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This study assesses the quality of health-insurance services and their impact on customer satisfaction, examining the mediating role of utilitarian value and brand image in this relationship.

Survey data were collected from 345 health-insurance companies' customers selected through convenience sampling and were analyzed using SmartPLS.

Service quality statistically significantly influences customer satisfaction with health insurance in Saudi Arabia, whereas brand image and utilitarian value partially mediate this relationship. The structural path between service quality and brand image was statistically significant and positive. The utilitarian dimension positively affects customer satisfaction and service quality.

This study is significant to the management, as it provides insight into the expectations of health-insurance users. The focus is to gain a competitive advantage by improving customer service and brand image.

This investigation contributes to the field by exploring the mediating role of utilitarian value and brand image in the relationship between health-insurance quality and customer satisfaction based on the information provided by insurance policyholders in Saudi Arabia.

The aim of our study is to explore the nexus between the gender composition of board and firm financial performance. We use the data of 114 listed banks from 10 Asian emerging economies. Data were extracted from the DataStream for the year 2012–2021. We apply fixed effect model to analyze the data. In addition, we use generalized method of moments (GMM) to verify our main findings. We find that both proxies of board gender composition which are the proportion of female board members and the percentage of female executives on the board have a significant impact on banks' financial performance. Findings suggest that female representation on board provides more insights of monitoring and optimal advisory capabilities and, therefore, gender-diversified board enhances firm performance. Females are more active in business matters and take more interests to fulfill their responsibilities. The results of our study provide useful signals for corporate and regulatory policymakers. Board gender disparities between enterprises should be better understood by all stakeholders to have the optimal combination of board members that ultimately lead to better performance of the firm.

The current study aims to ascertain the association between tourism development, economic growth and environmental quality by using the short-run and long-run autoregressive distributive lag model.

Tourism development has a major role to play in improving a nation’s economic growth. However, it is also blamed for exacerbating environmental pollution because of its massive use of energy (non-renewable energy).

The major findings of this research show that renewable energy (RE) use and gross domestic product (GDP) negatively impact carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions in South Africa. Tourism arrivals and CO₂ emissions negatively impact GDP, while capital positively impacts GDP in the long run.

This research recommends the use of RE, since it reduces carbon emissions, and capital, as it remains the major driver of economic growth.

The originality of the current research is that it uses long-period annual time series data from 1971 to 2019 of South Africa, one of the largest tourist nations in Africa. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no studies have examined South Africa in this context and minimal research has been conducted to ascertain the impact of the tourism industry on the environment, despite the accusations directed toward it.

We aimed to analyze the impact of the transition to the hybrid model of teamwork and team dynamics from the perspective of the five key challenges, i.e. communication, coordination, connection, creativity and culture.

To achieve the stated aim, we conducted a literature review and then an exploratory qualitative study. We split the research into phases: December 2021 to January 2022 and July to August 2022. In the first phase, we conducted computer-assisted online interviews (CAWIs) with all members of the remote team and an in-depth interview with the manager. After the transition from remote to hybrid work in February 2022, we returned to the team to conduct in-depth interviews with team leaders and the manager.

We identified key findings, i.e. managerial implications of differences across the 5 Cs (communication, coordination, connection, creativity and culture) noted in the functioning of the analyzed team as the team shifted from fully remote work to the hybrid work model.

We concluded that if people do not spend time together and are not impregnated with the unique culture and values of a given organization, they will not feel a connection to its distinctive ethos and may choose to leave. In the longer-term, the last challenge may be the biggest single opportunity for employees post-pandemic and concurrently the single biggest challenge that organizational leadership will need to address, given that sustainable market success depends on talent.

The results showed that team communication, teamwork coordination, social and emotional connections among team members, nurturing of creativity, as well as of the organizational culture were of high importance to the team in the hybrid work model. Thus, we confirmed the findings of other authors. The study contributes to our understanding of the impact of the hybrid work model on teamwork and team dynamics and provides some guidance on how organizations can mitigate these, in particular through the team manager.

The purpose of this systematic literature review was to collect and review the studies published worldwide in English language presenting the persuasive role of information/content credibility (IC) on the information adoption behavior (IAB) of social media users.

The relevant literature was searched by the reviewers from two specialized databases, i.e. Library, Information Science and Technological Abstract (LISTA) and Library and Information Science Abstracts (LISA), whereas five general databases, i.e. Emerald, Springer Link, Taylor and Francis Online, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global and Google Scholar, using the Internet (portal) services available at the two Pakistani universities, i.e. University of Sargodha and the University of the Punjab. The search was updated in February 2022.

The results of this study revealed that there was a significant impact of IC over the IAB of social media users.

This study is the first of its nature that aims to collect and present a systematic review of the literature based on empirical evidence of the influential role of IC on the IAB of social media users.

The study aims to explore the validity of the modern renewable energy-environmental Kuznets curve (REKC) while considering the relevance of financial development in the consumption of modern renewable energy in East Africa Community (EAC). Modern renewable energy in this study includes all other forms of renewable energy except traditional use of biomass. The authors controlled for the effects of urbanization, governance, foreign direct investment (FDI) and trade openness.

Panel data of the five EAC countries of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda for the period 1996–2019 were used. The analysis relied on the use of the autoregressive distributed lag–pooled mean group (ARDL-PMG) model, and the data were sourced from the World Development Indicators (WDI), World Governance Indicators (WGI) and International Energy Agency (IEA).

The REKC hypothesis is supported for modern renewable energy consumption in the EAC region. Financial development positively and significantly affects modern renewable energy consumption, whereas urbanization, FDI and trade openness reduce modern renewable energy consumption. Governance is insignificant.

The concept of the REKC, although explored in other contexts such as aggregate renewable energy and in other regions, has not been used to explain the consumption of modern renewable energy in the EAC.

While there are enormous studies on the determinants of environmental degradation, empirical studies on the effect of renewable energy consumption and economic growth on the environment remain limited. The purpose of this paper is to examine the asymmetric effect of renewable energy consumption and economic growth on environmental degradation in 31 selected sub-Saharan African countries spanning from 1990 to 2018.

To examine possible asymmetric effects of the exogenous variables on environmental degradation, we used the panel nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag approach and secondary data was sourced from the World Bank (2021).

The cointegration test results suggest that there is a long-run cointegration among the variables whereas our main findings indicate that environmental degradation responds asymmetrically to changes in renewable energy consumption and economic growth. The results further reveal that both positive and negative shocks in renewable energy consumption reduce environmental degradation. On the other hand, positive and negative shocks in economic growth increase environmental degradation in the long run.

The implications of this study include the need for policymakers in sub-Saharan Africa to encourage the utilization of renewable energy as it reduces environmental degradation. Also, governments in the subregion should gradually replace the usage of fossil fuels by adapting renewable energy sources so as to achieve higher economic growth.

The positive and negative shocks of renewable energy consumption and economic growth on environmental degradation are examined to ascertain their asymmetric relationships.

This study aims to examine how audit committee (AC) attributes influence quality and quantity disclosure of energy consumed by the listed nonfinancial firms for the period of five years (2016–2020). The study aims at providing empirical evidence on how board of director’s independence influences the relationship between AC attributes and firms’ energy in achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs) on world climate policy.

The study obtained data from a sample of 83 listed nonfinancial firms, content analysis technique was used to compute energy disclosure indexes using global reporting initiative standards, while regression analysis was conducted to test the relationship among research variables.

The study revealed that AC independence, diversity and meetings were significantly related with energy disclosure. Also, the study found that other variables were insignificantly related with energy disclosure.

The study is constrained for not considering all listed firms in the country. Furthermore, the study considered selected attributes, other important audit-committee size attributes such as audit-committee size, audit-committee size tenure could be study in by the future study.

The study’s findings would have practical implications for corporations and other business organizations seeking to actively involve the energy-related SDGs 7 and 13 in their business models and successfully communicate these efforts to stakeholders.

To the best of author’s knowledge, this is the first study that provides empirical evidence on the effect of AC attributes on the energy disclosure using effect of board independence as moderator in Nigeria.

This paper aims to explore and analyse stakeholders’ perceptions of the development priorities and suggests more effective strategies to assist sustainable economic growth in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The authors use the World Bank data set, which collects various stakeholders’ opinions on the UAE development. First, the exploratory factor analysis has been applied to detect the main groups of development priorities. Second, the fuzzy cluster analysis has been conducted to detect the groups of stakeholders with different attitudes towards the importance of extracted groups of priorities. Third, clusters have been compared according to demographics, media usage and shared prosperity goals.

The two main groups of development priorities have been extracted by the exploratory factor analysis: economic priorities and sustainability priorities. Four clusters have been detected according to the level of motivation when it comes to the economic and sustainability priorities: Cluster 1 (High economic – High sustainability), Cluster 2 (High economic – Medium sustainability), Cluster 3 (High economic – Low sustainability) and Cluster 4 (Low economic – Low sustainability). Members of the cluster that prefer a high level of economic and sustainability priorities (Cluster 1) also prefer more diversified economic growth providing better employment opportunities and better education and training for young people in the UAE.

Limitations stem from the survey being conducted on a relatively small sample using the data collected by the World Bank; however, this data set allowed a comparison of various stakeholders. Future research should consider a broader sample approach, e.g. exploring and comparing all of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries; investigating the opinions of the expatriate managers living in the UAE that are not from GCC countries; and/or including other various groups that are lagging, such as female entrepreneurs.

Several practical implications were identified regarding education and media coverage. Since respondents prioritize the economic development factors over sustainability factors, a media campaign could be developed and executed to increase sustainability awareness. A campaign could target especially male citizens since the analysis indicates that males are more likely to affirm high economic and low sustainability priorities than females. There is no need for further diversification of media campaigns according to age since the analysis did not reveal relevant differences in age groups, implying there is no inter-generational gap between respondents.

This paper contributes to the literature by comparing the perceived importance of various development goals in the UAE, such as development priorities and shared prosperity indicators. The fuzzy cluster analysis has been used as a novel approach to detect the relevant groups of stakeholders in the UAE and their developmental priorities. The issue of media usage and demographic characteristics in this context has also been discussed.