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Sports leagues have stood out in the entertainment industry due to their great economic value and cultural impact. This is the case of the American sports leagues, with emphasis on the National Basketball Association (NBA), whose largest Latin American market lies on Brazil. The aforementioned league’s audience is constantly growing, a fact that can be partially explained by the encouragement provided for its viewers to interact through social media, in a phenomenon called social TV. Accordingly, the aim of the present study is to investigate how social TV works as a means for Brazilian fans to coproduce their NBA broadcasting enjoyment through social media interactions.

The authors conducted a netnography on the community of fans engaged in Twitter hashtag #NBAnaESPN, which was released by ESPN to promote audience integration during NBA games' broadcasting.

A theorization about the role played by social TV in the way fan culture articulates through social media to enjoy broadcasting media products was herein presented. The findings of this study have evidenced three categories concerning the role played by television broadcasting, social media and the fandom in NBA consumption by Brazilian fans. Based on these findings, the authors got to the conclusion that social TV establishes a mediatized environment where fan culture can be articulated through social media to enable interactions about television broadcasting.

The study was limited to members of the Brazilian NBA audience who engage in the official social media of the league’s broadcasting.

The study heads toward a theoretical generalization based on the research results.

This study aims to examine digital consumer culture and behavior in the community, namely, 180° Movement Digital Training Center (DTC), in Jakarta, Indonesia. It aims to describe the dynamics of digital consumer culture in contemporary society, particularly as experienced by the youth community in Jakarta in the context of socio-technology relations and incorporates it into the diagram of digital consumer culture network.

This research uses a constructivist qualitative approach and socio-technical relation analysis through actor-network theory and digital consumer culture.

The study finds that the individual model of digital consumption is constructed through the process of problematization, interessement, enrollment and mobilization of individuals. It generates a culture in which consumers are constantly up to date with high-intensity information, but within increasingly shorter timeframes, while also considering principles of affordability, needs, desires and satisfaction. The network of digital consumer culture construction among informants is peculiar and unstable.

The study of digital consumer culture within the 180° Movement DTC community highlights how consumer behaviors of its members are facilitated and interconnected within a digital cultural network. However, this research is constrained by the dialectical interplay between Christian principles and the emerging values of consumer culture, a result of the scarcity of theoretical resources and information. This study also provides a specific contribution as a foundation for mapping the volatile digital consumer culture for researchers.

Understanding the socio-technological relationships and consumption behavior of the youth community could help digital platforms tailor their services more effectively. It could also guide the 180° Movement DTC in developing programs that resonate with the youth, bridging the gap between the physical and virtual realms. Ultimately, this could lead to a more engaged and digitally literate society.

This study contributes to a broader societal understanding of how digital technology is shaping consumer behavior and identity within youth communities, which can influence social dynamics and interactions. It provides insights into the potential social impacts of digital technology, such as changes in relationships, communication patterns and self-perception, informing societal discourse on digital culture.

In addition to presenting socio-technological analysis on Indonesian consumer culture using actor-network theory, some also show that studies on digital connectivity ambivalence that concern the relationship between humans as actors and non-humans as actors have become one of the popular sociology studies at present.

This study provides a meta-review of global virtual team (GVT)–related reviews, creating a resource that highlights dominant themes, research trends and shifts in topics over time culminating in a summary of opportunities for future research. By analyzing and grouping the evidence presented in previous research, this meta-review provides key insights toward future research and managerial implications.

This meta-review identifies 35 existing GVT-related reviews across 32 publication outlets, providing a longitudinal and cross-disciplinary view of GVT research to date.

Results of the analysis reveal over time that there has been a largely adopted reconceptualization of the GVT paradigm toward a continuum of virtuality. There has been a shift in the view of the cross-cultural and global components of GVTs toward a recognition that a greater variance of dimensionality exists. Additionally, popular themes across the literature emerge, notably, virtuality, concepts of culture, trust, leadership and communication technology.

As a multidisciplinary GVT-focused meta-review, this study complements previous efforts by taking a tour across this wide topic and is dedicated to those who are researching, teaching, working and managing GVT-related strategies. The reviews selected represent work published across multiple literature streams, providing a comprehensive and forward thinking perspective.

This study aims to explore the factors that affect online knowledge sharing among the scientific performance of academics at the University of Mosul, Republic of Iraq.

Data were collected by using a random sample by means of an electronic questionnaire distributed to 211 academics at the University of Mosul via online platforms. Structural equation modeling was used to test hypotheses using AMOS 24 software.

The results showed that collaboration, perceived flexibility and willingness to share had a significant effect on online knowledge sharing behavior and that which in turn had an effect on the academic performance of respondents, while the results showed no influence of knowledge self-efficacy and communication on the behavior of online knowledge sharing.

In this research, the effects of five factors on online knowledge sharing behavior were studied, in addition to the effect of the latter on academic performance. The research did not study the effect of the participants’ personal characteristics on the behavior of knowledge sharing online, which could be an area of future investigation. The study was limited to online knowledge sharing for academics working in public universities, and the authors suggest conducting a future study from the perspective of medical staff working in hospitals and its impact on their performance.

Based on the findings of the current study, this study suggests that the academic staff at the University of Mosul and similar universities pay attention to scientific cooperation between researchers and teaching staff, by creating online groups to carry out joint research projects that contribute to sharing knowledge among participants through social media in general and scientific platforms in particular. Establishing a scientific research portal could serve this well for example.

Most previous studies have focused on areas related to knowledge sharing in higher education institutions from the traditional perspective and therefore studies that examine the factors affecting online knowledge sharing among academics are limited, so this study fills this gap. This paper focuses on identifying the scientific benefits for academics through knowledge exchange and the use of electronic platforms at the University of Mosul. The study is expected to contribute to enhance the exchange of knowledge online between academics in similar universities in Asia and Africa due to the convergence of cultures and the nature of the work of these universities, as well as the possibility of generalization due to the research’s use of the deductive method.

The combination of mobile devices and innovative tools offers new possibilities for the development of a community of practice for design makers. Mobile learning has become an essential method that design makers should adopt. The main content of this study is to explore the characteristics of learning behaviors and learning needs of creative design makers' group in forming a community of practice in the era of mobile learning.

This study conducted questionnaire research on the potentially associated or directly associated population of design makers. The process of the study also combined observational and interview studies to compensate for the lack of questionnaire research.

Based on the support of mobile learning technology, design makers share and co-create to achieve individual development and evolution of learning organizations, and produce creative value. Design-maker communities of practice form common communities in the framework of informal organizations to support continuous individual learning. Convergent interests or concerns in making things, real-world contexts based on makerspaces and hands-on practice based on real projects are the basis for forming design-maker communities of practice. A variety of open-source hardware, software and platforms that can support mobile learning are important for the development of design-maker communities of practice. The design-maker community of practice needs group factors, activity development, physical and technical resources, spatial support and institutional norms to enhance learning behaviors and satisfy learning needs.

The discovery and construction of these associated factors can help creative design practitioners form a lasting and virtuous organizational development. This study facilitates the formation of a social network for learning and knowledge sharing among design-maker communities of practice. It enhances the innovation ability and enthusiasm of design makers according to the population characteristics and learning needs of design makers. This study also facilitates the generation of a positive adaptive maker culture and maker spirit within design maker organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to determine current and potential takaful customers’ perception of takaful product and its adoption in Somalia.

This study used three originally selected constructs of perceived relative advantage, perceived compatibility and perceived complexity of diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory and adds three additional constructs of level of customer awareness, culture and perceived trust. A total of 427 questionnaires were collected from the participants of the study using a nonprobability convenience sampling technique. For data analysis, Smart PLS3 and SPSS software were used. The survey was conducted in Somalia, with respondents being current and potential takaful product’s customers. The DOI theoretical model was put to the test using structural equation modeling.

The findings showed that perceived relative advantage, perceived compatibility, awareness, perceived culture and perceived trust have a positive and significant influence, whereas perceived complexity has an insignificant influence on the adoption of takaful products.

This research is a pioneering attempt to investigate the determinants of current and potential takaful customers’ adoption by changing the DOI theory, and it presents a unique contribution to the field with regard to Somalia.

This study aims to examine the multidimensional nature of institutional distance as a driver of acquisition decisions in emerging markets. Then, this study aims to offer a nuanced perspective on the role of its various formal and informal dimensions by taking into account the potential contingency role played by a firm’s context experience.

Building on institutional economics and organizational institutionalism, this study explores the heterogeneity of institutional distance and its effects on the decision to enter emerging versus advanced markets through cross-border acquisitions. Thus, institutional distance is disentangled into its formal and informal dimensions, the former being captured by regulatory efficiency, country governance and financial development. Furthermore, our framework examines the moderating effect of an acquiring firm’s experience in institutionally similar environments, defined as context experience. The hypotheses are analyzed on a sample of 496 cross-border acquisitions by Italian companies in 41 countries from 2008 to 2018.

Findings indicate that at an increasing distance in terms of regulatory efficiency and financial development, acquiring firms are less likely to enter emerging markets, while informal institutional distance is positively associated with such acquisitions. Context experience mitigates the negative effect of formal distance and enhances the positive effect of informal distance.

This study contributes to institutional distance literature in multiple ways. First, by bridging institutional economics and organizational institutionalism and second, by examining the heterogeneity of formal and informal dimensions of distance, this study offers a finer-grained perspective on how institutional distance affects acquisition decisions. Finally, it offers a contingency perspective on the role of context experience.

The purpose of this study was to examine the global perceptions of social equity in the fine dining business model as a result of the surprise announcement for the 2024 planned closure of the Michelin three-star restaurant, Noma.

This study used critical discourse analysis to inductively analyze 91 source documents retrieved through a lexical database search. The analysis yielded five overarching themes and six subthemes.

Findings from this study serve as a benchmark in retrospect for capturing a rapidly accelerating global conversation from January to March 2023 around the long-term viability and social sustainability of the fine dining business model.

Against the backdrop of labor challenges in the restaurant industry due to the Covid-19 pandemic and its aftermath, the announced closure of Noma precipitated criticism of the stage (unpaid intern) system and the intense pressures of attaining and maintaining Michelin star status.

Results from the discourse analysis suggest certification for fine dining restaurants, perhaps through the Michelin Guide, for demonstrating a commitment to social sustainability as a qualifier to achieve a Michelin star.

Findings from this research reveal a palpable change in societal tolerance for a more socially sustainable fine dining restaurant business model that advances equitable solutions for its workers while assuring the economic sustainability of restaurants.

This study drew upon a foodscape lens to reveal a juxtaposition between well-executed environmentally sustainable initiatives in the fine dining business model and the threats to the social sustainability among its workers.

Analyzing the main determinants that lead a traveler to make a cultural trip is an important issue to understand where the cultural tourism market is going, and where the decision-makers should intervene. This study helps develop a profile of cultural tourism participants, and underscore the changes in this market niche. This information is crucial for the successful marketing and development of cultural tourism in the future.

The authors estimate a binary probabilistic (logit) model to determine the probability of a tourist to travel for cultural reasons, as a function of the traveler's socio-economic characteristic (e.g. age, gender, income or level of studies), of the trip-related characteristics (e.g. distance traveled to destination or mode of transport) and of the characteristics of the province of destination (e.g. weather conditions or existence of cultural sites at destination).

This study’s estimates reveal that middle-aged individuals, with a higher level of studies and with a medium level of income show a higher propensity to travel for cultural reasons. The latter finding evidences that cultural tourism has evolved from a niche market reserved for an elite clientele to a much wider range of people. Additionally, cultural travelers tend to travel statistically much longer distances. They are less prone to visit crowded destinations, prefer visiting destinations with important cultural sites, and are less sensitive to weather conditions. Finally, the authors discover a complementary effect of culture tourism and other activities carried out during the trip such as visiting cities or theme parks; and a substitution effect with “beach-and-sun” tourism.

The information given in this study can be crucial for the successful marketing and development of cultural tourism in the future. A better understanding of the main determinants of being a cultural traveler implies a better and a more efficient implementation of managerial and political measures to attract a kind of tourism characterized by a high spending capacity.

Discovering the main determinants of being a cultural traveler is a topic scarcely treated in the literature. This study has the main originality to include characteristics of the destination (pull factors) to explain the individual's decision to take a cultural trip. Moreover, the authors work at a provincial (NUTS-3) level of analysis, which makes this study original in the field of cultural tourism.

Home-based commercial hospitality (HBCH) is the focus of this study. This community-based tourism (CBT), which has received little research attention, is examined to reveal the meaning of commercially hosting visitors in private homes for experiential meetings on a variety of topics such as food, art, culture, folklore and various workshops.

A qualitative research method was adopted, using semi-structured, in-depth interviews with HBCH providers in the desert town of Arad, located in southern Israel.

The study reveals the impact of this unusual occupation on the host's quality of life, the factors that encourage and suppress involvement in this entrepreneurship, as well as the positive and negative consequences of HBCH on the local environment.

The findings could offer important guidelines to municipalities and local governments seeking to encourage CBT and sustainable micro-enterprises.

HBCH is a recent phenomenon and, as such, has been little researched. This study of one community raises issues that may be shared by HBCH enterprises. The findings could contribute to developing such initiatives elsewhere, avoiding the obstacles faced in this pioneering effort.