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An attribute common throughout Lor’s distinguished career has been a passion for learning and continuous improvement in an approach that sets high standards, both for himself and others. Taking on the informal mantle of both mentor and mentee, these contributions have blended with no clear boundaries or timelines.

Lor has been active in the library and information sector (LIS) landscape since the 1960s. A stalwart of the library and information profession, the author is being honoured by International Federation of Library Associations and Institution (IFLA) with a prestigious festschrift in recognition of a librarian who has made a sustained contribution to the library and information profession over decades with significant impact on academia, scholarship, praxis, communities and individual librarians.

Lor is recognized as a lifelong mentee as evidenced by his unbounded forays into discovery driven by a natural curiosity that, in turn, shaped his approach to mentoring through teaching, instilling best practices in research methodology and significant contributions to international librarianship. Today this continues in a regular column for South African librarians, drawing from the international literature of books, libraries and information, his role as a key figure in the establishment of Library and Information Association of South Africa (LIASA) in the 1990s, as well as experience from close involvement in developing LIS policies for post-apartheid South Africa, drafting guidelines for national library legislation and serving as IFLA Secretary-General in The Hague.

This viewpoint has been an attempt to share reflections on one individual’s lifetime of influence without borders or timelines. Without doubt, Lor’s global mentorship reach remains unbounded in his approach to critical thinking and desire for continuous improvement for himself and others.

This paper examines the impact of founder ownership concentration (FOC) on risk disclosures. It further investigates the moderating role of risk governance in the association between FOC and risk disclosures.

We use data from the top 200 Indian listed firms as our sample and rely on ordinary least squares (OLS) for our results. In addition, we use the propensity score matching, Heckman selection model and instrumental variable estimates for robustness checks.

We find that FOC decreases the risk disclosures. However, the effectiveness of risk management committee composition (risk governance) mitigates the negative influence of FOC on risk disclosures.

The paper is built on the agency theory. Based on the agency theory, the ownership concentration has two implications: first, it reduces the conflicts between managers and shareholders. Here, the managers act in favour of shareholders and therefore, brings more risk disclosers. Second, it invites conflicts between controlling and minority shareholders. The study is, therefore, interesting to see the cost and benefits of FOC on risk disclosures.

The study has practical implications for the regulatory bodies to encourage risk disclosures and benefit the outsiders of the firm. It also has implications for the companies to see the benefits of risk management committee as improved risk governance.

It contributes to the literature of risk disclosures and risk governance in emerging economies. It is the first study to investigate the role of risk governance in mitigating the adverse effects of founder’s ownership on risk disclosures in developing economies. It also contributes to the theory of agency cost and information asymmetry.

The purpose of this paper is to explore leadership succession in families in business. Although there is a vast amount of research on leadership succession, no attempt has been made to understand this phenomenon by using an intergenerational learning approach. By applying the Double ABC–X model, the authors discuss how resilience is developed through intergenerational learning during family leadership succession in business.

Based on a single case, the authors define pre- and post-event parameters of the business family under study and use the Double ABC–X Model as an analytical framework. Individual and pair interviews, as well as a family firm workshop, were undertaken following an action research approach using multiple interventions. The qualitative data were collected by reflective journals, field notes and observation protocols. Finally, the authors analyze the data according to a circular deconstruction strategy.

The authors find specific pre-event stressor parameters related to mutual mistrust, independent decision making and non-strategic transmission of power, knowledge and responsibility from predecessor to successor. The intervention based on the intergenerational approach during the post-crisis phase focuses on problem solving and coping within the new situation of co-habitation among the two generations. The intergenerational learning approach based on pile-up of demands, adaptive resources and perception is the source of family adaptation. Additionally, the power of the narrative to reflect past events and project the future seems to the point where the family starts developing resilience.

The way family businesses deal with critical and stressful events during leadership succession may lead to intergenerational learning, which is a source of resilient families. The authors apply the Double ABC–X model to understand family leadership succession in business and further develop it to explain how families develop resilience.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between social trends, peer influence, personal attitudes regarding real estate purchase decisions, perception of long-term property value and the mediating effect of hedging in influencing property and real estate purchases.

Using a combination of quantitative surveys, this study aims to provide a comprehensive knowledge of the factors influencing real estate buying decisions. Data were obtained from 399 young consumers in four Indian cities. Using structural equation modeling, the suggested conceptual framework is examined.

The study’s findings suggest that attitude plays an important role in influencing real estate purchase decisions. Young adults also tend to look for long-term gains or value when purchasing a home. Developing durable products for the customers is the best way to grow business, according to the results.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper that examines the role of sentimental, personal and financial factors in real estate purchase decisions. The study provides insights into how these factors interact and affect the decisions of consumers in real estate. The authors hope that the findings will be useful for real estate professionals to better tailor their services to meet the needs of their customers.

This research aims to explore and theorize the role of embodied practices – orchestrated by service providers – in the social production of servicescapes. It is claimed that the social character of the servicescape is shaped not only by narratives and materialities but also through the body. Bodily physical behaviors like physical movements in space, gestures, facial expressions, postures and tactile engagements with the surrounding materiality constitute a body language that conveys information and expresses meanings. In this kinetic capacity, the body becomes a building agent in the social constitution of the servicescape. As the author empirically demonstrates in the context of city tourism with diverse experiential opportunities, it is due to the body’s discriminatory orientation, walking, looking, pointing and acting in selective ways that the city emerges as a servicescape of particular kind.

Market-oriented ethnography was conducted in Saint Petersburg, Russia, where the author observed the guiding practices of tour guides leading international tourists during two-day city excursions.

This research identifies and unpacks three clusters of embodied practices deployed by service providers as they guide customers at the servicescape: spatializing, emplacing and regulating. The role of the body and its association with narratives and materialities is identified in each cluster.

A number of embodied practices are provided for use by contact employees as they guide customers in the servicescape. Specific guidelines are also offered to service providers for the strategic employment of body language, their training is navigational skills and the coordination of body, narratives and materialities.

This study extends current materialistic and communicative approaches on the construction of servicescapes by claiming that the servicescape in not only a physical and narrative construction but something that is also configured through the body; provides three clusters of embodied practices deployed by service providers; theorizes the intertwined nature of narratives, materiality and the body; defines servicescapes as dynamic socio-spatial entities emerging from the constant {narrative-material-body} arrangements orchestrated by service providers; and sheds light on the mediating role of the body in the social production of servicescapes.

This study employs a multi-method approach to investigate how perceived relationship marketing investment affects perceived relationship value and consumer gratitude, influencing consumer involvement, word-of-mouth intentions, and long-term relationships across three retail consumer types.

The study analyses a model involving 542 consumers, employing structural equation modeling and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to identify distinctive factor configurations across public, semi-public, and private retail organizations.

A retailer’s investment in relationship marketing significantly enhances relationship value and consumer gratitude, leading to increased engagement and word-of-mouth intentions. Perceived benevolence moderates the effect of relationship marketing on gratitude. However, gratitude alone does not ensure long-term relationships. Using fsQCA, we identify four distinct consumer configurations, providing nuanced insights.

Retail organizations broaden relationship marketing strategies to boost perceived value and elicit consumer gratitude, influencing consumer performance outcomes.

Retail organizations should broaden relationship marketing strategies to boost perceived value and elicit consumer gratitude, influencing consumer performance outcomes.

Managers should develop strategies that lead to consumer gratitude toward the firm, such as journey mapping can help visualize retail delivery. Grateful consumers may contribute to firms’ profitability by influencing current and potential consumers in their social networks and communicating their expertise through review/feedback for improvement. Therefore, various strategies are needed to stimulate positive comments from grateful consumers about the firm’s excellent performance.

This study builds on Lawler’s affect theory, highlighting how relationship value and consumer gratitude profoundly influence exchange process outcomes. It introduces new psychological mechanisms to explain the impact of perceived relationship marketing investment on performance outcomes. Integrating these elements provides a comprehensive understanding of retailer–consumer dynamics, revealing how emotional and psychological factors shape marketing strategies and business performance. This contribution enriches theoretical frameworks and offers practical insights for enhancing relationship marketing practices.

Personal branding is a strategic tool of marketing and communication to define success in organisations. While it constitutes a conscious attempt to commodify self and audit self, it must be intentionally managed to obtain its optimum results. This study aims to illustrate how personal branding may also pose unintentional and unconscious strategic tool for women academics in academia to help them get wider visibility and increase their chances of getting into leadership positions.

We employed a case study approach and convenience sampling to select our unit of analysis. Three universities in both public and private universities in the eastern regions of Indonesia were purposefully selected, and interviews were held with 30 female leaders occupying and occupied middle and lower leadership hierarchies.

Our research shows that, despite their unintentional, unplanned and poorly designed personal branding, women have been able to advance to their current leadership positions by building their own rooms for practising their own preferred leadership values to get them visible and heard. This way is performed through a gendered networking, previous leadership experience and bureaucratic requirements. The consequence of such a practice may limit the range of visibility to getting noticed as worthy individuals for senior leadership roles. This might be one reason why women are scarcely found in senior leadership positions.

We propose that natural strategies of constructing, narrating and marketing or communicating personal branding in academia through authentic actions can also be helpful for the success of women to get to leadership roles in a smaller and ambient environment.

The vulnerability of the tourism industry to an array of risks, encompassing family-related, small- and medium-sized enterprise-specific, strategic, tourism-specific and external factors, highlights the landscape within which small and medium family enterprises (SMFEs) operate. Although SMFEs are an important stakeholder in the dynamic tourism sector, they are not one homogenous group of firms, but have different strategic orientations. This study aims to investigate the interplay between strategic orientation and risk perception to better understand SMFEs risk perception as it is impacting their decision-making processes, resilience and long-term survival. The authors investigate how different strategic orientations contribute to different perspectives on risk among owner-managers.

Based on a qualitative data corpus of 119 face-to-face interviews, the authors apply various coding rounds to better understand the relationship between strategic orientations and the perceptions of risks. Firstly, the authors analysed the owner–manager interviews and identified three groups of different strategic orientations: proactive and sustainability-oriented SMFE, destination-affirmative and resilience-oriented SMFE and passive SMFE. Secondly, the authors coded the interviews for different risks identified. The authors identified that the three groups show differences in the risk perceptions.

The data unveil that the three groups of SMFEs have several differences in how they perceive risks. Proactive and sustainability-oriented SMFEs prioritize business risks, demonstrating a penchant for innovation and sustainability. Destination-affirmative and resilience-oriented SMFEs perceive a broader range of risks, tying their investments to destination development, emphasizing family and health risks and navigating competitive pressures. Passive SMFEs, primarily concerned with external risks, exhibit limited awareness of internal and strategic risks, resist change and often defer decision-making to successors. The findings underscore how different strategic orientations influence risk perceptions and decision-making processes within SMFEs in the tourism industry.

The authors contribute to existing knowledge include offering a comprehensive status quo of perceived risks for different strategic orientations, a notably underexplored area. In addition, the differences with respect to risk perception shown in the paper suggest that simplified models ignoring risk perception may be insufficient for policy recommendations and for understanding the dynamics of the tourism sector. For future research, the authors propose to focus on exploring the possible directions in which strategic orientation and risk perception influence one another, which might be a limitation of this study due to its qualitative nature.

Varying strategic orientations and risk perceptions highlight the diversity within the stakeholder group of SMFE. Recognizing differences allows for more targeted interventions that address the unique concerns and opportunities of each group and can thus improve the firm’s resilience (Memili et al., 2023) and therefore leading to sustainability destinations development. The authors suggest practical support for destination management organizations and regional policymakers, aimed especially at enhancing the risk management of passive SMFEs. Proactive SMFE could be encouraged to perceive more family risks.

Viewing tourism destinations as a complex stakeholder network, unveiling distinct risk landscapes for various strategic orientations of one stakeholder has the potential to benefit the overall destination development. The proactive and sustainability-oriented SMFEs are highly pertinent as they might lead destinations to further development and create competitive advantage through innovative business models. Passive SMFEs might hinder the further development of the destination, e.g. through missing innovation efforts or succession.

Although different studies explore business risks (Forgacs and Dimanche, 2016), risks from climate change (Demiroglu et al., 2019), natural disasters (Zhang et al., 2023) or shocks such as COVID-19 (Teeroovengadum et al., 2021), this study shows that it does not imply that SMFE as active stakeholder perceive such risk. Rather, different strategic orientations are in relation to perceiving risks differently. The authors therefore open up an interesting new field for further studies, as risk perception influences the decision-making of tourism actors, and therefore resilience.

Emphasizing the critical role of technology-enabled distribution in tourism, this study, a viewpoint, aims to highlight the potential of democratized technologies in readdressing the competitive imbalance between small- and medium-sized tourism enterprises (SMTEs) and their larger peers in today’s online marketplace. By enhancing competitiveness and performance, democratized technologies can strengthen the resilience, sustainability and competitive position of the SMTEs on which tourism depends, helping to support the Horizon 2050 agenda and UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Examining the development of online and electronic distribution in tourism, the viewpoint identifies the key challenges to the successful use of technology-based distribution systems by SMTEs, as well as highlights the trend toward democratized technologies as a potential solution to help improve technology take-up and performance.

With no/low initial capital or operating costs, and little need for technical expertise, democratized technologies have the potential to overcome two of the three key challenges limiting the successful adoption and use of distribution technologies by SMTES. The key blockage remains one of managerial awareness and acceptability. With informal organization structures, little managerial or technical training and an ingrained reluctance to change, SMTE managers remain unfamiliar of the possibilities offered by this developing trend. While this challenge could be addressed by awareness building and training, in the longer run, it is likely that more substantial progress will arise from generational change in SMTE management, with digitally native successors more likely to exploit this development to improve competitiveness and performance.

Emphasizing the pivotal role that democratized technology can potentially play in redressing the competitive imbalance between SMTEs and their larger peers in the distribution space, this viewpoint serves as a call for action for tourism businesses to re-examine their approach to technology adoption and leverage democratized technologies to address current deficiencies in their distribution approach, helping to improve competitiveness and performance, thus supporting the Horizon 2050 initiative and furthering the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

这篇观点论文强调了技术驱动的分销在旅游业中的关键作用, 强调了民主化技术在重新解决中小旅游企业（SMTEs）与其大型同行在当今在线市场中的竞争失衡方面的潜力。通过提高竞争力和绩效, 民主化技术可以加强旅游业所依赖的SMTE的韧性、可持续性和竞争地位, 有助于支持地平线2050议程和联合国可持续发展目标。

该观点论文考察了在线和电子分销在旅游业的发展, 确定了SMTE成功使用基于技术的分销系统的关键挑战, 并强调了将民主化技术作为帮助提高技术使用率和性能的潜在解决方案的趋势。

由于没有/较低的初始资本或运营成本, 也几乎不需要技术专业知识, 民主化技术有可能克服限制SMTES成功采用和使用分销技术的三个关键挑战中的两个。关键的障碍仍然是管理意识和可接受性。由于非正式的组织结构、很少的管理或技术培训以及根深蒂固的不愿改变, SMTE的管理人员仍然不熟悉这一发展趋势所提供的可能性。虽然这一挑战可以通过提高认识和培训来解决, 但从长远来看, SMTE管理的代际变革可能会带来更大的进展, 数字原生继任者更有可能利用这一发展来提高竞争力和绩效。

强调民主化技术在纠正SMTE与其在分销领域的大型同行之间的竞争失衡方面可能发挥的关键作用, 本文呼吁旅游企业采取行动, 重新审视其采用技术的方法, 并利用民主化技术来解决其分销方法中的当前缺陷, 帮助提高竞争力和绩效, 从而支持地平线2050倡议, 推动联合国的可持续发展目标。

Haciendo hincapié en el papel fundamental de la distribución posibilitada por la tecnología en el turismo, este punto de vista destaca el potencial de las tecnologías democratizadas para corregir el desequilibrio competitivo entre las Pequeñas y Medianas Empresas Turísticas (PYMETs) y sus homólogas de mayor tamaño en el mercado online actual. Al mejorar la competitividad y el rendimiento, las tecnologías democratizadas pueden reforzar la resistencia, la sostenibilidad y la posición competitiva de las PYMETS de las que depende el turismo, contribuyendo así a apoyar la agenda Horizonte 2050 y los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible de la ONU.

Examinando el desarrollo de la distribución online y electrónica en el turismo, el punto de vista identifica los desafíos clave para el uso exitoso de los sistemas de distribución basados en la tecnología por parte de las PYMETs, así como destaca la tendencia hacia las tecnologías democratizadas como una solución potencial para ayudar a mejorar la adopción y el rendimiento de la tecnología.

Con unos costes iniciales de capital o de funcionamiento nulos o bajos, y poca necesidad de conocimientos técnicos, las tecnologías democratizadas tienen el potencial de superar dos de los tres retos clave que limitan la adopción y el uso con éxito de las tecnologías de distribución por parte de las PYMETs. El bloqueo clave permanece en la concienciación y la aceptación por parte de los directivos. Con estructuras organizativas informales, escasa formación técnica o de gestión y una arraigada reticencia al cambio, los directivos de las PYMETs permanecen desconocedores de las posibilidades que ofrece esta tendencia en desarrollo. Aunque este reto podría abordarse mediante la concienciación y la formación, a largo plazo es probable que surjan progresos más sustanciales del cambio generacional en la gestión de las PYMETs, con sucesores nativos digitales más propensos a explotar este desarrollo para mejorar la competitividad y el rendimiento.

Haciendo especial hincapié en el potencial y fundamental papel que la tecnología democratizada puede desempeñar a la hora de corregir el desequilibrio competitivo entre las PYMETs y sus homólogas de mayor tamaño en el espacio de la distribución, este punto de vista sirve de llamada a la acción para que las empresas turísticas reexaminen su enfoque de la adopción de tecnología y aprovechen las tecnologías democratizadas para subsanar las deficiencias actuales en su enfoque de la distribución, ayudando a mejorar la competitividad y el rendimiento, apoyando así la iniciativa Horizonte 2050 y fomentando los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible de la ONU.

This research offers clarity regarding process supply chain integration through two deliverables: (1) developing six constructs (both integrative mechanisms and integrative practices for internal, customer, and supplier integration); and (2) empirically testing a theoretically grounded supply chain process model using three distinct datasets (internal, customer, and supplier integration).

The construct development procedure involved a continuous improvement cycle for identifying 1,450 items previously used to measure internal, customer, and/or supplier integration constructs; classifying the items into one of six categories; and refining the instruments based on pilot data and peer feedback. Three surveys (targeted key informants based on their specialized knowledge on internal, customer, or supplier integration) were disseminated for evaluating the measurement instruments and testing the theoretically grounded supply chain management process models, by performing the Covariance-Based Structural Equation Modeling (CB-SEM) analysis technique.

The findings revealed consistencies across all three dimensions of supply chain integration where integrative mechanisms and integrative practices are distinct constructs; integrative mechanisms make it possible for integrative practices and supply chain orientation to occur in a supply chain company; and integrative practices and supply chain orientation improve business performance.

Our study contributes to answering how process-oriented supply chain management occurs, responding to calls for research in the supply chain management discipline and advancing theory development around supply chain integration. The theoretical and managerial contributions of developing six constructs and testing three supply chain management process models relate to identifying the specific aspects of supply chain integration that improves business performance. The three tested models also reveal both direct and mediating effects of integrative practices and supply chain orientation, which contributes to the practical understanding of effective supply chain management implementation.