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In March 2020, we witnessed enormous turbulence in the global markets caused by the escalation of problems related to the new medical phenomenon of coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. High fluctuations of indices were observed during the pandemic, but the crisis caused by fighting the virus was also reflected in firms’ essentials. The uncertainty provoked by the pandemic in the real economy also influenced listed companies. Some of them were forced to restrict or cease their operations temporarily. One of the impacts that this caused relatively quickly was on dividend decisions. Listed companies that had paid dividends for many years faced a difficult decision on whether they should still pay them or instead restrict or cease issuing dividends. The purpose of such actions would be to build a capital and liquidity buffer.

Business activities’ significance in economies worldwide underscores the importance of studying companies’ operations to determine their managers’ ability to adapt to changes arising from globalization. Business organizations and management aspects, however, include such a wide range of factors needing analysis that these variables must first be defined and the most relevant factors selected. This study sought to deepen the existing knowledge about managers’ preferences regarding the use of communication to generate employee participation in strategic business management processes. This topic is of particular interest in the Canary Islands, which is a complex area from an economic perspective due to its geographical fragmentation and distance from the main production centres that stimulate trade. These islands also depend significantly on external supplies of essential goods and have limited industrial and agricultural sectors but a quite dominant service sector.

In recent years, the fund shortage faced by worldwide rural economic development has become a common plight, which cannot be resolved through peasants’ saving and loaning behaviours with rural financial institutions as intermediary agents. Agriculture can hardly be the credit object because of the long agricultural production cycle, slow capital operation, short and concentrated labour time, partially low labour efficiency, and strong dependence on the natural environment (Bianco, 2020). Thus, rural economic development lacks external financing paths (Donou-Adonsou & Sylwester, 2017; Liu & Liu, 2020). The situation is not optimistic in China, either. In the initial years after the founding of New China, financial policies were formulated to solve rural capital constraints and support agricultural development. Since 1978, rural financial development successively experienced four major phases: development recovery, expansion, supplementation and perfection, and deepened reform and innovation.

Since it was proposed by Satoshi Nakamoto (2008) at the end of 2008, Bitcoin, as an alternative to conventional currencies, has quickly gained wide attention from the media, investors and scholars. This attention is attributed to its transparency, simplicity, increasing popularity, decentralized peer-to-peer system and self-regulation. There is a growing interest in studying the general dynamics of Bitcoin market. For instance, diversification was measured (Brière et al., 2015; Bouri et al., 2017; Urquhart & Zhang, 2019; Chaim & Laurini, 2018; Lahmiri et al., 2018), statistical properties and market efficiency were examined (Bariviera et al., 2017; Carbone et al., 2004; Martinez et al., 2018; McCarthy, 2009; Symitsi & Chalvatzis, 2018), liquidity and microstructure were explored (Koutmos, 2018; Dyhrberg et al., 2018; Donier & Bonart, 2015), speculative bubble and risk were investigated (Osterrieder & Lorenz, 2017; Bouoiyour et al., 2015; Klein et al., 2018), regulation was studied (Dwyer, 2015; Tasca & Liu, 2018; Katsiampa, 2017) whilst optimal trading was scrutinized (Ajaz & Kumar, 2018; Li & Tourin, 2016; Yi et al., 2018).

The hotel industry has turned out to be one of the most competitive industries in the world. The competition among hotels forced them to increase the quality of services and improve the relationship with customers. Today business development is fast (Wijaya et al., 2021), and hotels require to deal with ongoing monitoring across a variety of service areas in order to improve the services at the best levels. The service quality is known as a fundamental determinant in differentiating service providers (Mey et al., 2006). It is an important element in customers’ initial decision-making, and their return intention. However, in today’s business world, hotels may face major challenges, such as frequent changes in customers’ preferences, and demands that are more complex. Therefore, there is room for this question of whether the perceived service quality is a sufficient stimulant to retain a relationship in a long term?