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The study's objective is to examine the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) social media news (SMN) on work boredom (WB) and task performance (TP). The study proposes that psychological well-being (PWB) and depression mediate the relationship between COVID-19 SMN, WB and TP.

The data for this research was collected from white-collar employees of two Asian countries, Pakistan (study 1, n = 167) and Malaysia (study 2, n = 118), was collected using an online survey during strict movement control order (MCO), work from home, at the beginning of the year 2020.

In both studies, the PWB of employees mediated the relationship between COVID-19 SMN and their WB. On the other hand, depression only mediated the relationship between COVID-19 SMN and WB in Pakistan. PWB only mediated the relationship between COVID-19 SMN and TP in study 2. Depression only mediated the relationship between COVID-19 SMN and TP in study 1.

A couple of limitations worth noting are that the study adopted a cross-sectional approach. Thus, the sample size is not large in both counties. Because of the outbreak, limited employees agree to be part of an online survey. The scope of the study also restricts the authors to collect data during MCO, when employees were forced to work from home. In Pakistan, MCO began on 20th March and ended on 30th April, while in Malaysia, MCO started on 18th March and ended on 12th May. This also limits the study's claim of generalizability.

The practical implication of the study is to guide practitioners of both Pakistan and Malaysia in developing strategies that help them understand that employees having PWB look for growth and challenging opportunities even during pandemic situations; employers can leverage it to deal with external threats like COVID-19 because improving the PWB can improve TP and reduce WB. The interesting results highlighted the fact that high TP not necessarily means everything is fine with employees, when the uncertainty level is high, employees may be performing well due to fear and depression instead of work motivation. Thus, employers should be more vigilant during a pandemic situation. This study also helps policymakers understand that the overall economic situation affects the individual employee’s state of mind and work behavior.

The paper contributes to scare literature on COVID-19 and SMN and illustrates employees' work behavior when forced to work from home during the MCO.

Creative performance relies on the capability of developing and presenting an original concept or idea, and the collaborative production of creative content which enhances feeling of connection with others and formation of strong community. The purpose of this paper is to apply the theory of work performance containing four dimensions (capacity, opportunities, willingness, and performance) to investigate how the capabilities of social network sites enhance user creative performance through collective social capital and information capital (opportunities) for and individual habit of use (willingness) of the user to engage in social learning process.

Many measurement items are adapted from the literature, except those measuring the constructs of social media capabilities (i.e. transmission velocity (TV), parallelism, symbol sets, rehearsability, and reprocessability) and user creative performance. The study uses survey method to collect data from social media network (SMN) users in Taiwan. Facebook is chosen as the source because it is the most prevalent and sophisticated social media platform that provides a home for users to interact and communicate. Structural equation modeling with partial least square is used to analyze the usable data collected from 533 Facebook users.

The results show that the constructs are significantly and positively correlated, meaning that social media capabilities enable social capital, information capital, and habit of use to improve user creative performance in SMNs. Three out of five social media capabilities (i.e. TV, parallelism, and rehearsability) are identified as the key enablers.

Because of the sampled surveyed subjects and the single research method, there are some limitations in this study. The research results may lack generalizability that should be taken into account when they are interpreted. The authors encourage researchers to test the proposed theoretical model further with additional subjects, variables, and linkages.

The findings of this research shed light for managers of SMN platforms on how to manage the platforms more effectively. A healthy SMN platform must implement at least these three media capabilities: the functions of news feed (i.e. TV), chat (i.e. parallelism), edit (i.e. rehearsability), in order to sustain its service.

This study confirmed that user creative performance can be increased in various ways through social capital, information capital, and habit of use. Company management should use SMNs (e.g. Facebook or Twitter) to enable employees to interact and exchange ideas and promote “coopetition” among employees across the company. If the organizational culture supports free expression of ideas and sharing of opinions, the development and robustness of group creativity can be enhanced, leading to higher competitive advantage for a company against its competitors.

Past studies related to individual creativity have mostly discussed it as a personality trait or talent; yet, personality trait or talent is implicit until it is shown by one’s behavior. Thus, for the collective performance of user creativity on SMNs, the authors elicit individual creativity through the creative performance manifested by user behavior. Furthermore, the authors confirm that social capital, information capital, and habit of use are the critical antecedents of user creative performance, and that the five social media capabilities are the enablers of social capital, information capital, and habit of use on SMNs.

This paper aims to propose and test a modified technology acceptance model for the social media networks (SMNs) in the luxury hotel context, integrating satisfaction and continued usage intention, using a mixed-method approach. SMNs have revolutionized the way people communicate, search for information and share experiences. The technology acceptance model is the predominant theory for researching technology acceptance; however, there is a gap in identifying and testing context-specific constructs.

This paper uses a mixed-method approach. The researchers conducted 16 interviews and 258 questionnaires with luxury hotel guests. Following the collection of data, interviews and questionnaires were analyzed using thematic and partial least square analysis.

Findings show that accessibility, trust, social influence and perceived benefits influence perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness, which affect attitude and satisfaction and ultimately continued usage intentions. Findings also reveal that enjoyment, although qualitatively proposed, does not influence luxury hotel guests’ SMNs continued usage intention.

This study suggests that hotel managers have to concentrate their marketing efforts in enhancing SMN’s interaction and increasing the number of positive reviews to retain current customers and acquire new ones. Hotels should also develop effective mobile strategies by adopting mobile social network webs and applications, as accessibility becomes more important in today’s marketplace.

Former scholars adopted the approach of proposing external dimensions based on previous research and, thus, did not integrate up-to-date and context-specific variables. Therefore, the present paper uses a new approach by exploring SMN-specific dimensions and testing them in the luxury hotel context.

The adoption of e-commerce in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is a much researched topic in developed and developing nations. The application of mobile devices, and social media networks (SMNs) such as Facebook has revolutionalised the e-commerce adoption process in SMEs. However, research into this area is still developing and there is a dearth of knowledge on how SMEs in developing countries enact and apply this phenomenon. The purpose of this paper is to explain how e-commerce entrepreneurship using SMN is conceptualised and applied in SMEs, and to highlight factors that influence this e-commerce innovation.

An interpretive and qualitative case study approach was adopted as a methodological foundation in a firm pseudo-named, myBot. The study employed the contextualism theory as a meta-theoretical framework to conceptualise and analyse the e-commerce entrepreneurship process in the firm. The study employed face-to-face semi-structured and unstructured interviews with the manager as primary means of obtaining in-depth information. Further information was obtained through website content analysis and document analysis of the firm’s reports and observations.

The results unearth a socially constructed feature of e-commerce entrepreneurship that draws from myBot’s manager’s innovative ability to use Facebook and e-mail to increase sales through its niche market. Factors that propelled e-commerce entrepreneurial activities using Facebook include trust, commitment and innovativeness.

The revelation of this study may have changed due to the dynamic changes in the information and communication technology industry and how these are employed in a particular country and region of the world. Thus, results may not be generalised to other contexts. The study has a methodological limitation as it only had one informant who could respond to the study questions.

The study provides a practical application of using the contextualism theory to analyse e-commerce entrepreneurship in SMN.

The application of e-commerce using SMNs such as Facebook widens the scope of tools that SMEs may use.

The study provides a theoretical lens into the understanding of an e-commerce entrepreneurship process using a contextualism theory. The paper showcases how e-commerce using Facebook can be portrayed in a developing country context.

The normal error distribution for the observations and log-volatilities in a stochastic volatility (SV) model is replaced by the Student-t distribution for robustness consideration. The model is then called the t-t SV model throughout this paper. The objectives of the paper are twofold. First, we introduce the scale mixtures of uniform (SMU) and the scale mixtures of normal (SMN) representations to the Student-t density and show that the setup of a Gibbs sampler for the t-t SV model can be simplified. For example, the full conditional distribution of the log-volatilities has a truncated normal distribution that enables an efficient Gibbs sampling algorithm. These representations also provide a means for outlier diagnostics. Second, we consider the so-called t SV model with leverage where the observations and log-volatilities follow a bivariate t distribution. Returns on exchange rates of Australian dollar to 10 major currencies are fitted by the t-t SV model and the t SV model with leverage, respectively.

Social exclusion and isolation of older people and their mental health are likely to be more significant, interlinked issues for society as countries experience an ageing demographic profile. The authors urgently need to identify effective ways of addressing these challenges that can be easily mobilised to meet diverse needs in different settings. The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of sporting memories (SM) work as one approach to help meet this need. This SM work entails the use of sports-based reminiscence to engage with older people experiencing mental health problems. To date this has especially focused on people living with dementia in institutional and in community settings.

The paper sets out the SM idea and discusses lessons learnt from case studies of its application to meet the inclusion and mental health needs of different older people in institutional and community settings.

The evidence from the application of SM work to date is that it is an effective and flexible means of engaging people to improve their social inclusion and mental well-being. It can be readily deployed in various care and community settings.

The evidence to date is of case studies of the use of SM work, and, although these are now extensive case studies, further research is needed on the costs and impacts of SM work.

SM work is a flexible and readily adoptable intervention to engage older people and help improve their social inclusion and mental well-being.

SM work can be an important part of meeting some of the challenges society faces with an ageing population profile.

This is the first paper to set out the SM work.

The purpose of this paper is to promote discussion about, and the development of the evidence-base underpinning integrated working for intergenerational working. It discusses perspectives on intergenerational work in general and specifically draws on case experiences of the use of intergenerational reminiscence based on sporting memories to highlight issues pertaining to integrated working.

The paper presents a general discussion of issues of intergenerational projects and integrated working, with case discussions of the use of sporting memories as an intervention for focusing intergenerational contact.

It is concluded that intergenerational work has much to offer but that it is far from clear how best to organise integrated working for this type of work. There are interesting lessons to be drawn for intergenerational interventions and integrated working from the case study discussions.

Although case studies can provide crucial in-depth knowledge they can be limited in developing evidence we can be sure is more generalisable across contexts. Hence, further research is required into the impact of intergenerational projects, and how best to maximise this through effective integrated working.

The discussion and case study materials suggest there is much potential in using intergenerational projects to achieve a range of possible outcomes but it is not clear how integrated working is best operationalised in such work. Care is required about clarity concerning the aims of specific projects, but practitioners and others should be encouraged to carefully explore this area of work.

The challenges of an ageing society are significant, as is the need to maintain intergenerational contact, mutuality and the implicit social contract across generations. Specifically developing opportunities for such contact may help achieve this and a range of other positive outcomes.

This paper brings together a discussion of intergenerational projects with consideration of the challenges of integrated working, and adds specific case study lessons from the use of sports-based reminiscence.

The purpose of this study is to explore the comparative effects of mainstream celebrities and social media influencers on consumer advocacy and relationship intentions. The study also examines the direct and serial mediation effects on those relationships.

The survey questionnaire was used to collect data from 718 respondents throughout Malaysia, with convenience and snowball sampling techniques employed. The data were analyzed based on the structural equation modeling (SEM) approach through the AMOS version 24. The PROCESS MACRO v-4.20 was applied to evaluate mediating effects in the model.

The results reveal that celebrity endorsers' involvement in social media significantly influences the uses of social media, which also impacts the attitudes and, subsequently, consumer relationship and advocacy intentions. The study found that mainstream celebrities and social media influencers effectively promote brands, and it discovered insignificant differences in their effects on the analyzed relationships.

This study has been conducted on consumers in Malaysia; it may have different effects on consumers in other countries.

Brand managers and policymakers may benefit from following the study's guidelines for making consumer relationship and advocacy intentions by celebrity endorsers and uses of social media.

The brand community can benefit from tightening their social bondage by sharing and managing crucial information from celebrities and using social media.

The study explores the effects of mainstream celebrities on consumer relationship and advocacy intentions using social media networks and managing consumer attitudes.

Many companies that were once centrally involved in the actual manufacture of products, and the delivery of their supporting services, now find themselves primarily engaged in integrating a number of other organizations, some of which they may own but many of which will be independent, each of which goes to make up a particular supply network. Consequently, continuously tracking performance of suppliers and an appropriate selection mechanism is one of the crucial activities in managing this supply network. This paper presents an intelligent generic supplier management tool (GSMT) using the case‐based reasoning (CBR) technique for outsourcing to suppliers and automating the decision‐making process when selecting them. The development of GSMT and how the CBR technique is applied is then given, followed by an application of GSMT in Honeywell Consumer Products (Hong Kong) Limited.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of behavioral dimensions constituting the essence of charismatic leadership (CL) on coordinated teamwork (CTW).

Data were collected from 113 members among 20 ad hoc project teams formed by specialists and assistant specialists employed in a public institution. Simple linear and multiple regression models were employed to analyze the effect of CL on CTW.

The behavioral dimensions of CL, which include possessing a strategic vision and articulation skill, sensitivity to the environment and sensitivity to member needs, were found to have a significant and positive effect on CTW, while the personal risk and unconventional behavior dispositions of a leader were found to render no significant effect on CTW.

Having tested the effect of CL behaviors on CTW, this particular model provides salient implications in clarifying which CL behaviors particularly render a significant effect on CTW and the consequential effectiveness of teamwork. Nevertheless, there is a need for longitudinal studies conducted in a range of different sectors and institutions.

The originality of this empirical study is that it advances the grasp of the relationship between CTW and the behavioral factors of CL.