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Prior studies generally focus on income smoothing through discretionary accruals and document that managers have incentives to smooth earnings due to various reasons. This paper aims to focus on income smoothing through research and development (R&D) management and examine whether and how income smoothing through R&D management affects credit rating agencies’ perception of firm risk.

The authors use financial statement data from the CRSP/Compustat Merged data set universe for the period from 1992 to 2019 after excluding financial and utility industries. The authors follow the model for credit ratings used in previous literature to test the hypothesis. Specifically, the authors use an ordered probit model to express credit ratings as a function of income smoothing attributes.

The authors find that R&D-based income smoothing improves a firm’s credit rating. However, the positive effect of R&D-based income smoothing on credit ratings is less than that of accruals-based income smoothing. This study also shows that the positive effect of R&D-based income smoothing is more pronounced for firms less subject to opportunistic incentives, further strengthening the notion that managers smooth earnings through R&D management to provide more informative earnings.

This study contributes to the income smoothing literature in several ways. First, the authors contribute to the research by showing that managers’ income smoothing activity through R&D management positively affects firms’ credit rating. Second, the authors also document the relative benefits of the two different income smoothing techniques in terms of improving credit agencies’ perception of firms’ creditworthiness.

Customer engagement has key practical implications for hospitality management. However, little is known about how perceived coolness and wow affect customer engagement. The purpose of this research was to investigate the associations among perceived coolness, perceived wow and customer engagement and examine the mediator of self-image congruity (SIC).

Survey data were collected from 406 restaurant customers in Taiwan, and structural equation modeling was adopted to examine the hypotheses. Furthermore, a replica model was produced for another sample of 412 hotel customers.

The results indicate that perceived coolness positively affects customer engagement and SIC and that perceived wow positively affects SIC. SIC positively affects customer engagement. Moreover, SIC mediates the associations of perceived coolness and wow with customer engagement. The relationships between the variables did not significantly differ between restaurant customers and hotel customers.

Hospitality businesses can create environments in which customers interact with service providers through innovative technology, thereby encouraging engagement. Coolness and the wow factor must be prioritized in servicescapes, meal and room design, the service process and creative marketing.

The findings contribute knowledge on hospitality, factors affecting customer engagement and the mediating mechanism of SIC. Hospitality managers can use the results to formulate strategies for servicescape design, brand management and customer experience.

This study defines and critically analyzes Korean high modernism using the Sewoon Sangga project as a case study, as it has significant value in Korea's urban and architectural history.

The methodology applied for this study was a theory-interpretive analysis. This study examines the modernization process of Seoul based on the concept of “high modernism,” in that the theory-interpretive analysis method analyzes historical phenomena centered on a specific concept.

As a form of national belief, the various ideas that give birth to modern cities are defined as “high modernism.” As a Korean megastructure, the Sewoon Sangga project is significant in the history of Korean urbanism and architecture because it is the archetype of Korean high modernism and is representative of South Korea's compressed economic growth. However, soon-to-be-demolished Sewoon Sangga signifies the failure of Korean high modernism. This study identified the critical characteristics of Korean high modernism through the Sewoon Sangga project.

This study analyzed a representative Asian city through the specific concept of high modernism. It transpired that high modernism, which played an important role in the birth and development of modern cities, should be transformed for future cities and architectural development. This study has significance in that it expands the study of the history of urbanism and architecture centered on the West to the same in Asia.

The present study aims to propose a framework elucidating the attributes of mobile augmented reality (AR) shopping apps (i.e., spatial presence, perceived personalization and perceived intrusiveness) and how they translate to downstream consumer-related outcomes (i.e., immersion, psychological ownership and stickiness to the retailer).

By conducting a questionnaire-based survey, 308 responses were collected, and the data were submitted to partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and artificial neural network (ANN) analyses.

A few important findings were generated from the present study. First, attributes of mobile augmented reality shopping apps (i.e., spatial presence, perceived personalization and perceived intrusiveness) influence stickiness to the retailer through immersion and consumer empowerment in serial. Second, immersion positively influences psychological ownership. Third, the optimum stimulation level moderates the relationship between spatial presence and immersion. Lastly, a post-hoc exploratory finding yielded by the multigroup analysis uncovered the moderating effect of gender.

This study offers a novel contribution to the smart retail literature by investigating the role of mobile AR shopping apps in predicting consumers' stickiness to the retailer. A holistic framework elucidating the serial mediating effect of immersion and consumer empowerment, and the moderating roles of optimum stimulation level and gender were validated.

This study develops a comprehensive research model and investigates the significant factors affecting positive marketing outcomes in the Metaverse through perceived social benefits and trust.

The authors propose a new research model based on social exchange theory (SET) and examine the impact of cost and reward factors. Using 327 survey samples collected from current Metaverse users in South Korea, dual-stage analysis using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) and an artificial neural network (ANN) were employed to test the study’s hypotheses.

The results showed that perceived social benefit and trust had significant mediating effects on marketing outcomes, such as loyalty to the seller, product/service attitude, and purchase intention. All antecedents, except perceived performance risk, had a crucial impact on the two mediators. The most interesting finding of this study is the positive influence of knowledge-seeking efforts on perceived social benefits.

This study is the first empirical research to examine the effectiveness of marketing in the Metaverse. It also proposes a new theoretical model based on SET to investigate users’ behavioral intentions regarding marketing in the Metaverse, and confirms its explanatory power. Moreover, the results of this study also offer suggestions to brands on how to market to consumers in the Metaverse.

Social media has emerged as a prominent platform for marketers and brands to disseminate brand-related information. This study aims to investigate the impact of color congruence between themes and background on marketing effectiveness, focusing specifically on Instagram.

A laboratory experiment was conducted to investigate how color congruence between themes and background in brand posts influences flow and aesthetic experience, subsequently affecting marketing communication parameters such as brand attitude, visit intention, and eWOM on Instagram. Moreover, Adidas Originals was selected as the focal brand, and blue and white color was chosen as the primary color palette for the experimental material.

This study demonstrates that color congruence, regardless of brand layout or post, significantly influences flow and aesthetic experience, subsequently affecting marketing effectiveness.

This study contributes to the theoretical understanding of congruence theory and social media marketing, providing valuable insights for brands to enhance their communication through photographs and effectively manage their official Instagram accounts.

This study introduces three variables related to brands that have the potential to enhance university students' advocacy intentions. The research explores how university brand identification, the perceived prestige of the university brand and the social benefits associated with the university brand impact students' advocacy intentions. Additionally, the study examines the moderating role of gender in these relationships.

Cross-sectional surveys of 326 undergraduate students enrolled in a Spanish university, and structural equation modeling was used to test and validate the conceptual model.

The findings from the structural equation modeling indicate that university brand identification, perceived university brand prestige and university brand social benefits significantly influence students' advocacy intentions. Furthermore, the multigroup analysis reveals a gender difference in the factors influencing advocacy intentions. Female students demonstrate significance in all three antecedents, whereas male students only show significance in university brand identification and perceived university brand prestige.

The current study's findings provide several insights for higher education institutions in developing enduring and committed relationships with their students.

This study offers relevant insights into the body of research on university branding, explaining the students' advocacy intentions through the variables of university brand identification, perceived university brand prestige and university brand social benefits. Also, this study is a novelty in introducing empirical evidence for the importance of the moderating role of students' gender.

This paper aims to bridge the extended reality framework and the luxury hospitality literature by providing insights into how immersive technologies using artificial intelligence (AI) can shape luxury value and consumer differentiation.

The authors conducted three experimental studies comparing immersive AI versus traditional hospitality across luxury contexts (hotels, restaurants and spas). Study 1 investigates the effect of immersive AI (vs traditional hospitality) on customers’ behavioral intentions and the need for differentiation using virtual-assisted reality. Study 2 tests the underlying mechanism of the need for differentiation and luxury value in an augmented reality context. Study 3 provides additional support for the proposed underlying mechanism using virtual-assisted reality in luxury hospitality.

The findings reveal that immersive AI (vs traditional) luxury hospitality reduces customers’ behavioral intentions of using such services and perceived luxury value. Moreover, the findings indicate that the intention to use immersive AI (vs traditional) luxury hospitality services is contingent upon customers’ need for differentiation.

The findings have important theoretical and managerial implications for immersive technologies in luxury hospitality. They shed light on the dynamics between integrating immersive AI into luxury hospitality and its impact on customers’ differentiation motives and perceived luxury value. The findings reveal the detrimental effect of using immersive AI (vs traditional hospitality) within this context.

The UAE is among the fastest-growing facilities management (FM) markets globally. Nevertheless, conclusive evidence on this market is scarce in the literature. Therefore, this paper aims to provide an in-depth insight into the FM market in the UAE.

Fourteen interviewees were purposively selected to provide insight into FM status through their field experiences. A SWOT analysis of their answers held place.

Interviewees revealed that the main trends of FM in the UAE include interests in sustainability, integration of technology, health and safety, outsourcing FM, switching to total facilities management (TFM), and performance management systems use. Besides, the quality of the service in the FM market is driven by the real-estate boom, services sophistication, the increasing awareness of FM and focus on the quality of services. Furthermore, the interviews found that the recruitment of poorly skilled labors can threaten the FM market to meet the allocated budget, misperception of FM, the value of money, the lack of continuous follow-up with recent advancements in technologies and the lack of performance measurement models.

This paper highlights the major trends, drivers and threats of the FM market in the UAE, and the implications of its findings can direct FM organizations and researchers in their practices.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the causal (not correlational) effect of women’s entrepreneurship on corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices in Latin America.

This study builds on a hitherto unexploited sparse data set on Latin American B Corporations to identify the causal relationship of interest and on a (synthetic) instrumental variable method.

The results confirm that women’s entrepreneurship has a positive causal effect on social responsibility. This study finds that an increase of 1% in the proportion of women entrepreneurs leads to an increase of 0.5 in the B Impact Assessment score, the CSR indicator.

This study contributes to the literature by providing robust statistical evidence of a causal relationship between women entrepreneurs and social responsibility practices in the Latin American context. This research captures the multidimensional nature of social responsibility by using a comprehensive and vast metric of CSR obtained from the data of the B Impact Assessment tool. This study illustrates how machine learning methods can be used to address the lack of structure of the Latin American B Impact Assessment data.

El propósito de esta investigación es identificar el efecto causal (no correlacional) del emprendimiento de mujeres en las prácticas de responsabilidad social empresarial (RSE) en América Latina.

Nos basamos en un conjunto de datos escasamente explorado hasta el momento sobre las Empresas B en América Latina para identificar la relación causal de interés, y utilizamos un método de Variables Instrumentales (VI) sintéticas.

Nuestros resultados verifican el efecto causal positivo del emprendimiento de las mujeres en la responsabilidad social. Descubrimos que un aumento del 1% en la proporción de mujeres emprendedoras conduce a un aumento de 0.5 en la puntuación de la Evaluación de Impacto B, nuestro indicador de RSE.

Contribuimos a la literatura proporcionando evidencia estadística sólida de una relación causal entre emprendedoras mujeres y prácticas de responsabilidad social en el contexto de América Latina. Esta investigación captura la naturaleza multidimensional de la responsabilidad social mediante el uso de una métrica amplia y vasta de RSE obtenida de los datos de la herramienta de Evaluación de Impacto B. Ilustramos cómo se pueden utilizar métodos de aprendizaje automático para abordar la falta de estructura de los datos de evaluación de impacto B en América Latina.

O propósito desta pesquisa é identificar o efeito causal (não correlacional) do empreendedorismo feminino nas práticas de responsabilidade social corporativa (RSC) na América Latina.

Baseamo-nos em um conjunto de dados escasso até então não explorado sobre as Empresas B na América Latina para identificar a relação causal de interesse, e utilizamos um método de Variáveis Instrumentais (VI) sintéticas.

Nossos resultados verificam o efeito causal positivo do empreendedorismo feminino na responsabilidade social. Descobrimos que um aumento de 1% na proporção de mulheres empreendedoras leva a um aumento de 0,5 no escore de Avaliação de Impacto B, nosso indicador de RSC.

Contribuímos para a literatura fornecendo evidências estatísticas robustas de uma relação causal entre empreendedoras mulheres e práticas de responsabilidade social na América Latina. Esta pesquisa captura a natureza multidimensional da responsabilidade social usando uma métrica abrangente e vasta de RSC obtida a partir dos dados da ferramenta de Avaliação de Impacto B. Ilustramos como métodos de aprendizado de máquina podem ser usados para lidar com a falta de estrutura dos dados de avaliação de impacto B na América Latina.