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The present study investigated the effect of online collaborative project-based learning on the language performance and attitudes of intermediate level students at the College of Applied Sciences in Oman. The study is a quasi-experimental study and the sample consisted of four classes (93 students in total) in Nizwa College of Applied Sciences. These participants were in their foundation year and were taking the Academic English Course during the time of the research experiment. Two classes were assigned to the experimental group (46 students) and they were directed to collaborate online in doing their research projects. The other two classes were assigned to the control group (47 students) and did their projects individually. A language test containing reading and writing questions, an attitude questionnaire, students' project scores and transcripts of focused group discussions were used to collect the data needed to answer the research questions. The study revealed that the main positive effect of online collaborative project-based learning was clear on students' writing skill in the post test (i.e. students in the experimental group outperformed students in the control group).

The purpose of this paper is to explain why Singapore is a success story today despite the fact that its prospects for survival were dim when it became independent in August 1965.

This paper describes the changes in Singapore’s policy context from 1959 to 2016, analyses the five factors responsible for its success and concludes with advice for policy makers interested in implementing Singapore-style reforms to solve similar problems in their countries.

Singapore’s success can be attributed to these five factors: the pragmatic leadership of the late Lee Kuan Yew and his successors; an effective public bureaucracy; effective control of corruption; reliance on the “best and brightest” citizens through investment in education and competitive compensation; and learning from other countries.

This paper will be useful to those scholars and policy makers interested in learning from Singapore’s success in solving its problems.

Despite its devastating nature, the COVID-19 pandemic has also catalyzed a substantial surge in the adoption and integration of technological tools within economies, exerting a profound influence on the dissemination of information among participants in stock markets. Consequently, this present study delves into the ramifications of post-pandemic dynamics on stock market behavior. It also examines the relationship between investors' sentiments, underlying behavioral drivers and their collective impact on global stock markets.

Drawing upon data spanning from 2012 to 2023 and encompassing major world indices classified by Morgan Stanley Capital International’s (MSCI) market and regional taxonomy, this study employs a threshold regression model. This model effectively distinguishes the thresholds within these influential factors. To evaluate the statistical significance of variances across these thresholds, a Wald coefficient analysis was applied.

The empirical results highlighted the substantive role that investors' sentiments and behavioral determinants play in shaping the predictability of returns on a global scale. However, their influence on developed economies and the continents of America appears comparatively lower compared with the Asia–Pacific markets. Similarly, the regions characterized by a more pronounced influence of behavioral factors seem to reduce their reliance on these factors in the post-pandemic landscape and vice versa. Interestingly, the post COVID-19 technological advancements also appear to exert a lesser impact on developed nations.

This study pioneers the investigation of these contextual dissimilarities, thereby charting new avenues for subsequent research studies. These insights shed valuable light on the contextualized nexus between technology, societal dynamics, behavioral biases and their collective impact on stock markets. Furthermore, the study's revelations offer a unique vantage point for addressing market inefficiencies by pinpointing the pivotal factors driving such behavioral patterns.

This paper aims to analyze the impact of Covid-19 on the stock market volatility and uncertainty during the first and second waves.

This study has applied event study and autoregressive integrated moving average models using daily data of confirmed and death cases of Covid-19, US S&P 500, volatility index, economic policy uncertainty and S&P 500 of Bombay Stock Exchange to attain the purpose.

It is observed that, during the first wave, the confirmed cases and the fiscal measure have a significant impact, while the vaccination initiative and the abnormal hike of confirmed cases have a significant impact on the US stock returns during the second wave. It is further observed that the volatility of Indian and US stock markets spillovers during the sample period. Moreover, a perpetual correlation between the Covid-19 and the stock market variables has been noticed.

At present, the world is experiencing the third wave of Covid-19. This paper has considered the first and second waves.

It is expected that business leaders, stock market regulators and the policymakers will be highly benefitted from the research outcomes of this study.

This paper briefly highlights the drawbacks of existing policies and suggests appropriate guidelines to successfully implement the forthcoming initiatives to reduce the catastrophic impact of Covid-19 on the stock market volatility and uncertainty.

The study seeks to find the effect of financial leverage on the firm performance of non-financial companies listed in the Tokyo stock market.

The study collected data from 263 companies in the automobile and industrial producer sectors listed on the Tokyo stock exchange between 2001 and 2021. The generalized method of moments was used to estimate the effect of leverage on financial performance due to its ability to overcome the problems of endogeneity and autocorrelation.

The study found that the equity multiplier has a positive and statistically significant effect on return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE) and earning per share (EPS). The study discovered that the interest coverage ratio has a positive and statistically significant effect on ROA, ROE, EPS and Tobin’s Q. The results revealed that the degree of financial leverage and debt to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) have a negative and statistically significant effect on ROE, EPS and Tobin’s Q. The study also found that the capitalization ratios of the firms have a negative and statistically significant effect on ROA, ROE, EPS and Tobin’s Q.

The use of debt financing, which presents financial leverage, indicates that the companies can make enough earnings to pay off the interest and principal (debt service obligations), which were shown by the interest coverage ratio, as well as to pay all the long-term fixed expenses, which were shown by the fixed charge coverage ratio. Interest and fixed charge coverage have a positive statistically significant effect on the financial performance of automobile and industrial producer companies.

The study focused on the effect of financial leverage on financial performance by relying on pecking and trade-off theories to contribute to the existing body of literature in finance.

This study investigates how cruise corporations, which have shown consistent and high growth rates in recent years, address the Sustainable Development Goal 17 (SDG17) “Partnership for the Goals” to meet the UN 2030 Agenda. This study aims to fill the existent gap in the literature, as also highlighted by practitioners in the First Research Conference on Tourism, through the lens of stakeholder theory.

This study focuses on the analysis of partnerships and collaborative governance of cruise corporations’ endeavours to meet the UN 2030 Agenda. This study is supported by the sustainability disclosure framework and stakeholder theory, based on the dependence of resources and descriptive and instrumental approaches to describe, analyse and map, through multi-stakeholder partnerships, the sustainability initiatives and practices adopted by cruise corporations. A systematic manual content analysis has been developed on sustainability reporting published by corporations.

According to the descriptive and instrumental approaches and the dependence resources construct of the stakeholder theory, this study highlights the typology and nature of partnerships with SDGs, and their strategic role in achieving them, although cruise corporations do not highlight in their sustainability reporting the measures of effectiveness regarding the relationship between single partnerships and targets reached for each SDG.

Recommendations at the managerial level are put forward to support cruise corporations’ initiatives and practices to meet UN 2030 Agenda. This study suggests to governors of corporations the cooperation between the cruise industry and institutions at the local, national and international levels for promoting institutional interventions at the infrastructure and economic level.

This study provides further insights into the under-researched topic of sustainability disclosure within the cruise industry, adopting the lens of stakeholder theory from the partnerships’ perspective. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to adopt the analysis of the SDG practices under the lens of the stakeholder theory, based on the dependence of resources and descriptive and instrumental approaches to identify, map and analyse the multi-stakeholder partnerships as an enabling key to meet UN 2030 Agenda in the cruise industry.

This study investigates the relationship between the Chief Executive Officer's (CEO) overconfidence and financial reporting complexity in Iran, a context characterized by weak corporate governance and heightened managerial discretion.

The sample consists of 1,445 firm-year observations from 2010 to 2021. CEO overconfidence (CEOOC) is evaluated using an investment-based index, specifically capital expenditures. Financial reporting complexity (Complexity) is measured through textual features, particularly three readability measures (Fog, SMOG and ARI) extracted from annual financial statements. The ordinary least squares (OLS) regression is employed to test the research hypothesis.

Results suggest that CEOOC is positively related to Complexity, leading to reduced readability. Additionally, robustness analyses demonstrate that the relationship between CEOOC and Complexity is more distinct and significant for firms with lower profitability than those with higher profitability. This implies that overconfident CEOs in underperforming firms tend to increase complexity. Also, firms with better financial performance present a more positive tone in their annual financial statements, reflecting their superior performance. The findings remain robust to alternative measures of CEOOC and Complexity and are consistent after accounting for endogeneity issues using firm fixed-effects, propensity score matching (PSM), entropy balancing approach and instrumental variables method.

This study adds to the literature by delving into the effect of CEOs' overconfidence on financial reporting complexity, a facet not thoroughly investigated in prior studies. The paper pioneers the use of textual analysis techniques on Persian texts, marking a unique approach in financial reporting and a first for the Persian language. However, due to the inherent challenges of text mining and feature extraction, the results should be approached with caution.

The insights from this study can guide investors in understanding the potential repercussions of CEOOC on financial reporting complexity. This will assist them in making informed investment decisions and monitoring the financial reporting practices of their invested companies. Policymakers and regulators can also reference this research when formulating policies to enhance financial reporting quality and ensure capital market transparency. The innovative application of textual analysis in this study might spur further research in other languages and contexts.

This research stands as the inaugural study to explore the relationship between CEOs' overconfidence and financial reporting complexity in both developed and developing capital markets. It thereby broadens the extant literature to include diverse capital market environments.

This study aims to analyze the perceptions of smallholder farmers on climate change and events and further explores climate change adaptation strategies and associated challenges. The findings provide useful information for enhancing the adaptive capacity of smallholder farmers to adjust to climate-related hazards and improve their resilience and disaster preparedness in northern Ghana.

This study uses a multistage sampling procedure and sample size of 150 farmers, the Binary Probit Model (BPM), to identify and examine the determinants of climate change adaptation strategies adopted by smallholder farmers. Also, the constraints of adaptation were analyzed using Kendall’s coefficient of concordance.

The results from the BPM and statistics of Kendall’s coefficient revealed that the farm risk level, ability to adapt, farmer’s income, age, farming experience, climate change awareness and extension visits were factors that significantly influenced the adaptation strategies of smallholder farmers (in order of importance). The majority (60%) of the farmers ranked farm risk level as the major constraint to adopting climate change strategies.

The findings of this study enhance understanding on access to relevant and timely climate change adaptation information such as an early warning to farmers during the start of the farming/rainy season to support their adaptive responses to climate change.

This paper seeks to understand children’s responses to food waste in school by exploring children’s views on food waste and empowering them to discuss and develop their own solutions.

Using creative problem-solving approach and photovoice technique, the authors conducted focus group discussions with 28 primary school children in the UK.

Children have a clear understanding of the consequences of food waste for individuals, society and the environment. They displayed negative emotions concerning food waste and responded positively to the possibility of food recycling. Their solutions to reduce food waste will require multiple stakeholder engagement, including self-regulation, peer-monitoring, teacher supervision and family support. However, rather than relying on intervention schemes that require significant adult involvement, children placed a heavy emphasis on self-regulation, playing an active role in addressing food waste in school.

This research extends previous understanding, by showing children as agentic consumers who can shape food waste solutions in school. These findings are of use to primary teachers and local education authorities, to aid children in developing their own solutions to reduce food waste in their own schools.

The study examines the amplifying role of users in the e-healthcare sector and holistically show its current state and potential. The paper aims at contributing to the scientific literature with a comprehensive review of the current state of the art on the application of user innovation (UI) in the e-healthcare sector, as a solid step for discussing the potential, trends, managerial gaps and future research avenues in this field. Despite the crucial importance of the topic and increasing attention toward it in the last few years, there is a lack of comprehensive scrutiny on different angles of involving users in health technology innovations so far.

This study combines two methods of bibliometric analysis and extensive content analysis of 169 journal articles on Scopus and Web of Science to unfold five research questions regarding the mechanisms of involving users, innovations characteristics and the role of users throughout the innovation process.

A clear result of the applied methodology is the profiling of users involved in e-health innovations in seven categories. The results of this study shed light on the current practice of not involving users in all the stages of the innovation process of m-health, telemedicine, self-managing technologies, which is contrary to the best practices of the UI application.

Collection of relevant studies due to lack of comprehensibility of the keywords.

The offered propositions can act as a roadmap to potential research opportunities as well as to organize such innovations from a managerial perspective in particular healthcare organization managers and the middle managers operating at R&D sectors and policymakers.

This study is the first of its kind that digs out the application of UI strategies such as user-centered design in the context of e-healthcare and provides a bibliometric and extensive content analysis of the studies conducted in this theme over the years.