This study discusses prospects and challenges facing start-up entrepreneurs in language and culture-related tourist attractions in Lombok, Indonesia. Data were collected by observing the operations of tourism entrepreneurs and interviewing the owners, workers, clients, and authorities in the industry. The data were analyzed using a mixed method where tourism sales over one year of business experience were quantitatively analyzed and where prime causes leading to profits and losses were qualitatively explicated. The findings identify six prospective opportunities and five challenges in sustainably establishing language and culture-related tourist attractions as core entrepreneurial businesses. This study enriches our understanding of what micro and small entrepreneurs experience at the early stages of business start-ups and how they respond to uncertainties facing them. The study also provides readers with an understanding of the prospects and the challenges facing small tourist-related entrepreneurs in operations at early start-up stages and serves as a reminder to small businesses about the potential challenges in their business operations. The article also recommends viable management plans to refer to as contingency strategies for probable future challenges. Furthermore, this study attempts to fill a gap in the literature on start-up entrepreneurship in language and culture-related tourist attractions.

Despite many investigations concerning antecedents of organizational commitment in the workplace, very few studies so far have analyzed the direct or indirect impact of HR change leadership role on organizational commitment via HR attribution. Therefore, given the reciprocal principle of social exchange theory, attribution theory and signal theory, this study formulated hypotheses and a model to test the relationships between included variables by employing the mixed-method approach. In-depth interviews were initially conducted to develop questionnaires to collect quantitative data. Employing PLS-SEM to analyze the data collected from 1058 employees working in 24 sustainable enterprises in Vietnam, the findings show that the degree of adopting HR change leadership role was positive, directly affecting organizational commitment. Also, both well-being and performance HR attribution play partially mediated roles in the relationship. The findings suggest that the organizational commitment depends on not only how the degree of adopting HR change leadership role is executed, but also how employees perceive and interpret the underlying management intent of these practices. In a sustainable context, adopting HR change leadership role plays a critical role in shaping employees’ interpretations of sustainable HR practices and their subsequent attributions. Besides, employees’ belief on why are sustainable HRM practices implemented has an influence on the organizational commitment that in turn contributes to the overall sustainable performance.

Natural forests and abandoned agricultural lands are increasingly replaced by monospecific forest plantations that have poor capacity to support biodiversity and ecosystem services. Natural forests harbour plants belonging to different mycorrhiza types that differ in their microbiome and carbon and nutrient cycling properties. Here we describe the MycoPhylo field experiment that encompasses 116 woody plant species from three mycorrhiza types and 237 plots, with plant diversity and mycorrhiza type diversity ranging from one to four and one to three per plot, respectively. The MycoPhylo experiment enables us to test hypotheses about the plant species, species diversity, mycorrhiza type, and mycorrhiza type diversity effects and their phylogenetic context on soil microbial diversity and functioning and soil processes. Alongside with other experiments in the TreeDivNet consortium, MycoPhylo will contribute to our understanding of the tree diversity effects on soil biodiversity and ecosystem functioning across biomes, especially from the mycorrhiza type and phylogenetic conservatism perspectives.

Developing Asia’s infrastructure gap results from both inadequate public resources and a lack of effective channels to mobilize private resources toward desired outcomes. The public-private partnership (PPP) mechanism has evolved to fill the infrastructure gap. However, PPP projects are often at risk of becoming distressed, or worst, being terminated because of the long-term nature of contracts and the many different stakeholders involved. This paper applies survival-time hazard analysis to estimate how project-related, macroeconomic, and institutional factors affect the hazard rate of the projects. Empirical results show that government’s provision of guarantees, involvement of multilateral development banks, and existence of a dedicated PPP unit are important for a project’s success. Privately initiated proposals should be regulated and undergo competitive bidding to reduce the hazard rate of the project and the corresponding burden to the government. Economic growth leads to successful project outcomes. Improved legal and institutional environment can ensure PPP success.

The principal objective of this article is to gain insight into the biases that shape decision-making in contexts of risk and uncertainty, with a particular focus on the prospect theory and its relationship with individual confidence. A sample of 376 responses to a questionnaire that is a replication of the one originally devised by Kahneman and Tversky was subjected to analysis. Firstly, the aim is to compare the results obtained with the original study. Furthermore, the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) will be employed to ascertain whether behavioural biases are associated with cognitive abilities. Finally, in light of the significance and contemporary relevance of the concept of overconfidence, we propose a series of questions designed to assess it, with a view to comparing the various segments of respondents and gaining insight into the profile that reflects it. The sample of respondents is divided according to gender, age group, student status, professional status as a trader, status as an occasional investor, and status as a behavioural finance expert. It can be concluded that the majority of individuals display a profile of underconfidence, and that the hypotheses formulated by Kahneman and Tversky are generally corroborated. The low frequency of overconfident individuals suggests that the results are consistent with prospect theory in all segments, despite the opposite characteristics, given the choice of the less risk-averse alternative. These findings are useful for regulators to understand how biases affect financial decision making, and for the development of financial literacy policies in the education sector.

This research seeks to identify the value of a few common factors determining the speed of economic growth in Baltic states and analyzes their impact in detail on Latvia’s lagging. Latvia’s economic starting point after regaining independence because of the collapse of the Soviet Union was at least comparable to its neighbors. Still, after the implementation of liberal reforms towards a free market’ economy and 20 years of operation as an EU full member, Latvia is lagging in growth, prosperity, and innovation. Within the analysis, this scientific paper pays special attention to the three less discussed factors, namely, the impact of post-Soviet mind-set effects as a part of local innovation culture, lasting since regaining independence in 1991; the importance of the availability of talent pull, its density, diversity, and accessibility; and readiness and capability to capture external knowledge and technology adoption. The overall approach is the systemic assessment of the national innovation system and/or innovation ecosystem, trying to understand the differences between these two models. Research is performed by analysis of the performance of the local innovation ecosystem in connection with export- and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) policies. The authors present a novel method for visually representing economic growth and its application in analyzing process development within transitional economic nations. The study uses an analytical and synthetical literature review. It offers a new GDP data visualization method useful for monitoring economic development and forecasting potential economic crises—the outcomes from aggregative literature analysis in a consolidated concept are provided for required talent policy proposals. The post-Soviet mindset is seen as a heritage and devious underdog that has left incredibly diverse consequences on today’s society, power structures, economic growth potential, and the emergence of healthy, well-managed, and sustainable innovation ecosystems. The post-Soviet mindset is a seemingly hidden and, at the same time, an intriguing factor that has a significant impact on the desire to make and implement the right decisions related to innovation, education, and other policies promoting business development. The key outcome of the article is that sociocultural aspects and differences in innovation culture led to a slow-down of Latvia’s economic growth compared to Estonia’s and Lithuania’s slightly more successful economic reforms.