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Applying total quality management (TQM) principles in education still remains a great challenge. This paper focuses on hospitality education. Although anecdotal evidence on successful TQM implementation in various hotels can be easily found, no formal approaches on how to implement TQM to the hospitality educational process have appeared in the literature. The Higher Hotel Institute, Cyprus, has recently embarked towards the establishment of a customer‐driven management culture. The paper presents and discusses the approach taken by the Institute in collecting and using service quality‐related information from three principal groups: namely, future employers, staff and students, towards this goal. Future research directions are also discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to identify any differences between the Islamic and non‐Islamic banks in the UAE on credit risk management.

The study uses survey based methodology for data collection. The sample for the study consists of six commercial banks from UAE with three non‐Islamic and three Islamic banks and with 148 credit risk managers as respondents for the survey. The study aims to investigate factors which distinguish between Islamic and non‐Islamic banks in UAE. This is achieved by fitting a binary logistic regression model.

The study shows that the managers in Islamic banks now do not rely only on personal experiences and simple credit risk analysis. The Islamic banks appear also to be developing and practising the newer and robust techniques, in addition to traditional methods, to manage their credit risk in UAE compared to non‐Islamic banks, which indicates a possibility of further improvement in their credit risk management.

The paper uses questionnaire‐based methodology, which has not been used previously in the UAE financial sector, as well as in studies of credit risk management. Therefore, this research could become the cornerstone of further academic research in other developing countries using this methodology.

Biocontaminants represent higher risks to occupants' health in shared spaces. Natural ventilation is an effective strategy against indoor air biocontamination. However, the relationship between natural ventilation and indoor air contamination requires an in-depth investigation of the behavior of airborne infectious diseases, particularly concerning the contaminant's viral and aerodynamic characteristics. This research investigates the effectiveness of natural ventilation in preventing infection risks for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) through indoor air contamination of a free-running, naturally-ventilated room (where no space conditioning is used) that contains a person having COVID-19 through building-related parameters.

This research adopts a case study strategy involving a simulation-based approach. A simulation pipeline is implemented through a number of design scenarios for an open office. The simulation pipeline performs integrated contamination analysis, coupling a parametric 3D design environment, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and energy simulations. The results of the implemented pipeline for COVID-19 are evaluated for building and environment-related parameters. Study metrics are identified as indoor air contamination levels, discharge period and the time of infection.

According to the simulation results, higher indoor air temperatures help to reduce the infection risk. Free-running spring and fall seasons can pose higher infection risk as compared to summer. Higher opening-to-wall ratios have higher potential to reduce infection risk. Adjacent window configuration has an advantage over opposite window configuration. As a design strategy, increasing opening-to-wall ratio has a higher impact on reducing the infection risk as compared to changing the opening configuration from opposite to adjacent. However, each building setup is a unique case that requires a systematic investigation to reliably understand the complex airflow and contaminant dispersion behavior. Metrics, strategies and actions to minimize indoor contamination risks should be addressed in future building standards. The simulation pipeline developed in this study has the potential to support decision-making during the adaptation of existing buildings to pandemic conditions and the design of new buildings.

The addressed need of investigation is especially crucial for the COVID-19 that is contagious and hazardous in shared indoors due to its aerodynamic behavior, faster transmission rates and high viral replicability. This research contributes to the current literature by presenting the simulation-based results for COVID-19 as investigated through building-related and environment-related parameters against contaminant concentration levels, the discharge period and the time of infection. Accordingly, this research presents results to provide a basis for a broader understanding of the correlation between the built environment and the aerodynamic behavior of COVID-19.

This paper aims to explore the effect of fairness concerns on supply chain members' optimal decisions and profits, to compare their profits under different policies, and to investigate the impact of each policy on members, consumers, and the environment with fairness concerns.

Considering government policies and fairness concerns in recycling management, this paper develops five recycling and remanufacturing decision models (anarchy policy model, reward-penalty mechanism model, recycling investment subsidies model, government tax model, and fund subsidy system model). In each model, the manufacturer and the online platform form the Stackelberg game. This research further discusses comprehensive environmental benefits and consumer surplus under five scenarios.

First, the fairness concerns of the online platform inhibit the recovery rate and supply chain members' profit while increasing the platform's utility. Second, fairness concerns increase the profit gap between the manufacturer and online platform, and the higher the degree of fairness concerns, the greater the profit gap; however, the four policies reduce the profit gap. Finally, when there are fairness concerns, environmental taxes damage the interests of supply chain members and consumers, but are most beneficial to the environment; recycling investment subsidies are on the contrary; the fund subsidy system depends on the relative size of the treatment fund and the subsidy fund.

This paper provides useful insights on how to regulate government policy to improve supply chain management with fairness concerns.

This study aimed to analyse if significant pedagogical transitions occurred from Pre-Covid-19 to Covid-19 period concerning applied teaching methods, course content, assessment strategies, technical support and faculty's readiness.

This is a quantitative study wherein perceptions of 116 faculty (from higher education institutions) from 22 countries were collected through an online survey. The authors classified the responses by five measurement characteristics and treatment, that is, Pre-Covid and during Covid. ANOVA test identified the differences between the ten groups. The authors also conducted ANOVA test for five Pre-Covid groups and five Covid groups and found meaningful differences among those groups.

The authors compared the differences by the treatment, that is, Pre-Covid and Covid, and found the significant difference in teaching methods, assessment strategies and faculty's readiness while there was no significant difference found in course content and technological support.

The findings and recommendations have a practical application for higher education leaders, curriculum managers and faculty working within this academic environment of online learning either completely remote or hybrid.

The interpretive analysis suggests key improvement areas where education policymakers and higher education strategists need to pay attention to developing strategies and be proactive to cope with any future emergencies whilst maintaining high standards of teaching and learning. This includes devising strategies to prepare faculty competencies to teach in a virtual learning environment, to revamp the assessment strategies and teaching methods.

This paper, via the use of management and entrepreneurial philosophies from Charles Clinton Spaulding, aims to advocate the integration of African-American Entrepreneurship and Management History into the business curriculum at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) as well as predominantly white institutions (PWIs). Along with this curriculum update, the use of critical pedagogy as a form of critical thinking is also recommended to complement the learning process.

Articles from early and recent newspapers, magazines, journals and books were examined and synthesised to clarify how curriculum modification and critical pedagogy could aid in increased entrepreneurial success.

The paper concludes with a framework that demonstrates the curriculum interface, including Spaulding’s insights and critical pedagogy, to connect black students to entrepreneurial success.

Although African-Americans surpass Caucasian-Americans in entrepreneurial attempts, blacks lag behind whites in entrepreneurial success. A reason for their higher failure rate is a lack of exposure to positive images who are also black. Integrating African-American Entrepreneurship and Management History into the business curriculum will help ensure that these positive images are sufficiently introduced and explored as a source of learning. Critical pedagogy is also endorsed as a complementary strategy to aid learning, as it is associated with processes that deviate from traditional instruction that often ignores student diversity, to facilitate the expansion of the mind as well as social transformation.

This study aims to investigate the thermal fracture mechanism of moisture-preconditioned SAC305 ball grid array (BGA) solder joints subjected to multiple reflow and thermal cycling.

The BGA package samples are subjected to JEDEC Level 1 accelerated moisture treatment (85 °C/85%RH/168 h) with five times reflow at 270 °C. This is followed by multiple thermal cycling from 0 °C to 100 °C for 40 min per cycle, per IPC-7351B standards. For fracture investigation, the cross-sections of the samples are examined and analysed using the dye-and-pry technique and backscattered scanning electron microscopy. The packages' microstructures are characterized using an energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy approach. Also, the package assembly is investigated using the Darveaux numerical simulation method.

The study found that critical strain density is exhibited at the component pad/solder interface of the solder joint located at the most distant point from the axes of symmetry of the package assembly. The fracture mechanism is a crack fracture formed at the solder's exterior edges and grows across the joint's transverse section. It was established that Au content in the formed intermetallic compound greatly impacts fracture growth in the solder joint interface, with a composition above 5 Wt.% Au regarded as an unsafe level for reliability. The elongation of the crack is aided by the brittle nature of the Au-Sn interface through which the crack propagates. It is inferred that refining the solder matrix elemental compound can strengthen and improve the reliability of solder joints.

Inspection lead time and additional manufacturing expenses spent on investigating reliability issues in BGA solder joints can be reduced using the study's findings on understanding the solder joint fracture mechanism.

Limited studies exist on the thermal fracture mechanism of moisture-preconditioned BGA solder joints exposed to both multiple reflow and thermal cycling. This study applied both numerical and experimental techniques to examine the reliability issue.

Online retailing changes all retail systems significantly. The growing importance of online sales requires the creation of new fulfillment models. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how retailers develop from separate multi-channel (MC) to integrated omni-channel (OC) fulfillment. OC retailing has an integrated perspective, with seamless interactions between online and bricks-and-mortar channels.

More than 60 internationally active retailers and experts from Germany participated in an exploratory survey. With a response rate of 40 percent the authors achieved the goal to adequately depict the German MC and OC retail market. It is currently the largest empirical study of MC and OC fulfillment.

It is the first study to comprehensively analyze the logistical development options open to retailers for integrated fulfillment. The authors discuss the conceptual development options and formulate propositions for an advanced OC fulfillment approach. OC retailers aim to pool their organizational units for fulfillment via different channels. Retailers with multiple channels develop their warehouse systems toward channel-integrated inventory enabling flexible and demand-driven inventory allocation. Retailers with channel-integrated inventory also organize their picking procedures in one common zone. The higher the outlet density, the more it becomes beneficial for retailers to introduce pick-up services.

The research is based on insights from retailers and experts from companies based in Germany.

The findings provide an insight into designing OC fulfillment and distribution structures. The concepts themselves, archetypes, challenges and development paths are analyzed. Identified logistics levers can be adjusted to pinpoint the steps required to advance integration.

The authors contribute by deriving propositions and a framework for transitioning from basic MC to integrated, extended OC logistics. Because this research area is still comparatively young, the authors take a more comprehensive, exploratory view of OC fulfillment.

The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of reviewer qualification and credibility (RQC) and hotel classification involving online hotel reviews (OHRs). The study examines the effects of the reviewer level as a proxy of RQC on review helpfulness and reviewing behavior (review rating, review length). The study also included hotel classification as a moderating variable.

Data from 1,968 reviews were collected from TripAdvisor.com using a web data-harvesting technique. Hypothesized relations in the model were tested with t-test and MANOVA analysis.

The empirical results show that the effect of reviewer level on review helpfulness is not significant. In addition, a high-level reviewer tends to leave a lower rating and a lengthier review than a low-level reviewer. Regarding the moderating effects, for the high-level reviewer, three-star independent hotels have a greater effect on review helpfulness.

The study has several useful implications for researchers, hotel industry when managing OHR and disseminating information to their potential consumers.

The findings help online review website organizers manage the operation of RQC and hotel classification in a proper manner. Marketing managers, especially those of three-star independent hotels, can effectively utilize review management to the desired effect.

Unlike previous studies, this study explores the effect of RQC on review helpfulness and reviewing behaviors across the hotel classification. In addition, this study contributes to the hotel industry developing more effective online reviews from the reviewer level and diverse hotel types (three-star independent, four-star chain, five-star luxury hotels).

Managing the diversity of the enlarged European Union (EU) is a central task for European policies. It is argued that this diversity leads to the development of a core-periphery pattern, separating cores of economic strength from peripheral regions being on the margins and lagging behind with mainly rural areas playing the peripheral part. This chapter describes the approach taken by the FP7 EU research project RUFUS – Rural Future Networks. It concentrated on rural regions and tried to work out the implications of the diversity of European rural areas by creating an interdisciplinary typology. The RUFUS typology is based on nine economic, social and ecological indicators and included regions (NUT3 level) from 10 European countries. A factor and cluster analysis was performed leading to a set of types of rural areas displaying their strengths and weaknesses related to their economic, social and ecological characteristics. The analysis was performed with different combinations of countries. The data set based on countries within the EU15 led to a first typology of four types showing a specific distribution of strong(er) and weak(er) types of regions already functioning for a longer time in the context of EU integration. Including more Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries led to a set of five types combined with the change of type distribution within and between the countries. The approach is an easy to understand classification and visualisation tool to show the relative development status of European regions as well as the relationship of the status with their location (core or border region).