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This study explores how businesses can effectively market functional and emotional benefits through virtual corporate social responsibility co-creation (VCSRC) initiatives. The aim is to enhance customer engagement through these initiatives.

The initial phase of this study involved recruiting 185 Chinese university students as participants. These individuals were randomly distributed into four distinct experimental groups, each designed to investigate the influence of varied marketing appeals and common in-group identity (CIGI) on consumer engagement willingness. This phase also sought to elucidate the mediating role of CSR associations in these dynamics. Following this, the second study engaged 570 individuals, recruited through “Credamo,” for a group-based experiment. This subsequent phase was intended to validate the findings of the preliminary study and explore the varying intensities of interaction between different marketing appeals and CIGI, with a particular focus on the dichotomy of independent and interdependent self-construals.

The study delineates a detailed relationship between consumers' willingness to participate in VCSRC, marketing appeals, and common in-group identity, revealing that strong common in-group identity correlates with a preference for functional appeals, while a weaker in-group identity inclines towards emotional appeals. Notably, interdependent self-construal significantly influences consumer responses, intensifying the interaction between in-group identity and marketing appeal and thereby influencing participation willingness. Moreover, CSR associations emerge as key mediators in this interaction, underscoring their role in enhancing the effectiveness of VCSRC strategies. These insights provide a new understanding of the crucial impact of consumer identity traits on marketing strategy efficacy.

This research stands as a trailblazing endeavor in evaluating the effects of varied advertising appeals under the VCSR paradigm. It probes into the foundational mechanisms, leveraging insights from interaction alignment theory and persuasion theory to elucidate the processes involved.

The level of deterioration of educational facilities, such as leaking classroom roofs, inadequate good seats, obsolete offices, broken shutters and doors, outdated school buildings, power plants and office equipment like ICT media, laboratories, offices and workshops, despite the involvement of Alumni association in the maintenance of educational facilities for the effective actualization of school objectives was a worrisome nightmare in Kogi state. This, therefore, prompted the researchers to explore the Alumni’s participation in plant maintenance for effective implementation of the universal basic education (UBE) programme in public junior secondary schools in Kogi state. The purpose of this study was guided by the research question which stated that to what extent does the Alumni Association participate in plant maintenance for effective implementation of the UBE programme in public junior secondary schools in Kogi state?

A quantitative research approach using a descriptive survey was adopted for the study. The sample was drawn using a proportionate stratified sampling technique comprising 387 participants which consisted of 191 (49%) urban junior secondary school principals and 196 (51%) rural principals in selected UBE junior secondary schools. Alumni’s Participation in Plant Maintenance Questionnaire was used as an instrument for data collection. The data were analysed with the aid of mean and standard deviation for the research question and z-test statistics at 0.05 level of significance and the value of z-crit. of 1.96 was used to determine the rejection or otherwise of the hypotheses.

The descriptive analysis revealed that the average mean set of 2.64 pointed to the fact that the respondents averagely agreed that there was a high extent to which Alumni participate in plant maintenance in urban than rural areas for effective implementation of the UBE programme in public junior secondary schools in Kogi state. This indicates that Alumni contribute to the management of UBE schools in Kogi state, especially in the areas of funding, infrastructural facilities, discipline, politics and quality control. This finding also shows that the contributions of the alumni to educational institutions are still unclear if they have made contributions to education in some areas and none in other areas making their relevance to plant maintenance unclear.

In terms of practical implications, the study has contributed to knowledge in that it is the first of this form of a study carried out in Kogi state, and as such the findings of the research will make contributions to the physique of information on plant maintenance for the profitable implementation of the UBE programme in Kogi state. Besides, the degree of plant preservation for the implementation of the UBE programme among applicable stakeholders in Kogi state is nevertheless at a low extent.

Researchers have conducted studies that show how non-state Alumni members contribute to the administration of education across different states. Some of these studies revealed that Alumni members have assisted schools in the provision of teaching and learning materials at the senior secondary or tertiary education level. There are no sufficient studies to show how these Alumni members have contributed to the implementation of the free education programme, especially in public junior secondary schools in Kogi state and this is the gap this study intends to fill.

The International Network of Research Management Societies (INORMS) celebrated its 20^th anniversary in 2021. It was established to increase communication among research management societies. The need for a formal international research management community developed because there was (1) increased international funding of research, (2) the number of international research collaborations was growing, and (3) there was a need to understand research regulations in other countries. INORMS sought to address these issues through international congresses and by providing a forum for member societies to work more closely together on common issues. Membership in INORMS steadily increased over the years. The 20^th anniversary meeting was highlighted with the signing of the Hiroshima Statement that described a research manager’s principles and responsibilities, which include collegiality, inclusiveness, professionalisation, innovation, and accountability. This chapter summarises the factors that led to the formation of INORMS and its history.

Sectoral brands are umbrella brands created to represent all companies’ products belonging to a country’s economic industry abroad to enhance their export performance. This study aims to explore the development of a sectoral brand model through the optic of the social constructionist perspective. Besides, this study also proposes to apply the model to a sectoral brand case in the business-to-business market.

The authors have developed a systematic qualitative literature review to provide a theoretical basis for the attributes chosen to compose the social constructionist sectoral brand management (SCSBM) model. To apply the model, the authors have conducted a series of 17 in-depth semi-structured interviews with the association’s managers that constitute the sectoral brand development, the director of the branding consultancy firm and specialists on place branding.

The authors present the SCSBM model, highlighting that sectoral branding should be seen as a dynamic and continuous process with the integrated participation of all industry stakeholders. Moreover, the authors have applied the model to the Brazil Fashion System brand.

The main contribution to theory is the link between sectoral brand management and the social constructionist approach, being the first study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to propose this connection. SCSBM model extends previous work on sectoral brands by adopting a social constructionist view.

The SCSBM model might contribute to marketing professionals willing to develop sectoral brands across multiple economic sectors and geographies.

The study’s originality lies in developing the first model, which adopts a social constructionist approach to sectoral brands.

Transport infrastructure in most countries is owned and maintained either by public authorities, private organisations, or individuals. However, in Sweden, about 50 per cent of the road network is owned and maintained by civic road associations. By using the analytic notion of commoning, this chapter seeks to explore how road maintenance is organised and in what ways civic participation is contributing to infrastructure maintenance. Through interviews with representatives of civic road associations in Vellinge municipality and municipal representatives, we conclude that property owners are being commoned, that is, they are obliged to be a member of the civic road association in the neighbourhood where they own property. This means that property owners are given the opportunity to collectively decide on matters of road infrastructure, including maintenance and investments. Each civic road association is also acting as an organisational collective, demanding or pressuring the municipality and its politicians to reform subsidies and the organisation of ownership of roads and responsibility for their maintenance. As a single property owner, this is difficult, but as an organisational collective, in a civic road association, they have a voice. As a citizen, local municipal election offers opportunities to push for change, but at these institutionalised moments of democracy, road infrastructure issues compete with other issues. Election campaigns rarely target road maintenance, although Vellinge seems to be an exception here. Nevertheless, as citizenship is built around the provision of universal and evenly distributed infrastructure, crumbling infrastructure in different parts of the municipality tends to raise concerns over equal access and opportunities – and also differentiated citizenships.

This study investigates how perceived political corruption, a generally overlooked corruption type, relates to firms' new product development (NPD) through perceived regulatory obstacles. It also examines firms' perceptions of business association support in this relationship, considering these associations' potential support for NPD.

This study conducted an empirical analysis of 1,663 firms in Turkey, a country noted for a history of legislative corruption, and in which there are strong business associations. Drawing the data from the World Bank's 2019 Enterprise Surveys Dataset, this study tested the hypotheses via the two-stage factor score regression method.

This study finds that perceived political corruption significantly relates to NPD negatively through perceived regulatory obstacles. It also finds that the perceived support of business associations to NPD is significantly greater when firms perceive regulatory obstacles but only slight political corruption.

As far as political corruption is concerned, this study reveals that corruption can also be the cause of regulatory obstacles, expanding the common view of corruption as a means of overcoming regulatory obstacles to NPD. In addition, it introduces the role of business associations in this relationship by revealing their support to NPD for different levels of perceived political corruption and regulatory obstacles.

Continuous professional development (CPD) plays a crucial role in the library workplace by equipping library and information science (LIS) professionals with the skills and technical knowledge to bridge the theory-praxis gap, assuring that library practitioners and their organisations continue to innovate and stay successful and tailored to the requirement of their users. The aim of the study was to investigate the channels of CPD for LIS professionals working in the university libraries of Northern India. Also, it explored the motivations and barriers related to the LIS professionals’ CPD.

The study adopted a quantitative research design followed by the survey research method. The study population included LIS professionals working in the university libraries of Northern India. Data was gathered from 177 respondents via the census sampling method.

LIS professionals engaged in CPD activities through multiple channels. Intrinsic factors primarily governed the motivation for CPD. Similarly, time and finance were significant challenges for LIS CPD. Lastly, most libraries were headed by in-charge librarians (non-professionals). De-professionalisation, or the deliberate de-skilling of professional roles, threatens the basis upon which librarians establish their credibility as professionals.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the study is the first of its kind from the perspective of a developing country, adding to the CPD literature in academic libraries.

The research question is how can a company implement a circular innovation in a supply network context? Leveraging the main conceptual and interpretative models of the industrial marketing and purchasing thinking, this study aims to investigate the interplay between the process of circular innovation development and the changes in the structure and dynamics of the supply network in which innovation takes place.

This research applies a case study design focusing on participant interaction dynamics. The case relates to an industrial company producing an innovative coating solution for compostable packaging. The data used to develop the case study came from multiple sources but primarily from semistructured interviews that cover the implementation of the circular innovation and the configuration of the circular network.

The dynamics of interconnected relationships can configure a circular network that interconnects business and non business actors through vertical, horizontal and heterogeneous relationships. The network configuration is supported by the new mobilizer actor that facilitates the sharing of circular knowledge within the circular network, together with the sharing of a market orientation and entrepreneurial orientation within the supply network, through the educational learning path.

This paper aims to contribute to a new understanding of how circular innovation can be developed, adopted and diffused. In a network, when circular innovation takes place, the focal issue is not the new product or technology in itself but how such innovation is developed and implemented by and through the reconfiguration of the business and non-business relationships into circular network.

This study aims to study the moderating effects of private ownership and government support on the relationship between outsourcing and product innovation in entrepreneurial ventures in a transition economy.

The data of 10,296 Vietnamese entrepreneurial ventures from the four rounds of the survey conducted by the General Statistics Office (GSO) of Vietnam to investigate the moderating effects of private ownership and government support on the association between outsourcing and entrepreneurial ventures’ product innovation performance. The Probit regression model is employed to estimate such associations.

Our research uncovered that the impact of outsourcing on the likelihood of product innovation is more significant for entrepreneurial operations characterized by a substantial degree of private ownership and government backing as opposed to those without.

The results of our research indicated that the resource-based perspective and extended resource-based view (ERBV) are essential in examining the impact of gaining resources or skills from external sources on the growth of entrepreneurial enterprises. These ideas have significance and importance not just in industrialized economies but also in countries undergoing transition. Our findings suggest that entrepreneurial enterprises should have the ability to manage a wide range of resources and make decisions about which activities should be handled internally and which should be delegated to other parties.

Our findings also imply that entrepreneurial ventures should be able to control many resources and choose which tasks should be performed in-house and which should be outsourced to third parties.

By adopting and leveraging the resource-based view (RBV) and extended resource-based views (ERBV), our study developed a theoretical model about private ownership and government support for moderate outsourcing’s impact on entrepreneurial innovation in a transition economy.