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The University of Tennessee Knoxville’s Libraries has set aside space and stocked it with treadmill desks, standing desks, cycling desks and balance chairs to encourage physical activity while using library space to promote active learning. The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of this innovative space on library users through a study conducted by a research team using observations and short surveys to gather information about usage trends and user perceptions of this “active learning space.”

This study used both ethnographish observation and self-selected survey. Researcher observation notes were used to gather usage rates of the space and equipment in the space, and survey responses were coded for themes to identify user perceptions around the space.

The findings strongly suggest that users find mental and physical health value in the “active learning space” and many would find value in the expansion and improvement of the space.

The limitations of this study include a shorter observation period compared to the survey collection period and limited demographic collection to shorten the survey instrument.

However, this study was able to assess how an active learning space in an academic library can influence and have a significant impact on student success.

On 1 April 1978, the Israeli peace movement burst into world consciousness when an estimated 25,000 Israelis demonstrated in Tel Aviv to urge the administration of Prime Minister Menachem Begin to continue peace negotiations with Egypt. A grassroots group called Peace Now is credited with organizing and leading that demonstration. Today, the “peace camp” refers to left‐wing political parties and organizations that hold dovish positions on the Arab‐Israeli conflict and the Palestinian issue. While some figures in the Labor Party view themselves as the peace movement's natural leader, political parties further to the left like the Citizens Rights Movement (CRM) and Mapam are more dovish. In the last 10 years, many grassroots peace organizations have, like Peace Now, formed outside the political party system, with the goal of influencing public opinion and eventually having an impact on policy makers. Peace Now is still the largest, most visible and influential of those organizations.

Currently, negotiation on global carbon emissions reduction is very difficult owing to lack of international willingness. In response, geoengineering (climate engineering) strategies are proposed to artificially cool the planet. Meanwhile, as the harbor around one-third of all described marine species, coral reefs are the most sensitive ecosystem on the planet to climate change. However, until now, there is no quantitative assessment on the impacts of geoengineering on coral reefs. This study aims to model the impacts of stratospheric aerosol geoengineering on coral reefs.

The HadGEM2-ES climate model is used to model and evaluate the impacts of stratospheric aerosol geoengineering on coral reefs.

This study shows that (1) stratospheric aerosol geoengineering could significantly mitigate future coral bleaching throughout the Caribbean Sea; (2) Changes in downward solar irradiation, sea level rise and sea surface temperature caused by geoengineering implementation should have very little impacts on coral reefs; (3) Although geoengineering would prolong the return period of future hurricanes, this may still be too short to ensure coral recruitment and survival after hurricane damage.

This is the first time internationally to quantitatively assess the impacts of geoengineering on coral reefs.

This study investigates the nature of the association between profit warnings and stock price informativeness in the context of Jordan as an emerging country.

The authors used a large panel data set that related to stock price synchronicity and profit warnings percentages on the Amman Stock Exchange for the period spanning 2007–2018. Robust regression was used as a parametric test. This enabled us to obtain stronger results that fall in line with our prediction that a profit warning encourages firm investors to collect and process more firm-specific information than common market information.

Our findings show a significant positive effect of profit warnings on the amount of firm-specific information incorporated into stock price, which means that the greater the percentage of profit warnings the more likely that more firm-specific information will be incorporated in stock price synchronicity. In addition, corporate governance characteristics (moderating variables) significantly increase the level of the relationship between profit warnings and stock price synchronicity.

Our study results could be useful to investors, senior managers, and regulators in Jordanian firms, particularly in relation to decisions about enhancing the quality of financial statements. In addition, our results provide new evidence about the consequences of earnings announcements for information content and the informativeness of stock prices. Our methodology and evaluation of profit warnings may also demonstrate useful evidence for future researchers on profit warnings and stock price informativeness in developing economies, especially given that such evidence is scarce in developing economies.

This research is the first study of its kind on emerging markets, particularly in the Middle East. Moreover, entering the corporate governance variables as moderating variables to the robust regression was found to be more powerful than other regressions.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the link between earnings quality, Audit Committees and the Board of companies located in Jordan through the lens of enhancing corporate governance.

The real earnings management (REM) and accruals earnings management models were notably used within the panel data robust regression analysis approach; these were used against certain Audit Committee characteristics (i.e. meeting frequency, amount of Board and Committee participants [both internal and external], size) and Board of Directors.

The former characteristics were found to have a positive relationship with REM, while the latter yielded mixed results: while there was no significant identifiable relationship between Board outsiders and REM, there was a positive relationship identified between Board meetings, Board insiders and Board size and REM. In regard to this study’s limitations, the qualitative data gathered for the Board of Directors through the lens of corporate governance enhancement should have been documented with more detail; furthermore, the study was limited to the study of just one nation.

The data is limited to only a single country. More explanation for Board of Directors need qualitative understandings into corporate governance improvement. The control variables are essentially partial in a developing market context.

The different corporate governance code and guidelines improvements have varied influence on earnings quality. As predictable, boards of directors most effect on earnings quality. Improvements have included most modification to audit committees but through them slight measured effect on earnings quality.

Jordan’s corporate governance improvements expected organised corporate governance practices generally in place amongst its boards, and though invoking considerable modification to audit committees, eventually included slight modification to earnings quality. However, both improved earnings quality.

This particular research appears to be the first to consider both Audit Committee and Board of Directors characteristics in one model; indeed, in this vein, this research is also the first to explore the corporate governance enhancements that initially stemmed from there being zero code or guideline regarding its use, despite it becoming required recently. Hence, the authors can say this study has high originality.

Drawing on a number of strategic management theories, the purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between strategic thinking (in other words, systems perspective, focused intent, intelligent opportunism, thinking in time and hypothesis-driven analysis) and organizational performance. It also investigates whether the notion and content of high performance work practices, as identified in developed countries, can be used to amplify the effects of strategic thinking within the banking industry in a developing country.

Utilizing cross-sectional data obtained from commercial banks in Jordan, this paper applied structural equation modeling (SEM) to examine the banking sector in a developing country. Data were collected through self-administered questionnaires.

According to the results, focused intent, intelligent opportunism, thinking in time and hypothesis-driven analysis have positive impacts on organizational performance, except when considered from the systems perspective. Consequently, high performance work practices were found to only moderate the relationship between focused intent, intelligent opportunism, thinking in time and organizational performance.

The authors examined the impact of strategic thinking on the organizational performance through the moderation role of high performance work practices. The results of this paper extend the existing literature by providing evidence from Jordan, a developing country outside of the western world.

This paper aims to provide an essential framework for establishing Shariah-compliant deposit insurance scheme, by reviewing the Shariah provisions concerning the available approaches for deposit guarantee, types of deposits in Islamic financial institutions and the permissible party to incur the cost of this guarantee.

This paper reviews the Fiqh rules and principles approved by the well-known Islamic Fiqh references, as well as the resolutions of International Islamic Fiqh Academy (IIFA) and Shariah standards issued by Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI), and presents these resolutions and judgments in a modern applicable way.

This paper recommends that the Islamic scheme for deposit insurance should be established based on Takaful insurance principle, and this scheme must adopt fund segregation principle to comply with Shariah provisions for guarantee permissibility.

The paper bridges the gap between theory and practice by highlighting how the proposed model can be initiated in practice, thus, it can influence public policy in countries with Islamic banking system.

This paper represents a significant contribution toward the establishment of a consensual Shariah-compliant Islamic deposit insurance model.

The construction industry activities play a key role in achieving socio-economic development and sustaining economic growth in many countries. Increased awareness about the role of human resource management in employee performance has led construction firms to evaluate and focus on high-performance work practices (HPWPs) components, which intend to cultivate employee and organizational performance. This study aims to explain HPWPs affect employee performances through the mediating influence of trust in management in Aqaba, Jordan.

A questionnaire survey was administered to collect data among the contractors Grade1 across Aqaba, Jordan. This research was designed as a quantitative study and data were collected at one point of time. In total, 311 questionnaires were returned and only 279 completed questionnaires to test the relationship between HPWPs and employee performances according to the ability, motivation and opportunity conceptualized framework. The partial least squares technique was adopted to test the proposed relationships.

The results present that extensive training, rewards based on performance and job security have a significant relationship with trust in management. Trust in management exerts partial mediation effects between HPWPs (extensive training, rewards based on performance and job security) and employee performance (creativity and innovation).

The findings of the study provide useful and original information to improve the overall performance of construction firms.

Storytelling has long been a popular strategy in marketing. Despite its ubiquity, the influence of storytelling in the sport marketing literature has not been investigated, especially on consumers' perspective. Thus, the purpose of this study is to (a) examine the effect of storytelling on sport consumers, and (b) explore the moderation effect of product involvement on the relationship between storytelling and purchase intention of a signature sneaker.

Two experiments using 3 (storytelling: bullet-point type vs. athlete-based story vs. product-based story) × 2 (product involvement: low vs. high) between-subjects experimental design were conducted.

The main finding illustrates that both the athlete-based story and the product-based story had a stronger influence on a consumer's purchase intention than the information that was given in a bullet-point condition. This study provides a theoretical implication of storytelling strategy for sport marketing literature. From a managerial perspective, the authors heavily recommend the use of storytelling in sport product advertisements.

Previous literature has highlighted the effect of storytelling in sports organization such as professional sports team or utilization in social media. However, limited studies could be found in the sports product industry and consumer behavior sector. Thus, the current study has a significant value of understanding the storytelling strategy in the perspective of sports consumers as well as brand marketers.

In line with the IFSB and BCBS methodology, the purpose of this study is to undertake a comparative analysis of dual banking systems for asset-liability management (ALM) practices with the duration gap, in Islamic Commercial Banks (ICBs) and Conventional Commercial Banks (CCBs). Based on the research objective, two research questions are developed: How do the duration gaps of ICBs compare with those of similar sized CCBs? Are there any country-specific and regional differences among ICBs in terms of managing their duration gaps?

The research methodology comprises two-stages: stage one uses a duration gap model to calculate the duration gaps of ICBs and CCBs; stage two applies parametric tests. In terms of the duration gap model, the study determines the duration gap with a four-step process. The study selected a sample of 100 banks (50 ICBs and 50 CCBs) from 13 countries for the period 2009-2015.

The paper provides empirical insights into the duration gap and ALM of ICBs and CCBs. The ICBs have more variations in their mean duration gap compared to the CCBs, and they have a tendency for a higher (more) mean duration gap (28.37 years) in comparison to the CCBs (11.79 years). The study found ICBs as having 2.41 times more duration gap compared to the CCBs, and they are exposed to increasing rate of return (ROR) risk due to their larger duration gaps and severe liquidity mismatches. There are significant regional differences in terms of the duration gap and asset-liability management.

Future studies also consider “Off-Balance Sheet” activities of the ICBs, with multi-term duration measures. A larger sample size of 100 ICBs with 10 years’ data after the GFC would be more beneficial to the industry. In addition, the impact of an increasing benchmark rate (e.g. 100, 200 and 300 bps) on the ICBs as per the IFSB 20 per cent threshold can also be established with the duration gap approach to identify the vulnerabilities of the ICBs.

The study makes profound contributions to the literature and suggests various policy recommendations for Islamic banks, regulators, and standard setters of the ICBs, for identifying and measuring the significance of the duration gaps; and management of the ROR risk under Pillar 2 of the BCBS and IFSB, for financial soundness and stability purposes.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is a pioneer study in Islamic banking involving a sample of 100 banks (50 ICBs and 50 CCBs) from 13 countries. The results of the study provide original empirical evidence regarding the estimation of duration gap, and variations across jurisdictions in terms of vulnerability of ICBs and CCBs in dual banking systems.