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The Customary Land Delivery Institutions (CLDIs) provide the platform for the supply of developable land in most cities in sub-Saharan African countries. While there is a need to measure the effectiveness of CLDIs to compare their performance with others or themselves over time, there is however a dearth of evidence-based frameworks that could be adopted for such an assessment. This study developed a framework for the evaluation of the effectiveness of CLDIs. This is with a view to providing a tool for measuring the performance of land governance.

A total of 46 good governance criteria for measuring the various dimensions of CLDIs generated from the literature were transformed into a measurable scale which was validated by a panel of 16 experts through a modified Delphi approach. A pilot study was also conducted on 42 land-based professionals to assess the reliability of the framework. Content Validity Index (CVI) was calculated for relevancy scores while clarity was measured by clarity score. Cronbach alpha was also employed to measure the reliability of the framework.

The result of the 46 criteria validated by the experts revealed that 89.5% of items in the developed instrument have a content validity index (I-CVI) equal to or greater than the 0.85 threshold and a mean I-CVI of 0.90. With the CVI score and the analysis of the comments made by the experts, six items were removed from the instrument and a total of six new items were added. The final corrected instrument after a further iteration had a total of 46 items. The reliability test also revealed a Cronbach alpha score of 0.82.

This paper provides a framework useful for developing countries, especially in the development of land delivery policies and provides a framework for the analysis of the important aspects thereof.

This paper demonstrates the development of a holistic framework for the assessment of CLDIs which hitherto were not in existence.

The global market for cloud gaming is growing rapidly. How gamers evaluate the service quality of this emerging form of cloud service has become a critical issue for both researchers and practitioners. Building on the literature on service quality and software as a service, this study develops and validates a gamer-centric measurement instrument for cloud gaming service quality.

A three-step measurement instrument development process, including item generation, scale development and instrument testing, was adopted to conceptualize and operationalize cloud gaming service quality.

Cloud gaming service quality consists of two second-order constructs of support service quality and technical service quality with seven first-order dimensions, namely rapport, responsiveness, reliability, compatibility, ubiquity, smoothness and comprehensiveness. The instrument exhibits desirable psychometric properties.

Practitioners can use this new measurement instrument to evaluate gamers' perceptions toward their service and to identify areas for improvement.

This study contributes to the service quality literature by utilizing qualitative and quantitative approaches to develop and validate a new measurement instrument of service quality in the context of cloud gaming and by identifying new dimensions (compatibility, ubiquity, smoothness and comprehensiveness) specific to it.

Primary education (PE) forms the foundation of high-quality education systems, but it is often underestimated. This paper aims to develop and empirically validate a measurement instrument to study the current stage of total quality management (TQM) implementation in PE.

This study developed a seven-dimensional and a 37-item instrument administered to education professionals at public PE institutions in Greece to determine the current stage of TQM implementation at their institution; 2,088 responses were received in total. Principal component analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were adopted to test the research instrument.

The findings supported the validity and reliability of the instrument and demonstrated that the proposed measures represent actual dimensions that can be used to explore the implementation of TQM in PE. Results also showed that the respondents rated highly the positive impact that TQM can have on their schools, although nonhuman resources have been found inadequate and problematic.

The field of TQM in PE lacks empirical evidence; this paper provides deep insight into the elements that demonstrate the perception and status of TQM implementation and can support quality implementation plans.

This study adds value to the TQM literature by developing an instrument for use in PE educational institutions and validating it in a real environment. Practitioners and researchers are thus supplied with the means to facilitate TQM practices, identify weaknesses and opportunities and contribute to social empowerment.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the thermomechanical condition on the shape memory property of Polybutylene adipate-co-terephthalate (PBAT). PBAT is a widely researched and rapidly developed biodegradable copolyester. In a tensile test, we found that the fractured PBAT samples had a heat-driven shape memory effect which piqued our interest, and it will lay a foundation for the application of PBAT in new fields (such as heat shrinkable film).

The shape memory effect of PBAT and the effect of the thermomechanical condition on its shape memory property were confirmed and systematically investigated by a thermal mechanical analyzer and tensile machine.

The results showed that the PBAT film had broad shape memory transform temperature and exhibited excellent thermomechanical stability and shape memory properties. The shape memory fixity ratio (Rf) of the PBAT films was increased with the prestrain temperature and prestrain, where the highest Rf exceeded 90%. The shape memory recovery ratio (Rr) of the PBAT films was increased with the shape memory recovery temperature and decreased with the prestrain value, and the highest Rr was almost 100%. Moreover, the PBAT films had high shape memory recovery stress which increased with the prestrain value and decreased with the prestrain temperature, and the highest shape memory recovery stress can reach 7.73 MPa.

The results showed that PBAT had a broad shape memory transform temperature, exhibited excellent thermomechanical stability and shape memory performance, especially for the sample programmed at high temperature and had a larger prestrian, which will provide a reference for the design, processing and application of PBAT-based heat shrinkable film and smart materials.

This study confirmed and systematically investigated the shape memory effect of PBAT and the effect of the thermomechanical condition on the shape memory property of PBAT.

This study explored whether the critical incident management systems (CIMS) model can predict the EMS performance in the COVID-19 context. Past research has established the significance of early detection and response (ER) in the context of Ebola virus disease (EVD), prompting a question of whether the model can also be helpful in the COVID-19 context. Consequently, the authors assessed whether ER influences the impact of communication capacity (CC), reliable information channel (RC) and environment (EN) on COVID-19 EMS performance. Assessing these relationships will advance emerging infectious disease (EID) preparedness.

The authors employed standardized measurement instruments of the CIMS model (CC, ER, RC and EN) to predict the performance of COVID-19 EMS using structural equation modeling (SEM) in a study of 313 participants from frontline responders.

The results show that the relationship of ER and EN with COVID-19 EMS performance is positive, while that of EN on CC is negative. The relationship between EN and COVID-19 EMS performance was insignificant. Contrary to the hypothesis, CC was negatively significant to COVID-19 EMS performance due to poor communication capacities.

The authors acknowledge some limitations due to challenges faced in this study. First, Data collection was a significant limitation as these questionnaires were built and distributed in June 2020, but the response time was prolonged due to the recurring nature of the pandemic. The authors had wanted to implore the inputs of all stakeholders, and efforts were made to reach out to various Ministry of Health, the local CDC and related agencies in the region via repeated emails explaining the purpose of the study to no avail. The study finally used the frontline workers as the respondents. The authors used international students from various countries as the representatives to reach out to their countries' frontline workers. Second, since the study was only partially supported using the CIMS model, future studies may combine the CIMS model with other models or theories. Subsequent research reassesses this outcome in other contexts or regions. Consequently, further research can explore how CC can be improved with COVID-19 and another future EID in the region. This may improve the COVID-19 EMS performance, thereby expanding the lesson learned from the pandemic and sustaining public health EID response. Additionally, other authors may combine the CIMS model with other emergency management models or theories to establish a fully supported theoretical model in the context of COVID-19.

The findings have practical implications for incident managers, local CDCs, governments, international organizations and scholars. The outcome of the study might inform these stakeholders on future direction and contribution to EID preparedness. This study unfolds the impact of lessons learned in the region demonstrated by moderating early detection and responses with other constructs to achieve COVID-19 EMS performance. The findings reveal that countries that experienced the 2013–2016 Ebola outbreak, were not necessarily more prepared for an epidemic or pandemic, judging by the negative moderating impact of early detection and response. However, these experiences provide a foundation for the fight against COVID-19. There is a need for localized plans tailored to each country's situation, resources, culture and lifestyle. The localized plan will be to mitigate and prevent an unsustainable EID management system, post-epidemic fund withdrawals and governance. This plan might be more adaptable and sustainable for the local health system when international interventions are withdrawn after an epidemic. Public health EID plans must be adapted to each country's unique situation to ensure sustainability and constantly improve EID management of epidemics and pandemics in emergency response. The high to moderate importation risk in African countries shows Africa's largest window of vulnerability to be West Africa (Gilbert et al., 2020). Therefore, they should be in the spotlight for heightened assistance towards the preparedness and response for a future pandemic like COVID-19. The West African region has a low capacity to manage the health emergency to match the population capacities. The COVID-19 outbreak in West Africa undoubtedly inflicted many disruptions in most countries' economic, social and environmental circumstances. The region's unique challenges observed in this study with CC and reliable information channels as being negatively significant highlight the poor maintenance culture and weak institutions due to brain drain and inadequate training and monitoring. This outcome practically informs West African stakeholders and governments on aspects to indulge when trying to improve emergency preparedness as the outcomes from other regions might not be applicable.

This study explored the relevance of the CIMS model in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, revealing different patterns of influence on COVID-19 EMS performance. In contrast to the extant literature on EVD, the authors found the moderating effects of ER in the COVID-19 context. Thus, the authors contribute to the COVID-19 EMS performance domain by developing a context-driven EMS model. The authors discuss the theoretical and practical implications.

Understanding what organizational factors enable a successful social media presence is a relevant issue for academics and practicing managers. The purpose of this investigation is to thus develop and validate a scale to measure a social media marketing system (SMMS).

This paper follows a rigorous scale development process based on three stages: item generation, measurement development and instrument testing. The validity and reliability tests were conducted using data provided by social media managers and the managers' supervisors.

The results validate a 25-item multidimensional SMMS scale that exhibits adequate internal consistency, reliability, construct validity and nomological validity. The results also show that the SMMS scale positively correlates with outcomes that are key to firm success (social media strategy success and marketing performance).

This paper conceptualizes SMMS through four dimensions, namely formalization, human resource management, co-creation and marketing planning, and the paper associates SMMS to important firm outcomes. The newly developed measurement instrument adds to the small repository of research scales relevant to social media and can serve as a springboard from which future work can understand social media from both an internal management perspective and an integrated outlook.

To protect the environment and society, research on responsible behavior and personal values has increased. Values have been identified as important for understanding and predicting environmental preservation behaviors. The purpose of this study is to analyze the validity and reliability of the Environmental Portrait Value Questionnaire in the Spanish context.

The new version of this questionnaire was administered to 742 university students (46.4% male and 53.6% female) from 16 regions in Spain.

The results of adapting and testing the instrument’s psychometric properties were consistent with accepted criteria for validity and reliability. Therefore, this updated and contextualized instrument has the potential to contribute to academic advances in the sense of expanding the empirical practice of studying environmental values. Fifteen items from the original version were retained, grouped into four factors as in the original version: Altruistic – five items; Egoistic – four items; Biospheric – three items; and Hedonic – three items. The final version showed adequate fit indices and reliability measures.

This instrument is a powerful resource for the Spanish academic community because using this application it will be possible to assess the degree of commitment of young adults to the goals of sustainability and environmental protection.

Digitalization in marketing activities has made it easier for people to make purchase decision. This platform encourages every firm to optimize digitalization as part of its marketing strategy. Optimization of attractive digital marketing involves advertising attractiveness, influencer marketing and online customer reviews. This study aims to investigate advertising attractiveness, influencer marketing and online customer reviews on purchase decision.

The study was conducted with a quantitative approach. A total of 120 respondents were involved in this study by using convenience sampling techniques in data collection. Multiple linear regression was used to analyze the data.

The results of the study show that influencer marketing and online customer reviews have an impact on online purchase decision. Meanwhile, advertising attractiveness does not show any influence on purchase decision.

Despite the start-ups have modified the website by increasing the content to make it more informative, it seems that customers are not interested in making a purchase. Therefore, notwithstanding the role of website attractiveness, the use of physical attractiveness is still considered an effective way to encourage customers to make purchasing decisions. In this way, a firm needs to make adjustments between the customers' personality, lifestyle and attitudes and endorsers.

This study developed previous empirical studies which a positive relationship between advertising attractiveness, influencer marketing, online customer reviews and purchase decision. The development of the model was carried out by elaborating variable indicators. In addition, the source of increasing credibility was not based on physical attractiveness, but rather emphasizes the website quality.

This paper focuses exclusively on the drivers and consequences of Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) adoption in sustainability reports with a particular focus on corporate social responsibility (CSR) mechanisms.

The sample includes 63 countries with 4,625 unique firms in these countries and 29,054 firm-year observations between 2002 and 2019. The empirical methodology is logistic and linear regression analyses with country and year fixed effects.

The findings show that CSR committees and executive CSR compensation stimulate firms' GRI adoption. Furthermore, while GRI adoption enhanced firm value in the earlier period of 2002–2010, it weakened firm value in the later period between 2011 and 2019 implying a loss of value relevance. However, the moderating effect of CSR committees and executive CSR compensation on GRI adoption has led to higher firm value in recent times. A more in-depth investigation of polluting versus non-polluting sectors and weak and strong institutional environments reveals both convergence and divergence respectively among these sub-samples. The results are robust to alternative samplings, alternative methodology and endogeneity concerns.

The main limitations of the study are the binary nature of key variables, such as CSR committee, executive CSR compensation and GRI adoption, due to the availability of binary data but not continuous data.

Firms allocate substantial funds for SR and following GRI guidelines; hence, the findings guide them on how to ensure the return on this investment.

Shareholders who particularly pursue socially responsible investment can shape their investment portfolios in firms that engage with sustainability reporting (SR) and GRI adoption practices.

It is not clear in the literature if CSR committees will adopt the GRI for SR because of any incentive. Thus, we examine if the CSR committee and executive CSR compensation can play a direct role in GRI adoption and play a moderating role between GRI adoption and firm value. Moreover, whether GRI adoption and its value relevance might change across periods, sectors (polluting versus non-polluting) and varying institutional environments (investor protection) are addressed in this study.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between total productive maintenance (TPM) practices and operational performance (OP) in soft drinks manufacturing industry, Ethiopia.

In this study acceptability and implementation of five TPM practices (i.e., dependent factors: autonomous maintenance (AUT); safety, health and environment (SHE); education and training (EDT); focused improvement; and planned maintenance (PLM)) in soft drinks manufacturing industry have been elaborated to ascertain the benefits accrued as a result of successful TPM practices (i.e., independent variables) on OP (i.e., dependent variables). A self-administered survey seven-point Likert scale questionnaire was used for primary data collection. By using simple random sampling technique a total of 100 useable responses resulted in a 66.66 per cent response rate. Descriptive (mean, standard deviation) and inferential statistics (factor analysis, correlation, simple and multiple regression analysis) analysis were performed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software (version-28) to identify the relationship and effect of TPM practices on OP. Five hypotheses were developed and tested.

Results show that four of the TPM practices were positively and significantly correlated with OP. Aggregate TPM shows positive and significant correlation with OP. Four hypotheses results revealed that the AUT; SHE; EDT and PLM practices have positive and significant relationship with OP and significantly improve OP. The results also show that the TPM practices have positive and significant relationship with OP and significantly improve cost effectiveness, product quality, on-time delivery and volume flexibility.

The benefits gained by TPM practices in selected soft drinks manufacturing industry have been highlighted, that could be genuine source of motivation to other companies to go in for TPM program. This research contributes to the literature by examining the contingency of various TPM enabling factors in the context of the Ethiopian soft drinks manufacturing sector, and it, therefore, provides direction to increase the success rate of TPM implementation. Study offers academics and practitioners a better understanding of the relationship and effect of the TPM practices on the OPs. Thus, practitioners will be able to make better and more effective decisions about the implementation of TPM practices for better OP results.

The relationship between the five factors TPM practices and OP has not yet been studied or reported in the case of soft drink manufacturing industry. The questionnaire manner and items developed, factor considered in this study, sampling method, deeply statistical data analysis techniques used, soft drink manufacturing industry, developing country like Ethiopia make this study unique and revealed the gap identification in this area. The study has contributed to the TPM literature with a better understanding of the five TPM practices and their association with a soft drink manufacturing industry OP that will provide valuable knowledge to top-management of manufacturing companies, to refine their current TPM practices and subsequently improve OP.