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The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of consumers’ moral preferences between moral and economic benefits and consumers’ moral and rational behaviour intentions based on moral decision-making models of previous studies.

Respondents were asked to answer a questionnaire measuring moral and economic benefits, consumers’ moral preferences and moral and rational behaviour intention after reading a stimulus describing imaginary fashion brand A’s unethical activities.

Moral and economic benefits directly and significantly affect moral and rational behaviour intention. Homo economicus evoked by an economic benefit had a negative effect on moral behaviour intention.

This study focused only on a moral benefit and an economic benefit as factors evoking consumers’ moral preferences. This study was also conducted only in a Korean context and considered a specific industry. In future research, the results of this study should be extended to design the “possibility of punishment” to encourage moral behaviour by discouraging the effect of homo economicus. The results have implications for companies such as social enterprises and charities that want to promote consumers’ moral behaviour.

This study provides evidence on why ethical consumers do not always make ethical decisions by confirming that homo economicus has a significant influence on not only rational behaviour intention but also moral behaviour intention.

This study aims to assess the effect of job insecurity, customer incivility and work–life imbalance on Lebanese bank employee workplace well-being (EWW), while investigating the moderating role that positive and negative affect might have.

Quantitative data was collected from 202 respondents and analyzed using structural equation modeling system through IBM SPSS and AMOS.

Results revealed that each of the independent variables has a negative, statistically significant effect on Lebanese bank EWW. The positive affect and the negative one are shown to have a moderating effect that lessens and boosts, respectively, these negative effects.

The study adds to the literature on EWW while highlighting the high-power distance and collectivist society that the research took place in.

Limitations include the sample size that was hoped to be larger, in addition to the self-reporting issue and what it entails in the data collection process.

The study has many practical implications, including the validation of a questionnaire in a developing Arab country, hence providing a reliable tool for researchers. HR specialists should lean toward applicants with positive affect, ensuring that their workplace is occupied by members with enhanced resilience. Furthermore, employers should support their employees’ professional growth, thus, boosting their employability during turmoil and consequently making them less vulnerable in times of economic recession.

The study’s unique context, depicted in the harsh economic and financial crisis, makes the findings on EWW of a high value.

Natural disasters profoundly influence agricultural trade sustainability. This study investigates the effects of natural disasters on agricultural production imports in China within 2002 and 2018. This exploration estimates the mediating role of transportation infrastructure and agriculture value-added and the moderating role of government effectiveness and diplomatic relations.

This investigation uses Probit, Logit, Cloglog and Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) models.

The results confirm the mediating role of transportation infrastructure and agriculture value-added and the moderating role of government effectiveness and diplomatic relations in China. According to the findings, natural disasters in trading partners heighten the risk to the agricultural imports. This risk raises, if disasters damage overall agricultural yield or transportation infrastructure. Moreover, governments’ effective response or diplomatic ties with China mitigate the risk. Finally, the effect of disasters varies by the developmental status of the country involved, with events in developed nations posing a greater risk to China’s imports than those in developing nations.

China should devise an early warning system to protect its agricultural imports by using advanced technologies such as data analytics, remote sensing and artificial intelligence. In addition, it can leverage this system by improving its collaboration with trading partners, involvement in international forums and agreement for mutual support in crisis.

This study aims to examine the influence of social media usage (SMU) on minimalist consumption and how the fear of missing out (FoMO) underlies this effect.

Four preregistered correlational/experimental studies (n = 1,763) are used. A pilot study (n = 436) examines the correlations between SMU, FoMO and minimalism. Studies 1 (n = 409), 2 (n = 415) and 3 (n = 503) further investigate the influence of SMU on minimalist consumption intentions, including mindful purchase, forgoing free products and decluttering, and test for evidence of mediation via FoMO by measuring or manipulating FoMO.

The results show that a high SMU makes consumers susceptible to FoMO, leading to impulsive purchases and careless product acquisition. However, when campaigners promote minimalism as a social media movement, they can activate FoMO, persuading consumers to practice decluttering.

Future research might examine how subjective age affects FoMO and minimalist consumption tendencies. Could campaigners use young social cues to make older consumers more susceptible to FoMO appeals? Could old social cues cause younger consumers to perceive greater social responsibility and to embrace minimalist consumption?

Minimalist lifestyles can promote sustainable consumption. This research provides insights into how SMU is a double-edged sword – it can cause FoMO users to disdain minimalism. However, it can promote minimalism if a minimalist campaign is strategically positioned as a social media movement using a FoMO-laden appeal.

Extant consumer behavior research on minimalism has just begun to investigate the antecedents of minimalist consumption. FoMO is conceptually related to minimalism, but the relationship between FoMO and minimalist consumption has not yet been empirically tested. This research fills these gaps by examining SMU and the associated FoMO as antecedents of minimalist consumption. Empirical evidence for the impact of SMU on various minimalist consumption behaviors and the mediating role of FoMO is provided.

In recent years, there has been significant interest in adopting XR (extended reality) technologies such as VR (virtual reality) and AR (augmented reality), particularly in retail. However, extending activities through reality-mediation is still mostly believed to offer an inferior experience due to their shortcomings in usability, wearability, graphical fidelity, etc. This study aims to address the research gap by experimentally examining the acceptance of metaverse shopping.

This study conducts a 2 (VR: with vs. without) × 2 (AR: with vs. without) between-subjects laboratory experiment involving 157 participants in simulated daily shopping environments. This study builds a physical brick-and-mortar store at the campus and stocked it with approximately 600 products with accompanying product information and pricing. The XR devices and a 3D laser scanner were used in constructing the three XR shopping conditions.

Results indicate that XR can offer an experience comparable to, or even surpassing, traditional shopping in terms of its instrumental and hedonic aspects, regardless of a slightly reduced perception of usability. AR negatively affected perceived ease of use, while VR significantly increased perceived enjoyment. It is surprising that the lower perceived ease of use appeared to be disconnected from the attitude toward metaverse shopping.

This study provides important experimental evidence on the acceptance of XR shopping, and the finding that low perceived ease of use may not always be detrimental adds to the theory of technology adoption as a whole. Additionally, it provides an important reference point for future randomized controlled studies exploring the effects of technology on adoption.

This chapter provides an overview on the traditions and values of teaching students with traumatic brain injury (TBI). First, we discuss the prevalence, identification, and characteristics associated with TBI and how those characteristics affect learning, behavior, and daily life functioning. Next, we focus on instructional and behavioral interventions used in maintaining the traditions in classrooms for working with students with TBI. Findings from a review of the literature conclude that there are no specific academic curriculums designed specifically for teaching students with TBI; however, direct instruction and strategy instruction have been shown to be effective educational interventions. Current research on students with TBI is predominately being conducted in medical centers and clinics focusing on area of impairments (e.g., memory, attention, processing speed) rather than academic achievement and classroom interventions. Finally, we conclude with a list of accommodations and a discussion of recommendations for future work in teaching students with TBI.

One of the most marginalized communities in India is the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community which commonly experiences discrimination. Many studies have countered that the LGBT community faces high discrimination in the banking and financing industry. As a result, this study concentrates on this marginalized community and its acceptance and continuation habit regarding mobile wallets. Consequently, this study has considered continuance intentions as a response to confirm the progress of the mobile-wallet industry. Also, this study tried to study the relationship between behavioral intention (BI) and continuous intention (CI) which is seriously lacks in the library of literature. The research operationalized the stimulus–organism–response (SOR) framework for the conceptual model and surveyed 100 self-proclaimed members of the LGBT community in India. The analysis has been done using the partial least structure (PLS). The findings demonstrate that variables like perceived trust (PT) directly influence the BI. On the other hand, variables like perceived ease of use (PEoU), social influence (SI), and satisfaction (S) doesn’t influence BI of the LGBT Community. The main outcome was a favorable association between BI and CI. It will help the stakeholders to understand how important this new market avenue is and how it can be explored. To ensure safe and secure transactions, a group think tank composed of important parties (financial institutions, mobile-wallet providers, the government, security specialists, etc.) should make recommendations. Mobile-wallet providers will attain benefit from this study’s understanding of user categories and ability to tailor their service offers as per the community.

Racism occurs in many ways and varies across countries, evolving and adapting to sociocultural history, as well as contemporary economic, political and technological changes. This chapter discusses the multilevel dimensions of racism and its diverse manifestations across multiracial societies. It examines how different aspects of racism are mediated interpersonally, and embedded in institutions, social structures and processes, that produce and sustain racial inequities in power, resources and lived experiences. Furthermore, this chapter explores the direct and indirect ways racism is expressed in online and offline platforms and details its impacts on various groups based on their intersecting social and cultural identities. Targets of racism are those who primarily bear the adverse effects. However, racism also affects its perpetrators in many ways, including by limiting their social relations and attachments, and by imposing social and economic costs. This chapter thus analyses the many aspects of racism both from targets and perpetrators' perspectives.

This research paper aimed to investigate the affordances of using virtual reality (VR) in teaching culture among in-service teachers of teaching Persian to speakers of other languages (TPSOL) in Iran.

This qualitative case study, conducted at two Iranian universities, used purposeful sampling to select 34 eligible in-service Persian teachers from a pool of 73. Data collection used an open-ended questionnaire and interviews.

Before the TPSOL in-service training workshop, teachers expressed their reservations regarding the use of VR to teach culture in TPSOL courses. The emerged themes were “skepticism toward effectiveness,” “practicality concerns,” “limited awareness of VR applications,” “technological apprehension” and “prevalence of traditional teaching paradigms.” During the post-workshop interview, it was discovered that the teachers’ perceptions of VR in teaching culture had undergone a positive shift. The workshop generated emergent themes that reflected positive perceptions and affordances for using VR to teach culture in TPSOL, including “enhanced cultural immersion,” “increased student engagement,” “simulation of authentic cultural experiences,” and “facilitation of interactive learning environments.”

One primary limitation is the lack of prior experience with VR for teaching practices in real-world classrooms among the participants. While the study aimed to explore the potential of VR in enhancing pedagogical approaches, the absence of participants with prior exposure to VR in educational contexts may impact the generalizability of the findings to a broader population. Additionally, the study faced practical constraints, such as the unavailability of sufficient facilities in the workshop. As a result, the instructor had to project the VR cont7ent on a monitor, potentially diverging from the immersive nature of true VR experiences. These limitations offer opportunities for future research to refine methodologies and gain a more comprehensive understanding of the implications of integrating VR into teaching practices.

Extensive research has been conducted on the effectiveness of VR in language education. However, there is a significant gap in research on TPSOL, which is considered a less commonly taught language. This study aims to address this gap by exploring the use of VR in the TPSOL through the lenses of in-service teachers. As part of a larger investigation, this qualitative inquiry focuses on the perceptions of in-service teachers about VR, with a particular emphasis on the cultural understanding of the Persian language.