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European Parliament adopted a new directive on gender balance in corporate boards when by 2026, companies must employ 40% of the underrepresented sex into non-executive directors or 33% among all directors. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the impact of gender diversity (GD) on board of directors and the shareholders’ structure and their impact on the likelihood of company bankruptcy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The data sample consists of 1,351 companies for 2019 and 2020, of which 173 were large, 351 medium-sized companies and 827 small companies. Three bankruptcy indicators were tested for each company size, and extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) and logistic regression models were developed. These models were then cross-validated by a 10-fold approach.

XGBoost models achieved area under curve (AUC) over 98%, which is 25% higher than AUC achieved by logistic regression. Prediction models with GD features performed slightly better than those without them. Furthermore, this study indicates the existence of critical mass between 30% and 50%, which decreases the probability of bankruptcy for small and medium companies. Furthermore, the representation of women in ownership structures above 50% decreases bankruptcy likelihood.

This is a pioneering study to explore GD topics by application of ensembled machine learning methods. Moreover, the study does analyze not only the GD of boards but also shareholders. A highly innovative approach is GD analysis based on company size performed in one study considering the COVID-19 pandemic perspective.

This study aims to identify an automated machine learning algorithm with high accuracy that sport practitioners can use to identify the specific factors for predicting Major League Baseball (MLB) attendance. Furthermore, by predicting spectators for each league (American League and National League) and division in MLB, the authors will identify the specific factors that increase accuracy, discuss them and provide implications for marketing strategies for academics and practitioners in sport.

This study used six years of daily MLB game data (2014–2019). All data were collected as predictors, such as game performance, weather and unemployment rate. Also, the attendance rate was obtained as an observation variable. The Random Forest, Lasso regression models and XGBoost were used to build the prediction model, and the analysis was conducted using Python 3.7.

The RMSE value was 0.14, and the R2 was 0.62 as a consequence of fine-tuning the tuning parameters of the XGBoost model, which had the best performance in forecasting the attendance rate. The most influential variables in the model are “Rank” of 0.247 and “Day of the week”, “Home team” and “Day/Night game” were shown as influential variables in order. The result was shown that the “Unemployment rate”, as a macroeconomic factor, has a value of 0.06 and weather factors were a total value of 0.147.

This research highlights unemployment rate as a determinant affecting MLB game attendance rates. Beyond contextual elements such as climate, the findings of this study underscore the significance of economic factors, particularly unemployment rates, necessitating further investigation into these factors to gain a more comprehensive understanding of game attendance.

The Chinese housing market has witnessed rapid growth during the past decade and the significance of housing price forecasting has undoubtedly elevated, becoming an important issue to investors and policymakers. This study aims to examine neural networks (NNs) for office property price index forecasting from 10 major Chinese cities for July 2005–April 2021.

The authors aim at building simple and accurate NNs to contribute to pure technical forecasts of the Chinese office property market. To facilitate the analysis, the authors explore different model settings over algorithms, delays, hidden neurons and data-spitting ratios.

The authors reach a simple NN with three delays and three hidden neurons, which leads to stable performance of about 1.45% average relative root mean square error across the 10 cities for the training, validation and testing phases.

The results could be used on a standalone basis or combined with fundamental forecasts to form perspectives of office property price trends and conduct policy analysis.

The person who works in an office starts his or her day with a choice of attire. The way they look in the office depends on the decisions they make on their clothes. This study aims to identify the challenges faced by employees in the management positions in the Sri Lankan apparel industry who regularly come into contact with customers when they have to decide upon the most appropriate work attire for the position they are occupying in their organization.

Collection of data was primarily achieved through a well-structured questionnaire containing a mixture of open- and closed-ended questions. Targeted employees were managers, designers and merchandisers belonging to Generation Y whose total number was sufficient to obtain 50 feedbacks. Six more interviews were conducted with the intention of finding out more about this matter.

The majority of employees in the management positions in the Sri Lankan apparel industry who have regular contact with customers prefer to dress in “smart casual attire”, which means semi-formal clothes. Lack of availability of certain varieties of business attire in Sri Lanka proved to be a major challenge for some employees. Overpriced clothing, less comfortable clothing and lack of the right fabrics and designs were also challenges. These findings highlight the importance of manufacturing a wider variety of business attire using moderately priced but comfortable fabrics to make affordable and good quality products. There is a need to have a persuasive merchandising method to achieve good sales and provide a pleasant shopping experience to the customers.

Sri Lankan workwear retailers as well as apparel designers can benefit from the findings of this research as there is no evidence of any other studies on this subject. Therefore, this will help them to fill the market gap for business attire by addressing these challenges.

This paper aims to investigate how and when visual referents in brand visual aesthetics (i.e. colours, shapes, patterns and materials) serve as design applications that enable consumer diasporic identity.

This paper uses an innovative methodology that triangulates 58 in-depth interviews with diasporic consumers, 9 interviews with brand managers and designers and a visual analysis of brands (food retailer, spices and nuts, skincare, hair and cosmetics, ice cream and wine) to provide a view of the phenomenon from multiple perspectives.

This study illustrates how and when particular applications and compositions of product and design referents support diasporic identity for Middle Eastern consumers living outside the Middle East. Specifically, it illustrates how the design applications of harmonising (applying separate ancestral homeland and culture of living product and design referents simultaneously), homaging (departing from the culture of living product and design referents with a subtle tribute to ancestral homeland culture) and heritaging (departing from the ancestral homeland culture product and design referents with slight updates to a culture of living style) can enable diasporic identity in particular social situations.

Although applied to the Middle Eastern diaspora, this research opens up interesting avenues for future research that assesses diasporic consumers’ responses to brands seeking to use visual design to engage with this market. Moreover, future research should explore these design applications in relation to issues of cultural appreciation and appropriation.

The hybrid design compositions identified in this study can provide brand managers with practical tools for navigating the design process when targeting a diasporic segment. The design applications and their consequences are discussed while visually demonstrating how they can be crafted.

While previous research mainly focused on how consumption from the ancestral homeland occurred, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine how hybrid design compositions that combine a diaspora’s ancestral homeland culture and their culture of living simultaneously and to varying degrees resonate with diasporic consumers.

This study aims to examine the linkages between digitalisation, public service delivery and corruption in Ghana using survey data from 121 respondents in Ghana. The authors also examine the mediating role public service delivery offers on corruption.

This study relied on the capability theory as its theoretical lens and partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) as the data analysis technique.

Results from the PLS-SEM analysis show that public service delivery significantly reduces corruption, whilst digitalisation does not. However, public service delivery significantly mediated the relationship between digitalisation and corruption.

This study’s limitation is that the data was collected from Ghana only. To enhance the generalisability of findings, future research could collect data from multiple countries. In addition, the study did not factor in the moderating effects of demographic variables such as information and communication technology (ICT) literacy. Future research could consider these variables, given the low ICT literacy level of individuals in developing countries. Finally, future researchers could triangulate results with interviews and focus groups to provide more value to the identified questionnaire-based data.

The findings of this study highlight the need for digitalisation to be included in Ghana’s national policy objectives and service delivery objectives. It is essential for the government to ensure broader public engagement with stakeholders, including citizens, to ensure that digitalisation goals are achieved. The study’s results indicate that digitalisation does not significantly influence corruption. This calls for the government of Ghana to consider raising the level of human capital for the successful planning and deployment of e-services. This includes raising citizen ICT literacy and adopting cutting-edge technology to fully realize the benefits of online services. Developing capabilities, e-government leadership, and public sector employees as enablers of online public services should go hand-in-hand. It is also important to build connected capacities in the country and enhance access to information and technology, along with increasing digital infrastructure.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine and offer a dual perspective on the role of digitalisation on public service delivery and corruption whilst considering the mediating role public service delivery offers on corruption.

The purpose of this study is to propose an improved framework for managing Private Participation in Infrastructure ICT (PPI-ICT) projects in the context of developing countries as the requirements to manage them are different in several aspects.

The framework has been proposed based on an exhaustive literature review and statistical analysis of the PPI-ICT projects’ data set using logistic regression, F-test and student’s t-test. The proposed framework was also applied to the PPI-ICT projects.

The framework is an extension to NTCP (novelty, technology, complexity and pace) approach by including extrinsic factors such as income of the country, climate risk, religious diversity, political stability, regularity quality and control of corruption. The proposed framework was used to analyze project characteristics and their external conditions in the context of developing countries. Based on the analyses, the authors have presented a detailed set of recommendations for project managers, practitioners and governments to improve the success rate of these projects.

The major contribution of this study is the framework, which encompasses the NTCP model as well as extrinsic characteristics of PPI-ICT projects. The proposed framework is meant to assist the project managers to comprehend the project characteristics and its external environment to identify an adequate approach for managing projects successfully.

This study aims to examine decision factors for global sourcing, differentiated into transcontinental and continental sourcing to obtain insight into locational aspects of sourcing decisions and global trends. This study analyzed various country perceptions to reveal their influence on sourcing decisions. The country of origin (COO) theory explains why certain country perceptions and images influence purchasing experts in their selection of suppliers.

This study used a two-study approach. In Study 1, the authors conducted discrete choice card experiments with 71 purchasing experts located in Europe and the USA to examine the importance of essential decision factors for global sourcing. Given the clear evidence that location is a factor in sourcing decisions, in Study 2 the authors investigated purchasers’ perceptions and images of countries, adding country ranking experiments on various perceived characteristics such as quality, price and technology.

Study 1 provides evidence that the purchasers’ personal relationship with the supplier plays a decisive role in the supplier selection process. While product quality and location impact sourcing decisions, the attraction of the buying company and cultural barriers are less significant. Interestingly, however, these factors seem as important as price to respondents. This implies that a strong relationship with suppliers and good quality products are essential aspects of a reliable and robust supply chain in the post-COVID-19 era. Examining the locational aspect in detail, Study 2 linked the choice card experiments with country ranking experiments. In this study, the authors found that purchasing experts consider that transcontinental countries such as Japan and China offer significant advantages in terms of price and technology. China has enhanced its quality, which is recognizable in the country ranking experiments. Therefore, decisions on global sourcing are not just based on such high-impact factors as price and availability; country perceptions are also influential. Additionally, the significance of the locational aspect could be linked to certain country images of transcontinental suppliers, as the COO theory describes.

The new approach divides global sourcing into transcontinental and European sourcing to evaluate special decision factors and link these factors to the locational aspect of sourcing decisions. To deepen the clear evidence for the locational aspect and investigate the possible influence of country perceptions, the authors applied the COO theory. This approach enabled authors to show the strong influence of country perception on purchasing departments, which is represented by the locational effect. Hence, the success of transcontinental countries relies not only on factors such as their availability but also on the purchasers’ positive perceptions of these countries in terms of technology and price.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the beliefs and attitudes toward the use of information and communication technology (ICT). The study examines the challenges of implementing ICT-based training and provides insights for promoting the acceptance of online training in volunteer sports communities.

The study uses an action design research methodology that combines the implementation of ICT-based training, interviews, and a survey of 523 participants to examine the influence of online training on beliefs and attitudes.

The study shows that before the COVID-19 pandemic, soccer referees had negative beliefs about the use of ICT for learning. However, the experience of being forced to use ICT for training during the pandemic led to a positive shift in their beliefs about ICT.

The study offers four lessons learned for promoting the use of ICT-based training in voluntary sports. Future research should investigate the influence of blended learning approaches on affective, cognitive, and skill-based learning outcomes.

The study has practical implications for those responsible for implementing ICT-based training in voluntary sport. The findings suggest that design features such as usefulness, ease of use and enjoyment should be emphasized to increase the acceptance of online training.

The study contributes to the literature by providing insights into the challenges of implementing ICT-based training in voluntary sport contexts. The findings suggest that the experience of being forced to use ICT can promote the acceptance of online training in volunteer sports communities.