Adoption of IoT Technology among Elderly NCD Patients in Malaysia: A Conceptual Study Based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour

Non-Communicable diseases (NCDs) are rising as the prime cause of death worldwide as well as in Malaysia. This is the result of evolutions occurring in social and economic factors in health. Some of these factors include a proliferation of business and promotion, improved style of living, change in socio-demographics, enhanced financial affordability, effortless travel and mobility, financial evolution, and import-export of unhealthy goods, causing high-risk behavioural deviations and spike metabolic hazards. Elderly people have a high chance of having NCDs because of poor sickness opposition, the impact of progressing lifestyle, terrible eating routine, and reduced amount of physical activities. At the end of the year 2020, individuals matured by 60 years of age and above in Malaysia are anticipated to be 9.7% of the entire populace. With the arrival of numerous wearable gadgets and smart devices, the IoT (Internet of Things) gadgets are transforming the conventional medical management system into a further customised and smart one. Therefore, the objective of this study is to identify the factors that influence the actual behaviour towards IoT adoption based on the underlying concept of the “theory of planned behaviour”. This study is expected to provide meaningful outcomes in creating awareness of the use of IoT among elderly NCD patients in Malaysia and understanding their behavioural intentions and actual behaviour that can help to maximise the utilisation of the available healthcare resources.

The Key Role of Consumers’ Involvement: The Case of Organic Food Consumption

This paper aims to provide a better understanding of conditions that influence the gap between positive attitude and intention towards organic food products and actual behaviour regarding these products. Thus, we propose an extended version of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) to explain parts of this gap and we highlight the crucial role played by consumers’ involvement as a moderator. A structural equation modelling was performed, and the sta-tistical analysis of a sample of 1327 French consumers supports our organic food products buying behaviour model. The results showed that the difference between the means of actual behaviour was highly different between low- and high-involvement consumers. More specifically, high-involvement consumers express more positive attitudes towards buying organic food products, perceive higher subjective norms and behavioural control, they have higher behavioural intention, and buy organic food products more frequently. Additionally, the results indicated that, com-pared to low-involvement consumers, high-involvement consumers regard organic food products as more attractive, healthier, tastier, and with higher value. We proposed some marketing strategies to help managers to better promote the organic food products market and, in turn, increase their revenues. For example, marketers therefore have a vested interest in increasing consumer involvement, and, among other things, they can do so by educating them (i.e., high-lighting the benefits of consuming organic foods). Moreover, since high-involvement customers have positive atti-tude-intention and behaviour, they can be allies for marketers through their influence (social norms). Thus, we suggest the use of digital influencers to endorse organic food.

Conjoint analysis of mobility plans in the city of Dresden

The past years brought massive changes in the transport and mobility market, accompanied by the rise of concepts such as Mobility as a Service. An enormous increase in publications on this topic documents the growing importance of multimodal mobility solutions for daily transport, but practical applications of the concept are rare. In addition to challenges in the organization of players, this is due to an unclear conception of the service offer and which particular services should be included to what extent. This paper presents the results of an empirical study in the city of Dresden, Germany, where participants could choose out of various bundles of mobility services in a conjoint analysis. The survey provides evidence for the great importance of public transport for the evaluation of mobility bundles as well as for the benefit-enhancing effect of car and bike sharing. A comparison among different user groups reveals a very homogeneous picture of mobility plans, which, however, only partly reflects actual behaviour.

THE ENGINEERING METHOD FOR UNIFYING GROUND FLOOR SLAB SETTLEMENTS

For industrial buildings and logistics centres truck lifts are usually used. Therefore, there are special requirements for flatness tolerance of ground floor. The ground floor settlements differences in selected distances are limited. The article reviews the behaviour of soils and the importance of the actual behaviour assessment of soils during the design of floor slab on elastic subgrade. Particular attention is given to the behaviour of floor slab areas above pile foundations that support the building’s columns. Calculation results show the impact of subgrade stiffness on the behaviour of the floor slab, especially in areas above pile foundations, where the stiffness of subgrade is much higher. The article presents a solution for achieving the required level of settlements’ differences in areas where pile foundations for the building’s columns under the ground slab are used. The paper proposes an efficient engineering method to reduce ground slab settlements differences. The results of performed calculations confirm the efficiency of presented method.

Ethical beliefs and behaviour of university educators: evidence from Russia

PurposeThis exploratory study aims, firstly, to analyse and categorise judgements on ethical behaviour and actual behaviour of university educators. Secondly, the study addresses the impact of demographic data, such as gender, age and role on these issues.Design/methodology/approachWe utilised online survey data from academic employees of four leading universities in Russia, who are involved in teaching activities. In this study, we used correlation, regression and factor analyses.FindingsOur results demonstrate that teaching, while too distressed to be effective, is a common experience among university educators. By contrast, the rarest categories include teaching under the influence of drugs or alcohol. In addition, there is a high congruence between beliefs and respective behaviours. Females are typically more ethical in both judgements and actual behaviour. Factor analysis of behaviours yielded 16 interpretable factors.Practical implicationsFirstly, the salary of the university educators should be adequate and competitive and match with their workload. Secondly, the work of the educators should be given recognition that may become their stimuli for improvement in university teaching. Thirdly, universities should develop ethics centres, which help faculty members and students to take the right decisions in situations involving questionable behaviour in the classroom. Lastly, the development of ethical codes, for faculty members and students, may become their guidance in situations with ethical dilemmas.Originality/valueThis study contributed to the very limited research on the ethical aspects of higher education in Russia.

Motherhood Desire as a Stimulant for Fertility Tourism Intention

This paper investigates the relationship between participants’ motherhood desire and travel intention and behaviour, through the mediating role of attitude, subjective norm and perceived behaviour control. The study adopted a questionnaire among a sample representative of females with fertility complications in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries in Egypt. In total, 138 questionnaires were gathered and tested using a partial least square structural equation modelling using WarpPLS 7.0. The findings support the proposed model and show that motherhood desire has a positive influence on attitude, subjective norm and perceived behaviour control. Also, we found that the positive effect of TPB dimensions on actual behaviour is subject to females’ intention to visit Egypt for fertility tourism. Besides, the study revealed that attitude partially mediates the link between motherhood, tourists’ revisit intention and tourists’ actual behaviour. This suggests that the positive effect of motherhood desire on tourist revisit intention and actual behaviour is subject to attitude. Drawing on the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), we develop an integrative model exploring the relationship between three distinct TPB dimensions and their influence on travel behaviour for childbearing. Such findings hold important implications both for the research community and medical tourism practitioners.

Zoom in the attitude-behaviour gap: low carbon travel behaviour

The concept of pro-environmental behaviour in low carbon consumption has increasingly attracted academics’ attention in the last two decades. There has been a growing interest in exploring the association between people’s travel attitude and behaviour. This study has critically reviewed, compared, and discussed some of the key theories around these research topics. However, based on the findings of the literature review, there is a dearth of research examining the association between people’s travel attitude and their actual behaviour. Therefore, this study seeks to fill the gap by examining the causal linkage between people’s attitude towards a specific travel mode and their actual travel behaviour.

Linking voice pitch to fighting success in male amateur mixed martial arts athletes and boxers

Whereas voice pitch is strongly linked to people's perceptions in contexts of sexual selection, such as attractiveness and dominance, evidence that links voice pitch to actual behaviour or the formidability of a speaker is sparse and mixed. In this registered report, we investigated how male speakers’ voice pitch is linked to fighting success in a dataset comprising 135 (amateur) mixed martial arts and 189 (amateur) boxing fights. Based on the assumption that voice pitch is an honest signal of formidability, we expected lower voice pitch to be linked to higher fighting success. The results indicated no significant relation between a fighter's voice pitch, as directly measured before a fight, and successive fighting success in both mixed martial arts fighters and boxers.

What motivates consumers to purchase organic food in an emerging market? An empirical study from Saudi Arabia

PurposeThis study aims to investigate the impact of perceived values (hedonic and utilitarian), trust and subjective norms on consumers' purchasing intentions of organic food in Saudi Arabia; it also explores the moderating influence of availability on the relationship between the intentions of consumers and their actual purchasing behaviour.Design/methodology/approachA survey with 236 consumers of organic food in Saudi Arabia was carried out. The convergent and discriminant validity of latent variables was confirmed. The relationships among them were tested using Partial Least Square Modelling (PLS).FindingsThe results indicate that utilitarian and hedonic values, trust and subjective norms positively affect consumer purchase intention. They also reveal the moderating effect of availability on the relationship between consumers' purchasing intention and their actual behaviour in the Saudi Arabian context.Research limitations/implicationsThe study contributes to knowledge about the relationships among perceived values, trust, subjective norms, availability and consumer purchasing intentions of organic food, and their actual behaviour in an emerging market. The results enlarge the understanding of consumers' purchasing behaviour in the Saudi Arabian organic food market and point out some opportunities for future research.Originality/valueThe study is original in investigating the factors that influence customers' intention and their actual purchasing behaviour toward organic food in Saudi Arabia. It is a first attempt to test the moderating influence of availability on the relationship between purchase intention and actual purchasing behaviour toward organic food products in an emerging market.