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The purpose of this study is to test Islamic religiosity scale’s reliability and validity and to evaluate the impact of Islamic religiosity on materialism in Turkey.

Using a quantitative research method, a self-administered survey was distributed to the students of two faculties – Faculty of Theology and Faculty of Business – of the same university in Izmir, Turkey. In total, 400 questionnaires for each faculty were distributed and a total of 529 completed questionnaires – 326 from the Faculty of Theology and 203 from the Faculty of Business – were returned. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted via SPSS and AMOS.

Islamic religiosity and materialism have been found to be negatively correlated, supporting the existing literature. However, not all the dimensions of Islamic religiosity (behavioral religiosity, spiritual religiosity and necessity of religion) had this negative effect on materialism (possession-defined success, acquisition centrality and acquisition as the pursuit of happiness). Negative influence of “behavioral religiosity” on all three dimensions of materialism was observed. However, the “spirituality” dimension of religiosity was found to have a positive impact, while the “necessity of religion” had no significant impact on the dimensions of materialism.

A sample consisting of undergraduate students might limit the generalizability of the findings to Turkish Islamic population in general. This study is one of the first attempts to test the Islamic religiosity scale which needs to be further analyzed and developed.

The present study will contribute to the literature by testing an Islamic religiosity scale developed by a Turkish researcher. Besides, this is the only study undertaken on the impact of Islamic religiosity on materialism using an Islamic religiosity scale.

The purpose of the study is to analyze the user (as a customer of the library) requirements related to library services by using service‐based quality function deployment (QFD) and employ QFD to identify visible marketing strategies in a service sector.

In this study, QFD is applied to central library services of Dokuz Eylul University (DEU) in Izmir, Turkey. Basically, the methodology used in this study integrates the Kano model, AHP and planning matrix of house of quality. First, a focus group study is held to find out the requirements of university students for the university library that are then classified using the Kano model. The requirement categories are ranked with respect to their relative importance using analytical hierarchy process (AHP). In the last step, all findings are transferred to the planning matrix and strategies for DEU Central Library are developed.

The paper reveals marketing strategies for a non‐profit organization, a state university library, and helps the library find out its competitive position.

User requirements are determined through focus group studies held with undergraduate students. Other library users like academicians, external users, university staff and graduate students are ignored. Consideration of all possible user categories will give a whole picture of the requirements and their importance. In addition, a fair number of requirements limited the application of AHP only to the primary requirement categories.

The strategic importance of requirements was identified more precisely and service elements were allocated more effectively.

This study investigates the user requirements for library services in depth. It attempts to integrate AHP, Kano and QFD methods in library services for the first time to find out the most strategically important requirements. Therefore, it sheds light to library managers how to allocate their budget, arrange their services and develop their marketing strategies.

This study is set out to assess the country of origin effect on Turkish consumption practices in order to provide a richer context for its formation process.

The research is exploratory and interpretative in nature. It follows a qualitative design with in-depth analysis of consumption experiences by utilizing semi-structured interviews.

The research shows that country of origin effect is product specific, and when it exists, it has an essential effect on product evaluations. It reveals that the country of origin effect is intrinsically constituted with the individual perceptions of and attitudes toward brands, countries, and past experiences, and it is extrinsically constituted with socially created perceptions by media, marketplace myths, and popularity.

This research investigated country of origin effect in a specific context of a developing country with a qualitative methodology. Unlike the existing literature, this study analyzes consumers’ actual purchase decisions in different product categories. Country of origin effect is found to be formed by individual and societal factors.

Intellectual capital (IC) is a paramount resource for competitiveness in the knowledge-based financial sectors of the economy. As financial technology advances, specifically in the banking industry, it is vital to understand the effect of IC on financial performance. This study aims to investigate the effect of IC on return on equity (ROE), with a unique emphasis on the moderating role of board attributes. Previous studies have overlooked this moderating role.

The study sample consists of 17 banks and a panel data set spanning 2016–2021, extracted from annual reports. Antel Pulic’s value-added intellectual coefficient (VAIC) model is used to compute IC. To analyze the data, a generalized least squares analysis is conducted. The robustness of the analysis is ensured by using the two-stage least squares (2SLS) econometric technique.

The findings indicate that both the VAIC and human capital efficiency (HCE) have a significant impact on the ROE of banks. In terms of moderation, it is observed that board size (BS) exerts a negative effect on the association between VAIC, HCE, structural capital efficiency and ROE. Additionally, BS positively compounds the connection between capital employed efficiency and ROE. Similarly, the presence of independent directors (IND) significantly moderates the effects of VAIC and its components on the ROE of banks in Pakistan.

Banks should focus on the HCE for a higher ROE. Moreover, banks ought to prioritize appointing more independent directors in the boardroom for effective utilization of IC and greater ROE.

The findings of the study, which analyzed data from Pakistan’s banking sector, are original and provide additional insights into the literature on IC and board attributes.

First, this study assesses firms’ efficiency of transforming intellectual capital (IC) components into firm performance. Second, this study examines (1) cubic S-curve relationship between board independence and IC efficiency and (2) how firm size moderates the cubic S-curve relationship.

This study employs a stochastic nonparametric envelopment of data (StoNED) framework to estimate IC efficiency, which is derived from the estimation process of transforming structural, relational and human capitals into accounting- and market-based performance indicators. This study conducts regression analyses on 1,104 firm-year observations of Taiwanese semiconductor firms over the period of 2011–2018.

StoNED results suggest that sample firms' IC efficiency can be relatively improved by approximately 80%. Regression results indicate that a cubic S-curve relationship between board independence and IC efficiency exists, and firm size moderates the nonlinear effects.

Overall, this study highlights the importance of examining the nonlinear effect of board independence on IC efficiency from the perspective of agency theory, and the moderating effect from firm size, which may suggest availability of resources from the resource-based view of the firm.

This study contributes to the literature through the innovative application of an efficiency-based tool for evaluating IC efficiency. The cubic S-curve relationship between board independence and IC efficiency also points to the policy concerning the appropriate number of independent directors on board.

Snake-inspired robots are of great significance in many fields because of their great adaptability to the environment. This paper aims to systematically illustrate the research progress of snake-inspired robots according to their application environments. It classifies snake-inspired robots according to the numbers of degrees of freedom in each joint and briefly describes the modeling and control of snake-inspired robots. Finally, the application fields and future development trends of snake-inspired robots are analyzed and discussed.

This paper summarizes the research progress of snake-inspired robots and clarifies the requirements of snake-inspired robots for self-adaptive environments and multi-functional tasks. By equipping various sensors and tool modules, snake-inspired robots are developed from fixed-point operation in a single environment to autonomous operation in an amphibious environment. Finally, it is pointed out that snake-inspired robots will be developed in terms of rigid and flexible deformable structure, long endurance and multi-function and intelligent autonomous control.

Inspired by the modular and reconfigurable concepts of biological snakes, snake-inspired robots are well adapted to unknown and changing environments. Therefore, snake-inspired robots will be widely used in industrial, military, medical, post-disaster search and rescue applications. Snake-inspired robots have become a hot research topic in the field of bionic robots.

This paper summarizes the research status of snake-inspired robots, which facilitates the reader to be a comprehensive and systematic understanding of the research progress of snake-inspired robots. This helps the reader to gain inspiration from biological perspectives.

The present study aims to assess the potential effects of intellectual capital (IC) and disclosure of firms' affiliate transactions on contractual costs (CC).

The statistical population of the study includes 768 firm-year observations listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange during 2012–2017. According to Pulic's model, the authors divide IC into three components, such as human capital (HC), relational capital and structural capital (SC). CC is also measured by utilising two variables of board cash compensation and unexpected reward of managers.

The results show that there is a negative and significant relationship between HC and CC. In contrast, the authors find that relational capital and SC have a positive impact on CC. The authors’ further analyses also demonstrate that disclosure of transactions with affiliates has a negative effect on unexpected rewards of managers.

Since there is no conducted study, which discusses the relationship between IC and contractual cost, this paper might be considered the primary studies conducted in this line of literature, specifically in emerging markets. Moreover, to the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study investigating the potential impact of disclosure of selling and purchasing transactions, separately, on the director's unexpected reward.