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Locally derived foods from the lens of restaurant settings play an important source of tourist attraction. Surprisingly, research into this sector is quite scarce. The aim of the paper is to develop and empirically examine a conceptual framework on tourist’s preferences in selecting local foods. The framework includes tourists’ satisfaction, quality of food, tourist’s perception, purchase intention and purchase behavior among tourist’s selection for local foods.

The research is designed as quantitative in nature. A sum of 280 usable questionnaires was used from 300 distributed instruments by using convenient sampling techniques.

The results show that the relationship of tourist satisfaction and behavior is mediated by purchase intention, whereas tourist’s satisfaction and perception have a positive and significant impact on the intention of purchasing local foods. There is also a significant relationship between tourist’s satisfaction and perceived quality toward the tourist’s perception of local foods. Moreover, a significant relationship exists between tourist’s intentions and tourist’s purchase behavior.

The study derived the purchase behavior dimensions of local foods by the tourists through literature and verified the conceptual model through empirical testing. Based on these findings, managers of local food restaurants require maximizing the purchase behavior of the visitors by considering satisfaction and perceived quality. In summation, they also should consider perception and behavioral intention of tourists. The limitation of this research relates to the sample, where data were collected from the major city of a tourist-friendly country. Future research could investigate the perceived value and gender variance as moderating variables in and between purchase intention and purchase behavior.

Managers and policymakers may use the outcome of this research as a guideline to understand the depth of tourist’s behavior. By identifying the antecedents of the behavioral factors may assist the managers to strengthen the restaurant’s competitive position within the industry. Finally, policymakers may use the research to assess tourists’ perceptions of local foods acceptability in promoting the nation’s culture to other parts of the world.

This work adds to tourism behavior research by exploring the effect of satisfaction, perceived quality, perception and intention on behaviors associated with local foods purchase behavior. In particular, the study highlights the relationships between tourist’s perception, perceived quality of local foods and satisfaction of local foods to measure tourist’s behavior through purchase intention for local foods from the perspective of restaurant settings, which have received less research attention.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the critical success factor of tacit knowledge-sharing behavior among the academic staff of higher learning institutions.

A total of 200 questionnaires were distributed among the academic staff of higher learning institutions in Bangladesh. Collectively, 150 usable responses were returned. Apart from descriptive statistics, this research applied confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) to assess the measurement model and test the research hypotheses.

The findings from this empirical examination show that all the Big Five personality traits affect tacit knowledge-sharing behavior among the academic staff of higher learning institutions, except conscientiousness personality trait. However, the role of motivation, self-efficacy and mutual trust are also playing a significant role in tacit knowledge-sharing behavior. The CFA, SEM analysis confirmed the proposed conceptual model with a good model fit.

The findings of this research contribute to the understanding of the role of personality traits and other antecedents which play a significant role for the academic staff tacit knowledge-sharing behavior which are interesting for policymakers and authorities of higher learning institutions. As there was no sampling frame, the researchers applied convenient sampling technique in choosing the respondents.

This research plays a pioneering role where it contributes to the growing literature on the relationships between personality traits and other factors to construct a model for the tacit knowledge behavior by considering academic staff of higher learning institutions from a developing country’s perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to examine patient’s behavioral intention in a comparative analysis between public and private hospitals in the context of a developing country.

The research design was cross-sectional. A conceptual model was developed through an extensive literature review. Survey research was conducted to collect the data from the patients of public and private hospitals of Bangladesh. Partial least square structural equation modeling was used to perform a comparative analysis of the proposed model.

Perceived service quality and corporate image both were found to have a positive direct effect on patient’s behavioral intention for both public and private hospitals. While emotional satisfaction was found not to influence patient’s behavioral intention for public hospitals, it was found to fully mediate the perceived service quality-behavioral intention relationship and partially mediate the corporate image-behavioral intention relationship for private hospitals. Experience economy was found to partially mediate the corporate image-behavioral intention relationship for public hospitals, while it was found to partially mediate both the perceived service quality-behavioral intention and corporate image-behavioral intention relationships for private hospitals.

This is the first of a kind study that combined experience economy and emotional satisfaction with perceived service quality and corporate image to predict patient’s behavioral intention in a comparative study between public and private hospitals in the context of a developing country.

This study aims to develop a comprehensive framework that conceptualizes and measures the antecedents of the sales executive’s performance with regard to workplace spirituality and employee’s commitment.

This research applied a cross-sectional survey design to test the proposed hypotheses. Data were collected from 160 sales executives who are studying MBA and EMBA respectively and are working in various services and manufacturing organizations from Dhaka, Bangladesh.

The results suggest, when sales executives experience workplace spirituality; they feel more committed to their respective organizations and influences activities relating to sales performance.

The study collected data for the constructs from the same source, simultaneously. This can produce the risk of common method variance, leading to an inflation of statistical relationships. A longitudinal research design may also be suitable.

By improving spirituality climates in the workplace, managers can enhance employee’s commitment, and thus, individual sales officers may boost up their sales performance. It is likely that occurs because sales executives react reciprocally toward their respective company that satisfies their spiritual needs.

The paper contributes by filling the gaps in literature related to sales management, where empirical studies on workplace spirituality have been scarce till date. This study is the first of a kind to include workplace spirituality, commitment and executive’s sales performance simultaneously in the context of Bangladesh.

Aim – This empirical study explores the association between competition, business strategy, and the uses of a multiple performance measurement system in Bangladesh manufacturing firms.

Design/methodology – The study uses a questionnaire survey of 50 manufacturing companies. Data were analyzed using multiple regression analysis and other descriptive statistics.

Findings – The results suggest that greater emphasis on multiple measures for performance evaluation is associated with businesses that are facing high competition. The practices of multiple performance measures are also significantly related to the types of business strategy being followed. Specifically, firms pursuing a prospector strategy have relied more on multiple performance measures to rate business performance than the firms pursuing a defender strategy.

Practical implications – The article notes that the designers of performance measurement systems need to consider contingent factors that affect an organizations’ control system.

Originality/value – Substantiating the connection between contingent variables and the use of multiple performance measures in manufacturing firms facilitate a better acceptance of firms’ tendency toward new measurement tools. The study contributes to the performance measurement and contingency literature since it presents empirical evidence of the state of multiple performance measures with organizational contingent variables using a developing country's manufacturing sector data.

Al-Qaeda is conventionally portrayed as a monolithic, hierarchical organization whose activities – coordinated by the network's leader Osama bin Laden – are the source of international terrorism today. Al-Qaeda is considered a radical tendency within the broader Islamist Salafi movement, legitimizing its terrorist operations as a global Islamist jihad against Western civilization. Al-Qaeda's terrorist activity today is considered, “blowback” from long finished CIA and western covert operations in Afghanistan.

The conventional wisdom is demonstrably false. After the Cold War, Western connections with al-Qaeda proliferated around the world, challenging mainstream conceptions of al-Qaeda's identity. Western covert operations and military – intelligence connections in strategic regions show that “al-Qaeda” is a network whose raison d’etre and modus operandi are inextricably embedded in a disturbing conglomerate of international Western diplomatic, financial, military and intelligence policies today. US, British, and Western power routinely manipulates al-Qaeda through a complex network of state-regional and human nodes. Such manipulation extended directly to the 9-11 hijackers, and thus to the events of 9-11 itself.11This paper advances an original argument based partially on research in Ahmed (2005), supplemented here with significant new data and analysis. Also see Ahmed (2002).

This chapter examines how information and communication technology (ICT) initiatives affect customers’ everyday routines with an emphasis on how electronic word of mouth (eWOM) affects their purchasing decisions and determines if eWOM might serve as a useful trust factor when making purchasing decisions. This chapter is based on both primary and secondary data and examines how eWOM affects customers’ buying decisions in this era of increasing social media platform usage. One hundred individuals from various regions of Karachi provided the primary data, collected through an online survey. Secondary data are also employed, such as details from business websites, scientific papers, and other related publications of businesses. In Karachi’s developing digital market, it was discovered that eWOM via social media used to have a substantial impact on consumers’ shopping habits. The effectiveness of social media content depends greatly on how appropriate it is for the intended audience. Social media marketing doesn’t quite simply aim to improve consumers’ impressions or directly advertise things. It also entails maintaining and fostering relationships between businesses and prospective customers. According to the research, consumers’ recommendations and ratings of goods and services made on social media, whether through eWOM or another channel, influenced their decisions to buy. Customers consider social media to be trustworthy when making decisions about what to buy. Customers are currently adopting social media as opposed to more conventional means to learn about new products. Most customers believe that eWOM from social media greatly affected their shopping choices, according to the results of the study.

This paper aims to assess the impact of the training program on fish traders in building awareness about formalin abuse in food items.

Primary data was collected from the fish traders in Bangladesh by using simple random sampling technique. Binary logistic regression was used to assess the opinions of the fish traders about training in building awareness of formalin abuse.

This study showed that the training of the fish traders played a positive role in improving their awareness level of formalin abuse.

Enhancement of both training and educational support could be an effective strategy in preventing formalin abuse in food.

This study helps in assessing the opinions of the fish traders about the effectiveness of the training programs in building awareness of formalin abuse.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an effective framework for implementing Lean strategies in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI).

Based on the integration of LM tools and techniques with the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) criteria a systematic Lean implementation framework for manufacturing SMEs has been proposed. The core values, drivers and tools of the proposed framework were further developed based on case studies in three SMEs in the KRI.

Proposed framework is able to provide a simple pathway for SMEs to systematically implement Lean techniques in seven functional areas in order to create Lean culture in the organisation. Business performance measurement in terms of profitability, customer satisfaction, employee’s satisfaction, competitiveness growth and ergonomic improvement is presented in favour of evaluating Lean outcomes appropriately. It also presents the experience of small firms in implementing Lean programmes to show that Lean is valid in SMEs.

The framework concentrates only on the internal issues of the organisation, while external variables such as national culture and external support are excluded.

The framework assists improvements in SMEs that either initially attempt to start Lean journey or those that are at more advanced levels towards excellent-Lean manufacturing. The framework can also be used as a self-assessment model to determine the degree of Lean readiness.

To the best knowledge of the author, it is the first framework that integrates Lean techniques with MBNQA criteria to support Lean implementation in SMEs. It is also the first study regarding Lean-excellence in the KRI.

This study aims to identify women professionals' strategies to persist in the male-dominated technology industry situated in the Bangladeshi socio-cultural context.

In-depth interviews with women tech professionals were conducted to identify and explore the strategies. Thematic coding was used for data analysis.

The findings suggest that the complex interplay of macro-, meso- and micro-factors pushes women to defy societal and gender norms in their choice and persistence, yet they simultaneously conform to these norms. By simultaneous expressions of doing and undoing gender, these women dealt with hierarchies and inequalities, navigated masculinized industry and empowered themselves within a patriarchal culture. The strategies effectively allowed them to demonstrate agency and persist in tech occupations.

The study participants were women and recruited using snowball sampling. Future research could benefit from recruiting a larger, more varied sample using random sampling.

The study can inform teaching and policy initiatives to increase women's representation in tech sectors through awareness campaigns, policy interventions and counseling.

The research extends the doing and undoing framework by integrating the relational perspective to explain women's agency and resilience situated in a patriarchal context. The paper focuses on women's micro-individual strategies to navigate macro- and meso-level forces. Moreover, Bangladesh is an under-researched context, and findings from the study can help design potential intervention strategies to increase women's participation.