In a constant developing digital era, marked by hyperconnectivity and informational abundance, the ability of Gen Z to concentrate and engage seems to be decreasing. However, TikTok, through its algorithms and social rewarding, remains the main favourite platform where individuals can consume and produce digital content. Based on validation, entertainment and its participatory nature, TikTok creates an ideal environment for Gen Z to reach the flow state, by receiving instant feedback, balancing trends and bonuses and interacting with others. This study aims to identify the latent variables that describe the flow state while scrolling on TikTok by Gen Z users and how these dimensions relate with concepts as Online Impulse buying (OIB), Sense of Belonging (SB) and Electronic Word-of-Mouth (EWOM). The methodology implies quantitative research, using a questionnaire which consists of 21 items outlining the multidimensionality of flow state. Data were collected from a number of 2589 Gen Z TikTok users and analysed in SPSS software. The findings show that the identified flow dimensions like perceived control, has a strong correlation with variable online impulse buying, while telepresence and enjoyment have a moderate correlation with other two variables – sense of belonging and electronic word-of-mouth. The results of the study highlight that Gen Zs’ flow on TikTok appears as a multidimensional construct, representing an outcome of perceived control, telepresence and social enjoyment.
This study examines the relationship between marketing intensity and financial performance of listed insurance companies in Nigeria over a twelve-year period (2010–2021). Anchored on the resource-based view (RBV) theory, the market orientation theory, and Tobin’s q theory, the study employs an ex post facto research design with secondary data drawn from the annual reports and accounts of seventeen (17) listed insurance firms on the Nigerian Exchange Group (NGX). Marketing intensity is operationalised through three dimensions: advertising intensity (ADI), selling and distribution intensity (SDI), and total marketing expenditure ratio (TMER). Financial performance is measured by return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE), Tobin’s q (TQ), and net profit margin (NPM). Panel data regression techniques, including pooled OLS, fixed effects, and random effects models, are applied, with the Hausman specification test used to select the preferred estimator. The Driscoll-Kraay standard errors and the Generalised Method of Moments (GMM) are also employed to address heteroscedasticity, cross-sectional dependence, and endogeneity concerns. The findings reveal that advertising intensity exerts a statistically significant positive effect on ROA (β = 0.142, p < 0.01), ROE (β = 0.207, p < 0.05), and Tobin’s q (β = 0.318, p < 0.01), but an insignificant effect on NPM. Selling and distribution intensity demonstrates mixed results across performance indicators, while TMER is consistently positive and significant across all four performance proxies. The results are robust to alternative estimation strategies and survive a battery of diagnostic tests. The study concludes that marketing investment is a value-generating resource for Nigerian insurance companies and recommends that management prioritise strategic, data-driven marketing expenditure to sustain competitive advantage in an increasingly deregulated financial services environment.
This paper preseents findings of a study to identify challenges facing a nursing deputy director, recorded in a personal reflective diary during the 12-Day Israel-Iran War in 2025, during which nursing administration staff has played a critical role in managing this crisis. A deputy director of nursing describes these experiences in her diary. The study is conducted according to qualitative methods, documenting data in a reflective diary and content analyzing them. The findings have yielded five core themes: interpersonal staff communication, management fears, feelings of guilt in management, home support resources, and decision-making at the nursing deputy director level during wartime. The conclusions illustrate that nursing administrators play an essential role in managing challenges during wartime, and it is essential to invest in management training programs for various crises. The paper recommends a continued research of the challenges and decisions-making nursing administrators face in crises, particularly those related to war.
This study examines how brands remain visible and discoverable as consumers shift toward AI-powered search tools, with a focus on the strategic implications of Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) for brand management. The growing adoption of large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity as everyday information sources is fundamentally changing how consumers find and evaluate brands, in ways that traditional search engine optimization (SEO) frameworks fail to address. The study employed a conceptual research design, combining purposive literature synthesis with secondary data analysis of industry behavioural analytics encompassing over 1.96 million LLM-mediated consumer sessions. The analysis reveals that LLM citation is driven by a distinct set of content and authority signals that diverge substantially from classical SEO ranking factors, including content evidentiality, earned media breadth, and semantic entity consistency. Key findings indicate that LLM-referred visitors convert at rates up to nine times higher than organic search visitors, yet only 16% of brands systematically monitor their AI search presence. Based on the synthesised evidence, this study proposes a five-dimension GEO Readiness Audit framework and discusses implications for brand strategy, content governance, and marketing channel allocation.
This article analyzes the perception of brand equity of the Institución Universitaria de Envigado (IUE) from the perspective of its stakeholders in the Valle de Aburrá, using the Brand Equity Audit (BEA) model proposed by Aaker. Employing a qualitative, descriptive, data was collected through workshops, interviews, focus groups, and gamified sessions with 270 participants, including students, alumni, faculty, administrative staff, government entities, and external audiences. The study identifies how the BEA dimensions of brand loyalty, brand awareness, perceived quality, and brand associations shape the institutional image of the IUE within the regional academic context. The findings highlight that teaching quality, economic accessibility, and geographical proximity are positively valued as distinctive elements. However, the study also reveals challenges related to brand visibility, strategic communication, infrastructure, second-language development, and inter-institutional coordination. It concludes that the IUE holds a strong symbolic value among its internal stakeholders, grounded in a sense of gratitude, but requires greater external projection and a more cohesive brand narrative to improve its regional and national positioning. This article offers significant insights for strategic brand management in the higher education sector, suggesting that the BEA model is a valuable tool for evaluating university brands from a multidimensional perspective.
