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Managing biosphere reserves (BR) have become more challenging regarding the socio-cultural conflict between communities and BR administrators. For the past two decades, community participation (CP) has become the central narrative for BR management practices in Asia. This paper aims to set out to analyse the current literature because of the paucity of systematic reviews on CP in Asian BR. Also, it proffers possible solutions to enhance biosphere performance.

In total, 31 related studies were identified from the Scopus, Web of Science databases and materials from organisations in the field of practice of territorial conservation. Three themes emerged from the review – willingness to participate, encumbrances and possible solutions.

Factors that influence community willingness to participate in a BR, encumbrances facing the community and possible policy solutions to enhance CP in a BR in Asia were the three themes that emerged from the review. The factors that influence community willingness were categorised into the level of participants in education, perceived waste of time, no confidence of the outcome, okay with current management, land owned, household size and gender factors.

This paper’s recommendations were based on empirical literature reviewed systematically but do not compromise the robustness concerning BR management practices in Asia. It was established that to enrich the findings of this research, regional studies of CP in BR should be conducted, including primary source data using the mixed methods paradigm.

As part of the practical implications, recommendations were highlighted to enhance CP in BR. Also, the paper suggested that BR administrators should have two-way communication mechanisms, cross-sectoral participation and collaboration, implement locally-based solutions through full engagement of community members in decision-making.

This is probably the first systematic review paper on BR management practices in Asia. Filling the theoretical gap via systematic review was part of the significant contribution to CP in Asian BR.

This study attempts to examine the factors that influence user intention to adopt e-procurement in the Nigerian public sector.

A well-structured questionnaire was used to collect primary data from 278 procurement and information technology (IT) departments’ officials of key federal government ministries and agencies. The technology acceptance model (TAM) model was adopted and extended with security-related factors, namely perceived trust and perceived security. A partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) approach was used to test and validate the model.

The results indicated that perceived usefulness is the best predictor of users’ intention to adopt e-procurement, followed by perceived security and perceived trust. In contrast, however, perceived ease of use was found to have a significant negative effect on the intention to adopt e-procurement.

This study is among the first in the Nigerian public sector context to evaluate users’ perceptions on e-procurement adoption with the use of a distinctive research model (TAM). The study's findings contribute to a better understanding of the factors influencing the adoption of e-procurement in the Nigerian public sector.

Over recent years, the multi-stakeholder role in sustainable ecotourism within Asia has emerged as a crucial narrative for sustainable ecotourism management across countries on the continent. This trend is perhaps due to the fact that ecotourism is one of the most rapidly growing sectors within the tourism industry. However, to date, no reviews have provided a comprehensive analysis related to the role of multi-stakeholders in the achievement of ecotourism sustainability, particularly in the Asian context. This study aims to fill this knowledge gap by examining the current knowledge regarding multi-stakeholder involvement in sustainable ecotourism within Asia.

A systematic review procedure was followed. 320 articles were finalized, from which 34 related pieces of research were selected from the Scopus and Web of Science databases.

Three themes emerged from this paper. Recommendations were highlighted to enhance sustainable ecotourism. The study concluded that a more enabling research environment should be provided to improve discourse and encourage policy interventions.

No previous studies have explored the multi-stakeholder's role in achieving Asian sustainable ecotourism, indicating a critical gap to be fulfilled. This paper uniquely contributes to the field by providing a comprehensive review of the roles and challenges of multiple stakeholders in sustainable ecotourism across Asia and proposing innovative policy solutions tailored to the region's unique socio-economic and cultural context. Moreover, it puts forward potential solutions to bolster sustainable ecotourism within Asia, benefiting both stakeholders and the destination.

This study investigated the linkage between customers’ acceptance (CA) level and smart service competencies in the food sector across Penang, Malaysia. This research aims to develop a vision of how smart technology may transform the business model in hospitality industry to create value.

In this study, the level of CA of the smart restaurant is proposed as the dependent variable, while the perceived security (PS), perceived ease of use (PEOU) and perceived enjoyment (PE) are proposed as independent variables (IVs). The quantitative approach and simple random sampling method were adopted in this study. Data were collected from 150 respondents by distributing 225 survey questionnaires to restaurant customers across Penang, Malaysia. The data were analysed by the reliability test, factor analysis and multiple regression analysis using SPSS 23.0 software

The study outcomes indicated that PE and PEOU emerged as the most significant predictors for CA of smart services in restuarants in Penang. The smart services provide customers to experience enjoyable dining services with accurate and user-friendly service delivery.

This study may serve as a guideline for food and beverage (F&B) business owners and restaurant operators with an industrial standard to adopt smart services in restaurants and their progression to develop the intention to use such a novel technology. This research is one of the few attempts that have looked into the influences of hedonic, comfortable and security value on customers’ acceptance level of smart restaurant services.

This paper aims to investigate the economic impacts of the current coronavirus disease, which is globally known as (COVID-19) pandemic, on small businesses in the tourism and hospitality industry, including food and beverages (F&B) industries in Malaysia during and after the enforcement of the Movement Control Order (MCO) and conditional (CMCO) with the emergence of new business models.

In this paper, the implemented methodology involved a secondary qualitative research design based mainly on the existing literature, the World Health Organisation (WHO) reports, the government’s documents, in addition to online sources and observations regarding local business experiences.

The findings revealed that implementing effective strategies of recovery, shaping resilience solutions and supporting policies such as the National Recovery Plan, which is backed by the government played a pivotal role in avoiding the turndown of small businesses.

This critical review is submitted as an original research paper, which aims to provide important perspectives regarding the COVID-19 pandemic impacts on the tourism and hospitality industry in Malaysia. This paper serves as a scholarly platform for further in-depth studies on various resilience solutions of small businesses.