Food insecurity and household food waste paradoxically coexist in South Africa, particularly within informal settlements where poverty, infrastructure deficits, and socio economic challenges exacerbate the issue. This study examines the patterns and drivers of household food waste in four informal communities in the Fezile Dabi District, Free State province. A structured questionnaire was administered to 433 households using a descriptive quantitative design. Fruits, dairy, and carbohydrate staples were the most frequently wasted items, with contributing factors including poor storage, limited food literacy, unreliable electricity, and household preferences. Although 85% of participants had cooking experience, few applied consistent waste reduction practices. Liquid waste, especially dairy, and discarded prepared foods such as rice and vegetables were common. The findings highlight both behavioural and infrastructural causes, underscoring the need for integrated, community-based interventions. The study contributes evidence to guide local policy, education, and SDG-aligned strategies to reduce food waste and enhance food security. Its significance lies in addressing gaps in under-resourced communities, supporting policy development, informing targeted education and behaviour change initiatives, and advancing progress toward Sustainable Development Goal 12.3.

Background: The development of e-commerce has been reported to influence consumer behavior in conducting transactions. In this context, direct interaction between buyers and sellers was very limited. Therefore, the seller's reputation was the primary factor used by consumers to assess the credibility and reliability of the e-commerce platform. Purpose: This research aimed to explore the influence of seller reputation on electronic word of mouth (e-WOM) with trust and satisfaction as mediators. Method: An online survey method was adopted, targeting a sample of 300 consumers who had experience transacting on e-commerce platforms in the Greater Jakarta area, and was determined using purposive sampling. Furthermore, the Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling statistical method provided answers to the research hypothesis. Findings: The results showed that all research hypotheses were accepted. Trust and satisfaction are complementary mediators of the relationship between seller reputation and e-WOM. Conclusions: Based on the results, seller reputation has a positive impact on e-WOM and strengthens the e-commerce ecosystem. Research implication: Sellers who proactively manage consumer reviews increase satisfaction and minimize the impact of negative e-WOM. For e-commerce platforms, implementing a stricter verification system for sellers provided credibility assurance.

Background: Companies should leverage the rapid growth of online shopping in Indonesia to enhance customer experiences and boost sales. Live streaming plays a crucial role in influencing customer behavior, making it a valuable strategy for increasing purchasing interest. Purpose: This study examined how purchase intention in e-commerce is affected by utilitarian and hedonic values, mediated by trust in the seller. Method: A quantitative approach employed purposive sampling to select 210 participants as the primary data source for this study. The collected data were evaluated utilizing a five-point Likert scale and analyzed using the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Findings: The findings revealed that utilitarian value had no impact on trust in the seller of live-streamed fashion products on Shopee, whereas hedonic value had a significant impact. Additionally, the factor with the greatest impact on purchase intention was trust in the seller. In contrast, purchase intention was significantly influenced by hedonic value, which was mediated by trust in the seller. Conclusions: Trust in the seller is crucial in shaping purchase intentions within live streaming e-commerce, mainly when influenced by hedonic value. This highlights the importance of brands strengthening their utilitarian value while prioritizing emotional engagement to foster customer trust and drive sales. Research implication: The Theoretical contribution of this study lies in integrating the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) with the concept of customer perceived value (CPV), which has rarely been studied in previous literature. The practical implications for e-commerce businesses is the importance of establishing trust in the seller to strengthen purchase intentions.

This study investigates how lecturers in Botswana view the abilities and proficiencies of their students studying culinary arts. The culinary arts sector greatly influences Botswana's economy and cultural fabric, yet little is known about how teachers view students’ readiness for entry into this field. This study clarifies the viewpoints of lecturers teaching culinary arts programs in Botswana with quantitative methodologies, such as closed-ended questionnaires. Using simple random sampling, data were collected from both hospitality and culinary arts lecturers. This study analysed data using the Special Package for Social Sciences (SPSS®). SPSS was used to recognise correlations, trends, and statistical significance. This research identified possible areas for development in culinary arts education by examining their opinions about the strengths and shortcomings of students in terms of practical abilities, theoretical knowledge, creativity, flexibility, and professionalism. The main objective of this study was to investigate gaps in culinary skills training. A secondary objective was to determine training methods that can be employed in culinary arts education. The results of this study will improve knowledge of Botswana’s culinary education system as well as curriculum design and educational policies that aim to enhance the abilities and competencies of the country’s future culinary professionals. The study’s findings demonstrate that culinary arts education equips chefs and kitchen employees with superior cooking skills, awareness of food safety, and the capacity to produce dishes of the highest quality.

Background: The presence of Social Media Food Influencers (SMFIs) has created a new landscape in local food tourism. Despite extensive studies focusing on the crucial role of influencer marketing through the lens of parasocial relationships, how SMFIs can foster these relationships and consequently influence their followers' intentions to purchase local food remains underexplored. Purpose: This research examines how the parasocial relationship between SMFIs and their followers influences the latter's intention to purchase local food. Method: This research employed the quantitative approach. It involved 439 active Instagram users who follow SMFIs as research respondents. They were recruited using the purposive sampling technique. Additionally, using Smart-PLS software, the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (SEM-PLS) was applied to statistically test the data and the research hypotheses. Findings: This research reveals that influencers' content value (informative value), interaction strategy (interactivity), and credibility (expertise and attractiveness) positively and significantly influence the parasocial relationship between followers and social media food influencers (SMFIs). The results also indicate that this parasocial relationship influences followers' intention to purchase local food. Conclusion: This study highlights the critical role that food influencers play in fostering parasocial relationships, which significantly influence followers’ intentions to purchase local food. The findings reveal that the effectiveness of food influencers is largely contingent upon their ability to engage followers through informative content, interactive communication, and the establishment of perceived expertise. Research implication: The research findings offer significant implications for tourism marketers and local food business managers. Social media food influencers can be regarded as influential promoters of local food, enhancing tourists’ interest and purchase intentions through the parasocial relationships facilitated by social media.

The current challenging economic environment and move towards healthier choices are causing behavioural changes among consumers as they are shifting towards more economical purchases and perceived healthier chocolate products. To match consumers’ recent expectations and stay competitive in the local confectionary market, the determination of sensory attributes of representative products by a trained panel provides key information for product development and marketing. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to determine the sensory profile of selected milk chocolates applying the RATA (rate-all-that-apply) methodology. A sweet aroma and flavour, cocoa powder and milky flavour as well as a creamy mouthfeel were moderately to very experienced for all the chocolate samples. The extracted factors for the milk chocolates included mouthfeel (texture), bitterness and sweetness. Chocolates 1 (artificially sweetened), 3 (imported indulgence) and 6 (everyday luxury) were identified as representative sensory profiles for milk chocolate as they varied between low, medium and high-intensity ratings for various attributes and could serve as a prototype for future product development. An understanding of the intensity of sensory attributes within this food category could assist the local confectionary market towards extending product offerings by including more economical and healthier products.

Background: Student interest in entrepreneurial pursuits remains low, despite the significant contributions of entrepreneurship to economic growth. Purpose: This study investigates the factors influencing IPB students' interest in adopting AI-based entrepreneurship learning through the lens of design thinking, emphasizing the role of communication methods and their impact on motivation and attitudes. Methods: This study adopts a mixed-method design, combining quantitative and qualitative approaches. Quantitative data were collected via an online survey from 173 IPB students, with 166 valid responses after data cleaning. Quantitative analysis was conducted using descriptive statistics (SPSS 25) and Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The qualitative aspect involved a SCAMPER analysis within the design thinking framework to explore AI integration in entrepreneurship education. The PICOS framework was applied to explore the factors influencing AI adoption in higher education comprehensively. This mixed-method approach provides a holistic understanding of AI adoption in educational contexts. Findings: Results indicate that learning motivation significantly affects students' intentions to engage with AI-based systems, positively impacting attitudes toward AI. Perceived ease of use also positively influences learning motivation and perceived usefulness, although perceived usefulness does not directly impact learning motivation. Additionally, interpersonal interactions and mass media positively influence attitudes and perceived usefulness, while awareness does not have a significant effect. Conclusion: Expanding AI adoption in entrepreneurship education requires strategic communication, mainly focusing on Design Thinking’s empathize phase to understand student challenges. By iteratively proposing AI tools through the prototype phase, institutions can develop user-friendly, engaging solutions tailored to student needs, fostering higher adoption and engagement in entrepreneurship learning. Research implication: These insights suggest that targeted communication strategies, including design thinking principles, can support broader AI adoption, enhance students’ entrepreneurial learning experiences, and foster a new generation of tech-savvy entrepreneurs.

Background: The parent-child relationship plays a crucial role in facilitating financial socialisation and has been found to influence students' financial behaviour. Research on this topic, however, remains scarce despite the prevalence of poor financial literacy and risky financial behaviour among students in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. This study limited parental financial socialisation practices to financial teaching. Purpose: This study will investigate the role of parent-child relationship on parental financial teaching and financial behaviour. Methods: The study adopted a quantitative research design, and primary data was collected from 360 students at Eastern Cape University using a closed-end questionnaire. In addition, correlation and multiple regression analyses were used to test the study's hypothesis. Findings: The results show that the parent-child relationship significantly influences parental financial teaching and financial behaviour. Furthermore, parental financial teaching mediates the role of the parent-child relationship on financial behaviour. The results show that students who have a close relationship with parents in which parents show love and acceptance are more receptive to parental teaching on financial matters and thus, in turn, parental financial teaching influences students' financial behaviour. Conclusion: Therefore, the quality of parent-child relationships is an important factor influencing the success of parental financial socialisation, which, in turn, improves students' financial outcomes. Research implication: The implication for financial education is that parents should be involved in financial education programmes and tasked with the responsibility of guiding their children's financial behaviour. This study makes valuable contributions

Background: Online Food Delivery (OFD) services increased after the COVID-19 pandemic. However, post-pandemic repurchase intentions on Indonesian OFD platforms such as GoFood, GrabFood, and ShopeeFood have declined. To understand the success factors for OFD service acceptance, this study employed a modified Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) approach. Purpose: This study aimed to determine the factors influencing repurchase intention, namely perceived price, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and service quality mediated by trust and consumer satisfaction among OFD platform consumers in Indonesia. Method: The study employed a quantitative approach to investigate the causal relationships between variables. A questionnaire was distributed to 724 online food delivery (OFD) consumers in several big cities of Indonesia, including Jabodetabek, Bandung, Surabaya, Medan, Makassar, Balikpapan, and Yogyakarta. Respondents were selected using quota sampling. Structural equation modeling was used to test the research hypotheses and empirically investigate the factors influencing repurchase intention mediated by consumer satisfaction and trust among OFD platform consumers in Indonesia. Findings: This study revealed that perceived price, perceived usefulness, ease of use, service quality, customer satisfaction, and trust influence repurchase intention. Among these factors, perceived usefulness is the most significant predictor of customer repurchase intention. In addition, trust mediates perceived price and repurchase intention, while customer satisfaction mediates the relationship between perceived usefulness, ease of use, service quality, and repurchase intention. Conclusions: These findings suggest that post-COVID-19, by understanding the factors that influence repurchase intention (perceived price, perceived usefulness, ease of use, service quality, trust, and customer satisfaction), OFDs can increase their sales. Research implication: The desire to repurchase through OFDs can be achieved through affordable product prices, having a communication plan that makes customers feel valued when using the website, implementing advertising strategies to make the website easy to use, fast and quality responses, and attractive visual features and designs.

The issue of plastic waste is a serious social, economic, and cultural issue. Many efforts have been made to reduce the use of disposable food containers and the environmental impact of plastic waste. This study aims to provide an overview of pro-environmental behavior in the context of the daily use of reusable cups. The literature review evaluated 53 scientific papers from Scopus, Publish or Perish and citation searches, released from 2014 to 2024, to analyze drivers, mediating factors, moderating factors, and outcomes related to the daily use of reusable containers. The study identifies key contextual, situational, psychological, and demographic factors influencing the daily use of reusable containers. It also highlights enablers and barriers to adopting this habit, such as environmental messaging, social norms, and financial incentives. The research provides a comprehensive overview of the enabler and barrier factors as well as other factors that influence the use of reusable containers and suggests that the impact of these factors can be understood through the stimuli-organism-response framework. Our findings add to the understanding of drivers that encourage pro-environmental behavior. Policymakers can use these insights to design more effective interventions to promote reusable container use, such as implementing financial incentives or stricter regulations on single-use plastics. Businesses can use these findings to align their marketing strategies with consumer preferences and behaviors related to environmental sustainability.