Babu George

Alcorn State University · School of Business

Considering the rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and their potential implications for the higher education sector, this article seeks to critically evaluate the strategic adoption of AI in the framework of "smart universities". We envisage these innovative institutions as the imminent evolution in higher education, harnessing AI a...

This paper contributes to the advancement of noise trader theory by examining the connection between aggregate news sentiment and stock market returns during days of significant stock market movement. In contrast to previous studies that solely focused on company-specific news sentiment, this research explores the impact of aggregate news sentiment...

Literate and educationally advanced population is the primary characterizing feature of any developed nation. In this context, digital inclusion in education system is seen as a potent solution to the holistic growth of an education system, since it provides a comfortable learning environment that meets the demands of individual learners, and that...

The principal objective of the European Commission with the proposal of Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) is to impose a levy on imports in particular energy-concentrated European sectors which are relative to carbon content of imported goods. The integration of carbon tax is very likely to result, that CBAM will have significant impact on...

This paper seeks to explore the varying degrees of impact that Autonomous Vehicles and Transportation-as-a-Service will have on several key industries, and how players in those industries might adapt their business strategies to prepare for this revolution. Systematic literature review. Transportation-as-a-Service is still in its infancy when it co...

Purpose The present conceptual paper evinces a new understanding of the present and future of the tourist city in a post-COVID-19 world. The pandemic has wreaked havoc in the tourism industry as well as global trade. The world, at least as we know, is debating the next recovery steps for 2023. Design/methodology/approach In this conceptual paper,...

The present study aimed to determine the manifesting variables of continually using e-learning platforms. The present study synthesizes the expectation–confirmation model (ECM) and affordance theory to explain better the continuance use of e-learning and the benefits users perceive after initial use. We have adjoined these two theoretical models fo...

Traditional universities are facing a huge threat from exogenous innovators who have perfected the idea of conceiving and developing various kinds of micro-credentials that are stackable, reconfigurable, and storable in the blockchains (Khatun et al [...]

The purpose of this study is to assess the relationship between traditional financial advisors and the increasing use of robo-advisors, in the context of the financial technology (fintech) revolution that we are witnessing now. Contrary to the doomsday outlook of many, these services complement each other and therefore are inclusive. A growing tren...

COVID-19 is a major inflection point in the civilizational development of the contemporary society as it passes through various phases of industrial revolutions. Pre-COVID-19, the technological realm was ready to trigger a major disruption, but the societal realm was putting pauses upon it. The wrath and fury that ensued as COVID-19 became a global...

COVID-19 exposed a wide range of challenges hidden unnoticed in the promise of digital education. Digital education was once promised as the grand equalizer of access and inclusion in education. However, the massive deployment of digital tools in the educational realm during COVID-19 provided significant counterevidence to this promise. If educatio...

This paper examines the relationship between financial development and economic growth for the six countries of the Western Balkan (Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Bosnia Herzegovina, and Serbia) for the period 2005-2019. To determine the direction of the causality between economic growth and financial development, we employed the vec...

Rural tourism is a vital means of rural development. There exist a great deal of interdependence and complementarity between the two. Rural tourism offers an alternative attraction of rurality as a diversification and regenerative strategy to bring about socio-economic development with minimal adversity. This research presents advancements in resea...

The tourism area life cycle is used to map the changes within the tourism destination on a temporal basis. The paper reviews the literature on the tourism area life cycle from 2003-2020. Articles appearing in journals having a cite score of 1.0 or higher were considered for the review process. The paper uses a structured review methodology and a wi...

Among India's national parks, Eravikulam National Park(ENP) is the abode of several rare Kurinji flower species, especially Neelakurinji (Strobilanthes kunthianus) that blooms only once in 12 years; it also hosts the endangered Nilgiri Tahr (Nilgiritragus hylocrius). It is also the most extensive stretch of the undisturbed Shola-Grassland (Tropical...

Ecotourism projects are mostly implemented in naturally fragile ecosystems as a savior of nature, culture, and indigenous people. This paper aims to make quantitative study of ecotourism in protected areas by using bibliometric analysis. VOSviewer, a popular bibliometric software, was used to analyze as many as 1182 research articles published from...

Mainstream sustainability discussions draw focus to the balance between commercial and environmental interests. Responsible tourism (RT) practices are an outcome of these discussions and RT is a significant contributor to the “greenification” of economies in many countries. Green tourism promotes travel that supports natural and cultural aspiration...

This study examined the influence of competence development, work-life balance, perceived organizational support and organization’s commitment to employees on job satisfaction, affective commitment and turnover intention among registered nurses in Nigeria’s Ondo State. The sample consisted of 220 registered nurses from six public hospitals in Ondo...

This study aims to examine the relationship between job satisfaction, pay, affective commitment, and turnover intentions of public hospitals-based Registered Nurses in Ondo State, Nigeria. Using the quantitative, cross-sectional survey design, data from 220 Registered Nurses were analysed. Results indicate that pay and job satisfaction have signifi...

Purpose: This paper aims to analyse how community participation is viewed and implemented in ecotourism projects with evidence from ecotourism literature. The paper elaborates on the evolution and trends of community participation in ecotourism projects. Methodology: With the use of content analysis method, the study analyses literature in the form...

This research was framed as an attempt to empirically retest the assumed relationship between political empowerment and resident support for ecotourism, with perceived benefits and perceived costs as mediating variables. The study is analytical-descriptive in nature and followed a cross-sectional survey design. The survey participants included the...

This book focuses on the tourism industry in conjunction with the impact of COVID-19 from the perspective that it is both negatively impacting the industry while also offering it an opportunity to rise from the ashes. The volume offers a new conceptualization and theorization of tourism, suggests new research methods, offers parallels with other cr...

Protected areas (PAs) achieve recognition and enhanced protection when a sufficient number of tourists visit and appreciate them and influence policy to assure their survival. Despite the growing importance, little attention has been paid to visitor satisfaction in PAs. Visitor experience and satisfaction may be influenced by many attributes of PAs...

Protected areas (PA's) achieve recognition and enhanced protection when a sufficient number of tourists visit and appreciate them and influence policy to assure their survival. Despite the growing importance, little attention has been paid to visitor satisfaction in PAs. Visitor experience and satisfaction may be influenced by many attributes of PA...

Tourism is considered as an essential source of generating employment, reducing poverty, and empowering women. Most of the tourism initiatives targeting poverty reduction primarily focus on providing income opportunities for women that only enhance their economic empowerment. Nevertheless, this does not usually lead to make overall development. Thi...

The past decade has seen rapid development of the bioeconomy in the Nordic region. Consequently, the composition of sectors that intervene in the concept of bioeconomy serves as a powerful, progressive, and pure engine, which creates and drives market opportunities across various industries, particularly in the Nordic region. While the existing lit...

This study unravels trends and momentum in banking and mobile money channels and uptake of select services and thereafter draws implications for enhancing financial inclusion through Digital Financial Services (DFS). The Rate of Change (ROC) approach was applied to analyze the growth momentum in banking and mobile money channels in Uganda. Implicat...

In the preceding chapters, we carefully revised the history of colonial expeditions, the intersection of the native “Other” with science, and the evolution of leisure travels and the consolidation of the tourism industry. We make the point that after the terrorist attacks in 2001 in the US, Western civilization entered a state of crisis which gradu...

In this chapter, we lay the foundation toward a new understanding of the durable effects of COVID-19 in society as well as in travel behavior. Although some scholars applauded enthusiastically the rebirth of a new version of tourism, probably more sustainable, the chapter goes in the opposite direction. We are of the opinion that the globalization...

The lone wolf is a personality type that symbolizes individualism and a deep yet sometimes dangerous quest for self-search. At its very extreme, this search turns out to become hatred for anything that these wolves cannot identify themselves with. In this regard, even some societies are lone wolves. We have lone wolf groups, communities, societies,...

Mobility is freedom. Freedom is power. Those who wield control over the mobility of others control their freedom. The global reach of this control was first evident in the history of colonialism. The empire both incentivized and restricted travel, depending upon who aligned with the colonial vision of the world. Unfreedom is a situation when there...

This chapter analyzes the birth and development of modern tourism. The bubble model, an economic instrument that originated in Fordism, provides the direction to this analysis. Mass-scale production generated much frustration and discontent in society. Economists who historically suggested consumption as a great malady for the economy emphasize con...

COVID-19 is reaffirming the tendency of nation-states to find imaginary enemies when hit with a crisis—enemies to whom its origins and perpetuation could be attributed. This is needed for their unity and survival. However, a strong and serious global pandemic like COVID-19 would need the identification of strong and serious enemies. This is a dange...

Will COVID-19 kill tourism? This was a big question that came to trouble everyone dependent upon tourism, especially in the early days of it being declared a pandemic. Before it became a pandemic, experts opined that Chinese tourists and tourism businesses would be cut off from it; certain political groups in the US considered this to be a blessing...

The term tourist gaze was coined initially to represent those superficial expectations that tourists have on destination communities; tourists impute their ideas of authentic experience upon destination residents and their social structure and see what they have predetermined to see. This is made more real when local communities consciously act out...

In the preceding chapter, we introduced readers to the complex and dense interplay between scientific expeditions, which were moved by scientific interests, and colonialism. In this chapter, we focus on the ways and morphologies of colonial voyages to draw new borders of colonial geographies. Of course, some might speculate both chapters overlap, b...

The dynamics of the labor market have changed considerably and are currently experiencing a major shift. The skill levels that used to be enough in the workplace have become inadequate for the current workplace requirements. The lifecycle duration of technical skills has become shorter than ever before. Issues in innovation, demographic shifts, soc...

Higher education institutions are creators and disseminators of knowledge, yet, it is questionable whether they follow scientifically established knowledge management practices. The paper attempts to review the knowledge management practices appropriate for business schools and highlights key enablers and barriers. There is a special need in busine...

Internationalization of universities could enrich the quality of academic life, only if it is practiced in a way that looks beyond the immediate return of investments, seeing the potential of self-enrichment, esteem, and actualization it would fetch. In this conceptual paper the authors maintain that globalization should not be allowed to dictate t...

Country-of-origin is one of the most crucial aspects of a brand's success. Country-of-origin has a significant impact on how brands are perceived, especially in terms of the promise of quality they deliver. While different countries have announced vaccines, there has been a global hesitation to buy into those claims. Successful adoption of a succes...

A Delphi Study was conducted to identify competencies and values for entering level managers in the wellness tourism industry. The study comprised three rounds commencing 31 January 2018 and ending with the dissemination of the final round 20 May 2018. Twelve industry professionals from across North America completed all three rounds. Wellness trav...

Dear friends and colleagues, St. Joseph’s College, Irinjalakkuda, Kerala, India, in collaboration with Graduate Business, Christian Brothers University, USA, is organizing a set of International Expert Panels on Education, Industry, and Health. These panels will be the highlight of the International Conference on Post-COVID Global Scenario: Threa...

The turn of the century has brought many mega threats for the West, such as terrorism, natural disasters, and virus outbreaks including SARS, H1N1, Ebola, and now COVID-19. An invisible micro-organism suddenly paused our progress towards a globally interconnected flat world. We now realize that super-structures driving economic development cannot g...

“Dr Korstanje and George’s consistent contribution to a political sociology of hospitality is further developed in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in this book. By ‘translating’ this unfortunate conjunction into a series of research contexts entangled in recurring patterns of political violence, he skilfully explores the new conundrums of inho...

Abstract. This study sought to ascertain the factors that drive the demand for credit among businesses in the high-density markets in Kampala (Uganda) and its suburbs and draw implications for innovations and application of digital lending. A combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches was applied to profile end retailers and businesses...

Indicative chapters would broadly take this format: Green Economics in X Industry (E.g. Green Economics in Tourism; Green Economics in Creative Industries; Green Economics in the Automobile Industry; Green Economics in Transportation; Green Economics in Higher Education; Green Economics in the Military; etc.). We are interested in green economics r...

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Leaders must ask critical questions when deciding to initiate change such as: Where to begin? What and how to organize resources? How to distribute responsibilities within the organization? These questions are especially important when an organization faces the need to change in the instance of a crisis. Leaders must develop objectives, which accom...

Previous research in experimental psychology suggests that religious belief is influenced by one’s general tendency to rely on intuition rather than information. A corollary emerging from this based on balance theory is that managers who are religious might make more intuition-based decisions than their counterparts who are not religious. The latte...

Mental health services are perceived differently in different socio-cultural settings. The connotations accorded to mental health, especially in terms of need awareness and evaluation of alternatives, vary from culture to culture. Understanding these differences is critical to attract and retain patients suffering from mental conditions. Generic li...

Historically, the Caribbean tourism destinations have competed based on their largely undifferentiated marketing mix. More recent evidence from the Caribbean tourism promotional practice, however, indicates the realization in the practitioner community that developing a distinct brand equity is critical for success. This paper aims to identify and...

Overtourism is a systemic indicator of failure in the process of planning and destination management and temporary patchworks will not solve it. Inclusive Sustainable Tourism is proposed as a lasting intervention to address the evil of Overtourism. Cultural analysts call the attention on over-tourism as a post-modern social malady which exhibits th...

Telehealth has been playing a progressively major role in the management of the NCOVID-19 crisis. The enforcement of social distancing measures has had the consequence of reduced technology distance in almost every walk of life. In this paper, based primarily on the still unfolding experiences of deploying it during the current situation, we argue...

The purpose of this article is to review the current dynamics and emerging challenges in the higher education system, with special reference to the increasingly felt need to reengineer it around sustainability principles. While this is not an entirely new call, the jolt exerted by Covid-19 brought it to the forefront of debates. The socio-technolog...

The Public Private Partnership (PPP) is one of the developmental models prevalent in most developing economies to promote the quality of life of people and to boost the overall socioeconomic development of the country. One of the widely used indicators of the preparedness of Albania to integrate with the European Union (EU) is the similarities of t...

Following the phenomenological case study method, this paper highlights the mental health marketing scenario in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. While the developed world is finding modern methods to connect with and serve MH patients, Vietnam and most other developing economies are still struggling to shift views from mental illness to mental wellness....

Given the reported high incidences of depression related suicides in Ho Chi Minh City (HCM City) Vietnam, a phenomenological case study was conducted to assess the profiles of mental health providers and their customer relationship practices. The study presents findings from eight in-depth interviews with Mental Health (MH) doctors and marketers at...

The aim of this paper is to bring together some of the foundational and recent literature interlinking corporate governance and the leadership role of the board of directors. Strategic leadership is widely assumed to be a responsibility that defaults to the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs). However, in practice, what most CEOs do is strategic manage...

Brief summary: This book will present a diverse range of case studies on how disasters, both natural and manmade, are managed in different parts of the world. Subject / Topic Description: Disaster management has become a major topic of discussion, given the increasing incidents of different kinds of disasters around the world. Greater investments...

With the Peoples' Republic of China (PRC) having inextricably been interconnected with the international economy and with the increasing footprints of the Chinese firms globally, management styles too needed to be evolved accordingly. The generic literature on internationalization of firms does not account for the ideological and institutional aspe...

Cities are often multi-cultural and multi-ethnic melting pots with strong ecological resources that make them dynamic urban tourism destinations. Driven by digital and green technologies, today’s cities are becoming smarter and sustainable, attracting a new generation of digitally savvy yet ecologically conscious travellers. This study provides a c...

This study explores the application of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics technology in the hospitality industry. After reviewing and evaluating research and articles, currently, robotics technology has been broadly applied into hotel, food and beverage, and meeting and convention; these are the three major segments in the hospitality indust...

The digital traces that people leave behind as they conduct their daily lives provide a powerful resource for businesses to better understand the dynamics of an otherwise chaotic society. Digital technologies have become omnipresent in our lives and we still do not fully know how to make the best use of the data these technologies could harness. Bu...

Product Life Cycle (PLC) has always been a hot topic in the tourism literature. Butler's Tourism Area Lifecycle model and Plog's destination life cycle model have both been applied and analysed extensively in tourism destination development and lifecycle studies. This study attempts to offer a critical conversation on the similarities and differenc...

Monginis was started in 1970 at Chembur, Mumbai, India, with just one store. The franchise model that it pioneered in the industry embraced some real-time practices of human development that were carefully captured through the recruitment strategy, job engagement, training, positive work environment, along with strategic practice of embracing local...

In the mainstream parlance, tourism is constructed as conspicuous consumption for the exclusively chosen few. Historically, the term “inclusive” in the tourism industry was exclusively used with all-inclusive tourism. All-inclusive tourism is often quite an unethical approach and is probably the antithesis of inclusive development. Likewise, tradit...

This research aims to contribute to the understanding of the effect of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial intentions among university business students in Albania. A model interlinking entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial intention is proposed based on the theory of planned behaviour. Factors related to education that affect th...

This case shows a fundamental disagreement between the rules of non-discrimination and religious freedom. The Human Rights Policy supports the important university and community objectives. However, the Constitution does not the manner in which it is implemented. The unequal implementation of any legislation invites much further criticism when free...

A sample of key higher education related laws, applicable in the State of Alaska.

Learning outcomes Desarrollar un plan de negocios integral para una empresa nueva. Entender el ambiente de negocios. Prepare un análisis DAFO. Desarrollar planes funcionales (de mercadeo, finanzas, recursos humanos, operaciones, etc.). Entender las oportunidades y desafíos del proceso de desarrollo de un nuevo producto. Case overview/synopsis Este...