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Cities remain an understudied unit of analysis for understanding the motives of multinational enterprises’ (MNE) foreign direct investment (FDI), with subnational locations in International Business (IB) research to date predominantly captured via the phenomenon of agglomeration. As regional integration projects, such as the European Union and to a lesser degree NAFTA, increasingly reduce the importance of national institutional environments, this paper argues regional and subnational levels become more important for studying MNE location choice. This paper aims to evaluate the explanatory contribution of regional and subnational levels of analysis to understanding MNE location choice.

A qualitative deductive bottom-up multiple-case study research design is adopted to study the city location choices and FDI motives of six automotive and six commercial banking companies. These purposefully sampled manufacturing and service MNEs have different home countries and regional orientations. Data on their foreign investments across the extended Triad of Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific were collected for the time period of 2000–2021.

Findings suggest that different classes of city tend to attract specific types of FDI and that these patterns might vary across sectors and be influenced by the regional strategic orientations of MNEs. Industry-specific findings reveal the importance of related and support industries and partners in a city location for the automotive MNEs, while the commercial banks seek investment opportunities in cities that allow acquisition targets that have an attractive customer based and will improve their local market knowledge.

The findings provide evidence in support of MNEs in manufacturing and service industries perceiving the attractiveness of three city types in different ways across the Triad regions.

Trade centers are operationally run by a property manager as a delegate of the property owner. The dimensions of service quality (SERVQUAL), which include tangibles, assurance, empathy, reliability and responsiveness, are vital to be implemented as the duties of property managers when providing service to tenants to maintain tenant satisfaction and property reputation. This study aims to understand the effects of the SERVQUAL dimensions, the role of property management and the quality of rental value on tenant satisfaction and property reputation.

The sample was gathered using the purposive sampling technique with the criteria of being a tenant and kiosk owner in trade center properties in Surabaya. Data were gathered using questionnaires, from which 100 respondents were acquired. It was then analyzed using the partial least square structural equation model (SEM) in the SmartPLS 3.0 program to test the hypothesis.

The results of this study prove that the SERVQUAL dimensions – assurance, empathy and responsiveness – significantly influence tenant satisfaction with the mediating variable of the role of property management. Moreover, the SERVQUAL dimensions – empathy, reliability and responsiveness – significantly influence property reputation with the mediating variable of the role of property management.

Property managers are expected to proactively map out different service measures related to the dimension of satisfaction by conducting service training programs for their employees. In fact, in the post-pandemic period, property managers require new marketing strategies, such as leaseback, to effectively carry out renovations of the trade center’s public facilities and restructure the tenant mix.

Trade centers as trading areas experience management limitations because of the prohibition of mass gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in a limited number of onsite trading. Tenants who have entered into a long-term contract experience loss and rely on the aid of property management to survive. The role and quality of service of property management influence tenants’ satisfaction post-COVID-19 pandemic.

The purpose of this study is to explore the interactions between commuters with disabilities and transport services providers and to contribute to a better understanding of transformative service design, ensuring equitable access and the overall well-being of individuals.

This study collected qualitative data through ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with commuters with disabilities and transport services providers. The data were thematically analysed using NVivo.

Evidence suggests that there are opportunities for service users to be included in the co-creation of transformative transport service at different stages of a journey: entering service interaction, transitioning through service interaction and exiting service interaction. However, the reluctance of service providers to transform their services was recognised, due to a lack of awareness, interest, regulator demands and financial capabilities.

This study broadens the comprehension of procedures and strategies for engaging consumers experiencing vulnerabilities in transformative service design and pushes the limits of the current understanding to recognise the inherent challenges of unregulated service providers designing transformative services in an unregulated market.

This newfound knowledge is crucial for developing better approaches that cater to the needs of these individuals and further contributes towards developing transformative service initiatives, which are activities that serve people experiencing vulnerabilities and that try to improve their well-being. These include specialised training and social marketing campaigns for service providers in the informal market and new mobility start-ups or social enterprises with the potential to disrupt the informal economy and offer innovative solutions, such as assistive technologies, mobile apps and journey planners that provide exceptional customer service.

Previous studies on transformative service designs have focused on regulated service providers, such as health care and financial services. This study, however, explores the unregulated transport sector in a developing country and recognises how the intricate nature of informal service provision may jeopardise the prospects of developing a transformative service for consumers experiencing vulnerabilities.

India started economic reforms at a rapid pace to catch up the world economy by following the services-led-growth model during the post-liberalisation period. Over the years, the growing unemployment rate posits a re-look into the dynamics of growth model for wider work force participation. In this backdrop, the paper aims to examine the dynamics of structural changes in employment pattern in view of economic growth led by services-led growth model in India.

The study employs a non-linear autoregressive model (NARDL) to examine the effect of the growth rates in three broad economic sectors namely agriculture and allied, services and industry on work force participation representing the employment opportunities in India.

The results highlight that the rapid expansion of the service sector has not occurred with enough employment opportunities by the same rate. By contrast, the growth in the industrial sector significantly creates employment opportunities in the short and long run. These results support the industry led growth model over the services for sustainable and inclusive economic growth in the country.

The study relies on combined labour force participation rates rather than gender-specific rates. Further, the regulatory, working conditions and economic incentives may affect the gender-specific engagement of the labour force in three broad sectors.

The results offer important insight into changing patterns in employment with policy lessons. A wider workforce force participation calls for expansion of manufacturing activities through pro-industry programmes.

The study makes pioneer efforts to examine the dynamics of labour force participation with respect to the growth of three broad economic sectors of the Indian economy. The results provide new insights with policy implications for the changing employment pattern and policy response.

This paper aims to develop a conceptual framework as a valuable investigative tool for future empirical studies examining stakeholders’ interactions within a high-performance computing (HPC) service ecosystem and identifying the enablers for better value co-creation under various service provisioning contexts.

This conceptual paper follows a theory adaptation research design that systematically examines the literature on a substantive topic encompassing HPC technology adoption and usage by European small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Furthermore, it introduces theoretical perspectives from service innovation research as its methodological approach (method theory) to develop a theoretical framework for value co-creation within an HPC service ecosystem.

The conceptual framework presented in this paper identifies the critical resource elements of SMEs, which can potentially be integrated with other stakeholders’ resources and complement the limited internal resources of SMEs for enhanced value co-creation within an HPC service ecosystem.

The conceptualisation of an HPC service ecosystem and the potential of value co-creation through integrating stakeholders’ resources, presented in this paper, underscore further empirical research in this direction.

Findings from this paper can inform European policymakers for regional development to frame regional strategies and policies that enable SMEs to better uptake HPC services. Service providers can revisit their business models to reconfigure their organisational resources for enhanced value proposition and co-creation.

This study advances the agenda of transformative service research that aims uplifting changes and societal well-being through a more inclusive and sustainable value co-creation among a wider set of stakeholders within the service ecosystem.

The paper addresses an under-investigated research gap by examining SMEs’ adoption of HPC services and opportunities for higher value co-creation using a service ecosystem approach based on multi-actor interaction, collaboration and resource integration.

At the beginning of the 21st century, a new class of information workers, the “information have-less” has risen. This class of workers alleviates the influence of information and communication technologies (ICTs) revolution on poverty and unemployment. The purpose of this study is to investigate the presence of this class of workers in Egypt and assess the size and potential growth of this category of workers.

The study clarifies the conceptual framework of the new division of labor, in the information age. The Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and Information and Decision Support Center websites provided secondary data for this study. These data are used to assess the size of “the information have less” in Egypt.

The division of work and class, in the 21st century, depends on the level of skills possessed to work with ICTs. So, class and labor nowadays could be divided into self-programmable labor (Innovators). Information have-less labor class, adding value to the economy by learning skills and presenting repetitive work. Generic labor class, who cannot work with ICTs, and work in jobs, that do not need computers or other ICTs. The study has shown that the “information have-less” labor class is present in Egypt since the beginning of the 21st century, in all its categories; entrepreneurism, the service sector and the manufacturing sector. There are approximately 50% of this labor class in the service sector and only 13% of the information have-less works in manufacturing sector despite the great opportunities that Egypt has to expand manufacturing to absorb more employment. The inclusion of information technology (IT), in all domains, has not decreased employment in Western countries but has reallocated information have-less employment toward the service sector, and there would probably be the same effect in Egypt.

The study highlights the need for Egyptian policymakers to encourage the manufacturing and service sectors to provide huge working opportunities. The Egyptian government has to change the educational policies, at all stages, to include digital learning skills so IT can be incorporated in a wide range of economic activities. Further research includes: conducting a survey to measure the contribution of the entrepreneurial part of the information have-less employment in Egypt. In addition, a model may be developed, by the researcher to examine the reallocation of employees in Egypt.

Studying employment, in Egypt, using the conceptual framework of the information age is rarely being done.

This study aims to assess the facilities management (FM) strategies used in multi-tenanted purpose-built office buildings (Mt-POBs) in Ghana and the drivers that influence the decision to use such strategies.

This study was conducted via a survey and key informant interviews. The survey was conducted using a questionnaire targeted at 65 multi-tenanted office building owners in the Greater Accra region. The data from the survey revealed the views of building owners on FM strategy and the extent to which 20 facility management decision drivers influenced their decisions to use a particular strategy and the responses were descriptively analysed. The key informant interviews were conducted among six leaders of the property owners’ association who use in-house FM to further understand their perspectives and decisions on using such strategy. The interviews were conducted over telephone using an interview guide and analysed using thematic analysis.

The results showed that 88% of Mt-POBs in Ghana are managed in-house. The results also showed that the decision to use the in-house strategy was driven by the innovative, strategic and cost-saving advantages associated with the in-house strategy.

This study shows the factors that drive the decision of multi-tenanted office building owners in Ghana to use the in-house strategy. The findings of this study will be useful for prospective owners of office buildings in Ghana.

This study aims to investigate tourists’ impressions of the smart destinations model from the socio-technical systems and the technology–organization–environment (TOE) perspectives. Specifically, it aims to explore how information source credibility and cloud infrastructure influence tourists’ use of intelligent technology.

This measurement development is based on prior literature; after being evaluated for face and content validity, the authors used random sampling to collect data and conducted a field survey of tourists through Taoyuan Airport and using the airport MRT between December 2022 and March 2023. After confirming that tourists knew the destination information and had experience using travel-related mobile applications to plan their itinerary, the authors further invited tourists to participate in the survey, and 512 valid questionnaires were analyzed by the structural equation modeling approach.

The finding pointed out that source credibility and intelligent technology were innovative technologies that benefitted tourists, as were mobile travel planning apps, which created a relational context based on interests and activities from the socio-technical and TOE perspectives.

Technological innovation is closely related to the development of smart cities; tourists who used travel itineraries successfully understood travel-related actions and significantly had more positive affective images of the city.