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Although the considerable body of research on control variables offers best practice recommendations, there are still shortcomings in their application in published research papers. Consequently, a significant proportion of quantitative studies lack rigor in how they apply control variables. Additionally, existing literature on control variables is primarily technical, with noticeable lack of accessible guidance that could benefit both seasoned and novice researchers. In fact, there is a need for more elaboration in non-technical terms to enhance our understanding of effective control variable usage. Therefore, the objectives of this editorial are twofold. First, we elaborate on five key issues related to control variables, including a clear, easy-to-understand explanation of what a control variable is, its advantages and complications, and the issues associated with under- or over-controlling variables. Second, we provide guidelines that are easy to follow for any researcher, whether experienced or novice. In doing so, we clarify several ambiguities and offer straightforward explanations of issues related to control variables. We hope that these guidelines will assist researchers—whether lecturers or students—by providing clear directions on the appropriate use of control variables.

COVID-19 pandemic has forced the implementation of a new normal for all businesses leading to an increase in stress levels for many including educators and students. Ethics in education was questioned by professional bodies due to online exams. The objective of this study is to determine the antecedents of student online learning effectiveness and its impact on educational ethics. The study compares Malaysia and India since some Indian educational institutions had been implementing online teaching prior to the pandemic. Data was collected through a survey method. 571 questionnaires from students across Malaysia and India were analyzed using SPSS and PLS-SEM. It was found that physical, psychological, intellectual, and emotional attributes were significant in predicting learning effectiveness which in turn had an impact on educational ethics. Intellectual attributes were the most important predictor of learning effectiveness. The emotional and psychological attributes had a small impact on learning effectiveness. Furthermore, physical attributes had trivial effects on the learning effectiveness. A T test comparing mean differences between the two countries revealed that there were no significant differences in learning effectiveness between students of both countries while educational ethics was more evident among Indian students as compared to Malaysian students. The key implication is the need for educational institutions and educators to develop pedagogies to stimulate students’ intellectual abilities during online teaching to preserve educational ethics. HEIs must support the students psychologically, emotionally and encourage themselves to keep physically active during the phase of online classes. Institutions must take ample steps to ensure that educational ethics is not affected as a result of the new normal failing which could prove detrimental in the long run for students and institutions. This will help to curb unethical practices during online examinations and mitigate academic dishonesty. Our findings regarding various attributes of online learning effectiveness add profoundly to literature and help to understand antecedents contributing to successful learning effectiveness which leads to positive educational ethics in both the countries.

This study investigates the relationship between Employee-Centred Corporate Social Responsibility (ECCSR) and organisational resilience, focusing on empirically validating the mediating effects through rigorous model comparison approach to enhance the robustness of the findings. Non-probability approach, specifically purposive sampling was employed to reach the targeted respondents. Respondents were selected based on two criteria: being full-time employees and having been employed during and after the global pandemic. Data were gathered through a self-administered questionnaire and analysed using variance-based structural equation modeling (SEM). The results indicate a significant positive effect of ECCSR on organisational resilience. Additionally, the mediation effects of workplace well-being and social well-being are confirmed through a model comparison approach, which quantifies the level of uncertainty introduced by these mediating effects. The study is novel in three aspects: First, it categorises employee wellbeing into two dimensions, namely, workplace well-being and social well-being; second, it conceptualises the impetus of ECCSR in terms of the Matthew Effect, highlighting the self-reinforcing nature of benefit accumulation; and third, it employs a quality assessment to quantify the presence of mediators. Organisations are encouraged to consider and leverage the positive impacts associated with ECCSR, such as increased employee engagement and retention, as well as improved corporate reputation.

Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) often grapple with allocating adequate resources toward Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), despite their crucial societal impact. This research investigates CSR assessment and CSR sustainability in the context of strategic CSR-related activities of MFIs, aiming to optimize resource allocation and enhance their CSR initiatives. Data was collected from 875 employees and clients of large MFIs in the Philippines and analyzed using structural equation modeling in AMOS 24. The findings revealed that CSR assessment and CSR sustainability were significantly linked to strategic CSR-related activities, and CSR assessment had a significant link with CSR sustainability. These findings emphasize the importance of strategic orientation in CSR related activities and support the logical precedence of Carroll's CSR Pyramid and Battal's CSR Train Theories, which advocate for a balanced approach encompassing economic, legal, ethical, environmental, and philanthropic responsibilities. This study contributes to the literature by exploring strategic and sustainable CSR in MFIs in developing countries, where the topic has not been broadly studied. The results can serve as a reliable basis for ensuring transparency, assessment effectiveness, and the creation of an integrative CSR framework for MFIs.

The research investigates the effect of restaurant authenticity on perceived service quality, customer satisfaction, and electronic word of mouth (eWOM) in the context of ethnic restaurants. Additionally, it examines the mediating role of service quality and customer satisfaction, as well as their parallel mediating effect on the relationship between restaurant authenticity and diners’ eWOM intention. Data was collected from 279 diners who had experienced services at ethnic restaurants in Vietnam. The Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) approach was employed to investigate the relationships among the variables in the research model. The findings reveal that restaurant authenticity directly influences perceived service quality, customer satisfaction, and customers’ eWOM intention. Customer satisfaction fully mediates the relationship between service quality and eWOM, while it partially mediates the effect of restaurant authenticity on customer eWOM. However, the indirect impact of restaurant authenticity on customer eWOM through service quality was not significant. Ethnic restaurant managers should focus on enhancing the authenticity of their restaurants to generate positive outcomes such as increased customer satisfaction and eWOM intention. This study contributes to the existing literature on consumer behavior in the hospitality sector by conceptualizing the mediating role of service quality and customer satisfaction in the relationship between restaurant authenticity and eWOM intention. The research also extends the Stimuli Organism-Response model by considering restaurant authenticity as a stimulus that directly and indirectly influences service quality (stimulus), customer satisfaction (organism), and customer eWOM intention (response).

This study aims to examine how customer communication, trustworthiness, transparency, and innovation influence the transformation of digital banking. It also investigates the impact of digital banking transformation on customers’ financial behavior. Data were collected using a well-structured questionnaire and distributed to digital bank customers of ten banks in Indonesia. A total of 187 digital bank customers participated in this study. For data analysis, we employed Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) using WarpPLS 6.0. The results show that customer communication, trust, transparency, and innovation positively affect digital banking transformation. It also indicates that the digital banking transformation positively impacts customer financial behavior. This study highlights previously unexplored aspects, particularly the role of digital banking transformation as a stimulant that encourages consumers to actively manage, plan, and invest their funds, which can significantly influence their financial decision-making behavior. The findings of this study highlight the importance of providing customers with a comprehensive understanding of the presence of digital banks. The advent of digital banks is expected to alter financial behaviors in the consumer decision-making process. Additionally, the government may safeguard and reassure individuals about the use of digital banking. By accelerating the pace of digital transformation and enacting appropriate regulations, Indonesia is poised to fulfill its mission of becoming a developed nation.

The adoption of multi-channel strategies by retailers, encompassing both online and offline modalities, has fundamentally transformed consumer shopping behaviors, resulting in a significant increase in mobile shopping. Nonetheless, the long-term success of mobile shopping apps is heavily dependent on consumers’ continuous use. Regrettably, the existing studies on this area remain vague and require further exploration. This study aims to close this gap by examining Malaysian consumers’ continuance intention and continuance use of mobile shopping through the lens of ISSM in the context of mobile shopping apps. We utilised a quantitative approach and successfully collected 369 responses from Klang Valley, using purposive sampling techniques. The predictive hypotheses developed were validated using Partial Least Square – Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) and were further supplemented with Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA) to determine must-have factors based on necessary logic. The PLS-SEM results confirmed the association between continuance intention and continuance use. The findings revealed that service quality and system quality are associated with satisfaction, but not information quality. Additionally, service quality, system quality, and information quality, together with satisfaction, trust and incentive have a positive significant influence on Malaysians’ mobile shopping app continuance intention. However, the NCA results indicated that system quality is the sole must-have factor that contributes to satisfaction. Meanwhile, service quality, system quality, information quality, satisfaction, trust, and incentive are the must-have predictors for mobile shopping app continuance intention. The study sheds light on previously unexplored aspects namely, continuance intention and continuance use, within the framework of the ISSM in the context of mobile shopping. By doing so, it offers more refined and actionable insights to improve consumer experience and foster sustained engagement with mobile shopping apps. Simultaneously, it contributes to the advancement of knowledge regarding the foundational constructs and their interconnectedness, thereby enhancing theoretical development in this domain.

This study investigates the role of transactional leadership as a pivotal antecedent to employee knowledge hiding, specifically focusing on tacit and explicit forms. Drawing on social learning theory, the study proposes and examines the indirect effect of transactional leadership on both tacit and explicit knowledge hiding through the mediation of perceived competition. Additionally, the study introduces leader knowledge hiding as a potential boundary condition to these relationships. Data were collected from university employees in Pakistan using a time-lagged design. The study employed structural equation modeling, utilizing AMOS 23, to rigorously test the proposed hypotheses. The results reveal that transactional leadership significantly encourages tacit and explicit knowledge hiding, with perceived competition as the underlying mechanism. However, the hypothesized moderating effect of leader knowledge hiding is not supported. This study is a pioneering effort to understand the nuanced relationship between transactional leadership, perceived competition, and the distinct forms of knowledge hiding—tacit and explicit. Incorporating leader knowledge hiding as a potential boundary condition adds a unique dimension to the existing literature, contributing novel insights. Our findings hold implications for knowledge management and transactional leadership literature. Practitioners can glean valuable insights from the study's results to inform strategies to mitigate knowledge hiding behaviors within organizational settings.

This study examines the influence of utilitarian and hedonic experiences, customer engagement, and customer value anticipation on customer retention in the authorized automotive after-sales service sector, using customer satisfaction and customer delight as mediators. We collected 316 samples and employed Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling for data analysis. The findings confirm the direct impacts of utilitarian and hedonic experiences, customer engagement, and customer value anticipation on both customer satisfaction and customer delight. Additionally, customer satisfaction and customer delight directly influence customer retention and mediate the relationship between the hypothesized predictors and customer retention. This research enriches the customer retention literature by integrating Expectancy Disconfirmation Theory with flow theory, customer engagement theory, and customer value theory. It also provides insights into the predictors of customer retention and the mediating roles of customer satisfaction and customer delight in the authorized automotive after-sales service sector. The results suggest that service providers innovate their offerings and focus on enhancing customer satisfaction and delight to meet and exceed customer expectations.

This study aims to investigate social media attributes—including sharing of content, accessibility, and credibility—that can impact a tourist's intention to revisit green resorts. It also examines the mediating role of the green image between social media attributes and a tourist’s intention to revisit green resorts. The social information processing theory was utilized as the theoretical framework to explain the hypothesized relationships. Data was collected through an online survey targeted at tourists who visit the Maldives' green resorts and have used social media to search for information about these resorts. A total of 140 usable responses were collected. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was employed to analyze the data. The results confirm that sharing of content and the accessibility of social media positively impact the green image, which in turn drives tourists’ intention to revisit. However, the credibility of social media neither directly influences the green image nor indirectly impacts tourists' intention to revisit. This study applies the social information processing theory to offer a fresh perspective on social media and sustainable marketing concepts. Additionally, it contributes to the field of sustainable marketing by investigating the concept of a green image in the context of developing economies, where this topic has not been extensively studied.

Introduction. Despite the transition of economic systems to a digital economy, today industry is a driver of the development of the economy of any country, and accordingly, consideration of the development peculiarities of this sphere in post-Soviet countries is of scientific interest. Hence, the purpose of the study is to analyze the industry development dynamics in the post-Soviet countries in the period of 1990–2021. Materials and methods. In the course of the study, methods such as analysis and synthesis, tabular and graphical, relative and average values were used. Results. At the start of the market transformation, post-Soviet countries had high industrial potential, while the share of the GVA industry in the GDP of each subject was above 20%. As we move away from 1990, more post-Soviet countries are showing a tendency to reduce the GVA ratio, which is due to the combination of factors, the main of which is the impact of the transformational transition and subsequent crises. The best results in hydrocarbon production are shown by countries with natural resource deposits: Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, the rest of the post-Soviet countries have near-zero production indicators, which reduces their ability to invest “petrodollars” in other sectors of the economy. Indirectly, the import structure shows problems in the manufacturing industry, in which in 2021 the import of machinery and equipment prevails in almost all post-Soviet countries. Conclusions. Summarizing the results obtained during the study, we can draw a general conclusion based on the results of the analysis: having some accumulated (formed) capital in industry, the post-Soviet countries were unable to convert it into sustainable development of their economic systems and at the moment are largely forced to rely on imports of machinery, equipment and vehicles. The findings will be useful to researchers in the field of post-Soviet countries’ integration and disintegration

Introduction. Social living conditions and related problems are one of the key indicators of the level and pace of the socio-economic development of modern society. The Russians’ standard of living is constantly on the agenda of the academic community and the Government of the Russian Federation. Accordingly, the study of the state and prospects for the development of key indicators characterizing the well-being of the population is one of the main tasks of economy. Theoretical analysis. The purpose of this study is statistical analysis and identification of the socio-economic indicators influence degree on the provision of housing for the country’s population. To achieve this goal, we used such statistical tools as tabular and graphical, coefficient, grouping method and correlation-regression analysis. Empirical analysis. The methodological approach to the statistical analysis of the population’s provision with housing corresponds to three stages of statistical research and includes formation of a system of indicators, collection and processing of actual material in spatial and time sections, as well as formation of conclusions regarding the patterns of development of the phenomenon under consideration. Results. As a result of the study, the following patterns were established: despite the population’s low standard of living and periodic shock impacts on Russian economy, the level of housing provision for the population for the period 1990–2021 is continuously increasing; the highest level of housing provision is observed in the most densely populated regions of the country, which are part of the Central Federal District and the Volga Federal District; the largest influence on the variation of the population’s provision of housing is exerted by general economic indicators, namely the level of employment and the positive dynamics of the industrial production index. The results of the study can be used to make decisions regarding the improvement of the population’s standard of living in constituent entities of the Russian Federation.

Conclusions regarding the relative importance of different independent variables in a statistical model have meaningful implications for theory and practice. However, methods for determining relative importance have yet to extend beyond statistical models with a single dependent variable and a limited set of multivariate models. To accommodate multivariate models, the current work proposes shifting away from the concept of independent variable relative importance toward that of parameter estimate relative importance (PERI). This paper illustrates the PERI approach by comparing it to the evaluation of regression slopes and independent variable relative importance (IVRI) statistics to show the interpretive and methodological advantages of the new concept and associated methods. PERI’s advantages above standardized slopes stem from the same fit metric that is used to compute PERI statistics; this makes them more comparable to one another than standardized slopes. PERI’s advantages over IVRI stem from situations where independent variables do not predict all dependent variables; hence, PERI permits importance determination in situations where independent variables are nested in dependent variables they predict. We also provide recommendations for implementing PERI using dominance analysis with statistical models that can be estimated with maximum likelihood estimation combined with a series of model constraints using two examples.

Despite the fact that safety-specific transformational leadership had been reported to have favorable outcomes on workplace safety, there is limited work on identifying its role in decreasing occupational accidents at workplace. The current study looks to fill this void by proposing safety-specific leadership approach to combat occupational accidents via safety climate. Data were collected from 270 production workers of Oil and Gas Industry across four states of Malaysia. Results showed strong support for our suppositions. Safety climate mediated the relationship between safety-specific leadership and occupational accidents. The supposition linking safety-specific transformational leadership to safety climate and safety climate to occupational accidents also found considerable support. The results are discussed in the light of previous literature and the contributions made by the study.

This study examines the factors affecting millennials and generation Z’s purchase intention in online shopping. The variables under investigation, namely, impulse purchase orientation, quality orientation, brand orientation, online trust, and online purchase experience, were tested. The data collection approach used a web-based questionnaire that was created and distributed to 584 university students in Malaysia. Data were analyzed via the Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) approach to examine the posited research hypotheses. The results revealed that impulse purchase orientation was the strongest predictor of consumers’ online purchase intention in Malaysia. This is followed by online trust, and the online purchase experience and quality orientation. Meanwhile, brand orientation did not affect customers’ intention to purchase online. The results contribute new and extensive inputs into the marketing theory and expand the emergent literature on consumer intention to shop online in Malaysia, whereby rich multi-ethnic cultures should be fully exploited. Future directions are offered.