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The aim is to understand how goal orientation may help entrepreneurs maintain life satisfaction when faced with multiple crisis episodes. To do so, the authors study the early impact of COVID-19 on the life satisfaction of entrepreneurs who were previously faced with venture distress.

Data on 164 Belgian entrepreneurs, who were faced with previous venture distress, are used. The analysis is quantitative, and uses survey data, in combination with databases. The survey was administered in the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic (June 2020).

Entrepreneurs high in learning goal orientation are less likely, and those high in performance-avoidance orientation are more likely to experience a decline in life satisfaction. Additionally, the time span between the two crises moderates the relationship between learning goal orientation and life satisfaction. Particularly, entrepreneurs high in learning goal orientation are less likely to experience a decline in life satisfaction if more time has passed between venture distress and the COVID-19 crisis.

Often, entrepreneurs are faced with multiple episodes of distress. The authors study entrepreneurs who have been in venture distress before and are then confronted with the COVID-19 crisis. The study shows that goal orientation, which is a type of self-regulation, plays an important role in how entrepreneurs’ life satisfaction is affected. Also, the authors find that the time between distress events matters. These are important insights for practitioners, including entrepreneurs and support providers.

The study adds to the emerging discussion on the impact of crises on entrepreneurs. It studies life satisfaction (a measure of well-being) and complements studies that examine the impact of crises, on entrepreneurs’ actions and firm performance.

The implementation of smart maintenance (SM) has greatly benefited facility managers, construction project managers and other stakeholders within the built environment. Unfortunately, its actualization for stakeholders in the built environment in the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) era remains a challenge. To reduce the challenge, this study aims at conducting a bibliometric analysis to unearth the critical success factors supporting SM implementation. The future direction and practice of SM in the construction industry were also explored.

A bibliometric approach was adopted for reviewing articles extracted from the Scopus database. Keywords such as (“smart maintenance“) OR (“intelligent maintenance”) OR (“technological maintenance”) OR (“automated maintenance”) OR (“computerized maintenance”) were used to extract articles from the Scopus database. The studies were restricted between 2006 and 2021 to capture the 4IR era. The initial extracted papers were 1,048; however, 288 papers were selected and analysed using VOSviewer software.

The findings revealed that the critical success factors supporting the implementation of SM in the 4IR era are collaboration, digital twin design, energy management system and decentralized data management system. Regarding the future practice of SM in the 4IR era, it was also revealed that SM is possible to evolve into maintenance 4.0. This will support the autonomous maintenance of infrastructures in the built environment.

The use of a single database contributed to the limitation of the findings from this study.

Despite the limitations, the findings of this study contributed to practice and research by providing stakeholders in the built environment with the direction of SM practice.

Stakeholders in the built environment have clamoured to implement SM in the 4IR era. This study provided the critical success factors for adopting SM, guaranteeing the 4IR era. It also provides the research trends and direction of SM practice.

This paper aims to explore the transformative potential of Google Bard, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot, in reshaping contemporary library reference services and advancing information literacy.

In this perspective piece, a qualitative research approach is used to explore the capabilities of Google Bard within library contexts. Real-world case studies and insights are used to critically examine Bard’s evolving role as a virtual assistant, its impact on enhancing information literacy and the multifaceted challenges it introduces, including biases and privacy concerns.

The research reveals that Google Bard, leveraging natural language processing and machine learning, engages users in dynamic conversational interactions. It provides contextually relevant responses and personalized guidance, leading to an enriched library experience. The symbiotic relationship between AI-driven technology and traditional librarian expertise is highlighted, contributing to interactive knowledge exploration and collaborative learning.

This study contributes to the literature by exploring the multifaceted impact of Google Bard on library services and information literacy. It uncovers novel insights into the integration of AI-powered chatbots in traditional library settings.

The purpose of this paper is to compare earnings management (EM) and capital management (CM) by European banks before and after the adoption of IFRS 9. After IFRS 9, banks have more discretion in recognizing loan-loss provisions than before IFRS 9. Hence, after IFRS 9, banks could use EM and CM to a greater extent.

This paper analyzes a sample of European banks and uses regression analysis. First, this paper examines whether EM and CM changed after IFRS 9 was adopted. Next, this study examines whether any changes in EM and CM under IFRS 9 depend on regulatory quality (RQ) in the country where banks are located.

This paper has three results. First, after IFRS 9, EM increased relative to before IFRS 9. Second, after IFRS 9, CM increased relative to before IFRS 9. Third, this increase in EM was only for banks in countries with low RQ – in countries with high RQ, this study finds no change in EM after IFRS 9. Altogether, these results suggest that, first, EM and CM increased after IFRS 9 and, second, this increase in EM depended on the RQ of a bank’s country.

This paper identifies how the adoption of IFRS 9 affected EM and CM by European banks. The main contribution of this paper is that it examines the impact of the adoption of IFRS 9 on EM and CM by European banks using data from banks’ actual financial statements.

This study aims to examine why tax reforms fail and explores how tax collection can be improved within a developing country context.

Data comprise 28 semi-structured interviews with taxpayers, tax experts and tax authority personnel based in Pakistan. The results are analysed using a combined lens of taxpayer trust and tax agencies’ capabilities.

Tax reforms failed to build taxpayers’ trust and tax agencies’ capabilities. Building trust is challenging and demands extensive ongoing engagement with taxpayers while yielding gradual permanent results. This requires enhancing confidence in government; educating taxpayers; removing complexities; introducing transparency and accountability in tax agencies’ operations and the tax system; promoting procedural and distributive justice; and reversing perceptions of corruption through reconciliation and stakeholder inclusivity. Developing tax agencies’ capabilities requires upgrading outdated technologies, systems and processes; implementing governance and organisational reforms; introducing an oversight board; and recruiting and training skilled professionals.

The findings can assist policymakers and tax collection authorities in understanding why tax reforms fail and identifying potential solutions.

This study contributes to the emerging literature by exploring tax administration failures in developing countries. It contributes to the literature by engaging stakeholders to understand why reforms fail and potential solutions to stimulate tax revenues.

Despite its devastating nature, the COVID-19 pandemic has also catalyzed a substantial surge in the adoption and integration of technological tools within economies, exerting a profound influence on the dissemination of information among participants in stock markets. Consequently, this present study delves into the ramifications of post-pandemic dynamics on stock market behavior. It also examines the relationship between investors' sentiments, underlying behavioral drivers and their collective impact on global stock markets.

Drawing upon data spanning from 2012 to 2023 and encompassing major world indices classified by Morgan Stanley Capital International’s (MSCI) market and regional taxonomy, this study employs a threshold regression model. This model effectively distinguishes the thresholds within these influential factors. To evaluate the statistical significance of variances across these thresholds, a Wald coefficient analysis was applied.

The empirical results highlighted the substantive role that investors' sentiments and behavioral determinants play in shaping the predictability of returns on a global scale. However, their influence on developed economies and the continents of America appears comparatively lower compared with the Asia–Pacific markets. Similarly, the regions characterized by a more pronounced influence of behavioral factors seem to reduce their reliance on these factors in the post-pandemic landscape and vice versa. Interestingly, the post COVID-19 technological advancements also appear to exert a lesser impact on developed nations.

This study pioneers the investigation of these contextual dissimilarities, thereby charting new avenues for subsequent research studies. These insights shed valuable light on the contextualized nexus between technology, societal dynamics, behavioral biases and their collective impact on stock markets. Furthermore, the study's revelations offer a unique vantage point for addressing market inefficiencies by pinpointing the pivotal factors driving such behavioral patterns.

The paper redefines workplace spirituality (WS/WPS) by transcending the existential vacuum (in psychiatric terms a sense of lack of meaning of human existence and thus of work), leading to the development of workplace creativity, productivity and satisfaction, targeting operational profitability and organizational optimization.

Spirituality is analyzed philosophically, following the Nietzschean definition in response to Schopenhauer’s primordial suffering. Philosophical syncretism yields a viable organizational culture change model of spiritualizing the workplace. For this purpose, specific techniques are proposed which are combined with those already applied to various large companies and organizations.

Spirituality in the workplace acts as a catalyst for developing beneficial qualities by increasing employee job satisfaction, organizational efficiency and business profitability, when equally responding to stakeholders’ needs.

The suggested change model holistically fosters organizational, operational, individual and collective effectiveness through work place spirituality redefined.

For the first time spirituality in the workplace is discussed under a brand new perspective, resulting in an interdisciplinary emerging model, contributing to the field by providing guidance to academics and practitioners to its auspicious implementation through organizational culture change.

This study aims to explore the strategies corporations use in engaging stakeholders to sustain healthy corporate partnerships and create value for the corporate entity and the society in which they operate and their influence on the corporate manager’s cognitive abilities and decision-making.

The authors used an interpretive research approach leveraging the strengths of qualitative method of content analysis and comparative and critical analyses to report the results. Interpretive methods incorporate social theories and standpoints that view reality as the social construction of understandable events in the context of organizational communication.

The findings of this study suggest that corporations are assumed to follow and execute the principles of engaging stakeholders to achieve corporate social responsibility (CSR) claiming to manage a sustainable and responsible business practices that recognize local cultures, human rights and protect the environment. However, little attention has been paid to the cognitive reasoning of the individuals responsible for CSR and corporate sustainability (CS) as opposed to the growing concerns about strategies corporations use in engaging stakeholders to sustain healthy corporate partnerships and create value – especially the processes that take place during engagement and decision-making including cognitive offloading.

Stakeholder engagement requires practical approaches that enable corporations and individuals charged with decision-making responsibilities to understand, respond and fulfill their CSRs. To achieve CSRs, corporations and managers responsible for relevant decision-making would need to involve stakeholders in social performance planning, as social reporting/auditing has long been advocating for preventing managerial biasness, groupthink and increased information dissemination via detailed reporting practices toward more collaborative stakeholder relationships. Thus, it is crucial for corporations to implement enhanced stakeholder and managerial decision-making strategies such as integrative approaches to achieve balance in the trio elements of sustainability as well as the growing use of paradox perspective to understand the nature of the tensions being sought to balance and, in the process, provide opportunity for a better evaluation of complex sustainability issues for innovative approach to resolving them. While cognitive decision-making is at play, in practice, managers tasked with making decisions must ensure the most effective stakeholder engagement strategies that are transparent and inclusive are used.

The main contribution of this study is its argument regarding the tools corporations use in engaging key stakeholders and the cognitive reasoning of the individuals responsible for CSR and CS. The study further contributes to interpreting the integrative approach to achieving balance in the trio elements of sustainability as well as the growing use of paradox perspective to understand the nature of the tensions being sought to balance and, in the process, provide an opportunity for a better evaluation of complex sustainability issues for an innovative approach to resolving them.

The study explores the nexus between Ibu-Ubu boyhood initiation and the conservation of cultural heritage in Afikpo, Southeast Nigeria. The study is motivated by the rarity of such cultural conservation through initiation rites in an age of Christian-inspired culture terrorism against Igbo traditional religion, arts and relics.

The study adopted cultural anthropological research method. The boyhood initiation rite was studied through participant observation of the initiation between September and November 2017. As a cultural anthropological study, oral evidence was derived from the men who had undergone the rite. Through the oral evidence, interpretations were given to the material culture, monuments and heritage that have been conserved through Ibu-Ubu initiation rite.

The study discovered that amid the deluge of Christian-motivated culture terrorism and erosion of Igbo cultural arts, relics and heritage, the people of Afikpo have preserved most of their tangible and intangible heritage through the Ibu-Ubu boyhood initiation rites.

This study will assist in the reinvigoration of campaigns on environmental and heritage conservation in Igboland. It is sufficient to posit that Igboland is ridden with myriads of environmental and cultural terrorism, perpetrated by some Christian fanatics. The study reveals the relevance of the boyhood initiation rites in ensuring the preservation and conservation of Igbo cultural heritage in a century marked with fanatical Christian evangelism, culture-terrorism and destruction of both tangible and intangible heritages, which the Christians have labelled evil, barbaric and fetish.

This paper aims to investigate travelers’ intentions to use ChatGPT and the influential factors affecting their decision-making.

Four studies were conducted to test three hypotheses. Four groups of respondents totaling 593 (Study 1), 337 (Study 2), 374 (Study 3) and 385 (Study 4) survey participants were used for data analyses.

Overall, the findings confirmed the impacts of technology usage experience and ChatGPT’s mistakes and provided additional information on travelers’ intentions to use ChatGPT. The four hypotheses were supported.

The findings can help researchers and industry to understand travelers’ intentions to use ChatGPT and their responses to its functions.

这项研究调查了旅行者使用ChatGPT的意图, 以及影响其决策的重要因素。

通过进行四项研究来验证三个假设。四组受访者总共593名（研究1）、337名（研究2）、374名（研究3）和385名（研究4）参与了数据分析。

总体而言, 研究结果证实了技术使用经验的影响、ChatGPT的错误并提供了有关旅行者使用ChatGPT意图的更多信息。四个假设均得到了支持。

研究结果可以帮助研究人员和业界了解旅行者使用ChatGPT的意图, 以及他们对其功能的反应。

Este trabajo investiga la intención de los viajeros en el uso de ChatGPT y su influencia en el proceso de decisión de viaje de los viajeros.

Se han desarrollado cuatro estudios para probar tres hipótesis. Cuatro grupos de participantes: 593 (Estudio 1), 337 (Estudio 2), 374 (Estudio 3), y 385 (Estudio 4) participantes respondieron la encuesta y sus respuestas utilizadas para el análisis de datos.

En resumen, los resultados confirman el impacto de la experiencia de uso de la tecnología, los errores de ChatGPT, proveyendo información adicional sobre la intención de uso de ChatGPT por los viajeros. Las cuatro hipótesis de investigación fueron aceptadas.

Los resultados pueden ser útiles para la academia y la industria sobre la comprensión en la intención de uso de ChatGPT, tanto por los viajeros, como sus respuestas sobre su función.