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Much research has explored high levels of son preference in India, finding that parents often report a desire for more sons than daughters. While scholars have noted that a nontrivial portion of respondents claim to have no sex preference, little is known about (1) the characteristics of this group and (2) how such parental preferences relate to child outcomes. We use data from a representative study of rural South Indian households (n = 7,891 adults) to address these gaps. Descriptive results show that a sizable portion of respondents – one in four – indicated that, at the start of their marriage, they had no preference for the number of daughters or sons they wanted. Further, multinomial regression results show that those who reported no sex preference at the time of marriage were more likely to be female, older, and less likely to be sterilized than those who reported equal or son preference, with additional distinctions across educational attainment and religion. Turning to child-level outcomes, we examined whether parents’ sex preferences related to adolescent mental health through ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models (n = 1,245 adolescents). Adolescents whose mothers stated no sex preference reported significantly fewer anxiety and depressive symptoms than their peers. Fathers’ sex preferences were not significantly related to adolescent mental health. These findings suggest that a lack of sex preference may hold meaningful and positive implications for adolescent mental health. Further, although son preference is a widespread phenomenon, singular attention on those with son preference may mask important nuances among Indian families.

Studying the effect of social media advertising on consumer engagement, this study analyzes the impact of shared-experience versus personal message strategies, informational versus transformational creative appeals and low-involvement products versus high-involvement products. It aims to determine how best to combine ad elements to affect consumer engagement on different levels.

Using an online survey among 448 Facebook users, an experimental factorial design of 2 (message strategy conditions) X 2 (creative appeal conditions) X 2 (product types: TV vs. frozen pizza) was used. Each advertisement was evaluated on three facets of engagement: cognitive, psychological and behavioral.

Results indicate that informational appeal is preferable for all conditions. The effectiveness of message strategy differs by product type, and interactions between message and appeal are significant only for the high-involvement product. Additionally, it indicates that message strategy is most significant in affecting behavioral engagement and not necessarily cognitive or psychological engagement.

To develop effective Facebook ads, practitioners should use a personal/informational combination when working with high-involvement products and a shared-experience/informational combination when working with low-involvement products.

An original grid for integrating message strategy and creative appeal is constructed in this paper. Besides behavioral engagement, it also evaluates cognitive and psychological engagement. By comparing products with a high and low involvement level, it provides marketers with actionable recommendations to increase social media campaign effectiveness.

This study aims to provide a comprehensive review of electric tugboat deployment in maritime transportation, including an in-depth assessment of its advantages and disadvantages. Along with the identification of advantages and disadvantages of electric tugboat deployment, the present research also aims to provide managerial insights into the economic viability of different tugboat alternatives that can guide future investments in the following years.

A detailed literature review was conducted, aiming to gain broad insights into tugboat operations and focusing on different aspects, including tugboat accidents and safety issues, scheduling and berthing of tugboats, life cycle assessment of diesel tugboats and their alternatives, operations of electric and hybrid tugboats, environmental impacts and others. Moreover, a set of interviews was conducted with the leading experts in the electric tugboat industry, including DAMEN Shipyards and the Port of Auckland. Econometric analyses were performed as well to evaluate the financial viability and economic performance of electric tugboats and their alternatives (i.e. conventional tugboats and hybrid tugboats).

The advantages of electric tugboats encompass decreased emissions, reduced operating expenses, improved energy efficiency, lower noise levels and potential for digital transformation through automation and data analytics. However, high initial costs, infrastructure limitations, training requirements and restricted range need to be addressed. The electric tugboat alternative seems to be the best option for scenarios with low interest rate values as increasing interest values negatively impact the salvage value of electric tugboats. It is expected that for long-term planning, the electric and hybrid tugboat alternatives will become preferential since they have lower annual costs than conventional diesel tugboats.

The outcomes of this research provide managerial insights into the practical deployment of electric tugboats and point to future research needs, including battery improvements, cost reduction, infrastructure development, legislative and regulatory changes and alternative energy sources. The advancement of battery technology has the potential to significantly impact the cost dynamics associated with electric tugboats. It is essential to do further research to monitor the advancements in battery technology and analyze their corresponding financial ramifications. It is essential to closely monitor the industry’s shift toward electric tugboats as their prices become more affordable.

The maritime industry is rapidly transforming and facing pressing challenges related to sustainability and digitization. Electric tugboats represent a promising and innovative solution that could address some of these challenges through zero-emission operations, enhanced energy efficiency and integration of digital technologies. Considering the potential of electric tugboats, the present study provides a comprehensive review of the advantages and disadvantages of electric tugboats in maritime transportation, extensive evaluation of the relevant literature, interviews with industry experts and supporting econometric analyses. The outcomes of this research will benefit governmental agencies, policymakers and other relevant maritime transportation stakeholders.

As internet dividends are gradually disappearing, loyalty programs have become the panacea for monetizing traffic, attracting new customers and retaining existing customers. Improving their effectiveness has thus become key to enterprises’ market competitiveness. However, member customers’ hedonic adaptation to this relationship strategy undermines its effectiveness. Based on the hedonic adaptation theory, this study aims to analyze the process of member customers' hedonic adaptation to preferential treatment in loyalty programs and explore the boundary conditions of alleviating this effect.

This study surveyed 271 member customers in China and tested the hypothesized relationships using structural equation modeling and multigroup analysis.

Preferential treatment suffers from hedonic adaptation to member customer engagement and customer gratitude, and customer tenure is a key condition for these effects. Customer gratitude is an intermediary mechanism that explains the hedonic adaptation effect of preferential treatment to member customers engagement. In addition, the structural characteristics of loyalty programs form the boundary condition that alleviates hedonic adaptation. The authors found that high-tier and -payment strategies are more likely to mitigate hedonic adaptation of preferential treatment to customer gratitude.

This study elucidates the factors that influence the effectiveness of preferential treatment and provides constructive insights into customer relationship management and for improving enterprise performance.

Humans engage in two types of processing. One system is the rapid, affect-based, and intuitive, “experiential” system, while the other is the relatively slower, cognition-based, and reflective, “rational” system. Extant work focuses on the consequences of having one system relatively dominant over the other. In the current research, we show that consumers who use neither system to a great degree (i.e., low-system consumers) are vulnerable to undesirable outcomes. Specifically, four studies demonstrate that these consumers face confusion in the process of making judgments due to their lack of processing inputs and resolve this confusion by making judgments that are implied by salient stimuli, regardless of the stimuli's diagnostic value. The result is an unbalanced, easily biased, and “blown away by the gust of wind” judgment process that both policymakers and low-system consumers should be vigilant to.

Due to excessive carbon dioxide emissions, the world is facing environmental devastation. Energy and environmental innovations are considered to be critical tools in combating the growing CO₂ emissions. Developing these innovations requires extremely high investments in research and development processes, where knowledge is generated as one of the important outputs. This knowledge serves as a basis for innovation development and raising awareness among all relevant stakeholders about excessive environmental degradation. One of the significant sources of knowledge is scientific publications. Therefore, the aim of this research is to examine whether increased CO₂ emissions stimulate the scientific community to publish a greater number of papers, as well as whether the knowledge contained in these publications is utilized in reducing CO₂ emissions. The sample consists of G7 member countries. The time frame of the research is 1996–2019. The dynamic properties of the vector autoregression (VAR) models were summarized using impulse response function and variance decomposition forecast error. In most G7 countries, it has been determined that an increase in scientific production in environmental science and energy leads to a reduction in CO₂ emissions. On the other hand, increased CO₂ emissions affect higher scientific productivity in environmental science and energy only in Canada.

Developing nations are starting to take centre stage and are becoming more conscious of their economic potential in the tourism sector. Earlier, these countries were largely left out of the tourist sector. Today, the foreign exchange reserves of these nations are mostly derived from tourism and a nation's balance of payments derived through tourism supports international trade and stabilizes the economy. The chapter adopts a case study method to evaluate the prospects of inclusive growth through socio economic well-being. In the dynamic and constantly evolving tourism industry, it is imperative to make the growth more inclusive so that there is a balanced approach to long term sustainable development. When it comes to using traditional skills and cultural heritage to participate in this economic paradigm, rural artisans face both opportunities and challenges as the global tourism landscape undergoes evolving transformations. The study commences by closely examining the current market obstacles that rural artisans in the tourism industry face, which encompass a range of issues such as shifting consumer preferences, market saturation and the aftermath of external shocks like pandemics. The chapter indicates major obstacles impeding the integration of rural artisans into the tourism value chain by means of a thorough empirical analysis. In order to overcome the obstacles, the study investigates inclusive growth and how it might act as a spur to improve the socio-economic circumstances of rural craftsmen. The findings in the chapter distil best practices that promote inclusivity, empower local communities and support sustainable tourism development by looking at successful case studies and policy interventions.

Despite the continued focus on online sharing through social media, little consumer research has looked at this behavior as an independent construct or tried to determine how it relates to other consumer behaviors. Consequently, this study aims to explore the concept of social media sharing disposition (SMSD), proposes a measure of the construct, and, in five studies, assesses its reliability and validity and its relationship to other online and offline consumer behaviors.

Five studies using surveys were carried out to assess the SMSD construct. The studies gathered data to assess the properties and validities of SMSD, as well as its ability to assess offline and online sharing behavior.

The results indicate that SMSD is a useful construct that helps to explain people’s social media and offline sharing behavior, although its focus is primarily on social media sharing. It also displays convergent, discriminant and predictive validity. These results indicate that SMSD can be used to predict the likelihood of consumers sharing online information. They also confirm that SMSD works effectively in different cultural contexts. SMSD can also be used to assess consumer offline sharing behavior.

There was neither an investigation of actual differences in behaviors among consumers in the number of posts or online reviews they undertook, based on SMSD, nor a study of whether individuals are more likely to incorporate brand information into their posts. Future research could explore these behaviors to determine whether they can be explained by SMSD. There was also no focus on a rationale for engaging in social media sharing; that is, there are no proposed antecedents of SMSD. Additional studies could assess antecedents of this construct.

Marketers interested in engaging consumers as participants in the dissemination of online (electronic) information can segment and target consumers on the basis of SMSD. Therefore, it can be used to determine who should be targeted with information to disperse to other consumers. It is likely that there is a relationship between SMSD and social media influencer (SMI) activity, so it could also be used to identify SMIs among consumer bases. It can also be adapted and applied to understanding offline sharing behavior.

The paper reports on SMSD and establishes that it is an additional construct that can help explain consumer information sharing. The construct relates to a social media context, where it may be increasingly difficult to identify consumers who engage in differential sharing of digital information.