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Drawing on signaling and social identity theories, the main objective of this paper is to suggest and validate a research framework to investigate the association of corporate social responsibility (CSR) perceptions with organizational attractiveness by uncovering the underlying mechanism of organizational trust.

By conducting regression analysis, the study hypotheses were tested with the data collected from a snowball convenient sample of 318 potential job seekers.

The study results revealed that prospective applicants' perceptions about a company's CSR undertakings are significantly associated with their trust in and attraction to the company. Noticeably, organizational trust partially mediated the direct relationship between CSR perceptions and organizational attractiveness.

Based on the study results, some specific theoretical advancements and helpful insights have been highlighted for human resources (HR) practitioners in today's competing organizations. The paper ends by outlining key research drawbacks and directions for possible work in the future.

Despite the plausible underlying role of organizational trust in the link between CSR and organizational attraction, empirical studies of this theoretical phenomenon are still lacking in the context of pre-hire recruitment literature. This may be the first study that identifies organizational trust as a salient psychological factor through which job seekers' CSR perceptions become more instrumental in influencing their attraction to a firm.

Educating students during emergencies is no longer an occasional occurrence; it has become a common scenario due to mass migration, conflict, poverty, health crises, and climate changes. Educating all students worldwide, migrants and refugees included, improves global security and economic viability, and should be the goal for all stakeholders. Using three illustrative case studies, this chapter provides an overview of the fundamental considerations for implementing learning support structures in uncertain and emergency circumstances. It outlines improvements needed to help educators meet today’s requirements for effective quality education during crisis, including overcoming issues with language, culture, curriculum, teacher training, and national and international policies. It also includes implications for higher education, calling for better approaches to address learning deficiencies, particularly given today’s protracted migrant circumstances.

Palm oil is widely used in the food industry; however, there are two main controversies connected to its use, namely, its nutritional value and the environmental consequences deriving from its crop. In Italy, the use of palm oil has recently been criticized, insomuch that some important bakery companies decided to substitute it, creating a real food marketing case. Through a focus on biscuits, this study is aimed at profiling consumers with regard to palm oil issue to better comprehend if the presence of this ingredient truly influences their food purchases and if they care about the nutritional and environmental aspects, highlighting the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on consumers' consumption.

A questionnaire was administered to 243 subjects in Italy, in order to apply a cluster analysis.

The findings show the presence of three main kinds of consumers: (1) compromise finders (sensitive to cost savings but trying to privilege palm-oil free food), (2) brand-loyal consumers (palm oil does not influence their preferences) and (3) healthsensitives (the presence of palm oil profoundly affects their choices), who represent the majority of our sample. The results and implications are discussed.

Research on palm oil is essentially focused on chemistry, natural sciences or on its industrial uses: this study analyzes the consumer point of view by applying a different methodology compared to existing studies.

Affordability and lifestyle choices in housing are critical to meet basic human needs for shelter, security and wellbeing. The meaning of a house for a particular group of people and what is ‘affordable’ for a particular community is the critical issue. Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, has greater population density and rate of expansion compared to almost any other mega cities of Asia. The historic core of the city known as old Dhaka is a combination of several traditional neighborhoods. Houses in these traditional neighborhoods are not only places to live, rather an integral unit of a social system, having a good mix of place of work and individual expression in living. They also show flexibility and adaptability (with more scope for personalization and individual life style choices) compared to the contemporary housing stock. One of the success factors in these traditional houses is the healthy mix of the income ranges to avoid a ghetto effect of low cost housing. The recent rapid urbanization has led to a discontinuity of the traditional housing form of old Dhaka, leading to a disintegration of the mix of lifestyle choices and affordability. Following popular market trends, they are often replaced by housing blocks in a higher density ignoring the need for a diverse mix. This paper studies the traditional housing of old Dhaka with two case study neighborhoods. Several elements of housing like the common price, materials and construction, space layout, scale, social space, facades, street interface, etc are selected for a qualitative study. Local residents interview, archival records, maps, Plans, figure-ground, aerial images are used to analyze, identify and demonstrate the elements that made them socio-culturally sustainable and affordable for the community. With the analysis, lessons from the traditional housing form that may contribute to the new housing in Dhaka are identified.

This study aims to explore the challenges in implementing and sustaining lean in garment supplier factories and the buyer–supplier role in mitigating lean barriers in a typical situation and pandemic.

Following a qualitative research approach and multiple embedded case study method, data were collected through in-depth interviews with senior managers of one lead buyer and their four key garment supplier factories in Bangladesh. Within and cross-case analysis, techniques were applied to understand the context-oriented lean challenges and buyer–supplier role in mitigating the challenges.

The study findings demonstrate that garment suppliers are less prepared and unsystematic in lean implementation having limited capabilities and less preparation. Moreover, they have limited support from buyers, less commitment from top management and employee resistance to implementing lean. Lean challenges become more intense because of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, buyer–supplier responsible, cooperative and collaborative behaviour can mitigate lean challenges.

Whereas many stakeholders may be responsible for lean challenges, this study explores dyadic role between buyer and supplier only based on a single lead buyer and their four suppliers. Hence future studies could consider more buyers and suppliers for a holistic understanding.

This study could help buyers and suppliers understand the underlying causes of lean implementation challenges in garment supplier factories and their role in sustaining lean reducing the challenges, particularly in a pandemic.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, for the first time, this study depicts how buyer and supplier can play their due roles to mitigate lean challenges in garment supplier factories in a pandemic situation.

This paper aims to understand consumption values buying from informal retail markets (i.e., street vendor retailing). It also explores why consumers prefer daily necessary goods from the informal compared to the formal retail market (such as supermarkets, retail chain outlets and e-commerce).

Employing the qualitative research approach, this study collected data from nine respondents in two areas in Malaysia. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and analysed using the thematic analysis technique. Only representative verbatim codes were presented under five themes of consumption value theory.

Consumers are triggered by the convenience, ease, and exclusive products (conditional value), friendly and known relationship with informal sellers, as well as the availability of some particular food items (emotional value) and lower price and freshness of groceries (functional value) while buying from informal compared to formal retail vendor.

This study provides knowledge implications to the consumption value theory. Functional, emotional, and conditional values are the dominant components of purchase behaviour in informal compared to formal retail channels. Social values are common, whereas epistemic value is more substantial in formal retailing.

Findings are helpful for informal retail businesses to understand consumers' buying behaviour. Informal retail owners should ensure that commodities are fresh, highly affordable and available in the local communities. Building a friendly relationship with consumers would be a key to the success of this retail sector.

Authorities should support informal sellers to set up mobile retail stores in residential areas. This effort would offer greater convenience to both parties in informal businesses and ensure informal sellers' financial and social well-being.

Despite the widespread acceptance of buying goods from informal retail vendors, research on consumption value in informal retailing is largely overlooked. Previous research primarily deals with formal market phenomena due to their size and economic contribution. Consequently, current literature lacks an understanding of why consumers prefer to buy from informal retail vendors for their daily groceries when the formal retail channel could fulfil similar needs. Using a qualitative research design, this research uncovers consumers' buying motives from informal compared to formal vendors.

This study aims to understand the importance and challenges of adopting artificial intelligence (AI) in the banking industry in Malaysia and examine the factors that are important in investigating consumers' intention to adopt AI in banking services.

The qualitative research was carried out using in-depth interviews from officials in the baking industry to understand the importance and challenges of adopting AI in the banking industry. In the quantitative study, a total of 302 completed questionnaires were received from Malaysian banking customers. The data were analysed using the SmartPLS 3.0 software to identify the important predictors of their intention to adopt AI.

The qualitative results reveal that AI is an essential tool for fraud detection and risk prevention. The absence of regulatory requirements, data privacy and security, and lack of relevant skills and IT infrastructure are significant challenges of AI adoption. The quantitative results indicate that attitude towards AI, perceived usefulness, perceived risk, perceived trust, and subjective norms significantly influence intention to adopt AI in banking services while perceived ease of use and awareness do not. The results also show that attitude towards AI significantly mediates the relationship between perceived usefulness and intention to adopt AI in banking services.

Financial technology (FinTech) is regarded as a critical determinant of strategic planning in the banking industry. While AI provides various disruptive opportunities in the FinTech space in terms of data collection, analysis, safeguarding and streamlining processes, it also poses a sea of threats to incumbent banks. This study provides vital insights for the policymakers of the banking industry to address the challenges of adopting AI in banking. It also provides the important predictors of the bank customers' intention to adopt AI in banking services. Policymakers can devise their strategies to enhance AI adoption considering the facts.

This study is amongst the pioneer in exploring the importance and potential challenges in implementing AI technology in banking services and identifying the essential factors influencing the intention to adopt AI in Malaysia's banking services.

Old age is a complex and dynamic phenomenon. The relationship between old age and transport is also very complex due to the heterogeneity within this age group. Yet what is certain is that with age, a person’s functional abilities change. This chapter provides a summary of how older people can be vulnerable within the road environment. Using an established framework for understanding old-age vulnerabilities, this chapter explains the common exposure factors and threats that several older people face in the transport environment. These primarily deal with individual physical and cognitive characteristics, medical conditions as well as the appropriateness (or not) of infrastructure. Subsequently, common difficulties for older drivers, pedestrians and public transport users are discussed. The main vulnerabilities that result from such difficulties are related to an over-representation of older people in accidents and to a lower quality of life due to mobility inefficiencies. Yet, using the same framework, the compensation techniques that older people often adopt to minimise such limitations are also highlighted. Reference is also made to the issues related to the lack of awareness in old age and the corresponding inability to compensate. The review concludes by suggesting a way forward for further studies on transport vulnerability in later life.