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This study aims to increase knowledge of the ability of nutrition labels to guide consumer choices in real-life environments.

Food consumption and plate waste data were collected from two self-service restaurants (SSR) with different customer groups over six observation days: three control and three intervention (with nutrition labelling) periods. Study Group 1 consisted of vocational school students, mostly late adolescents (N = 1,710), and Group 2 consisted of spa hotel customers, mostly elderly (N = 1,807). In the experimental restaurants, the same food was served to the buffets during the control and intervention periods.

The nutrition label in the lunch buffet guides customers to eat fewer main foods and salads and to select healthier choices. Increased consumption of taste enhancers (salt and ketchup) was observed in the study restaurants after nutritional labelling. Nutrition labelling was associated with a reduction in plate waste among the elderly, whereas the opposite was observed among adolescents.

The results provide public policymakers and marketers with a better understanding of the effects of nutrition labelling on consumer behaviour. Future studies should further evaluate the effects of nutrition labelling on the overall quality of customer diets and the complex environmental, social, and psychological factors affecting food choices and plate waste accumulation in various study groups.

This study aims to assess the impact of participation in self-help group (SHG) on the psychological empowerment of rural tribal women.

Primary data was collected using multistage random sampling from the rural women of Jharkhand, India. The propensity score matching method was adopted using the psmatch2 command in STATA.

The results show a significant positive change in women’s self-esteem, self-confidence, self-efficacy, autonomy, knowledge and skills, reduction in agony and quality of life after participation in SHG. This reveals that participation in SHG has a significant positive impact on the psychological empowerment of rural tribal women.

Despite the numerous studies on rural women’s empowerment, there is little evidence of literature focusing on the impact of participation in SHG on psychological empowerment, specifically in the tribal context. This study primarily focuses on women belonging to the scheduled tribe category of Jharkhand, one of the poorest states of India.

Motivated by the real-world practice that the boom of the online selling induces a higher product return as well, selecting which online channel mode indicates who takes ownership over the product and thus bears the loss of the product return. This paper aims to seek the optimal online channel modes for the two members in a platform supply chain in the presence of product returns.

This study aims to develop a platform supply chain that consists of one platform company and one supplier. Along with an offline distribution channel, the supplier can choose two alternative online selling modes (i.e. the reselling and agency modes) to sell its product through the online marketplace. This paper applies Stackelberg game to derive the equilibrium with different business scenarios and selects the optimal online channel modes for two parties, respectively. Moreover, this paper extends to a different supply chain with a reverse channel leadership and a different product return policy for testing the robustness.

Several interesting and important results are derived in this paper. Firstly, it is found that the relative pricing are largely relied on the costs of two channels. Secondly, the platform supply chain may benefit from a pure channel rather than the dual-channel when this channel enjoys a relatively low cost and/or a sufficiently high consumer preference. Then, the platform and the supplier act contradictorily when selecting their optimal online channel modes. To be specific, the platform motivates to choose the online reselling mode when both the commission rate and the slotting fee are relatively low, whereas the supplier is likely to select the online agency mode under this circumstance. Finally, a win-win situation in regards to the optimal online channel mode for two parties is achievable with numerical experiments.

Based on the analytical studies, the results derived in the authors’ work can provide managerial insights to assist the supplier and the platform company in determining the operational decision and selecting the optimal online channel mode to deal with consumer returns. In addition, appropriate commission rate along with slotting fee will make both parties achieve a win-win situation in determining their optimal online channel mode.

To the authors’ best knowledge, this paper makes the first move to determine the optimal online channel mode in the content of consumer returns and study how it is affected by different product return policies.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the link between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the amount of trust customers have in Somali Islamic banks. Furthermore, the role of gender in CSR activities and Islamic bank clientele is evaluated.

Throughout February and March 2022, 410 clients of Islamic banks in Somalia were surveyed using a questionnaire. The partial least squares approach and the structural equation model are applied to examine the data.

Findings indicate that all variables of CSR activities, such as social product, social legal, social needs, social environment and social employees’ responsibility, are influential and significant predictors of trust in Islamic banks in Somalia. Gender inequalities moderate the relationship between social product, social needs, social environment, social employee and trust. Conversely, only social legal responsibility was unaffected by gender differences in Somalia regarding people’s trust in Islamic banks.

A sample from a developing country such as Somalia is useful for shedding light on the outcomes of consumers’ perceptions of and trust in businesses’ CSR in the developing world. Furthermore, this study contributes to knowledge regarding CSR and how it can help the Islamic banking industry. Its findings will be useful to policymakers and regulatory bodies in the banking industry in their efforts to improve CSR.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first empirical investigation of its kind about the understudied relationship among customer trust, CSR efforts and gender in Somalia context. Furthermore, it investigates how gender specifically moderates CSR in the Islamic banking sector in a developing country.

Entrepreneurship is one of the significant drivers of economic growth, development and job generation in several countries worldwide. Realizing its significant contribution to the nation’s development, policymakers and educators have also drawn attention to fostering entrepreneurship among the youth. Researchers attempted to comprehend the dynamics and investigate the factors influencing entrepreneurial intention (EI). As is true for other abilities and response tendencies, individual differences exist for EI also. This study aims to explore the relationship of emotional intelligence (EIn) and cognitive flexibility (CF) with EI and mediating effect of entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) in the relationship between CF, EIn and EI.

The cross-sectional survey was conducted to gather responses from 635 individuals aged 17–26 years (M = 19.2, SD = 1.49). The hypotheses were tested using correlation, regression and mediation analysis.

The findings indicated that EIn and CF were significantly and positively related to EI. Furthermore, ESE was found to be a partial mediator between EIn and EI and a full mediator between CF and EI.

Results reflected the critical significance of ESE and implied that EI might be strengthened by intervening in ESE through various sources.

This study adds to the existing literature by incorporating less studied individual factors (EIn and CF) to better understand EI by explaining the mediation mechanism through ESE.

This paper aims to investigate a condition under which identity salience effects are weakened. By examining how identity salience influences individuals’ product judgment in a domain of trade-offs, the current research demonstrates that the utilitarian value of a product is an important determinant of the effectiveness of identity salience on product judgment.

This research consists of two experiments. In Experiment 1, the authors examined whether identity salience effects were mitigated when the level of the perceived utilitarian value of an identity-incongruent product was greater than that of an identity-congruent product. In Experiment 2, the authors examined the effectiveness of internal attribution as a moderator that strengthens identity salience effects when the perceived utilitarian value of an identity-incongruent (vs. identity-congruent) product is higher.

In Experiment 1, the authors show that when the utilitarian value of a product with an attribute congruent (vs. incongruent) with one’s salient identity is lower, individuals do not show a greater preference for the identity-congruent (vs. identity-incongruent) product, mitigating the identity salience effects. Experiment 2 demonstrates that when individuals with a salient identity attribute a decision outcome to the self, they display a greater preference for the identity-congruent product even when its utilitarian value is lower compared to that of the identity-incongruent product.

The research contributes to previous research examining conditions under which identity salience effects are weakened [e.g. social influence by others (Bolton and Reed, 2004); self-affirmation (Cohen et al., 2007)] by exploring the role of the utilitarian value of a product, which has not been examined yet in prior research. Also, by doing so, the current research adds to the literature on identity salience in a domain of trade-offs (Benjamin et al., 2010; Shaddy et al., 2020, 2021). Finally, this research reveals that when a decision outcome is attributed to the self, identity salience effects become greater. By finding a novel determinant of identity salience effects (i.e. internal attribution), the present research contributes to the literature that has examined factors that amplify identity salience effects [e.g. cultural relevance (Chattaraman et al., 2009); social distinctiveness (Forehand et al., 2002); different types of groups (White and Dahl, 2007)].

The findings provide managerial insights on identity-based marketing by showing a condition under which identity-based marketing does not work [i.e. when the utilitarian value of an identity-congruent (vs. identity-incongruent) product is lower] and how to enhance the effectiveness of identity-based marketing by using internal attribution.

By exploring the role of utilitarian value, not yet examined in prior research, the present research adds to the knowledge of the conditions under which identity salience effects are weakened. Furthermore, by finding a novel determinant of identity salience effects (i.e. internal attribution), the research contributes to the literature on factors that amplify identity salience effects.

Nature’s evolution has shaped intelligent behaviors in creatures like insects and birds, inspiring the field of Swarm Intelligence. Researchers have developed bio-inspired algorithms to address complex optimization problems efficiently. These algorithms strike a balance between computational efficiency and solution optimality, attracting significant attention across domains.

Bio-inspired optimization techniques for feature engineering and its applications are systematically reviewed with chief objective of assessing statistical influence and significance of “Bio-inspired optimization”-based computational models by referring to vast research literature published between year 2015 and 2022.

The Scopus and Web of Science databases were explored for review with focus on parameters such as country-wise publications, keyword occurrences and citations per year. Springer and IEEE emerge as the most creative publishers, with indicative prominent and superior journals, namely, PLoS ONE, Neural Computing and Applications, Lecture Notes in Computer Science and IEEE Transactions. The “National Natural Science Foundation” of China and the “Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology” of India lead in funding projects in this area. China, India and Germany stand out as leaders in publications related to bio-inspired algorithms for feature engineering research.

The review findings integrate various bio-inspired algorithm selection techniques over a diverse spectrum of optimization techniques. Anti colony optimization contributes to decentralized and cooperative search strategies, bee colony optimization (BCO) improves collaborative decision-making, particle swarm optimization leads to exploration-exploitation balance and bio-inspired algorithms offer a range of nature-inspired heuristics.

This study aims to characterize the properties of natural cellulose fiber from the pseudo-stems of the curcuma zedoaria plant.

The fiber was extracted using the biological retting process (cold-water retting). The intrinsic fiber properties obtained were used to evaluate the possibility of using fiber for textile applications.

The average length of a curcuma zedoaria fiber was 34.77 cm with a fineness value of 6.72 Tex. A bundle of curcuma zedoaria fibers was comprised of many elementary fibers. Curcuma zedoaria had an irregular cross-section, with the lumen having a varied oval shape. Curcuma zedoaria fibers had tenacity and elongation value of 3.32 gf/denier and 6.95%, respectively. Curcuma zedoaria fibers had a coefficient of friction value of 0.46. Curcuma zedoaria fibers belong to a hygroscopic fiber type with a moisture regain value of 10.29%.

Extraction and Characterization of Curcuma zedoaria Pseudo-stems Fibers for Textile Application.