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This chapter investigates pandemic impact in a variety of industries, including food, travel, education and pharmaceuticals, considering elements such as isolation, emotions and social influences, which can lead to panic buying. The goal of this research is to ascertain how COVID-19 influences the buying decisions of customers. Additionally, the study aims to identify consumer consumption trends for a spectrum of products and services, including fast-moving consumer goods (FMCGs), entertainment, pharmaceuticals, travel and tourism. A comprehensive review of different research papers is done to conclude. The papers considered are from 2020 to 2022. Different keywords are used to search the relevant papers such as ‘pandemic’, ‘COVID-19’, ‘behaviour’, ‘impulsive’, etc. TCCM framework has been applied while reviewing the articles. During the isolation, consumer behaviour moved to panic buying and stockpiling, favouring organic basics, and encouraging e-commerce, as well as economic nationalism favouring made-in-India products. This study helps in knowing the reasons for change in consumers' behaviour for different products and services due to unforeseeable situations like COVID-19 and can find possible ways to deal with them. Business owners learn about changing consumer purchasing behaviours and how to modify products. The government can change policies to improve medical tourism and social protection.

Coronavirus illness is an irresistible infection instigated by a newfound coronavirus. Social distancing was identified as the most effective preventive measure, and it has shifted the teaching to online mode. The present study explored the various perceptions held by students while attending the classes during COVID-19. Primary data have been obtained for the fulfillment of the objective of the study. The data were analyzed with descriptive and inferential statistics. It was exhibited that students specified that online teaching provides real-world skills followed by financial benefits, active learning, recorded lectures, comfortable, ease of access, safe, flexible timings, interactive, and build self-confidence. However, various challenges in online classes were less interaction, technical issues, network issues, lack of self-discipline, social isolation, family distractions, difficult e-learning tools, etc. Logit regression provided that willingness to attend online classes in post COVID-19 was associated with age, gender, IT skills, prior experience, and location. Application of e-learning posed several challenges and possibilities throughout the entire field of education throughout the pandemic. The study suggested the need to address the various challenges faced by the students on immediate basis. It was recommended that training programs can help to prepare the students to take the benefits of digital education platforms.

Financial inclusion in Peru has been addressed through coverage, quality of financial services, movement of transactions, and service points. The purpose of this chapter is to evaluate for the department of Ancash, Peru, the link between financial inclusion and its socioeconomic factors. Socioeconomic variables and financial inclusion of the Ancash department of the National Household Survey are taken as indicators, later contrasted through the logit model, with the financial inclusion variable being the explained variable.

There is evidence of positive and negative relationships between financial inclusion and socioeconomic variables; these are important components for planning financial inclusion. Raising the levels of formal employment, the educational level and considering the area of residence would be a strategy to generate a dynamic of inclusion in the department of Ancash.

Serious games (SGs) are virtual systems that allow the reconstruction of the laws governing the behavior of complex adaptive systems such as urban transportation and social interaction. Unlike stated preference-based studies, improved visualization, feedback, and scores mediate players’ learning through experience. SG’s potential to understand users’ preferences regarding shared automated vehicles (SAVs) is developed. The investigation focused on three innovative, entirely automated commuting options: shared rides, shared cars, and automated transit. The research involved 10 participants actively involved in a competitive mode selection exercise, which emulated 50 workdays and was conducted in 10 separate sessions. The players aimed to maximize their overall score influenced by their mode choice, punctuality, and the other players’ choices. SG-obtained data was used to estimate a game-based discrete choice model. The sustainability policy implications of game-based methods on the future adoption of SAVs and impacts on other modes are further discussed.

Purpose: The prominence of quality education for building sustainable development is undeniable and is distinctly pointed out in 1 of the 14 sustainable development goals (SDGs). In the same context, this study intends to investigate the role of university commitment, perceived organisational prestige, student satisfaction, and perceived employability in enhancing sustainability in higher education.

Need of the Study: To evaluate how student satisfaction mediates the relationship between university commitment, perceived organisational prestige, and perceived employability with sustainable university institutes.

Methodology: An adapted questionnaire was used in this study to capture the perception of 458 management graduates selected through the purposive sampling method. Partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) technique was used to analyse the data with the help of Smart PLS software.

Findings: The results of this study show that student satisfaction is the strongest predictor of sustainable university institutes. University commitment was found to lead to student satisfaction significantly. Furthermore, student satisfaction wasn’t found to play the role of mediator in the proposed model.

Practical Implications: This study aims to fulfil theoretical, research, and management implications for students, higher education institutes (HEIs), and policymakers. HEIs are recommended to instil university commitment, perceived organisational prestige and student satisfaction via various practices and amendments in their curriculum. Students are recommended to enhance their perceived employability to achieve career sustainability.

Research on Traveller education in Ireland is limited. Internationally, studies on the education of the Traveller, Roma or Gypsy community tend to focus on educational participation and exclusion, discrimination, identity and belonging with little focus on the representation of Traveller student across different types of schools and educational settings. This chapter examines the distribution of Traveller students across mainstream and alternative education settings in Ireland, and how this distribution varies across different types of schools and centres. Using data from the Growing Up in Ireland principal survey and survey data from Irish alternative education providers (The National Youthreach Programme), it explores the concentration of Travellers in mainstream provision, in designated disadvantaged schools (Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools [DEIS]) compared to non-DEIS schools, and alternative education in Ireland. Findings show a higher representation of Traveller students in schools designated disadvantaged compared to non-disadvantaged settings and greater numbers of Traveller students in large primary and, to a lesser extent, secondary schools. The findings for alternative education show that Traveller young people make up 15% of learners which is higher than their representation in the general population or the school system. There is marked regional variation with higher representation of Travellers in alternative education settings in the West of Ireland compared to other regions.

With increasing policy emphasis on inclusive education and the need to increase retention of students from Traveller backgrounds, it is perhaps an opportune time to explore the distribution of Traveller students across different school and alternative educational contexts so that educational supports can be targeted more effectively.

Psychological well-being (PWB) is defined as one’s level of psychological happiness and health, encompassing life satisfaction and feelings of accomplishment. The literature on PWB has progressed rapidly in the past few decades. Meanwhile, camping has become a fast-growing outdoor recreation business in Taiwan. However, there is no extant research specifically focused on understanding the influences of travel distance on PWB in the context of eco-entrepreneurship such as sustainable camping management. This study aims to explore the PWB differences of campers who were from different living circles, travel distances, and regions in Taiwan. The study settings were the campgrounds in Wuling National Forest Recreation Area and Xitou Nature Education Area which were two renowned outdoor recreation and tourism destinations in Taiwan. There were totally 701 campers who responded to the on-site camper surveys. Campers’ residential zip codes were asked in the questionnaire and Google Maps was utilized to calculate campers’ travel distance, living circle, and residential region. To measure campers’ perceptions of PWB, the Ryff’s (1995) Scales of Psychological well-being theory was employed. The gravity model which provides an estimate of the volume of flows of goods, services, or people between two or more locations was used to explain the relationships between PWB and travel distance. The results indicated that campers who were members of a closer living circle and traveled shorter distance group to the campground, and campers who lived in the central region of Taiwan perceived higher levels of PWB. The management implications for eco-entrepreneurship on camping are provided.

Introduction: Why companies pay dividends and the determinants of dividend policy are considered an unresolved dividend puzzle. To reach a consensus over the puzzle, researchers must investigate the factors affecting dividend policy by incorporating all the determinants into a single research effort.

Purpose: We examine the dividend policy determinants of Sri Lankan firms, explicitly focusing on the banking, finance, and insurance (BFI) sectors.

Methodology: This study uses the quantitative approach applying the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) system to examine the dividend policy determinants by obtaining secondary data from 51 listed BFI organisations in Sri Lanka.

Findings: The analysis disclosed that the variables of changes in revenues, firm size, liquidity, corporate tax, business risk, and profitability have a positive relationship with dividend yield, whereas investment opportunities, leverage, change in revenues, corporate tax, and firm size impact positively on the propensity to pay dividends in BFI organisations in Sri Lanka. Our findings opine that managers in the BFI industries should prioritise changing their dividend policies by paying close attention to factors, such as dividend yield, changes in revenue, firm size, liquidity, corporate tax ratio, business risk, and profitability because the dividend policy is critical to retaining current investors and luring new ones.

The pandemic slowed down most industries globally, but health care maintained its steady growth, and for Pharma, it was a boom. Considering the comparatively better economic condition of India than other developed countries post-COVID-19, and the Russia–Ukraine war, multinational manufacturers of medical equipment companies are focusing on securing the maximum share of wallets from India through partnerships with health care service providers. The study tried to analyze the impact of the strategic key account management (KAM) partnership between multinational medical technology (MedTech) companies and health care service providers, from a global perspective. For the study, primary data were collected through questionnaires survey, and secondary data through a review of literature. The chi-square was tested using IBM SPSS software, and based on the results, three null hypotheses were rejected and one was accepted. Secondary data reveal that the Indian health care sector is highly competitive from a global perspective which can be observed by Nos of Venture Capital (VC) investment in health care, massive growth in medical tourism, and huge investment by international pharmaceutical companies in India. This partnership will help to develop more clinical packages through a clinical trial in India in a cost-effective way which will drastically reduce the manufacturing cost of high-tech medical equipment giving them an edge in global competition and also improving return on investment (ROI) for the partners.