A humanistic model of corporate social responsibility in e-commerce with high-tech support in the artificial intelligence economy.

This paper aims to develop a humanistic model of corporate social responsibility in e-commerce, relying on high technology in an artificial intelligence economy. The research is based on the experience of the top 30 publicly traded e-commerce companies, the 16 most responsible companies in the retail industry in the USA, and the leading global and Russian e-commerce business structures in 2020-2021. Based on econometric modeling, it is substantiated that the humanization (qualitative criterion) of jobs provides an increase in revenues of e-commerce businesses to a greater extent than an increase in the number (quantitative criterion) of jobs. The high technology of the artificial intelligence economy (AI economy) makes it possible to maximize the contribution of responsible HRM of the e-commerce business in increasing its revenues. For this purpose, a humanistic model of corporate social responsibility in e-commerce based on high technology in the AI economy has been developed. The theoretical significance lies in proving the need to humanize jobs in e-commerce and revealing the essence of this process. The practical significance lies in the fact that the developed humanistic model will increase the profitability and, consequently, the resilience of businesses to future economic crises that arise against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Firm value in the airline industry: perspectives on the impact of sustainability and Covid-19.

To date, there has been limited research undertaken into firm value determinants in the air transport industry, one of the most essential sectors for global business. In view of this, in this study, we review and synthesise the literature that focuses on the value of firms in this sector and discuss conceptually and empirically the determinants influencing airlines' stock values. Our main objective is to widen our understanding of the current state of research on the firm value of air transport companies. Using the systematic literature review (SLR) approach, we classify 173 papers published from 1984 to 2021. We find considerable changes in academic interest in the topic over the time period analysed, especially as a consequence of crisis-induced market crashes. In addition, we classify the main research themes relating to airlines' market value, identify gaps, and introduce potential future research avenues in this area. Among the themes identified, the adjustment in the industry-level factors such as alliances, market structure and competition were the most common source of fluctuations in airlines' stock value. However, we find shifting to sustainability initiatives and its consequence for stakeholders' value as one of the most discussed topics in this context. The trend has gained attention since early 2020 due to the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic as companies are looking for green and sustainable ways to protect the value in crisis time. Our findings assist transportation researchers and executives in addressing major value drivers of airline firms.

Working from anywhere: yin-yang cognition paradoxes of knowledge sharing and hiding for developing careers in China.

Digital technology coupled with the quarantines caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has made working from anywhere (WFA)-a modern form of remote working-a widespread phenomenon. Given that WFA brings new career challenges to and engenders paradoxes of knowledge exchange among employees, this research aims to examine how the interactions of remote work time (RWT), knowledge sharing (KS), and knowledge hiding (KH) affect career development (CD) from a culturally grounded paradoxical framing of yin-yang harmonizing. The data were collected from Chinese manufacturing employees, and a moderated hierarchical regression analysis was used to examine the hypotheses. The results show an inverted U-shaped relationship between RWT and CD. The interaction of KS and KH is significantly related to CD, and the inverted U-shaped RWT-CD relationship is moderated by the interaction term, in which RWT exerts the most substantial positive impact on CD when KS is high and KH is low. This study offers valuable implications for coping with perplexing employment relationships and increasing career challenges in volatile work environments. The primary originality is to adopt a novel cognitive frame of yin-yang harmonizing to examine the nonlinear effect of remote working and the symbiotic impact of KS and KH on CD, which not only enriches the understanding of flexible work arrangements in the digital economy but also provides novel insights into the interconnectedness of KS and KH and their interacting effects on HRM-related outcomes.

Implications of war on the food, beverage, and tobacco industry in South Korea.

The Food, Beverage & Tobacco (F&B) industry is an essential sector in the competitive economy. Procurement of production factors mainly depends on sales forecasting and the supply chain of raw materials. However, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has jeopardized the global supply chain. As the conflict worsened, the world faced a food crisis, which was already a significant challenge due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Understanding how conflict-related disruptions in global food markets might affect the stock return of the F&B industry of South Korea, this study forecasts the stock returns on the KOSDAQ F&B sector. This paper highlights that the conflict resulted in immediate and far-reaching consequences on the global food supply chain and future crop harvesting in South Korea. As numerous algorithms have been widely used in predicting stock market returns, we use Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) model for the prediction. Using daily returns from the KOSDAQ F&B industry from January 1999 to October 2022, the study proposes an ARIMA (2,2,3) model to forecast future movements of the stock returns. With an RMSE of 0.012, the prediction performance holds good using the ARIMA model. The results show a negative trend observed in the F&B sector returns for a few months, implying that sector stock returns decline as the conflict between Russia and Ukraine becomes more pronounced. This study also suggests that South Korea has massive scope to stabilize the demand for healthy, safe food, give more attention to domestic agribusiness, and make itself a self-sufficient agri-economy.

The impact of perceived risk of online takeout packaging and the moderating role of educational level.

With the rapid development of e-commerce and the impact of COVID-19, online takeout has become the first choice of more and more consumers. Previous research has indicated that food packaging is of great significance to marketing performance, yet very little is known about the mechanisms through which food packaging pollution risk affects online takeout consumption. This study proposes an expanded model of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) by incorporating the Concept of Perceived Risk (CPR) to analyze the mechanism of consumers' packaging pollution risk perception (PPRP) on their purchasing intention toward online takeout. Online survey was performed to collect data from 336 valid respondents in China, which was analyzed using structural equation modeling. The research findings verify the effectiveness of the TPB in the context of Chinese online takeout. Notably, the PPRP of online takeout was found to have a significant negative impact on consumers' attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control (PBC). It was also confirmed that consumers' attitudes, subjective norms, and PBC regarding online takeout partially mediate the negative relationship between PPRP and purchase intention. In addition, the findings corroborate the granular nuances among three groups concerning consumers' education level. The results do not only provide suggestions to the online takeout industry but also contribute theoretical value and practical significance for the improvement of sustainable food consumption.

Cultural inclusion and corporate sustainability: evidence from food culture and corporate total factor productivity in China.

This article constructed a food taste deviation index using text analysis based on food culture as a measure of cultural inclusion. Cultural inclusion was related to corporate total factor productivity, aiming to investigate whether the cultural inclusion affects corporate sustainability. The findings showed uneven distribution of cultural inclusion in various areas of China, contributing to the unbalanced sustainable development of firms in different regions, as reflected by the higher total factor productivity of firms located in regions with higher cultural inclusion. A test using mountainous undulation as an instrumental variable verified the causal relationship between cultural inclusion and firm sustainability. Besides, a regression discontinuity design was employed to mitigate the impacts of the bidirectional causality. Moreover, a high level of cultural inclusion in top managers' hometown significantly improved corporate sustainability, suggesting that executives can transmit cultural inclusion in society. In addition, firms in more inclusive regions are more motivated to increase their social responsibility to staff as a way to promote their total factor productivity, suggesting that cultural inclusion promotes firm sustainability by increasing firms' care for staff. This article also found that cultural inclusion has heterogeneous effects across firms of different levels of industry competition, and different levels of analyst attention. The research reveals the impact of cultural inclusion on the real economy and help academics dissect the informal institutional reasons behind the sustainable development of firms in different geographies from a new perspective, contributing to the promotion of economic sustainability at the regional level and related policy formulation.

Leverage zones in Responsible AI: towards a systems thinking conceptualization.

There is a growing debate amongst academics and practitioners on whether interventions made, thus far, towards Responsible AI have been enough to engage with the root causes of AI problems. Failure to effect meaningful changes in this system could see these initiatives not reach their potential and lead to the concept becoming another buzzword for companies to use in their marketing campaigns. Systems thinking is often touted as a methodology to manage and effect change; however, there is little practical advice available for decision-makers to include systems thinking insights to work towards Responsible AI. Using the notion of 'leverage zones' adapted from the systems thinking literature, we suggest a novel approach to plan for and experiment with potential initiatives and interventions. This paper presents a conceptual framework called the Five Ps to help practitioners construct and identify holistic interventions that may work towards Responsible AI, from lower-order interventions such as short-term fixes, tweaking algorithms and updating parameters, through to higher-order interventions such as redefining the system's foundational structures that govern those parameters, or challenging the underlying purpose upon which those structures are built and developed in the first place. Finally, we reflect on the framework as a scaffold for transdisciplinary question-asking to improve outcomes towards Responsible AI.

Value-added-tax rate increases: A comparative study using difference-in-difference with an ARIMA modeling approach.

Collecting and managing taxes is a critical keystone to protecting a country's financial intensity and developing a country's tax system, where value-added tax (VAT) has proven to be a nurturing and steady foundation of income for governments. VAT is a primary source of financial gain in developing nations, which differs from economic income in developed nations, where economic income is primarily derived from tax income. This study examines the influence of the new VAT on non-financial Saudi-listed companies. We compared and examined the impact of the newly introduced 15% VAT in various non-financial sectors. Using charts, tables, appropriate variance analysis, and ARIMA model in the Difference in Difference approach. Regarding data, we targeted 2019 before the new VAT, the discovery of COVID-19, and 2020 after the new VAT and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results show that a sharp increase in VAT (with other unmeasured variables in this study) has a significant positive/negative impact on inter-industry volatility in corporate financial reporting metrics and was even more dramatic with the COVID-19 disaster. The proposed 10% VAT increase has caused significant fluctuations in companies' metrics, for example, a decrease in average profits-2.16%, an escalation in more inactive companies, and a higher probability of bankruptcy among companies. Such an outcome would undoubtedly affect unemployment and possibly lead to a reduction in tax revenues in the long run. The consequences of an unexpected VAT increase raise the question of whether they accurately reflect the natural tax system in Saudi Arabia. Therefore, the Saudi government may consider the practical implications of outcomes before taking the next step in interventions in non-financial sectors.

The moderating role of information technology governance in the relationship between board characteristics and continuity management during the Covid-19 pandemic in an emerging economy.

The main aim of the current study is to investigate the relationship between governance characteristics, information technology governance, and continuity management during Covid-19 in an emerging economy. The study also examines the moderating role of information technology governance in the relationship between governance characteristics and business continuity management. The quantitative approach is used by utilising a survey questionnaire. A sample of 232 questionnaire surveys has been collected from the board of directors, top and middle management executives, external auditors, information technology experts, and some other respondents. The results were estimated using structural equation modelling. The results indicate that information technology governance has a statistically significant effect on business continuity. Board size, board independence, audit committee independence, audit committee diligence, and external audit have a statistically significant positive effect on information technology governance. Further, the results indicate that information technology governance significantly moderates the effect of board size, board independence, board diligence, audit committee independence, audit committee diligence, and external audit on business continuity. However, information technology governance does not moderate the relationship between board committees and business continuity, which indicates less board involvement in information technology governance. The current research provides insight into the role of information technology governance in business continuity management during crises. The present study provides a unique contribution as it investigates the relationship between corporate governance characteristics, information technology governance, and business continuity management during Covid-19, providing empirical evidence from an emerging country.

The benefits of tourism for rural community development.

While the main benefits of rural tourism have been studied extensively, most of these studies have focused on the development of sustainable rural tourism. The role of tourism contributions to rural community development remains unexplored. Little is known about what tourism contribution dimensions are available for policy-makers and how these dimensions affect rural tourism contributions. Without a clear picture and indication of what benefits rural tourism can provide for rural communities, policy-makers might not invest limited resources in such projects. The objectives of this study are threefold. First, we outline a rural tourism contribution model that policy-makers can use to support tourism-based rural community development. Second, we address several methodological limitations that undermine current sustainability model development and recommend feasible methodological solutions. Third, we propose a six-step theoretical procedure as a guideline for constructing a valid contribution model. We find four primary attributes of rural tourism contributions to rural community development; economic, sociocultural, environmental, and leisure and educational, and 32 subattributes. Ultimately, we confirm that economic benefits are the most significant contribution. Our findings have several practical and methodological implications and could be used as policy-making guidelines for rural community development.

The dual effect of digital communication reinforcement drivers on purchase intention in the social commerce environment.

The paper draws on the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to investigate the dual effect of digital communication reinforcement drivers: positive (i.e., interactivity, argument quality, hedonic motivation, and perceived enjoyment online) and negative (i.e., intrusive concerns and privacy concerns) on purchase intention. This paper also examines the mediation effect of perceived usefulness and the moderation effect of habit. Using a time-lag approach, 490 responses were collected from Pakistan's social media users and then analyzed using SmartPLS v.3.2.8. Findings showed that interactivity, argument quality, and privacy concerns significantly affected purchase intention. Furthermore, perceived usefulness was partially mediated, and habit was discovered to be a significant moderator in liking perceived usefulness with enjoyment online and purchase intention. This paper advances TPB understanding and develops an integrated model for businesses to better understand customer physiology on social commerce platforms through effective contributions in theory and practice.

Motivations for user satisfaction of mobile fitness applications: An analysis of user experience based on online review comments.

Considering that mobile fitness applications are one of the necessities in our lives, the user perspective toward the application is a prominent research topic in both academia and industry with the goal of improving such services. Thus, this study applies two different natural language processing approaches, bag-of-words, and sentiment analysis, to online review comments of the applications to examine the effects of user experience elements. The review dataset collected from 16,461 users, after pre-processing, revealed the notable roles of perceived affection and hedonic values in determining user satisfaction with the application, whereas the effect of user burden on satisfaction was marginal. Several implications, as well as limitations of the study, were examined incorporating the findings with the statistical results.

Do staff capacity and performance-based budgeting improve organisational performance? Empirical evidence from Chinese public universities.

The COVID-19 pandemic has raised many issues for higher education institutions, one of which is the continued decline in funding and an increased emphasis on effectiveness and efficiency. Performance-based budgeting is being adopted in organisations to allocate resources more efficiently, and Chinese public universities are no exception. The present study explicitly aimed to examine the relationship among staff capacity, performance-based budgeting, and organisational performance in Chinese public universities. It also investigated the role of top management support as a moderator. A purposive sampling method was used to select a total of 271 participants who agreed to participate in an online survey. A multimethod approach combining partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM), the PROCESS macro and necessary condition analysis (NCA) was adopted. The PLS-SEM results indicated that performance-based budgeting had a positive relationship with university performance and served as a mediator between staff capacity and university performance. The moderated mediation results showed that top management moderated the relationship among the selected variables. The NCA results suggested that both staff capacity and performance-based budgeting are meaningful and significant necessary conditions for university performance. The combined results indicated how researchers and practitioners can identify the factors that are critical for university performance and result in the best possible outcomes. This is possibly the first study to use this multimethod approach in accounting research. Overall, this study offers valuable insights into performance-based budgeting implementation in higher education institutions and may serve as a guideline for public universities to improve the efficiency of funding, reduce costs and increase revenues.

Do personal values and motivation affect women's solo travel intentions in Taiwan?

Female solo travel is experiencing a global increase and specifically, gaining popularity in Asia. This study explores how personal values and female solo travel motivation affect travel behavior. Using a sample comprising 381 single females in Taiwan, partial least squares structural equation modeling was utilized to investigate the hypotheses. The results revealed Hypothesis 1 and Hypothesis 3 are supported, which verifies personal internal values significantly affect female solo travel motivation, and are identified as significant factors influencing female solo travel intention. Additionally, Hypothesis 5 is partially support, indicating the female solo travel motivations of escape/relaxation, relationship, and self-actualization contribute to the formation of positive female solo travel intention. As Hypothesis 2 and Hypothesis 4 are unsupported, external values have no impact on female solo travel motivation or any significant effect on female solo travel intention. This research adds to the vast gap in tourism literature by identifying the personal values and motivations of female solo travel, and benefits the development of the female solo travel market.

Vulnerability and fraud: evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study examines consumer fraud at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and provides novel evidence for the opportunity model of predatory victimization. Scammers have taken advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic shock to exploit victims who are already vulnerable and suffering. The number of fraud cases has greatly increased as COVID-19 spread across the U.S., consistent with the vulnerable-to-become-victimization hypothesis based on the opportunity model of predatory victimization. A Google Trends analysis shows that the increase in fraud and scams is attributable to victims' increased vulnerability rather than to their awareness of fraud and increased motivation to report scams. An improvement in financial literacy is associated with the reduction of finance-related fraud and scams. Finally, we provide important policy implications to protect people from fraud victimization.

COVID-19 and adaptive behavior of returns: evidence from commodity markets.

This study examines the Adaptive Market Hypothesis during the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has impacted global economic activity, trade, and financial market activity. There has been much interest in testing financial market theories and relationships during COVID-19. Therefore, we have investigated the varying return predictability from commodities during COVID-19 concerning the adaptive market hypothesis. By applying linear and non-linear econometric models, we find a strong engagement of adaptive behavior of returns from commodities during the ongoing pandemic. The inconsistent return behavior is facilitated by dividing the sample period into different phases. Our results indicate that AMH best explains the impact of COVID-19 on commodity markets.

The New Global Social Contract and New Age Business and Management Skills: The New Relational Management

Se requieren condiciones básicas que permiten una vida en sociedad, estas desde Rousseau se explicitan en cuanto a su viabilidad y vigencia en el concepto de contrato social. En el siglo XX este contrato en lo básico se explicitaba, en la vigencia de la democracia y los derechos humanos. En los tiempos actuales la explicitación mantiene aquello, pero le incorpora nuevas exigencias y realidades. Ya antes de la pandemia (COVID-19), se recibían señales de adecuaciones y cambios en la vida social, los que con esta en curso se han ampliado a varias dimensiones. Calidad de vida. La ciudad y sus dimensiones. La valorización y vida en familia. La Educación y el uso masivo de las tecnologías. Los sistemas de trabajo presencial versus al a distancia. La seguridad en salud, medicamentos y vacunas con una visión a la vez autárquica y solidaria. Exigencias a la economía para un desarrollo que encauce y disminuya la desigualdad. Una democracia más exigida y una configuración del poder que tiende a la horizontalidad y una administración eficiente y descentralizada. Cambios que pueden llegar a afectar la idiosincrasia de nuestras sociedades. Esto por mencionar algunos de los desafíos.