Consumer Perception and Purchase Intention Towards Refurbished Smart Phones

Circular economy is a global economic model that focuses to transform linear consumption in a circular system by minimizing waste and preserving the cost of materials. Refurbishment can be useful to recover value from old products and to minimize waste. Based on the insights from literature, a deductive research approach has been used to examine consumer understanding about refurbished smart phone and their purchase intention. A survey based on barriers, perceived risk, and benefits associated with refurbished phones was conducted. Multiple analyses of variance were employed to identify the effect of demographic parameters on refurbishing dimensions. Multiple regression was used to identify prominent predictors in determining purchase intention towards refurbished products. The study demonstrates a fine level of awareness among people about refurbished phone, and they link it to environmental benefits. A major concern among consumers was performance issue and financial risk involved in purchasing refurbished smart phones. Financial benefits are key aspects behind promoting refurbished.

What Are the Leading Bank-Specific and Macroeconomic Factors Influencing Islamic Bank Performance?

Despite the proven sustainability and growth of Islamic banks during the financial crisis period, many scholars criticise the current performance of Islamic banks. Therefore, policymakers are continuously getting worried due to inconclusive finding of different research related to Islamic bank profitability. To shed the light of raising concern, this study investigates the issue from considering both macroeconomic and bank-specific factors. The annual cross-sectional data has been collected from 46 Islamic banks in 10 selected MENA countries over the period 2015-2019. The standardized pooled ordinary least square (OLS) approach's findings revealed that bank size, capital adequacy, GDP, and inflation have a significant positive impact on Islamic banks' return on asset, but asset quality has no significant effect on ROA. In contrast, most of the variables have an insignificant effect of ROE. Investors, financial analysts, and policymakers will get benefits from this study's results to secure their investment by successfully controlling the above-mentioned leading factors.

Augment Human Resource Proximity Plumbing Cybernation

The expeditious proliferation of artificial intelligence in the mainstream has rejigged the simplest processes of the various sectors in the most efficient way. With the advent of the era of cybernation, the work culture has been curbed with the timely developments and upgradation of the technology. Cybernation has propelled the growth of every respective sector of the vast corporate diaspora with time. The main aim of the cybernation being that of smoothening the complex, bulk tasks which exploit mass human energy, has seen much success in its purpose so far. But certain domains of the corporate diaspora still await the technological transformation of their respective processes. One such prominent domain and the real fuel of the corporate diaspora, the human resource has yet to expand its purview to imbibe and imbue cybernation in its certain processes. Human resource domain being the custodian of the corporate, wherein it is for the people and by the people though with the niche of Industry 4.0 beholds more space to expand the angle of understanding the term resource for the human, than human as an element of resource in itself. Multifarious human resource processes can be enhanced further with apt utility of digitization in order to optimize the user interface and user experience, boosting the overall employee experience amidst the corporate. Several certain customary functions of the human resources entail the adaptation of automation in more nuanced way to evolve parallel with the digitalization. Moreover, the millennial era further looks up to a transformed human resource with higher echelons of functions to be performed, digitally evolved jobs, an automated work environment, work culture well acquainted with the artificial intelligence. The effect of cybernation on the business acumen of futuristic human resource leaders, working in the rapid concurrent era of disruptions, without losing the human touch, will carve the future human resource structure. Therefore, the intent of this chapter is to study the detailed implications of automation, digitalization, and cybernation in the domain of human resources and to study and examine the dynamically changing HR functions with technological interventions and disruptions by proposing a literature review.

Food Security Policy Analysis of Household Level

The study focuses on analyzing the food self-sufficiency village program at household level in Indonesia. The before and after analysis and food and security composite analysis at household level are used as tools. It involved comparing the implication and impact between indicators before and after the implementation of policy. Quantitative data were used to compare major indicators and qualitative data for minor indicators. In general, the impact of the DMP Programme on the villages was positive. The level of poverty in each village has been significantly reduced by 8-40% after the introduction of the programme. Composite food security analysis at household level shows the positive impacts of DMP Programme implementation. This is shown by several indicators, including the rise of 4-7% availability, reduction in poverty by 8-40%, and decrease in people working fewer than 15 hours per week by 10-20%.

Analysing the State of Sector-Specific CSR Reporting

This chapter aims to deepen understanding of trends in corporate social responsibility reporting (CSRR) practices in Pakistan since the introduction of voluntary reporting guidelines in 2009 by the Securities and Exchange Commission Pakistan (SECP) and their updating in 2013. Quantitative content analysis was applied to CSRR for the chemicals, oil and gas, banking, cement, and manufacturing industries in Pakistan. The results were benchmarked to the guidelines issued on social and environmental aspects by the SECP. It was found that the reports issued by the highly polluting industries such as oil and gas, cement, and chemical industries reported significantly higher levels of information than the other sectors. The results indicate the appropriateness of industry-specific reporting and suggest, in line with local guidelines, that further standardisation is required to level the playing field of CSRR in Pakistan.

The CSR Performance and Earning Management Practice on the Market Value of Conventional Banks in Indonesia

This study examined the effect of the components of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and earnings management on market value, measured using Tobin's Q. CSR is measured by using KLD Index, while earnings management used discretionary loan loss provision. The GMM-SYS (generalized method of moment system) dynamic panel data method is employed to examine the research framework on conventional banks listed in Indonesia Stock Exchange. Among six components in CSR disclosures, only corporate governance, environmental and product disclosures are favorable for bank's market value. Furthermore, earnings management had a positive impact on market value. Empirical result indicated that CSR functions as a part of bank strategic moves in order to survive the highly dynamical business environment. Since CSR inflicts additional costs for the company, they must perform CSR efficiently while maintaining a strong relationship with shareholders. This study contributes to CSR and financial management literature by finding the nature of CSR effects as future strategic investment.

Perceived Tourist Harassment in Tourist Destinations

Tourism is a fast-growing industry in the world. Many developing countries have recognized the economic contribution of the tourism industry towards to country; therefore, it has been included as an integral part of their development strategies. Sri Lanka continues to use tourism as one of the incomes earning strategy of its nation. At present, a huge tourism development is continued while accepting severe issues occurs itself like tourist harassment. The nature of the harassment is different from destination to destination, and this study mainly aims to identify the harassment in Sri Lanka. The study carried out in Southern Coastal Belt, considering foreign tourists as the sample to the study. A pretested questionnaire was distributed among 600 foreigners to collect primary data for the study, and 530 questionnaires were valid for the analysis. The collected data was analyzed through exploratory factor analysis, which revealed six major types of harassment in Sri Lanka as a result of tourist consumption process throughout the vacation.

Automation of VAT System

The automated tax system has been taken as an effective tool for modernizing the tax system. The automated tax system can easily store all types of reported income, and it makes the tax submission procedure easy and convenient, resulting in reducing the compliance cost. The main objective of this chapter is to explain the necessity of an automated value added tax (VAT) system for raising domestic resource mobilization and how automation can be a better alternative to finance sustainable development goals projects. The secondary data was collected from the National Board of Revenue, Bangladesh. This study explains that the entire VAT system's automation can reduce the taxpayers' incentive to evade tax by reducing the tax compliance and taking bribes of tax officials. In sum, automation of the tax system would ultimately be pragmatic tax reform for the financing in the SDG projects.

Disruption and Innovation Trends in the QSR Industry

The QSR (quick service restaurants) industry in the emerging economies such as India is undergoing a wave of disruption and re-engineering. Many global brands in QSR food servicing have resorted to technology and innovation in one or more aspects of their value chain in order to maintain leadership positions in a market that is facing some fast-growing competition from various channels, especially with the penetration that service aggregators like Zomato, Swiggy, and Uber Eats have managed to gain. This study aims to establish a general direction towards which the QSR industry is progressing in India by examining not only the current trends in India but also the trends that are prevalent worldwide and which have the potential of diffusion to emerging economies like India.

An Overview of Emerging Technologies in the Indian Retail Industry

With the arrival of several new players, Indian retail has become one of the most dynamic and fast industries. With the advancement in technology, internet, engineering, many retailers are adopting and using the internet of things, big data technology, RFID, and other technical software and programs to enhance customer experience, customer engagement through which retailers are improving efficiency. In particular, many customer-oriented internet of things technologies, such as augmented reality, smart shopping carts, smart displays, and RFID tags, are expected to change the way customers experience retail shopping. For this study, the secondary data has been explored and studied. The purpose of this chapter is to study how emerging technologies like big data and IoT implementation are transforming organizational practices and thereby generating potential benefits in the retail industry.