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Deglobalization and the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic have severely hindered multinational enterprise (MNE) investment. At the same time, digital technology is seriously challenging it with traditional production factor flows. Few studies have realized that the impact of digitalization is not limited to either transaction costs or the location-boundness of firm-specific advantages (FSAs), but extends to profound changes in the fundamental essence of MNEs. There is still limited understanding of this body of knowledge as a whole, including how its subtopics are interrelated. This study took the production factor change perspective to review MNE theory in the digital era. Therefore, this study aims to identify any upcoming and undeveloped themes in order to provide a platform suited to direct future research.

This paper presents a summary and a review of 151 articles published between 2007 and 2020. Such review was conducted to systematically explain the connotations and influential mechanisms of digital empowerment on MNE theory. This was achieved by using the CiteSpace citation visualization tool to build a keyword co-occurrence network.

The research findings pertain to how digitalization expands, breaks through, and even reshapes traditional MNE theory from four distinctive angles: the influential factors of internationalization, the process of internationalization, competitive advantage, and location choice. The findings are followed by the presentation of future research directions.

This paper presents an examination of MNE theory in the digital era from the perspective of production factor change. In doing so, it identifies significant theoretical innovation opportunities for future scholarly research priorities.

Online food delivery applications (OFDAs) provide an expedient platform, and consumers’ access to food has been drastically altered, especially during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aimed to completely explore the attributes that influence consumers' purchase intention and how an app's aesthetics can evoke feelings that predict continuous usage intentions for OFDAs. The food industry, especially restaurants, heavily relies on mobile technology to facilitate critical online food delivery during the pandemic crisis.

The data for this study are gathered from 477 food consumers located in the federal capital territory (FCT) of Islamabad, Pakistan, through convenient sampling by developing a self-administrated online survey. SmartPLS is used for structural equation modeling to test the proposed research model and perform bootstrapping and algorithmic analysis.

Our findings revealed that perceived value positively predicted consumers’ purchase intentions. Moreover, perceived value mediates the association of information quality, familiarity, time-saving, usability and reputation with purchase intentions and fear of COVID-19 moderates the relationship between perceived value and purchase intention.

This research work has significant implications for researchers, web developers, app designers, delivery services, restaurants and other enterprises as it demonstrates the importance of aesthetically pleasing OFDAs in eliciting positive emotions and bolstering consumers’ intentions to continue using the app for efficient food delivery services.

This study expanded the application of the technology acceptance model (TAM) and attention, interest, desire and action (AIDA) by examining consumers’ purchase intentions in the context of OFDAs. Further, the successful utilization of TAM enhanced the understanding of consumer perceptions and behavioral intentions about the usage of OFDAs.