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This research aims to investigate the relationship between employer branding and its antecedent organisational culture within the context of the private banking sector. The study also investigates the relationship between employer branding and employee brand equity as a consequential construct. Additionally, the mediating role of trust and the moderating role of gender in the relationship between employer branding and employee brand equity has been examined.

The present study’s findings result from data analysis collected from a sample of 454 employees working in private banks in India. The data analysis was conducted utilising the structural equation modelling technique with the assistance of analysis of moment structures (AMOS) software.

The study’s findings indicate that supportive and bureaucratic (formal) culture in private banks exhibit a significant relationship with employer branding. However, the relationship between innovative culture and employer branding was found to be insignificant. The research also reveals a significant positive association between employer branding and employee brand equity variables: brand consistent behaviour, brand endorsement and brand allegiance. Further, the study highlights the mediating role of employee trust in management in the relationship between employer branding and employee brand equity. Examining demographic variables suggests that gender moderates the relationship between employer branding and employee brand equity.

The originality of this study lies in its exploration of the critical role of organisational culture variables in shaping employer branding within the context of private banks. The findings highlight that cultivating supportive and bureaucratic cultures can effectively enhance the employer branding of private banks. The study emphasises the outcomes of employer branding initiatives, signifying that they contribute to developing brand equity among employees. This leads to long-term employee commitment and advocacy towards the organisation, as employees become brand advocates for the bank with which they are affiliated. The study contributes to a better understanding of the relationship between organisational culture, employer branding and employee brand equity, providing valuable implications for the private banking sector aiming to reinforce their employer brand and increase employee engagement.

In the channel-mix era, the customer journey involves combining channels during all the stages of the decision-making process, such that creating and maintaining relationships with consumers poses a challenge to retailers. This work aims to explore what role brands play in this issue by analyzing what impact the perceived benefits of brand channel-mix have on consumer self–brand connection (SBC) and what their effect is in enduring consumer–brand relationships (i.e. future channel-mix use and word of mouth [WOM]). This paper also explores the moderating role of product involvement in these relations.

The authors carried out a personal questionnaire with a sample of 288 consumers who were recruited after leaving one of the stores of a clothing brand that is a successful example of distribution channel management.

Insofar as consumers perceive channel-mix benefits, SBC will be higher and (or as a result) their future intentions with the brand will be more intense. In addition, the results show that product involvement moderates the relationship between SBC and channel-mix use intention and WOM.

This work contributes to channel-mix, relationship marketing, brand and product involvement literature by analyzing how customers may be retained in the channel-mix era through brand management and by considering product category involvement. This study merges brand and product variables to explore their impact on relationship marketing within channel-mix behaviors.

This research analyzes the current knowledge regarding the use of maturity models (MMs) in SSCM, aiming to identify the main characteristics, trends and research gaps on the subject. Facing the growing interest in carrying out studies directed at sustainability, to the detriment of more prescient environmental and social impacts and the need to consolidate the concepts present in the literature regarding the SSCM, an absence of similar studies in the current literature was found. The authors have selected articles to compose a database that allows users to analyze and classify publications on MMs in SSCM, being those subdivided into 7 categories: focus, methodology, analyzed sector, sustainable practices, dimensions of sustainable development, type of MM and model/framework validation method.

To achieve this purpose, a literature systematization was conducted by searching publications using defined keywords in two databases and following a process of classification. The systematic process has five steps, from the selection of databases to the filtering of publications, review of information and analysis of the sample.

The topic under study is promising, with a few publications dealing with it, mainly in Brazil, and there is a trend to exploit more of the area in future research.

This research provides a detailed analysis of an emerging theme, divided into seven thematic categories. Results demonstrate that the topic is still underexplored, indicating an important research gap to be filled.

The global spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has largely transformed the higher education ecosystem and shifted the modes of delivery around the world. The rapid shift from traditional face-to-face teaching to online delivery was accompanied by a set of significant challenges. In Lebanon, the situation was exacerbated by a plethora of political, economic, and humanitarian crises. Even the most well-prepared Lebanese higher education institutions were facing an insurmountable challenge to maintain education quality under extremely strenuous circumstances and limited resources. The challenges included the absence of clear quality assurance mechanisms, problems associated with limited internet connectivity due to frequent electric power outages, the lack of teacher and student preparedness for online delivery, and the absence of online-ready curricula. Nevertheless, Lebanese universities were able to make the necessary adjustments for their students to complete their education using available resources and minimal training. The current chapter explores the challenges faced by private and public universities in Lebanon and the approaches utilized to overcome tremendous limitations. We discuss the lessons learned during the process of adopting online and hybrid classroom learning, and the opportunities for growth that were brought about by unforeseen circumstances. We also introduce the changes needed on the institutional, national, and regional levels to prepare for the post-pandemic era in higher education.

Drawing on appraisal theories, this paper aims to attempt to demonstrate how augmented reality (AR) strengthens relationships in the cognitive-affective-conative mechanism to shape visitors' recommendation of awe-inspiring heritage experiences.

A mixed-method approach was undertaken. First, an exploratory pre-study (n = 98) analyzed the multidimensionality of awe appraisals, eliciting the most salient dimensions in tourism experiences for informing the main study. Subsequently, an on-site survey was used to examine the relationships in the cognitive-affective-conative sequence, based on 316 questionnaires collected at a highly acclaimed religious heritage equipped with a multisensory AR activity.

Two distinct appraisals underlined in the awe concept were elicited during the exploratory phase: altered emotions (aggregating positive self-transformative dimensions) and the need for accommodation. The survey results demonstrated that the influence of authenticity on recommendation is shaped by emotions. Altered emotions hold a central mediating role and are differentiated from other discrete emotions. AR and the need for accommodation are revealed as contingencies that regulate the mediated mechanism.

This paper provides the hospitality and tourism stakeholders with a better understanding of how immersive technologies can be used for boosting recommendations, by enhancing the emotional responses toward authenticity perceptions.

This study introduces a novel conceptual framework to broaden our understanding of how cognitive and affective mental processes are linked to visitors’ recommendations, and how AR amplifies the outcomes. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the first research to distinguish and document the specific effects of two different types of awe appraisal.

This study aims to analyzed the development of open innovation research knowledge and its application in the tourism sector during the past 17 years, with the aim of understanding the scientific activity and impact of existing research. In addition, this research identifies trending thematic lines and provides recommendations for future research on this topic.

A bibliometric analysis was carried out from the Scopus database, in which 110 studies related to open innovation in tourism were identified. The analysis of the papers was done with the Bibliometrix and Vosviewer tools.

The results show that there is a recent and growing interest among academics, especially since 2017. Moreover, four main lines of work were identified: overtourism and sustainability, value cocreation, open innovation and competitive advantage and its impact on organizations belonging to the hotel sector and the relationship between external knowledge and internal sources in innovation management and open innovation performance.

The relationship with other stakeholders involved in the customer experience value creation in the tourism sector depends to a large extent on the joint offer that hotels, restaurants, tour operators and tourist offices, can provide in a tourist destination. Therefore, having external sources to innovate from will improve their innovative and organizational performance. However, there are no bibliometric analyses on the application of the open innovation paradigm in this sector. Thus, this research contributes to fill this gap, as well as to identify the most recurrent themes that show how open innovation is developing in tourism, providing academics and researchers with guidelines for future research.

The purpose of this study is to analyse the brand communication on social media (SM) made by two- and three-starred restaurants and the customer reaction in terms of engagement effects during a crisis. The research highlights the connections between brand communication and engagement dynamics on Instagram by looking for differences in the strategies of two and three-starred restaurants and by highlighting the changes in the background engagement drivers.

Using data collected from 5,666 Instagram posts by 34 Italian Michelin-starred restaurants, the authors analysed the crisis-driven changes in online communication and customer engagement comparing three phases of the COVID-19 pandemic by applying a linear regression model with fixed effects.

Michelin-starred restaurants changed their strategies of brand communication to overcome the effects of the crisis. The findings highlight the importance of SM as a tool to stay in touch with consumers and the pivotal role of customers in engagement, especially during a pandemic.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is among the first studies to investigate the changes in brand communication and the effects on customer engagement during a pandemic, with a focus on Instagram. It contributes to understanding the role of platform and the main drivers of engagement on Instagram, as well as suggesting how managers can improve brand value using SM.