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This paper aims to explore how visual comprehensibility of a product can affect innovation adoption among the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) consumers in Bangladesh.

This is an exploratory qualitative study based on interviews with eight managerial respondents involved in the design and marketing of innovative products targeted at BOP consumers in Bangladesh and three respondents who are consumers of these products.

One key finding from this research, in comparison to innovation adoption research in developed contexts, is the distinct importance that BOP consumers attach to visual cues in learning about and understanding a new product.

This research provides guidance for private and public sector organisations selling products and services to BOP consumers explaining the role of visual cues in generating better product comprehension. It also identifies the role of social relations in facilitating the adoption of new products within this segment.

By enhancing the adoption of so-called pro-poor innovations, this research can assist in bringing about positive social change and developmental benefits in this burgeoning segment of the market.

This is one of the first studies to consider innovation adoption of pro-poor innovations in BOP markets and one of the first studies to collect data on the role of visual comprehensibility for consumers in BOP markets.

This study aims to examine the perceived values of the metaverse when adopting it in the luxury hospitality business. Based on the cost–benefit perspective, this research provides solid theoretical contributions and actionable managerial recommendations.

An exploratory sequential mixed-method design was used. For the qualitative phase, 21 hotel managers and 24 hotel guests (who often stay in four-star and five-star hotels and resorts) were interviewed after showing them a series of videos about using the metaverse in the hotel business. Based on the results of the qualitative phase, the analytic hierarchy process method was used, and 476 valid questionnaires were analyzed.

The results highlight the perceived benefits (personalized services, immersive experience and positive brand image) and costs (lack of human touch, time and effort and security and privacy) of metaverse adoption for hotel managers and their guests. In addition, the study determines the weight of each value attribute of metaverse adoption for each travel stage (pre-travel, during travel and post-travel).

Regarding metaverse adoption, the research offers practical suggestions for luxury hotels. For instance, the cost of equipment and the time and effort required are perceived costs of metaverse adoption. To address these challenges, hotels may offer free equipment (e.g. VR headsets) and training to their guests to stimulate the use of the metaverse.

This study addresses a gap in the literature by presenting a conceptual framework for examining metaverse adoption in the luxury hotel scenario. Unlike using conventional models like the technology acceptance model or the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology to investigate a technology’s adoption, this study stands out by unraveling the topic through the lens of value proposition. The latter often comes from an efficient value co-creation process, which is indeed shaped by an adequate appreciation of the congruence of perceived values (i.e. perceived benefits and costs) of metaverse from hotel manager and guest perspectives.

To enhance the understanding of the moderating influence of different bottom of the pyramid (BOP) income segments on the antecedents of pro-poor innovation acceptance.

In this study, 320 BOP consumers with a range of low-to-moderate literacy and low-income levels were used as a convenience non-probability sample for undertaking quantitative analyses.

Only the influence of perceived usefulness on intention is moderated by income segments, such that the effect will be stronger for low-income BOP segment. Moreover, the influences of relative advantage, compatibility and observability on intention are moderated by income segments.

This empirical work has considerable private sector and public policy implications for companies and government designing/selling products for millions of poor people in developing and emerging economies.

This study contributes originally to knowledge in the subject area as there are very few studies that clearly and systematically analyse the key antecedents influencing the adoption intention of pro-poor technological innovations in the BOP market.

This paper aims to describe the library services available to rural dwellers and a summary of focus groups discussions (FGD) conducted in northern districts of Bangladesh.

This paper is divided into two sections. The first section describes rural library services in Bangladesh. The second section discusses the results of FGDs carried out separately in ten rural communities in northern areas of Bangladesh.

The results of FGDs highlight the general information needs of rural communities, their reading, listening and viewing habits and awareness of rural library activities. The findings suggest that the rural libraries largely meet the informational needs of the local community and play a crucial role in the educational advancement of local people.

This is the first time an effort has been made to assess the impact of rural library activities using FGDs in Bangladesh. This paper shows that FGDs could be an effective way to assess the impact of rural library activities.

The purpose of this paper is to argue that the World Heritage Site (WHS) status as a label plays an important role in branding, creating awareness among the tourists and promoting a specific place – be it natural or cultural.

The study is based on qualitative research and utilised interviews and explanatory case study method, taking Maritime Greenwich WHS as a case.

It is found that the status of WHS motivates the tourists in general and heritage tourists in particular to visit the case study site. Also, the status helps in boosting the level of confidence of the tourists while selecting the site. Overall, it helps to reinforce the identity of a place. However, sustainability and conservation should not take a back seat when the very purpose of branding a site as WHS is this.

It is ideal to have a balance in managing the demand and supply side of place management and marketing making sure that the heritage value and trust is kept intact.

This study explores the development trajectory of private tutoring in Bangladesh. Specifically, it illustrates how private tutoring has emerged and expanded in the country's education system and examines how governments have responded on this issue.

The authors adopted a case study methodology for this study. Data were gathered from different secondary sources such as books, official documents, scholarly articles, and newspaper reports. The data analysis process consists of three-phases of activities: data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing/verification.

Private tutoring historically existed in Bangladesh. It is rapidly expanded in the country's education system – from primary to higher secondary level. Currently, it has reached an industrialization stage, where commercial coaching has become a major type of tutoring. The expansion of private tutoring is the inevitable result of the continued privatization and marketization of education. To bring the private tutoring under a framework, the government has taken some regulatory measures that can be characterized as “laissez-faire.” The existing measures are largely ineffective, as the policy makers followed an “top-down” approach when framing the policies.

This study, to the best of the authors' knowledge, is the first to target the historical aspects of private tutoring in Bangladesh. It has potential to fill out the literature gap on private tutoring by analyzing its policy aspect.

The purpose of this paper is to look at various dimensions of entrepreneurship and the empirical models that try to explain the relationship between entrepreneurship and growth in cities for both developed (USA and Europe) and developing countries.

This paper provides an in‐depth and extensive review of the existing literature on entrepreneurship and economic growth in cities. In most empirical studies, the growth rate of employment or unemployment rate is used as the dependent variable to analyze the effect of entrepreneurship on development. The important independent variables other than entrepreneurship (new start‐ups) are localization, urbanization, level of education, age, industry structure (specialization vs competition), monopoly or competition. The economic units considered for cities are labor market areas (LMAs), standard metropolitan areas (SMAs) and consolidated metropolitan statistical areas (CMSAs). The majority of studies have utilized discrete dependent variable models such as Tobit or Probit to calculate the probability of the effect of entrepreneurship on economic growth. Other studies have applied ordinary least squares estimation to find the cross‐sectional variation of employment growth that accounts for entrepreneurial activities. Panel data are employed in a number of models to control for region‐specific and country‐specific fixed effects.

In this paper, four important dimensions of entrepreneurship are identified. First, for entrepreneurial studies on economic growth, cities are considered to be appropriate economic units rather than states or countries. Second, there are several definitions and measurements of entrepreneurship available in the literature. Hence, empirical models and their results may vary depending on the model specification. Third, the relationship between employment growth (a proxy for economic growth) and innovative activity is dynamic in nature and thus the problem of endogeneity needs to be addressed. And, finally, entrepreneurship has a spatial dimension and that characteristic must be incorporated into the urban and regional models of entrepreneurship. Three different types of urban models are chosen to reflect these four central dimensions of entrepreneurship. All three urban models confirm the hypothesis that there exists a statistically significant and positive relationship between entrepreneurship and growth in cities. However, the causality of the relationship is not well established.

A critical and in‐depth summary of existing quantitative work on entrepreneurship and economic growth in different cities is the original contribution of the paper.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of human resource management and employee job satisfaction in predicting organizational commitment in the Saudi Arabian banking sector.

For the purpose of this study, quantitative survey research was employed. The independent variables are human resource management and employee job satisfaction, while the dependent variable is organizational commitment.

Human resource management correlated positively with employee job satisfaction and organizational commitment. On the other hand, employee job satisfaction was found to be positively correlated with organizational commitment. The two independent variables made significant individual contributions to the prediction of organizational commitment.

This study has some limitations. First, convenient sampling method was used to recruit the participants. Therefore, the findings of the study have limited generalizability in other regions and age groups. Second, as a cross-sectional study, there has to be caution in making any generalization of the results. Future researchers should get more respondents from wider geographical location, that is from different bans, private and public. Furthermore, self-report questionnaires were used to collect data from respondents. It is recommended that future researchers use different methods such as personal interview or telephone interview to collect data. This may help get reliable data after clarifying and removing what may be ambiguous.

The results of this study have corroborated with previous research and confirmed correlations between and among human resource management (HRM), employee job satisfaction and organizational commitment in the Saudi Arabian banking sector. These findings have practical implications. Having high levels of job satisfaction among bank employees will prevent low levels of turnover rate, absenteeism and levels of productivity and increase organizational commitment. HRM practices, on the other hand, help in career development opportunities and hence provide better job opportunities. This study can recommend that to ensure high levels of job satisfaction among employees and enhanced organizational commitment, organizations, especially banks, should emphasize more on HRM practices.

This study could contribute to the literature on HRM, job satisfaction and organizational commitment in the Saudi Arabian banking sector. There is a rapid growth in the banking sector in Saudi Arabia. Therefore, there is an urge for recruiting efficient and experienced human resources (Mizan et al., 2013). This study will contribute to the development of the Saudi Arabian banking sector, which may lead to maintain this sector work effectively that will have a positively impact on the economy of the Saudi society. It also will highlight the nature and importance of the HRM practices for the benefit of the banking sector.

The purpose of this paper is to look at Grameen Bank (GB) Sixteen Decisions campaigns and its implications to feminism; and to examine the degree to which women borrowers of the Grameen Bank are empowered to participate in familial decision‐making around dowry and teenage marriage and to develop their public spaces in the community. Moreover, the paper critically looks at the GB women borrowers' development through the Sixteen Decisions.

The study uses multiple research methods. It reviews and analyzes GB Sixteen Decision texts and feminist literature, uses survey method to collect data from Grameen Bank micro borrowers in 2011 and uses secondary data.

The survey finds information on the GB members and GB family members elected in the Union Parishad Elections in 1997 and in 2003, a testimony that GB women borrowers' local counsel participation trend is increasing. This study still finds the gender equality issues exist in the GB Sixteen Decisions texts and the Sixteen Decisions campaign strategies for women borrowers' empowerment.

This critical analysis of GB Sixteen Decisions is very important to empower GB women borrowers because the GB Sixteen Decisions texts and the Sixteen Decisions campaigns could be made more effective in addressing women's issues like dowry‐less marriage, teenage marriage and gender equality rights in the family and community space if Grameen Bank could revise the Sixteen Decisions texts and support borrowers in their anti‐dowry and anti‐teen age marriage campaign in Bangladesh.