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Globally, consumer’s inclination towards functional foods had noticed due to their greater health consciousness coupled with enhanced health-care cost. The fact that probiotics could promote a healthier gut microbiome led projection of probiotic foods as functional foods and had emerged as an important dietary strategy for improved human health. It had established that ice cream was a better carrier for probiotics than fermented milked due to greater stability of probiotics in ice cream matrix. Global demand for ice cream boomed and probiotic ice cream could have been one of the most demanded functional foods. The purpose of this paper was to review the technological aspects and factors affecting probiotic viability and to standardize methodology to produce functional probiotic ice cream.

Attempt was made to search the literature (review and researched papers) to identify diverse factors affecting the probiotic viability and major technological challenge faced during formulation of probiotic ice cream. Keywords used for data searched included dairy-based functional foods, ice cream variants, probiotic ice cream, factors affecting probiotic viability and health benefits of probiotic ice cream.

Retention of probiotic viability at a level of >10⁶ cfu/ml is a prerequisite for functional probiotic ice creams. Functional probiotic ice cream could have been produced with the modification of basic mix and modulating technological parameters during processing and freezing. Functionality can be further enhanced with the inclusion of certain nutraceutical components such as prebiotics, antioxidant, phenolic compounds and dietary fibres. Based upon reviewed literature, suggested method for the manufacture of functional probiotic ice cream involved freezing of a probiotic ice cream mix obtained by blending 10% probiotic fermented milk with 90% non-fermented plain ice cream mix for higher probiotic viability. Probiotic ice cream with functional features, comparable with traditional ice cream in terms of technological and sensory properties could be produced and can crop up as a novel functional food.

Probiotic ice cream with functional features may attract food manufacturers to cater health-conscious consumers.

This study explores the mediating effects of relationship marketing orientation (RMO) and service quality orientation (SQO) on market orientation, selling orientation, and policyholder retention in non-life insurance services. Additionally, it offers important recommendations for non-life insurers in Taiwan for policy development and improving policyholder retention.

Data were collected from a sample of policyholders belonging to the top five non-life insurance companies in Taiwan. The data were then analyzed with structural equation modeling.

RMO and SQO mediate the effects of the salesperson’s market orientation on policyholder retention. Thus, RMO and SQO are key factors influencing policyholder retention. Consequently, high levels of market orientation should be maintained to increase RMO and SQO, strengthening the retention rate of non-life insurance policyholders.

The main limitation of this study is its cross-sectional nature. In the future, researchers should collect data from other countries and service industries (e.g. banks, securities, and other financial institutions), expand to different insurance contexts (e.g. life insurance), and conduct longitudinal studies or experimental research.

The results of this study can act as a guide for providers of non-life insurance services. Based on the research results, we recommend decision-makers pay increased attention to increasing policyholder retention rates by strengthening their firm’s RMO and SQO.

Few studies have investigated the relationships among market orientation, selling orientation, RMO, SQO, and policyholder retention in non-life insurance services within Asian contexts in general and specifically in Taiwan. Thus, this study’s theoretical contributions, managerial implications (especially for decision-makers), and the proposed future research directions represent timely and valuable additions to the literature.

This research seeks to understand whether employer branding (EB) and internal marketing (IM) are fundamental to the challenge of attracting and retaining talent and how these strategies can help companies to overcome the difficulties related to the talent shortage, from the perspective of a SME Portuguese metallurgical industry.

The research resorts to a case study of a qualitative nature, through a semi-structured interview with the head of the human resources (HR) training and development area of the Navarra Group, and quantitative, through surveys to its employees. Based on the literature, a conceptual model was constructed, whose application allowed us to perceive the relationships between the practices of EB and IM; satisfaction, motivation and commitment; attraction and retention.

The exploratory interview concluded that organizations consider EB and IM essential for an effective talent management strategy. The quantitative results demonstrate that IM and EB practices implemented in the organization contribute to the satisfaction, motivation and involvement of employees, which results in a decrease in the intention to leave. It is also noted that these practices promote an increase in the perception of organizational attractiveness, which represents a positive impact on its ability to attract.

From a theoretical perspective, the research contributes to the development of knowledge about IM, EB and talent management, providing relevant data that can help define the best strategies for attraction and retention, from the point of view of IM and EB.

The research presents preliminary insights that can be an auxiliary tool for HR managers and professionals in the context of industrial SMEs.

Talent management research today is increasing as organizational requirements attempt to meet the challenges of effectively managing talent to achieve organizations’ strategic agendas. However, in learning organizations specifically, investigations of talent management practices are limited, with this study exploring the role of talent management practices in employee satisfaction and organizational performance in Pakistan.

The study was conducted in various universities (public and private) in Pakistan using a quantitative approach. Cross-sectional data are collected through a questionnaire, with analysis and conclusions based on completed questionnaires from 403 respondents.

The study’s findings from the analysis by structural equation modeling (SEM) emphasize the positive and significant effects of most talent management practices (i.e. talent identification, talent development, talent culture and talent retention) on employee satisfaction and organizational performance (talent attraction is the exception). Employee satisfaction positively and significantly affects organizational performance and is found to have a mediating effect, bridging the relationships of most talent management practices (talent identification, talent development, talent culture and talent retention) with organizational performance.

The study’s findings support human resource professionals, academics and policymakers in managing talent practices to enhance organizational performance. The findings assist in developing core skills and talent-related competencies to achieve organizational goals and success.

The study fills the research gaps by developing a framework of talent management practices for employee satisfaction and organizational performance in learning organizations, which warrants further consideration.

This research is designed to explore the relationship between social media addiction, student engagement and student retention. Social media addiction is dealt with as an independent variable student engagement acts as a mediating variable and student retention as a dependent variable.

This is a cross-sectional and quantitative research. Primary data are collected from 600 respondents (university students) with the help of a structured questionnaire. Multistage sampling techniques, i.e. simple random sampling and judgment sampling, are used for the selection of respondents.

Results indicate that for direct relationships, social media addiction has a significant positive impact on student engagement and student retention, respectively, while student engagement is partially mediating the relationship between social media addiction with student retention.

In the future, these kinds of research may also be conducted on students of different universities in Pakistan, which are located in other cities of Pakistan besides Lahore. This research provides a practical framework for the higher authorities of the universities of Pakistan and explains how the use of media positively fosters the levels of student retention directly and indirectly through the path of student engagement. It is commonly believed that media addiction is bad but the result of this research indicates that anything is not dangerous but depends upon its use, media addiction itself is not bad but if someone uses this for a good purpose in limitation then it has better outcomes. The result indicates that the media addiction of students has a positive impact on student retention. This means that if someone uses media for a positive purpose then he/she will use it as a supporting tool for success. Longitudinal research on these variables will also help to check the status after a specific interval of time.

The current study will help the practitioners or policymakers (Managers) of higher education institutions by providing practical insights into the positive use of media by students for increasing their knowledge and grades. This research can also help practitioners or policymakers to focus their students on the positive use of social media for fostering the levels of student retention.

To the best of the researcher’s knowledge, no previous study has been done to incorporate social media addiction and student engagement in a single model in the Pakistani cultural context. Similarly, the relationship of variables social media addiction with student engagement is rarely checked empirically because the research of Wang et al. (2011) proposed that social media addiction has a relationship with student engagement so that is why this is the rationale of the research is to check this empirically. Moreover, this study is an initial effort to check the mediating effect of student engagement in the relationship between social media addiction and student retention. This research is also proposing the framework of social media addiction, student engagement and student retention based on the social exchange theory (SET).

The purpose of the paper is to afford a comprehensive conceptualization and operationalization of the construct of talent management through an inclusive exploration of conceptual clarifications for existing confusions while developing a complete measuring instrument.

The archival method was adopted together with a systematic review based on Khan et al.’s (2003) five steps of systematic literature review. The systematic review has encircled published research articles between 1982 and 2023 in the human resource management (HRM) arena. A total of 130 articles were initially scrutinized, and 106 were systematically reviewed to conceptualize, operationalize and explore clarifications for confusions and instrument development for talent management.

This study explored conceptual clarifications for existing confusions towards talent management while recognizing definitions that come under the main philosophical schools for the underlying concept of talent. A novel practical definition has been established for talent management while recognizing dimensions, and then certain elements. A comprehensive instrument has been developed to measure talent management.

This study is limited to instrument development in measuring talent management; nevertheless, there is an enormous scope for using the instrument to empirically measure talent management through organizational and employees perspectives linked to diverse global contexts in future studies.

The developed comprehensive instrument is a vibrant contribution to future investigations related to empirically measuring talent management associated with organizational and employee perspectives related to diverse global contexts in winning “war for talent.” This study endows a significant input to the whole frame of HRM knowledge as it resolves existing conceptual ambiguities towards talent management while defining and operationalizing it.

Sharia-compliant financial technologies (Islamic fintech) are becoming increasingly popular among Muslims and non-Muslims. As the Islamic fintech landscape continues to grow and transform, it is crucial to understand the factors that influence the acceptance or adoption of Islamic fintech services from the past literature. Therefore, this paper aims to conduct a systematic literature review (SLR) to investigate and compile factors that could influence a user to adopt Islamic fintech.

The current study adopted the systematic literature review approach using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses technique to examine research on Islamic fintech adoption. A set of inclusion criteria was applied to filter out irrelevant documents and ensure the selection of only the most relevant ones. The criteria were limited to quantitative journals published in English between 2012 and 2022, as identified in Scopus outlets.

Despite the existence of various theoretical frameworks, the technology acceptance model and Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology 2 frameworks have gained prominence as the most frequently applied frameworks in examining Islamic fintech adoption. In addition, trust is the most important self-developed construct for the adoption of Islamic Fintech.

The current study does not segregate the intention, actual usage and retention, as the author is interested in understanding the overall adoption of Islamic fintech services. To obtain more specific analysis results, future research could potentially separate the three types of adoption exposure, i.e., consumer acceptance, intention and retention. Next, future studies can also expand their analysis and gain a better understanding of the research topic by exploring alternative data sources such as Web of Science, ERA or JSTOR.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study makes a significant contribution to the literature by providing the first systematic literature review of factors influencing fintech adoption from an Islamic perspective.

The objective of this research is to examine the association of artificial intelligence (AI) awareness on workers' retention and the boundary conditions in the context of project organizations.

We collected time-lagged data from project organizations in China.

The results showed that AI awareness predicted workers' turnover intention. Moreover, this association was moderated via supervisor support.

This research provides several practical implications aimed at timely communication, training and automation guide for helping firms to foster healthy workplace climate, support and workers’ retention.

The rise of AI and its potential impact on manpower is a popular topic. Yet, the evidence of project workers’ awareness of such potential effects on their retention is scant. Therefore, this study broadens our understanding of the association of AI awareness on turnover intention and boundary conditions in the context of project organizations.

The purpose of this article is to prepare graphene/polyimide composite materials for use as bearing cage materials, improving the friction and wear performance of bearing cages.

The oil absorption and discharge tests were conducted to evaluate the oil content properties of the materials, while the mechanical properties were analyzed through cross-sectional morphology examination. Investigation into the tribological behavior and wear mechanisms encompassed characterization and analysis of wear trace morphology in PPI-based materials. Consequently, the influence of varied graphene nanoplatelets (GN) concentrations on the oil content, mechanical and tribological properties of PPI-based materials was elucidated.

The composites exhibit excellent oil-containing properties due to the increased porosity of PPI-GN composites. The robust formation of covalent bonds between GN and PPI amplifies the adhesive potency of the PPI-GN composites, thereby inducing a substantial enhancement in impact strength. Notably, the PPI-GN composites showed enhanced lubrication properties compared to PPI, which was particularly evident at a GN content of 0.5 Wt.%, as evidenced by the minimization of the average coefficient of friction and the width of the abrasion marks.

This paper includes implications for elucidating the wear mechanism of the polyimide composites under frictional wear conditions and then to guide the optimization of oil content and tribological properties of polyimide bearing cage materials.

In this paper, homogeneously dispersed PPI-GN composites were effectively synthesized by introducing GN into a polyimide matrix through in situ polymerization, and the lubrication mechanism of the PPI composites was compared with that of the PPI-GN composites to illustrate the composites’ superiority.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-12-2023-0415

The purpose of this study is to identify which dimensions of perceived value best mediate football club branding and fan loyalty from a developing league perspective.

Using a cross-sectional design, we collected data using questionnaires from football fans in Ghana (N = 700). The data were analysed using SmartPLS V3, applying structural equation modelling with bootstrapping procedure.

The results indicate that club branding is an effective precursor of fan loyalty. Moreover, the findings suggest that functional, social and emotional values mediated club branding and fan loyalty, whereas epistemic and economic values did not.

This study contributes to sports management literature by identifying the dimensions of perceived value that will be relevant in the development of club brands in the developing league context.