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This study aims to investigate the relationship link between societal and governmental support factors, individuals’ self-efficacy, experience and outcome expectations in framing nascent social entrepreneurs' intentions to establish e-government service centres in rural areas by using the integrated model approach of Hockert’s (2017) social entrepreneurial intentions (SEI) theoretical model and social cognitive career theory (SCCT).

Using a convenient sampling strategy, 615 survey samples were obtained through a questionnaire from e-governance-based social entrepreneurs in Karnataka. The primary data and theorised model are analysed and tested using partial least squares structural equation modelling.

This research findings indicate that appointing agency support, perceived societal support (PSS), government support, social entrepreneurial self-efficacy (SE-SE), public image, prior experience and outcome expectations substantially predicted SEI to establish an e-government service centre. Hence, prior experience and PSS were insignificant regarding direct influence outcome expectations towards establishing e-governance social ventures.

The present research study initially explored the social entrepreneur's intention to provide e-public services to people in rural and distant areas to fulfil social needs. Furthermore, this research revealed that new antecedents of government support, appointing agency support and public image influence the social entrepreneur's intention to establish e-governance service centres. These research findings evaluate the contribution of the government, appointing agencies, social entrepreneurs and citizens to make a framework for the inclination of e-government service centres to create a social impact in rural and remote areas.

This study discusses the sources of value co-creation and its effects on businesses using social platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and blogs.

A total of 301 survey responses were selected. The selected respondents indicated that they lived in South Korea, had an occupation as a private business or marketer and had used a social platform one or more times a day. The hypotheses were tested using a structural equation model.

The study reveals that the source of sustainable value co-creation between social platforms and businesses positively affects the competitive advantage of maintaining businesses. This advantage reveals an integrated relationship that leads to the successful financial performance of businesses through online word of mouth and customer satisfaction. Moreover, this study finds that the relationship between variables differs by social platform types (unidirectional vs bidirectional service).

The results of this study explain the relationship between value co-production, value-in-use, SCA and long-term performance. However, this study focused on private business and marketing staff working in companies in South Korea. Accordingly, more countries in which social platforms are widely utilized should be taken into account to help generalize the empirical findings.

There is a difference in the relationship between co-creation activity and cost advantage/long-term performance in accordance with the service type of a social platform. The results indicate that a bidirectional service is a more powerful tool for cost advantage and long-term performance.

This study focuses on the role of value co-creation in social platforms to ensure companies’ sustainable competitive advantage and performance. The results of this study will help companies develop online marketing strategies using social platforms.

This research investigates the role of customer forgiveness as the result of online service recovery transparency in predicting customer engagement. It also examines the moderating roles of timeliness and personalization in this proposed model.

An online survey study using retrospective experience sampling and a scenario-based experimental study were conducted to test the proposed hypotheses.

Customer forgiveness positively influences customer engagement and plays a mediating role in the relationship between service recovery transparency and customer engagement. Additionally, timeliness and personalization moderate the positive influence of service recovery transparency on customer forgiveness. The positive influence of service recovery transparency on customer forgiveness is more apparent when levels of timeliness and personalization decrease.

To retain focal customers' engagement after a service failure, firms must obtain their forgiveness. One of the firm's online complaint handling strategies to increase the forgiveness level of focal customers is to provide a high level of service recovery transparency (i.e. responding to their complaints in a public channel), especially when the firm is unable to respond to online complaints quickly or provide highly personalized responses.

This research provides new insights into the underlying mechanism of customer engagement by applying the concept of customer forgiveness. It also contributes to the social influence theory by applying the essence of the theory to explain how other customers' virtual presence during the online complaint handling influences the forgiveness of focal customers in order to gain their engagement. Additionally, it provides insight into the conditions under which the role of service recovery transparency can be very effective in dealing with online complaints.

Drawing on the Service Robot Acceptance Model (sRAM) proposed by Wirtz et al. (2018), this study aims to examine how functional and social-emotional antecedents affect relational elements and the critical functions that trust and rapport play in robot acceptance in hotel services. Additionally, this study incorporates customer characteristics into the modified sRAM.

Consistent partial least squares (PLSc) was used to test the proposed model utilizing data collected from 456 Chinese customers.

The results indicated that effort expectancy and performance expectancy positively affect hotel guests’ trust toward and rapport with service robots. However, the effect of social influence on trust and rapport is insignificant. Additionally, perceived humanness and perceived social interactivity positively influence rapport, and perceived social presence positively affects both trust and rapport. Furthermore, trust and rapport positively influence hotel guests’ acceptance of service robots. The results also revealed the moderating role of age.

This study contributes to service robot literature by providing insights into how functional and social-emotional factors affect relational factors and the key role of relational factors in robot acceptance based on the sRAM. This study also advances this body of knowledge by highlighting the moderating effect of age.

基于Wirtz等人（2018）提出的服务机器人接受模型（sRAM）, 本研究旨在探讨功能性和社会-情感性前因如何影响关系元素, 以及信任和融洽在酒店服务中对机器人接受度的关键作用。此外, 本研究将顾客特征纳入修改后的 sRAM 中。

采用一致性偏最小二乘法（PLSc）对来自456名中国顾客的数据进行分析，以验证所提出的模型。

结果表明, 努力期望和绩效期望积极影响酒店客人对服务机器人的信任和融洽。然而, 社会影响对信任和融洽的影响不显著。此外, 感知人性化和感知社会互动积极影响融洽, 感知社会临场感积极影响信任和融洽。此外, 信任和融洽积极影响酒店客人对服务机器人的接受度。结果还揭示了年龄的调节作用。

本研究通过提供关于功能性和社会-情感性因素如何影响关系因素以及关系因素在机器人接受度中的关键作用的见解, 为服务机器人文献做出了贡献。本研究还通过强调年龄的调节效应, 推进了这一知识体系的发展。

While the rise of chain restaurants has attracted increasing research interest, few studies have taken servicescape into consideration to examine its effects on transformative service outcomes. This study aims to assess how social service elements can provide customers with restorative qualities, though social components are considered vital in constituting a dining locale's servicescape (AKA Social Servicescape).

The study fills the void above by undertaking a survey-based quantitative research method. Using online surveys with a sample of 306 diners, the study employed structural equation modeling to explore a proposed moderated mediation model. A post-hoc interview followed to provide qualitative data to complement the findings developed from surveys.

Results first point to a positive relationship between social servicescape and attention restoration. Moreover, the authors unveil that substantive servicescape has a moderating effect on the relationship of interest, suggesting the interplay of social and built servicescape in promoting restorative experiences.

Social and built stimuli can be intertwined to offer restorative qualities for customers. Through such an intertwined network of relationships, one may derive better mental health resources from hospitality settings.

This research presents new nuances to the existing field of inquiry by linking social servicescape and restoration through an intertwined network of attentional recovery.

Grounded on the X Reality framework and human–machine collaboration, this study aims to explore the potential of immersive augmentation through artificial intelligence (AI) service robots for promoting social inclusion in the hospitality industry.

Three experimental studies across diverse hospitality contexts examine the effects of immersive augmentation using inclusive-AI service robots compared to standard-AI robots. The studies also uncover the underlying process of perceived ethicality and the moderating role of customers’ familiarity with AI.

The results indicate that immersive augmentation through inclusive-AI service robots generates higher levels of supportive tipping behavior (Studies 1 and 3), superior buying intentions (Study 2) and an increased likelihood for customers to pay a premium price (Study 2). These effects are mediated by perceived ethicality (Studies 1–3). However, the impact of immersive augmentation for social inclusion is contingent upon customers’ familiarity with AI: customers with high familiarity with AI exhibit lower levels of supportive tipping behavior (Study 3).

The findings emphasize the importance of perceived ethicality and customers’ familiarity with AI in determining the effectiveness of immersive augmentation for social inclusion in hospitality.

This study contributes to the literature by exploring the potential of immersive augmentation using AI service robots for social inclusion in hospitality. It offers novel insights by highlighting the importance of perceived ethicality and customers’ familiarity with AI. The findings provide valuable guidance for hospitality managers seeking to leverage AI technology to foster social inclusion.

Social media marketing (SMM) denotes attaining website traffic or attention through social media platforms. The paper aims to focus on examining the viewpoint of library professionals from different universities along with the user respondents from different disciplines and universities on the role of social media tools to market university libraries.

It is a survey-based study that used the questionnaire as its chief data collection instrument designed to be administered to library professionals (n = 100) and users (n = 1,189) from eight universities. The study also adopted the general observation and interview methods to supplement the data. The data was analyzed using SPSS software, and Chi-square test and ANOVA were applied to ascertain the significant variations in viewpoints of the library professionals and the users.

The research study showed that library professionals (from different universities) and users (from different disciplines and universities) felt that social media could be an appropriate marketing tool for libraries in the future. Observations during data collection highlighted a lack of confidence and unwillingness among library professionals to implement any changes in the present time.

The present study provides some significant insights for improving the current situation of the libraries under study in terms of increasing awareness among the students and adopt social media tools for marketing of library facilities and services in future. It is important to note that a few issues that came into light during data collection were a marked lack of willingness and prevalence of less confidence among the library professionals to execute or implement the social media tools to market library resources and services among the users.

SMM programs focus on creating content that attracts attention and encourages readers to use it. This study attempts to fill the gap in of marketing in libraries through social media. The paper offers insights into the use of marketing tools for promoting library resources and services as per the needs of library users. The research work differs from other studies undertaken on library marketing related to social media as it has included both library professionals and users together to obtain a better picture in this regard.

Social enterprises live in the limbo between social and market objectives, posing many operations management challenges. This study extends the discussion of operational priorities, which has focused on purely for-profit organisations, to the context of social enterprises by exploring, from a resource-based perspective, which resources and operational priorities are most important to them and how they are used to respond to conflicting demands.

Multiple case study research was carried out involving five Portuguese social enterprises, representative of the main sectors in which social enterprises operate in Europe. Ten semi-structured interviews with directors and other high-ranking respondents were conducted, and content was analysed to gather evidence on the key resources and operational priorities pursued by social enterprises. Cross-case conclusions were drawn, resulting in theoretical propositions and a conceptual framework.

Findings suggest that social enterprises rely on intangible resources and combine different operational priorities, which may vary throughout their lifecycle. Community engagement has emerged as a specific operational priority, in addition to those already reported in the manufacturing and services literature. To balance conflicting demands, most social enterprises studied combine innovation with community engagement or customer focus.

The study contributes to the development of knowledge about the operations strategy in the specific context of social enterprises, an organisational model that has not been systematically addressed in the operations management literature, and brings the discussion of operational priorities into the social enterprise field, thus strengthening the link between these two fields.

Along with the development of the robotics industry, service robots have been gradually used in the hospitality industry. Nevertheless, service robot categorization and the fulfillment of the cognitive and emotional needs of consumers by hotel service robots have yet to be fully explored. Hence, the purpose of this study are to categorize hotel service robots, to explore consumers’ robot hotel experience, to identify the consumers’ preference of hotel service robot in general, to reveal consumers’ preference for hotel service robots based on their fulfillment of emotional needs and to examine the completion of cognitive–analytical and emotional–social tasks.

Through in-depth interviews with technology managers and questionnaire survey among consumers who have and have not had robot hotel stay experience to achieve the aforementioned research objectives.

Findings of in-depth interviews show that service robots can be categorized as check-in/out robots, artificial intelligence (AI) robots and service delivery robots. Results of questionnaire survey indicate that consumers prefer non-humanoid robots (n = 213, p = 47.87%) among check-in/out robots, the Xiaodu Smart Display (n = 163, p = 36. 63%) among the AI robots and the machine-shaped robot porter (I) (n = 178, p = 40.00%) among the service delivery robots.

This study provides implications, such as the adoption of robot-shaped AI with a screen display, to hotel managers to meet the needs of consumers regarding the completion of cognitive–analytical and emotional–social tasks of robots.

This study extends uncanny valley theory by identifying preference for the shape and functions of different categories of service robots and contributes to the limited literature on hotel robots.

This study aims to measure social enterprises’ (SEs’) social objectives under the United Nation’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework, and explore the impact of SEs’ social objectives on their choices of legal forms.

This study used semi-structured questionnaires followed up by field interviews and observations of the sampled SEs. The survey sample includes 80 participants of Social Entrepreneurs Stars Competition in Zhejiang Province of China. The authors conduct content analysis to measure the objectives of SEs. The authors also perform descriptive analysis, chi-square test and regression analysis on the data.

The findings confirm the theoretical discussions that SEs’ choices of legal forms reflect SEs’ strategies toward achieving social objectives. Similar to certain countries, some SEs in China register as nonprofit entities to concentrate on nonprofitable sustainability objectives, while others register as commercial enterprises or hybrid organizations to generate profits. However, some SEs focus on profitable non-sustainability issues and fail to prioritize social objectives over economic objectives. There are positive effects of social entrepreneurs’ background similarity and negative effects of social entrepreneurs’ educational level on their SEs’ choices to register as commercial enterprises.

Due to the small size and nonrepresentative sample this study is based on, the findings need be further tested by a larger sample. SEs in different service domains rely on different types of financial resources (Mair et al., 2012; Doherty et al., 2014). In future research, the model can be expanded to test the effects of service domains and types of financial sources on SEs’ choices of legal forms.

To encourage more societal resources being allocated toward achieving the United Nations’ SDGs, policymakers and SE certification programs are recommended to explicitly incorporate sustainability objectives into the evaluation standards and supportive policies for SEs. Social entrepreneurs who aim to balance the social and economic objectives in their business are suggested to target the population with whom they share similar community background. Training or consulting programs for social entrepreneurs are suggested to provide advice tailored to their socio-economic background and personal experiences.

To the best of the authors’ this study is the first quantitative analysis to identify factors that associate with SEs’ choice of legal forms in China. The authors developed new instruments to measure SEs’ social objectives and service targets, access to financial resources and social entrepreneurs’ social-economic backgrounds.