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The purpose of this paper is to provide a selective review of literature and presents a conceptual framework in journal and institution rankings. Several streams of ranking literature are analyzed.

The authors provide a conceptual framework to analyze the literature of journal and school ranking. Thus, several streams of ranking literature are analyzed to support the conceptual framework.

Through the lens of a context-driven framework, the authors point to originality, utility, and timeliness as aspects that contribute to the recent increase of the ranking literature. Finally, the authors discuss other issues that arise within ranking due to subjective biases, institutional preferences and difficulties establishing weighting measurements, as well as the future direction of ranking.

The authors propose a context-based ranking framework to analyze rankings as factors that influence the environment may ultimately affect the usefulness of these rankings. It also implies that ranking of a journal or institution is a relative measure, as the context in which rankings are derived may change over time. Ultimately, the relative benchmarks used in the ranking will change as newer, more relevant metrics are developed.

The conceptual framework is new and provides a useful benchmark to understand ranking of journals and school.

Quantitative objective studies on the problem of celebrity selection are lacking. Furthermore, existing research does not recognize the group decision-making nature and the possibility of customer involvement in celebrity or influencer selection for social media marketing. This study conceptualizes celebrity selection as a multi-attribute group decision-making problem while deriving the final ranking of celebrities/influencers using interactive and flexible criteria based on the value tradeoff approach. The article thus proposes and demonstrates a quantitative objective method of celebrity selection for a brand or campaign in an interactive manner incorporating customer's preferences as well.

Each decision-maker's preferences for celebrity selection criteria are objectively captured and converted into an overall group preference using a modified generalized fuzzy evaluation method (MGFEM). The final ranking of celebrities is then derived from an interactive and criteria-based value tradeoff approach using the flexible and interactive tradeoff method.

The approach gives a different ranking of celebrities for two campaigns based on group members' perceived importance of the selection criteria in different scenarios. This group includes decision-makers (DMs) from the brand, marketing communication agency and brand's customers. Further, each group member has an almost equal say in the decision-making based on fuzzy evaluation and an interactive and flexible value tradeoff approach to celebrity selection for receiving a rank order.

The approach uses secondary data on celebrities and hypothetical scenarios. Comparison with other methods is difficult, as no other study proposes a multi-criteria group decision-making approach to celebrity selection especially in a social media context.

This approach can help DMs make more informed, objective and effective decisions on celebrity selection for their brands or campaigns. It recognizes that there are multiple stakeholders, including the end customers, each of whose views is objectively considered in the aspects of group decision-making through a fuzzy evaluation method. Further, this study provides a selection mechanism for a given context of endorsement by objectively and interactively encapsulating stakeholder preferences.

This robust and holistic approach to celebrity selection can help DMs objectively make consensual decisions with partial or complete information. This quantitative approach contributes to the literature on selection mechanisms of influencers, celebrities, social media opinion leaders etc. by providing a methodological aid that encompasses aspects of interactive group decision-making for a given context. Moreover, this method is useful to DMs and stakeholders in understanding and incorporating the effect of nature or context of the brand and the campaign type in the selection of a celebrity or an influencer.

The behavior of tourists strongly depends on the availability and quality of information. Too little information as well as too much can be disorienting and forces many tourists to join the majority visiting major sights. This causes a few crowded places in contrast to many which are under‐utilized. A Destination Management Organization has the goal to spread tourists more evenly, whereas the tourists would like to enjoy the destination to its full potential according to their personal interests. The paper aims to focus on the issues surrounding the creation of a mobile tourist guide.

A field trial was conducted in the summer of 2005 to study the following questions as a precondition for the development: Is it possible to seed generic interest profiles in the mobile context that allow the accurate prediction of actual rankings? Are the interest profiles sufficiently diverse to base personalized tours on individual interest profiles instead of interest prototypes? How do personalized tours affect the spatial behavior of tourist? Three methods to elicit the generic preferences of tourist in the mobile context are compared with actual rankings using Spearman's rank order coefficient.

The diversity of the interest profiles is analyzed in various ways leading to the conclusion that personalized interest profiles are necessary. For the gathered profiles tours are computed and simulated in order to gain a first insight into the effect on the spatial behavior of tourists.

The dynamic tour guide is supporting both goals by means of pervasive computing based on the actual context which is defined by personal interests, location and schedule of a tourist. It enables a personalized, spontaneous and guided tour.

The purpose of this paper (editorial) is to take a stock of the research focused upon South Asia, in order to evaluate if it has produced useful results, and to discuss its future directions as per the scope and mission of the South Asian Journal of Global Business Research. In view of pleas for greater attention to context effects, the authors use the concept of contextualization as the basis for analysis.

A qualitative content analysis of research published in 21 top‐tier business journals is employed, including a total of 96 articles focusing upon South Asia or any South Asian country.

A contextualization typology is presented, related to purpose (whether context guides the research or not) and methodology (whether new or old framework and/or scales are used) and continuum of attention to contextualizations for hypotheses and/or research questions, and research findings in order to discuss the status of published South Asian research.

The authors discuss limitations of their philosophical underpinning and epistemological standing that have influenced their analytical approach and results.

This paper presents a contextualization typology as a starting point to discuss contextualization in international business theory and practice. The paper also provides directions for future research for scholars interested in South Asian research.

The aim of this study is to evaluate rugby fans’ attitudes toward financial sponsorship, specifically event sponsorship and Dove Men+Care and its association with the Welsh Rugby Union. The study examines four issues: How do rugby fans perceive event sponsorship? How does such sponsorship affect consumption choices? Do fans engage in long-term relationships with the event’s sponsoring brand? Are relationships affected by the event sponsor’s engagement with other international teams and rugby events?

This paper is a theory-building, exploratory study that utilised a qualitative framework. Data were collected over a 12-month period, incorporating the autumn internationals of 2012 and 2013, with 198 fans participating in focus groups before and after games.

The results reveal a distinct lack of brand awareness on the part of the participants, a collective perception of the sponsor as incongruent given the event and a demonstration of enmity arising from rival sponsorships by the sponsoring brand. Additionally, the findings reveal a reluctance to consume the sponsoring brand in either the short or long term given its incongruence, lack of functionality, pre-existing schematic frameworks and obdurate brand preferences.

Given that autumn internationals are held every season by several of the international rugby board (IRB) ranked teams, the findings of this research have an immediate and direct application for brand managers involved or implementing sponsorship programs. The research outlines both short and long term mistakes made by the sponsor as perceived by the fans’ themselves, and suggests that those brands considering becoming involved in sport and event sponsorship instigate a more informed, strategic approach to their sponsorship activities. However, the work is context driven and therefore not generalisable.

The findings enable marketing brand managers to effectively evaluate events against the backdrop of strategic fit, as well as fan/consumer expectations, their needs and wants and willingness to engage.

Despite rugby union’s growing global presence, little or no research has examined sponsorship within the context of rugby union and none exists that has evaluated event sponsorship, and been driven by fans’ perspectives. This paper fills that void. The research delineates fans attitudes, opinions and brand conceptualisations relating to event sponsorship, incorporating evaluations of identity, congruence and fit. Moreover, the paper highlights what to avoid from a strategic and brand building perspective when considering event sponsorship in a rugby union context.

Since its origins during the Second World War, the computer industry has grown more rapidly than any other technology in history, and this growth has spawned a wealth of new terms and manners‐of‐speaking to describe computers and the uses to which they can be put. Such terms are often referred to collectively as computerese. The thesis of Barry's entertaining book is that the use of computerese is increasingly being extended to a wealth of other subjects that are often totally unrelated to computing. Barry refers to this use (or abuse) of language as technobabble: the subject matter and the pleasingly tongue‐in‐cheek style can be judged from the introduction, which starts as follows: ‘This paper‐based, productized bookware module is designed to support the robust implementation of a friendly, context‐driven interface between the developer and the end‐user. Did you understand this sentence? If so, you are fluent in technobabble’.

This study explores the acceptance of protection technology, namely, exposure detection apps, in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. Unlike other situations, the context of the pandemic is characterized by large levels of threat and fear which largely affect the human decision-making process. To identify such characteristics, this study investigates the acceptance of exposure detection apps from the perspective of protection motivation theory (PMT). It examines how the perceived risk of Covid-19, perceived fear of Covid-19, self-efficacy, response efficacy and protection motivation interact to predict the acceptance of exposure detection apps.

Data were collected from 306 Jordanian participants, and structural equation modelling was used for data analysis.

The results reveal that acceptance of these apps is triggered by the perceived risk of Covid-19, which increases the experienced level of fear. The latter then initiates a compelling desire or motivation to protect oneself by using the recommended adaptive response (exposure detection app). The results show that an increased level of self-efficacy and perceived efficacy of exposure detection apps also contribute to the development of protection motivation and later the intent to use exposure detection apps.

This study contributes to the technology acceptance domain by developing a context-driven model of the key characteristics of pandemics that lead to different patterns of technology acceptance. The key components in designing effective marketing campaigns to prompt the use of exposures detection apps are discussed.

Financial internationalization is of particular importance to emerging country firms. Its significance arises from the impact of institutional void and related agency problems (common to emerging markets) on the internationalization path of these firms. Building on concepts from international finance, agency theory and institutional theory, this paper aims to examine the main aspects of financial internationalization by emerging country multinationals, namely, cross-listing, foreign ownership and foreign independent directors.

This paper follows a multiple case study approach which is a good fit for the exploratory nature of this research. The interest is to examine the context-driven financial internationalization of each case firm and replicate the firm-level information to find a common strategy.

The findings suggest that financial internationalization by emerging country multinationals starts mainly as these firms plan to enter advanced country markets. It is a dynamic process that entails interaction between financial internationalization and real internationalization, as well as among different aspects of financial internationalization. Cross-listing comprises the first stage of the process. Then, foreign ownership, particularly foreign institutional investments, would increase gradually in response to advances in financial and factor markets. Recruiting foreign independent directors seems to be adopted last, possibly out of fear of losing control of strategic decisions.

This paper presents a unique perspective that delineates different stages of the process of financial internationalization by emerging country multinationals. This complements the efforts to explain the distinct path of internationalization followed by these firms and supplements scarce literature by including emerging multinationals from India where the matter has not yet attracted proper attention.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate performance measurement practices in venture capital firms. Specifically, the author examines how two organizations make complexity and uncertainty manageable by mobilizing performance measurement. This study draws on the framework of pragmatic constructivism (PC) (Nørreklit et al., 2016; Nørreklit et al., 2006, 2010), focusing on the integration between the four dimensions of PC, namely, facts, values, possibilities and communication.

The paper adopts a comparative case study methodology.

The findings show that performance measurement practices are strongly influenced by values playing out via integration in actor-world relations, whereas Venture A mobilizes an actor-centric approach, leading to an open, holistic performance measurement system (PMS) which is based on non-financials, a close involvement in operational matters and actors’ judgement using accounting as “learning machines” (Burchell et al., 1980); and Venture B draws on an analytical approach emphasizing on the role of financial indicators and control enacting accounting as “answer machines” and as “tool for computation” (Burchell et al., 1980). These different approaches to PMS, actor-centric vs analytical, are guided by different values about actor-world relation(s).

The paper provides a context-sensitive account on the relationship between uncertainty and performance measurement practices. First, this paper contributes by providing evidence on how actors use accounting to manage uncertainty and complexity by differently integrating actor-world relation(s) (Nørreklit, et al., 2016; Nørreklit et al., 2006). Second, this study resonates with recent calls for more industry-specific and context-sensitive investigations (Messner, 2016). Finally, the author contributes to the literature asking for more research on the role accounting plays in managing uncertain conditions (Chenhall and Moers, 2015).

The purpose of this paper is to explore the influence of five dimensions of similarity (i.e. condition similarity, context similarity, catalyst similarity, consequence similarity and connection similarity) on Facebook social networks development.

A questionnaire-based survey was conducted with 245 Romanian college students. SmartPLS 3 statistical software for partial least squares structural equation modeling was chosen as the most adequate technique for the assessment of models with both composites and reflective constructs.

More than 52 percent of the variance in social network development was explained by the advanced similarity model. Each dimension had a positive effect on Facebook social networks development, the highest influences being exerted by condition similarity, context similarity and consequence similarity.

The current approach is substantively based on the homophily paradigm in explaining social network development. Future research would benefit from comparing and contrasting complementary theories (e.g. the rational self-interest paradigm, the social exchange or dependency theories) with the current findings. Also, the research is tributary to a convenience-based sample of Romanian college students which limits the generalization of the results to other cultural contexts and, thus, invites further research initiatives to test the model in different settings.

Similarity attributes and mechanisms consistently determine the dynamics of online social networks, a fact which should be investigated in depth in terms of the impact of new technologies among young people.

This study is among the first research initiatives to approach similarity structures and processes within an integrative framework and to conduct the empirical analysis beyond US-centric samples.