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This study aims to examine the relationship between private capital inflows, financial development and economic growth in 28 sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries between the periods 1995 and 2017.

The study used a secondary source of data obtained from the world development indicator (WDI) and used the system generalized method of moments (SGMM) and dynamic panel threshold regression to analyze the data.

The study found that foreign direct investment has a negative and significant impact on the economic growth of SSA. The study also found that portfolio investment has a positive impact on economic growth but it is statistically insignificant. However, when portfolio investment interacted with financial development, it became positive and statistically significant presupposing that financial development is a necessary condition for portfolio investment to exert impact on economic growth. Further, the study showed that the interaction of foreign direct investment with financial development has a negative and significant effect on economic growth. Finally, the study found the minimum threshold of financial development at 42.66 per cent.

Policymakers in SSA should be cautious and critical in the kind of foreign direct investment they attract as the open door policy to attract all kinds of foreign direct investment would not bring about the desired result. Also, policymakers in the region should develop and implement policies that would deepen and strengthen the financial system to foster the development of the country’s financial sector and accelerate economic growth.

The contribution of the study lies in establishing a minimum threshold of financial development; thus, providing a clear-cut direction for policymakers in SSA countries in their pursuit of financial development and economic growth.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the significance of the inaugural Singapore Formula One Grand Prix within a tourism context. Impacts of the event and attitudes towards it are explored with a view to illuminating the consequences of and challenges inherent in sports events tourism for destinations with limited prior experience.

A case study approach is employed and the account is based upon the collection and analysis of materials in the public domain. This information is supplemented by primary data obtained from a survey of local residents and personal observation.

The Singapore Grand Prix is an example of sports events tourism, a subset of events tourism, which now has an important role in development and marketing strategies. Official expectations of the particular event seem to have been largely met, but understanding of its costs and benefits varies and whether the latter outweighs the former remains to be determined. Lessons have been learned from the experience, but the dynamic environment of tourism means constant change and new dilemmas to confront.

The use of sports events in tourism strategies is a comparatively recent trend in parts of Asia and the case of Singapore reveals some of the underlying factors and forces at work. Insights are afforded into impacts of major sports contests at such destinations and the obstacles to overcome in pursuit of success.

This paper aims to review the latest management development across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting‐edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

Sports events should complement, and not disturb, other forms of tourism. Sports tourism has been defined as a “social, economic and cultural phenomenon arising from unique interactions of activity, people and place.” Globalization has facilitated this growing trend. As a new discipline of research, sport event tourism raises a few questions: what are its inherent challenges and critical success factors? This study explores the case of the Singapore Grand Prix and its outcome on the economy, society and the environment.

The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers' hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy‐to‐digest format.

Over the past few years online fashion communities have proliferated becoming an increasingly powerful forum for user-generated content, and consequently, the fashion industry has shown great interest in such communities. The purpose of this paper is to review and analyse brand advocacy behaviour within luxury brand accessory forums: to analyse the role these communities play in influencing purchase intention; assessing their contribution to fashion brand love.

The study adopted a netnographic approach to the phenomenon of online luxury accessory communities. The research reports observational data including blog texts and audience comments for four popular forums: The Purse Forum, The Fashion Spot, The Bag Forum (TBF) and Shoe Forum (SF). Although the forums are open to all and are designed to be internationally relevant; the observations were conducted from a base in the UK.

Findings indicate that informants display some unifying characteristics clustered around engagement, involvement, self-concept and self-connection, brand love and hedonic values. Informants however, display some discernible differences as they “rally” to two distinctive totems: first, active luxury brand advocates and second, passive brand advocates. Although subtle, these differences suggest significant possibilities for fashion brand owners.

Further research could include the measurement of brand advocacy to distinguish more clearly between high and low levels of advocacy and the resulting consumer behaviour intentions. One sub-group that would be interesting to explore is that of brand evangelists and their relationship with fashion brands: what are the reasons for treating brands as religious artefacts and can this extreme level of advocacy be developed by marketing? The study focused on observing online posts by self-selected brand advocates. A worthwhile comparison could be made with fashion communities where brand marketers are active participants and how this influences the discourse and actions of brand advocates.

The findings indicate that all forum members are incredibly attached to their brands, but will still consider purchasing several brands as their “evoked set”. Additionally, even when demonstrating involvement, they can operate as passive observers in the online community.

Social media, especially online forums, play an important role in contemporary luxury fashion branding. This study addresses the role these forums play in supporting brand love and the contribution they make to luxury brand advocacy. Membership and influence dynamics are reported; which have resonance to both practitioners and researchers.

This study aims to undertake the evaluation and examination of the productivity change of the Egyptian banking sector. Using a novel data set covering 14 banks operating in the Egyptian market from 1997 to 2013. We use a nonparametric approach (based on data envelopment analysis (DEA)) to investigate the productivity change in the Egyptian banking sector. Input-oriented Malmquist indices of productivity change are estimated with DEA to measure total factor productivity (TFP) change. The TFP changes are decomposed into the product of technological change and technical efficiency change (catch-up). In the second stage, we study potential determinants of productivity change using a regression model. We find that the Egyptian banking sector as a whole shows a productivity regress of 0.9% per year, mainly due to the technological improvements. The estimated regression model identifies some variables that significantly influence the productivity of banks in Egypt. The banks with higher loan to deposit ratio and higher returns on equity have higher productivity growth reflecting on their strong strategic and managerial skills. The size of a bank seems to be associated with an increase in productivity. The maturity of a bank (measured by age) is associated with higher productivity. The NIM and NIETA variables do not seem to be affecting the productivity of banks. Surprisingly, our results reveal that the financial crisis was negatively and statistically insignificant, hence it had no effect on the Egyptian banks.

This paper aims to examine consumer preference for ethical fashion products by focusing on the importance of animal welfare attribute. To explain the attitude-behavior gap, this research proposes to explore the costs and sacrifices associated with the adoption of responsible behaviors.

To analyze in which manner the animal welfare attribute impacts the consumer preference, the authors carried two quantitative studies in the Italy context. The first one (n = 224) proposes to measure the importance of this attribute in the case of luxury vs accessible fashion. The second study (n = 101) examines how the attention given to animal welfare information could vary between prosocials and proselfs. Conjoint analyses that consider “proportion of real fur”; “information about animal treatment” and “price” attributes have been realized. To take into account the individuals characteristics, cluster analysis helped to identify different profiles of consumers.

The results reveal that even if consumers continue to prefer products made entirely from animal fur, they are sensitive to the information on the animal treatment conditions. Also, the animal welfare is not the most important criterion in explaining preference for a fashion product. This result varies, however, regarding the consumers’ social value orientation. Individuals with a high level of prosocial values give more importance to the animal welfare attribute and are less reluctant to the reduction of the proportion of real fur in the clothes. Proself consumers associate a higher sacrifice with the consumption of animal-friendly fashion products.

This research enriches the limited literature on the consumers’ response to animal-friendly products. By considering the consumers’ social value orientation, it provides a better understanding of the attitude-behavior gap in animal-friendly fashion consumption. However, further studies should focus on the way of adapting communication on eco-products to the consumer profile. Moreover, it seems interesting to explore how the integration of innovative environmentally friendly materials can be accepted by the target. Replicating this research with representative consumer samples from different countries is also necessary.

From a practical point of view, this research offers implications for managers operating in fashion apparel industry by giving insights on the consumers’ preference for animal friendly fashion.

This study gives recommendations to help convincing consumers about the importance of animal welfare attribute and to increase their preference for animal-friendly fashion products.

Despite the extensive use of animal fibers, fur and skins in the production of textiles, the few researchers who have shed the light on the consumers’ response to animal-friendly products have considered mainly the case of food. Also, the marketing literature gives little explanation of the attitude-behavior gap in ethical fashion consumption. By examining the consumers’ social value orientation, this study provides a better understanding of this gap.

Grounded in agency and clan theories, this study aims to examine how, when and why joint liability works as a control mechanism to reduce opportunism among tea supplier groups in China.

Survey data from 82 supplier groups (three respondents per group) were collected.

Joint liability is related positively to peer monitoring (as mediator) and negatively to opportunism, whereas the mediated relationship is moderated positively by group leaders’ perceived legitimate authority and negatively by reciprocity and shared norms.

Opportunism is operationalized as the use of illegal pesticides, the violation of manufacturer–supplier contractual agreements and joint liability, as suppliers’ liability of having the whole group’s seasonal production is rejected by the manufacturer if a single act of opportunism is detected in the group.

Our study demonstrates how and under what conditions the joint-liability mechanism is linked with the reduction of multi-suppliers’ opportunism. We pave the way for future applications of the control mechanism to fields related to inter-organizational governance. Most importantly, we apply Ouchi’s clan theory (1979, 1980) to conceptualize manufacturer–supplier and supplier–supplier relationships in China and provide first-hand evidence to validate its applicability and generalizability to the context. The study also offers insights on network influences in inter-organizational relationships (Gu et al., 2010; Wathne and Heide, 2004) and confirms the important roles of network factors in inter-organizational relationships. In particular, peer monitoring operates as a mediator and normative factors operate as facilitators (moderators) for the joint liability to work as a mechanism to control opportunism in this relationship context.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the performance of efficient cold-formed steel (CFS) sections in building a truss system. A comparative study was performed comparing trusses built with cold-formed and hot-rolled sections.

Medium-scale specimens were fabricated and tested under monotonic loading. Closed CFS sections (tubular sections) were adopted as compression members of the truss, against the open sections (angle sections) in the hot-rolled steel truss. While as open sections (angle sections) were adopted as tension members in both these cases, the performance assessment was made on the basis of the peak loads carried by the trusses, the vertical deflections and the failure modes exhibited.

The results of this study indicated that the overall strength, strength-to-weight ratio and overall convenience in terms of cost and fabrication, in the CFS truss was better than that of the hot-rolled one. Also, the judicious utilization of steel which has limited reserves can be achieved.

Cold-formed and hot-rolled sections are widely used in the steel structures. There are advantages and disadvantages in using each of these configurations, discussed in this work. The advantages are widely known by the scientific community; however, few studies are developed with the purpose of quantifying the gains of each solution. Thus, this work emerges with great innovation, with regard to the experimental evaluation of the trusses' behavior composed of different structural sections.