Search results

Understanding how to retain users of augmented reality (AR) shopping apps and to motivate them to purchase is vital to the success of AR apps. This study assessed the chain effect of AR attributes on purchase intention and reuse intention through cognitive and affective factors.

The data were collected from Thai users of the IKEA Place app using an online survey. A link to the survey was posted on Thai furniture groups on social media platforms. The 439 responses were analysed using the partial least squares (PLS) approach.

The results revealed that all four AR attributes, namely interactivity, vividness, novelty and spatial presence, significantly influence perceived enjoyment, perceived diagnosticity and perceived value. Brand attitude, as a key driver of purchase intention, is influenced by perceived value. Attitude towards the app significantly affects reuse intention and is affected by affective and cognitive factors.

The findings enable shopping app designers and marketers to successfully promote the brand, retain users and boost sales by effectively incorporating AR.

The study extends the literature on the impacts of AR apps on customer behaviours by including affective factors in addition to cognitive factors to explain why AR attributes influence customer attitudes and behaviours. Furthermore, the study demonstrates the serial causal paths from AR attributes to customer behaviours.

The purpose of this paper is to offer an accessible and interdisciplinary research strategy in organisational ethnography, called action ethnography, that acknowledges key concepts from action research and engaged and immersive ethnography. It aims to encourage methodological innovation and an impact turn in ethnographic practice.

A working definition of “action ethnography” is provided first. Then, to illustrate how an action ethnography can be designed by considering impact from the outset, the author draws on a study she is undertaking with a grassroots human rights monitoring group, based in England, and then discusses advantages and limitations to the approach.

The author suggests three main tenets to action ethnography that embrace synergies between action research and ethnography: researcher immersion, intervention leading to change and knowledge contributions that are useful to both practitioners and researchers.

This paper provides researchers who align with aspects of both action research and ethnography with an accessible research strategy to employ, and a better understanding of the interplay between the two approaches when justifying their research designs. It also offers an example of designing an action ethnography in practice.

Whereas “traditional” ethnography has emphasised a contribution to theoretical knowledge, less attention has been on a contribution to practice and to those who ethnographers engage with in the field. Action ethnography challenges researchers to consider the impact of their research from the outset during the research design, rather upon reflection after a study is completed.

The purpose of this study is to examine the underexplored link between entrepreneurship education (EE) and graduate employability in the higher education (HE) sector in the United Kingdom (UK).

The study draws on a thematic content analysis of semi-structured interviews with 45 professionals in UK HE, representing the “supply” side of EE.

The findings demonstrate a unidirectional link between EE and employability outcomes. This link is affected by societal, stakeholder-related, and teaching and learning-related factors.

Although the value of universities’ initiatives connecting EE and employability for economic development is emphasized, the study does not provide direct empirical evidence for this effect. Macroeconomic research is needed.

EE and employability would benefit from knowledge exchange between universities’ stakeholders and a broader understanding of what constitutes a valuable graduate outcome.

The study reveals the benefits of EE on a micro level. Participation in EE supports the connection between individual investments in HE and employability.

Based on human capital theory, many policymakers regard EE as a vehicle through which the relationship between investments in HE and career success on a micro level and economic growth on a macro level can be nurtured. Challenging this logic, the study highlights the potential of institutional theory to explain a contextualization of the link between EE and employability on a national level.

The COVID-19 pandemic provides researchers and practitioners with an opportunity to examine the effect of emergency policing on public trust in the police and augment our understanding. Therefore, the primary purpose of this study was to examine the effect of police enforcement of COVID-19 health measures on public trust in the police in Ghana.

A multivariate binary logistic regression was utilized to assess the effect of police enforcement of COVID-19 health measures on public trust in the police in Ghana using national representative data.

Our analysis suggests that emergency policing positively influences public trust in the police in Ghana. Additionally, we observed that police-related issues such as corruption and professionalism, as well as demographic factors of the public, influence trust in the police. These observations are helpful for emergency policing and policy development in Ghana.

This study is unique because it uses national representative data to assess the effect of police enforcement of COVID-19 health measures on public trust in the police in Ghana. Furthermore, this study is among the first or among the few from Ghana and the sub-region to examine the nexus between health emergencies and policing.

Using role stress theory, this study examines how work connectivity behavior (WCB) blurs the lines between employees' work and personal lives, thereby encouraging procrastination at work (PAW). The study also investigates the importance of role stress and remote work self-efficacy (RWSE) as mediating and moderating factors, respectively.

The study examines the direct and indirect relationships between WCB and PAW using hierarchical regression and data from 415 Chinese teleworkers. RWSE is also estimated as a second-stage moderator.

The findings indicate that WCB has a direct and indirect (via role stress) positive influence on PAW; however, these effects are weaker among employees with higher (vs lower) RWSE.

This study assists managers and organizations in developing more efficient ways of maximizing employee and organizational performance while minimizing the counterproductive behaviors associated with excessive technology use.

By investigating the links between WCB and PAW in the post-pandemic context, this study adds a new perspective on how excessive technology use for work and non-work purposes can be counterproductive.

This study aims to explore how females on committees (FOC) and committee ethnic diversity (CED) impact environmental, social and governance performance (ESGP).

This study examines 126 listed firms under the coverage of FTSE ESG Ratings in Bursa Malaysia between 2017 and 2019. This study applies partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to examine the hypotheses. While the risk of common method variance is minimised using multiple data sources for the analysis, instrumental variable-free approach, i.e. Gaussian copula method which is implemented in SmartPLS 4.0 has been used to address the potential endogeneity of the model.

Empirical evidence demonstrates significant positive direct relationships between FOC and ESGP, as well as CED and ESGP. The argument of resource dependence theory and positive empirical results on the two direct relationships hold firm despite several committees being aggregated as one construct with the aim of providing different insights into the literature.

This study provides implications for firm leadership to consider reviewing the composition of committees by increasing female representation while striking a balance in the appointment of committee members of different ethnicities to enhance firm ESGP.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study adopts a holistic approach by capturing, for the first time, the female representation of audit, nomination, remuneration and risk management committees. These dimensions are further developed into a single quantifiable variable, presented as FOC. Similarly, the ethnic diversity of the respective committees is aggregated and developed into a single quantifiable construct: the CED. Unlike most existing studies that commonly use econometric software, the application of PLS-SEM in this study contributes to the limited body of corporate governance and ESG studies that use PLS-SEM.

Damage to reinforced concrete (RC) structural elements is inevitable. Such damage can be the result of several factors, including aggressive environmental conditions, overloading, inadequate design, poor work execution, fire, storm, earthquakes etc. Therefore, repairing and strengthening is one way to improve damaged structures, so that they can be reutilized. In this research, the use of an ultra high-performance fibre-reinforced concrete (UHPFRC) layer is proposed as a strengthening material to rehabilitate damaged-RC beams. Different strengthening schemes pertaining to the structural performance of the retrofitted RC beams due to the flexural load were investigated.

A total of 13 normal RC beams were prepared. All the beams were subjected to a four-point flexural test. One beam was selected as the control beam and tested to failure, whereas the remaining beams were tested under a load of up to 50% of the ultimate load capacity of the control beam. The damaged beams were then strengthened using a UHPFRC layer with two different schemes; strip-shape and U-shape schemes, before all the beams were tested to failure.

Based on the test results, the control beam and all strengthened beams failed in the flexural mode. Compared to the control beam, the damaged-RC beams strengthened using the strip-shape scheme provided an increase in the ultimate load capacity ranging from 14.50% to 43.48% (or an increase of 1.1450 to 1.4348 times), whereas for the U-shape scheme beams ranged from 48.70% to 149.37% (or an increase of 1.4870–2.4937 times). The U-shape scheme was more effective in rehabilitating the damaged-RC beams. The UHPFRC mixtures are workable, as well easy to place and cast into the formworks. Furthermore, the damaged-RC beams strengthened using strip-shape scheme and U-shape scheme generated ductility factors of greater than 4 and 3, respectively. According to Eurocode8, these values are suitable for seismically active regions. Therefore, the strengthened damaged-RC beams under this study can quite feasibly be used in such regions.

Observations of crack patterns were not accompanied by measurements of crack widths due to the unavailability of a microcrack meter in the laboratory. The cost of the strengthening system application were not evaluated in this study, so the users should consider wisely related to the application of this method on the constructions.

Rehabilitation of the damaged-RC beams exhibited an adequate structural performance, where all strengthened RC beams fail in the flexural mode, as well as having increment in the failure load capacity and ductility. So, the used strengthening system in this study can be applied for the building construction in the seismic regions.

Aside from equipment, application of this strengthening system need also the labours.

The use of sand blasting on the surfaces of the damaged-RC beams, as well as the application of UHPFRC layers of different thicknesses and shapes to strengthen the damaged-RC beams, provides a novel innovation in the strengthening of damaged-RC beams, which can be applicable to either bridge or building constructions.

This paper aims to synthesize the diverse literature on nomination and remuneration committees and provide avenues for future research.

This study provides a comprehensive literature review of theoretical and empirical studies published in reputable international journals indexed by Scopus.

The literature review reveals several aspects of the nomination and remuneration committee. These aspects have been classified into the definition of the nomination and remuneration committee, dimensions of the nomination and remuneration committee, measurement and research review results, reasons for conflict empirical findings, company dynamics and research on moderators, as well as recommending future research.

Our literature review shows that nomination and remuneration committees play a role in improving board performance and company performance, reducing agency conflicts and improving corporate governance to provide implications for companies, regulators and investors and pave the way for future research.

This paper identifies issues related to nomination and remuneration committees, their theoretical and practical implications and avenues for future research.

Effective customer journey design (ECJD) is considered a key variable in customer experience management and an essential source of brand meaning and pro-brand behavior. Although previous research has confirmed its importance for driving brand attitudes and loyalty, the role of consumer-brand identification as a social identity-based influence in this relationship has not yet been discussed. Drawing on construal level and social identity theories, this paper aims to investigate whether effective journeys and the resulting overall journey experience are equally powerful in driving brand loyalty among customers with different levels of consumer-brand identification.

The present article develops and tests a research model using data from the European and US service sectors (N = 1,454) to investigate how and when ECJD affects service brand loyalty.

Across two cultural contexts, four service industries and 33 service brands, the results reveal that ECJD is a crucial driver of service brand loyalty for customers with low consumer-brand identification. Moreover, the findings show that different aspects of journey effectiveness positively impact the valence of customers’ experience related to those journeys – a process that is ultimately decisive for their brand loyalty.

This study is unique because it generates theoretical and practical knowledge by combining the literature streams of customer journey design, customer experience and branding. Furthermore, this work demonstrates that consumer-brand identification is a critical boundary condition to be considered in the relationship between ECJD and brand loyalty in services.

The purpose of this study is to compare market reactions to the change in the demand by index funds between large and small company stocks by examining the transition of the S&P 500, S&P 400 MidCap and S&P 600 SmallCap indexes from market capitalization to free-float weighting. This unique information-free event allows not only avoiding confounding information signaling and investor awareness effects but also comparing the effect of the decrease in demand on stocks of different sizes.

This study uses the event study methodology to calculate abnormal returns and trading volume around the full-float adjustment day. It also tests for significant changes in institutional ownership and liquidity. Multivariate regressions are used to examine the relation of liquidity changes and price elasticity of demand to the cumulative abnormal returns around the full-float adjustment day.

This study finds significant decreases in stock price accompanied with significant increases in trading volume on the full-float adjustment day, and significant gains in quasi-indexer institutional ownership and liquidity. The main finding is that cumulative abnormal returns around the event period are related to changes in the number of quasi-indexer and transient institutional shareholders, not to changes in liquidity or price elasticity of demand.

This study provides the first comprehensive comparison analysis of stock market reactions to the decline in demand between large and small company stocks. As an important implication for future studies of the index effect, changes in institutional ownership should be considered in the analysis.