Emotions and Resilience in Saudi Women’s Digital Entrepreneurship during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Young adults' sought gratifications from, and perceptions of food advertising by, social media influencers: a qualitative approach

BACKGROUND

This study aims to explore young adults' sought gratifications from social media influencers and whether they are exposed to food advertising by influencers. Further, it aims to understand how young individuals perceive food advertisements by social media influencers.

METHODS

This qualitative study was conducted on 17 students from two public universities-King Abdul Aziz and Jeddah universities-located in the City of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, using in-depth, face-to-face, and semi-structured interviews. The participants were active users of social media platforms who followed at least one influencer. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. The COREQ guidelines for reporting qualitative research (see Additional file 2) were followed when stating the findings.

RESULTS

The findings reveal ten themes, that is, seven gratifications sought by young adults-broadening knowledge, perceived usefulness, self-improvement, boosting positivity, fostering morale, reinforcing inspiration, and passing time/enjoyment-and three themes (i.e. repeated, authentic, and unhealthy) that describe how Saudi young adults perceive food advertising.

CONCLUSION

This study contributes to social media influencer marketing by identifying the factors that motivate young consumers to follow influencers, and it elucidates the extent to which young adults are exposed to food marketing, adding to the body of literature on food advertising.

Characteristics of Collective Resilience and Its Influencing Factors from the Perspective of Psychological Emotion: A Case Study of COVID-19 in China

Collective resilience is the ability of human beings to adapt and collectively cope with crises in adversity. Emotional expression is the core element with which to characterize the psychological dimension of collective resilience. This research proposed a stage model of collective resilience based on the temporal evolution of the public opinions of COVID-19 in China's first anti-pandemic cycle; using data from hot searches and commentaries on Sina Weibo, the changes in the emotional patterns of social groups are revealed through analyses of the sentiments expressed in texts. A grounded theory approach is used to elucidate the factors influencing collective resilience. The research results show that collective resilience during the pandemic exhibited an evolutionary process that could be termed, "preparation-process-recovery". Analyses of expressed sentiments reveal an evolutionary pattern of "positive emotion prevailing-negative emotion appearing-positive emotion recovering Collective resilience from a psycho-emotional perspective is the result of "basic cognition-intermediary condition-consequence" positive feedback, in which the basic cognition is expressed as will embeddedness and the intermediary conditions include the subject behavior and any associated derived behavioral characteristics and spiritual connotation. These results are significant both theoretically and practically with regard to the reconstruction of collective resilience when s' force majeure' event occur.

Knowledge management to foster the entrepreneurship activity: case for Saudi Arabia

It is becoming a topic of increasing significance on a global scale to encourage students in educational institutions of higher learning to behave in an entrepreneurial manner. It is especially true in the countries that make up the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region, where there is a greater pressing need to cultivate and develop college students into business owners who can financially support themselves through their own businesses. Since only several studies considered the impact of education on aspiring business owners in fast-developing countries like Saudi Arabia, this study helps fill a gap in the existing body of academic research. The primary objective of this research is to evaluate the impact that participation in educational programs about entrepreneurship has on the possibility that college students will be engaged in entrepreneurial activities in the future. It is significant to give education’s central role in cultivating and encouraging entrepreneurship. This investigation utilized the theory of planned behaviour as its primary framework. A convenience sample was used to collect responses to a questionnaire that was administered online. The recruitment process resulted in the participation of a total of 250 individuals who had previously attended institutions in Saudi Arabia and engaged in entrepreneurship education. The findings indicated that an individual’s attitude toward entrepreneurship and their assessment of their level of behavioural control (perceived entrepreneurship abilities) significantly impact an individual’s intention to participate in entrepreneurial activity. On the other hand, subjective norms do not significantly impact the intention to engage in entrepreneurial activity. The most noteworthy finding is that the extent to which students aspire to launch their own businesses is significantly influenced by entrepreneurship education. An explanation of the study’s limitations and some suggestions for more research were presented and discussed further. The study is limited to participation in entrepreneurship education. However, additional research investigating both the quality and quantity of education is also advised.