Search results

This study aims to investigate how Australian Muslims make consumption-related decisions regarding the purchase of home loan products.

This exploratory research used in-depth semistructured interviews with community leaders from leading Muslim ethnic communities. Seventeen community leaders from the six largest Muslim community groups by country of birth and living in Melbourne and Sydney were selected for the interviews. The interview data was analyzed using NVivo 12.

The findings suggest that despite knowledge of and concern for Islamic tenets regarding the consumption of banking and financial products, including home loans, most Muslims viewed conventional home loans (CHL) as being permitted, essential or innocuous. Reasons for such views include the interpretation of Islamic tenets, limited awareness of available Islamic home loan offerings, convenience factors related to accessing CHL offerings, service quality levels, availability of technology-based services such as internet banking, and the influence of social groups and communities.

This research helps marketers understand the attitudes, subjective norms (SN) and behavioral factors related to the Muslim consumption of home loans.

The findings of this research can facilitate the development of financial products and marketing strategies that better appeal to Muslims. Such loan products can improve the uptake of home loans (and, in effect, homeowners) by Muslims, potentially improving social and financial inclusion.

This research helps marketers understand the attitudes, SNs and behavioral factors related to the Muslim consumption of home loans, which can facilitate the development of financial products and marketing strategies that better appeal to Muslims. Such loan products can improve the uptake of home loans (and, in effect, homeowners) by Muslims, potentially improving social and financial inclusion.

This qualitative study explores the drivers of Muslim consumers’ uptake of home loans in Australia. Drawing upon the theory of planned behavior and the literature, antecedents to attitude, SNs and perceived behavioral control that influence intention and behavior were investigated. It identifies factors influencing decision-making related to home loans by Australian Muslims, contributing to a theoretical framework to investigate Muslims’ consumption of financial products.

The real estate industry has rapidly changed due to technological advances across residential and commercial real estate from the perspective of occupiers, investors, and service providers. Owners and buyers of properties have access to increasing information in the marketplace, including access to residential real estate platforms such as Zillow. Automated appraisals and artificial intelligence (AI) in the mortgage application process speed up home buying. Commercial real estate uses fintech to source deals, perform due diligence, and execute property management requests. This chapter includes a practitioner's view of the current and future information data needs, processes, and point solutions in the evolving technology landscape, including how tools such as ChatGPT apply. It concludes that the real estate fintech revolution has only begun, as data gaps in the real estate market require resolution before yielding better process automation and as the business model of real estate service providers shifts to strategic advisory roles.

This chapter analyses the situation of gender research and education in tourism. It describes gender inequity as a wicked problem resulting from a deep embeddedness of gender stereotypes in social norms, values, and attitudes. Drawing on sociological theories, this chapter demonstrates that invisible power structures and interests of certain groups in society, in combination with prevailing gender-based stereotypes, result in vicious cycles of adapting behaviour to stereotypes and enforcing them by doing so. With its clear focus on appearance and easy-going lifestyle, the tourism industry still does not address gender issues, including sexual exploitation, appropriately. There is a need to systematically integrate gender-related topics into tourism studies and education curricula on a university level to create awareness among students and acknowledge how they can contribute to gender justice.

While extensive research has explored poverty in various dimensions, there remains a notable dearth of studies focusing on success stories of slum dwellers overcoming adversity. This research seeks to address this gap by investigating the strategies employed by individuals to transcend poverty. Moreover, it evaluates the practicality and effectiveness of existing theories in real-world contexts through careful interpretation.

Data were gathered from two distinct cases through comprehensive, in-depth interviews. These narratives were subjected to scrutiny employing the Description Analysis Interpretation method. Subsequent interpretation and theoretical exploration were guided by Bourdieu’s class theory. The overarching goal was to shed light on the remarkable journeys of specific slum residents who surpassed the constraints of poverty. This endeavor not only highlighted the practical efficacy of these theories but also underscored their relevance in illuminating real-world scenarios through interpretation.

The findings underscore the capacity of slum dwellers to rise above poverty, thereby emphasizing the practical utility of specific theories aimed at poverty alleviation in elucidating their experiences. Notably, social capital, a cornerstone of Bourdieu’s class theory, emerges as equally pivotal as economic capital in shaping individuals' trajectories.

The study’s scope is confined to narratives within the Colombo slums, offering a platform for future researchers to extend their investigations beyond this context. By employing alternative methodologies and exploring diverse geographical regions, scholars can broaden their understanding of poverty alleviation strategies and their applicability across varied socioeconomic landscapes. This calls for wider research for comprehensive exploration and comprehension of poverty dynamics beyond singular locales.

The study provides invaluable insights for policymakers, governmental bodies and nongovernmental organizations, urging them to reconsider and reformulate policies, educational strategies and community development programs tailored to the needs of slum dwellers and their children. These insights offer a pathway toward more effective interventions aimed at fostering sustainable upliftment within these marginalized communities.

This research fills a critical gap in poverty literature by exploring success stories of slum dwellers overcoming adversity, an area often overlooked. It uniquely investigates the strategies these individuals employ to transcend poverty, offering fresh insights into the practical application of poverty alleviation theories. Utilizing Bourdieu’s class theory, the study highlights the importance of both social and economic capital in these success narratives. By focusing on real-life experiences, it underscores the relevance and utility of these theories in real-world contexts, enriching the theoretical discourse and providing valuable perspectives for policymakers and practitioners.

This study aims to focus on the five most relevant and discursive emerging technologies in accounting (cloud computing, big data and data analytics, blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics process automation [RPA]). It investigates the adoption and use of these technologies based on data collected from accounting professionals in a technology-developed country – Canada, through a survey.

The study investigates the adoption and use of emerging technologies based on data collected from accounting professionals in a technology-developed country – Canada, through a survey. This study considers the said nature and characteristics of emerging technologies and proposes a model using the factors that have been found to be significant and most commonly investigated by existing prior technology-organization-environment (TOE)-related technology adoption studies. This survey applies the TOE framework and examines the influence of significant and most commonly known factors on Canadian firms’ intention to adopt the said emerging technologies.

Study results indicate that Canadian accounting professionals’ self-assessed knowledge (about these emerging technologies) is more theoretical than operational. Cloud computing is highly used by Canadian firms, while the use of other technologies, particularly blockchain and RPA, is reportedly low. However, firms’ intention about the future adoption of these technologies seems positive. Study results reveal that only the relative advantage and top management commitment are found to be significant considerations influencing the adoption intention.

Study findings confirm some results presented in earlier studies but provide additional insights from a new perspective, that of accounting professionals in Canada. The first limitation relates to the respondents. Although accounting professionals provided valuable insights, their responses are personal views and do not necessarily represent the views of other professionals within the same firm or the official position of their accounting departments or firms. Therefore, the exclusion of diverse viewpoints from the same firm might have negatively impacted the results of this study. Second, this study sample is limited to Canada-based firms, which means that the study reflects only the situation in that country. Third, considering the research method and the limit on the number of questions the authors could ask, respondents were only asked to rate the impact of these five technologies on the accounting field and to clarify which technologies are used.

This study’s findings confirm that the organizational intention to adopt new technology is not primarily based on the characteristics of the technology. In the case of emerging technology adoption, the decision also depends upon other factors related to the internal organization. Furthermore, although this study found no support for the effect of environmental factors, it fills a gap in the literature by including the factor of vendor support, which has received little attention in prior information technology (IT)/ information system (IS) adoption research. Moreover, in contrast to most prior adoption studies, this study elaborates on accounting professionals’ experience and perceptions in investigating the organizational adoption and use of emerging technologies. Thus, the findings of this study are valuable, providing insights from a new perspective, that of professional accountants.

The study findings may serve as a guide for researchers, practitioners, firms and other stakeholders, particularly technology providers, interested in learning about emerging technologies’ adoption and use in Canada and/or in a relevant context. Contrary to most prior adoption studies, this study elaborates on accounting professionals’ experience and perceptions in investigating the organizational adoption and use of emerging technologies. Thus, the findings of this study are valuable, providing insights from a new perspective, that of professional accountants.

The study provides insights into the said technologies’ actual adoption and improves the awareness of firms and stakeholders to the effect of some constructs that influence the adoption of these emerging technologies in accounting.

This paper examines the relationship between open innovation (measured by exploratory and exploitative linkages) and firm-level innovative activity in the offshore renewable energy (ORE) sector.

A unique, purpose-built survey that targeted firms operating in the ORE sector and its supply chain was used. The data provides novel insights into the research activities and networking capabilities of an industry in its infant stages of development. Regression models are used to estimate the relationship between firm-level external linkages and innovative activity.

Exploratory linkages are positively related to more innovative activity. This relationship is subject to diminishing returns, distinguishing the ORE sector from other sectors. Collaborating with suppliers and accessing scientific journals are conducive to research and development (R&D) activity and process innovation, whilst collaborating with customers is associated with the decision to introduce new products and processes.

This study provides evidence of a positive, but curvilinear, relationship between external knowledge linkages and innovative activity, adding novel insights into the relationship between open innovation (OI) strategies, research and innovation outcomes for firms predominantly in the introductory stages of the technological life cycle with limited commercialisation experience. The nuanced finding that specific linkages matter for certain research and innovation (R&I) outcomes adds deeper complexity to March’s (1991) framework, where tailoring certain exploratory or exploitative linkages to specific innovation activities is important.

This paper aims to report the effect of titanium oxide (TiO₂) particles on the specific wear rate (SWR) of alkaline treated bamboo and flax fiber-reinforced composites (FRCs) under dry sliding condition by using a robust statistical method.

In this research, the epoxy/bamboo and epoxy/flax composites filled with 0–8 Wt.% TiO₂ particles have been fabricated using simple hand layup techniques, and wear testing of the composite was done in accordance with the ASTM G99-05 standard. The Taguchi design of experiments (DOE) was used to conduct a statistical analysis of experimental wear results. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to identify significant control factors affecting SWR under dry sliding conditions. Taguchi prediction model is also developed to verify the correlation between the test parameters and performance output.

The research study reveals that TiO₂ filler particles in the epoxy/bamboo and epoxy/flax composite will improve the tribological properties of the developed composites. Statistical analysis of SWR concludes that normal load is the most influencing factor, followed by sliding distance, Wt.% TiO2 filler and sliding velocity. ANOVA concludes that normal load has the maximum effect of 31.92% and 35.77% and Wt.% of TiO2 filler has the effect of 17.33% and 16.98%, respectively, on the SWR of bamboo and flax FRCs. A fairly good agreement between the Taguchi predictive model and experimental results is obtained.

This research paper attempts to include both TiO₂ filler and bamboo/flax fibers to develop a novel hybrid composite material. TiO₂ micro and nanoparticles are promising filler materials, it helps to enhance the mechanical and tribological properties of the epoxy composites. Taguchi DOE and ANOVA used for statistical analysis serve as guidelines for academicians and practitioners on how to best optimize the control variable with particular reference to natural FRCs.

Teamwork is necessary for engineering to address today’s complex challenges. Therefore, team members must improve their teamwork competencies for more significant team development and effectiveness. This study aimed to analyze how a non-directive coaching intervention model for an entire team influences the individual team members’ teamwork competencies.

Action research was used in this study with a quasi-experimental design featuring control and experimental groups comprising final-year engineering students from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. The sample included 168 students, with 132 in the control group and 36 in the experimental group. The experimental group underwent a non-directive team coaching intervention involving three sessions. Competencies were evaluated using the teamwork competency test (TWCT), administered at the course’s beginning and end to measure progress.

The results show that the individuals who participated in the team coaching significantly increased their competencies, particularly “conflict resolution” and “feedback.”

This study’s value contributes to identifying the positive impacts of non-directive team coaching interventions on individual teamwork competencies, fostering collaborative skills and supporting collective goals.