Stay connected with our research in: Marketing & International Business
Can a 2D shark girl be an influencer? uncovering prevailing archetypes in the virtual entertainer industry
Journal of Business Research, 2025
The rise of virtual technology has served as a catalyst for a new influencer model – one with a crafted persona and an animated avatar. These virtual entertainers excel in engaging audiences and have become increasingly popular as a promising industry with many prospective opportunities. However, research within this industry is limited and lacks consistency. This paper aims to establish an emergent theory for the virtual entertainer industry. First, the concept of a virtual entertainer is introduced and defined along with key developments in the evolution of the industry. Using content analysis on 1189 comments and clustering 293 channels with over 180,000 livestreams, the paper identifies 3 key dimensions of virtual entertainers – (1) Organizational Support, (2) Self Expression and (3) Activity; and 5 distinguishing archetypes for virtual entertainers. The performances of these archetypes were compared across multiple success indicators, providing insights for understanding and developing positioning strategies within this growing industry.
Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296324004557
Stay connected with our research in: Marketing & International Business
Exploring the holistic nature of a multi-level retail brand: a scoping review
Journal of Product and Brand Management, 2024
Given that existing retail brand research tends to treat each level of a retail brand as a separate concept, this paper aims to unveil the holistic nature of a multi-level retail brand, considering the distinctiveness of each level and the interrelationships between the images of different levels. This study uses a scoping review approach that includes 478 retail brand articles. Subsequently, a thematic analysis method is applied. The brand attributes that shape the distinct image of each retail brand level encompass diverse intrinsic and extrinsic attributes. Moreover, the holistic nature of a multi-level retail brand is formed by the interrelationships between the images of different levels, which are reflected in the presence of common extrinsic attributes and their interplay at attribute, benefit and attitude levels. Theoretically, this review provides conceptual clarity by unveiling the multi-level yet holistic nature of a retail brand, helping researchers refine and extend existing theories in retail branding, while also providing new research opportunities in this field. Practically, the findings could guide retailers in implementing differentiated branding strategies at each level while achieving synergy across all levels.
Available at: https://doi.org/10.1108/JPBM-12-2022-4280
Stay connected with our research in: Management & Human Resources
Does artificial intelligence improve hospitality employees’ individual competitive productivity? A time-lagged moderated-mediation model involving job crafting and meaningful work
Current Issues of Tourism, 2025
Artificial intelligence (AI) continues to transform the hospitality industry. While adopting AI can lead to employee anxiety, less is known about how these affected employees can benefit and become more competitive. This study advances the challenge-hindrance framework in the AI context to investigate how employees respond to the advances of these technologies and the resulting changes in their competitive productivity. Data collected from 235 employees in the hospitality industry through a two-wave method was analysed using PLS-SEM. Findings indicate that although the advancement of AI leads to workplace anxiety, such innovation can trigger job crafting through the conservation of resources theory. These effects can positively impact competitiveness and productivity, particularly for employees who find their work meaningful. This study extends the challenge-hindrance framework and offers guidance for the hospitality industry to better integrate AI for service professionals to become more competitive and productive.
Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13683500.2024.2391114
Stay connected with our research in: Management & Human Resources
Organizing Transgender People: Toward a Process-Based Theory of Representative Bureaucracy
Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 2025
Despite advancements in LGBTQ+ rights, transgender people remain as one of the most socially stigmatized and marginalized members of society. Many continue to face state-sanctioned discrimination. Kerala stands out in supporting and advancing transgender people. We interviewed 15 government officials and 28 transgender women to explore how the Kerala government uplifted and improved the lives of its transgender people. Using a grounded theory approach, we analyze Kerala’s (one of the most progressive states in India) efforts to support transgender people. We found that access to common good—linked with citizenship, active participation, and collective action in society—is key to connect policies with outcomes for socially marginalized groups. Our study emphasizes how representative bureaucracy can empower society’s most vulnerable individuals and help them establish nonprofit organizations for their own support. This discovery allowed us to enhance and develop a process-based theory of representative bureaucracy. Our study extends the theory by establishing the mechanisms by which representative bureaucracy delivers the common good to society’s marginalized members.
Available at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/08997640251317399
Stay connected with our research in: Tourism & Hospitality
Luxury hospitality revisited: A Cambodian perspective
Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 2024;
Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 2024 Research on luxury tourism and hospitality has been predominantly conducted in Euro-American contexts and is oftentimes based on consumers' perspectives, which calls for more contextualisation and the need for multi-stakeholder views. We move away from the conventional Euro-American context by addressing luxury tourism in Cambodia, a largely agrarian culture rapidly emerging in the tourism travel circuit, by providing an answer to the research question ‘How is luxury hospitality defined, exercised and felt in an emerging destination?’ Drawing on stakeholder theory, we analysed 26 interviews conducted with multiple stakeholders in the tourism industry in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap. The fine-grained findings point at a fusion of high industry standards and an indigenous culture of hospitality. As the study's theoretical contributions are to build on locally-grounded and multi-stakeholder understandings, we offer several practical takeaways for service providers and consumers to ascertain and experience luxury services in a reconsidered and renewed manner.
Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S144767702400010X
Stay connected with our research in: Tourism & Hospitality
Does the travel career pattern model work for repeat tourists?
Tourism Recreation Research, 2025
Tourism researchers and practitioners have an interest in understanding tourists’ travel patterns, and one of the most used models applied to reach this goal is the seminal Travel Career Pattern (TCP) model. However, repeat tourism is underexplored and in the present research, the authors provide an initial investigation of repeat tourists using the TCP model. Based on survey data from 500 international tourists in India the present research found that the TCP model is valuable for exploring repeat tourists’ travel patterns and motives. Within the TCP model results show that middle level motives were found to be most important for tourists with more diverse travel experience which include nature, self-development and self-actualisation. Significant relationships were also found among the origin of tourists, their travel experiences and their motivational pattern.
Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/02508281.2023.2240181
Stay connected with our research in Accounting, Economics and Finance
Credit rating and stock return comovement
Journal of Banking and Finance, 2025
Firms with similar credit ratings, particularly high-yield ones, exhibit strong comovement in stock returns. After a firm is downgraded to high-yield status, it comoves more with other high-yield firms and less with investment-grade ones, a pattern not fully explained by changes in fundamentals or other firm characteristics. We find evidence that suggests the investor clientele explanation for rating-related comovement, potentially arising from heterogeneous lottery preferences. High-yield-averse funds reduce their holdings of firms being downgraded to high-yield status, particularly those that are more lottery-like, much more significantly than high-yield-prone funds. Furthermore, a firm's stock returns become sensitive to flows into high-yield-prone funds after being downgraded to high-yield status, consistent with the price impact of rating-based category investing.
Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378426625000949
Stay connected with our research in Accounting, Economics and Finance
Tourism and housing prices: a meta-analysis
Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 2025
Rising tourism activity has intensified concerns about its effects on housing affordability, especially in destinations experiencing overtourism. This study conducts the first meta-analysis to quantitatively evaluate the relationship between tourism and housing prices. Based on 221 effect size estimates from 28 peer-reviewed studies, we apply meta-regression techniques—including multi-level random-effects models—to assess the average effect and identify sources of heterogeneity and publication bias. We find that tourism positively impacts housing prices at statistically significant levels, with this estimated effect size increasing after controlling for key moderating factors. Differences in country development status, regional location, methodological design, and variable specification significantly shape reported outcomes. These findings point to the need for more standardized empirical frameworks and critical guidance offerings for policymakers aiming to balance tourism development with housing equity. Our results underscore the importance of embedding housing affordability into sustainable tourism governance, in support of inclusive and resilient urban futures
Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2025.2586540
JCU Singapore Business School’s mission is to create a brighter future for lives in the Tropics world-wide through graduates and research discoveries that make a difference. The changing global business environment demands continuous assessment and innovative thinking to ensure that industries and communities are empowered with the knowledge and skill sets to turn challenges into favourable advantages. With research outputs in key concepts, data sets and grounded theory, our contributions to the University’s leadership in intellectual contributions focuses on the Tropics.
Business Capabilities Booklet can be downloaded here. |
The Journal of Tropical Futures
The Journal of Tropical Futures: Sustainable Business, Governance & Development (JTF) is a peer-reviewed journal from SAGE Publications administered by James Cook University, Singapore. JTF is a multidisciplinary journal that promotes sustainable and responsible business, management, and governance in the Tropics.
In the video, Professor Peter Case, Editor-in-Chief for The Journal of Tropical Futures, shares some insights on the publication.