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Possible Contestation Between Pilgrimage And Tourism: A Spatial Analysis Of The Shrine Of Shahjalal, Zarin Tasnim Rashid

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

This paper aims to examine the contestation between pilgrimage and tourism by conducting a spatial analysis on the shrine of Shahjalal, a prominent pilgrimage site in Bangladesh. It analyses particular components of this site through the lens of Kim Knott’s (2009) concept of a spatial approach based on four essential characteristics that connect a location to the larger whole of space. This paper followed a qualitative research method and more specifically content analysis. Being a prominent pilgrimage site in Bangladesh, the Shrine of Shahjalal, turns into a centre of contestation due to the presence of tourists and other existing stakeholders. …

Religious Visitors’ Spiritual Values And Their Relative Importance: Evidence From Chinese Buddhist Tourism Contexts, Zhiqing Wang, Keji Huang, Jiankang Zhang, Yunyun Fan, Ge Zhang

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

Spiritual values are affected by diverse factors with different roles and influence daily life in various ways. Using Mount Jiuhua and Mount Putuo, two mountains in Mainland China with great importance in Buddhism, as examples, this study explores the specific dimensions of religious visitors’ spiritual values. Through a survey study, five factors of these spiritual values were extracted and their relative importance was measured. The identified factors were transcendence, general connectedness, inner balance, positive life direction and special religious feelings. According to factor importance analysis, these spiritual values can be categorised into three levels: fundamental, reflective and surpassing. This study …

Hajj Pilgrimage And Spatial Behaviour In Sacred Space, Zuhriddin Juraev, Young-Jin Ahn, Ji-Yeong Gu

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

This study examines the behavioural and spatial dynamics of the Hajj pilgrimage through the conceptual lens of behavioural geography, focusing on how sacred space, ritual choreography, and communal experiences shape religious engagement. Centred on the Kaaba and surrounding pilgrimage sites, this study explores how ritual practices such as Tawaf, Sa’i, and standing at Arafat construct immersive and affective experiences for pilgrims. Drawing on an interpretive analysis of visual and textual sources, the study argues that sacred space operates not only as a physical setting but also as a symbolic framework that mediates spiritual transformation and social cohesion. It also highlights …

Exploring Challenges For Relationship Marketing Based On Vertical Partnerships Among Smes For Developing Spiritual Tourism: A Case Of Kartarpu, Farooq Haq, Mohit Vij, Naveed Yasin, Amitabh Upadhya

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

Spiritual tourism has evolved as a growing segment of special-interest tourism, attracting increasing attention from both public and private sectors. While government agencies are primarily responsible for infrastructure development at spiritual sites, the private sector plays a crucial role is delivering products and services that enhance the visitor experience. Although collaboration between these stakeholders is vital, the role of relationship marketing, particularly through vertical partnerships, remains underexplored in the context of spiritual tourism. This study addresses this gap by examining vertical partnerships as a relationship marketing strategy at Kartarpur, a prominent Sikh pilgrimage site. Employing a case-study approach, the research …

Shrine Tourism: Fiction And Fact Through An Islamic Lens, Md. Soleman Mollik, Muslima Akter, Mohammad Mominul Islam

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

Shrine tourism is highly prevalent in developing countries. Despite this, the volume of research in this field is quite limited. This study makes a novel contribution to shrine tourism from an Islamic lens. It aims to explore the fiction (the beliefs of the pilgrims) held by shrine devotees and the facts (the religious doctrine of Islam) based on Islamic principles, including the noble Quran and the Sunnah (Prophetic tradition), to showcase the facts against the fiction.  The study conducted in-depth interviews with 30 devotees from Bangladesh’s most renowned shrines or mazars between January and November 2023. Later, the data were …

The Role Of Women In A Da’Wah: Mitigating The Bio-Psycho-Socio Problems Of Elderly Pilgrims Who Cancel Hajj, Hasyim Hasanah, Lukmanul Hakim

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

The Hajj pilgrimage is the most sacred da’wah ritual and has resilience against global crises and the impact of COVID-19. The cancellation of the 2020-2021 Hajj pilgrimage has implications for the length of the waiting list and the bio-psycho-social conditions of elderly Hajj pilgrims. This study aims to identify the role of female Hajj pilgrims who failed to depart in overcoming bio-psycho-social problems. This study is a field study with a socio-psychological da’wah approach. Data were collected through a Google Form questionnaire, in-depth interviews, and documentation studies of 203 elderly Hajj pilgrims who failed to depart from the Semarang area. …

The Reasons And Motivations For Unsafe Pilgrimage During Covid-19: Analysis Of Shiite Experiences Of Pilgrimage In The Last Days Of Safar In Iran, Hamdollah Sojasi Qeidari, Fahimeh Jafari

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

Unsafe pilgrimage is defined a religious journey that may have life risks. From the outbreak of COVID-19, for instance, many people were infected and died, but despite the severe conditions all over the world including Iran, one of the most famous and biggest pilgrimage events was held in Mashhad, Iran. This study tries to explore the causes and motivations of unsafe pilgrimage over the period when COVID-19 was a threat. To do the research, ethnographic method for collecting the data and Colaizzi’s interpretive phenomenological method for analysing the experience of 38 pilgrims doing foot-pilgrimage were used. The results show that …

Pilgrimage As A Regional Socio-Economic Driver: Case Study Of Sarria, Km 0 Of The Camino De Santiago, Mª Carmen Pardo Lopez, Mónica Cortés Garcia

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

This study explores the potential of pilgrimage as a catalyst for tourism growth, with a specific focus on the municipality of Sarria, located along the renowned Way of Saint James (El Camino de Santiago). Despite its international fame, many municipalities along the route fail to capitalise on the socio-economic opportunities presented by pilgrimage tourism (Machado & Pardo, 2018). Sarria, known as ‘Kilometre Zero’ for pilgrims on the French Way, serves as a critical starting point for obtaining the Compostela certificate. This research employs destination planning methodology, utilising qualitative and quantitative data through surveys, interviews, and mystery shopper audits, to analyse …

Invited Editorial: Scandinavian Pilgrimage Reinvented, Jane Widtfeldt Meged Mrs, Andreas Skriver Hansen Mr

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

This editorial offers initial thoughts about how Scandinavian pilgrimage possibly is being re-invented after 500 years of intermission. Although the church has been involved in all three Scandinavian countries, it is argued that pilgrimage to some degree is developing and being practiced along different lines in the three countries. In Denmark, pilgrimage can be said to often fall under an entrepreneurial, tourism start-up category. In Sweden, the church in some ways has appropriated pilgrimage as leverage in connection with the separation of church from the Swedish state. In Norway, pilgrimage has mainly been used by public authorities as valorisation of …

Ijrtp Volume 14(Iii) Table Of Contents, Kevin A. Griffin, Razaq Raj, Carlos Fernandes

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

Title page and Table of contents for Volume 14(iii) of IJRTP - International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

Pearls From Local Dentists: The Problem In Your Practice Probably Isn’T A Staffing Problem

West Michigan District Dental Society Bulletin

"Clinical Corner: Pearls from Local Dentists" is a section of the WMDDS Bulletin where local dentists share clinical wisdom for fellow practitioners. This edition discusses The Problem in Your Practice Probably Isn’t a Staffing Problem.

From Dissertation To Deployment: A Unified Software Platform Operationalizing Clinical-Prediction And Sequential-Security Ai For Healthcare, Olsi Shehu, Damiana Teliti, Jasmin Kevrić, Bekir Karlik

Communications of the IIMA

Advances in machine learning for healthcare are abundant, yet most validated models remain confined to research notebooks and never reach secure, usable clinical software. This paper addresses that deployment gap by presenting a unified, security-hardened software platform that operationalizes two complementary streams of doctoral research inside a single, role-based hospital information system. The first stream contributes a clinical-prediction capability: an ultra-hybrid ensemble that couples a quantum-inspired feature transformation, particle-swarm feature selection, and calibrated soft voting for cancer-outcome prediction (96.41% accuracy, AUC-ROC 0.983 on TCGA-BRCA), survival stratification, multi-cancer generalization, and pharmacogenomic drug-response classification (89.31% mean accuracy across 25 compounds). The second …

2026-09-08 Minutes, Morehead State University. Staff Congress.

Staff Congress Records

Staff Congress meeting minutes from September 8, 2026.

Capital Structure, Cost Of Capital, And Voluntary Disclosures, Jeremy Bertomeu, Anne Beyer, Ronald Dye

Olin Business School Faculty Research

This paper develops a model of financing that jointly determi nes a firm’s capital structure, its voluntary disclosure policy, and its cost of capital. Investors who receive securities in return for supplying capital sometimes incur losses when they trade their securities with an informed trader. The firm’s disclosure po licy and the structure of its securities determine the information advantage of the i nformed trader, and hence the size of investors’ trading losses and the firm’s cost of ca pital. We establish a hierarchy of optimal securities and disclosu re policies that varies with the volatility of the firm’s cash …

How Often Do Managers Withhold Information?, Jeremy Bertomeu, Paul Ma, Ivan Marinovic

Olin Business School Faculty Research

We estimate a dynamic model of voluntary disclosure, using annual management forecasts of earnings, that features a manager with pri ce motives and an uncertain but persistent information endowment. Our estimates imply that: (i) managers face disclosure frictions 35% of the time; (ii) conditional on being informed, managers withhold information 17% of the time; and ( iii) conditional on being silent, managers possess information 24% of the time. Managers’ strategic withholding motives increase investors’ uncertainty about earnings by 3%. We find that managers’ price motives reduce strategic withholding by one-third, in response to investors’ increased skepticism in the event of …

A Theory Of Hard And Soft Information, Jeremy Bertomeu, Ivan Marinovic

Olin Business School Faculty Research

This paper studies a model of optimal disclosure via two comp eting communi- cation channels, hard information whose value has been veri fied and soft disclo- sures (e.g., forecasts, unaudited statements, press relea ses). We show that certain soft disclosures may contain as much information as hard dis closures and establish that: (a) exclusive reliance on soft disclosures tends to co nvey bad news, (b) cred- ibility is greater when unfavorable information is reporte d and (c) misreporting is more likely when soft information is issued jointly with har d information. We also show that a soft report that is …

Ai-Supported Analysis Of Jury Deliberation Impact Factors, Jennifer Siciliani Phd

Generative AI Teaching Activities

Students conduct a controlled, two-run generative AI jury simulation to examine how a single socio-legal variable affects simulated jury deliberation. They compare and manually code the AI-generated outcomes against peer-reviewed human jury research to evaluate the model’s accuracy, limitations, and potential biases.

2026-09-03 Faculty Senate Newsletter, Morehead State University. Faculty Senate.

Faculty Senate Records

Faculty Senate newsletter from September 3, 2026.

The Influence Of Entrepreneurial Marketing On Sustainable Competitive Advantage In Tanzanian Smes: A Lower-Order Dimensional Analysis, Omari Khalifa Mbura

Business Management Review

Although entrepreneurial marketing is increasingly recognised as multidimensional, limited understanding remains of whether its individual behaviours exhibit equivalent relationships with competitive advantage, particularly when behaviours associated with the same broad dynamic-capability process are considered separately. This study examines the associations between five lower-order dimensions of entrepreneurial marketing (EM)—proactiveness, innovativeness, resource leveraging, customer intensity and value creation—and sustainable competitive advantage (SCA) among food-processing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Guided by Dynamic Capability Theory (DCT), cross-sectional survey data from 255 SMEs were analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) in the SEMinR package in R. …

From Kitchen To Canon: Women And Culinary Recognition Executive Summary, Eulanda A. Sanders, Andra Harris

ICHRIE Research Reports

Despite women comprising a majority of the U.S. restaurant workforce, they remain significantly underrepresented in culinary leadership and elite recognition. Using an exploratory, descriptive design that draws on secondary data from the ACS, NRA, U.S. Census Bureau, and the James Beard Foundation, this study maps gender disparities across the culinary career pipeline. Women represent approximately 54% of the restaurant workforce but only 24.8% of chefs and head cooks, with a substantial gender wage gap persisting across the occupation (NRA, 2026; U.S. Census Bureau, 2024). Of 402 James Beard Award winners analyzed, 71.6% were male and 28.1% female. Disparities intensify at …

How Philadelphia Markets Itself As A Fifa 2026 Host City: A Social Media Strategy Analysis, Taylor C. Mickley, Kelly G. Barr, Lali Odosashvili

ICHRIE Research Reports

With the 2026 FIFA World Cup around the corner, host cities are competing for global attention on social media. This study analyzed 543 Instagram posts from three host cities: Philadelphia and New York/New Jersey from the USA and Monterrey, Mexico. Posts were collected between August and December 2025 during the FIFA World Cup qualifying period for North and Central America and the Caribbean. Content was classified by category and format, and engagement was measured through reactions, comments, reposts, and shares. The findings challenge a common assumption: cities that posted the most did not generate the most engagement. Commercial content such …

Beyond The Lab: A Competency-Rated Model For Building Industry-Ready Hospitality Leaders, Arlene M. Garrick

ICHRIE Research Reports

Hospitality employers continue to report a persistent readiness gap between academic preparation and operational performance. Supervisors cite inconsistent communication, limited cultural intelligence, weak leadership judgment, and subjective evaluation systems as barriers to building strong talent pipelines (Baum, 2015). This report presents the Competency‑Rated Experiential Assessment Model (C.R.E.A.M.), implemented within a live hotel operation at The Lodge at Hocking College to address these challenges. Within eight weeks, students demonstrated measurable improvements in communication clarity, cultural awareness, bias mitigation, and professional judgment. The model provides a scalable, low‑cost framework that hospitality operators and educators can adopt within a 30‑day cycle to strengthen …

The Use Of Job Design Optimization In The Hospitality Industry To Reduce Turnover, Emily Zirbes

ICHRIE Research Reports

Employee turnover remains one of the most persistent challenges in the hospitality industry, where high job demands, limited support, and chronic understaffing contribute to burnout and voluntary exits. This report examines how job design imbalances shaped the resignation of a long‑tenured front desk supervisor at a mid‑sized hotel. Using the Job Design Optimization Tool (JDOT), the analysis evaluates the alignment of job demands and resources across four dimensions: span of control, span of accountability, span of influence, and span of support. Findings reveal that disproportionate accountability expectations and insufficient support create a structurally unsustainable role. The report argues that turnover …

The Impact Of Social Expectations And Gender Norms On Women Leaders' Marital And Partner Relationships And Their Influence On Workplace Outcomes, Hedi Kovacs-Resnik

Economic and Business Review

Leadership sustainability among women remains insufficiently explained in leadership research, as dominant models prioritise workplace factors, neglecting the role of private-life demands. This research explored how social expectations and gender norms influence women's private lives and how the emotional impact spills over into their leadership style and performance, thereby influencing their career progression. Using a qualitative design and thematic analysis of 18 interviews with women in leadership roles, the research examined what it means to lead while also navigating family and relationships.
The findings revealed that the boundaries between women's private and professional lives are almost nonexistent. Professional success often …

When Loyalty Intentions Fail: Evidence On The Intention–Behaviour Gap And Customer Retention In Mobile Telecommunications, Danilo Tomšič

Economic and Business Review

This paper quantifies and explains the consumer intention–behaviour gap in mobile telecommunications and shows how it matters for competitive resource allocation. Using a two-wave longitudinal survey of 4887 consumers, I compare stated switching intentions at time t with self-reported provider choice at t + 1 and identify a 15.4% divergence comprising two forms: nonswitching intenders (consumers who intended to switch but did not) and switching nonintenders (consumers who did not intend to switch but did). Binary logistic models reveal temporal asymmetry in determinants. Among nonswitching intenders, higher baseline loyalty (satisfaction, repeat-choice commitment, and recommendation intention) lowers the likelihood of remaining …

Beyond Adoption: How Technology–Organization–Environment Factors Shape The Use Of Social Media Technologies And Performance In B2b Companies, Peter Grabner, Barbara Čater

Economic and Business Review

This study examines how technological, organizational, and environmental factors shape social media technology (SMT) use in business-to-business (B2B) markets and how SMT use relates to customer relationship performance and marketing performance. Building on the technology–organization–environment (TOE) framework, we develop and test a structural model in which perceived simplicity of SMT (technology), SMT strategy (organization), and mimetic competitive pressure (environment) shape SMT use, which in turn affects customer relationship and marketing performance. We collected data with an online survey of 195 marketing and sales professionals from B2B companies in Slovenia. Results indicate that SMT strategy is the strongest predictor of SMT …

Nigeria's 2025 Tax Act In Comparative Perspective: Tax Rates, Compliance, And Fiscal Space With Econometric And Machine-Learning Evidence From Nigeria, South Africa, The United Kingdom, And The United States, Olatunji Dauda Ojedokun, Seun Adebanjo

Economic and Business Review

This study compares Nigeria's 2025 Tax Act with regimes in South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States using quarterly panel data (2000–2025) and complementary econometric and machine-learning methods. We estimate fixed-effects difference-in-differences, autoregressive distributed lag/cross-sectionally augmented autoregressive distributed lag error-correction models, dynamic panel generalised method of moments, and local projections to identify short- and long-run effects on revenue efficiency, compliance behaviour, and fiscal space. Predictions for VAT/corporate income tax revenues and gaps are generated with Elastic Net, Random Forest, XGBoost, and LightGBM, and heterogeneity is assessed via generalised random forests and doubly robust learners. Results show a significant, …

The Non-Binding Bind: Reframing Precatory Stockholder Proposals Under Delaware Law, Kyle A. Pinder

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

Rule 14a-8 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 allows stockholders to submit proposals for inclusion in a company’s proxy materials. The rule assumes that Delaware law provides stockholders with the right to submit non-binding proposals for stockholder approval. But as many have observed, this assumption lacks a firm basis in state law, particularly in Delaware. If such a right exists, a stockholder conducting its own proxy solicitation could submit numerous precatory proposals, including those advancing narrow or special interests. This article concludes that, under Delaware law, stockholders do not have an inherent right to submit precatory proposals. Accordingly, a …

Navigating The Eu’S Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive: Strategic Implications For Us Companies, Silvia Ciacchi, Michael Faure, Sharon Oded

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

The European Union’s (“EU”) Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (“CSDDD” or the “Directive”) introduces new human rights and environmental obligations that reshape global corporate governance. This paper explores its impact on US companies, with a particular focus on compliance strategies under both direct and indirect applicability. It contrasts tactical compliance, which emphasizes risk mitigation while meeting minimum legal requirements, against strategic compliance, where companies use sustainability to gain a competitive edge in the market.

This paper highlights how varying enforcement levels across EU Member States may incentivize companies to “forum shop” or choose jurisdictions with more relaxed enforcement. It also …

Neural Symphony Of Flow Experience: Evidence For High-Dimensional Metastable Dynamics, Abdelrahman B.M. Eldaly, Kris Zhangguang Kang, Fiona Fui Hoon Nah, Leanne Lai Hang Chan, Keng Leng Siau, Xiao Fan Liu, Richard Huskey, Langtao Chen, Tejaswini Yelamanchili, René Weber

Business and Information Technology Faculty Research & Creative Works

Flow, an optimal experience characterized by deep immersion and engagement in an activity, has been extensively studied in behavioral research. However, its neural dynamic mechanism remains poorly understood. In a within-subject video gaming experiment, we captured neural activity underlying flow, boredom, and anxiety using a 64-channel electroencephalogram (EEG) system. Compared to boredom and anxiety, flow exhibits the highest global functional connectivity, metastability, and dimensionality of dynamic functional connectivity patterns, suggesting that flow is a highly adaptable process that is supported by high-dimensional neural dynamics. Unlike previous studies that focused on identifying static or localized brain activity, we examine the neural …