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Through the “Going Digital Initiative,” the Ghanaian government has introduced policies that aim at improving the information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure of the country. These ICT policies have benefited numerous sectors of the Ghanaian economy. In logistics management, ICT has impacted drone medical delivery in the healthcare and maritime sectors. However, the importance of ICT is not realized in the motorcycle goods transport (MGT) industry, regardless of its popularity and high economic dependency. Second, all research on motorcycles is focused on diverse social concerns, and no study has attempted to analyze ICT implementation for MGT operations. This is a significant gap in logistics management. Hence, the study aimed to investigate the impact of ICT on Ghana's MGT industry empirically.

The study adopts a two-phase data collection approach to collect the data. The authors use partial least square structural equation modeling to analyze the study's measurement and structural assessment model.

ICT positively impacts MGT and the drivers considered. The drivers positively influence MGT. The study further analyzes novel results on the relationships between the drivers and their mediating roles in enhancing MGT performance.

The study's originality is the extension of ICT adoption and usage in MGT. The lack of literature on the importance of ICT for MGT services makes this study the primary source of literature, and the relationships investigated are unique as the research area is unexplored.

This study analyzes the performance implications of adopting blockchain to support supply chain business processes. The technology holds as many promises as implementation challenges, so interest in its impact on operational performance has grown steadily over the last few years.

Drawing on transaction cost economics and the contingency theory, we built a set of hypotheses. These were tested through a long-term event study and an ordinary least squares regression involving 130 adopters listed in North America.

Compared with the control sample, adopters displayed significant abnormal performance in terms of labor productivity, operating cycle and profitability, whereas sales appeared unaffected. Firms in regulated settings and closer to the end customer showed more positive effects. Neither industry-level competition nor the early involvement of a project partner emerged as relevant contextual factors.

This research presents the first extensive analysis of operational performance based on objective measures. In contrast to previous studies and theoretical predictions, the results indicate that blockchain adoption is not associated with sales improvement. This can be explained considering that secure data storage and sharing do not guarantee the factual credibility of recorded data, which needs to be proved to customers in alternative ways. Conversely, improvements in other operational performance dimensions confirm that blockchain can support inter-organizational transactions more efficiently. The results are relevant in times when, following hype, there are signs of disengagement with the technology.

The purpose of this study is to ascertain service quality (halal values, assurance, meal quality, reliability, security, system and traceability) and perceived risks (financial, quality, environment, social, time, psychology and health) and its influence on satisfaction, as well as trust concerning online halal food delivery system (OHFDS).

This study uses quantitative methodology, through an online survey, by using purposive sampling across a sample size of 423 respondents. The analysis of data was conducted using SmartPLS.

The results of the findings indicate that assurance and halal values have an influence on satisfaction, as well as trust; nonetheless, only reliability has an impact on satisfaction. On the other hand, perceived health and financial risks have negative influence on trust and satisfaction toward OHFDS. In addition, perceived psychological and financial risks are found to have negative impacts on trust of OHFDS.

The theoretical value of this study is the testing of perceived service quality and risks concerning OHFDS in the same model, thereby contributing to a deeper understanding of its impact on trust and satisfaction toward the online food service delivery industry. The results of this study may appear as a starting point for researchers who wish to conduct further studies on the same topic.

This study suggests that the service providers need to boost their efforts in establishing high quality service and, simultaneously, reduce perceived risks, to develop satisfaction and trust toward OHFDS.

The long-term consequence of the business's achievement is that it makes it simpler for customers to have confidence in, be satisfied with and recommend the service providers to others.

A number of research investigations have been conducted among Muslims, specifically in the Asian region, which have yielded crucial data regarding consumer behavior toward halal products, such as food and tourism. This study, nonetheless, remains close with other studies on halal food, except that it adds together the knowledge of perceived quality and risks, as to gain a deeper understanding of the experience customers have on food, through online service delivery.

This study proposes an integrated Machine Learning and simulated framework for a personalized learning system. This framework aims to improve the integrity of the provided tasks, adapt to each student individually and ultimately enhance students' academic performance.

This methodology comprises two components. (1) A simulation-based system that utilizes reinforcement algorithms to assign additional questions to students who do not reach pass grade thresholds. (2) A Machine Learning system that uses the data from the system to identify the drivers of passing or failing and predict the likelihood of each student passing or failing based on their engagement with the simulated system.

The results of this study offer preliminary evidence of the effectiveness of the proposed simulation system and indicate that such a system has the potential to foster improvements in learning outcomes.

As with all empirical studies, this research has limitations. A simulation study is an abstraction of reality and may not be completely accurate. Student performance in real-world environments may be higher than estimated in this simulation, reducing the required teacher support.

The developed personalized learning (PL) system demonstrates a strong foundation for improving students' performance, particularly within a blended learning context. The findings indicate that simulated performance using the system exhibited improvement when individual students experienced higher learning benefits tailored to their needs.

The research offers evidence of the effectiveness of personalized learning systems and highlights their capacity to drive improvements in education. The proposed system holds the potential to enhance learning outcomes by tailoring tasks to meet the unique needs of each student.

This study contributes to the growing literature on personalized learning, emphasizing the importance of leveraging machine learning in educational technologies to enable precise predictions of student performance.

Designing effective business analytics (BA) platforms that visualise data, provide deep insights and support data-driven decision-making is a challenging task. Understanding the elements shaping BA platform design is crucial for success. The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of visualisation on usability (UI) and user experience (UX) while emphasising the importance of insights understanding in BA platform design.

This paper presents a case study following a startup’s journey as it undergoes two redesign phases for its BA platform. A combination of quantitative and qualitative methods is used to assess UX/UI and insights understanding of the platform. Indicatively this included semi-structured interviews, observations, think-aloud techniques and surveys to monitor runtime per task, number of errors, users’ emotions and users’ understanding.

Our findings suggest that modifications in aesthetics and information visualisation positively influence overall usability, UX, and understanding of platform insights – a critical aspect for the success of the startup.

Our goal is not to make a methodological contribution, but to illustrate how companies, constrained by time and pressure, navigate platform changes without meticulous design and provide learnings on important elements while designing BA platforms.

This paper concludes with suggested methods for assessing BA platforms and recommends practical practices to follow. These practices include recommendations on important elements for BA platform users, such as navigation and interactivity, user control and personalisation, visual consistency and effective visualisation.

This study contributes to practice as it presents a real-life case and offers valuable insights for practitioners.

Conceptual and empirical research over the past 20 years has moved the social media (SM) literature beyond the embryotic stage to a well-developed academic discipline. As the lead article in the special issue in the Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing on Cutting-Edge Research in Social Media and Interactive Marketing, this review and agenda article has two key goals: (1) to review key SM and interactive marketing research over the past three years and (2) to identify the next wave of high priority challenges and research opportunities.

Given the “cutting-edge” research focus of the special issue, this review and research agenda paper focused on articles published in 25 key marketing journals between January 2021 and March 2024. Initially, the search request was for articles with “social media, social selling, social commerce” located in the article title, author-selected key words and journal-selected keywords. Later, we conducted searches based on terminology from articles presented in the final review. In total, over 1,000 articles were reviewed across the 25 journals, plus additional ones that were cited in those journals that were not on the initial list.

Our review uncovered eight key content areas: (1) data sources, methodology and scale development; (2) emergent SM technologies; (3) artificial intelligence; (4) virtual reality; (5) sales and sales management; (6) consumer welfare; (7) influencer marketing; and (8) social commerce. Table I provides a summer of key articles and research findings for each of the content areas.

As a literature review and research agenda article, this paper is one of the most extensive to date on SM marketing, and particularly with regard to emergent research over the past three years. Recommendations for future research are integrated through the paper and summarized in Figure 2.

Consumer welfare is one of the eight emergent content areas uncovered in the literature review. Specific focus is on SM privacy, misinformation, mental health and misbehavior.

This study aims to investigate the integration of blockchain technology into the food supply chain within the restaurant industry. It focuses on how blockchain can be applied to enhance transparency and trust in tracking food sources, ultimately impacting customer satisfaction.

A service design workshop (Study 1) and three between-subjects experiments (Studies 2–4) were conducted.

Results indicate that blockchain adoption significantly improves traceability and trust in the food supply chain. This improvement in turn enhances customer satisfaction through perceived improvements in food safety, quality and naturalness. This study also notes that the effects of blockchain technology vary depending on the type of restaurant (casual or fine dining) and its location (tourist destinations or residential areas).

The findings offer practical insights for restaurant owners, technology developers and policymakers. Emphasizing the benefits of blockchain adoption, this study guides decision-making regarding technology investments for enhancing customer service and satisfaction in the hospitality sector.

This research contributes novel insights to the field of technology innovation in the hospitality industry. It extends the understanding of signaling theory by exploring how blockchain technology can serve as a tool for signal transmission in restaurant food supply chains.

Contact tracing apps have emerged to collect data and mitigate the spread of infectious diseases. However, privacy and security concerns have caused individuals to hesitate to adopt these solutions. Our objective is to evaluate the role of the political environment, information privacy, security and users’ intentions to use contact tracing apps.

We scraped the digital app store and collected 399 relevant reviews and other data from 21 contact tracing apps in the USA. A semi-supervised machine learning model was developed to extract information on privacy and security aspects from the reviews.

Our findings show a positive connection between security controls and user adoption, as reflected in star ratings. Users residing in states with blue political environments tend to assign higher ratings to apps, especially when robust security controls are in place. These findings confirm the influence of the political environment on the adoption of contact tracing apps. In times of a pandemic, our findings suggest that users prioritize security over privacy concerns, emphasizing the critical role of strong security features in promoting app acceptance.

This paper emphasizes the political environment of the state offering the app intersects with concerns about security and privacy as well as the effectiveness of security and privacy measures, influencing the app’s ratings. Also, it shows the importance of understanding and addressing the role of the political environment when designing and promoting such public health tools, regardless of the specific disease or outbreak.

ORCID is well recognised as a Persistent Identifier (PID) amongst the global academic community. The international literature is generally extremely positive towards this development. A minority of vociferous critics however have continued to dispute its benefits. Particular concerns have been noted around the potential for ORCID to be used as a tool for evaluation and surveillance by University management structures. This research sought to critically evaluate in-depth perceptions of ORCID in the Technological University (TU) sector in Ireland.

This study involved ten semi-structured interviews with academics and five with librarians in the TU sector. Reflexive thematic analysis informed by Heideggerian hermeneutic phenomenological principles was used to explore transcribed interview data.

The results demonstrate a clear difference in perceptions concerning ORCID, with library staff being very positive and uncritical, even arguing for mandatory adoption. Although some academics were using ORCID IDs in a performative manner, most were suspicious of, or resigned to their use. Concerns about ORCID ranged across various issues including employer surveillance, a lack of institutional autonomy and its inappropriateness for the sector. It is argued that academics in the TU sector have so far not had an opportunity to fully explore and articulate their vision for the future. In its current form ORCID represents a foreign, imposed and inappropriate tool that may facilitate willing or unwilling inclusion in the inequitable and crude “game” of global university league tables.

The paper offers an in-depth and critical analysis of ORCID adoption in Ireland based on perceptions amongst two stakeholder groups: academics and librarians.

In an age of educational reform which incentivises increased digitisation and standardisation, teachers are expected to embrace the rise of ‘new’ tools and pedagogies with limited agency to inform, question or direct what ‘newness’ must be brought into their classrooms. Drawing on my research with English as a Foreign Language (EFL) educators in South Africa and using an ‘excessive entitlement’ lens, I showcase how teachers' lack of agency can result in ‘defensive’ and ‘coercive’ practices in the classroom which are a far cry from the education transformation imagined according to either global and local imaginaries for teaching and learning. If we are interested in an educational revolution, I argue that a fundamental reorientation in education recognising teachers' agency in informing change is necessary. To do so requires theoretically driven intervention methodologies which view the competing demands placed on teachers as entry points to developing their agency and volition to find practices which work for them and their students in the classroom. To that end, I illustrate how Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) informed interventions like Change Laboratories could aid in this fundamental repositioning for teachers regarding transformational efforts and their far-reaching potential for educational revolution becoming conscious of and overcoming their feelings of excessive entitlement.