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This qualitative study explores how Chinese senior outbound tourists perceive support from their adult children and what kinds of support they desire.

Qualitative data were collected from semi-structured interviews with 26 participants. Transcribed interviews were analysed via thematic analysis.

This study captured the contradictory feelings of different types of Chinese senior outbound tourists (i.e. independent, neutral, and dependent) according to the degree of desire for support from their adult children. The results further identified the real desires among Chinese senior outbound tourists for children's attitudinal support, caring support, appropriate financial support, companionship, and timing support.

Since this qualitative research is based on small samples with typical social and cultural characteristics, our research results only describe an existence. Our findings provide insight into the existence of the phenomenon, rather than allowing the results to be generalized to the wider population (Gram et al., 2019).

The tourism industry could develop products to alleviate such feelings. Integrating the concept of filial piety into adult children's support for their parents' overseas travel can not only meet parents' expectations but also relieve parents' ambivalence. Destination operators and travel agencies could thus design mixed products targeting Chinese elderly parents and their adult children by providing activities for both generations. Purchasing behaviour represents a type of emotional and instrumental support for the elderly. Destination operators and travel agencies can also launch products suitable for in-depth outbound travel that cater to adult children's leisure travel while meeting the elderly's travel needs.

This study also extends both intergenerational support theory and intergenerational ambivalence theory regarding Chinese senior outbound tourists.

A quality management system (QMS) is defined as interacting activities, methods and procedures used to monitor, control and improve service quality. The purpose of this paper is to describe the QMS status using the Quality Management System Index (QMSI) in hospitals affiliated to Shahid Beheshti Medical Sciences University in Tehran, Iran.

In this cross-sectional study, 28 hospitals were investigated. A validated 46-item questionnaire was used for data collection. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, independent student’s t-test and regression analysis.

The mean QMSI score was 18.4: 15.3 for public and 20.9 for non-public hospitals (p=0.001). The lowest (1.96) and the highest (2.14) scores related to “Quality policy documents” and “Quality monitoring by the board,” respectively. The difference between public and non-public hospitals was significant in all nine QMSI dimensions (p=0.001). The QMSI score was higher in non-public and small hospitals than in public and large ones (p=0.05).

Most QMS studies come from developed countries, and there is no systematic information about the mechanisms and processes involved in implementing QMS in developing countries like Iran. This is the first study on Iranian hospital QMS using a newly developed tool (QMSI), and results showed that QMS maturity in these hospitals was relatively good, but the non-public hospitals status (private and charity) was far better than public hospitals.

The purpose of this paper is to improve back propagation neural network (BPNN) modeling in order to promote the forecast calculation precision of landslide deformation.

The genetic algorithm is adopted to optimize the architectural parameter of BPNN so as to avoided errors occurrence while using the trial‐and‐error method. Furthermore, the Sigmoid function is improved and revised to expand the output range of change‐over function from unipolar (only positive) to ambipolar (may be positive or negative), then the convergence time is reduced and the neural network can express more artificial intelligence.

The modeling can effectively reduce the probability to get into the local minima while employing neural networks to forecast the landslide deformation. It significantly promotes the forecast precision.

The improved BPNN modeling, which is very good in learning and processing information, can work out the complex non‐linear relation by learning model and using the present data or reciprocity of surroundings.

The revised BPNN modeling in this paper can be used to predict and calculate landslide deformation.

The paper demonstrates that the modeling can meet the demand of calculation precision.

The paper assesses the moderating function of institutions in the financial development and environmental nexus covering India for the time period 1980–2019.

Deviating from extant literature which has mostly used emissions of major greenhouse gasses as a measure of environmental quality, the present study uses a broad measure of environmental quality called ecological footprint (EFP). Financial development is measured using a robust proxy recently introduced by International Monetary Fund (IMF). This index is multifaceted and covers three broad dimensions of financial sector in terms of depth, efficiency and access of both financial institutions and markets, thus outperforming the exclusively bank-based measures used in the past literature. Further institutional quality index is generated using the data from international country risk guide. Finally, autoregressive distributed lag model is used for the empirical estimation of short-run and long-run results.

The empirical estimates reveal that financial development and institutional quality are good for long-run environmental sustainability of India, whereas economic growth degrades the environment in the long- run. The results also attest to the existence of pollution heaven hypothesis in India for long run. Furthermore, regarding the moderating role of institutions, the study reveals that institutional quality complements financial development in affecting environment in the short run. While as, in the long run, they play a substitutive role whereby sound institutions cover-up the inefficiencies in financial system.

First, the paper uses the index of financial development developed by the IMF in order to quantify the level of financial development in India overtime. The index is based on three key dimensions of financial development such as the depth, efficiency and access of both financial institutions and markets. However, the index completely neglects the role of financial stability in determining financial development. Thus, future studies that are based on this IMF introduced index of financial development should incorporate the stability dimension to it. Second, this empirical study focused exclusively on India and employed aggregate EFP to measure environmental quality. Further studies can complement the content of this research by conducting similar studies to capture country-specific characteristics of other emerging economies and also scrutinize the impact on the six sub-indices of EFP.

The results of the study reveal that the effect of financial development, and institutions on ecological footprint is sensitive to time dynamics. Moreover, the findings offer important policy implications to government and policy makers in India on how to curb the menace of environmental degradation.

The paper addresses the gap in the literature by examining the moderating role of institutional quality in the financial development and ecological footprint nexus in India. Furthermore, the authors employ a robust proxy for both financial development and environmental quality unlike extant studies on India.

This study aims to examine the effects of industrialization, deindustrialization and financialization on Turkey’s energy insecurity by controlling the impacts of urbanization and alternative energy generation for the 1980–2018 period.

This study proposed an econometric model relying on the literature. Moreover, based on different financialization variables, this study estimated two specifications of this model using the augmented nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag approach.

The results are as follows: first, industrialization increased Turkey’s long-run energy insecurity, whereas deindustrialization did not affect Turkey’s energy security. Second, urbanization worsened Turkey’s energy insecurity. Third, financialization aggravated Turkey’s energy insecurity. Last, alternative energy generation improved Turkey’s energy security.

This study identifies the energy security’s drivers in Turkey with a focus on industrialization and financialization. Nonetheless, further research is needed on other emerging economies with high energy insecurity levels, and a disaggregated approach can be followed to examine how various industrial sectors impact energy security.

To combat energy insecurity, quantifiable, innovative and energy-efficient goals should be set for Turkey’s industry sector. Additionally, to achieve these goals, financial opportunities should be provided by reforming the financial sector. This reformative approach can also curb financialization’s negative effect on Turkey’s energy security.

Deindustrialization is not a solution to Turkey’s energy insecurity. Also, unless necessary actions are taken, industrialization, financialization and uncontrolled urbanization may continue to threaten Turkey’s energy security. Finally, promoting alternative energy generation seems to be a viable long-run solution to energy insecurity.

Although a significant number of studies investigated industrialization’s and financialization’s impacts on energy demand or environmental damage, only a few studies examined their impacts on energy insecurity. Similar to other developing nations, as Turkey is facing chronic energy security problems, the author believes that the analysis provides important policy insights regarding energy (in)security’s drivers. By differentiating the impacts of industrialization and deindustrialization, this study also shows that deindustrialization may not be a proper solution to deal with energy insecurity.

This study examines the role of the observable and unobservable characteristics of top management on earning management and firm risk in China.

The authors used manager-firm matched panel for 104 non-financial firms listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange between 2010 and 2018. The authors also trace the persistence of managerial financial styles and their active role across two different firms between which managers switched during the sample period.

The results show that managers' financial styles indeed influence earning management and firm risk and that this influence differs across different managers. These findings are robust when tested for the persistence and active role of managers. Furthermore, individual characteristics such as age, gender, qualification and experience influence managers' financial styles.

Given their findings, the authors propose that financial analysts and potential investors should not only depend on quantitative data but also consider the individual characteristics of managers when evaluating firms.

The findings of this study carry serious implications for managers, policymakers and potential investors. The findings assist the external auditors in measuring the risk of material misstatement, the various regulatory bodies to assess the quality of financial reporting and the users of financial statements to evaluate the earnings and make further investment decisions considering not only the quantitative data but also the individual characteristics of top managers.

The current study examines the observable and unobservable characteristics of top management on firm risk and earnings management in Chinese context.

This study provides the critical masses (thresholds) at which the positive incidence of finance and economic growth will be dampened by the negative effects of income inequality and poverty on energy consumption in Sub-Saharan Africa for policy direction.

The study employed the two steps systems GMM estimator for 41 countries in Africa from 2005–2020.

The study found that for finance to maintain a positive effect on energy consumption per capita, the critical thresholds for the income inequality indicators (Atkinson coefficient, Gini index and the Palma ratio) should not exceed 0.681, 0.582 and 5.991, respectively. Similarly, for economic growth (GDP per capita growth) to maintain a positive effect on energy consumption per capita, the critical thresholds for the income inequality indicators (Atkinson coefficient, Gini index and the Palma ratio) should not exceed 0.669, 0.568 and 6.110, respectively. On the poverty level in Sub-Saharan Africa, the study reports that the poverty headcount ratios (hc$144ppp2011, hc$186ppp2011 and hc$250ppp2005) should not exceed 7.342, 28.278 and 129.332, respectively for financial development to maintain a positive effect on energy consumption per capita. The study also confirms the positive nexus between access to finance (financial development) and energy consumption per capita, with the attending adverse effect on CO₂ emissions inescapable. The findings of this study make it evidently clear, for policy recommendation that finance is at the micro-foundation of economic growth, income inequality and poverty alleviation. However, a maximum threshold of income inequality and poverty headcount ratios as indicated in this study must be maintained to attain the full positive ramifications of financial development and economic growth on energy consumption in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The originality of this study is found in the computation of the threshold and net effects of poverty and income inequality in economic growth through the conditional and unconditional effects of finance.

Drawing on the integration of the knowledge-based theory and the resource orchestration theory, this study aims to develop a moderated mediation model on how design/manufacturing/administrative advanced manufacturing technology (AMT) influences product innovation performance. The authors hypothesized that the absorption capacity could mediate the AMT-innovation performance link and that design–manufacturing integration (DMI) could positively moderate the mediating effect of the absorption capacity.

To test the hypothesis, the authors conducted a mail survey of equipment manufacturing firms and obtained 302 valid responses for data analysis. Both hierarchical regression and bootstrapping analysis were conducted to empirically test the research model.

It is revealed that the absorption capacity partially mediated the effect of AMT on innovation and that DMI enhanced the mediated effect. Specifically, the mediating effect of the absorption capacity was more substantial and significant when DMI was high. However, the mediating effect of the absorption capacity was weaker and insignificant when DMI was low.

Overall, this study contributes to the AMT theory on innovation by identifying the absorption capacity and DMI as two key factors that elucidate why and under what conditions AMT affects innovation. Moreover, this study advises managers that besides developing AMT, firms should cultivate a strong DMI, which directs the absorption capacity toward converting the valuable knowledge in firms’ capital equipment into increased innovation performance.

This investigation builds on two domains. First, professional service providers, such as dentists and veterinarians, represent an understudied link in the distribution channel. Their recommendation of products, such as toothpaste and pet food, are impactful to their clientele. Second, for consumers, sustainability is growing as a motivating factor in product consideration. Consequently, brands committed to sustainability want to promote their products accordingly to connect with the consumer. The purpose of this study is to determine how to trust in sustainable brands is built in the mind of professional service providers, as they are influential in their clients’ decision process.

Structural equation modeling was used to test the conceptual model that predicted how brand trust of sustainable products is built in the mind of the professional service provider using a sample of 457 veterinarians.

Results revealed that trust in sustainable brands is built via professionals’ expertise in sustainability and their perception of the importance of sustainability. Additionally, the perception of altruistic motivations had a positive impact on brand trust while the perception of strategic motivations had no influence on trust in sustainable brands.

Previous studies typically examine sustainability in an organizational context or as a brand consideration factor for consumers. This research focuses on professional service providers, who operate independently of the organization, alongside the formal distribution channel. The study examines how their perception of sustainability importance and their perceived motives of brands engaging in sustainability activities impacts their trust in sustainable brands.

As climate change impacts residential life, people typically use heating or cooling appliances to deal with varying outside temperatures, bringing extra electricity demand and living costs. Water is more cost-effective than electricity and could provide the same body utility, which may be an alternative choice to smooth electricity consumption fluctuation and provide living cost incentives. Therefore, this study aims to identify the substitute effect of water on the relationship between climate change and residential electricity consumption.

This study identifies the substitute effect of water and potential heterogeneity using panel data from 295 cities in China over the period 2004–2019. The quantile regression and the partially linear functional coefficient model in this study could reduce the risks of model misspecification and enable detailed identification of the substitution mechanism, which is in line with reality and precisely determines the heterogeneity at different consumption levels.

The results indicate that residential water consumption can weaken the impact of cooling demand on residential electricity consumption, especially in low-income regions. Moreover, residents exhibited adaptive asymmetric behaviors. As the electricity consumption level increased, the substitute effects gradually get strong. The substitute effects gradually strengthened when residential water consumption per capita exceeds 16.44 tons as the meeting of the basic life guarantee.

This study identifies the substitution role of water and heterogeneous behaviors in the residential sector in China. These findings augment the existing literature and could aid policymakers, investors and residents regarding climate issues, risk management and budget management.