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This paper examines the in-depth relationship between religious beliefs and individual social class mobility expectations in China.

The data used in this article are mainly from the China Comprehensive Social Survey in 2010 (CGSS2010). Compared with other years' CGSS data, CGSS2010 includes a module on religious topics, and the questionnaire information related to religion is more comprehensive and suitable for in-depth analysis.

The results show that religious beliefs have a significant positive impact on personal social class mobility expectations. Based on the principle of diminishing marginal returns on capital, the positive impact of religious belief on the expectation of individual social class mobility is more significant in groups with nonagricultural household registration, higher education level, older age and better family background conditions. However, with the further improvement of family background conditions, this positive impact begins to weaken. In addition, possible channels of action include prejudice effects, psychological effects, individual capital effects and social capital effects. The results of other effects are positive except for the prejudice effect. Overall, religious beliefs, as one of the important components of contemporary Chinese culture, have a positive significance for the “Chinese Dream”.

There is also little literature globally that provides an in-depth analysis of the relationship between religion and economic development. Studies have led to an understanding of the relationship between religious beliefs and individual social class mobility expectations. But it is unclear whether theories developed based on Western spiritual experience will be applicable to China or not. The authors have tested for China.

This research aims to examine the impact of religiosity and other control variables on Muslims’ environmental preservation and economic growth choices in 33 nations.

The study uses data from the World Values Survey (Waves 4–7) with a large sample size of 30,242 individuals. Logistic regression analysis is used to analyze the data, and the robustness principle is applied using the marginal effect of interaction variables method to select a viable model.

This study reveals that different aspects of religiosity – cognitive, affective and behavioral – positively impact the tendency of Muslims in 33 countries to prioritize environmental protection over economic progress. However, these influences vary significantly, as seen through odds ratios. In essence, the degree of religious devotion in these nations affects individuals’ leaning toward environmental preservation. This impact is further shaped by other factors such as politics, governance, economic development, environmental measures and legal frameworks.

The practical implication of this study is the development of an alternative theory that explains the conditions and categories under which religious beliefs and attitudes can influence the preferences of Muslims concerning environmental issues and economic growth.

This study fills a void in the body of literature by examining the nonlinear relationship between religiosity and individual Muslim preferences for environmental preservation and economic growth. It offers a framework for comprehending religion’s impact on Muslims’ redistributive individual preferences in these fields.

This study investigates the observed resurgence in religious beliefs seen across many societies during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the economic theory of religious clubs, the author models religious participation during the pandemic as a mechanism for alleviating the financial distress associated with the health distress from the pandemic.

Using data from the COVID-19 National Longitudinal Phone Survey (NLPS) in Nigeria, the author investigates the economic motivation for religious intensity during the COVID-19 pandemic. To address endogeneity concerns, the author exploits geographic variables of temperature and longitudes as sources of COVID-19 risk.

Overall, health distress stimulates religious intensity. Consistent with the economic theory of religious clubs, adverse health shocks stimulate financial distress, and the effect is stronger among religious participants. Similarly, people see God and not the government as a source of protection against COVID-19.

The study’s model sees religious organizations as public goods providers, especially when governments and markets are inefficient.

The study’s recommendations support an expanded role for religious networks in healthcare delivery and more public funding to attenuate the post-pandemic resurgence of social violence in economically distressed regions.

Despite the research interest in the COVID-19 pandemic, the long-term implications, many of which relate to social behavior adjustments that cause individuals to identify more closely with their social group, need greater understanding. Suppose religious intensity is linked to economic distress. In that case, this is a major source of worry for countries whose economies are subject to higher fluctuations and where the governments and markets are inefficiently organized. These regions may be more susceptible to a resurgence in religious fundamentalism associated with the economic shocks from the pandemic. Consequently, these regions would require more public funding to attenuate the potential for costly activities like organized violence, suicide attacks and terrorist activities in the aftermath of the pandemic.

Prompted by the observation of the increase in religious identity through religious intensity during the pandemic, the author contributes by developing theoretically-based hypotheses that are incentive-compatible to provide a rational justification for the observation. The author empirically validates the hypothesis by taking advantage of the COVID-19 National Survey in Nigeria by specifically using survey rounds 4 and 7 which have more comprehensive religious items included.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-11-2022-0719

The paper provides a detailed historical account of Douglass C. North's early intellectual contributions and analytical developments in pursuing a Grand Theory for why some countries are rich and others poor.

The author approaches the discussion using a theoretical and historical reconstruction based on published and unpublished materials.

The systematic, continuous and profound attempt to answer the Smithian social coordination problem shaped North's journey from being a young serious Marxist to becoming one of the founders of New Institutional Economics. In the process, he was converted in the early 1950s into a rigid neoclassical economist, being one of the leaders in promoting New Economic History. The success of the cliometric revolution exposed the frailties of the movement itself, namely, the limitations of neoclassical economic theory to explain economic growth and social change. Incorporating transaction costs, the institutional framework in which property rights and contracts are measured, defined and enforced assumes a prominent role in explaining economic performance.

In the early 1970s, North adopted a naive theory of institutions and property rights still grounded in neoclassical assumptions. Institutional and organizational analysis is modeled as a social maximizing efficient equilibrium outcome. However, the increasing tension between the neoclassical theoretical apparatus and its failure to account for contrasting political and institutional structures, diverging economic paths and social change propelled the modification of its assumptions and progressive conceptual innovation. In the later 1970s and early 1980s, North abandoned the efficiency view and gradually became more critical of the objective rationality postulate. In this intellectual movement, North's avant-garde research program contributed significantly to the creation of New Institutional Economics.

This study aims to explore how emerging SMEs respond to the multifaceted contents of CSR-related code of conduct (COC) from external stakeholders and the underlying constraining forces and mechanisms shaping such responses.

This study opted for a qualitative methodology using the content analysis, and the data were collected from the auditing reports on Chinese export-oriented SMEs carried out by a public and independent third-party agency.

The findings showed that SMEs from emerging markets present a short-termism orientation in the response to external CSR-related COC, and the study developed a threefold response typology implemented by SMEs, capturing economic interest and moral rightness as two dimensions shaping such responsive patterns. The study furthermore showed that whether SMEs' responses are more symbolic or substantive depends on managers' beliefs regarding the economic-moral conflict tension involved in the implementation of CSR-related COC.

This paper explores emerging SMEs' response strategy to CSR-related issues formulated by external stakeholders and clarifies the underlying decision-making road map to alleviate the tension involved in corporate social responsibility implementation.

There are many factors that determine consumers’ satisfaction. Specifically, the current study examines how political-economic views affect the perception of public services. This study also aims to extend the relationship between public service satisfaction and political-economic opinion from an empirical perspective.

The analysis process is carried out with the Microdataset of the Life Satisfaction Survey. Independent sample t-test which compares individual public service satisfaction ratings and ordinal probit regression models assesses the impacts of political-economic attitude on public service satisfaction.

According to the findings, household size and gender impact public service satisfaction. Again, service satisfaction diminishes as the education level rises. Moreover, a person’s political-economic view affects their public service satisfaction. The study has the potential to literature in terms of determining society’s political-economic view on public services with these empirical results.

The study’s use of the state as a point of reference and quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the service exchange between the citizen and the state is a significant difference in the literature. Also, unlike the other studies, this one used microdata to test the relationship between the political-economic type and the level of satisfaction with public services at different levels. It is thought that future studies on the determinants of public service satisfaction, to be carried out in different country samples, will contribute to the field.

This study has implications on whether the perception of public service varies according to partisanship status.

This study has implications on whether the perception of public service varies according to partisanship status.

This study determines the interaction between the political-economic typology derived from microdata and the satisfaction level variables related to public services offered at different levels. It also evaluates how public service satisfaction differs regarding personality traits and political-economic attitudes.

Higher education institutions (HEIs) play a pivotal role in fostering economic development by cultivating skilled workforce and generating knowledge and innovation. However, HEIs may pose a potential risk to sustainable economic development due to the generation of food waste inside their campus canteens. Therefore, this study aims to examine the influence of attitude, subjective norm (SN), perceived behavior control (PBC), religiosity and pro-social behavior among State Islamic Religious College (SIRC) students on their intention to avoid food waste behavior. This study also focused on the mediating role of the three original theory of planned behavior (TPB) variables and pro-social behavior in the relationship between religiosity and the intention to reduce food waste.

Questionnaires were used to collect data from 443 students at SIRC. The collected data were processed and analyzed using structural equation modelling to test direct, indirect and mediating effects.

The empirical results indicated that the eagerness of students at SIRC to reduce their behavior of leaving food behind can be driven by their negative attitudes or views toward food waste, the practice of religious teachings in their lives, the belief that they can avoid food waste and their concern for the environment. The empirical results reveal that even though religiosity influences SN, it is unable to strengthen the relationship between religiosity and the desire to be anti-food waste.

In addition to contributing to the food waste literature in the context of eating behavior, the results of this study have theoretical and practical implications.

To assess SIRC students’ behavioral intentions to avoid food waste behavior, this study used a contemporary setting to measure attitude, SN, PBC, religiosity and pro-social behavior, so strengthening the TPB’s empirical underpinning.

Through the reconstruction of the events of some foreign entrepreneurs who worked in the territory of the Italian city of Bari in the first half of the 19th century, this paper aims to analyze the role of entrepreneurial migration in the economic development of Apulia land in this period.

This study adopts a theoretical framework that combines the concept of mixed embeddedness in a multifocal perspective, with the model of the diffusion of innovation focusing on the role of the so-called agency of actors, and of the network, in the dissemination of innovation. The theoretical framework is applied to multiple case studies to compare the evidence that emerged from the simultaneous analysis of several situations.

By analyzing how innovations have spread within the network of entrepreneurs of that time, it is possible to identify some relevant aspects related to the mechanisms of dissemination of innovations in the context of entrepreneurial migration. Specifically, the opportunity structure is intended in an even broader sense than indicated in the classic approach to mixed embeddedness: it is considered as the result of the joint interaction of the political, institutional and economic context of several places, and the behavioral dynamics of several groups.

Due to the specific method chosen, the outcomes of the research might apply to a narrow context. Therefore, the results need to be tested and confirmed in further empirical studies, and by applying multiple research methods.

Findings are useful and significant in the analysis of the link that exists between the diffusion of innovations and migrant entrepreneurship, and then the conclusions can be applied and extended to the current phenomenon of migration-related innovations, with specific reference to developing countries.

Findings can be applied and extended to the current phenomenon of migration-related innovations and highly skilled migration, with specific reference to developing countries.

This paper contributes to shed new light on the contextual and multifocal factors that influence the development of innovations in the networks of migrant entrepreneurship, in a specific historical period and a specific context. Combining social, human and financial capital with the wider opportunity structure, this study also provides a comprehensive understanding of the modalities through which migrant and high-skilled entrepreneurs could innovate.

The ease of doing business (EODB) is a key factor in the development of investment, production and employment in a country. The purpose of this research is to identify the components of EODB in Gilan province in Northern Iran and rank these components from the perspective of economic operators.

This research uses a mixed methods design. In the qualitative phase, the components of EODB in Gilan province are identified through meta-synthesis with the participation of 10 experts. In the quantitative phase, structural equation modeling is used to rank these components from the perspective of 75 randomly selected economic operators from different economic sectors of Gilan province.

According to the participants, the main factors influencing EODB in Gilan province are: (1) public services and infrastructure; (2) political stability and the government; (3) policies, laws and regulations and (4) security of property rights.

Identifying factors conducive to the business environment can play an effective role in removing the barriers to achieving the goals of development programs, such as economic growth and reducing unemployment, poverty and inflation. Gilan province, in particular, is in a favorable condition in terms of climate and geography, with an abundance of young, specialized human resources, which can help remove barriers to improving the business environment and facilitate the use of these capacities. It must be noted that the labor force participation rate in Gilan province is 41.3%, indicating that 58.7% of the working age population is not working or actively looking for work, and removing EODB barriers can provide these people with incentives for economic participation.

The results suggest that creating a stable, transparent, anti-rent, predictable and reliable business environment will allow for increasing investment, production and employment across the province, and that controlling the inflation caused by increased production will make it possible to achieve maximum productivity and economic development.

Vaccine hesitancy is a long-standing issue among both the general population and health communicators. This study aims to ascertain the inclination and the reasons for vaccine hesitancy by conducting content analysis and sentiment analysis of the perspectives expressed in comments on videos related to vaccine hesitancy uploaded from India on YouTube.

The assessment of the sentiments of the vaccine-hesitant population is done using Valence Aware Dictionary and sEntiment Reasoner sentiment analysis module implemented with Python’s NLTK library to automatically determine the sentiments of the comments. Manual content analysis was performed on 60.09% viewer comments randomly selected from the total comments in 238 videos on vaccine hesitancy originated from India and labelled each comment with labels “Anti”, “Pro”, “Confused”, “Not Applicable” and “Unrelated” labels.

The study found “Mistrust-Government policies”, “Fear-health related consequences”, “Mistrust-Scientific research”, “Vaccine effectiveness and efficacy” and “Misinformation/myths” as the top five determinants for vaccine hesitancy, whereas “Religious beliefs”, “Fear-Economic consequences”, “Side Effects- short-term” and “Fear-mode of administration” found to be the lesser cited reasons for vaccine hesitancy. However, the study also investigates changes in the inclination of Indian commenters towards vaccine hesitancy and revolving issues over time.

Public health policymakers and health communicators may find the study useful in determining vaccine hesitancy factors in India.

The originality of this study lies in its approach. To date, no sentiment analysis has been conducted on the content released on YouTube by Indian content creators regarding pro- and anti-vaccination videos. This inquiry seeks to fill this research gap.