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Somewhere between these two statements lies the reality of the situation. The first statement is a typical example of the prevailing myth amongst some members of our society, that there is always someone else responsible for almost anything in their lives. Thanks to this mentality it is not surprising to find a belief amongst these people that if they eat out, the caterer will be responsible not only for producing a tasty meal at a reasonable price, but that this meal will contain the exact nutritional value needed by each individual guest. The second statement omits the variety of ways a caterer does have to influence his customer in making his choice: by special menu offers, tent cards, personal recommendations, visual displays, to name a few.

The purpose of this paper is to better understand the main effects of agent conscientiousness and reciprocity norm and the interaction effect of these two factors on layoff decisions in firm‐employee relationships.

A scenario‐based experiment with 331 business professionals was conducted and three regression models were run to test three hypotheses proposed in the paper.

The norm of reciprocity reduces decision‐making agents' tendency to lay off employees in the face of an environmental change. In addition, the norm of reciprocity interacts with decision‐making agents' conscientiousness in influencing their layoff decision.

The limitations of this study are the use of single‐agent decision scenario and the specific focus on one aspect of agent personality – conscientiousness and its collective influence on layoff decisions. In a broader picture, the results of this study support the cross‐level analytical approach to investigating organizational phenomena, in which individual‐level and organizational‐level factors interact and determine organizational outcomes.

Recruiting and promoting managers who exhibit high levels of conscientiousness, coupled with proactively cultivating the norm of reciprocity with employees, are critical to a firm's thrust in attaining and sustaining stakeholder management practices with the emphasis on employees' well‐being.

While the extant literature focuses largely on the effects of layoff and the individual perceptions of downsizing and layoff, this paper examines what actually influences decision‐making agents' layoff decisions. The paper expands the literature by investigating the impacts of agent conscientiousness and reciprocity norm on layoff decisions.

The level of inventories, particularly the finished‐goods inventories, is a good gauge of adjustment in inputs and outputs of the firms in a market economy and plays an important role in business fluctuations (see, e.g., Abramovitz, 1950, and Stanback, 1962).

The purpose of this paper is to better understand the main effects of agent conscientiousness and reciprocity norm and the interaction effect of these two factors on contract adjustment decisions in buyer-supplier relationships.

Two scenario-based experiments with college students and business professionals were conducted. Three regression models were run to test three hypotheses proposed in the paper.

The limitations of this study are the use of single-agent decision scenarios and the specific focus on one aspect of agent personality – i.e. conscientiousness and its collective influence on contract adjustment decisions. In a broader picture, the results of this study support the cross-level analytical approach to investigating marketing channel relationships, in which individual-level and organizational-level factors interact and determine decision outcomes in business exchanges.

Recruiting and promoting managers who exhibit high levels of conscientiousness, coupled with proactively cultivating the norm of reciprocity with suppliers, are critical to a firm's thrust in attaining and sustaining marketing channel management practices with the emphasis on reciprocity-based exchange relationships.

While the extant literature focuses largely on interfirm governance and contract enforcement, this study examines what actually influences decision-making agents' contract adjustment decisions. This study expands the marketing literature by investigating the impacts of agent conscientiousness and reciprocity norm on contract adjustment decisions.

The purpose of this study was to analyze importance of artificial intelligence (AI) in education and its emphasis on assessment and adversity quotient (AQ).

The study utilizes a systematic literature review of over 141 journal papers and psychometric tests to evaluate AQ. Thematic analysis of quantitative and qualitative studies explores domains of AI in education.

Results suggest that assessing the AQ of students with the help of AI techniques is necessary. Education is a vital tool to develop and improve natural intelligence, and this survey presents the discourse use of AI techniques and behavioral strategies in the education sector of the recent era. The study proposes a conceptual framework of AQ with the help of assessment style for higher education undergraduates.

Research on AQ evaluation in the Indian context is still emerging, presenting a potential avenue for future research. Investigating the relationship between AQ and academic performance among Indian students is a crucial area of research. This can provide insights into the role of AQ in academic motivation, persistence and success in different academic disciplines and levels of education. AQ evaluation offers valuable insights into how individuals deal with and overcome challenges. The findings of this study have implications for higher education institutions to prepare for future challenges and better equip students with necessary skills for success. The papers reviewed related to AI for education opens research opportunities in the field of psychometrics, educational assessment and the evaluation of AQ.

This study aims to investigate and provide comprehensive insights into the state of research on Quality 4.0 across various sectors. The investigation focusses on studies conducted in different countries and is motivated by the perceived benefits of adopting Quality 4.0 and the existing research gap in this domain. The literature review examines two main aspects of Quality 4.0: implementation ingredients and its applications.

This study employed a comprehensive systematic literature review (SLR) and bibliometric analysis of Quality 4.0 publications to identify the benefits, challenges and trends of adopting Quality 4.0.

The applications of Quality 4.0 are centred on six key areas, including agile product development, predictive quality algorithms, cloud databases, automation, reduced cost of quality, streamlined quality processes, accurate demand forecasting and monitoring suppliers and quality metrics using digital dashboards. Geographical disparities in research were identified, with India and the United States of America emerging as the top publishing countries. The dominance of the subjects of business, management and accounting underscored the importance of quality management across diverse sectors.

The limitations of this study include the novelty of the Quality 4.0 topic, which posed a challenge in finding academic material, and the analysis period of six years, which could potentially limit the coverage of recent developments.

The insights and observations from this research offer valuable guidance to academics, practitioners and professionals seeking to implement Quality 4.0 in diverse sectors.

This study contributes a novel perspective to the field by examining the application, utilisation and evaluation of Quality 4.0, providing valuable insights for effectively managing its implementation.

Although locally sourced and produced foods are a growing trend in food marketing, they are not yet clearly understood nor consistently defined. There is no lack of definitions currently offered, however, based on expanding, evolving, and sometimes conflicting, dimensions. The purpose of this paper is to investigate various emerging definitional elements of local foods to determine which elements may be as important to food shoppers today as the prevailing food miles definition.

A shopper survey is fielded and repeated measures ANOVA conducted to measure the relative importance of various definitional elements, assess where shoppers expect to acquire local foods, the price premium they are willing to pay, and differences that may exist across customer groups.

The study finds that consumers do consider other definitional elements as important as distance in their definition of local foods and they expect to find them in secondary outlets beyond farmers markets and the produce department. Consumers are willing to pay a price premium and there are differences across light, medium, and heavy users.

This study provides researchers with an expanded and clearer definition of local foods for future research and practitioners with guidance on what shoppers expect and value today and how to better source, merchandise, and promote local foods.

By combining definitional elements from across industry, government, and academia and analyzing them together, this study offers a more comprehensive definition of local foods and consumer expectations.

This study aims to analyze the effect of the Finlite mobile app on the financial literacy of undergraduate business students in Malaysia.

This study uses a quasi-experimental pre-intervention design. The data are collected using a quiz and a questionnaire. Cluster sampling is adopted for three different zones in Malaysia. A total of 400 business students enrolled in economics courses participated in the intervention.

The results indicate that Finlite significantly promotes students’ savings intentions, practices, decision-making, accountability, values and financial literacy. All results are analyzed based on gender and race. However, Finlite does not significantly help overcome students’ financial issues such as credit card debt and poor spending behavior.

Financial literacy may be efficiently promoted through digital tools integrated into economics courses. Young adults can make optimal financial decisions after graduation. Future research should explore different courses, addressing undergraduate and high-school students.

Previous studies predominantly examine attitudes and behaviors related to financial literacy. In contrast, this study measures the ex post impact of the Finlite mobile app on savings intentions, practices, decision-making, accountability, ability to overcome financial issues and value for money.

Quality 4.0 incorporates the role of automation and digitization and provides competitive advantage for organizations by enhancing customer experience and increase profitability. The purpose of this study is to critically examine the organizational readiness factors for the successful implementation of Quality 4.0 implementation and assess their importance.

This study applies a quantitative research methodology to examine readiness factors of Quality 4.0 in organizations by 147 senior management professionals in various organizations including manufacturing and service companies in America, Asia and Europe participated through an online survey.

The readiness factors for Quality 4.0 were critically ranked amongst manufacturing and service organizations by senior management professionals from three continents. Five significant reasons for non-adoption of Quality 4.0 were lack of resources, inability to link Quality 4.0 with the corporate strategy and objectives, lack of understanding of benefits, high initial investment and the current quality management strategy and methods are already delivering good results hence unsure of the need for Quality 4.0. The handling of big data in quality management was the most important factor for adopting Quality 4.0, irrespective of the size and nature of the organization. More accuracy and less errors and improved decision-making the factors of adopting Quality 4.0 in service sector were not significant for manufacturing sector. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) reported that costs and time savings over the long run were not so significant.

This study is focussed on the significance of pros and cons of adopting Quality 4.0 in organizations. Senior managers in both large and SMEs can benefit immensely from understanding before investing heavily towards implementing Quality 4.0. The importance of identified organizational readiness factors for the successful adoption of Quality 4.0 can be used as indicators to understand how ready an organization is to implement Quality 4.0. The top three readiness factors for the successful adoption of Quality 4.0 were identified as: top management commitment, leadership and organizational culture. Improved understanding of the readiness factors can be highly beneficial to senior quality professionals in both manufacturing and service companies in the journey towards successful implementation of Quality 4.0.

This is the first empirical study on assessing Quality 4.0 readiness factors at an intercontinental level and therefore serves as a foundation for many future studies. The study provides a theoretical foundation for the Quality 4.0 in terms of organizational readiness for successful adoption and overcoming implementation challenges. During the planning, implementation and progress review of Quality 4.0, review the readiness factors while planning and resourcing a Quality 4.0 implementation strategy to ensure effective performance.