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Awe is an important yet largely overlooked emotion in tourism. This paper aims to reveal the underlying mechanism of the effects of nature-inspired awe on stimulating tourists' environmentally responsible behavior (TERB) intention by delving into the serial mediation effect of state construal level, small-self perception and state connectedness to nature (CNT).

This research was built upon the appraisal theory of emotion. Study 1 was a scenario-induced quasi-experimental study to test the proposed model linking awe, small-self perception, state CNT and TERB intention. A total of 271 valid questionnaires were collected via an online questionnaire platform. Study 2 was a field study designed to replicate the findings of Study 1 and further uncover the mediating role of the state construal level. Study 2 was conducted in Baiyun Mountain Scenic Area, China. A total of 229 valid questionnaires were used for analysis.

This research deepens our understanding of the effects of nature-inspired awe in the tourism and travel fields. This research uncovers the underlying mechanism by which awe increases TERB intention through serial mediation. Specifically, awe inspires tourists to apply a higher level of construal, which makes tourists perceive a smaller self, making them feel more connected to nature and exert more intention to adopt ERB.

This research linked tourists' mindset (i.e. state construal level), internal (i.e. small-self perception) and external (i.e. state CNT) cognition in an integrated model, explaining how nature-inspired awe contributes to eliciting TERB intention. The findings add critical theoretical contributions to the travel and tourism literature and provide important implications for the tourism industry to inspire awe and benefit from such emotion.

敬畏在旅游中是一种十分重要的情绪, 但却鲜少被关注。本研究旨在深入研究解释水平状态、小我感知和自然关联感的链式中介效应, 揭示自然敬畏激发游客环境责任行为意向的内在作用机制。

本研究的基础理论为情绪评价理论。研究一通过场景诱导的准实验研究, 检验将敬畏、小我感知、自然关联感和游客责任行为意向的假设模型; 研究一以网络问卷平台收集的271份有效问卷数据进行分析。研究二是一项在中国白云山风景区开展的实地研究, 旨在检验研究一的研究结果, 并进一步揭示解释水平状态的中介效应; 研究二采用229份有效问卷数据进行分析。

本研究揭示了敬畏通过链式中介作用影响游客环境责任行为意向的内在作用机制, 深化了对自然敬畏在旅游和旅行领域价值的理解。具体而言, 本研究发现敬畏激发了游客启动更高的解释水平, 这使游客感知到更渺小的自我, 并促使他们感到与自然的联系更加紧密, 从而提升了游客的环境责任行为意向。

本研究将游客的心理定式（即解释水平状态）、内在认知（即小我感知）和外部认知（即自然关联感）整合到一个综合模型中, 解释了自然敬畏引发游客环境责任行为意向的作用机制。研究结果为旅游研究提供了重要的理论贡献, 也为旅游行业如何在实践中激发敬畏感并从中获得效益提供了重要的实践启示。

El asombro es una emoción importante pero en gran medida ignorada en el turismo. Esta investigación pretende revelar el mecanismo subyacente de los efectos del asombro inspirado por la naturaleza en la estimulación de la intención del comportamiento responsable con el medio ambiente (TERB) de los turistas, profundizando en el efecto mediador en serie del nivel de interpretación del estado, la percepción del pequeño yo y la conexión del estado con la naturaleza (CNT).

Esta investigación se basó en la teoría de la valoración de la emoción. El estudio 1 fue un estudio cuasiexperimental inducido por escenarios para probar el modelo propuesto que vincula el sentimiento de asombro, la percepción del pequeño yo, el estado CNT y la intención TERB. Se recogieron 271 cuestionarios válidos a través de una plataforma de cuestionarios en línea. El Estudio 2 fue un estudio de campo diseñado para replicar los hallazgos del Estudio 1 y descubrir más a fondo el papel mediador del nivel de interpretación del estado. El estudio 2 se llevó a cabo en la zona escénica de la montaña de Baiyun (China). Se utilizó un total de 229 cuestionarios válidos para el análisis.

Esta investigación profundiza en nuestra comprensión de los efectos del asombro inspirado por la naturaleza en los ámbitos del turismo y los viajes. Esta investigación descubre el mecanismo subyacente por el que el asombro aumenta la intención de TERB a través de la mediación en serie. En concreto, el asombro inspira a los turistas a aplicar un mayor nivel de interpretación, lo que hace que los turistas perciban un yo más pequeño, lo que les hace sentirse más conectados con la naturaleza y ejercer así una mayor intención de adoptar TERB.

Esta investigación vinculó la mentalidad de los turistas (es decir, el nivel de nterpretación del estado), la cognición interna (es decir, la percepción de un yo más pequeño) y la externa (es decir, la CNT del estado) en un modelo integrado, explicando cómo el asombro inspirado por la naturaleza contribuye a suscitar la intención TERB. Los hallazgos añaden contribuciones teóricas críticas a la literatura sobre viajes y turismo y proporcionan implicaciones importantes para que la industria turística inspire asombro y se beneficie de dicha emoción.

Leveraging lobbying theory, the authors analyze responses to the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) proposal suggesting the removal of state and local governmental accounting from the content tested on the uniform certified public accountant (CPA) examination. Furthermore, the authors compare the responses to a prior exam content review to place the uniqueness of the more recent response in perspective.

The authors examine 181 comment letters obtained from the AICPA website. In addition, the relative concentration of governmental entities across the USA is studied for correlation with the response rate.

Consistent with lobbying theory, the authors find that participating governmental entities overwhelmingly argued for the retention of governmental accounting. In contrast, most other groups of respondents (accounting firms, state societies, etc.) had at least one letter that agrees with the removal of the content.

While the letter writers appear to be successful in retaining the governmental accounting content on the CPA exam, the majority of the detailed content has been placed within a specialized area on the new version of the CPA exam, expected to be deployed in 2024. This means that fewer CPA candidates will be exposed to governmental accounting than under the current regime. It has implications for governmental units seeking qualified candidates to fill their staffing needs especially as fewer universities offer governmental accounting courses.

This study aims to investigate the effect of digitalization on bank profitability among Vietnamese banks.

The research employs fixed-effects regression on a panel data of 32 banks in Vietnam during the period 2010–2021.

The study reveals a positive impact of digitalization on bank profitability. The result is robust to different measures and empirical settings. Not surprisingly, small banks and banks with high percentage of state ownership experience lower profitability than their peers. However, digitalization helps improve the profitability of these banks. This study explains the effect by showing that digitalization significantly reduces bank cost in terms of cost to income ratio and increases bank non-interest income through diversification into non-traditional products and services. In addition, the current stage of bank digitalization in Vietnam does not reduce banks’ employment costs since it requires staffs to support and operate the new system.

The research findings are motivations for bankers and policy-makers in designing appropriate strategies toward digitalization. Investors can also consider highly digitalized banks as valuable investment.

This research extends the current literature on the relationship between digitalization and bank profitability, with a focus on commercial banks in Vietnam. Given the high involvement of the government and the dominance of several large banks in the banking system, the study also explores whether the effect of digitalization on bank profitability varies with the bank’s size and state ownership. Last but not least, the channels in which digitalization affects bank profitability are also examined.

This viewpoint will present some statistical information about employee ownership in the US and interpret and analyze this information in order to address the barriers question using material from qualitative interviews that the authors have conducted over the last ten years with practitioners in the field. There have been few actual empirical studies that sort out the different barriers to employee ownership. The authors have chosen to focus on employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) in the US because this is the principal example from which people could learn from, and the high prevalence of ESOPs plays an important role in the US. This overview will present interpretations of these interviews with conceptual arguments that cannot always be supported with either overwhelming empirical studies or arguments that conclusively eliminate one or other explanation. This is an initial attempt to bring some comprehensive treatment and data to this incipient discussion. This is based on an interpretive analysis of qualitative interviews without quantification or social survey methods used for measurement. The advantage of this approach is that it lays out a completely different level of analysis of the barriers to employee ownership in the US that is “closer to the ground” and more based in the views of front-line practitioners who are actually implementing it.

Analysis and interpretation of qualitative interviews.

The list of barriers that has been identified is not exhaustive. The preliminary conclusions are that (not necessarily in this order) limitations of investment banking models, poor supportive infrastructure, complexity and cost and regulatory issues, the lack of support by political parties and social movements, the sale of companies due to financial considerations and legal complexities and lack of clarity and resistance by Federal agencies are major barriers in the US. Various sectors of Wall Street has been amenable to employee ownership with the proper government and private sector support. What is needed now is a series of quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews of retiring business owners in closely held companies and of CEOs and CFOs in stock market companies in order to gauge the barriers that they believe are blocking their own action in the employee share ownership area. The Rutgers Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing is working on such a research agenda at this time. In addition, with the future size of the US employee ownership sector at stake, a more intensive one-year interview project would make sense in order to present these different explanations to key actors and practitioners and ask them to provide evidence to prove or disprove the relevance of the different barriers.

Empirical research which can resolve which barriers are more important than others is presented, when possible; however, studies that provide metrics to compare different barriers are not available and need to be carried out.

Other countries considering employee ownership policies can learn from the US experience. US policymakers and legislators can learn from an original, recent discussion of barriers.

If employee ownership sectors are to be developed, a careful discussion of barriers is most relevant.

Original document by the authors based on original interviews.

This study aims to analyse the structure of the Indian vaccine supply chain (SC) during the Covid-19 crisis and explore the underlying challenges at each stage in the network. It also brings out the difference in performance of various constituent states.

This study relied on both primary and secondary data for the analyses. For the primary data, the study gathered experts’ opinions to validate the authors’ inferences. For the secondary data, it relies on government data provided in websites.

Based on the quartile analysis and cluster analysis of the secondary data, the authors find that the constituent states responded differently during the first and second waves. This was due to the differences in SC characteristics attributed to varied demographics and administrative efficiency.

This paper’s analyses is primarily limited to secondary information and inferences are based on them. The study has important implications for implementing the large-scale vaccination drives by government and constituent states for better coordination and last-mile delivery.

The contribution is unique in studying the performance of constituent states using statistical techniques, with secondary data from authentic sources. It is also unique in combining this observation with validation from experts.

This study comparatively examines the collaborative policy mechanisms for interlocal cooperation (ILC) utilized by municipal managers in Nebraska, USA, and Norway. The research addresses differences in ILC, factors of national setting and implications for ILC management in public service delivery.

Over a seven-year period, the researchers collected data from 16 communities in the two countries to observe perceptions and usages of ILC. Using a policy tools theoretical framework, the authors apply a typology of collaborative mechanisms for comparative analysis.

The findings suggest that institutional orientations in the USA and Norwegian systems of government affect managerial approaches to collaborative service delivery, namely the operationalization of local governments within federal and unitary structures may influence perceptions toward the formality and specificity of ILC policy mechanisms.

This study offers further understanding of ILC mechanisms for public sector management. Theoretical and practical implications of ILC in a comparative international context of governmental systems for collaboration are explored.

Introduction: Today the ability of nations to develop and implement innovations is core for their international competitiveness. Ukraine is striving for innovation progress; however, its innovation performance is relatively low. The research problem is to find the bottlenecks, affecting Ukraine’s innovation capability.

Purpose: This study aims to research the national innovation capability profiles, based on cluster analysis, to develop an understanding of drivers and threats for the innovation capability of Ukraine.

Need of the study: The knowledge-based economy, which had already turned into one of the most efficient developmental models of the 21st century, became a key driver of international competitiveness for the leading developed countries due to their progressive structural shifts towards the growth of high-technology manufacturing and knowledge-intensive sectors. These trends are significant to capture for the sake of increasing the innovation capability of the economy of Ukraine.

Methodology: The study is based on the K-means clustering method, which is employed for identifying 10 country clusters based on the indicators of their R&D and innovation activities, which allowed us to assess the innovation capability of Ukraine in comparison with 140 countries of the world. Data selection and normalisation were based on the 2019 Global Competitiveness Report indicators.

Findings: The study showed that Ukraine’s innovation capability problems are typical for most developing countries and are prevalently connected to low R&D expenditures, patent applications, and international co-invention activities. Most countries, except for the technologically developed ones, follow the so-called ‘passive technological learning’ strategies, which usually result in low economic productivity.

Practical implications: Several innovation policy implications have been developed for the government of Ukraine based on the cluster analysis results and accounting for the problems of the national innovation system (NIS).

This study aims to propose an approach towards reducing differences between national economies and living standards existing between the world’s wealthiest and least affluent nations.

A systemic review identifies the impeding purpose as proposed above: an entirely new initiative.

The efforts recommended are vital for preserving the human species and ensuring the integrity of our planet. For both the future of the human species and the planet itself, it is essential to reduce the divide between wealthy and poor. Now is the time to give force to the types of implementation necessary to meet these combined goals.

This essay avoids dissecting problems of current geopolitical and ideological character. Despite their sometimes contentious nature, they are often reduced by intelligent diplomacy.

The study proposes a holistic approach to bridging the North-South divide.

Climate change places significant pressure on the tourism sector by altering environmental and socio-economic conditions that influence tourist behaviour and the attractiveness of destinations. Rising temperatures, changing precipitation patterns and the increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather events affect tourism supply and demand. On the supply side, climate change threatens tourism infrastructure, natural attractions, recreational opportunities and accessibility of destinations. Coastal destinations are particularly vulnerable to sea-level rise and coastal flooding, which can damage tourism assets. On the demand side, changing climatic conditions alter visitor comfort levels, health risks and the seasonality of destinations, influencing tourists' choice of destinations. In addition, small island destinations face unnecessary risks due to their economic dependence on climate-sensitive activities such as beach and nature tourism. Adapting the tourism sector to climate change requires reducing vulnerability through diversification, green infrastructure, ecosystem conservation, community-based adaptation and policy support. Mitigating tourism's contribution to climate change requires minimising energy use, switching to renewable energy, improving efficiency, reducing long-haul flights and promoting sustainable consumption and production. Collective and concerted efforts by all stakeholders are needed to transition to a climate-resilient and low-carbon tourism sector that continues to provide socio-economic benefits while minimising its environmental footprint.