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This study aims to investigate how the gratifications obtained through brand-related social media content affect brand intimacy and thereby influence customer extra-role behavior.

Using the uses and gratification theory, this study proposes information, entertainment and remuneration content that motivates customers to develop brand intimacy and thereby perform customer extra-role behavior. The study also tests the moderated moderation effect of self-congruence and customer experience using 704 observations from South India in the food industry context.

The study’s results reveal the influence of entertainment and remuneration content on brand intimacy, which further influences customer extra-role behavior (civic virtue, cocreation, sportsmanship and helping behaviors). The study confirms a moderated moderation effect in the relationship between brand intimacy and civic virtue and brand intimacy and sportsmanship behaviors.

The study suggests that brands may include entertainment and remuneration elements in their social media content to build intimate customer relationships, further influencing customers’ extra-role behaviors. Besides, brands should focus on customers’ self-concepts and experiences to encourage them to act voluntarily.

This study makes a unique contribution by investigating the influence of brand-related social media content on customer extra-role behavior through brand intimacy. It uses self-congruence and customer experience to test their moderated moderation effect in the relationship between brand intimacy and customer extra-role behavior.

The study aimed to listen to refugee survivors of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) and/or torture and explore what justice meant to them in exile. This study argues that what the survivors who participated in this research wanted was “viable justice”. The research was funded by the British Academy and Leverhulme Trust.

Using a survivor-focussed justice lens combined with a trauma-informed approach, narrative interviews were held with 41 women and 20 men refugee survivors living in refugee settlements in Northern Uganda. The researchers also conducted semi-structured interviews with 37 key informants including refugee welfare councils, the UN, civil society, non-government and government organisations. Thematic analysis of the data resulted in the following themes being identified: no hope of formal justice for atrocities that occurred in South Sudan; insecurity; lack of confidence in transitional justice processes in Ugandan refugee settlements; abuse and loss of freedom in refugee settlements; and lack of access to health and justice services in refugee settlements.

This study argues that what the survivors who participated in this research wanted was “viable justice”. That is justice that is survivor-centred and includes elements of traditional and transitional justice, underpinned by social justice. By including the voices of both men and women survivors of SGBV and/or torture and getting the views of service providers and other stakeholders, this paper offers an alternative form of justice to the internationally accepted types of justice, which offer little relevance or restitution to refugees, particularly where the crime has been committed in a different country and where there is little chance that perpetrators will be prosecuted in a formal court of law.

The research findings are based on a small sample of South Sudanese refugees living in three refugee settlements in Northern Uganda. Thus, wider conclusions should not be drawn. However, the research does suggest that a “viable justice” approach should be implemented that is gender and culturally sensitive and which could also be trialled in different refugee contexts.

Improvements in refugee survivors’ dignity, resilience and recovery are dependent upon the active engagement of refugees themselves using a “survivor-focussed approach” which combines formal and community-based health services with traditional and transitional justice responses.

The provision of a “viable justice approach” ensures those who have experienced SGBV and/or torture, and their families, feel validated. It will assist them to use their internal, cultural and traditional resilience and agency in the process of recovery.

The research findings are original in that data was collected from men and women survivors of SGBV and/or torture and service providers. The empirical evidence supports this study’s recommendation for an approach that combines both formal and survivor-focussed approaches towards health and viable justice services to meet the needs of refugees living in refugee settlements. This is a response that listens to and responds to the needs of refugee survivors in a way that continues to build their resilience and agency and restores their dignity.

Three-dimensional (3D) printing has great potential in the food industry. While 3D printing technology offers customised food products to consumers, it also allows producers to develop new products using a wide variety of alternative food ingredients, modernise the production process and carry out environmentally friendly production. This research aims to determine the attitudes of students towards 3D foods who are studying in the Department of Gastronomy and Culinary Arts, as they are both consumers and examine different food processing systems and use them in the field of application. As a result of the study, it was identified that the participants believed that 3D printing is a great modern technology that allows the development of new foods, that it will bring benefit to us in the future, reduce the cost of food and food waste, increase the sustainability of food and that they see it as environmentally friendly. In addition, it was determined that the participants did not think that 3D-printed foods were disgusting; they found these foods reliable, could try them in the future and were excited to experience them.

The aim of this research was to evaluate the maturity level of strategic communication management implemented by Brazilian startups.

This study employed the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), survey and Grey Fixed Weight Clustering modeling techniques. Three experts with extensive academic and practical experience in the subject participated in the AHP process, providing their opinions on the relative importance of eight variables associated with the topic under investigation, thus enabling their prioritization. Concurrently, data were collected through a survey from 23 respondents who have extensive knowledge about the realities of Brazilian startups. The weights derived from the AHP and the survey data were utilized in the Grey Fixed Weight Clustering modeling.

Based on the opinions of the 23 respondents, the level of implementation of practices related to strategic management, brand management, external image management and internal communication management is superficial. In addition, according to the majority of experts, Brazilian startups exhibited a medium level of maturity to address the key challenges related to communication management. Furthermore, this study reveals that the variables “financial resources allocation,” “stakeholder relationship” and “brand management” were deemed the most significant for the model.

The contributions presented herein can be beneficial for both researchers and startup managers seeking to enhance communication strategies in their organizations. This research also contributes by highlighting how grey systems theory can be extremely useful for conducting decision-making analyses in the context of startups, which is characterized by uncertainty and imprecise information.

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered an increase in online traffic, with many assuming that this technology would facilitate coping through active social connections. This study aims to interrogate the nature of this traffic-engagement relationship by distinguishing between passive (e.g. browsing) and active (e.g. reacting, commenting and sharing) engagement, and examining behavioral shifts across platforms.

Three field studies assessed changes in social media engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic. These studies included social media engagement with the most followed accounts (Twitter), discussion board commenting (Reddit) and news content sharing (Facebook).

Even though people spent more time online during the pandemic, the current research finds people were actively engaging less. Users were reacting less to popular social media accounts, commenting less on discussion boards and even sharing less news content.

While the current work provides a systematic observation of engagement during a global crisis, it does not claim causality based on its correlational nature. Future research should test potential mechanisms (e.g. anxiety, threat and privacy) to draw causal inference and identify possible interventions.

The pandemic shed light on a complex systemic issue: the misunderstanding and oversimplification of how online platforms facilitate social cohesion. It encourages thoughtful consideration of online social dynamics, emphasizing that not all engagement is equal and that the benefits of connection may not always be realized as expected.

This research provides a postmortem on the traffic-engagement relationship, highlighting that increased online presence does not necessarily translate to active social connection, which might help explain the rise in mental health issues that emerged from the pandemic.

Many believe that any social media harms kids because of frequent use. This study aims to examine these assumptions. It proposes and tests a model that considers two alternative pathways – one negative and one positive – through which social media affects teens’ self-reported subjective well-being.

This research used Preacher and Hayes process modeling to conduct path analysis on data collected on 585 teenagers from across the USA.

Results showed that along a negative pathway, frequent social media use leads to greater risky social media engagement that ultimately diminishes adolescent’s sense of well-being. Also, and perhaps simultaneously, frequent social media use leads to socially-connected social media use that enhances adolescent’s sense of well-being.

The research recommends ways parents, policymakers and platforms can encourage teens to use social media to connect with friends while guiding them away from pathways exposing them to risky behaviors.

Findings show more social media use is not necessarily harmful, but more of some types is bad, while more of others is good.

The inclusion of LGBTQ + persons (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and having other sexual orientations and gender identities) is a crucial step in improving gender diversity in the workplace; however, till date, it remains a significant challenge for human resource management professionals. The current study critically examines this issue of an inclusive workplace for LGBTQ + people through a systematic review of the existing research that has empirically studied their experiences at the workplace. It also examines the resistance and challenges organizations face in LGBTQ + diversity training and provides future research avenues.

For systematically reviewing the literature, Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) model has been used. A total of 101 empirical studies have been reviewed.

The result shows that LGBTQ + people encounter multiple negative workplace experiences, including proximal (hiring discrimination and housing discrimination) and distal workplace discrimination (unsafe work climate, microaggressions and harassment). These aversive experiences lead to work stress while also mandating that people manage their sexual identity and style of dressing. This stress, in turn, impacts their work–family outcomes, job satisfaction and decision-making with regard to their careers.

The paper provides a holistic understanding of the aversive workplace experiences encountered by sexual minorities.

Disinformation on social media is a serious issue. This study examines the effects of disinformation on COVID-19 vaccination decision-making to understand how social media users make healthcare decisions when disinformation is presented in their social media feeds. It examines trust in post owners as a moderator on the relationship between information types (i.e. disinformation and factual information) and vaccination decision-making.

This study conducts a scenario-based web survey experiment to collect extensive survey data from social media users.

This study reveals that information types differently affect social media users' COVID-19 vaccination decision-making and finds a moderating effect of trust in post owners on the relationship between information types and vaccination decision-making. For those who have a high degree of trust in post owners, the effect of information types on vaccination decision-making becomes large. In contrast, information types do not affect the decision-making of those who have a very low degree of trust in post owners. Besides, identification and compliance are found to affect trust in post owners.

This study contributes to the literature on online disinformation and individual healthcare decision-making by demonstrating the effect of disinformation on vaccination decision-making and providing empirical evidence on how trust in post owners impacts the effects of information types on vaccination decision-making. This study focuses on trust in post owners, unlike prior studies that focus on trust in information or social media platforms.

Current school leadership research has primarily utilized quantitative methods to explore the relationship between leadership and teacher learning. However, there is a notable gap in understanding how principals facilitate professional learning, especially in centralized educational settings. This study aims to address this gap by examining the role of school leadership in enhancing teacher professional learning within a highly centralized education system.

This qualitative case study delves into the lived experiences of 15 teachers and eight school leaders in eight primary schools in Mashhad, Iran. Through semistructured interviews, researchers employed open and axial coding to systematically explore and categorize qualitative data. The study focuses on understanding the role of principal leadership in facilitating teacher professional learning by connecting themes and sub-themes across transcripts.

Effective principals worked on the cultivation of a culture that champions perpetual personal growth and development, the nurturing of a collaborative learning community, and the provision of essential resources and support. Findings showed the pivotal role of principals in promoting teachers' self-development, facilitating idea exchange and acknowledging their efforts. Principals appeared as key to encouraging information sharing, fostering collective learning, promoting professional development, overseeing teaching practices and ensuring the availability of resources to cultivate a supportive climate in a centralized education context.

We concluded that in centralized education, leadership practices for promoting teacher learning share similarities and differences with decentralized settings. The findings offer guidance for principals in centralized systems, supporting them in facilitating teacher professional learning in their schools.