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The purpose of this paper is to construct an index for systemic risk in China.

This paper develops a systemic risk index for China (SRIC) using textual information from 26 leading newspapers in China. Our index measures the systematic risk from 21 topics relating to China’s economy and provides narratives of the sources of systemic risk.

SRIC effectively predicts changes in GDP, aggregate financing to the real economy and the purchasing managers’ index. Moreover, SRIC explains several other commonly used macroeconomic indicators. Our risk measure provides a helpful monitoring tool for policymakers to manage systemic risk.

The paper construct an index of systemic risk based on the information extracted from newspaper articles. This approach is new to the literature.

This study aims to use emotions-as-social information theory to investigate how physical (customer perceived store atmosphere) and social servicescapes (customer information searching) influence the effects of employees’ positive affective displays on customer outcomes via customer positive moods and positive expectation disconfirmation.

This research included two studies, each using a distinct research design, to empirically test the proposed model. Study 1 involved 200 observational data points on objective purchase amounts from designer watch shops. In Study 2, data were collected from 230 customers in designer jewelry stores.

The results of path analyses revealed that: employee positive affective displays are positively associated with customer purchase outcomes; employee positive affective displays had positive indirect effects on customer purchase outcomes by enhancing customer positive moods and positive expectation disconfirmation; these positive indirect effects were strengthened when customers engaged in information search behaviors; and these positive indirect effects were attenuated when customers perceive store atmosphere as favorable, indicating a substitution effect of customer perceived store atmosphere.

Previous research has not thoroughly examined the role of the servicescape in moderating the effects of employees’ positive affective displays on customer purchase outcomes. This present study not only clarified the affective and cognitive mechanisms that link employees’ positive affective displays on purchase outcomes but also identified servicescape as a critical boundary condition of these effects.

This chapter discusses work-life interface (WLI) issues for migrant-citizen older British women of South Asian heritage living in the UK. It shows how WLI issues are inevitably entangled with the active ageing agenda for the older workforce and that we need further attention from scholars exploring these issues across life courses to appreciate and understand how ageing across locations, times and contexts unveils unique aspects of WLI. The chapter discussion rethinks some of the existing constructs of WLI and introduces new ones to its periphery, including people’s social identities and the spatio-temporal nature of those identities. Such a rethinking process is supported by critical empirical evidence on the lived experiences of a group of older ethnic minority British women living in Greater Manchester, UK, who juggled between work and caring throughout their lives, and abruptly quit paid work due to unmanageable overlapping demands. The evidence indicates how migrant women from the global south struggle to navigate UK WLI norms/culture and their meanings, especially when irreconcilable differences exist between the community/family norms and the social norms in the host country. The chapter findings have implications for the future of an inclusive labor market as it recommends early planning, provisioning and addressing ageing migrants’ WLI issues to draw sustainable/inclusive future labor market policies.

The purpose of this investigation is to scrutinize the unexplored realm concerning the interplay of hospital brand gestalt on patient satisfaction and revisit intentions.

A self-administered online survey was conducted with 227 patients who had stayed at and received health-care services from a private hospital in the city of Manado, Indonesia, within the past 12 months. The quantitative data were subsequently analyzed using a structural equation model with the assistance of Smart PLS statistical software.

The results suggest that the hospital brand gestalt significantly and positively influences patient satisfaction, which, in turn, leads to patients’ intentions to revisit. Furthermore, patient satisfaction serves as a significant mediator in the relationship between brand gestalt and revisit intentions.

This study enhances the comprehension of brand gestalt’s influence on customer attitudes and behaviors within the health-care context, contributing to the expanding body of literature concerning holistic brand perception. For health-care providers, the study underscores the significance of creating a uniform and distinctive brand experience to boost patient satisfaction and cultivate loyalty. In summary, this study paves the way for strategic branding initiatives in health care, ultimately enhancing patient experiences and organizational outcomes.

For health-care providers, this study emphasizes the importance of crafting a consistent and differentiated brand experience to enhance patient satisfaction and foster loyalty. Overall, this study opens avenues for strategic branding efforts in health care, ultimately improving patient experiences and organizational outcomes.

While there is a growing interest in the role of brand gestalt in marketing research, there is still a need for more empirical research to explore the link between brand gestalt, customer satisfaction and revisit intention. Surprisingly, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no previous studies have investigated the role of brand gestalt in the context of health care.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is embracing digital transformation and e-government services, aiming to improve efficiency, accessibility and citizen-centricity. Nonetheless, the country faces challenges such as evolving cyber threats. The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors influencing cybersecurity practices to ensure the reliability and security of e-government services.

This paper investigates the multifaceted dynamics of cybersecurity practices and their impact on the quality and effectiveness of e-government services. Five key factors explored include organizational culture, technology infrastructure, adherence to standards and regulations, employee training and awareness and financial investment in cybersecurity. This study used a quantitative method to gather data from 320 participants. The researcher collected 285 completed questionnaires, excluding unusable or incomplete responses, and analyzed the final data set using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The findings show that financial investment in cybersecurity, employee training and awareness and adherence to cybersecurity regulations significantly influence the adoption of robust cybersecurity practices. However, the relationship between organizational culture and cybersecurity practices is less straightforward. The research establishes a strong positive correlation between cybersecurity practices and e-government service quality, highlighting the role of security in fostering public trust and user satisfaction and meeting the evolving needs of citizens and businesses.

This research contributes valuable empirical evidence to the fields of e-government and cybersecurity, offering insights that can inform evidence-based policy decisions and resource allocation. By understanding the nuanced dynamics at play, Saudi Arabia is better poised to fortify its digital governance infrastructure and provide secure, high-quality e-government services to its constituents.

This study aims to investigate and test the impact of competitive priorities, in terms of quality, speed, dependability, flexibility, cost and patient engagement, on patient satisfaction with healthcare services. It considers patients’ rather than managers’ points of view to collect responses about competitive priorities.

This research employed a cross-sectional survey design to analyze a sample of customers through an empirical study of 488 patients in Qatar’s healthcare service context.

The confirmatory factor analysis results show that competitive priorities and engagement positively and significantly impact patient satisfaction.

Researchers can use this methodology to explore the role of competitive priorities in different service contexts and sectors. The researchers conducted the study in Qatar; therefore, the results are not generalizable to all healthcare sectors. However, regardless of geographic location, the research approach can be used in healthcare.

Managers can employ the developed scales to diagnose competitive priorities and improve customer service experiences.

The paper is original as it suggests using competitive priorities as a measurement tool for predicting patient satisfaction compared to prior research that mostly measured competitive priorities based on internal perspectives (managers’ perspectives). Further, this paper is original because it depends on the external perspective (customers’ perspective) for the competitive priorities for measuring patient satisfaction.

The purpose of this study is to understand the effect of different brand positions (underdog vs top dog) and comparative advertising on consumers’ brand attitudes. Additionally, this study also aims to demonstrate the effects of inspiration, self-relevance and empathy on the relationship between brand positioning and comparative advertising.

A two-by-three factorial design was employed with brand positions (underdog vs top dog) and three types of comparative advertising (noncomparative, indirect comparative and direct comparative) as the independent variables. Inspiration serves as the mediator, while self-relevance and empathy act as moderators and brand attitude is the dependent variable.

The results show that different brand positions significantly affect brand attitudes, with respondents having a better brand attitude toward the underdog brand. Brand attitude is partially mediated by inspiration. Self-relevance moderates the relationship between brand positioning and brand attitude. However, brand positioning, comparative advertising and empathy do not have interaction effects.

This study contributes to a better understanding of the effect of psychological variables on brand positioning and comparative advertising.

The results suggest that the underdog setting requires a real and honest story because consumers will spot a fake underdog story, which will damage consumer trust in the brand and harm the brand image.

There is a lack of research using psychological variables to demonstrate the effect of being the underdog brand. This study contributes to the literature by employing psychological variables to illustrate the effect of underdog positioning. These findings can help brands develop branding positioning strategies.

Au stud bump bonding technology is an effective means to realize heterogeneous integration of commercial chips in the 2.5D electronic packaging. The purpose of this paper is to study the long-term reliability of the Au stud bump treated by four different high temperature storage times (200°C for 0, 100, 200 and 300 h).

The bonding strength and the fracture behavior are investigated by chip shear test. The experiment is further studied by microstructural characterization approaches such as scanning electron microscope, energy dispersive spectrometer and so on.

It is recognized that there were mainly three typical fracture models during the chip shear test among all the Au stud bump samples treated by high temperature storage. For solder bump before aging, the fracture occurred at the interface between the Cu pad and the Au stud bump. As the aging time increased, the fracture mainly occurred inside the Au stud bump at 200°C for 100 and 200 h. When aging time increased to 300 h, it is found that the fracture transferred to the interface between the Au stud bump and the Al Pad.

In addition, the bonding strength also changed with the high temperature storage time increasing. The bonding strength does not change linearly with the high temperature storage time increasing but decreases first and then increases. The investigation shows that the formation of the intermetallic compounds because of the reaction between the Au and Al atoms plays a key role on the bonding strength and fracture behavior variation.

Due to the unknown location, size and timing of disasters, the rapid response required by humanitarian operations (HO) faces high uncertainty and limited time to raise funds. These harsh realities make HO challenging. This study aims to systematically capture the complex dynamic relationships between operations in humanitarian settings.

To achieve this goal, the authors undertook a systematic review of the extant academic literature linking HO to system dynamics (SD) simulation.

The research reviews 88 papers to propose a taxonomy of different topics covered in the literature; a framework represented through a causal loop diagram (CLD) to summarise the taxonomy, offering a view of operational activities and their linkages before and after disasters; and a research agenda for future research avenues.

As the authors provide an adequate representation of reality, the findings can help decision makers understand the problems faced in HO and make more effective decisions.

While other reviews on the application of SD in HO have focused on specific subjects, the current research presents a broad view, summarising the main results of a comprehensive CLD.