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This paper aims to explore the effectiveness of ethnically targeted ads in developing consumer–brand relationships through an application of social identification theory and elaboration likelihood model among African American consumers in the service sector.

Study 1 used a 2 (service type: hedonic vs utilitarian) × 2 (strength of ethnic identification: high vs low) between-subjects experimental design. Study 2 used the same experimental design, procedure and ads as Study 1.

Taken together, the findings from these two studies demonstrate how ethnically targeted advertising, in conjunction with service type, can influence consumer–brand relationships. The results showed that those with high strength of ethnic identification had more brand love, as well as higher intentions to spread positive word-of-mouth, purchase intention and brand loyalty for hedonic services, but that this effect was not significant for utilitarian services.

The environments in which advertisements appear (e.g. in an in-store display or a magazine advertisement) is important, and consumers’ reactions to targeted ads in various environments should be considered in future research. Future studies should also examine the role of individuals’ personality traits and level of acculturation in determining their relationships with brands.

Across two studies, the authors demonstrated that ethnic ads are more effective for African American individuals with high level of ethnic identification especially for hedonic services.

The relationship between robots and spirituality in the workplace is an interesting and evolving area of research that could provide important insights into the role of technology in promoting human well-being and personal growth. Robots are becoming increasingly common in the workplace and their functions in the business world are increasing. The use of robots in the workplace can affect people's spiritual values. Spiritual values such as being successful in their work, providing a sense of purpose and satisfaction, and feeling valued and important are important. The use of robots in the workplace may cause some people to take over many of the tasks that their jobs once did. In this case, employees may feel that their work no longer makes sense and may experience a loss of motivation. The fact that robots don't need the skills and experience of humans can make people feel inadequate in their jobs. However, the use of robots in the workplace can also support people's spiritual values. When robots work with humans, they have responsibilities such as interacting with them, showing empathy, respecting coworkers, and treating humans appropriately. This is important for people's mental and emotional health in the workplace. This approach will help people in the workplace work successfully and happily with robots. The use of robots in the workplace raises moral and ethical questions. In this section, research on the production of artificial intelligence-equipped robots and other intelligent technological machines and their use in organizations is evaluated within the framework of spirituality.

This study aims to investigate the feasibility of employing a multi-objectives integer-programming model for effective allocation of resources for cyberfraud mitigation. The formulated objectives are the minimisation of the total allocation cost of the anti-fraud capacities and the maximisation of the forensic accounting capacities in all cyberfraud incident prone spots.

From the literature survey conducted and primary qualitative data gathered from the 17 licenced banks in South Africa on fraud investigators, the suggested fraud investigators are the organisation’s finance department, the internal audit committee, the external risk manager, accountants and forensic accountants. These five human resource capacities were considered for the formulation of the multi-objectives integer programming (MOIP) model. The MOIP model is employed for the optimisation of the employed capacities for cyberfraud mitigation to ensure the effective allocation and utilisation of human resources. Thus, the MOIP model is validated by a genetic algorithm (GA) solver to obtain the Pareto-optimum solution without the violation of the identified constraints.

The formulated objective functions are optimised simultaneously. The Pareto front for the two objectives of the MOIP model comprises the set of optimal solutions, which are not dominated by any other feasible solution. These are the feasible choices, which indicate the suitability of the MOIP to achieve the set objectives.

The results obtained indicate the feasibility of simultaneously achieving the minimisation of the total allocation cost of the anti-fraud capacities, or the maximisation of the forensic accounting capacities in all cyberfraud incident prone spots – or the trade-off between them, if they cannot be reached simultaneously. This study recommends the use of an iterative MOIP framework for decision-makers which may aid decision-making with respect to the allocation and utilisation of human resources.

The originality of this work lies in the development of multi-objectives integer-programming model for effective allocation of resources for cyberfraud mitigation.

The authors construct an index of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) for Greece using textual analysis and analyze its role in the 10-year Greek economic crisis.

To identify the causal relationship between various measures of economic activity and EPU in Greece, the authors use a sophisticated “shock-based” structural vector autoregressive identification scheme. Additionally, the authors use two additional models to ensure the robustness of the results.

EPU is negatively associated with domestic economic activity and economic sentiment, and positively with bond credit spreads. EPU is also estimated to have prolonged the crisis even in periods when macroeconomic imbalances were cured. The results are robust across various model specifications and different proxies of economic activity.

Brunnermeier (2017) observed that uncertainty may be central to understanding the evolution of the Greek crisis. Yet little attention has been paid to policy uncertainty in the existing long and growing literature on the Greek crisis. The authors attempt to fill this gap.