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The research in competitive facility location (CFL) is quite dynamic, both from a problem formulation and an algorithmic point of view. Research direction has changed immensely over the years to address various competitive challenges. This study aims to explore CFL literature to highlight these research trends, important issues and future research opportunities.

This study utilises the Scopus database to search for related CFL models and adopts a five-step systematic approach for the review process. The five steps involve (1) Article Identification and keyword selection, (2) Selection criteria, (3) Literature review, (4) Literature analysis and (5) Research studies.

The paper presents a comprehensive review of CFL modelling efforts from 1981 to 2021 to provide a depth study of the research evolution in this area. The published articles are classified based on multiple characteristics, including the type of problem, type of competition, game-theoretical approaches, customer behaviour, decision space, type of demand, number of facilities, capacity and budget limitations. The review also highlights the popular problem areas and dedicated research in the respective domain. In addition, a second classification is also provided based on solution methods adopted to solve various CFL models and real-world case studies.

The paper covers 40 years of CFL literature from the perspective of the problem area, CFL characteristics and the solution approach. Additionally, it introduces characteristics such as capacity limit and budget constraint for the first time for classification purposes.

The practice of public relations (PR) is shaped by the ‘life world’ of the professionals; moreover, both the experiences of the professionals and societal changes shape the profession in a particular area (Hodges, 2006). Women have always played an important part in the development of PR as a profession and academic field in Turkey. Since PR Association of Turkey was established in 1972, five out of eight presidents have been women, and most of the members are also female. Female PR practitioners represent 70% of the total workforce of PR sector in Turkey, and most of the communication agencies are led by female entrepreneurs.

However, research on women' positions and their multiple roles in PR in Turkey are limited.

This chapter uses a qualitative study with 27 in-depth one-on-one interviews conducted in order to analyse female PR practitioners' experiences related to (1) the start of their careers, (2) their career experiences, (3) their evaluation of the profession, and lastly (4) their career goals. The interviewees included agency owners, managers, deputy general managers and group directors.

The research aimed to discover the female PR professional experience in respect of the difficulties they face in their practice and everyday life, advantages and/or disadvantages of being a female PR professional in Turkey and the ways women balanced their career and family duties.

This study aimed to identify subgroups of esports players based on their gaming behavior patterns across game genres and compare self-efficacy, social efficacy, loneliness and three dimensions of quality of life between these subgroups.

324 participants were recruited from prolific academic to complete an online survey. We employed latent profile analysis (LPA) to identify subgroups of esports players based on their behavioral patterns across genres. Additionally, a one-way multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) was conducted to test the association between cluster memberships and development and well-being outcomes, controlling for age and gender as covariates.

LPA analysis identified five clusters (two single-genre gamer groups, two multigenre gamer groups and one all-genre gamer group). Univariate analyses indicated the significant effect of the clusters on social efficacy, psychological health and social health. Pairwise comparisons highlighted the salience of the physical enactment-plus-sport simulation genre group in these outcomes.

This study contributes to the understanding of the development and well-being benefits experienced by various esports consumers, as well as the role of specific gameplay in facilitating targeted outcomes among these consumer groups.

This chapter explores the extent to which female public relations (PR) practitioners perform professionalism in the workplace by interrogating and examining their professional behaviours. Using an ethnographic approach, where the researcher is immersed in the field, it uncovers the lived experiences and behavioural responses of women working in PR agency environments in the United Kingdom and enables a rich description of professional behaviours to emerge.

Fawkes argues that research into roles in PR ‘has tended to assess roles using management rather than sociological theory’ (2014, p. 2). That is not to say that all PR research adopts the same paradigmatic stance. Several scholars have encouraged the development of a research agenda rooted in social theory. Holtzhausen called for a move away from what she termed the ‘modernist approach to organizations’ (2002, p. 251), which focuses on management discourse, and encouraged instead a focus on the postmodern concept of discourse, where meaning is constructed and conveyed through social and institutional practices.

In seeking to discover the ‘lived experience’ of female practitioners, this chapter locates professionalism in the context of their behaviours and enables individuals to articulate their understandings of the relationship between performance and professionalism. Using Goffman's (1959) work on social encounters as performances in conjunction with Foucauldian discourse and Feminist theory, this chapter explores the three stages of performing professionalism – preparation, performance and reception – through the eyes of women working in PR agencies in the United Kingdom to explore their lived experience and determine how gender affects their performance of professional behaviour.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of online identity orientation and online friendship homophily on online socializing, online information search and ethnic guests’ hospitality experiences.

The study uses structural equation modeling to test a conceptual model developed after reviewing hospitality literature. Data is collected from a sample of 514 Turkish-Dutch ethnic guests living in the Netherlands using a self-administered questionnaire.

The results show that online identity orientations aligned with minority and majority cultures impact online friendship homophily and online socializing, which subsequently impact online information search and hospitality experiences of ethnic guests.

On the whole, ethnic communities have considerable spending power. The findings point to heritage and mainstream cultural socialization accounting for travel and hospitality experiences within an ethnic minority group. The findings supply relevant information for hospitality sectors on services to endorse or promote to guests from ethnic communities.

The study examines the simultaneous effects of online identity orientations and online friendship homophily on online socialization and hospitality experiences of ethnic guests. It highlights the role of culture in explaining the use of social networking sites and its potential impact on hospitality-related behaviors and experiences of ethnic guest consumers.

The usage of robot waiters in the hospitality industry is growing, thus increasing the number of human–robot interactions in frontline services. Focusing on robot waiters in restaurants, this study aims to propose the social cognition (SC)–psychological ownership (PO)–customer responses (CR) model, while examining the association between SC, PO, robot anthropomorphism and CR.

The hypotheses of this study are tested using a three-step mixed-method approach that includes partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), necessary condition analysis (NCA) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA).

PLS-SEM demonstrates the mediating role of psychological ownership on the relationship between SC, customer attitudes regarding being attended by a robot and revisiting intentions. Robot anthropomorphism enhances the relationship between SC and psychological ownership. NCA indicates that SC and psychological ownership are necessary conditions for the presence of favorable attitudes and revisiting intentions. FsQCA suggests that different configurations of the antecedent conditions lead to better attitudes and revisiting intentions.

Frontline hospitality robots need to be perceived as warm, competent, responsive and adaptable to customer requests to elicit positive responses. Managers should employ attractive robots displaying anthropomorphic features. Managers need to ensure that customers have some knowledge about robots before interacting with them. Managers should also consider customer heterogeneity and the context in which the robots will be deployed.

Based on the psychological ownership theory, this paper analyzes the relationship between SC, psychological ownership and CR. Anthropomorphism moderates the relationship between SC and psychological ownership.

Virtual goods consumption has risen dramatically in recent years. Recognizing the benefits of virtual goods in generating revenue for online game companies, marketers strive to understand the motives behind virtual goods purchases. We investigated the direct and indirect effects of functional, emotional, and social values through player satisfaction on purchase intention toward virtual goods among online players.

In total, we surveyed 332 online game players utilizing a structured questionnaire. We employed a multi-analytic approach combining partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and necessary condition analysis (NCA) to examine the proposed relationships.

The findings show that all dimensions of value and player satisfaction significantly affect the intention to acquire virtual goods. However, social value does not exert a significant effect on player satisfaction. Moreover, we confirmed that player satisfaction mediates the relationships between functional value, emotional value, and purchase intention. Furthermore, NCA results indicated that all predictors in the model are necessary conditions of purchase intention for virtual goods.

These findings contribute to an enhanced understanding of purchase intentions among online game players from a symmetric (PLS-SEM) and asymmetric (NCA) perspective by proposing a multi-analytic approach.

Despite the advances in theory and practice about player behaviour in esports gaming literature, there is a lack of understanding as to whether esports are compatible with the values of Olympism and if they should be considered for future Games editions. The current study advances this line of research by examining esports player experiences, their effects on perceiving Olympic values, and the support towards the Olympics in order to verify if differences occur according to the cross-cultural environment.

Using a sample of 671 esports amateur gamers from three countries (Portugal, Brazil and Japan), structural equation models and a multigroup analysis were performed to analyse the differences in the hypothesized paths existing between the groups.

Results reveal that player in-game emotional experiences positively influence Olympic values perception across countries. The excellence and friendship values showed a positive effect on support intentions to the Games towards Portuguese and Brazilian players, while the respect value was the strongest predictor towards behavioural intentions in Japan. Cultural backgrounds and game genre in each country can explain player attitude towards the Olympic values shared on the online environment.

This study is able to provide a better understanding of how the Olympic values serve as a gratification in different cross-cultural environments according to the theory of uses and gratifications (U&G) and the theory of cultural dimensions. Complementarily, these findings can be used as valuable information for esports publishers and developers attempting to spread the Olympic values in the esports industry.

This paper aims to investigate the prevalence of corruption in Ghana to understand how and why it has turned public procurement into a mere money-making scheme instead of a means to provide needed public goods and services.

The study focuses on Ghana as a case study and mobilizes the monetization of politics lenses. Data are collected via interviews with key officials across the procurement sector (including the government, donors and civil society), documents, documentaries and news articles.

The findings suggest that the increasing costs of elections and political financing coupled with the costs of vote-buying, which has become informally institutionalized, intensify corruption practices and, consequently, turns public procurement into a mere source of cash for political ends. Political appointments and legalized loopholes facilitate this by helping to nullify the safeguard accounting and other control institutions are designed to provide. Likewise, enduring poverty and rising inequality “force” citizens into a vote-buying culture which distorts democratic premises that may drive out unscrupulous politicians; thus, perpetuating capture schemes. Civil society's efforts to remedy these have had little success, and corruption and inequality remain rife.

The main practical implication of the study lies in the need for a gradual demonetization of elections, and the consideration of the fundamental function of public procurement as a policy instrument embedded in economic, social, cultural and environmental plans. Additionally, given the connectedness of the various corruption issues raised, a comprehensive system-based approach in dealing with them would be more effective than a piecemeal approach targeting each issue/problem in isolation.

While extant literature has examined the issue of endemic corruption in developing countries using state capture, few have attempted to explain why it remains enduring, particularly in public procurement. This study, therefore, contributes to the literature on corruption and state capture theoretically and empirically by drawing on monetization of politics from political science to explain why corruption and state capture endure in certain contexts (with Ghana as an illustrative example) which reduce public procurement to a cash-milking scheme.

This study presents a review based research framework that aims to influence memory institutions in their projects on digital storytelling from digitized ancient travel records. This study aims to influence research and policymaking related to design and delivery of services based on memory institutions’ collections of historical records.

The demonstrated research framework has been synthesized using inputs from a review of existing studies on the domain accompanied by a short survey created for collecting the opinion of selected experts. Studies demonstrating utilization of semantic web technologies and those that can influence policymaking related to digital storytelling were primarily reviewed.

The core tasks behind digital storytelling vary depending on the project goals. So, a two-part framework had to be proposed that covers the generic fundamental tasks with diverse applicability and digital storytelling related specific tasks separately. Also during the review, it was found that studies demonstrating the use of travel records for digital storytelling were less in number compared to studies using digital storytelling for tourism in general.

The demonstrated research framework can guide memory institutions in exposing their travel-related holdings to a wider audience using innovative semantic web technologies and open up avenues for future empirical research thereby adding to the novelty of the presented research. Also, reviews of articles on digital storytelling or digital humanities in general exist, but, review of digital storytelling initiatives focusing specifically on tourism and travel literature is scarce.