With the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and the increasing importance of e-commerce, the study of online consumer behavior is of particular relevance. The purpose of this study was to form a methodological approach to assess the relationships and the level of influence of the factors activating the purchasing behavior of online consumers against the background of the COVID-19 pandemic. The research methodology was based on the transformation of Cattell’s questionnaire and the implementation of correlation analysis. To determine the predisposition of online consumer behavior at the time of making a purchase decision, this study used the questionnaire method. The survey was conducted among online shoppers in the top 10 countries in terms of e-commerce market growth. The scientific contribution is the proposed methodological toolkit to assess the purchasing behavior of online consumers, which identifies the most influential factors in their purchasing behavior and provides an opportunity to assess the dynamics of their activity during the study period, to identify key trends and determine changes in their behavior. The research revealed what changes in online consumer buying behavior are typical in the COVID-19 pandemic. The impact of consumer awareness and experience has increased. Online consumers have become more experienced, which has influenced the activity of their buying behavior. This study proved the shifting influence of online consumer purchasing behavior factors during the pandemic. The increasing importance of the speed of decision making by consumers when purchasing goods and services online was determined.

TGA transcription factors (TFs) exhibit basal resistance in Arabidopsis, but susceptibility to a pathogen attack in tomatoes; however, their roles in soybean (Glycine max) to Soybean mosaic virus (SMV) are unknown. In this study, 27 TGA genes were isolated from a SMV hyper-susceptible soybean NN1138-2, designated GmTGA1~GmTGA27, which were clustered into seven phylogenetic groups. The expression profiles of GmTGAs showed that the highly expressed genes were mainly in Groups I, II, and VII under non-induction conditions, while out of the 27 GmTGAs, 19 responded to SMV-induction. Interestingly, in further transient N. benthamiana-SMV pathosystem assay, all the 19 GmTGAs overexpressed did not promote SMV infection in inoculated leaves, but they exhibited basal resistance except one without function. Among the 18 functional ones, GmTGA8 and GmTGA19, with similar motif distribution, nuclear localization sequence and interaction proteins, showed a rapid response to SMV infection and performed better than the others in inhibiting SMV multiplication. This finding suggested that GmTGA TFs may support basal resistance to SMV even from a hyper-susceptible source. What the mechanism of the genes (GmTGA8, GmTGA19, etc.) with basal resistance to SMV is and what their potential for the future improvement of resistance to SMV in soybeans is, are to be explored.

In the current era of globalization, increases in marketing and advertising have enhanced customer knowledge and confidence. This study aims to investigate the effects of altruistic value, subjective knowledge and consumer self-confidence on green purchase attitudes and behaviour utilizing a cross-sectional data collection from hotel customers. First of all, the reliability and validity of the data were ensured, and later structural equational modelling was applied by AMOS. The results highlighted that consumer self-confidence, altruistic value and subjective knowledge have a positive and significant effect on green purchase behaviour and attitudes. The results also revealed that green purchase attitudes significantly mediate the relationships between green purchase behaviour and consumer self-confidence, altruistic value and subject knowledge. The study focused only on customers searching for a hotel and was limited to China. Future studies can use a similar model by focusing on any other country.

Pakistan, excepting external issues, has been enduring from chronic problems, that is, political-military anarchy, bad-governance, interprovincial conflicts, social divisions, sectarian influence, and terrorism resulting negatively on inland politics, economics, socioculture, and techno-industry (PEST). This amplified domestic instability and governmental dependency toward external support. Appropriately, China’s recent FDI for CPEC is aimed to revive Pakistan’s energy, transport, infrastructure, industries and also procure China’s energy and trade transmission, and opportunities. So far, some studies separately have reported favorable and unfavorable effects emerged between projects and local PEST domains. Apart from numerous advantages, the drawbacks are also found many that are not limited to institutional concerns, project misappropriations, ethnic and provincial reservations, opposition, and targeted terrorism. Therefore, current study systematically revolves around exploring, comparing, and analyzing the cross-impact among CPEC, PEST, and Security concomitantly. Employing qualitative interviews, all-round literature, and statistical index datasets, study determines that the security risk is critical for Chinese manpower whereas the concerns of inter-government, projects, institutions, civil-military, and ethnicities are somehow manageable. Results show positive trend in Pakistan’s many PEST indicators except political violence, corruption, security costs and threats, electricity costs and supply, debts, imports, and forestry that are in continuous negative impact. Moreover, opposition, trust-deficit, and attacks against CPEC are yet unchanged factors. The study, therefore, argues that if negative impact factors are recognized for elimination, the CPEC as a result will improve the both host and investor environments with promised socioeconomic advantages, and minimize challenges including terrorism. In last, study also suggests various practical and policy implications.

In this era of competition, the service sector is highly concerned about retaining customers and focusing on factors that can enhance customer loyalty. Therefore, this research aimed to investigate the influence of corporate social responsibility on customer loyalty. Moreover, it examined the mediating role of co-creation and customer trust in the relationship between corporate social responsibility and customer loyalty. The explanatory and cross-sectional research design was utilized in this study while primary data were gathered from customers of Chinese commercial banks and 235 responses were gathered. To achieve the research objectives a model of six hypotheses was developed and tested via structural equation modelling by using AMOS 24. It was found that corporate social responsibility significantly and positively affects client loyalty. Moreover, it has an indirect impact on client loyalty via co-creation and client trust. The indirect effect is stronger than the direct effect which suggests that implementing co-creation activities and increasing client trust can make it simple for socially responsible organizations to improve client loyalty. Furthermore, the results revealed that there is a positive and significant direct impact of co-creation on customer trust. The study is limited to the service sector and has ignored product brands that require more investigation. Therefore, in the future, the study model can be replicated to compare product and service brands.