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In the past, the construction sector faced a low technological development level. Recently, studies have shown that the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) technologies play a significant role in construction project performance. But how prepared are the developing countries’ construction consultants, a focus in Nigeria, in embracing the 4IR technologies in construction administration is yet to receive in-depth research. Thus, this paper aims to examine how Nigerian construction consultants are prepared to embrace 4IR technologies in pre- and post-construction activities.

To evaluate the perceptions of construction consultants, the study conducted a virtual interview. The participants were asked the following key questions: What technologies that are currently linked with the 4IR and used by construction consultants in the industry? What factors may hinder the strategic application of 4IR by the construction consultants? What initiatives may be necessary to overcome the perceived encumbrances faced by the construction consultants? Twelve semi-structured interviews from selected construction consultants were engaged and collated data analysed via a thematic approach.

The paper identifies digital software used by construction consultants that have a link with 4IR technologies. From the ten emerged hindrances, cost of adopting the technologies, unwillingness on the part of stakeholders to adopt, inadequate standards and reference architectures and absence of awareness were ranked high as the factors hindering construction consultants from using 4IR technologies. Initiatives that can overcome the perceived encumbrances are examined in detail.

This study is restricted to construction consultants in Nigeria, and only 12 participants were engaged, but these do not affect the strength of the results. Thus, this study recommends a mixed-methods approach for future research with broader coverage.

The Government should intervene via subsidy regime and overhaul the academic curriculum to reflect the current trend of practices regarding technologies. Also, there should be vigorous enlightenment and pragmatic sensitisation of construction stakeholders and knowledge training of practitioners, among others, were suggested. As part of this paper’s implications, a perception-based model was developed to promote 4IR technologies for construction consultants in the Nigerian construction sector. This model encourages the construction consultants to embrace 4IR technologies for better service delivery, project performance and client satisfaction.

This paper appraised 4IR technologies’ role in the construction sector, focusing on the preparedness of the construction consultants in Nigeria. Also, the study identified the issues and proffer initiatives to improve 4IR usage by construction consultants.

This paper aims to study the after-effects of the crises hit by the Lebanese population and the solutions implemented to alleviate the ensuing problems on resource sharing in Lebanese libraries.

Questionnaire to academic libraries. Nine libraries in Lebanon offer resource sharing services; all nine are academic. A self-administered questionnaire was sent to these nine libraries; eight responded. A semi-quantitative approach was used to analyze the responses. The questionnaire was administered through Microsoft Forms. The form was designed to include dichotomous questions for the sake of quantitative analysis and a short answer format that allowed responders to provide additional details. American University of Beirut Data. The access services department at the American University of Beirut Jafet Library compiles on a daily basis interlibrary loan statistics. The compiled data were divided into two groups: duration of two fiscal years prior to June 2020; and from June 2020 to June 2022. June 2020 was used as a cutoff date after which the interlibrary loan initiatives in response to COVID-19 were implemented. The services that were analyzed were RSCVD, OCLC WorldShare ILL profiled groups, Emergency Temporary Access Service for HathiTrust members and Open Access Services from vendors.

Libraries in Lebanon were able to continue providing resource-sharing services with a minimal budget due to four major initiatives and through the help of the international resource-sharing community.

Limited publication about inter library loan in Lebanese Libraries. The pandemic hit economies worldwide; however, Lebanon got hit by three synergetic crises, and the initiatives were instrumental in drastically reducing resource sharing expenditure without affecting the interlibrary loan fill rate.

This study aims to investigate the extent and nature of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure in the context of Jordan. It also empirically examines the impact of board composition variables (size, independent [non-executive] directors, CEO/chairman duality, age and gender) and ownership structure variables (board ownership concentration, institutional ownership and foreign ownership) on CSR disclosure level.

A CSR disclosure index is constructed, and content analysis is used to analyze the extent and nature of CSR disclosure in the annual reports of Jordanian manufacturing companies listed on the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) during the period (2013-2015). Regression analysis using panel data is undertaken to analyze the potential impact of board composition and ownership structure on CSR disclosure level.

The results reveal that, on average, a listed Jordanian manufacturing company has disclosed 30.8 per cent of the 42 items of CSR information included in the disclosure index. In addition, there was a very slight improvement in the CSR disclosure over the study period. These results suggest there is considerable room for improvement in CSR disclosure. The regression analysis identified board size to be significantly and positively associated with CSR disclosure level. On the other hand, the percentage of independent (non-executive) directors on the board, duality of CEO and chairman positions, director’s age, board ownership concentration and the percentage of shares outstanding held by institutional shareholders were found to have had a significant negative impact on CSR disclosure level.

The study contributes to the literature on CSR practice and disclosure in various ways. First, it demonstrates the extent to which listed companies in developing countries, such as Jordan, take their social role seriously. Second, the study adds to the existing literature on the potential impact of board composition and ownership structure on CSR disclosure by using new variables that have not been tested before using Jordanian data. Third, the study is anticipated to provide feedback to Jordanian regulators in the Jordan Securities Commission and the ASE on the adequacy of current regulations on corporate disclosure requirements in Jordan. Finally, the study raises some issues of interest to other researchers who are currently or intend to conduct research in this area.

Considering the rising number of first generation college students (FGCSs), an increased number of first generation college graduates should be expected. Historically Black Colleges and Universities have long served as a landing place for these students. While research has focused on the barriers to access and persistence for this population, there has been little discussion about the FGCSs that attend college, obtain degrees, and go on to serve in their disciplines and contribute to their communities. Having been a FGCS, now serving as a tenure-track faculty member at a Historically Black institution, I have been compelled to explore and initiate a dialog regarding the experience of being, First, still. “It” does not end with degree completion.

The spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has drastically changed the entire market structure and shopping behaviors across the world. While shoppers rushed toward e-commerce platforms during the pandemic, the key debate that rose was on how this behavior will evolve post COVID-19. The purpose of this study was to explore the different categories of e-commerce platforms’ users and propose a distinctive customer typology in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic.

An exploratory qualitative research design was adopted because of the novelty of the subject. In total, 43 participants were interviewed, including 27 consumers and 16 experts in the field of e-commerce.

Based on the findings, this study distinguishes between two stages of e-commerce usage during the pandemic. Furthermore, this study identifies four key typologies of e-commerce shoppers that are expected to form at the end of the coronavirus: duty-bound, e-watcher, makeshift and onli-vorous shoppers. The characteristics and businesses strategies pertaining to each of the identified groups are discussed.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is among the first to identify the different stages, while proposing an innovative typology of e-commerce platform post COVID-19. This study also offers useful recommendations to deal with similar future crises.

Purpose – This chapter discusses the belonging of second-generation Finnish Somalis based on a participatory performative research project conducted in Helsinki with young second-generation immigrants.

Methodology/approach – The project involved organizing workshops with teams of art and media professionals and, together with the co-researching participants, staging productions, such as photo and video exhibitions and producing books and documentaries; these artworks, in turn, formed an important part of the research reporting. In these productions, the search for multiple homes and belonging formed a narrative that was expressed in both the audio-visual materials and the written stories.

Findings – The performative approaches and audio-visual methods employed in the study assisted the participants in dealing with questions of belonging and othering by emphasizing the strength and multifacetedness offered by outsider positions. In the ‘potential spaces’ created in the project setting, memories and experiences could be expressed in symbolic form, discussed and rearticulated. This, in turn, made possible the negotiation of a form of cultural citizenship that combined different homes, nations and senses of belonging.

Social implications – By claiming a cultural citizenship in their productions, the young participants were able to create multiple narrations for themselves and Finnishness, which also supported their resilience. By creating works of art with the young people, we other participants were able to observe our own participation and research from a critical perspective.

Originality/value of the chapter – The chapter demonstrates how varied perspectives and different epistemological understandings can be recognized and shared with an audience in a performative research setting.

This paper aims to provide an overview of research topics and publications produced by Islamic Finance scholars in Malaysia, focusing on six research domains (Shariah-based, Islamic Finance, Islamic Economics, Islamic Accounting, Islamic Management and Halal Management) in five public universities in Malaysia.

This study seeks to analyse the research gaps and recommend future research based on publications produced by Islamic Finance scholars from five public universities in Malaysia. Data on talents were collected from the MIFER report 2016 and each universities’ website, while research and publications of the talents were collected from Google Scholar and the Scopus database. The extracted data were analysed using bibliometric analysis in VOSviewer version 1.6.15.

The results show that the five selected universities talents have different research strengths according to six research domains highlighted in MIFER 2021 and Beyond Report. All five universities are found to contribute the least research in Halal Management domain. In view of the increasing prominence of this area of research in the national and international levels, these universities and other universities in Malaysia can generate more research in Halal Economy, Halal Management, and other related areas within this domain. The finding indicated that each university tends to have a strength according to the different domains, and 2019 is the most productive year for Islamic Finance publications. Analysis from productive scholars and co-citations shows that the authors collaborate within the same university to create a different topic for each research cluster.

The bibliometric analysis only captures the general keyword terms, which may be limited to the only generalised sub-research areas.

This bibliometric study, which is based on the expertise of researchers, complements meta-analysis, and qualitative structured literature reviews aid researchers or talents in developing future research directions such as Green economy, Cryptocurrency, Fintech, Halal Management and others. In addition, this is a case study in nature and can serve to enhance understanding the landscape of Islamic finance education and as a reference for practices in institutions of higher learning from around the world.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is a new research initiative comparing five top programme providers in the field of Islamic finance using a bibliometric approach to enhance talent development and capacity building. With the government’s efforts to further promote Malaysia as the Islamic Financial Hub, this study highlights the research gap in Islamic finance based on scholars’ publications from selected five Malaysian universities and potential topics for future research. This study focuses on the research domain for each university, the trend of publishing, the number of journals published by academics, productive scholars and citations by Malaysian universities, and examines if the publications align with current industry needs.

In recent times, mobile banking has become the best alternative for transactions associated with payments like bills, fees, and peer-to-peer payments. Therefore, the pace of adoption is increasing day after other. However, the numbers of customers are not equal to the expectations as there are several challenges and threats hindering in the way of excellence and growth of mobile banking. Therefore, this chapter has been written purposively to address all the elements that are associated with the use of mobile banking with special emphasis on Pakistan and other developing sides of Asia. In fact, concern towards Asian sides is mandatory as the continent has the massive charm to attract users towards the use of mobile banking, but there is a need for proper policy and concern from stakeholders in order to give a push to the technology, which is fruitful for society, environment, as well as economy. The study includes an in-depth discussion on factors that need attention to make the study implicative and thorough for conducting further research in the field of Fin-Tech and mobile banking.

The purpose of this paper was to examine the influence of religiously motivated boycotts, such as the one conducted in Saudi Arabia against Danish companies, on corporate brand image, customer loyalty and product judgment. Despite a growing research interest in understanding the effects of different types of consumer animosities on companies’ performance, there appears to be a scarcity of studies addressing the specific effects of religious animosity. Religious animosity is considered as an additional type which may have more stable and longer-term impacts than other animosities on behaviour.

The study was based on a two-stage design: an exploratory qualitative stage involving 11 in-depth interviews, followed by a more comprehensive quantitative stage designed to test a proposed theoretical model. Data was collected from Saudi customers of the Danish company Arla Foods in Saudi Arabia. Data was analysed using structural equation model (LISREL 8).

The model confirms that boycotting have strong negative impact on brand image and consumer loyalty but does not influence consumers’ product judgment.

Religious boycotts have significant consequences on both corporate profits and brand image. The study provides clear steps for companies to combat the influence of religious boycotts especially in relation to brand image and customer loyalty.

The study tested the influence of consumer religious boycotts on brand image and customer loyalty. Religious animosity was found to cause a more persistent boycott that negatively impacts brand image and weakens customer loyalty. However, by and large, boycotting was found not to have any significant impact on product judgment.