Digital and green transformation is reshaping European tourism, yet significant investment barriers persist among tourism SMEs. This study examines why Portuguese tourism businesses do not invest in the competencies the twin transition demands, even when skills gaps are empirically demonstrable. Drawing on 393 survey responses from accommodation, food and beverage, and travel and tour operations businesses, we show that the dominant barrier is not financial constraint — cited by fewer than one in six non- investors — but the absence of perceived need: 66–67% of non-investing accommodation and travel firms state they do not require green or digital capabilities. This ‘perceptual gap paradox’ — whereby firms self-assess as adequate in domains where Importance- Performance Analysis identifies material gaps — reframes the skills gap from a training supply failure to a managerial awareness failure. The study contributes to the digital transformation readiness literature by providing demand-side empirical evidence on why investment fails to materialise, and offers actionable implications for policymakers, VET providers, and industry associations operating in tourism-dependent economies.

Introduction Sustainable brand communications are widely assumed to motivate greener consumer behavior. Yet this assumption overlooks moral licensing, whereby prior virtuous actions can elevate moral self-concept and increase the likelihood of subsequent ethically questionable behavior. This paper argues that sustainable brands act as underexamined contributors that shape how consumers interpret their actions, thereby influencing the likelihood of subsequent behavioral responses. Methods We develop a conceptual framework through synthesis of the behavioral science literature on moral self-licensing and the sustainable brand communications literature. Results Three contributions emerge. First, we identify four pathways through which sustainable brand communications may activate moral licensing: virtue attribution (framing purchase as a completed moral act), identity conferral (positioning consumers as sustainable persons), effort signaling (emphasizing sacrifice in sustainable choice), and absolution framing (carbon offsets and impact-neutralization messaging). Second, we develop a 2 × 2 typology of sustainable brand archetypes by expected licensing risk—the Virtue Vendor, Systemic Nudger, Identity Merchant, and Sacrifice Brand—highlighting a structural tension whereby stronger sustainable brand identities may, as a theoretical proposition rather than a demonstrated pattern, be particularly likely to generate cross-domain licensing effects (the “Patagonia paradox”). Third, we derive five design principles for licensing-resistant communications: avoid moral closure, decouple identity from purchase, make systemic demands explicit, suppress absolution signals, and actively suppress growth signals. Discussion Licensing-resistant design principles are in structural tension with conventional commercial growth logic, suggesting that voluntary communication reform may be insufficient without institutional arrangements (e.g., purpose trusts, B-Corp governance) that subordinate revenue growth to mission fidelity. While recent regulation (EU Directive 2024/825) addresses absolution framing, other licensing pathways remain unregulated. Sustainable brand communications should aim to open rather than close consumers’ moral accounts, framing each purchase as a partial contribution within an ongoing behavioral commitment.

Purpose

The primary objective of this study is twofold: (1) to analyse how users’ perceived privacy on opinion platforms in the foodservice sector influences their willingness to use/create electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM) content, as well as to examine the relationship between such content and perceived relationship quality; and (2) to assess whether there are significant differences in the means of the variables perceived privacy, e-WOM and perceived relationship quality between foodservice sector users of Google Maps and TripAdvisor platforms.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected from a diverse group of nationals in the Iberian Peninsula during June and July, 2025. A structured survey was designed to measure the key variables of the study. The collected responses were subsequently analysed using variance-based structural equation modelling (SEM), with partial least squares (PLS) employed as the statistical method for data analysis.

Findings

The study’s results reveal significant differences between Google Maps and TripAdvisor regarding privacy perceptions related to the generation of e-WOM content related to perceived relationship quality in the foodservice sector. Furthermore, it has been found that a greater sense of privacy perceived by users is associated with greater participation in e-WOM activities.

Originality/value

This work makes a significant contribution to academic literature by addressing a gap in the comparative analysis of the most widely used opinion platforms. Moreover, the findings offer practical implications for the management of the restaurants, providing valuable recommendations on how to improve the user experience and foster trust in digital environments for the foodservice sector companies.

This study proposes and tests an integrated model of marketing insight–a brand’s ability to
understand and respond to how consumers think, feel, act, and derive meaning–comprising three
theoretically grounded dimensions: psychological insight (attachment, self-congruity, brand
trust), behavioural insight (habit, participatory behaviours), and creative insight (perceived
creativity, narrative authenticity, symbolic resonance). Each dimension is theoretically mapped
onto one of the three constitutive components of Consumer Brand Engagement (CBE) theory,
ensuring coherence between the antecedent system and the mediating construct. A cross-sectional
consumer survey (N = 462) was analysed using PLS-SEM. All three insight dimensions
significantly predict brand engagement, which in turn predicts loyalty, with the model explaining
79.2% of variance in engagement and 72.7% in loyalty. Critically, the pathway from insight to
loyalty is contingent: creative insight affects loyalty exclusively through engagement (full
mediation; VAF = 54.9%), while psychological and behavioural insights retain significant direct
routes to loyalty (partial mediation), with behavioural insight exhibiting the strongest direct path
(β = 0.480). This contingency finding advances CBE theory by demonstrating that engagement is
not a universal relational intermediary–a nuance that prior fragmented, single-antecedent models
were structurally unable to detect. The study reconceptualises marketing insight as a measurable
antecedent system, empirically differentiates habitual loyalty from engaged loyalty, and provides
managers with a diagnostic framework for balancing psychological, behavioural, and creative
brand strategies across industry contexts including technology brands, fast-moving consumer
goods, and fashion and lifestyle categories.

In the current dynamic work environment, the ability to effectively assess remote work in project management is more crucial than ever. As organizations embrace flexible work arrangements, understanding the nuances of managing remote teams can enhance productivity, collaboration, and overall project success. However, remote work also has some disadvantages in project management, particularly regarding communication, collaboration, engagement, and security. Many project managers are increasingly leading partially or totally remote teams, but they continue to manage them ad-hoc or go by “instinct”. This paper aims to help organizations, project managers, and workers overcome the difficulties and enhance the opportunities linked to remote work. So, this study suggests that the first step should be to assess the main characteristics of remote working using properly validated scales and subsequent actions according to the results. In addition, it presents and characterizes in a single document a set of scales for evaluating remote work (enhancing scientific validation and dimensions), compares their psychometric strength and builds a first selection matrix linking each scale to common remote working strategies. To conclude, introduce a proposal with sequential steps that will help project managers improve the remote work of their teams.