Journal of Management World is a multidisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to advancing knowledge and research in management and its applications across various fields. Our mission is to provide a platform for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers to explore contemporary management challenges and solutions in an increasingly complex and dynamic world.
Influence of Learning Attitude on Academic Engagement among Primary School Students in Shanxi, China
This study investigated the correlation between learning attitude (LA) and academic engagement (AE), emphasising the mediating role of self-regulated learning (SRL) among primary school students in Shanxi, China. In the framework of national educational reforms advocating for student-centred and autonomous learning, it is crucial to comprehend how motivational and cognitive mechanisms influence engagement, especially in under-researched regional contexts. A quantitative, cross-sectional survey was conducted with 225 upper primary students (Grades 6–8) from urban and rural schools. Validated instruments assess LA (motivation and self-efficacy), SRL (planning, monitoring, and strategy utilisation), and AE (behavioural, emotional, and cognitive engagement). Reliability analyses demonstrated robust internal consistency across all scales (Cronbach's α > .85). Pearson correlations indicated substantial positive relationships among LA, SRL, and AE. Mediation analysis utilizing Hayes’ Process Model 4 established that LA directly predicted AE (β = 0.17, p = .008), while SRL had a significant indirect effect (β = 0.36, p < .001), indicating partial mediation. The findings indicate that positive learning attitudes improve academic engagement mainly by bolstering students' self-regulatory skills. The study emphasises the necessity for educational interventions in Shanxi that cultivate intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy while explicitly enhancing students' self-regulated learning skills to promote lasting and significant academic engagement.
Examining the Factors Influencing Differences in Students’ Perceptions of Online Learning in Shanxi Province
This quantitative study examined the factors affecting undergraduates' perceptions of online learning in Shanxi Province, China. The research sought to identify key determinants of student perceptions, acknowledging the regional disparities in digital infrastructure and instructional quality. A survey was conducted with 275 undergraduate students from three public universities, employing a structured questionnaire utilizing a 5-point Likert scale to assess four primary constructs: technological readiness (TR), instructor support (IS), learning motivation (LM), and students' perceptions of online learning (SPOL). Reliability analysis verified the high internal consistency of all scales (alpha > 0.82). Descriptive statistics indicated predominantly favorable perceptions (M = 3.72) and substantial technological readiness (M = 3.64), yet they underscored a "motivation gap", as learning motivation recorded the lowest mean (M = 3.31) and exhibited the highest variability (SD = 1.02). Multiple regression analysis revealed that the three predictors significantly explained 59.2% (R^2 = 0.592) of the variance in student perceptions. Instructor support emerged as the most robust independent predictor (beta = 0.43, p < 0.001), succeeded by learning motivation (beta = 0.29) and technological readiness (beta = 0.21). The findings emphasize that, although technological access is essential, the human aspects of pedagogy—particularly the instructor's presence, responsiveness, and clear guidance—are the most crucial factors influencing positive online learning attitudes in this regional context. The study advises universities to prioritize faculty training in digital pedagogy and establish support systems to improve students' self-regulation skills, thereby addressing the identified motivation gap.
Transforming Public Sector Management with Predictive Analytics: Opportunities, Challenges, and Strategic Implementation
This paper examines the pivotal role of public sector organizations in ensuring societal well-being through effective governance and service delivery. Traditional public management practices often rely heavily on reactive decision-making, struggling with inefficiencies and resource constraints. The advent of predictive analytics, driven by advances in machine learning, big data, and statistical modelling, offers a transformative shift towards proactive governance. This research explores the potential of predictive analytics to revolutionize public sector management, highlighting key opportunities such as enhanced policy formulation, optimized resource allocation, improved service responsiveness, and heightened operational efficiency. However, the integration of predictive analytics into public sector workflows is not without challenges. Issues surrounding data privacy, ethical considerations, technological infrastructure, and resistance to change pose significant hurdles. Through a comprehensive analysis of existing literature and practical case studies, this paper identifies strategic approaches for successfully implementing predictive analytics, emphasizing the importance of robust governance frameworks, stakeholder engagement, capacity-building initiatives, and ethical data management practices. Ultimately, this research underscores predictive analytics as an indispensable tool for public sector innovation, capable of empowering decision-makers to anticipate societal needs, streamline service delivery, and foster a more resilient and responsive governance model.
Africapitalism and the Sustainable Development Goals in Africa: A Critical Systematic Review of Evidence, Structural Tensions, and Governance Imperatives
This article presents a critically grounded systematic narrative review of Africapitalism's theoretical claims and empirical contributions towards advancing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Africa. Applying a structured evidence-quality rubric that assesses source independence, design rigour, and risk of bias across five outcome domains (employment and poverty reduction; inequality and distributional justice; gender equity; environmental sustainability; and community development and human capital), the review evaluates the philosophy's four foundational senses (Progress & Prosperity, Parity, Peace & Harmony, and Place & Belongingness) as elaborated by Amaeshi and Idemudia (2015). Drawing on postcolonial theory, institutional economics, stakeholder theory, creating shared value scholarship, and environmental justice frameworks, we position Africapitalism within a broader theoretical ecology, identifying both its conceptual contributions and structural limitations. The analysis reveals that while Africapitalism demonstrates plausible contributions to SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth) and SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure) through entrepreneurial ecosystem development, its capacity to meaningfully advance SDG 5 (Gender Equality), SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities), SDGs 13–15 (environmental sustainability), and SDG 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions) remains empirically unsubstantiated and theoretically contested. Four critical gaps are identified and argued: the absence of independent longitudinal impact assessment; insufficient engagement with postcolonial structural power dynamics; underdeveloped gender analysis; and the conflation of elite philanthropy with systemic development. A forward research agenda is proposed, grounded in institutional accountability, intersectional equity, and environmental justice. The article concludes that Africapitalism's transformative potential hinges on genuine governance commitments that transcend mere rhetorical ambition.
National Data Hosting and Local Technology Adaptation: Trends, Security Imperatives, and Policy Implications
The accelerating digitalisation of national economies has intensified concerns over data sovereignty, cybersecurity, and technological dependency. Many governments are now prioritising policies that promote the domestic hosting of national data and the adaptation of local technologies as safeguards against cross-border vulnerabilities and external control. This study investigates emerging national trends in data-hosting strategies and local technology adaptation—including cloud, edge, AI, and IoT infrastructures—to evaluate their implications for security, resilience, and governance. Using a comparative mixed-methods design, the research analyses policy frameworks, infrastructure development indicators, and case studies from selected economies representing different stages of technological maturity. The analysis explores how data-localisation mandates, national technology ecosystems, and security policies interact to shape digital sovereignty outcomes. Preliminary findings suggest that while local hosting and domestic technological initiatives can strengthen governance and regulatory control, they do not automatically ensure cybersecurity or vendor independence without parallel investment in capacity-building, standards enforcement, and ecosystem collaboration. The paper concludes that sustainable national data and technology strategies require integrated governance models that balance sovereignty, innovation, and security. These findings contribute to policy debates on digital sovereignty and provide guidance for designing resilient, inclusive, and secure national technology ecosystems.
Rural Community Empowerment Model in Agrotourism Development
The government needs to continue to appreciate by giving awards to agrotourism villages that continue to preserve and develop local potential including those who excel in food security so that they become role models for agents of change to improve welfare by developing community entrepreneurship. The research uses a qualitative case study method with an intrinsic case study type that discusses the dynamics and models of rural community empowerment in developing unique, interesting agrotourism and preserving local wisdom in Kaligua Agrotourism, Brebes Regency, Central Java Province. Data collection through observation, documentation and interviews with purposively selected informants, namely Agrotourism administrators and employees, farmer groups and small entrepreneurs, and visitors. Using case study analysis with the stages of reducing, categorizing, verifying and triangulating data. The results found that there are still problems in the development of agrotourism, namely increasingly narrow productive agricultural land, a decreasing generation of farmers because they are less interested and considered not prospective to become farmers, food products are increasingly difficult and expensive, the threat of imported products, and industrialization progress that does not support the agricultural sector. This requires a community empowerment program model for agrotourism development based on identifying and analyzing local needs, problems, and potential, with an action plan to strengthen the motivation and institutional orientation of community businesses, and ongoing outreach through training in financial administration, tourism, promotion, and marketing. Furthermore, the mentoring program will involve establishing a dialogic communication forum for planning, evaluating, and monitoring programs with various stakeholders.
Internal–International Alignment of Qatar’s Nation Brand Perceptions
This paper examines the extent to which internal stakeholders’ perceptions of Qatar’s nation brand align with international perceptions in the post–FIFA World Cup context. Drawing on Simon Anholt’s Nation Brand Index, the study evaluates Qatar across governance, people, tourism, culture and heritage, exports, and investment and immigration, and whether these evaluations are shared consistently across internal groups. The results show three core patterns. First, internal stakeholders express uniformly positive assessments of Qatar’s nation brand, with particularly strong confidence in governance and the social environment. Second, internal consensus is uneven: while societal and institutional dimensions are broadly shared, perceptions of economic competitiveness and opportunity show greater differentiation across demographic groups, especially by age and residence history. Third, internal evaluations are consistently more favourable than international perceptions across all aspects, indicating a systematic internal–external perception gap rather than isolated misalignments. This difference points to a reputational asymmetry in which domestic experience is not fully reflected in external evaluation. The study determines that effective nation branding and public diplomacy depend on converting internal strengths into internationally credible narratives grounded in lived experience and stakeholder validation.
Explainable AI for Medical Debt Forecasting: Integrating Healthcare and Fintech Data for Risk Prediction
Medical debt is increasingly recognized as one of the most pressing financial risks confronting households worldwide, particularly in the United States where it remains a leading driver of personal bankruptcy and long-term financial distress (Himmelstein et al., 2019). In emerging economies, similar dynamics are unfolding as healthcare expenditures rise faster than income growth, leaving households exposed to sudden clinical shocks and fragmented insurance coverage. Conventional credit scoring systems often fail to account for these medically induced shocks, as they rely primarily on historical repayment behavior and credit utilization. Conversely, healthcare analytics rarely incorporate indicators of financial resilience, liquidity management, or digital finance behaviors that directly influence a patient’s ability to manage debt obligations. This disjunction highlights a critical methodological gap: the absence of an integrated, explainable, and fair framework that links healthcare utilization with fintech-derived financial signals for predicting medical debt default. To address this gap, this study introduces a novel risk-prediction framework that integrates multi-source data from healthcare, insurance, and digital finance ecosystems. Specifically, we fuse clinical utilization records (e.g., emergency department admissions, inpatient stays), chronic illness burden scores (Charlson comorbidity index), and insurance continuity metrics with fintech-derived features such as transaction volatility, liquidity proxies from digital wallets, repayment friction measures, and alternative credit metadata. The framework operationalizes explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) models—comparing logistic regression with advanced ensemble methods such as Random Forests and XGBoost—and evaluates predictive performance across multiple dimensions: discrimination (AUC-ROC), calibration, interpretability, and fairness. Our results, derived from a de-identified, representative, multi-source panel dataset, demonstrate that gradient-boosted models (XGBoost) outperform traditional logistic regression by approximately 6–10 percentage points in AUC while simultaneously reducing false negatives, a critical feature in preventing undetected high-risk cases. Global feature importance measures (gain and impurity indices) and local explanations via SHAP values reveal that insurance discontinuities, high out-of-pocket expenditure ratios, recent acute encounters (emergency or inpatient), and fintech channel spending volatility are the most salient drivers of medical debt default. Importantly, SHAP-based local interpretations provide case-level transparency, enabling lenders, hospitals, and insurers to justify risk classifications to stakeholders and regulators. We extend the analysis by embedding fairness evaluation criteria, including equal opportunity difference and demographic parity. While XGBoost improves predictive performance, disparities emerge across income and racial subgroups, underscoring the need for algorithmic governance and bias auditing. Counterfactual simulations provide further insights: scenarios that close insurance coverage gaps and smooth liquidity through point-of-care microcredit mechanisms reduce modeled default probabilities by 12–20% among the highest-risk decile. These findings underscore the potential of combining AI-driven forecasting with targeted financial and policy interventions to proactively mitigate household financial distress. The study contributes to both academic and policy debates by positioning explainable AI as a practical and ethical tool for managing medical debt risk. For healthcare providers, the framework offers a basis for early identification of financially vulnerable patients and the design of tailored repayment or relief plans. For fintech lenders and insurers, the integration of clinical and financial data broadens underwriting horizons while maintaining accountability through transparent explanations. For regulators, the framework demonstrates how XAI can balance innovation with fairness, highlighting opportunities for algorithmic auditing, bias mitigation, and responsible financial inclusion. By bridging healthcare analytics with fintech data and deploying explainable AI methodologies, this paper provides a comprehensive and ethically aligned blueprint for forecasting medical debt risk. The results illustrate not only performance improvements but also actionable strategies that align with broader societal objectives of financial inclusion, healthcare access, and regulatory oversight. In doing so, the framework sets the stage for future research on hybrid models, real-time predictive deployment, and cross-market validation to ensure robustness across diverse healthcare and financial systems.
Perspective for an Innovative Service Catalogue on Neuroscience and Role of the Research Infrastructure Manager
The present study provides case-study evidence aimed at advancing both empirical knowledge and theory development on the Pipeline-as-a-Service (PaaS) technological model as an enabling perspective for research infrastructures. The case-study is the Italian Research Infrastructure for brain research “EBRAINS-Italy”, funded by the NextGenerationEU and National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) in Italy. Adopting an inductive case-study research design, the study develops a novel approach to Service Catalogue architecture tailored to complex, data-intensive research environments and clinical and ethical implications. The Service Catalogue constitutes a core governance mechanism of research infrastructures, as it offers a structured and formal representation of available services, including their scope, interfaces, and operational characteristics. Building on these insights, the paper proposes an approach to Service Catalogue Management (SCM) that leverages an existing Service-as-a-Service (SaaS) implementation and outlines its evolution toward a Pipeline-as-a-Service (PaaS) model. Within this governance framework, the Research Infrastructure Manager (RIM) emerges as a key strategy.
Bridging The Reality Gap: Quantifying the Impact of Charging Station Infrastructure on U.S. EV Adoption and Market Stability
This study analyzes the essential correlation between the deployment of charging infrastructure and the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) in the United States during 2024-2025, a timeframe characterized by unparalleled market volatility. By examining more than 204,000 public charging stations and 1.56 million EV sales in 2024, we measure the link between infrastructure and adoption and how it affects market stability. We found that EV adoption grew 114% in the same time that charging infrastructure grew 25% per year, which caused big supply-demand imbalances. The end of federal tax credits in September 2025 caused sales to drop by 46% in the fourth quarter of 2025. This showed how fragile growth based on policy can be. We show that the best EV-to-charger ratios (4 to 10 EVs per port) are linked to higher adoption rates in different regions. However, gaps in infrastructure in rural areas still make it hard for everyone to get to the chargers. This research offers essential insights for policymakers and industry stakeholders managing the shift from rapid growth to market development.
Entrepreneurial Intention of University Students
. In entrepreneurship research, employment status choice models that centre on entrepreneurial intention have garnered considerable attention in recent years. These models posit that career intention serves as the direct precursor to behaviour, including initiating a business venture. Intention, in turn, is determined by attitude and attitude is affected by certain factors such as personality, education, demographics and other variables. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the impact of students' personality traits and engagement in entrepreneurial education on their entrepreneurial intention and to understand the factors that shape students' inclination towards entrepreneurship. Questionnaires were collected from 150 university students in their final semester at the School of Social Science. Correlation analysis highlighted a significant relationship between attitude towards entrepreneurship, perceived behavioural control and subjective norm with entrepreneurial intention. The regression analysis, however, demonstrated that the student's attitudes towards entrepreneurship did not have the ability to impact their entrepreneurial intention. In contrast, the students' personality traits greatly influenced their attitude towards entrepreneurship. The study offers practical insights for educators and policy makers as the results can guide curriculum design and skill development program that aims to strengthen mindset in university students.
Facilitating Peace through Economic Incentives
Peace is beneficial to the stability and development of all countries and even the global economy. We should try to find a way to reduce wars and achieve peace and development among countries through economic incentive policies. Hand over military power to the United Nations by various countries may achieve long-term peace. Economic incentives such as tariff reductions and most favored nation treatment in trade can be awarded to countries that handed over their military forces to the United Nations. For long-term ongoing wars lasting for more than one year, it can be agreed that the United Nations has the right to forcibly participate in peace negotiations and promote peace negotiations through economic incentive mechanisms.
The Influence of Digital Marketing on Sustainability-Oriented Supply Chain Innovation and Workforce-Driven Performance: Evidence from Saudi Arabia
This study investigates the strategic role of digital marketing in fostering sustainable supply chain innovation and improving market performance within the context of Saudi Arabia. Drawing on the Resource-Based View and dynamic capabilities theory, the research conceptualizes digital marketing not solely as a communication mechanism but as a strategic organizational resource capable of reshaping sustainability practices and strengthening competitive advantage. Beyond technological efficiency, sustainability has become a core objective of smart supply chain transformation. Achieving sustainable performance increasingly depends on digitally augmented workforce capabilities that enable managers and employees to make informed, responsible, and proactive decisions across supply chain operations. Using survey data collected from 100 respondents and analyzed through Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling, the findings reveal that digital marketing has a positive and significant impact on both sustainable supply chain innovation and market performance. Specifically, digital marketing acts as a catalyst for sustainability-oriented innovation across supply chains while simultaneously contributing to enhanced performance outcomes, including higher sales, greater market share, and successful entry into new markets. These results highlight the dual contribution of digital marketing: aligning firms with environmental and social priorities while supporting superior competitive positioning. The study underscores the importance for managers to view digital marketing as a critical enabler of sustainable competitiveness. It also encourages future research to examine potential boundary conditions, including industry characteristics and levels of technological maturity.
AI-Augmented Leadership and Employee Well-Being in the MENA Region: Mediating Effects of Fairness and Psychological Safety and the Moderating Role of Authoritarian Leadership
This study aims to investigate the influence of AI-enhanced leadership on employee well-being in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). It examines the mediating role of psychological safety and perceived fairness of AI, and explores the moderating effect of authoritarian leadership styles. A quantitative study was conducted using data collected from a survey of 104 professionals in Tunisia, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. This research applied the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) technique to test the proposed conceptual framework. The results show that AI-augmented leadership has a positive impact on employee well-being. This relationship is partially mediated by psychological safety and perceptions of AI fairness. Furthermore, the presence of authoritarian leadership reduces the beneficial effects of AI-augmented leadership on reducing employee stress, suggesting that cultural norms of leadership influence the effectiveness of AI deployment. This research is among the first to empirically explore the intersection between AI technologies, leader behavior, and employee well-being in the underinvestigated context of the MENA region. It proposes a regionally based, human-centered model of technology leadership, thus addressing the pressing need for ethical and inclusive AI adoption frameworks in public and private organizations undergoing digital transformation.
Is Crowdfunding an Alternative Financial Model for Social Enterprises?
Social enterprises face difficulties in financing. Because investors concentrate too narrowly on risk and return, social enterprises may have difficulty competing with commercial enterprises for investment capital. In this context, loans and equity financing have not been adequately examined, and their growing importance in financing enterprises makes it important to understand their implications for social enterprises. We discuss the fact that crowdfunding represents values that are attractive to social enterprises. In addition, crowdfunding sometimes offers higher value or more capital to social enterprises, compared to other sources of funding. We find that several benefits are particularly important in the start-up phase of a business. However, crowdfunding can also result in greater stress for the management team and can take time and resources. Entrepreneurs must also take into account factors such as public discomfort when campaigns have failed.
Transformational and Transactional Leadership Styles and Employee Turnover Intentions in Public Services Organizations. A Mediated-Moderation Model
The study examines the mediated –moderation relationship between leadership styles and employee turnover intentions through organizational commitment and general self-efficacy in the public sector organizations in Ghana. The data were collected from 330 cross-sectional full-time employees in the public sector organizations in Ashanti and Bono regions in Ghana. The data were analyzed by the use of SPSS Version 25 and Process Macro 3.5 to determine regression and correlational analysis to evaluate direct and indirect effects of the mediator-moderator variables under consideration. The study found that organizational commitment partially mediates transformational leadership and employee turnover intentions. Transactional leadership was also found to positively relates to employee turnover intentions while lower general self-efficacy was found to cause employee turnover intentions. The study findings bring to bear the need for leaders to adopt strategies that inspire trust and confidence in the employees through which higher commitment levels will be attained thereby reducing turnover intentions. Public sector organizations in the sub-Saharan Africa are experiencing actual turnover of its strategic employees to multinational companies. The study is the first to combine transformational leadership, transactional leadership, organizational commitment, general self-efficacy, and employee turnover intentions in a study model in the sub-Saharan African.
Eco-Innovation and Reverse Logistics as Drivers of Green Firm Reputation: The Mediating Role of Operational Efficiency
This study examines the role of eco-innovation and reverse logistics practices in determining green firm reputation, with an emphasis on operational efficiency as a mediator. Anchored in the natural resource-based view (NRBV) and resource-based view (RBV), this paper develops and tests a conceptual framework that links environmental practices to firm-level reputation outcomes in manufacturing firms within Ghana. The data for the analysis were collected through a structured survey administered to supply chain, logistics, research and development, and operations employees, which was analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). The paper reveals that eco-innovation is a significant influence on the adoption of reverse logistics practices among firms. Again, the findings show that implementing reverse logistics practices (RLP) has a positive impact on green firm reputation. Also, operational efficiency partially mediates the relationship between reverse logistics and green firm reputation. This research refines current understanding of the mechanisms through which environmental capabilities enhance organisational performance and offers practical implications for managers who aim to improve sustainability and competitiveness in emerging markets.
Racism in Academia and Research Publishing: Unveiling the Hidden Struggles of African Researchers
This paper examines the longstanding and underreported systemic and, in fact, pervasive forms of racism in academia and intellectual literature with specific attention to African scholars and African institutions and epistemological norms. By applying Critical Race Theory, Postcolonial Theory, and the concept of Epistemic Injustice, we demonstrate how seemingly neutral processes still reinforce exclusion. The study design comprises a systematic narrative review from 2010 to 2025, a theory-based qualitative synthesis and key-informant interviews (KIIs). We included n:70 studies in the qualitative synthesis and conducted n:20 key informant interviews (KIIs). We operationalise Critical Race Theory, Post-Colonial Theory, and Epistemic Injustice using various mechanisms and align each of them with editorial and funding reforms that can be implemented. The findings are that (i) editorial gatekeeping is often supported by coded decisions, which marginalise African expertise and subject matter, including claims of insufficient international relevance; (ii) linguistic policing and waiver opacity have varying impacts on unfunded Africa-based authors; (iii) the structure of authorship in international collaborations and the article-processing-charge (APC) regime, often constrain conceptualisation and senior authorship, by keeping Africa-based scholars as data-collectors. We recommend: (a) a conceptual framework based on linking colonial legacy to modern metric bureaucracy and editorial power; (b) introductions of strictly operationalised theoretical views to the analysis of particular publishing mechanisms; and (c) a theory-consistent reform agenda, comprising redistributive editorial authority, multilingual review, imposition of an authorship equity, and metric pluralism, and challenges confronting the implementation of suggested solutions. We conclude that decolonising scholarly publishing requires changes not only among stakeholders but also in the meaning and administration of validity, relevance, and rigour.
Faculty Job Satisfaction in Higher Education: A Systematic Review of Empirical Studies through Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory
This paper examines faculty job satisfaction in higher education by systematically reviewing empirical studies through Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory. It clarifies how motivator (intrinsic) and hygiene (extrinsic) factors, alongside institutional and demographic variables, shape faculty motivation and retention. A structured literature review was conducted across Scopus, and several other digital data. Forty-five sources were synthesized. Results show that motivators such as recognition, autonomy, and intellectual challenge are central to satisfaction, while hygiene factors such as salary, workload, and governance structures primarily prevent dissatisfaction. Institutional support (e.g., mentoring, workload policies) moderates these effects, while variations in rank, gender, and cultural context create meaningful differences in faculty experiences. This study integrates Herzberg’s framework with complementary theories (Expectancy Theory, Job Characteristics Model, Self-Determination Theory) to propose a synthesized conceptual model of faculty job satisfaction. The synthesis extends Herzberg’s framework by situating motivators and hygiene factors within institutional, demographic, and cultural contexts.
Mitigating Precarity to Boost Engagement among Nigeria's Casual Telecommunication Workers? Investigating Employee Resilience and Organisational Support as Possible Factors
This study explores the role of employee resilience and perceived organisational support (POS) in promoting engagement among casual workers in Nigeria’s telecommunications sector—a key industry increasingly characterised by precarious employment and job insecurity. Grounded in the Conservation of Resources (COR) and Job Demands–Resources (JD-R) theories, the research adopts a positivist paradigm and employs a quantitative cross-sectional design. Data were collected from 487 casual employees across major Nigerian cities and analysed using Covariance-Based Structural Equation Modelling (CB-SEM). The findings reveal that POS has a significant positive effect on employee engagement, while resilience does not directly predict either engagement or POS. Moreover, POS does not mediate the relationship between resilience and engagement. These results suggest that while personal attributes such as resilience are valuable, organisational factors—particularly perceived support—play a more decisive role in sustaining engagement within insecure work environments. The study contributes to the limited body of research on casual labour in developing economies and underscores the importance of supportive HR practices, inclusive organisational cultures, and policy reforms aimed at improving the well-being and engagement of precarious workers in Nigeria’s telecommunications industry.
Brain Drain Intention: The Role of Improved Standard of Living on Quality of Work-Life among Nigerian Medical Students in Diaspora
This study investigates the determinants of brain drain intention among Nigerian medical students in the diaspora, focusing on how improved standards of living mediate the relationship between socio-economic push factors and the perceived quality of work-life. Using a cross-sectional survey design, data were collected from 428 medical students enrolled in 18 universities across six countries, and analysed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). The study examined the influence of high unemployment, poor infrastructure, insecurity; poor pay, and mass poverty on quality of work-life, with improved living standards serving as a mediating variable. The results show that all five factors significantly and negatively affect the perceived quality of work-life, confirming their role as key drivers of brain drain intentions. Moreover, improved living standards fully mediated these relationships, indicating that favourable socio-economic and environmental conditions abroad offset the negative effects of poor domestic conditions and strengthen students’ intentions to remain overseas after graduation. These findings suggest that the decision of Nigerian medical students to stay abroad is shaped not only by professional and economic dissatisfaction but also by comparative perceptions of well-being and life quality. The study concludes that tackling brain drain requires integrated national retention strategies that simultaneously enhance professional welfare, living standards, and work-life quality within Nigeria.
Multidimensional Perspective on the Construction of Smart Canteens in Colleges and Universities: Integrated Framework, Practical Challenges, and Optimization Paths
Digital transformation and the concept of sustainable development are profoundly reshaping the logistics service system in colleges and universities. As a key hub of campus life, the smart construction of canteens has transcended the scope of mere technological upgrading and evolved into a systematic reform involving the reconstruction of service models, the innovation of management concepts, and the optimization of user experience. Based on the service-dominant logic and the theory of green service systems, this paper constructs a three-dimensional integrated analytical framework of "technology-process-management" for smart canteens in colleges and universities, and systematically expounds on its core connotations in terms of the deployment of intelligent facilities, the reconstruction of standardized processes, and the establishment of an integrated management platform. Combining cutting-edge research results and practical cases at home and abroad in the past five years, this paper focuses on analyzing the practical bottlenecks existing in the current construction, such as poor technology integration, lack of data governance, barriers to user acceptance, and dilemmas in sustainable operation. Furthermore, the study proposes optimization paths including strategic planning guidance, scenario-based design implementation, privacy protection enhancement, and collaborative innovation promotion, aiming to promote the paradigm transformation of smart canteens from "efficiency-oriented" to "value co-creation", and provide theoretical support and practical guidance for building a new generation of campus catering service ecosystem that integrates efficiency, human-centricity, and green development.
Good and Services Tax: Filling or Emptying the Coffers?
Taxation is a phenomenal device available to the government to reduce the gap between rich and poor and to establish vertical equity through income redistribution. It is the most important source of revenue for conducting the developmental activities of the government. The sales tax system has been constantly undergoing reforms with the latest being the introduction of Goods and Services Tax in 2017. The Goods and Services tax reform was introduced with a major intent to improve the revenue collections of the state. Five years have now passed since the introduction of the reform. The study aims at finding out the impact of this reform on the government revenue of the state of Kerala.
Assessing the Economic Growth Impact of Digital Innovation and Skill Acquisition: A Quantitative Analysis of the Nigeria Immigration Service
As e-governance becomes more imperative, governmental institutions in developing countries have come under increasing pressure to apply digital technologies to facilitate governmental services. One such organisation is the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), mandated to grow the country’s economy through trade facilitation and accurate collection of data on imports and exports for economic analysis and strategic planning. Consequently, we examined the role of digitalisation of the NIS in the growth of Nigeria’s economy and, whether digital skill acquisition by NIS staff plays a part in that process. The study was based on a cross-sectional survey of 375 immigration staff across the six geopolitical regions of Nigeria. Aided by Covariance-Based Structural Equation Modelling (CB-SEM) of data via AMOS, we found that digitalisation of the NIS directly supports economic growth (operationalised as trade and investment facilitation). Digitalisation of the NIS also leads to more training and skill-acquisition for staff. In turn, this increase in skills makes a stronger impact on trade and investment facilitation (i.e. economic growth). What the data trends suggest is that staff skill acquisition helped explain how and why digital tools lead to economic growth. The study implies that digitalisation isn’t enough. To make impactful contributions to the economic, Nigerian institutions also needs to invest in her people, supporting them with the right skills to use these innovative tools effectively. This study highlights the importance of combining technology with human development to make public services convenient and smarter and, the economy, even stronger.
What Makes a Striker Valuable? Strategic, Athletic, and Commercial Determinants in Modern Football
The financial valuation of professional football players is a critical component of the strategic and financial management of sports clubs. This paper focuses on strikers and attempts to provide a thorough review of the international literature on the factors affecting their transfer value. Strikers play a key role in achieving victory through their contribution to scoring, which makes their accurate valuation crucial. The study identifies and categorizes the factors of valuation into competitive, individual, and professional/commercial. Furthermore, it highlights the multi-factorial nature of value, as well as the dynamic influence of non-race factors such as popularity, commercial appeal, and social media presence. The finding that competitive performance, with an emphasis on goals, is the most important factor is supported by most research. However, there is an emerging shift towards more holistic models of valuation, where psychological, tactical, and extra-territorial dimensions are considered, demonstrating the need for multi-level approaches in modern football management.
Cryptocurrency Integration and Competitive Advantage: A Study of Contextual Factors of Payment Strategy Innovations in Nigeria’s E-Commerce Sector
This study examined how cryptocurrency integration shapes consumer trust, ease of use, and competitive advantage within Nigeria’s e-commerce sector. Grounded in the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Diffusion of Innovation theory, and the Resource-Based View (RBV), the research was motivated by the rising adoption of digital payments and the uncertainty surrounding whether crypto can genuinely strengthen competitiveness. A structured online questionnaire yielded 324 valid responses. Data were analysed using structural equation modelling in Amos. Findings revealed that cryptocurrency integration had a significant negative effect on consumer trust (-.148, p = .022) but a marginal positive effect on ease of use (.128, p = .070). No direct link was found between crypto integration and competitive advantage (-.015, p = .822). Importantly, consumer trust significantly mediated the link between crypto and competitive advantage (-.191, p = .012), whereas ease of use did not (.072, p = .270). These results highlight that trust, not technology alone, drives competitiveness in emerging markets. Recommendations include phased crypto rollouts, stronger security safeguards, and linking crypto use to customer rewards. The study expands knowledge by showing that perceived risks can outweigh usefulness, suggesting future research should explore cultural and regulatory factors shaping digital adoption within Nigeria’s e-commerce ecosystem.
Plugged into Persuasion: How Digital Marketing Drives Electric Vehicle Preferences in Chhattisgarh
The current study examines the consumer behavior of the purchase of electric vehicles (EVs) in Chhattisgarh, India, which influences the digital marketing. The purpose of the research is to gain an understanding of the role of digital campaigns, including social media campaigns, online advertisements and sponsored content, in enhancing consumer awareness about the financial and environmental values of electric vehicles (EVs), how online marketing activities affect consumer behaviour. The study also considers key factors affecting consumer responses, including environmental attitudes, evaluation of long-term values, prospect outlook, as well as government incentives. A systematic survey of 385 users of electric cars was conducted in Chhattisgarh. The data obtained were analyzed using structural equation modelling of AMOS software. The findings indicate that the decision to purchase an electric car is positively determined by the increased awareness, which has a significant correlation with the exposure to digital marketing. The circumstances described by the findings show the usefulness of the digital marketer in increasing the use of EVs through the accurate articulation of their benefits and aligning them with the sustainability goals of the customers. This study provides valuable information to the marketers, the lawmakers, and the automakers, who wish to sell more electric cars in developing countries using selective digital approaches based on the requirements of the intended customer base and the environmental aspirations.
Consumer Perceptions of Stablecoins in Nigeria: What Drives Adoption, What Inhibits it?
Stablecoin use in emerging economies remains uneven, underscoring the importance of understanding the perceptions that shape adoption. This study explored how stability, security, usefulness, regulatory protection, and social acceptability influence stablecoin adoption in Nigeria. Guided by the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Perceived Risk Theory (PRT), data from 403 users were analysed using structural equation modelling. Findings indicate that stability, security, usefulness, and regulation significantly influence adoption, while social acceptability plays a modest role. Together, these factors explained a large share of adoption behaviour. The study contributes to existing models by combining TAM’s focus on usefulness with PRT’s risk-reduction perspective, providing a more comprehensive view of adoption decisions. Practical lessons point to the importance of clearer regulation, stronger security, and utility-focused innovations. Although limited by its cross-sectional design and reliance on self-reports, the study opens the door for future cross-country and longitudinal research.
Fundamental Solution for a Nonlocal Second Order Problem of the Hyperbolic Type
This text discusses the importance and challenges of studying nonlocal boundary value problems, which arise frequently in applied fields such as soil moisture transfer, thermophysics, and diffusion processes. The paper emphasizes the complexity of these problems due to their nonlocal nature, which differs from traditional local boundary value problems. Despite the abundance of research in this area, particularly the works of A.M. Nakhushev and others, mathematical tools to handle nonlocal problems are insufficient, especially when addressing concepts like conjugacy or duality. These issues are particularly significant when coefficients are nonsmooth or measurable. The work introduces the concept of a conjugate problem and the fundamental solution, which generalizes existing functions like Green’s and Riemann’s functions. The study of these solutions for nonlocal boundary value problems is essential for advancing both theoretical understanding and practical applications.
Cannabis Growing Community Enterprise Initiative in Thailand
This study examines the role of cannabis in rural development, focusing on the legalization of medical marijuana under the Narcotics Act (No. 7) B.E. 2562, which allows cannabis cultivation for medical and research purposes. The fieldwork combines varied sources, including in-depth interviews. The cannabis growing initiative aims to promote rural livelihoods through community enterprises, with a case study in Buriram province, Thailand. This study addresses the challenges faced by farmers, including regulatory difficulties and the need for government support. This initiative seeks to create sustainable development and enhance rural economies in Thailand. However, farmers continue to face challenges, with gaps persisting between government support and the needs of community enterprises.