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The purpose of this study is to investigate how combined nutrition labelling influences consumer attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control and purchase intention for sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs).

This study adopted a mixed method research, quasi-experimental design with 406 valid Taiwanese samples to evaluate the possible effects of combined nutrition labelling on SSB purchase intention; two focus group interviews with four nutritional experts and 12 students were conducted to explain how and why consumers perceived different types of combined nutritional labels.

Combined labels including sugar type/gram with the guideline daily amounts and traffic light display were perceived by consumers as high-quality and reliable, which improved consumer attitude and SSB purchase intention. Consumers perceived the traffic light display and warning claim as a sugar over-consumption message, which reduced SSB purchase intention through subject norms.

Governments should be aware that concrete nutritional information (NIP) leads to the worst SSB consumption. Moreover, the authors suggest that policymakers emphasise the effectiveness of warning claims on SSB products with “sufficient” sugar information to trigger consumers' concern, remind SSB manufacturers of their moral obligation to consumers.

This study identified that the combined effects of nutritional attributes and parts of meanings might be enhanced, eliminated or even separated from their original meaning. Although the label messages were delivered simultaneously, the consumer's psychological perceptions proved to be more complicated than a single attribute and sequentially affected consumer attitudes, subject norms and SSB purchase intention.

This study aims to examine the impact of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) mandate and differences in national institutional quality on the underpricing of Initial Public Offering (IPO) companies.

Multiple Difference-in-Differences (DiD) ordinary least squares estimations were conducted for 100 corporations listed on the Saudi Arabian stock market using country-level institutional quality data from 2005 to 2017.

IFRS requirements and improvements in institutional quality have a combined effect on minimizing IPO underpricing. The analysis of the combined impact of IFRS requirements and differences in transparency revealed that IPO vendors leave $5 on average for IPO investors to cash out post the IFRS mandate, compared to $29 previously. Thus, IFRS serves as a quality certification instrument that alleviates IPO investors’ ex ante uncertainties, even in nations with undeveloped institutions.

The findings may be beneficial to researchers and policymakers. The results suggest that institutional quality enhancements and obligatory IFRS implementation highlight IFRS’s synergistic influence on the IPO market. While European harmonization efforts drove the adoption of IFRS in Europe in 2005, Saudi Arabia’s adoption of IFRS is not being driven by such initiatives (Daske et al., 2008; Persakis and Iatridis 2017). In reality, when IFRS was officially imposed in Saudi Arabia in 2008, it, like many other emerging market nations, made considerable reforms to its formal institutions. However, research on the combined impact of IFRS and disparities in institutional quality in emerging IPO markets remains sparse. Emerging markets represent more than half of economies that use IFRS. Therefore, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to conduct an empirical investigation to identify this combined effect in emerging countries using the DiD analytical technique. Equity market legislators remain concerned regarding IPO underpricing, as it has a detrimental influence on economic growth (Bova and Pereira, 2012; Jamaani and Ahmed, 2021; Mehmood et al., 2021). Depending on the degree of information asymmetry in national stock markets, underpricing costs increase the cost of going public for entrepreneurs. Consequently, prospective private firms are discouraged from accessing equity financing through the stock markets. This is likely to impede private sector development plans, causing a negative effect on economic growth.

Emerging countries represent over 50% of the IFRS mandating economies. However, there is insufficient research on the combined effect of IFRS requirements and improvements in institutional quality in developing IPO markets. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first empirical attempt to identify this combined effect in one of the largest developing countries. The results may aid academics and policymakers in better understanding the interaction between these two variables.

Combined defects in ball bearings may be caused during the use or manufacturing process, which can significantly affect their vibration characteristics. The previous defect models in the literature can only describe single defects such as the surface waviness and localized defect. This paper aims to propose an in-depth understanding of radial vibrations of a ball bearing with the combined defect.

A dynamic model for a ball bearing with the combined defect including the surface waviness and localized defect on its races is proposed. The effects of the combined defect sizes on the radial bearing vibrations are investigated. The results from the proposed model considering the combined defect are compared with the available results from the previous methods considering the single defects.

The acceleration amplitude is significantly affected by the surface waviness, localized defect and the combined defect on its races. The effect of the combined defect on the acceleration amplitude is larger than that of the single defect. The amplitude and peak frequency of the spectrum of acceleration for the combined defect increases with the defect sizes. The RMS value of the accelerations for the combined defect increases with the combined defect sizes.

Consequently, the proposed model can predict more accurate and in-depth understanding of the radial vibrations caused by the combined defect in the ball bearing.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of combined assurance on tax avoidance in South Africa.

This study is founded on a sample of 76 South African firms listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange over the 2014–2022 period. The authors used the feasible generalized least squares regression estimation technique to test the hypothesis. To address endogeneity issues, this study conducted a difference-in-differences (DID) analysis based on propensity score matching.

The results reveal that combined assurance negatively impacts tax avoidance. Implementing combined assurance, as an integrated risk management approach, significantly minimizes tax risk. The DID analysis provides well-founded evidence attributing the decline in tax avoidance levels to the availability of combined assurance. The inferences are robust to using alternative measures of tax avoidance, testing combined assurance impact across various tax avoidance levels and controlling for the COVID-19 effect.

This study presents valuable insights for firms, managers and policymakers. The findings encourage companies to bolster their risk management practices, opting for combined assurance over a sole risk monitoring mechanism. This approach enables the company to ensure better compliance with tax regulations, thereby enhancing overall efficiency. Besides, the disciplining effect of combined assurance motivates managers to make informed decisions, avoid tax avoidance strategies and safeguard corporate reputation. Moreover, this research calls upon policymakers to promote effective global regulatory frameworks for combined assurance practices.

The research brings original insights by exploring the influence of combined assurance on tax avoidance. This addresses a gap in the current literature that has predominantly focused on the relationship between tax avoidance and individual lines of defense.

Job Corps is the United State’s largest and most comprehensive training program for disadvantaged youth aged 16–24 years old. A randomized social experiment concluded that, on average, individuals benefited from the program in the form of higher weekly earnings and employment prospects. At the same time, “young adults” (ages 20–24) realized much higher impacts relative to “adolescents” (ages 16–19). Employing recent nonparametric bounds for causal mediation, we investigate whether these two groups’ disparate effects correspond to them benefiting differentially from distinct aspects of Job Corps, with a particular focus on the attainment of a degree (GED, high school, or vocational). We find that, for young adults, the part of the total effect of Job Corps on earnings (employment) that is due to attaining a degree within the program is at most 41% (32%) of the total effect, whereas for adolescents that part can account for up to 87% (100%) of the total effect. We also find evidence that the magnitude of the part of the effect of Job Corps on the outcomes that works through components of Job Corps other than degree attainment (e.g., social skills, job placement, residential services) is likely higher for young adults than for adolescents. That those other components likely play a more important role for young adults has policy implications for more effectively servicing participants. More generally, our results illustrate how researchers can learn about particular mechanisms of an intervention.

This research aims to examine the moderating role of consumers’ persuasion knowledge (PK) on the persuasive effect of combined advertising and publicity within the same medium. The synergistic effect experienced when two messages are thus combined is reversed for readers with high PK who are first exposed to publicity then to advertising. Believability of the message is found to be a mediator within this context.

Based on a review of the appropriate literatures on PK and integrated marketing communication (IMC), this paper tests the hypotheses using two experimental studies.

The results of two experiments show that publicity-then-advertising yields poorer persuasion than advertising-then-publicity, especially under a high PK condition. The reduced synergistic effect of combinations of advertising and publicity is found especially when consumers activate temporary PK and/or when they have chronically high PK. A mediator for a decrease in the synergistic effect of combinations of advertising and publicity, believability, is examined.

This study contains significant managerial implications for marketing communicators about how to most effectively combine and coordinate publicity and advertising in the implementation of an IMC strategy.

Other than making a contribution to the IMCs’ literature, this research extends understanding of the power of PK within an IMC framework. The research contributes yet another extension to the original PK model of Friestad and Wright (1994) by suggesting an underlying theoretical mechanism to explain how PK works in the IMC domain.

To determine the age at which influence peaks for men and women at work, then use empirical data to develop procedures predicting complex combining effects of diffuse status characteristics.

A survey experiment with a nationally representative sample is used to measure the age at which the status value of men and women at work reaches a maximum. Research results are then incorporated into equations adapted from current status characteristics theory (SCT) procedures to model the combined effects of age, gender, race/ethnicity, education, income, occupation, and beauty.

Analyses reveal that the status value of men and women reaches a maximum in middle age, and that women reach a maximum status value at work at an earlier age than men.

This approach maintains core assumptions of SCT and uses ongoing research results to calibrate a model predicting complex combining effects of diffuse status characteristics. Limitations include the need to develop additional empirical constants to make predictions in new research settings.

Predictions from the model can be used in hiring situations to adjust for interviewers’ nonconscious expectations related to status characteristics of job applicants.

The disadvantage for women at work that increases through mid-career helps to explain the continuing underrepresentation of women in senior leadership positions. Awareness of the impact of socially valued characteristics like age and gender can help individuals respond more effectively to challenging social situations.

Extend the current SCT model to make predictions in contexts where people are being evaluated such as elections, hiring, and promotions.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether modular product design is an appropriate practice to improve manufacturers’ flexibility performance and cost performance as well as to evaluate whether combined effects of modular product design and delivery performance on flexibility performance and cost performance exist.

Structural equation modeling with moderating effects is used. Moderating effects allow an evaluation whether combined effects of modular product design and delivery performance exist. For the analysis, data from the international high-performance manufacturing survey are used.

Analysis results show a positive relationship between modular product design and cost performance, but do not show a significant moderating effect. Thus, no combined effect of modular product design and delivery performance exists in the data at hand.

A potential limitation of this study is the cross-sectional nature of the analysis. In order to test for causal relationships or chronological sequences, longitudinal data are deemed more suitable.

The findings make improvement processes more predictable and help managers to overcome traditional trade-off situations, especially in terms of flexibility performance and cost performance. Manufacturers are still neglecting the implementation of complementary methods for achieving an increase in flexibility while maintaining efficiency.

This paper complements prior research on the effect of improvement practices on operational performance dimensions. It also takes an alternative approach to examine whether a beneficial implementation sequence of improvement practices can be assumed.

This paper aims to examine the influence of individual and combined effects of the mode focused on scientific and technological-based innovation (STI) and the mode based on learning by doing, by using and by interacting (DUI) on firms’ innovation performance and whether information technology (IT) moderates the relation between different innovation modes and firms’ innovation performance.

A conceptual model linking innovation modes, IT (including IT infrastructure and the frequency of IT usage) and firms’ innovation performance was developed, and the proposed hypotheses were tested empirically using World Bank’s micro survey data collected from manufacturing firms in an emerging market (China).

The results show that individually both STI mode of innovation and DUI mode of innovation have a significant positive effect on firms’ innovative performance, whereas the combined STI and DUI mode of innovation has a negative impact. IT infrastructure moderates the relation between STI (or STI and DUI) mode of innovation and firms’ innovation performance, while the frequency of IT usage has no moderating effects on the relationship between any kind of innovation modes and firms’ innovation performance.

Although some results are quite different from what is expected, these are insightful for both academics and policymakers. The use of cross-sectional data has its limitations. Therefore, future studies based on longitudinal data should be conducted. This study points toward the need to conduct the meta-analysis to better explain the existing inconsistencies in the findings of relevant quantitative studies.

This study provides firm managers with practical implications. The conclusions of this study imply that the impact of the combined STI and DUI mode of innovation is likely to be contextual, so firms should make contingent decisions on whether to engage in STI mode of innovation and DUI mode of innovation simultaneously according to their own organizational conditions. Moreover, face-to-face contacts are particularly important when a firm engages in DUI mode of innovation. In addition, the focus of IT strategy of firms engaged in STI mode of innovation should be on perfecting their IT infrastructure rather than increasing the frequency of IT usage.

This paper provides new evidence for the relation between business innovation modes and firms’ innovation performance, and it is one of the few empirical studies that focus on emerging markets. More importantly, this paper proposes a persuasive explanation framework for understanding the heterogeneous impacts of the combined STI and DUI mode of innovation on firms’ innovation performance. This is the first study that examines the moderating effect of IT on the relationship between business innovation modes and a firm’s innovation performance.

This paper aims to examine the individual and combined effects of organisational and behavioural factors on employees’ attitudes and intentions to establish an information security policy compliance culture (ISPCC) in organisations.

Based on factors derived from the organisational culture theory, social bond theory and accountability theory, a testable research model was developed and evaluated in an online survey that involves the use of a questionnaire to collect quantitative data from 313 employees, from ten different organisations in Ghana. The data collected were analysed using the partial least squares-structural equation modelling approach, involving the measurement and structural model tests.

The study reveals that the individual measures of accountability – identifiability (2.4%), expectations of evaluation (38.8%), awareness of monitoring (55.7%) and social presence (−41.2%) – had weak to moderate effects on employees’ attitudes towards information security policy compliance. However, the combined effect showed a significant influence. In addition, organisational factors – supportive organisational culture (15%), security compliance leadership (2%) and user involvement (63%) – showed positive effects on employees’ attitudes. Further, employees’ attitudes had a substantial influence (65%), while behavioural intentions demonstrated a weak effect (24%) on the establishment of an ISPCC in the organisation. The combined effect also had a substantial statistical influence on the establishment of an ISPCC in the organisation.

Given the findings of the study, information security practitioners should implement organisational and behavioural factors that will have an impact on compliance, in tandem, with the organisational effort to build a culture of compliance for information security policies.

The study provides new insights on how to address the problem of non-compliance with regard to the information security policy in organisations through the combined application of organisational and behavioural factors to establish an information security policy compliance culture, which has not been considered in any past research.