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This study aims to investigate the impact of service quality (SQ), perceived value (PV) and consumer satisfaction on Thai street food, with customer satisfaction (CS) as a mediator for customer loyalty and repurchase intention (RI). It also explores how consumer trust (CT) in Thai street food safety moderates these relationships.

Structural equation modelling (SEM) was utilised to analyse the complex interrelationships between various constructs. Multi-group analyses were conducted to investigate the moderating effects of CT on the structural model, considering two distinct groups based on trust levels: low and high.

The findings revealed that SQ and PV significantly influenced CS and behavioural intention, while the perceived quality of Thai street food had no significant impact on post-COVID-19 consumer satisfaction. The study highlighted the critical role of CT in moderating the relationships between SQ, PV and CS, with distinct effects observed in groups with varying trust levels.

The research emphasises the importance of enhancing SQ and delivering value to customers in the context of Thai street food, which can contribute to increased CS, RI and positive word-of-mouth. Furthermore, the study underscores the critical role of building CT in fostering enduring customer relationships and promoting consumer satisfaction and loyalty.

This research offers valuable insights into consumer behaviour and decision-making processes, particularly within the realm of Thai street food. It underscores the significance of understanding and nurturing CT, especially in the post-COVID-19 landscape, emphasising the need for effective business strategies and consumer engagement.

This cross-sectional study aimed to evaluate the compliance of hygienic and technical standards of street food vendors in Slovenia with the requirements of the general hygienic food principals set in the Codex Alimentarius and Regulation (EC) No. 852/2004 on the hygiene of foodstuffs.

Food vendors were observed directly and discretely using a semi-structured observation sheet that allowed fast evaluation. The employee's behaviour was not affected during the observations because they were not aware of being observed. Each observation lasted approximately 30 min. Food vendors were divided into groups according to their location, type of facility, number of employees and type of food sold.

Depending on the type of street vendor, more inconsistencies were found amongst food stands compared to food trucks and kiosks. Most food trucks and kiosks scored very high in both personal and hygienic-technical standards. Some of the major inconsistencies were lack of suitably located washbasins, improper hand-washing technique, improper waste management, working surfaces that were inadequately separated from consumers, and inconsistent maintenance of the cold chain. Food handlers have been confirmed as a critical risk factor.

Despite methodology validation, the data was collected by a single observer, limiting the ability to obtain a more reliable estimate of the observations. The sample was disproportionate according to the type of street food facilities.

The results provide a basis for (1) national professional guidelines of good hygiene practices for food business operators, which should cover street food vendors more extensively in future updates, and (2) the development of food safety training programmes tailored for street vendors.

The study provides valuable insights into current hygienic-technical conditions of the street food vending sector.

Informal street vending is traditionally widespread and studied concerning developing countries. Nevertheless, recently, interest in the study of this practice has also increased regarding specific developed countries. The aim of the article is to contribute to overcoming the tendency to investigate this informal economy sector with different analytical lenses between the global South and global North and to highlight the usefulness of analyzing the phenomenon from a comparative perspective.

Therefore, the article represents a comparative review of the existing literature on informal street vending considering both the global South and global North.

The analysis revealed similarities and differences in the characteristics the phenomenon assumes in the two areas of the world while at the same time, showing how there are aspects mainly explored in the literature of southern countries and little explored in the literature of northern countries and vice-versa.

This analytical attempt allows us to highlight any gaps present in the literature, which may represent the basis for future comparative research on the topic. Comparative research will improve both theoretical and empirical knowledge of the phenomenon.

On the one hand, the article represents an innovative literature review attempt, as it explicitly compares the street vending between developing and developed countries. On the other hand, it represents the first academic contribution to review street vending in the global North.

The “unplannable” is a welcomed exception to the formal order of urban planning. This opinion article explores some examples of informal urbanism and discusses its ambiguous relationship to public space and unplanned activities in the city. The informal sector offers important lessons about the adaptive use of space and its social role. The article examines the ways specific groups appropriate informal spaces and how this can add to a city’s entrepreneurship and success. The characteristics of informal, interstitial spaces within the contemporary city, and the numerous creative ways in which these temporarily used spaces are appropriated, challenge the prevalent critical discourse about our understanding of authorised public space, formal place-making and social order within the city in relation to these informal spaces.

The text discusses various cases from Chile, the US and China that illustrate the dilemma of the relationship between informality and public/private space today. One could say that informality is a deregulated self-help system that redefines relationships with the formal. Temporary or permanent spatial appropriation has behavioural, economic and cultural dimensions, and forms of the informalare not always immediately obvious: they are not mentioned in building codes and can often be subversive or unexpected, emerging in the grey area between legal and illegal activities.

This study aims to investigates the contribution of the informal sector towards secure livelihoods. Using a case study design, the study focusses on Mandela park, situated in Khayelitsha Township, Cape Town, in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Khayelitsha is predominantly an old township established by the apartheid government using unjust segregation laws to foster spatial planning that isolated people of colour in areas with insufficient infrastructure and informal economic activities. Therefore, informal trading became a survival strategy in Khayelitsha, attracting an increasing number of informal traders in public spaces within the township in pursuit of livelihoods. Informal activities are generally conducted to generate income and secure sustainable livelihoods.

This study uses a qualitative research design, incorporating structured interviews instrumental in data collection and in-depth thematic analysis.

The study findings reveal that the informal sector positively contributes to the sustainable livelihoods of those involved in the informal sector and the relatives of those through income generation, family support, wealth creation, source of employment, business incubation and innovation and creativity.

The study concludes that given the increasing unemployment rate in South Africa, caused by the stagnant economic growth rate, policymakers should rethink their policies on the informal economy, acknowledge the sector's relevance and support the sector.

The pervasive impact of the COVID-19 virus on the food services sector in India has created conditions for fundamentally altering the structure of the industry. This paper offers a nuanced evaluation of the transfiguration of the market, explaining descriptive views supported by numerous secondary data sources.

This is a self-driven study grounded in secondary data. Qualitative and quantitative assessments are assimilated from credible market research reports of multiple agencies in the Indian context, as well as news developments during the pandemic period.

Digitally pivoted platforms such as cloud kitchens and delivery aggregators will eclipse all other formats due to the potential long-term prevalence of the COVID-19 virus. These formats would rise to a dominant position in the Indian food services sector in the coming decade.

This study is entirely driven by secondary data due to the inherent difficulties of collecting sizeable and good quality primary data as a result of the lengthy and stringent lockdowns imposed across India. Future studies should consider collecting consumer responses to get a better picture of changing dining habits in the post-pandemic scenario.

The dynamic and evolving food services in India, catalyzed by the Internet and digital technologies will help academicians study the long-term implications of this change, and how it would impact society at large. The paper provides a rich body of contemporary data and analysis in the food services sphere.

The COVID-19 pandemic and its long-term persistence would dramatically alter food service consumption across India. This will not only change how the industry is structured, but will reshape how food is consumed into the future.

The study is a holistic examination of the relationship between the coronavirus pandemic and the food services industry in India. The macro perspectives aided by news coverage and industry research would help generate potential research questions on its own merits.

To show that establishing an anti-corruption agency (ACA), by itself, is not likely to be a successful anti-corruption strategy. Instead, a solid base of social trust, participation, and support is just as essential as creating an ACA with significant powers and resources.

This is a historical review of the origins and development of the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) of Hong Kong, and an assessment of its three-pronged approach strategy at both strategic and tactical levels.

An ACA requires broad and deep social support and participation if it is to succeed. That the ICAC remains nearly unique in developing such a base of support provides important lessons for those countries with ineffective ACAs.

A reassessment of the ICAC after a half-century shows that the Hong Kong case, despite its familiarity, has much to teach us if we understand it in its broadest implications.

Inequality is increasing in Asia and the Pacific. This paper examines how inequality is affecting governments, communities and people in the Asia-Pacific region, given the 2030 Agenda's Sustainable Development Goals and the agenda's commitment to “leave no one behind.” Income inequality is just one element of larger economic and social inequalities in both developed and developing countries. Over the past decade, Bangladesh's economy has experienced one of the fastest growth rates in the world, supported by a narrowing demographic gap. The study focuses largely on the challenges of inequality and wealth distribution and uses the Singaporean experience to reduce inequality.

The study is based on the review of secondary literature and an insightful analysis of the review.

The Singapore Government has adopted four special budgets coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) to help businesses cope with the economic difficulties caused by the epidemic, protect lives and create an economically and socially resilient Singapore. To sustain this increase in real gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, the Singapore Government continues to pursue growth-oriented policies. Importing technology and skilled labor, investing heavily in research and development, importing technology and developing export markets are some examples of these growth-oriented policies. The Singapore Government is committed to improving human capital through retraining and lifelong learning, which can be seen in all these growth-oriented policies. Bangladesh can learn more about reducing inequality and put these policies into practice.

This study has frankly revealed the inequality issues in Bangladesh. This study has spotted the scarcities of development and the accurate picture of achievement from the perspective of inequality and prosperity dissemination.

At Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, an annual short-term, research abroad non-credit program was created in 2012 as a core component of the undergraduate research initiative that achieves learning outcomes in a meaningful way. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

In order to describe, and analyze the short-term research abroad activity, an instrumental case study design was created. The instrumental case study was chosen as a means of allowing the facilitators/authors to communicate how they attempted to assure that the program was educative. In order to determine if the program was in fact educative and that it met its goal of being an effective research experience the authors utilized two additional research methods. The first was a document analysis of the participant’s research artifacts. Each participant was required to communicate their findings by writing a paper that was submitted for publication to an applicable research journal.

The study found that an experiential education as a pedagogical framework coupled with a short-term research abroad activity can lead to a substantive educative experience, where the authors described and analyzed attempts to ensure that the short-term research abroad program was educative, it also describes the educational assessment findings which describe what was found when the authors tested whether they, in fact, met this goal.

During the design phase of the short-term research abroad program, the authors turned to experiential education as a principle for how they would ensure that the program was grounded in an acceptable educational theory. Experiential education is a widely accepted educational practice used in experiences such as co-ops and internships, study abroad, undergraduate research and service learning.

To frame the short-term cultural research abroad program as something from which student could learn the authors utilized the National Society of Experiential Education’s (2013) list of eight principles of good practice. In order to safeguard that an activity is educative, an assessment or an evaluation of a demonstrative artifact is essential. In assessing the final artifact against a rubric or some other non-biased or less biased criteria, an educator can ensure that the student has gained new knowledge in the form of student learning outcomes (SLOs). In addition, the educator can use the results of this assessment to modify many different aspects of the experience ranging from the timing, the modality, the pre-work, even the learning outcomes themselves.

Given financial and curriculum inflexibility of some students, Universities and faculty could achieve attainment of research-based, program agnostic, SLOs by offering short-term study abroad alternatives to the traditional semester or year-long experiences. With graduates looking to enter the job market where businesses are more globalized and executive’s recognition of a need for more international experience, carefully constructed short-term study abroad programs are meaningful avenues to build those credentials.

Such offerings can be constructed as customized experiences to achieve highly integrated skills across all degree programs.

The paper examines the increase in annual income of the new middle-class (The NMC) of Delhi-NCR and its impact on their investment habits, consumption habits and lifestyle. The paper aims to look into the transformation of the new middle-class into the NMC in emerging economies and its potential to the companies and investors.

This study draws insight from 558 new middle-class consumers in Delhi-NCR. ANOVA, post hoc tests , and hierarchical multiple linear regression model are applied to test the proposed hypotheses.

The NMC living in India's megacities imitates the lifestyle of their counterparts living in the West. To maintain their status and present themselves different from those living in middle or lower-middle-class categories, they spend audaciously, even though the income is low. When they enter the new middle class, their consumption, saving and lifestyle diversify positively.

This study has limitations. First, the authors do not apply any behavioral theory or marketing model such as the theory of reasoned action (TRA), Engel-kollat-Blackwell (EKB) model or theory of normative model of target markets. Second, the research is limited to the NMC of only one emerging economy, i.e., India. Third, the research sample is limited to only one megacity of India, i.e., Delhi. Finally, this research used only one factor, i.e., AI, to study the consumption pattern.

The results suggest that considering the buying habits and lifestyle of Indian the NMC, consumers would prove helpful to the companies in product decision-making. Furthermore, understanding change in investment habits across different income levels would be advantageous to financial institutions, investment planners and marketers while designing their products to attract investment.

The research holds significance from the point of view of understanding Indian consumers encompassing the the NMC and predicting their implications on consumer goods-producing industries, which shall, in turn, facilitate producers and government in formulating policies and strategies.