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This research focuses on the Metaverse's evolving trend and the potential application of blockchain technology in the accounting of virtual assets in this digital domain. The Metaverse introduces a new economy in which users may earn real-world revenue through virtual activities, necessitating the need for efficient and dependable virtual asset accounting. Blockchain technology, with its decentralized and immutable record, appears to be a viable answer to these problems. This chapter discusses the present status of blockchain technology for accounting for virtual assets in the Metaverse as well as its potential role for businesses and the economy. It also determines the technology's issues and limits and makes recommendations for further development. The findings indicate that blockchain technology has the potential to transform virtual asset accounting in the Metaverse by improving security, transparency, and consistency. However, scalability and legal/regulatory issues must be overcome before it can completely achieve its promise. Accounting experts, developers, and stakeholders interested in the convergence of blockchain technology and the Metaverse economy will find this chapter useful.

By building and examining an integral model, the principal objectives of this research are to systematically explore how indirect and direct network externalities lead to user loyalty toward WeChat through the mediating effect of perceived gratifications.

The data were collected through an online survey of 688 young people in Mainland China. To empirically assess the conceptual model, zero-order correlation analyses and structural equation modeling were carried out utilizing web-based data.

Path analysis results demonstrate that indirect network externalities and direct network externalities exert a significant impact on users' hedonic gratifications and utilitarian gratifications. Moreover, the study discovers the significant mediating influences of utilitarian gratifications on the association between indirect network externalities and user loyalty.

Theoretically, this article may extend the scope of diverse studies on the association between network externalities and perceived gratifications and offer fresh insights into how mobile social media could actually improve user loyalty through enhancing perceived values among younger generation. Practically, this research assists mobile social media practitioners in retaining users and gaining competitive advantages over rival applications.

Although the extraordinary growth of WeChat has successfully become the dominant media by which individuals develop interpersonal network and contact with others, the roles of perceived gratifications between network externalities and user loyalty toward WeChat have not yet been investigated in depth. These obtained outcomes not only enrich the existing literature regarding the relationship between network externalities and affective response, but also offer fresh insights to mobile social media designers, marketers and users.

Surface acoustic wave (SAW) sensors have attracted great attention worldwide for a variety of applications in measuring physical, chemical and biological parameters. However, stability has been one of the key issues which have limited their effective commercial applications. To fully understand this challenge of operation stability, this paper aims to systematically review mechanisms, stability issues and future challenges of SAW sensors for various applications.

This review paper starts with different types of SAWs, advantages and disadvantages of different types of SAW sensors and then the stability issues of SAW sensors. Subsequently, recent efforts made by researchers for improving working stability of SAW sensors are reviewed. Finally, it discusses the existing challenges and future prospects of SAW sensors in the rapidly growing Internet of Things-enabled application market.

A large number of scientific articles related to SAW technologies were found, and a number of opportunities for future researchers were identified. Over the past 20 years, SAW-related research has gained a growing interest of researchers. SAW sensors have attracted more and more researchers worldwide over the years, but the research topics of SAW sensor stability only own an extremely poor percentage in the total researc topics of SAWs or SAW sensors.

Although SAW sensors have been attracting researchers worldwide for decades, researchers mainly focused on the new materials and design strategies for SAW sensors to achieve good sensitivity and selectivity, and little work can be found on the stability issues of SAW sensors, which are so important for SAW sensor industries and one of the key factors to be mature products. Therefore, this paper systematically reviewed the SAW sensors from their fundamental mechanisms to stability issues and indicated their future challenges for various applications.

The purpose of this study is to propose and test an integrated model to explain how trust is built in sharing economy (SE) transactions.

Initially, prior literature was systematically selected and synthesized to develop a comprehensive framework applicable to multiple trust-building perspectives and categories of SE platforms. Then, a survey was conducted to validate the constructs and test the model with Airbnb guests. A sample of 351 responses was collected and analyzed using structural equation modeling.

The results indicate that the cues an individual assesses to infer their counterpart’s trustworthiness and the reasons the individual has for engaging in the SE transaction can explain a large variance in their trust in the counterpart. In addition, the individual’s propensity to trust moderates this relationship.

The proposed model can help identify the most effective trust-building mechanisms. It can be taken as a common knowledge base for scholars to compare the four trust-building perspectives and different categories of SE platforms, as well as to investigate the subject over time and across cultures.

This research can also help practitioners understand the complexity of building trust and design platform features to do so.

A unified model clarifies trust in the SE, aiding platform growth and community bonding. This insight guides platforms in feature enhancement and policymakers in drafting balanced regulations.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, for the first time, there is a comprehensive and parsimonious model applicable to the four trust-building perspectives and different categories of SE platforms.

This study investigates the motivation among customers to be more loyal to online food delivery applications (OFDA) services even after the COVID-19 epidemic by using perceived service quality aspects in Sri Lanka. The data were gathered by physically distributing a self-administrated questionnaire to clients in Sri Lanka who continue to use OFDA services on platform to customer (P2C) service delivery platforms to buy food despite the COVID-19 outbreak. Multiple regression is employed to analyse 287 effective observations, and the data revealed the significant positive effect of interaction, environment, outcome, and food qualities on customer loyalty to OFDA services. In fact, there is no impact from the delivery quality on customer loyalty to OFDA services due to outsourced food delivery. The findings suggest regular improvements in attributes such as interaction, environment, outcome, and food qualities in this hyper-competitive business environment. Further, this study sets substantial facts for the interested parties to establish an exemplary delivery system and other technological advancements to have a sustainable competitive advantage and solid customer base in the long run.

The purpose of this study is to examine how construction project managers’ conflict management styles (CMSs) affect project team resilience from the perspective of social identity theory.

This study adopted a cross-sectional survey design and collected paired data from 110 construction project managers and 474 employees in China. Based on the data collected, the authors tested the proposed hypotheses using hierarchical regression analysis.

The results show that a project manager’s cooperative CMS positively affects team resilience, and a project manager’s competitive and avoidant CMS negatively affects team resilience. Team followership plays a mediating role in this relationship. The team power distance moderates the effects of a project manager’s cooperative and avoidant CMSs on team followership.

This paper enriches the existing literature on conflict management in construction projects and have potential guiding significance and application value for team resilience management practices.

The adoption of mobile payment remains low in certain regions, highlighting the need to identify the factors that enable and inhibit its adoption. This study aims to address this gap by investigating the role of information security, loss aversion and the moderating influence of the herd effect on Inertia and behavioral intentions in the adoption of mobile payment systems.

A structural equation model was developed and tested with 332 valid questionnaires to examine the proposed hypotheses.

The empirical results reveal that information security plays a significant role as an enabler, while loss aversion acts as an inhibitor of mobile payment adoption. Furthermore, the study uncovers the moderating influence of the herd effect on the relationship between Inertia and behavioral intentions.

This study was conducted in a specific region and may not be generalizable to other regions. Future studies could expand the sample size and scope to enhance the external validity of the findings.

This study offers practical implications for mobile payment service providers. Understanding the key enabling and inhibiting factors identified in this study can guide providers in designing and improving their services. Strengthening information security measures can help build trust among potential adopters, while offering incentives can mitigate the impact of loss aversion and encourage early adoption.

The findings of this study have social implications as they contribute to promoting the adoption of mobile payment systems. Increased adoption can enhance financial inclusion and stimulate economic development.

This study provides novel insights into the enabling and inhibiting factors of mobile payment adoption and highlights the moderating role of the herd effect. By shedding light on the influence of social norms on individual behavior in the context of mobile payment adoption, this study contributes to the existing literature and advances our understanding of this phenomenon.

During the past few years, social media has faced the challenge of maintaining its user base. Reports show that the social media giants such as Facebook and Twitter experienced a decline in their users. Taking WhatsApp's recent change of its terms of use as the case of this study and using the push-pull-mooring model and a configurational perspective, this study aims to identify pathways for switching intentions.

Data were collected from 624 WhatsApp users recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk and analyzed using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA).

The findings identify seven configurations for high switching intentions and four configurations for low intentions to switch. Firm reputation and critical mass increase intention to switch, while low firm reputation and absence of attractive alternatives hinder switching.

This study extends extant literature on social media migration by identifying configurations that result in high and low switching intention among messaging applications.

The study identifies factors the technology service providers should consider to attract new users and retain existing users.

This study complements the extant literature on switching intention that explains the phenomenon based on a net-effect approach by offering an alternative view that focuses on the existence of multiple pathways to social media switching. It further advances the authors’ understanding of the relevant importance of switching factors.

Drawing on information foraging theory and the SERVQUAL model, this study built a research model to investigate the roles of middle-aged and elderly short-video creators' online attributes in attracting short-video viewers to be their followers.

Taking Douyin (a famous short-video platform in China) as an example, this study used a sequential triangulation mixed-methods approach (quantitative → qualitative) to examine the proposed model by investigating both creators and viewers.

Viewers who clicked the “like” button for the middle-aged and elderly creators' videos are more likely to follow the creators. Viewers will believe that middle-aged and elderly creators who received more likes are more popular. Thus, middle-aged and elderly creators with more likes usually have more followers. Viewers usually believe that middle-aged and elderly creators who more frequently publish professional and high-quality videos have invested more effort and who have official verification also have a high level of authority and are recognized by the platform. Thus, middle-aged and elderly creators with more professional videos and verification usually have more followers. Moreover, verification, the number of videos and the professionalism of videos can enhance the transformation of viewers who liked middle-aged and elderly creators' videos into their followers, and thus strengthen the positive relationship between the number of likes and the number of followers; however, the number of bio words will have an opposite effect.

These findings have implications for platform managers, middle-aged and elderly creators and the brands aiming to develop a “silver economy” by attracting more followers.

This study researches short-video platforms by using a mixed-methods approach to develop an understanding of viewers' decision-making when following middle-aged and elderly creators based on information foraging theory and the SERVQUAL model from the perspectives of both short-video creators and viewers.

In this study, the authors sought to investigate how the implicit social ties of both project owners and potential backers are associated with crowdfunding project success.

Drawing on social ties theory and factors that affect crowdfunding success, in this research, the authors developed a model to study how project owners' and potential backers' implicit social ties are associated with crowdfunding projects' degrees of success. The proposed model was empirically tested with crowdfunding data collected from Kickstarter and social media data collected from Twitter. The authors performed the test using an ordinary least squares (OLS) regression model with fixed effects.

The authors found that project owners' implicit social ties (specifically, their social media activities, degree centrality and betweenness centrality) are significantly and positively associated with crowdfunding projects' degrees of success. Meanwhile, potential project backers' implicit social ties (their social media activities and degree centrality) are negatively associated with crowdfunding projects' degrees of success. The authors also found that project size moderates the effects of project owners' social media activities on projects' degrees of success.

This work contributes to the literature on crowdfunding by investigating how the implicit social ties of both potential backers and project owners on social media are associated with crowdfunding project success. This study extends the previous research on social ties' roles in explaining crowdfunding project success by including implicit social ties, while the literature explored only explicit social ties.