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The purpose of this study is to perform an exploratory investigation into the feasibility of behavioural threshold analysis as a possible aid in security awareness campaigns.

Generic behavioural threshold analysis is presented and then applied in the domain of information security by collecting data on the behavioural thresholds of individuals in a group setting and how the individuals influence each other when it comes to security behaviour.

Initial experimental results show that behavioural threshold analysis is feasible in the context of information security and may provide useful guidelines on how to construct information security awareness programmes.

Threshold analysis may contribute in a number of ways to information security, e.g. identification of security issues that are susceptible to peer pressure and easily influenced by peer behaviour; serve as a countermeasure against security fatigue; contribute to the economics of information security awareness programmes; track progress of security awareness campaigns; and provide a new measure for determining the importance of security awareness issues.

This paper describes the very first experiment to test the behavioural threshold analysis concepts in the context of information security.

The threshold regression framework is used to examine the effect of foreign direct investment on growth in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The growth literature is awash with divergent evidence on the role of foreign direct investment (FDI) on economic growth. Although the FDI–growth nexus has been studied in diverse ways, very few studies have examined the relationship within the framework of threshold analysis. Furthermore, even where this framework has been adopted, none of the previous studies has comprehensively examined the FDI–growth nexus in the broader SSA. In this paper, within the standard panel and threshold regression framework, the problem of determining the growth impact of FDI is revisited.

Six variables are used as thresholds – inflation, initial income, population growth, trade openness, financial market development and human capital, and the analysis is based on a large panel data set that comprises 45 SSA countries for the years 1985–2013.

The results of this study show that the direct impact of FDI on growth is largely ambiguous and inconsistent. However, under the threshold analysis, it is evident that FDI accelerates economic growth when SSA countries have achieved certain threshold levels of inflation, population growth and financial markets development. This evidence is largely invariant qualitatively and is robust to different empirical specifications. FDI enhances growth in SSA when inflation and private sector credit are below their threshold levels while human capital and population growth are above their threshold levels.

The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, the paper streamlines the threshold analysis of FDI–growth nexus to focus on countries in SSA – previous studies on FDI-growth nexus in SSA are country-specific and time series–based (see Tshepo, 2014; Raheem and Oyınlola, 2013 and Bende-Nabende, 2002). This paper provides a panel analysis and considers a broader set of up to 45 SSA countries. Such a broad set of SSA countries had never been considered in the literature. Second, the paper expands on available threshold variables to include two new important macroeconomic variables, population growth and inflation which, though are important absorptive capacities but, until now, had not been used as thresholds in the FDI–growth literature. The rationale for including these variables as thresholds stems from the evidence of an empirical relationship between population growth and economic growth, see Darrat and Al-Yousif (1999), and between inflation and economic growth, see Kremer et al. (2013).

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the lemming effect as a possible cause for the privacy paradox in information security.

Behavioural threshold analysis is used to test for the presence of the lemming effect in information security behaviour. Paradoxical behaviour may be caused by the influential nature of the lemming effect. The lemming effect is presented as a possible cause of the privacy paradox.

The behavioural threshold analysis indicates that the lemming effect is indeed present in information security behaviour and may lead to paradoxical information security behaviour.

The analysis of the lemming effect can be used to assist companies in understanding the way employees influence each other in their behaviour in terms of security. By identifying possible problem areas, this approach can also assist in directing their information security education endeavours towards the most relevant topics.

This research describes the first investigation of the lemming effect in information security by means of behavioural threshold analysis in practice.

The objective of this paper is to simultaneously identify influential articles, journals, institutions, and researchers in marketing research in recent years using a threshold citation analysis.

The threshold citation analysis counts the number of times a research work is cited by articles published in a set of elite marketing journals. In order to be included in the analysis, the research work must be cited 18 or more times. This threshold is used to measure influence and is unique in the ranking of marketing research. The threshold citation analysis incorporates the quality, the importance, and the influence of research works in the ranking criteria and is not limited to a set of journals nor confined by the year a research work is published.

The three frequently cited articles in marketing research are Fornell and Larcker, Baron and Kenny, and Anderson and Gerbing. Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, and Journal of Consumer Research are the three marketing journals having the greatest influence in marketing research. As for the ranking of institutions, the three most influential institutions in marketing research are Northwestern University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Michigan while the three frequently cited authors in marketing research are Richard Oliver, Valarie Zeithaml, and James Anderson.

First, this study identifies influential research works, journals, institutions, and researchers in marketing simultaneously and is in sharp contrast to the traditional approaches that identify influential research works, journals, institutions, and researchers separately. Second, this analysis mitigates the limitations that have plagued the quantity oriented publication‐based approach and the quality oriented citation‐based approach, making these findings more robust and inclusive. Finally, this paper identifies non‐marketing journals, non‐marketing articles, and scholarly books that have significant impact on contemporary marketing research. Consequently, this study offers new and comprehensive insights to the rankings research in marketing that were neglected by previous studies.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between renewable energy consumption and economic growth, using the threshold variables of non-renewable energy consumption, urbanization level and per-capita income.

This study used a panel threshold regression model, on combined African countries and divided African countries into five regions (northern, western, central, southern and eastern Africa). The study used panel data from 54 African countries, from 1990 to 2018.

This study established a threshold interval where the significant negative impact of renewable energy consumption on the economic growth of combined African countries is different at each split asymmetric phase, meaning the relationship is negative and non-linear. Further, the study established the threshold effect of divided African countries into regions, revealed a negative effect of renewable energy consumption on economic growth and compared the differences of threshold effect and coefficient in the regions, which further highlight the varying resource and renewable energy development across African countries.

This study recommends strategies and investment priorities on energy transition, through optimizing renewable energy in Africa, hence aggressive investment in the renewable energy sector is highly encouraged especially for the oil-producing state to promote clean and sustainable energy.

The contribution of this study is the establishment of a non-linear panel threshold model to examine the asymmetric effect of renewable energy consumption on economic growth which to the best of the authors’ knowledge is pioneer research in Africa. Additionally, an in-depth analysis of renewable energy consumption’s effect on the economic growth of all the regions in Africa.

The purpose of this paper is to explore: student perceptions of threshold concepts and capabilities in postgraduate business education, and the potential impacts of intensive modes of teaching on student understanding of threshold concepts and development of threshold capabilities.

The student experience of learning was studied in two business units: strategic management, and accounting. The method involved two phases. In the first, students and unit coordinators identified and justified potential threshold concepts and capabilities. In the second, themes were rationalized.

Significantly more so in intensive mode, the opportunity to ask questions was reported by student participants to support their development of the nominated threshold capabilities. This and other factors reported by students to support their learning in intensive mode are consistent with supporting students to traverse the liminal space within the limited time available in intensive mode.

Respondents from future cohorts will address the small participant numbers. Studies in only two units are reported. Studies in other disciplines are presented elsewhere.

The findings will be important to educators using intensive mode teaching in business, and researchers working within the framework.

This is the first study to explore the potential impacts of intensive modes of teaching on student understanding of threshold concepts and development of threshold capabilities.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of monetary policy on bank risk in the banking system in some MENA countries. It explores how some economic and credit indicators affect the level of risk in the banking sector. It combines many factors that could affect banks’ risk appetite such as macroeconomic conditions, banks’ credit size and lending growth. The authors use nonperforming loans as a proxy for banking sector risks. At first, the authors have analyzed the linear relationship between monetary policy and credit risk. As mentioned above, nonlinearity is expected in the underlying relationship, and, thus, they have investigated the nonlinear relationship to deeply analyse the relationship using the dynamic panel threshold model, as stimulated by Kremer et al. (2013). Threshold models have gained a great importance in economics and finance for modelling nonlinear behaviour. Threshold models are useful in showing the turning points in the behaviour of financial and economic indicators. This technique has been applied in this study to study the effect of monetary policy on credit risk.

This paper is divided into the following sections: Section 2 which previews the recent literature; Section 3 which includes some stylized facts about the relationship between credit risk and monetary policy; Section 4 which deals with the model and methodology; Section 5 which handles the data sources and discusses the results, and finally Section 6 which is the conclusion. The paper adopts dynamic panel threshold model of Kremer et al. (2013).

The results show that the relationship between monetary policy and credit risk is positive and significant to a certain threshold, 6.3. If the lending interest rate is higher than 6.3, this increases the credit risk in the banking sector, because increasing the lending interest rate imposes huge burdens on the borrowers, and, therefore, the bad loans and nonperforming loans become more likely. Thus, the MENA countries need to decrease the lending interest rate to be less than 6.3 to reduce the effect of monetary policy on credit risk. Further, these results are qualitatively robust regarding the inclusion of additional control variables, using alternative threshold variables and further endogeneity checks of the credit risk, such as Risk premium and the squared term of the lending interest rate. The results of taking the risk premium and the squared term of the lending interest rate as a threshold served the analysis and confirmed the positive relationship between monetary policy and credit risk above a certain threshold. As for the risk premium, the relationship below the threshold was negative and significant. Other related research points might be a good avenue for the future research such as applying this approach to micro data of banks from different MENA countries. Also, more sophisticated approaches like time-varying panel approach to assess the relationship over the time can be applied.

The importance of this paper lies in the fact that it does not only study the effect of time, but it also focuses on the panel data about some economic and credit indicators in the MENA region for the first time. This is because central banks in the MENA region have common characteristics and congruous level of economic growth. Therefore, to study how the monetary policy affects those countries’ credit risks in their lending policies, this requires careful analysis of how the central banks in this region might behave to control default risks.

The purpose of this paper is to present a brief exposure to the development of the threshold concepts framework (TCF), the intention being to illuminate for interested readers a broader landscape of research activity than that perhaps conveyed by the individual contributions to this special edition.

There is first an account of how the notion of a “threshold concept” was presented by Meyer and Land in their seminal 2003 paper, and a clarification of some terminology used by them at that time to describe the (confusing for some) “characteristics” of such a concept. A discursive account, with examples, follows on how analyses for, and of, threshold concepts might proceed, and how findings might provoke a reappraisal of associated learning and teaching practices. Towards this end a contemporary pedagogical perspective is introduced based on the construct of integrated threshold concept knowledge (ITCK) as proposed by Meyer and Timmermans (2016). Reference to a detailed case study illustrates the practical dynamics of generating ITCK; specifically in the context of a third-year engineering course embedding the threshold of “critical flow”. Activities and processes, transferable to other discipline contexts, are described that yield particular elements of ITCK (different constituent “types of knowledge”) in relation, in this case, to “critical flow”. A final consideration is the “representation” of “critical flow” for pedagogical purposes in the form of a metacognitive activity for learning and formative assessment purposes that is, again, adaptable to other discipline contexts.

There are no specific findings in this paper as its purpose is to provide a condensed review of the development of the TCF.

This value of this paper is that it provides a contemporary expert exposure to the development of the TCF by the originator of the notion of a threshold concept.

This manuscript reports evidence on how debt-taking decisions of top management in a multi-country setting do affect credit rating scores assigned by credit rating agencies (CRAs) as global monitors of creditworthiness of borrowers. This aspect has been long ignored by researchers in the literature. The purpose of this paper is twofold. A test model is specified first using theories to connect debt-taking behavior to credit rating scores. Once that model helps to identify a number of statistically significant factors, the next step helps to identify threshold values at which the variables driving debt-taking behavior would worsen the credit rating scores as turning points of the thresholds.

The study identifies factors driving creditworthiness scores due to debt-taking behavior of countries and develops a correct research design to identify a model that explains (1) credit rating scores and the factors driving the scores and runs (2) panel-type regressions to test model fit. Having found factors driving debt-taking behavior by observed units, the next step identifies threshold values of factors at which point further debt-taking is likely to worsen credit rating risk of the observed units. This is a robustness test of the methodology used. The observed units are 20 countries with data series across 14 years.

First, new findings suggest there are about six major factors associated with debt-taking behavior and credit rating changes. Second, the model developed in this study is able to account for substantial variability while the identified factors are statistically significant within the normal p-values for acceptance of hypotheses. Finally, the threshold values of factors identified are likely to be useful for managerial decisions to judge the levels at which further debt-taking would worsen the credit rating scores of the observed units.

The observed units are from 20 countries over 14 years of annual data available on credit rating scores (privately obtained from Standard and Poor [S&P]). The sample represents major economies but did not include emerging countries. In that regard, it will be worthwhile to explore the debt-taking behavior of emerging economies in a future study using the methodology verified in this study.

The findings help add few useful guidelines for top management decisions. (1) There are actually factors that are associated with debt-taking behavior, so the authors now know these factors as guides for managerial actions. (2) The authors are free to state that the credit rating changes occur on objective changes in the factors found as significantly related to the debt-taking behavior. (3) The threshold values of key factors are known, so top management could use these threshold values of named factors to monitor if a debt-taking decision is going to push the credit rating to a worse score.

There are society-wide implications. Knowing that the world's debt level is high at US$2.2 for each gross domestic product (GDP) dollar across almost 200 countries, any knowledge on what factors help drive creditworthiness scores, thus credit riskiness, is revealed in this paper. Knowing those factors and also knowing the turning points of the factors – the threshold values – likely to worsen creditworthiness scores is a powerful tool for controlling excessive debt-taking by an observation unit included in this study (The dataset in this research can also be used to see inter-temporal movement on debt-taking in a future study).

In the authors' view, there are many studies on debt-taking behavior. But none has connected debt-taking on how (1) named factors are observable to management that affect credit rating changes and (2) if a factor affects creditworthiness, at which point of the factor value, the creditworthiness will flip to worsen the score. These aspects are seldom found in the literature. Hence, the paper is original with practical value at the global level.

This paper aims to present the development of a framework for evaluating group behaviour in information security in practice.

Information security behavioural threshold analysis is used as the theoretical foundation for the proposed framework. The suitability of the proposed framework is evaluated based on two sets of qualitative measures (general frameworks and information security frameworks) which were identified from literature. The successful evaluation of the proposed framework, guided by the identified evaluation measures, is presented in terms of positive practical applications, as well as positive peer review and publication of the underlying theory.

A methodology to formalise a framework to analyse group behaviour in information security can successfully be applied in a practical environment. This application takes the framework from only a theoretical conceptualisation to an implementable solution to evaluate and positively influence information security group behaviour.

Behavioural threshold analysis is identified as a practical mechanism to evaluate information security group behaviour. The suggested framework, as implemented in a management decision support system (DSS), allows practitioners to assess the security behaviour and awareness in their organisation. The resulting information can be used to exert an influence for positive change in the information security of the organisation.

A novel conceptual mapping of two sets of qualitative evaluation measures is presented and used to evaluate the proposed framework. The resulting framework is made practical through its encapsulation in a DSS.