.

This article adopts a perspective-based approach, focusing on delving into the amalgamation of polygamous family structures and their implications on the operation and continuation of family-run businesses.

Polygamy, while often primarily perceived as a cultural or religious tradition, wields substantial influence over various business facets. Notably, its presence can significantly shape business continuity, the methodologies behind succession planning and the overarching framework of corporate governance within Arab family businesses.

This article offers a unique Middle Eastern lens, highlighting the underexplored intersection of polygamy and business succession. It strives to bridge the knowledge gap by addressing topics potentially sidelined in mainstream Western business research.

Gamification unlocks unprecedented opportunities in healthcare, wellness and lifestyle context. In this scenario, by leveraging on such an approach, information technologies now enabled gamification-based mobile applications primarily employed in health and wellness contexts, focusing on areas such as disease prevention, self-management, medication adherence and telehealth programs. The synergistic integration of gamification-based methodologies in conjunction with the utilization of digital tools, (e.g. as for Internet of Things, mobile applications) for the realm of digital therapeutics (DTx), thus unveiled powerful approaches and paradigms, yielding innovative applications that, through the harnessing of sensors and software-based systems, transform healthcare maintenance, wellness and lifestyle into an engaging pursuit, as a game. This paper explores the factors influencing individuals' intention to autonomously utilize mobile gamification-based apps for self-care and wellness maintenance.

Through explorative research designs an experiment has been conducted among a sample of 376 participants regarding the use of a fictitious gamification-based DTx solution, consisting in a mobile app namely “Health'n’Fit”.

Findings from an experiment conducted with a sample of 460 participants shed light on the possible antecedents and consequents of gamification. Results of the SEM model indicate that customization (CU), trust (TR), mobility (MO) and social value (SV) are the main determinants, although at a different extent of the playful experience; Moreover, gamification positively impacts attitudes and, in turn, perceived usefulness, intention to use and behavioral intentions.

This paper offers a dual-pronged approach that holds practical significance in the realm of healthcare innovation. First, the authors delve into the antecedents shaping individuals' intention to engage with gamification-based DTx, unraveling the factors that influence user adoption. Beyond this, the authors extend their focus to the realm of healthcare service design. By harnessing the potential of gamification and technology, the authors illuminate pathways to conceptualize and create novel healthcare services. This work not only identifies the building blocks of user engagement but also serves as a guide to innovatively craft healthcare solutions that leverage this amalgamation of technology and gamification, contributing to the evolution of modern healthcare paradigms.

In a social context, the paper introduces pioneering technological synergies that merge gamification and DTx to enhance individuals' health and wellness maintenance. By proposing innovative combinations, the authors present novel avenues for promoting healthier lifestyles and behavior change. This not only underscores the potential of technology to positively impact individuals but also highlights the significance of aligning technological advancements with societal well-being. As the research advocates for these innovative solutions, it reinforces the importance of collaborative technological and marketing endeavors, ultimately contributing to the betterment of society as a whole.

This is the first paper exploring the combined effect of gamification and DTx, by shedding light on the peculiarities of both the antecedents of individuals' intention to use such combined technologies.

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic changed the way in which education was delivered in early 2020, and the impacts of these changes continue to be questionable. The aims of this study were to evaluate: (1) the results obtained by students of the Dentistry course in the progress test carried out both before and after the pandemic, (2) the results obtained by a specific group of students who took the test in 2019–2022, and compare their results and (3) subjects that showed a reduction in the percentage of correct answers when the two tests were compared.

The progress test consisting of 100 multiple choice questions was applied before and after the pandemic to all students in the Dentistry course. The analyses were performed using the IBM SPSS for Statistics v.26 software program. The level of significance of 5% was adopted (<0.05).

The test was applied to 320 students in 2019 and to 272 in 2022, of whom the sample of this study was composed. The mean score values in 2019 (M = 49.10; SD = 12.03) were significantly (p = 0.026) higher than those in the year 2022 (M = 46.97; SD = 12.15), with the disciplines in the area of specific knowledge showing a greater drop in the percentage of correct answers by students. This study showed that the emergency remote education had a negative effect on the academic performance of students, based on the progress testing as an evaluation method.

Many studies that assessed the impacts of the pandemic on teaching were focused on the opinions of students. However, the great advantage of our study was the use of a theoretical assessment tool to verify student performance. The post-pandemic landscape beckons for comprehensive inquiries into these domains. This type of research would be valuable for gathering evidence relative to the performance of students after the emergency remote education.

Lean production has been proved to be a cost-effective and efficient means of production that reduces non-valve added activities. Industry 4.0 (I4.0) is a technology-driven platform that allows machines to interact with other systems through artificial intelligence, machine learning, industrial Internet of Things (IoT), etc. that improve the production system with flexibility, quality and customization throughout the whole value chain. New approaches to digitization of lean production have recently been emerged and they are transforming the industry and increasing productivity throughout the value chain. Through this article, an effort has been made to review the research published in this field.

This paper reviews the literature published in various journals, the databases Web of science (WoS), ScienceDirect, Scopus, Emerald etc. were referred with a focus on lean concepts and tools and I4.0 technologies; it has been noticed that the integration of the lean tools with I4.0 technologies is a very effective tool for the industry.

It has been found in the literature published earlier in various journals that lean manufacturing (LM) is commonly acknowledged and considered a best practice to improve the productivity. It is concerned with the tight integration of people into the industrial process through continuous improvement which leads to value addition throughout the whole value chain by eliminating non vale added activities. The findings show that organizations can improve their productivity and flexibility with speed and accuracy by integrating I4.0 technologies with LM, which is foremost need of any industry across the world.

This article accentuates the connections between the principles and tools developed under the umbrella of I4.0 and those developed by the LM techniques, with a specific emphasis on how some of the principles and tools of I4.0 improve the implementation of lean principles dependent on the competence levels of the technology. Very few articles have been published in this area, and this paper is an original piece of research covering a review of extant research published in various journals.