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The real estate industry has rapidly changed due to technological advances across residential and commercial real estate from the perspective of occupiers, investors, and service providers. Owners and buyers of properties have access to increasing information in the marketplace, including access to residential real estate platforms such as Zillow. Automated appraisals and artificial intelligence (AI) in the mortgage application process speed up home buying. Commercial real estate uses fintech to source deals, perform due diligence, and execute property management requests. This chapter includes a practitioner's view of the current and future information data needs, processes, and point solutions in the evolving technology landscape, including how tools such as ChatGPT apply. It concludes that the real estate fintech revolution has only begun, as data gaps in the real estate market require resolution before yielding better process automation and as the business model of real estate service providers shifts to strategic advisory roles.

The various factors influencing audit fees are still unclear, which may undermine the possibility of attaining fair audit pricing. Against this concern, this study aims to investigate the relationship between the auditee’s corporate characteristics and audit fees. In addition, it reveals if accounting comparability, as a proxy for financial reporting quality, mediates such a relationship by bringing evidence from an emerging market.

This study depends on data from nonfinancial companies listed on the Egyptian stock exchange from 2016 to 2019. It adopts multiple regression models to test the impact of corporate characteristics and accounting comparability on audit fees and uses path analysis to test the indirect effect of the audit clients’ characteristics on audit fees through accounting comparability.

The authors found a significant positive (negative) effect of firm profitability on audit fees (accounting comparability). Further, accounting comparability has a significant negative effect on audit fees. The authors also found that accounting comparability partially mediates the significant relationship between profitability and audit fees. However, the authors found no significant association between leverage and audit fees. Finally, the authors found that accounting comparability does not mediate the relationship between leverage and audit fees.

This study’s findings can benefit audit practitioners in Egypt by showing the main factors affecting audit fees, especially audit clients’ attributes. The current findings also guide professional bodies responsible for issuing accounting and audit standards regarding the importance of financial reporting quality for audit pricing decisions.

This study contributes to the literature by examining the mediating effect of accounting comparability concerning the corporate characteristics-audit fees relationship in developing African countries such as Egypt. This study’s findings can benefit audit practitioners in Egypt by showing the main factors affecting audit fees, especially audit clients’ attributes. The current findings also guide professional bodies responsible for issuing accounting and audit standards regarding the importance of financial reporting quality for audit pricing decisions.

Innovation in financing processes, enabled by the advent of new technologies, has supported the development of alternative finance funding tools. In this context, the study analyses the growing importance of alternative finance instruments (such as equity crowdfunding, peer-to-peer (P2P) lending, venture capital, and others) in addressing the small and medioum enterprises' (SMEs) financing needs beyond traditional bank and market-based funding channels. By providing more flexible terms and faster approval times, these instruments are gradually reshaping the traditional bank-firm relationship.

To comprehensively understand this innovation shift in funding processes, the study employs a novel approach that merges three MCDA methods: Spherical Fuzzy Entropy, ARAS and TOPSIS. These methodologies allow for handling ambiguity and subjectivity in financial decision-making processes, examining the effects of multiple criteria, including interest rate, flexibility, accessibility, support, riskiness, and approval time, on the appeal of various financial alternatives.

The study’s results have significant theoretical and practical implications, supporting SMEs in carefully evaluate financing alternatives and enables banks to better identify the main “competitors” according to the “financial need” of the firm. Moreover, the rise of alternative finance, notably P2P lending, indicates a shift towards more efficient capital access, suggesting banks must innovate their funding channels to remain competitive, especially in offering flexible solutions for restructuring and high-risk scenarios.

The study advises top management that SMEs prefer traditional loans for their reliability and accessibility, necessitating banks to enhance transparency, innovate, and adopt digital solutions to meet evolving financing needs and improve customer satisfaction.

The study introduces a novel integration of Spherical Fuzzy TOPSIS, Entropy, and ARAS methodologies to face the complexities of financial decision-making for SME financing, addressing ambiguity and multiple criteria like interest rates, flexibility, and riskiness. It emphasizes the importance of traditional loans, the rising significance of alternative financing such as P2P lending, and the necessity for banks to innovate, thereby enriching the literature on bank-firm relationships and SME funding strategies.

Free gifts have become a commonly used marketing strategy. Nevertheless, whether free gifts can and how this strategy promotes the surplus food purchase intention remain a debated topic. This paper attempts to evaluate the effectiveness of offering free gifts (target and non-target products) in enhancing the purchase intention associated with surplus food.

Categorically, Studies 1 to 4 were performed to analyze the impact of the free gift on the surplus food purchase intention, explore the mediating role of perceived quality uncertainty and examine the moderating role of blind-box design and mental simulation.

The study findings indicate that the provision of non-target products as a free gift exerts a more pronounced influence on surplus food purchase intention as compared to offering a target product as a free gift. Evidently, perceived quality uncertainty serves as a mediating role, whereas blind-box design and mental simulation are identified as moderators in this process.

This paper compares the influences of various types of free gifts, namely target and non-target products, on surplus food purchase intention through perceived quality uncertainty, thereby enhancing the existing comprehension of free gifts and surplus food purchase intention. In addition, this article extends the boundary conditions of free gifts by investigating the moderating influence of blind-box design and mental simulation.

Joint advertising is an emerging strategy where marketers promote both brands in the same marketing communication. This research determines how the domestic, foreign, or global nature of the partner impacts important brand-related outcomes and identifies underlying psychological process mechanisms and contextual variables that affect this relationship.

Across three experiments, we investigate how the type of joint advertising partner impacts consumer attitudes and behaviors. We establish the number of similarities between the partners and perceived cognitive fit as the mediating process mechanisms underlying this relationship, with holistic processing moderating the effect.

We find that when consumers are exposed to joint advertisements between domestic or global [foreign] brands, they will be able to generate more [fewer] similarities between the partners and perceive a stronger [weaker] cognitive fit. Moreover, these similarities interact with consumer cultural traits related to holistic processing style to differentially influence perceived cognitive fit and downstream consumer attitudes and behaviors.

Partnering for mutually beneficial, joint advertisements is a growing phenomenon that redefines traditional thinking about advertising, but the success of the joint advertisement is contingent upon the characteristics and compatibility of the partners.

In this vein, this paper aims to provide empirical evidence on the following questions: Which expansion strategies offer better operational and economic performance? What effects does performance-related diversification have? How do other factors such as size, quality, service offered, location or seasonality interact with performance.

In this paper, the analysis of the effects of growth strategies and hotel attributes on performance is carried out with a sample of 255 hotels that operate internationally. Using panel data and quantile regression, this study evaluates the effect of expansion and diversification on the hotels’ performance.

From these findings, it appears that the equity strategy (own hotels) outperforms non-equity strategies (hotels under rental, franchise and management contract) at the operational level. However, the economic return of the property, both adjusted and unadjusted to risk, is lower under the property ownership strategy than under the franchise and management strategies because, in general, it requires a higher investment. Regarding diversification, the growth strategy based on related diversification in food and beverage services has a negative impact on performance, calling into question the synergies between the two businesses. However, an exception to this effect is seen among those hotels, mainly those in the Caribbean, that opt to provide all-inclusive services, since these hotels achieve better occupancy rates and more stable results.

This study has not taken into account the effect of hotel property revaluation on the performance of the ownership strategy, as there is no information on the historical average revaluation at the level of each individual hotel. This study has also been unable to include information regarding the level of competition and seasonality of sales.

This paper considers a wide number of factors that can influence the performance of hotels. Second, this is the only paper that studies the impact of growth strategies from the point of view of the hotel chain. Also, the sample considered uses data at the individual level on hotels and this research analyses not only operational performance but also economic performance.

The study aimed to determine the impact rate of the COVID-19 pandemic on Vietnam’s commercial housing demand as compared to other factors and proposes several policies to increase housing demand as a result of the pandemic.

The study randomly investigated 400 homebuyers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The structural equation model, SPSS20.0 and AMOS24.0 software were used to determine the impact of factor groups on housing demand.

The COVID-19 pandemic has a second impact after housing prices on commercial housing demand, followed by 10 other factors. The impact rates of factors range from 3.45% to 15.74%.

The study has only determined the extent of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on housing demand in Hanoi city, so it is necessary to continue to study this issue in other provinces and cities of Vietnam. The proposed research method would be consulted when it is necessary to determine the factors affecting housing demand in other countries around the world.

The study proposes some implications related to commercial housing demand in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic such as fighting the epidemic, supporting housing investors; reducing loan interest rates; increasing the time to pay for housing; supporting enterprises to stabilize production; strengthening real estate brokerage and carrying out administrative procedures online.

Investors and the State can use the implications to make the right housing decisions to provide housing for people and maintain social stability.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper presents for the first time a method to determine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on commercial housing demand in Vietnam. The paper also points out some specific factors affecting commercial housing demand that are different from those shown in previous research.

The paper has a twofold purpose: (1) to test the application of means-end theory to providers of hospitality goods and services, and (2) to explore this question in the context of winery tasting rooms when they had a unique opportunity to restructure their hospitality experience due to government restrictions in response to COVID.

A qualitative approach was adopted, and a convenience sample was used to conduct semi-structured laddering interviews. Forty interview transcripts were coded as means-end ladders, which were analyzed using a custom computer program to develop the implication matrix and the hierarchical value map.

This paper demonstrates that means-end is a useful approach to investigate the values and behaviors of the producer, specifically hospitality hosts. It finds that the principal goal of tasting rooms is to generate sales, and offering a compelling guest experience is the characteristic that contributes the most to achieving that goal. The staff and the atmosphere created for the guests are the two factors with the greatest influence on the guest experience.

This is the first paper to use means-end theory to study the hospitality host, or the producer of goods and services in general, and the first to study winery hospitality primarily through the lens of means-end theory. The study also helps fill a gap in research on tasting room sales focused on the winery’s goals.

This study aims to analyze the risk profile of banks whose managers sit on Federal Reserve district bank boards in 2023. In particular, to analyze the impact tha Federal Reserve bank directors have on their own banks.

Use a matched sample approach to perform univariate analysis and multiple regression methodology to study whether banks whose managers sit on Federal Reserve Bank boards differ in risk profile from banks whose managers do not sit on Federal Reserve district boards.

There is limited evidence that banks managed by Fed directors have different capital ratios and leverage ratios relative to non-Fed director banks. There does appear to be a slight difference in the growth of Held-to-Maturity (HTM) Securities between the two samples. Specifically, banks managed by a Fed director saw their HTM portfolio grow over the study period, while banks managed by non-Fed directors reduced their HTM securities. Overall, the results suggest that bank directors on Federal Reserve district boards do so with no apparent detriment to the banks that they manage.

Results of this study suggest that stakeholder director relationships are not associated with higher risk-taking at director banks. This study is unique in that, rather than looking at how director ties might influence the firm that they are on the board of, the focus here is how the firm (the Fed district, in this case) might influence director affiliations. Limitations include a small sample size (70 banks, including the matched sample), and data over a short time horizon. Additional measures of risk can also be analyzed in future research.

While there has been much speculation in the industry and in the press regarding the conflict of interest involving bank directors on Fed district boards, this research suggests there is little evidence of any risk differential involving these directors and their specialties to the Fed.

This study involves a unique approach to corporate governance analysis, whereby any conflict of interest that might exist between directors and the firm is studied from an alternate angle – in particular, whether the association with a regulator’s board impacts the director firm’s risk. Furthermore, with the recent events in the banking industry involving the collapse of several banks, including Silicon Valley, the notion that bank management participating on the boards of directors of their own regulator seemed a worthwhile question as to whether this diminished the safety and soundness of the banks that they run.