Khurram Ajaz Khan

This study contributes to the literature by offering insights over the relationship between job satisfaction and work stress with employees’ motivation among travel agencies in India. The paper aims to determine the impact of job satisfaction and work stress on employees’ motivation level with a specific focus on the moderating impact of employees’ expertise and marital status in the context of travel agencies in Southern India. A survey was conducted over employees of travel agencies in Southern India by adopting scales from the extant studies, and data were analyzed using structural equation modeling through Smart PLS. The outcome of the study reveals that job satisfaction has a strong significant effect on employees’ motivation, unlike work stress and employees’ expertise has a partial significant moderating effect on the relationship between work stress and motivation. The study stressed much about the combined effects of the mediators. The present study has tested the new composite scale to measure the overall motivational level, unlike the previous studies. The survey was conducted between November 2019 and December 2019 and entails 164 respondents, the majority of the subjects are millennials between 18 and 35 years, with 43.3% having master’s degree, all were found to be pre-qualified for the investigation.

This study investigates the direct and indirect effects of financial capability, financial advice, financial anxiety, and the use of an electronic payment system (EPS) on financial satisfaction. In the current era of digitalization and financial innovations, it seems quite unlikely that an individual remains unaffected by its use. The research was conducted in northern India on individual level using a partial least square structural equation modeling statistical technique to analyze responses collected from a close-ended questionnaire using a 5-point Likert scale. The results show that financial capability, financial advice, financial anxiety, and EPS usage have a direct positive effect on an individual’s financial satisfaction. EPS usage plays a significant mediating role, as all the financial constructs depict a positive effect on financial satisfaction via EPS use. These findings contribute to the literature by offering an understanding of the determinants of financial satisfaction in the context of a low-income developing country, as well as the vital role of using EPS in an individual’s financial satisfaction in today’s digitally driven era. The results of this study could be a useful factor for policymakers and digital service providers for implementation and control.

Acknowledgement
“This paper was supported by Internal Grant Agency of FaME TBU No. IGA/FaME/2019/002”

Financial decision-making through social media blogs and opinions is an area not much explored by the researchers. This study intends to understand the perceived usefulness of social media in financial decision-making amongst individuals and groups based on demographic similarities and social parameters. This paper aims to understand the perception of various subgroups in society within the large population sample. The paper applies Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis non-parametric tests to examine the proposed research questions from a dataset of 201 individuals residing in two most populated states in Northern India. The analysis reveals the differences between different groups categorized based on generation, financially dependent, educational background, occupation, and geographical location. In terms of social media’s perceived utility in financial decision-making, results suggest that segregated groups based on cohort generation and occupation have significant variations relative to others. Based on the educational context, all other segments, number of financially dependent, geographical location, were found insignificant. The novelty of the paper lies in investigating the perceived usefulness of social media in financial decision-making amongst various homogenous groups based on demographics in a developing country. The study outcomes can be useful for the financial service providers and social media platforms in comprehending consumer behavior to devise an innovative marketing strategy for financial products targeting specific segments through enhanced coordination between them.

Acknowledgment
This paper was supported by Internal Grant Agency of FaME TBU No. IGA/FaME/2019/002.

Type of the article: Research Article

Abstract
Crypto-assets attract interest as alternatives to centralized financial systems, yet adoption remains limited in advanced economies. This study explores how technological characteristics and human motivations affect adoption intentions, using Czechia as the context of a developed economy. The study applies a dual-stage framework- partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to test hypotheses on data from 387 Czech adults via face-to-face questionnaires (March-October 2023), and artificial neural network (ANN) analysis to rank factor importance. PLS-SEM findings show Effort Expectancy as the strongest predictor of adoption intention, while Compatibility drives Performance Expectancy, which indirectly drives adoption intention. Relative Advantage significantly shapes Effort Expectancy and indirectly affects adoption intention. However, ANN sensitivity analysis shows technological characteristics dominate overall, with Compatibility showing the highest normalized importance (91.5%), followed by Relative Advantage (79.9%) and Effort Expectancy (50.9%). These results show technological characteristics and human motivations both contribute to adoption intentions, with prominence depending on analytical perspective- ease of use was the strongest direct predictor in PLS-SEM, while Compatibility dominated overall predictive importance in ANN. This indicates that in a stable, resilient financial environment, digital proficiency does not translate into tolerance for complexity; rather, adoption intentions depend on the technology’s ability to align effortlessly with established daily habits. Consequently, the study suggests fostering adoption in developed economies requires reducing structural complexity rather than merely increasing digital literacy.