Loyalty toward online food delivery service: the role of e-service quality and food quality

This study assesses the direct influence of food quality and e-service quality on customer loyalty toward online food delivery (OFD) service and its indirect influence through the mediation of customer satisfaction and perceived value. This study uses a survey of 405 OFD service customers from Bandung, Indonesia. By applying variance-based partial least squares to evaluate the proposed model, this study confirms the direct effect of food quality on online loyalty, but not e-service quality. Further, this study discloses the partial mediation role of customer satisfaction and perceived value on the relationship between both food quality and e-service quality on online loyalty toward OFD services.     

A typology of organisational stakeholder engagement with place brand identity

ABSTRACT

This study explores how stakeholders engage with a place brand identity (PBI) in the context of country branding. This research extends beyond the importance and challenges of stakeholder brand engagement with place brand identity by exploring several typology of stakeholder engagement with PBI. A case study approach using semi-structured interviews with 39 senior-level representatives from national Australian organisations was adopted to explore how internal stakeholders in Australia are engaged with the current PBI initiative in Australia: Australia Unlimited (AU). A typology of stakeholder engagement with a PBI, including philosophical and concrete engagement was identified. Stakeholders’ philosophical engagement is reflected by their moral support, future engagement intention, as well as positive word-of-mouth (WOM) behaviour. Concrete engagement, on the other hand, is reflected by place brand partnership and internalisation of PBI in the organisations’ strategy. The research findings offer practical ways for place brand managing organisations (PBMO) to enhance stakeholder engagement with a PBI. The identification of multicomponent nature of PBI from the research findings allows PBMO to identify which PBI component lacks stakeholder support in order to make necessary improvements. Further, identification of the typology of stakeholder engagement with PBI provides alternative strategies of how stakeholder engagement can be managed.     

Does political instability affect exchange rates in Arab Spring countries?

This article investigates the dynamic relationship between political instability and exchange rates in five Arab Spring countries over the period 1992Q1–2016Q4. We include macroeconomic fundamentals to identify the transmission channels through which political instability may affect exchange rates. Based on VAR and ARDL models, our results report that political instability is associated with a significant drop in the value of domestic currencies of these countries. Economic growth is found to be the key mechanism channel. We find also that the dependence between variables is more emphasized in the short run than in the long run.     

Financial Deepening and Economic Growth in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries

Abstract

The goal of this study is to investigate the causal relationship between financial development and economic growth in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, i.e. Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, over the period 1980–2012. We employ panel unit root tests, and Error Correction Model and cointegration techniques to detect long-run and short-run causalities between the variables used in our study. The overall empirical results reveal that the financial sector development contributes significantly to economic growth in the GCC countries. Our results could be of great interest for policymakers since the financial sector could play a crucial role in lowering the dependency of the governments to oil revenues and could contribute significantly to spur economic growth.     

MFA model to assess economic and environmental consequences of food production and consumption

Agri-food sector is a crucially important part of the society, because it is a major factor affecting public health and welfare and it also contributes – directly and indirectly – both to the environment and to the national gross product and employment. Improving sustainability of the agri-food sector implies production of nutritionally better food by using fewer inputs and by reducing environmental burden.In reducing environmental burden, it is essential to restrict the material throughput, to identify the hot spots and direct the measures to them. Improving performance of the food sector requires that the benefits and inputs be quantified in an unambiguous way and that the inputs are estimated for the whole production chain. A comprehensive view of the whole system is necessary.Here, the material flow approach (MFA) has been used to describe the Finnish food flux. The quantitative numerical data have been derived from the farm models' data base, and the data have been adjusted so as to comply with the production and consumption statistics of Finland. Using the compiled data an extended input–output model has been constructed. The model allows for the evaluation of some of the economic and environmental consequences, when the structure of food production and the patterns of food consumption are changed. The consequences can be traced within agriculture, within the food sector as a whole, or at the level of the nation-wide economy. In combination with other information the model, thus, serves as a practical tool for planning.The paper at hand gives an overview of the data base and the basic calculation principles of the model. The usability of the model is demonstrated with results from modelling examples, in which the share of organic production or the share of vegetarian food in the average Finnish diet has been increased. The possibilities and restrictions of the approach as well as some of the needs for further development are discussed.The study is the first step in developing MFA methods to analyse and to monitor the material flows of the Finnish food flux. The results have been used also in compiling the Finnish physical input–output tables. The study, thus, contributes to the overall development of the materials flow accounting.