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The purpose of this study is to determine if blockchain-supported carbon offset information provision and shipping options with different cost and environmental footprint implications impact consumer perceptions toward retailers and logistics service providers. Blockchain and carbon neutrality, each can be expensive to adopt and complex to manage, thus getting the “truth” on decarbonization may require additional costs for consumers.

Experimental modeling is used to address these critical and emergent issues that influence practices across a set of supply chain actors. Three hypotheses relating to the relationship between blockchain-supported carbon offset information and consumer perceptions and intentions associated with the product and supply chain actors are investigated.

The results show that consumer confidence increases when supply chain carbon offset information has greater reliability, transparency and traceability as supported by blockchain technology. The authors also find that consumers who are provided visibility into various shipping options and the product's journey carbon emissions and offset – from a blockchain-supported system – they are more willing to pay a premium for both the product and shipping options. Blockchain-supported decarbonization information disclosure in the supply chain can lead to organizational legitimacy and financial gains in return.

Understanding consumer action and sustainable consumption is critical for organizations seeking carbon neutrality. Currently, the literature on this understanding from a consumer information provision is not well understood, especially with respect to blockchain-supported information transparency, visibility and reliability. Much of the blockchain literature focuses on the upstream. This study focuses more on consumer-level and downstream supply chain blockchain implications for organizations. The study provides a practical roadmap for considering levels of blockchain information activity and consumer interaction.

The purpose of this paper is to report on the use and content of written guidance produced by mental health services in England and Wales describing hospital leave for informally admitted patients.

Guidance on leave was requested from National Health Service (NHS) mental health trusts in England and health boards in Wales (n = 61) using a Freedom of Information submission. Data were analysed using content analysis.

In total, 32 organisations had a leave policy for informal patients. Policies varied considerably in content and quality. The content of policies was not supported by research evidence. Organisations appeared to have developed their policies by either adapting or copying the guidance on section 17 leave outlined in the Mental Health Act Codes of Practice for England and Wales (Department of Health, 2016; Welsh Government, 2016). Definitions of important terms, for example, leave and hospital premises, were either absent or poorly defined. Finally, some organisations appeared to be operating pseudo-legal coercive contracts to prevent informal patients from leaving hospital wards.

Research should be undertaken to explore the impact of local policies on the informal patient’s right to life and liberty.

All NHS organisations need to develop an evidence-based policy to facilitate the informal patient’s right to take leave. A set of national standards that organisations are required to comply with would help to standardise the content of leave policies.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study to examine the use and content of local policies describing how informal patients can take leave from hospital.

In this study, workplace spirituality is discussed in the context of remote work and the COVID-19 pandemic. First, the focus is on the changes in the meaning and function of employees in the organization during the evolutionary process of industrialization and management paradigms. Afterward, conceptual frameworks for spirituality and workplace spirituality are presented, and in the last section, academic studies that deal with workplace spirituality with distance or hybrid work arrangements are included. Early studies offer insights and recommendations on conceptualizing, developing, and managing workplace spirituality. They all emphasize that spirituality is necessary for remote work as a tool to overcome stress and mental health problems and increase employee well-being. Unfortunately, the remote work and workplace spirituality literature is relatively narrow and needs to be expanded.

Indigenous students that live in poverty experience contextual socio-economic factors with residual effects of lower educational outcomes than their non-Indigenous counterparts. Indigenous children that live in poverty often have fewer resources, are segregated, and continue to be marginalized in the classroom. The vicious cycle of low education levels for Indigenous peoples confines them to low paying employment or unemployment that results in ongoing poverty or being a statistic categorized as the working poor. The purpose of this research was to gain a better understanding of the strategies that teachers have animated in their classrooms, which they perceived to be successful in encouraging Indigenous students to attend school, remain in school, complete course credits, and persevere to graduate from high school. The intent was to discover the how-to strategies and advance working knowledge of pedagogical practices leading to improved educational experiences and achievement levels for Indigenous students. This chapter will present the observations and qualitative findings of the case studies conducted in New Zealand and Canada, wherein 14 teachers described what they did and what it looked like in their classrooms. A constructivist approach was utilized to make meaning and gain the interpretations from the participants. This was achieved by first viewing the interactions in the classrooms and, through the interview process, being able to garner a better understanding of what was witnessed from the point of view of the participants.

Broiler meat is the most commonly used meat product worldwide. Although China is regarded as one of the three largest broiler producers, the per capita chicken consumption remains low. Consumers' cognitive bias and the information acquisition channels are believed to be the main factors contributing to this. This paper aims to discuss the aforementioned issue.

To explore the phenomenon empirically, the current study uses the survey data of 1,056 consumers from China and analyses them using ordered logistic regression.

The results revealed that consumers' cognitive bias significantly affects their behaviour toward broiler products, and the order of influence is cognitive bias regarding industry cognitive > product nutrition and taste > food safety. The study further revealed that the more diverse the information acquisition channels, the more likely they are to promote consumer behaviour toward broiler chickens. The order of influence of the channels was self-organising > new media > traditional media.

Overall, the findings suggest that the government and enterprises should strengthen and upgrade information channels to boost both the broiler industry and consumer consumption behaviour regarding poultry products.

Rather than the usual focus on the impact of consumer cognition on consumer behaviour, this study examines the impact of cognitive bias on consumer behaviour. Further, centring on broiler products with high protein, low fat and feed-to-meat ratios, this study explores the reasons the per capita consumption of broiler products in China is far lower than the national average.

The overall aim of this research is to interpret Ikenga and Ofo creativity as it is revered in Igbo societies. Igbo creativity, especially interpreted through material culture, suffers the threat of extinction resulting from the forces of modernity. Forces of modernisation, which appear in the personae of Christianity, education, urbanisation and industrialisation, denigrated indigenous creativity, brandishing them as devious, fetish and primitive. Ironically, in most cases, the drivers of such narratives keep these “fetish” items in their museums and will give a lot to preserve them.

This study centred mostly on several communities in the Nsukka area of Igboland, Nigeria. It relied on both primary and secondary sources of historical enquiry. This qualitative research discussed the nuances of the subject matter as it relates to Igbo cosmos. These approaches involved visiting the study area and conducting personal interviews.

Archaeologists do often rely on material culture to study, periodise and date past human societies. In this study, it is found that material culture, an expression of indigenous creativity, best interprets how society survived or related with their environment. This paper examined two Igbo sculpted artefacts – Ikenga and Ofo – while unearthing the intricacies in Igbo cosmology as regards creativity, spirituality and society.

The shapes, motifs, patterns and designs depict an imaginary history, the intellectualism of the past and even the present. This serves as an objective alternative to the twisted colonial narrative on Igbo material culture and consequently contribute to ongoing efforts to preserve, protect and promote cultural heritage resources in this part of the world.

This study examines a controversial issue (biotechnology) and how news disputes about misinformation related to the issue impacts individuals' attitudes toward a biotechnology company and their trust in the media source.

This study conducts a 2 (risk: low vs. high) x 2 (pre-existing attitude: anti gene-editing technology vs. pro gene-editing technology) x 2 (dispute message: absent vs. present) x 2 (media source: Buzzfeed vs NYT) factorial online experiment using a Qualtrics panel (N = 1,080) to examine the impact on individuals' attitudes toward a biotechnology company and trust in the media source.

Results indicate that dispute messages enhance attitudes toward the company but decrease trust in media sources. Interaction effects between pre-existing attitude and the dispute message, along with perceived risk and the dispute message, illustrate stark differences in how individuals with favorable vs. unfavorable pre-existing attitudes assessed the company after viewing the dispute message.

This study applies arguments from extant literature about prebunking and debunking misinformation. Specifically, this study investigates how dispute messages, a form of debunking through source derogation, actually impact individuals' perceptions of media credibility and/or their attitudes about the content they are reading. The study findings also reveal new insights regarding the interaction between pre-existing attitudes and perceived risk, as well as how dispute messages interact with each of the aforementioned factors.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the dynamic of consumers' perceptions of GM food and explore whether their knowledge of GM technology is associated with a significant change.

This paper presents a meta-analysis of 156 primary studies reporting a total of 225 attitudes toward genetically modified foods. To identify the impact of consumers' knowledge of GM technology, the authors estimate multivalued treatment effects model.

The results of this study show that consumers' attitudes show a U shape during 2001–2022. That is, the rise in opposition to genetically modified foods has been reversed. In addition, this study also shows that the increase in consumers' knowledge of genetically modified technology contributes to their changes in attitude.

This paper is the first study that empirically investigates the dynamics of Chinese consumers' attitude to genetically modified foods, and shows the rise in opposition to genetically modified foods has been reversed, which has important implication for commercialization of genetically modified crops in China.