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The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of a sport-leadership program on minority incarcerated young adults’ health-related fitness markers.

This study occurred at an all-male juvenile detention center. A total of 41 participants in this study were obtained from a sample of 103 incarcerated young adults. Data collection entailed body mass index (BMI) evaluation, cardiovascular endurance tests and 1-min pushups and situps at two different time periods (before and after three months). A 2 × 2 mixed factorial analysis of variances was used to test for differences among the within subjects’ factors (time [pre × post]) and between subjects’ factors (groups [flex × control]) for the above-mentioned dependent variables.

Over the course of three consecutive months of engagement, preliminary indications demonstrated participants had a slight reduction in BMI and significant increases in cardiovascular endurance and muscle strength. Contrarily, during this same time period, non-participating young adults exhibited significant increases in BMI and decreases in cardiovascular endurance and muscle strength.

Integration of sport-leadership programs is generally not free but can be a low-cost alternative for combatting many issues surrounding physical activity, weight gain and recreational time for those incarcerated.

In 2022, the International Network for Quality Assurance (QA) Agencies in Higher Education (INQAAHE) published the new guidelines by adding three QA modules in response to the changing higher education landscape. The paper aims to investigate the transformative focus of quality assurance in higher education globally as well as Asian response to three new QA modules according to the INQAAHE ISGs.

The research conducted a quantitative approach for data collection. An on-line survey was conducted to perceive QA practices, perceptions toward new emerging QA modules and challenges encountered. In total, there were 26 responses from 18 territories with 22 QA agencies. A total of 13 out of them have a national qualifications framework in place.

Three are three major findings in the study. First, national policy and criteria and standards in distance education have been developed in the majority of Asian nations. Second, non-signatories of the Tokyo Convention had a higher proportion of having related policies, regulations and criteria in CBHE and distance education. Third, national policies and regulations; and lack of professional staff are two common challenges implementing QA in new types of providers.

The findings are of value for policymakers, QA agencies and universities to advocate the new QA model as a systematic approach in response to changing higher education landscape in the post pandemic era.

This research aimed to fill several gaps in the tipping literature which has overlooked the server's perspective in identifying and understanding variables that influence a tip amount and therefore where they concentrate their efforts during the service encounter. Furthermore, the extant literature has theorized how or why certain variables influence the tip amount, but these studies fail to capture insight from server's which would supplement the theory and provide a more in-depth understanding of the mechanisms at play.

This study adopts a grounded theory approach using semi-structured one-on-one interviews with tipped restaurant employees who were identified and selected using snowball sampling. Content analysis is employed to code and categorize the data.

The content analysis revealed five categories where servers focus their time and effort to earn tips: service quality, connection, personal factors, expertise and food quality. The server's personality was identified as a variable the tipping literature has largely ignored as a determinant of the tip amount. Server's shift their style of service for groups of eight or more people, and for regular customers, who must dine in the restaurant at least once per week. Lastly, despite the many drawbacks associated with working for tips, servers would not want to replace it with any other method of compensation.

This is the first qualitative study focused on understanding the server's role in the service exchange relationship since McCarty et al. (1990) study. The results provide new insights on the often-studied variables from the tipping literature.

People usually try to avoid uncertainty. Recently, however, uncertainty has become an emerging marketing tool in the hedonic product industry. In the case of blind box consumption, for example, the consumers become addicted to the uncertainty created by businesses, leading to repeat purchases and even indulgences. Previous research has, yet, to focus on the impact of uncertainty on indulgence and the role of emotions.

This paper constructs and validates a chain mediation model of uncertainty triggering indulgent consumption based on the information gap theory, positive emotion theory and uncertainty resolution theory and examines the difference between resolved and unresolved uncertainty. This study also explores differences in the impact of whether uncertainty is resolved on emotions. The uncertainty-resolved group elicited a more positive emotional response than the uncertainty-unresolved group, leading to a more indulgent consumption.

The results of three studies show that uncertainty influences indulgent consumption through curiosity and positive emotion, and that curiosity and positive emotion play separate and chain mediating roles between uncertainty and indulgent consumption, respectively. We validate our central hypothesis with questionnaires among blind box consumer groups, examining the moderating role of perceived luck and risk preferences.

The findings shed new light on firms' use of uncertainty to promote consumer purchases.

This study aims to thoroughly examine and understand the relationship between working capital management (WCM) and the sustainable financial performance (FP) in the context of the New Zealand companies listed on stock exchange.

This study has applied various regression techniques to examine WCM and the sustainable FP relationship. The data set period is from 2009 to 2019. The results are robust upon various layers of robustness parameters. The system-generalized method of moments is applied for managing endogeneity issue.

The research reveals compelling evidence of a meaningful connection between WCM and sustainable FP indicators. The study specifically highlights the significant negative associations between the cash conversion cycle, average collection period and average age of inventory with the firm’s sustainable FP. Through robust analyses and various parameter adjustments, the study ensures the credibility and reliability of its conclusions, further reinforcing the impact of WCM on the financial health of New Zealand-listed firms.

This study provides future directions for researchers to explore the dynamic relationship between WCM and a firm sustainable FP because it is still a demanding and challenging area. Future research may care to explore the optimal way to reduce the cash conversion cycle, average collection period and average age of inventory for New Zealand firms. The current study does provide insights to NZ financial managers, which is useful for improving sustainable FP by efficiently managing WCM.

WCM is problematic and constitutes a notable challenge; it requires further research, especially in small economies such as New Zealand. Hence, it is an updated and fresh attempt based on a larger data set to measure the empirical relationship between WCM and the sustainable performance of New Zealand-listed firms. Furthermore, the current study uses dynamic panel data estimation techniques in addition to multiple regression techniques.

Based on the resource-based view (RBV) theory, this study examines how supply chain digitalisation affects firms’ performance by enabling firms to build supply chain agility and innovation capability.

Drawing from the dataset of 271 firms in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), we used structural equation modelling to validate the models. Mediation and moderation analyses were performed to test the research hypotheses.

The results suggest a positive correlation between supply chain digitalisation and a company’s performance, fully mediated by both supply chain agility and innovation capability. The interplay between supply chain agility and innovation capability has the potential to result in unfavourable outcomes for a firm’s performance. These results provide valuable insights into supply chain management during digital transformation.

The study advances the extant research on the antecedents of a firm’s performance by incorporating supply chain digitalisation and mediating mechanisms of supply chain agility and innovation capability that serve as a conduit between supply chain digitalisation and a firm’s performance based on RBV.

Organisation concepts consist of prescriptive ideas concerning how to manage or organise. The simultaneous use of multiple concepts in an organisation may create synergies but also confusion and conflicts. This paper aims to explore how change agents deal with the simultaneous use of multiple organisation concepts within a single organisation.

A qualitative case study of a Norwegian energy company using lean, agile and design thinking.

The findings show that change agents compare the concepts with each other and recognise commonalities and differences. They also match individual concepts and tools to the nature of tasks, the different phases of projects/initiatives based on their perceived maturity or internal communities. Most agents emphasise similarities between concepts and complementarities between tools. This approach creates a versatile toolbox for improvement.

Companies making use of multiple organisation concepts should continuously discuss and actively manage the tensions that exist between concepts while establishing a unified approach and common culture for improvement.

This study offers a novel understanding of how change agents make sense of different approaches to improvement within a single organisation.

While, supply chain resilience (SCRES) continues to be a dominant topic in both academic and business literature and has gained more attention recently, there is limited knowledge on SCRES capabilities specific to business functions. The purpose of this paper is to identify and investigate capabilities shared between supply, operations and logistics that are most important for SCRES.

To address this gap, the authors followed a multi-method research approach. First, the authors used the grounded theory method to generate a theoretical framework based on interviews with 51 managers from five companies in automotive SCs. Next, the authors empirically validated the framework using a survey of 340 SC professionals from the manufacturing industry.

Five significant capabilities emerged from the qualitative study; all were significant in empirical validation. This research advances the knowledge of SCRES as it informs managerial decision-making by identifying capabilities common to supply, logistics and operations that impact SCRES.

This research advances the knowledge of SCRES as it informs managerial decision-making by identifying capabilities common to supply, logistics and operations that impact SCRES. In addition, the findings of this research help managers better allocate resources among significant capabilities.

Recent scholarship has explored higher education institutions’ (HEIs) role in transitioning to a sustainable society, but empirically, questions remain regarding their impact on the sustainability of surrounding areas. This study aims to examine the correlation between HEIs’ sustainability actions and local sustainability performance.

This study uses a linear regression model and principal component analysis to examine the sustainability performance of 105 US metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) using the US cities sustainable development goal (SDG) index, which hosts 427 HEIs known for sustainability efforts. The weighted HEI sustainability performance score is calculated based on the QS sustainability universities ranking.

The correlation between MSA and HEI sustainability performance exhibits a mix of positive and negative associations, with individual and interlinked SDGs serving as proxies. These correlations encompass a wide range of goals, from economic aspects of SDG 1, 2, 3, 7, 9, social aspects of SDG10 and 16, to socio-environmental aspects of SDG12.

Further exploration is needed to identify the causal mechanisms behind associations between SDG measures and HEI sustainability performance, whether influenced by the institution, the individual or both.

This study suggests that HEIs are already associated with some aspects of community sustainability, but greater contributions to a broader array of sustainability measures are possible.

The correlation found between HEI sustainability actions and SDG10, 12 and 16 index performance in an MSA highlights a connection between HEIs and the attainment of societal goals.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine the correlation between HEI and MSA sustainability performance in the US through individual and interlinked SDG proxies. It provides novel empirical evidence that demonstrates an association between HEI and some aspects of community sustainability performance.

This study aims to examine the implementation of agile practices in Industry 4.0 to assess the financial performance measurements of manufacturing firms. It also investigates the relationship between supply chain performance and financial performance.

The study is based on an experimental research design by collecting data from 329 responses from key officials of manufacturing firms. The analyses are carried out to explore this modern concept with the help of the SPSS program, which is used to conduct a confirmatory factor and reliability analysis and Smart-partial least square (PLS) version 4.0 with structural equation modeling.

This research demonstrates the positive effect agile supply chain strategies in Industry 4.0 may have on manufacturing companies' financial performance as a whole. Everything throughout the supply chain in Industry 4.0, from the manufacturers to the end users, is taken into account as a potential performance booster. The values obtained from the model's study show that it is both dependable and effective, surpassing the threshold for such claims. The research is supported by factors like customer involvement (CUS), continuous improvement (CI), integration (INT), modularity (MOD), management style (MS) and supplier involvement (SI) but is undermined by factors including postponement (PPT).

According to the findings of the study, Industry 4.0 firms' financial performance and overall competitiveness are significantly improved when their supply chains are more agile. A more agile supply chain helps businesses to more rapidly adapt to shifts in consumer demand, shorten the amount of time it takes to produce a product, enhance product quality and boost customer happiness. As a consequence of this, there will be an increase in revenue, an improvement in profitability and continued sustainable growth.

There are literary works available on agile practices in various fields, but the current study outlines the need to understand how supply chains perform financially under the mediating effect of agile supply chains in Industry 4.0 which contribute most to the organization's success. The study will aid companies in understanding how agile practices will further the overall performance of the organization financially.