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Most research on tax evasion focused on microeconomic variables revolving around perceptions and decisions of individual taxpayers. However, a new wave of research is now investigating the role of macroeconomic variables in inducing tax evasion. This study adds to the limited studies in this new direction of research. Previous studies found that inflation, low gross domestic product (GDP) growth and gross fixed capital formation causes recession, increases unemployment, raise interest rates, hurts both domestic and foreign direct investments. This study examined the relationship between these variables and estimated tax evasion in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The study adopts a correlation research design with 2,300 data points collected from 23 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Specifically, tax to GDP ratio, gross fixed capital formation per GDP and the GDP annual growth report from each country for the period 2011–2020 was retrieved. Generalised least square regression technique was employed to analyse the data due to the presence of heteroskedasticity in the model and random effect was utilized based on the Hausman test. To avoid misspecification and biased result; therefore, all relevant test was conducted including the multicollinearity test.

The results indicate that GDP annual growth and gross fixed capital formation have a significant negative impact on estimated tax evasion in Sub-Saharan Africa. The findings further indicate a negative but insignificant relationship between inflation and estimated tax evasion in Sub-Saharan Africa. The study concludes that both GDP annual growth rate and gross fixed capital formation negatively influence estimated tax evasion and the policy implications in the African continent were discussed.

The new findings on the effects of GDP annual growth, growth fixed capital formation and inflation on estimated tax evasion provide novel knowledge that is currently lacking in the current literature, specifically Sub-Saharan African continent.

The purpose of the study is to investigate the impact of perceived value and academic entitlement on the online engagement of university students. The mediating effect of technostress inhibitor and teacher behavior between perceived value, entitlement and student engagement was also examined.

The study used a quantitative research methodology, with data collected through a survey of 304 undergraduate students from a public university in Bahrain.

The findings showed that perceived value and academic entitlement were significant predictors of online student engagement. At the same time, only technostress inhibitor was found to mediate those associations. An unexpected result was entitlement's positive and significant impact on student engagement.

University decision-makers are strongly advised to enhance perceived value and support mechanisms for engagement, address technology-related concerns and improve teacher capacity and students' online learning experience.

The study makes a distinct contribution by investigating how perceived value, academic entitlement, technostress inhibitors and teacher behavior influence student engagement in the online higher education context.

This conceptual paper aims to explore government regulatory responses of social networking platforms (SNP) and tourism destination evangelism. This research draws on a two-phase data source review of government legislations that guarantee social media users and empirical papers related to social media platforms. The results revealed that Ghana has adopted specific legislations that manage and control SNP. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is the first of its kind that synthesized government legislation and empirical papers on social networking platforms in evangelising destinations which have been missing in extant literature.

The purpose of this study is to model the theory of the low-velocity impact (LVI) process on sandwich beams consisting of flexible cores and face sheets reinforced with functionally graded carbon nanotubes (CNTs).

A series of parameters derived from molecular dynamics are used to consider the size scale in the mixture rule for the combination of CNTs and resin. A procedure involving the use of the first-order shear deformation theory of the beam is used to provide the displacement field of the sandwich beam. The energy method and subsequently the generalized Lagrange method are used to derive the motion equations. Due to the use of Hertz’s nonlinear theory to calculate the contact force, the equations of motion are nonlinear. Validation of the problem is carried out by comparing natural frequencies with other papers.

The influence of a series of parameters such as CNTs distributions pattern in the face sheets, the influence of the CNTs volume fraction and the influence of the core thickness to the face sheets thickness ratio in the issue of LVI on sandwich beams with clamped-clamped boundary conditions is investigated. The result shows that the type of CNTs pattern in the face sheet and the CNTs volume fraction have a very important effect on the answer to the problem, which is caused by the change in the value of the Young’s modulus of the beam at the contact surface. Changes in the core thickness to the face sheets thickness ratio has little effect on the impact response.

Considering the important application of sandwich structures in vehicles, aviation and ships, in this research, sandwich beams consisting of flexible core and CNTs-reinforced face sheets are investigated under LVI.

The purpose of this study is to investigate individuals’ perceptions and behavior when dealing with misinformation on social media platforms. While misinformation is not a new phenomenon, the COVID-19 outbreak has accelerated its spread through social media outlets, leading to widespread exposure to false or misleading information. This exposure can have serious consequences on individuals’ decision-making and behavior, especially when it comes to critical decisions related to education or healthcare. The use of social media as a source of information makes it essential to understand how people perceive and respond to misinformation to develop effective strategies for mitigating its harmful effects.

This large-scale study explores the Omani individuals’ perceptions and behaviour of misinformation on the social Web in a series of studies that seek to enhance the authorities’ response to misinformation. The study adopted a quantitative approach to collect data. Using WhatsApp as a social networking platform, a survey was disseminated to capture participants’ perceptions and behaviour among different segments of citizens in Oman.

The findings showed that Omani participants have high verification skills, implying high information literacy skills among them. Additionally, results indicated that misinformation had created doubt and anxiety among the participants. Moreover, it hindered many participants’ ability to take countermeasures and obtain reliable data.

This study was a large-scale study conducted in Oman, making it one of a few studies conducted in the region about perceptions and behaviour towards misinformation. The findings help to understand how different cultures interacted with COVID-19 misinformation. In addition, these findings offer useful insight that can help health information professionals to design preventive resources that help people to obtain accurate information during crises.

The primary objective of this study is to examine how students' technological factors affect remote access (RA) in smart learning (SL) environments. Additionally, the paper explores the moderating effect of students' technical skills (TS) on RA and SL.

The study applied a quantitative research approach and collected 125 valid questionnaires from students in Oman's higher education institutions (HEIs). A structural equation model (SEM) was employed for data analysis using the Smart PLS 4 version to examine the influence of technological factors on RA in SL environments.

It was found that the use of cloud-based RA in SL is influenced by students' use of technology, technology competitiveness and the availability of institutional software (IS). Moreover, students' TS were found to play a crucial role in moderating RA and SL, as well as technical knowledge (TK) and SL. These findings highlight the importance of technical competencies and software availability in shaping students' RA experiences.

The study's findings should be interpreted with caution due to the limited sample size, which may restrict the generalizability of the results.

The study suggests the technological learning capabilities of HEIs, which significantly improved by prioritizing critical technical factors, including knowledge and use of technology, availability of institutional software and RA antecedents in SL environments.

This paper offers practical and actionable directions for HEIs, universities, colleges and educators looking to incorporate technology into their practices in the dynamic and ever-evolving Fourth Industrial Era.

This research aimed to maximize the value of date exports for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

To achieve its objective, this study relied on secondary data and quantitative economic analysis represented by the Linear programming model.

This study showed that Saudi Arabia exports dates to the United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Kuwait, Turkey, Somalia, Jordan, Oman, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh Morocco, Lebanon, and others. The geographical concentration coefficient for the quantity and value of date exports was 35.05% and 34.74%, respectively, during the study period. Saudi Arabia exported a quantity of dates amounting to 83.08 thousand tons, representing 40.57% of the average total amount of Saudi dates exports during the study period, to Yemen, Somalia, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Egypt, China, Djibouti, Bahrain, and Ethiopia, at prices lower than the average export price of 1200.31 dollars/ton, and therefore the export policy needs to restructure the geographical distribution of date exports. Based on the models of geographical distribution, Saudi date exports value can be increased by 32.76–127.12 million dollars, meaning can be increased by 13.77% – 53.44%. In light of the results of the proposed models, this study recommends the need to restructure the geographical distribution of Saudi date exports so that the value of Saudi date exports can be increased by 127.12 million dollars from the current situation for the period 2017–2021.

The paper’s original contribution lies in its proposal to restructure the geographical distribution of Saudi date exports to increase the value of exports.

This study examines the impact of institutional ownership (IO) on firm performance. It also investigates whether powerful CEOs using a “CEO score index” moderate IO and firm performance nexus by drawing on insights from the agency and resource dependency theories.

Data were obtained from annual reports of companies listed on the Palestine Security Exchange from 2009 to 2019. Panel data regressions were conducted based on 528 observations. In addition, this study repeated the analysis using a one-step generalized method of moments (GMM) and two-stage least squares analysis to deal with the endogeneity issue.

Results show that IO and CEO power is positively associated with firm performance. Besides, it has been established that CEO power strengthens the relationship between IO and performance. Thus, this can be summarized that IO improves firm performance; however, with the powerful CEO intervention, the performance will improve even more.

Studying IO is timely given since the type of ownership is paramount to identify which form of a high degree of ownership affects the performance negatively, especially, in the Palestine environment which is dominated by institutional investors. This is of great importance to the investors as it will enable them to identify the type of firms to which they can commit their funds, and which firm excels through the CEO power. Besides, the inconsistency results in previous literature on IO, and firm performance indicates that there is an indirect effect that needs alternative explanations.

Microfinance emerged as an essential catalyst for socio-economic development and financial inclusion to reduce poverty. Microfinance institutions cannot meet their primary objective of poverty reduction if they are not sustainable financially. With the theoretical support of profit incentive theory, this paper aims to investigate the impact of organizational structure (OS), growth outreach (average loan per borrower [ALPB] and number of active borrowers), women empowerment (percentage of women borrowers [PWB]), liquidity, leverage and cost efficiency (cost per borrower) on the financial sustainability of microfinance providers (MFPs) in India and explore the possible moderating effect of the national governance indicators (NGIs).

A financial sustainability index has been developed by using principal components analysis, including both conventional measures (return of assets and return on equity) and efficiency measures (operational self-sufficiency and financial self-sufficiency). Due to the existence of endogeneity and heteroskedasticity, this study uses two-step system generalized method of moments estimates to examine the relationships for a period of 2006 to 2018.

The finding reveals that there is a strong significant relationship between financial sustainability and its influential factors. Organizatioanl Structure, loan size, women borrowers, Gross Domestic Products and inflation enhance the financial sustainability of India’s microfinance sector. However, a number of borrowers, liquidity, leverage and operating costs negatively affect the financial sustainability of MFPs of India. The estimates demonstrate that NGIs significantly moderate the association between financial sustainability and its influential factors. The NGIs negatively affect the positive impact of Organizatioanl Structure on financial sustainability. National governance increases the positive effect of loan size (ALPB) and reduces the negative effect of a number of borrowers and leverage on the financial sustainability of MFPs of India. However, NGIs negatively affect the positive relationship between Percentage of Women Borrowers and Financial sustainability of Microfinance Providers of India.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first of its kind that incorporates all of the six dimensions of the National Governance Indicators (NGIs) and uses as a moderator. Secondly, a financial sustainability index has been developed for measuring the financial sustainability of Microfinance Providers (MFPs).

The aim of the study is to investigate the effects of perceived healthcare service quality (human aspects, technical aspects and tangible aspects) on satisfaction and guest loyalty in the hotel industry in the COVID-19 pandemic era.

A total of 130 guests in the hotel were selected purposively in Iraq. Data from self-administered questionnaires were analyzed through the VB-SEM statistical technique using Smart-PLS software towards testing the hypotheses.

The findings indicated that perceived service quality influences satisfaction and guest loyalty of guests in the hotel. This study reveals that human aspects, technical aspects and tangible aspects directly positively affect satisfaction and guest loyalty in the hotel industry.

This study highlights that perceived service quality (human aspects, technical aspects and tangible aspects) are vital and practical strategic tools that could be positioned to accelerate guest loyalty in the hotel industry. Furthermore, satisfaction mediates the relationship between human aspects, technical aspects, tangible aspects and guest loyalty.