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The purpose of this paper is to provide a new and useful formulation of relevance.

This paper is formulated as a conceptual argument. It makes the case for the utility of considering relevance to be function of use in creative processes.

There are several corollaries to formulating relevance as a function of use. These include the idea that objects by themselves cannot be relevant since use assumes interaction; the affordances of objects and how they are perceived can affect what becomes relevant but are not in themselves relevant; relevance is not an essential characteristic of objects; relevance is transient; potential relevance (what might be relevant in the future) can be distinguished from what is relevant in use and from what has been relevant in the past.

The paper shows that its new formulation of relevance brings improved conceptual and terminological clarity to the discourse about relevance in information science. It demonstrates that how relevance is articulated conceptually is important as its conceptualization can affect the ways that users are able to make use of information systems and, by extension, how information systems can facilitate or disable the co-production of creative outcomes. The paper also usefully expands investigative opportunities by suggesting relevance and creativity are interrelated.

Several businesses have begun to use memes as part of social media marketing. Although memes have been independently explored through various theories, their use in social media marketing has not yet been explored. This study analyzes theories used to study memes and suggests popular marketing theories to do the same for memes in social media marketing.

This study employed a mixed methodology. We used the Scopus database and the SPAR-4 protocol to gather, organize, and evaluate the literature. A bibliometric analysis was performed to understand the themes explored in the literature. Manual content analysis was performed to identify the theories used to elucidate study memes.

We profiled meme research through a bibliometric analysis. Relevance theory, Rhetoric theory, Theories of humor, Evolutionary theory, and the theory of conceptual blending are the most frequently used theories in meme literature. Furthermore, we found that the marketing theories used to study memes are limited.

The findings of this study will benefit academia, marketers, and social media managers by offering a comprehensive picture of theories used in meme research. It also suggests new avenues for conducting future research on memes based on identified theories.

This is one of the first known studies to employ both bibliometric and content analyses to review theories in meme literature. Furthermore, we suggest marketing theories and research questions to explain meme marketing.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze to what extent and in what ways signaling theory has been explored within the field of international marketing. This paper systematically reviews the use of signaling theory in the field of international marketing. Communication is a core aspect of the international marketing process. Research in this field has explored effective and unique ways of improving the communication flow to reduce the asymmetry of information between international consumers and the firm. This notion is adopted, enhanced and strengthened by signaling theory. Signaling theory has recently received the attention of international marketing scholars.

The systematic review methodology was applied for the purpose of identifying the relevant studies. We extracted academic articles over the last 23 years from the domain of international marketing that directly contribute to signaling theory based on 57 journal articles extracted through the systematic review process.

Based on systematic research the results reveal that the topic has grown and continues to expand within the broader international marketing field. We offer a theoretical conceptual framework to better understand signaling theory in the context of international marketing.

The authors map and critically evaluate the use of signaling theory in international marketing. Relevance of signaling theory in international marketing is growing and authors present an integrative framework that organizes the existing literature, and provides scholars to further expand on emerging themes of the domain. The paper offers some useful future research directions.

Banking industry is synonymous to larger dividend payment compared to other sectors. The complexity of dividend policy is further exacerbated by the occurrence of COVID-19 pandemic. This research is aimed to test the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on dividend policy relevance to firm value (FV). FV is measured by firm market value (MV) and TOBINSQ. Meanwhile, dividend policy is measured by dividend payout ratio and dividend yield ratio. This research used Indonesian Banking Companies listed in Indonesia Stock Exchange Period 2018–2022. This research does not find a significant impact of dividend policy on FV and supports Irrelevance Theory, both for pre-COVID-19 pandemic and during COVID-19 pandemic. However, this research finds differing significant impact on each bank’s common equity tier that reflects the dynamic expectation imposed by the market for each common equity tier. This research also finds a more profound negative and significant impact of dividend policy on FV for state-owned banks compared to private banks. Furthermore, banking-specific performance measurement like a non-performing loan (NPL) and capital adequacy ratio (CAR) consistently impacts the banks’ FV.

This paper investigates the moderated mediation roles of dynamic capabilities and self-initiated AI learning between job crafting and entrepreneurial innovativeness among owner-managers of family craft businesses in Ghana.

A convenience sampling technique was used in the selection of 498 family craft business owner-managers in Ghana. The paper deployed regression analysis to examine the hypothesized paths.

Using hierarchical regression, job crafting was found to have a positive effect on entrepreneurs’ innovativeness. Further, dynamic capabilities moderate the mediated link between self-initiated AI learning and entrepreneurial innovativeness.

The current study assesses self-initiated learning for work adjustment from a cross-sectional design perspective. Though, this research design is effective in the assessment of opinions and attitudes of persons, it is limited in its capacity to reflect changing opinions and attitudes overtime. This study recommends future studies to conduct a longitudinal survey on the phenomenon.

This study is one of the first to deploy AI affordances to extend empirical literature on the novel SIWAL concept for work adjustment among craft family business owner-managers in Africa.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the purchase behavior of consumers towards green products by adapting and extending the theory of planned behavior with the inclusion of three pertinent environmental factors posited to reflect environmental consciousness in the form of environmental concern, environmental knowledge and environmental values.

The data was collected from 410 consumers at shopping malls with retail stores selling green and non-green products in a developing country using cluster sampling and analyzed using covariance-based structural equation modeling.

The findings of this study indicate that environmental factors reflecting environmental consciousness positively influence consumers’ attitude towards purchasing green products, wherein consumers’ environmental values have a stronger influence than their environmental concern and environmental knowledge. The findings also reveal that subjective norm, attitude and perceived behavioral control toward purchasing green products positively shape green purchase intention. The same positive effect is also witnessed between green purchase intention and behavior. However, perceived behavioral control towards purchasing green products had no significant influence on green purchase behavior.

This study suggests that green marketers should promote environmental consciousness among consumers to influence and shape their planned behavior towards green purchases. This could be done by prioritizing efforts and investments in inculcating environmental values, followed by enhancing environmental knowledge and finally inducing environmental concern among consumers. Green marketers can also leverage subjective norm and perceptions of behavioral control toward purchasing green products to reinforce green purchase intention, which, in turn, strengthens green purchase behavior. This green marketing strategy should also be useful to address the intention–behavior gap as seen through the null effect of perceived behavioral control on purchase behavior toward green products when this strategy is present.

This study contributes to theoretical generalizability by reaffirming the continued relevance of the theory of planned behavior in settings concerning the environment (e.g. green purchases), and theoretical extension by augmenting environmental concern, environmental knowledge and environmental values with the theory of planned behavior, resulting in an environmentally conscious theory of planned behavior. The latter is significant and noteworthy, as this study broadens the conceptualization and operationalization of environmental consciousness from a unidimensional to a multidimensional construct.

While being integrated together conceptually and practically, the literature on game theory in the context of financial markets lacks a cohesive understanding. This study aims to systematically scrutinize and analyse the literature of game theory in the context of financial markets, through a systematic literature review.

A systematic literature-based approach, through the theories, context, characteristics and methodology (TCCM) framework has been applied to 97 articles, extracted and filtered from two databases, Scopus and Web of Science, for a comprehensive review and understanding of the intellectual development in the domain of game theory and financial markets.

The review highlighted the most utilitarian theories within the literature, the context of research in terms of countries and industries, four themes which characterize the literature, as well as the methodologies and research designs used in this research domain. The paper also uncovered certain essential areas that present scope for further research.

While two of the largest indexation databases have been used, some relevant articles may have been excluded due to the restriction of databases and screening criteria, which may lead to the less exploration of several facets of the domain.

Practically, the paper has implications for multiple stakeholders including traders, businesses and governments. For traders, this paper acts as a guide to entering and understanding the dynamics of financial markets. The review also covers decision-making from the perspective of firms, including venture capitalists. This paper would allow firms to understand how game theory can help influence or analyze the strategic interactions between their stakeholders in terms of information disclosure, or consumers and their behavior to stimuli from the firm’s actions.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first of its kind that attempts to comprehensively provide an overview of the literature on game theory in financial markets. In doing so, this study shall help assess the current state of knowledge in the said field and locate gaps in the literature to propose new research directions.

Theory is an essential prerequisite in the development and maturation of any scholarly discipline. This study offers insight into theory development in reverse logistics (RL) studies, provides a synopsis of the theories employed in RL studies, and presents a comprehensive framework for choosing and applying theories in RL studies.

Using the systematic literature review approach, 265 various RL articles were analysed to discover the trend in using theories in RL studies and classify the individual theories employed. The analysis of the theoretical classification is presented to explain the type and frequency of the usage of theories.

The analysis discovered 52 specific theories from the sample. These theories were categorised under various categories: competitive, inventory, economic, decision, etc. The institutional, stakeholder, transaction cost economies, resource-based view, natural resource-based view, dynamic capability, agency and theory of planned behaviour were some of the key theories discovered. Finally, a comprehensive framework is provided to aid researchers in choosing and utilising theories.

This study gives authors, reviewers and editors perspectives on utilising theories in RL studies. It will give them the impetus to develop theories in RL and limit the borrowing or extension of theories from other disciplines to RL studies.

To the best of the researcher's knowledge, this is the first attempt to comprehensively provide an anatomical perspective into theory usage in RL studies. Besides, this study's proposed framework for selecting and using theories is a novelty in the domain of RL.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the detrimental consequences of participating in stokvels among women entrepreneurs within the South African township economy.

The research used the Gioia methodology, involving the implementation of a qualitative inquiry with an inductive approach. Semi-structured interviews served as the primary method for data collection. The study had a sample comprising 20 women entrepreneurs located in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Narratives on the detrimental consequences of participating in stokvels among women entrepreneurs within the South African township economy included fraudsters, misunderstanding and dishonesty among stokvel partners, year-end robbery and theft, stokvels being dominated by men, operating outside of formal regulatory frameworks, exclusion and limited funding.

Sample size challenges feature as a notable limitation, including the research being conducted in only one province of South Africa. Caution should be exercised when seeking to generalize the findings in other contexts.

While there is an array of literature on the impact of stokvels on entrepreneurship, there are deficiencies in studies that have looked at the detrimental consequences of stokvels on women entrepreneurs. As a result, the goal of this research is to add to the present corpus of African entrepreneurship literature, specifically in the context of South Africa.

This paper offers a definition of the core of information science, which encompasses most research in the field. The definition provides a unique identity for information science and positions it in the disciplinary universe.

After motivating the objective, a definition of the core and an explanation of its key aspects are provided. The definition is related to other definitions of information science before controversial discourse aspects are briefly addressed: discipline vs. field, science vs. humanities, library vs. information science and application vs. theory. Interdisciplinarity as an often-assumed foundation of information science is challenged.

Information science is concerned with how information is manifested across space and time. Information is manifested to facilitate and support the representation, access, documentation and preservation of ideas, activities, or practices, and to enable different types of interactions. Research and professional practice encompass the infrastructures – institutions and technology –and phenomena and practices around manifested information across space and time as its core contribution to the scholarly landscape. Information science collaborates with other disciplines to work on complex information problems that need multi- and interdisciplinary approaches to address them.

The paper argues that new information problems may change the core of the field, but throughout its existence, the discipline has remained quite stable in its central focus, yet proved to be highly adaptive to the tremendous changes in the forms, practices, institutions and technologies around and for manifested information.