Potential international students use social media platforms to acquire important information about schools and their brand reputations while making international higher education decisions. By means of a cross-sectional data from 384 international students at three universities in North Cyprus, the study aims to explore the relationship between social media engagement, information credibility and enrolment intention. Furthermore, if information credibility works as a mediator between social media engagement and enrollment intention, and the moderating role of student type. The study makes several contributions to the literature review and its recommendation helps top management at universities and policy makers in North Cyprus to pay attention to the role of social media in recruiting international students. The findings of this study indicate that credibility fully mediates the relationship between social media engagement and enrollment intention, but student type doesn’t moderate the relationship between information credibility and enrollment intention. The limitations and future studies are discussed in this study.

This study investigates the mediating role of competitiveness in the relationship between FinTech adoption and banking performance in the Middle Eastern region. A quantitative research design is employed, utilizing survey data from banking professionals across multiple countries. The data is analyzed using PLS-SEM modelling. The results show a positive and statistically significant impact of FinTech integration on the competitiveness of financial institutions and the performance of banks. On the other hand, the mediation of competitiveness is involved in the process of FinTech adoption and bank efficiency, suggesting that banking institutions that can utilize FinTech advantageously have greater chances of translating the benefits of FinTech adoption into better performance. This study supports the literature by providing a practical example of the use of FinTech as a factor for competitiveness and improving the performance of banks in the Middle East. These findings have huge managerial and practical implications and can help large banks gain competitive advantage and effectively integrate FinTech platforms to achieve real improvements. The value of this research is that it fills the gap in the existing literature, i.e. the role of competition as a mediating factor. By combining studies on competitive strategy approaches with those on technological innovation theory, this study combines a complete worldview related to the performance of banks in the digital age.

With flexible learning, students are actively engaged in their own education and are held to high standards of performance. Online academic courses make it easier for students to receive personalized education because they provide students with more flexibility to concentrate on what is most important to them and give them greater control over their own education. This study’s objective was to investigate whether there is a correlation between how well students succeed in online classes and the extent to which they make use of the schedule and the geographical and resource flexibility offered by such programmes. This article uses a developing approach for predicting and classifying the flexibility in online learning of students who are at risk of failing due to academic and demographic variables. The K-nearest neighbours (KNN) method, the random forest (RF) method, and the logistic regression method were used to categorise the students participating in flexible online learning. The information for the dataset came from Kaggle, and it was gathered for use in testing machine learning. The dataset had a total of 1,875 instances representing 11 different features. Also, accuracy, precision, sensitivity and f-score metrics were applied to evaluate the system. The results show that the RF algorithm has a high accuracy percentage of 85%. The empirical findings demonstrate that students formed distinct patterns of learning time, location and access to knowledge. This suggests that flexibility was used to a significant degree. Patterns in learning time and the availability of learning materials were shown to have a substantial relationship with the accomplishments of the students. Understanding flexibility use habits may help adapt lessons and boost collaboration among similar students.

This study conducted a thorough analysis of a dataset from a video game to reveal the relationship between game content, interactive features, and classification ratings. The project attempted to convert raw data into meaningful insights by employing Python for data processing and machine learning. The analysis uncovered strong relationships between content descriptors and ESRB ratings, indicating a market that strategically customizes game material to different demographic groupings. Moreover, the inclusion of interactive features such as 'Users Interact' and 'In-Game Purchases' suggests a transition towards gaming experiences that are more immersive and financially interactive. The highlight of this project was the creation of a web-based tool that can accurately forecast game classifications, utilizing advanced models such as XGBoost. The application offers developers and rating organizations a vital tool to achieve accuracy in game classification. The study's conclusions provide a detailed comprehension of console market dynamics, clarifying the present patterns and possible future developments in the gaming industry.

Regulators and recent academics are now paying attention to digital marketing because it has become a complete marketing resource that might propel a firm toward success. As a result, the current study explores the impact of several digital advertising channels, including mobile, e-mail, and digital retargeting, on customer purchasing behavior in the Information Technology (IT) business in the UAE. The current research also examines the moderating effects of marketing tactics at the intersection of mobile advertising, digital retargeting, e-mail marketing, and customer purchasing choices in the IT sector of the UAE. To collect data for this study quantitatively, questionnaires were employed to solicit information from respondents, which was then analyzed using smart-PLS. The findings showed that digital retargeting, mobile, and e-mail marketing positively affect customer purchasing behavior in the UAE's IT sector. The results also demonstrated that marketing tactics drastically reduced the associations between mobile, e-mail, and consumer purchasing decisions in the UAE's IT sector. This study gave policymakers recommendations on better focusing on digital advertising, which could boost the organization's success.

This study provides an analytical view of the correlation between several factors that influence the credibility of information available through various sources on the Internet. The most critical factors include information quality, source credibility, argument strength, message credibility, and average credibility. Additionally, the study explores the impact of gender and years of experience as demographic variables on the nature and size of these relationships. The study relied on a critical review of previous related literature. In addition, it adopted an analytical approach using a sample of 300 Internet users through a questionnaire designed based on the study hypotheses. Most of these relationships were found to be at an average level, except for the relationship between source credibility and information credibility. No statistical indicators were observed. Consequently, the researchers acknowledge the need for caution when generalizing these results to society. The study also found that the gender of the recipient and the number of years of experience did not necessarily play a mediating role in the relationship between the tested factors and the credibility of information received via the Internet.

The concept of the “Metaverse” is a three-dimensional virtual world that relies on simulations of reality to represent real-life experiences, and it can be classified as the next generation in using the Internet. In this research, we will examine the factors that may influence user acceptance of metaverse and the relationships between these variables highlight how different factors can be examined. The goal of understanding these factors is to determine how Metaverse developers can improve this technology to meet user expectations and enable users to better interact with this technology. To achieve this goal, a sample of 312 students’ participants from different age groups was selected to respond to an online Likert scale questionnaire ranging from) strongly disagree equal) to (strongly agree equal 5). The study found that perceived enjoyment significantly positively influences technology metaverse application. Moreover, perceived curiosity and perceived self-efficacy positively influence technology application metaverse transitions. In addition, perceived ease of use (PEOU) and perceived usefulness (PU) positively influence the attitude toward using the Metaverse technology/application, which means that all the previous factors have an overall positive effect on the attitude toward using the Metaverse technology application.
The concept of the “Metaverse” is a three-dimensional virtual world that relies on simulations of reality to represent real-life experiences, and it can be classified as the next generation in using the Internet. In this research, we will examine the factors that may influence user acceptance of metaverse and the relationships between these variables highlight how different factors can be examined. The goal of understanding these factors is to determine how Metaverse developers can improve this technology to meet user expectations and enable users to better interact with this technology. To achieve this goal, a sample of 312 students’ participants from different age groups was selected to respond to an online Likert scale questionnaire ranging from) strongly disagree equal) to (strongly agree equal 5). The study found that perceived enjoyment significantly positively influences technology metaverse application. Moreover, perceived curiosity and perceived self-efficacy positively influence technology application metaverse transitions. In addition, perceived ease of use (PEOU) and perceived usefulness (PU) positively influence the attitude toward using the Metaverse technology/application, which means that all the previous factors have an overall positive effect on the attitude toward using the Metaverse technology application.

Customer focus strategy has shifted the way the businesses shape their customer satisfaction. Service oriented companies in general have been given a great emphasis and a significance care to both customer satisfaction and customer delight lately. However, the management decision of what to offer to gain customer happiness is still a challenge issue. To test such issue, this study develops and tests a set of new factors which shapes both customer satisfaction and delight within the UAE setting. The factors include perceived service value, perceived service quality, perceived price fairness in addition to perceived service recovery. Data were collected through survey using a structured questionnaire distributed to 420 customers over all 28 branches of Etisalat Company in Dubai. 350 valid questionnaires were analyzed using factor analysis along with correlation and regression. The results of the study indicate that perceived service value, perceived service quality, perceived price fairness and perceived service recovery could be considered as the critical success factors that can be used to shape and measure customer satisfaction and delight. The findings can be used as guidelines to retain customers and to enhance the business value especially when organizations service providers focusing more on what customer perceive rather than focusing on what to offer from products and/or services. Moreover, some managerial implications and a set of theoretical recommendations are suggested in the final part of this study.

Loyalty programs are widely used by organizations as a structured customer relationship management (CRM) tool to build and extend customer-supplier relationship. Although a large number of benefits are offered through them to both companies and consumers, loyalty programs face a set of planning and implementation pitfalls. Scholars or practitioners rarely discuss such pitfalls. Thus, this paper intends to add further values to the current literature by exploring/investigating the main loyalty scheme pitfalls, both theoretically and practically. The study explores a set of loyalty program planning problems and some of the execution’s drawbacks, including clear aim need, loyalty program design, budgeting and experienced employee involvement. In addition to loyalty programs benefits and rewards offered, loyalty programs target customer selection problems using loyalty program promotional tools. For the study, 161 managers and employees who were involved in loyalty program planning and execution were surveyed. Smart-PLS was used to test the developed model and hypotheses. The study found that all studied loyalty program elements identified affected their planning and implementation. However, some of these elements where seen important to be considered when planning loyalty schemes, such schemes’ benefits and rewards offered were still not planned properly and did not meet customer needs or even expectations and, in most cases, the loyalty programs’ aims were not clear to all their stakeholders. The paper also provides additional discussion about additional issues of loyalty schemes planning and execution problems and proposes a set of solutions and recommendations, which might highlight some of the future venues with this regard.

In the dynamic realm of facility management in the UAE, this study investigates the uptake of digital facility management systems among managers operating locally. The study aims to uncover the influential factors affecting technology acceptance within this sector. Its primary objective is to identify and understand the determinants that impact the adoption of these systems, utilizing a structured framework to analyze influential factors and their implications. The initial phase involves a systematic review to reveal trends in integrating digital technologies, focusing specifically on digital twin technology. Subsequently, quantitative surveys are conducted with 407 facility managers, guided by the UTAUT framework, employing statistical analyses to pinpoint key factors. Notably, Effort Expectancy and Performance Expectancy emerge as significant influencers, particularly influenced by the managerial level. This study provides detailed insights into the nuanced factors that drive acceptance, emphasizing the crucial role of constructs like Performance Expectancy and Effort Expectancy moderated by managerial level, shaping Behavioral Intention and Use Behavior. These findings offer practical implications for devising strategies to encourage the adoption of Digital Facility Management Systems in the UAE, laying the groundwork for future research and industry advancements.