An Investigation into Restaurant Attributes: A Basis for a Typology

This article has the aim of presenting the basis for a new, clearer classification of restaurant attributes. The research followed an interpretive approach with a systematic review of the literature, compared and contrasted with the findings of six focus group interviews. A new model was devised with seven categories of restaurant attributes. This article presents a model that needs to be tested. Also, follow-up articles with more detail about the attributes under each category will be presented. This article organizes the disparate literature on restaurant attributes and looks into the relationship between attributes, particularly its influence on perceived consumer value.     

Exogenous brand crises: brand infection and contamination

Marketing Letters - Although there is an established literature regarding brand transgressions, Covid-19 has highlighted the need to better understand exogenously created brand crises. We...     

Intellectual capital reporting practices in an Islamic bank: A case study

Given the nature and importance of Islamic banks in recent times, we can expect them to have significant intellectual capital anchored in their Sharia‐based knowledge and expertise. However, we know very little or nothing about how and why intellectual capital‐related information is provided in their corporate reports. We fill this gap in our existing knowledge of the field with a view to enhance relevant literature. As far as we know, this article is one of the earliest exploratory attempts to examine intellectual capital reporting practices of an Islamic bank. We have undertaken a longitudinal (2001–2015) case study related to the intellectual capital reporting practices of an Islamic bank. Key results include significant rise of intellectual capital reporting over time, dominance of internal capital‐related items in intellectual capital reporting profile and the dynamics of changes in intellectual capital reporting practices over time. Through an institutional theory lens, we explain that this is due to the changes in the external institutional environment and various intra‐organisational factors such as strong ethical culture, unique knowledge base (Sharia), and corporate governance regime.     

Institutions for private sector development and pro‐poor growth: Evidence from Vietnam

Using the Vietnam Household Living Standards Survey 2008, we explore the differences in pro‐poor growth performance in provinces in Vietnam according to the quality of the provinces’ institutions that support private sector activity. We exploit the localized and varying effect of French colonial legacy across Vietnamese provinces to address the endogeneity of institutions. We find strong and robust evidence of a positive effect of good‐quality institutions that support private sector activity on pro‐poor growth and that enhanced working hours and hourly wage and extended income from non‐farm self‐employment play critical roles in this outcome.     

What cloud interoperability connotates for EU policy making: Recurrence of old problems or new ones looming on the horizon?

One of the key factors for a thriving cloud computing market is the ‘interoperability’ between the relevant hardware and software that govern the cloud services. While a complete interoperability means different cloud users being able to exchange the management tools, server images and other software, this is infrequently realised because users are locked into (proprietary) cloud ecosystems. This (problem of vendor lock-in) is potentially accompanied with another problem revolving around the content delivery networks being integrated with the distinct clouds along with possible harms to media pluralism as well as interoperability. In view of these concerns, this study focuses on competition law, standardisation and regulatory policies, and elaborates on to what extent cloud interoperability needs to be secured under EU legal fora. Overall, it is found that vendor lock-in might be attended by ‘coupling’ and complex ‘layering’ strategies, whereas efficiency and/or security based justifications would arise as the counter-balancing reasons. Based on the findings, the study concludes that while focusing on the vertical (i.e., vendor lock-in) concerns, a comprehensive viewpoint needs to be upheld, allowing efficiencies (i.e., proprietary enhancements) based on the architectural design and innovations, obviating narrowly-fashioned (i.e., foreclosure-based) interventions such as in Microsoft case. It is also underlined that cloud interoperability has a content dimension that would require a broader perspective, extending to horizontal concerns and requirements within the context of EU policy making strategies.     

CKshare: secured cloud-based knowledge-sharing blockchain for injection mold redesign

This paper proposes a trustable mold redesign knowledge-sharing platform, known as CKshare, based on private cloud and blockchain technology. Firstly, we use private cloud to store the mold redesign knowledge of each party to meet its own privacy and data format requirements. Secondly, a blockchain network is used for recording the knowledge and its transactions to ensure security and trustfulness. Thirdly, a simple retrieval mechanism is developed based on k-nearest neighbors for retrieving the codified knowledge on the platform. To realize CKshare, a prototype platform has been developed and explained based on real data from the case mold company.     

Increasing return response to changes in risk

Risk aversion theory is based on an individual's choice among risky assets with expected utility in its foundation. It is about investor behavior (i.e., investor choice), under normal circumstances, toward assets with various levels of risk. A positive and marginally diminishing relationship between risk and return exists. This study is about investor behavior related to their response (not choice) to risk. We present an argument and supporting evidence that investors’ return response to risk is increasing with the level of risk. Thus, investor behavior is subject to change and the level of risk is a determinant of such change. We also explain the negative time‐series correlation between risk and return.     

Catastrophe futures and reinsurance contracts: An incomplete markets approach

We present a theoretical methodology for the pricing of catastrophe (CAT) derivatives with event‐dependent and non‐convex payoffs given the price of a CAT indexed futures contract. We do not assume a fully diversifiable CAT event risk, nor do we assume knowledge of the martingale probability measure beyond the futures price. We derive tight bounds on the contract value and present trading strategies exploiting the mispricing whenever the bounds are violated. We estimate the bounds of the reinsurance contract with data from hurricane landings in Florida. Our method is also applicable when there is no futures market but the price of a CAT‐indexed bond is available.     

The effect of the dynamics of knowledge base complexity on Schumpeterian patterns of innovation: the upstream petroleum industry

This article analyzes important changes in technological innovation in the upstream petroleum industry. It provides evidence that shifts in sectoral patterns of innovation over the petroleum industry's lifecycle from the 1970s up to 2005 were dependent on the dynamics of knowledge base complexity (KBC), a key dimension of an industry's technological regime. Accordingly, observed shifts in innovation patterns are understood to be the aggregated strategic response of industry innovators to changes in the technological regime. The article proposes a quantitative method for exploring KBC and Schumpeterian patterns of innovation, and interactions between the two at the industry level. As the industry evolved, its knowledge base moved to higher orders of complexity creating a shift in the Schumpeterian pattern of innovation. Increased KBC was found to alter Schumpeterian patterns from Mark I toward a ‘modified’ Mark II. Instead of coming predominantly from ‘traditional’ established oil operators, technological innovation was increasingly triggered by a new class of emergent integrated service companies – ‘second tier’ systems integrators of the upstream sector able to cope with increased KBC.