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The purpose of this paper is to empirically demonstrate an effective method for assessing how servicescape attributes shape consumer well-being and to highlight the value of importance-performance analysis (IPA) within a services context.

This study surveyed frequent visitors to a travel destination to determine their perceived importance of and satisfaction with servicescape attributes. The responses were analyzed using a series of importance-performance analyses to determine the impact of each servicescape attribute on consumer well-being.

Key servicescape attributes contributing to the well-being of frequent visitors to a destination were identified. For example, weather; friendly residents; restaurants; and interaction with locals were identified as attributes with a “high impact” on well-being, although weather and friendly residents were satisfiers and restaurants and interaction with locals were identified as dissatisfiers. In total, 23 servicescape attributes were plotted on a matrix depicting each attribute’s range and type of impact.

This study provides practitioners with an idea of which servicescape attributes are important in improving well-being and illustrates how IPA may be used to identify attributes of any transformative service. Additionally, the analysis helps managers prioritize servicescape attributes for a more ideal allocation of scarce resources. These findings should be applicable to various contexts.

This paper is the only known study to examine effects of servicescape attributes on consumer well-being and one of few to use the modified IPA in a services context.

The case is presented by a senior marketing major (Tim), who did a business internship in the new products area of a fictitious consumer package goods firm. The case is presented as a journal Tim kept while interning. It is based on the author’s own journal, kept while working as a business professor intern in a firm similar to that in the case. Although names have been disguised, most of the activities, practices and problems described in the case are based on the author’s internship experience. Tim is simultaneously involved in two major new product projects. First is the early exploratory research done for new vegetable‐based food products. Second is a snack product which is ready to be moved from a controlled store test to test markets. Tim is also involved in other activities: a new business committee meeting, an industry forum, and a strategic plans presentation meeting. Tim works fairly closely with the new products manager, people in other areas of the firm such as marketing research and research and development, as well as with the firm’s ad agency. The case also describes informational interviews Tim conducted with various functional managers in the company involved with new products, and it gives students a feel for all of the nitty gritty implementation details involved in new product work.

Piezoelectric ceramics are often combined with other materials to fabricate composites, which are used for constructions of intelligent systems. This paper is concerned with the fracture of a piezoelectric fiber embedded in an elastic matrix of finite radius. The fiber composite medium is subjected to the axially symmetric mechanical and electrical loads. Fourier and Hankel transforms are used to reduce the problem to the solution of a system of integral equations. Numerical solutions for the crack tip fields are obtained for various crack sizes and different piezoelectric fiber volume fractions. Both impermeable and permeable crack‐face electrical boundary conditions are considered. Applicability and effect of the crack‐face electrical boundary conditions are discussed.

THE original work of Mr. H. R. Ricardo in 1919 showed some of the technical advantages of using fuels of high anti‐knock value. Since this time the development of aero‐engines in respect of power output and economy has depended more upon the fuels available than upon any other factor. Considerable progress has been made in the direction of improving the anti‐knock value of petroleum spirits, which constitute the bulk of the fuel used in aviation throughout the world. However, until very recently this progress had not been very rapid, and as Mr. Ricardo showed, far greater improvements in anti‐knock value could be achieved by the use of other fuels such as benzol, toluol and alcohol. On the octane scale benzol and toluol have a blending value by the C.F.R. motor method of about 90 in concentrations up to 50 per cent; that of alcohol being about 105. This is shown in Fig. 1, from which it will be observed that two curves are given for ethyl alcohol, one being obtained under motor method conditions (mixture temperature 149 deg. C.) and the other with the same heat input as required for a normal aviation gasoline. By this means the additional advantage of the higher latent heat of the alcohol blends is shown. Neither benzol, toluol nor alcohol is produced in very large quantities, and moreover, in times of national emergency they are likely to be required for purposes other than for use as aviation fuels.

The signal detection theory has evolutionary foundations such that our ancestors who were able to detect signals of aggression survived, while those who could not were extinguished. The paper examines the detection of conflict escalation signals in a domestic argument in a married couple as a consequence of history with prior victimization and perpetration of violence. The purpose of this paper is threefold: escalation detection differences between a trained special victim’s detective and untrained individuals; escalation detection for individuals with domestic violence victimization; and physiological arousal during escalation detection.

Subjects with various histories of victimization and perpetration using the Straus conflict tactics scale watched a video of an argument that escalated in conflict while their heart rate and electrodermal activity (EDA) was measured. Participants were asked to pause the tape and write any verbal and non-verbal signal of escalating conflict. The signal coding used deductive, a prioi coding based on Gottman’s (1994, 2011) corrosive behaviors indicative of conflict. A repeated measures general linear model in sex and conflict initiation using two measures of physiological arousal revealed significant effects on EDA while watching escalating conflict as a function of victimization history.

A series of hypotheses and research questions tested untrained people’s signal detection abilities with a trained, special victim’s unit police investigator as a consequence of male and female-initiated conflict. Untrained viewers reported fewer aggression signals than the police investigator. A repeated measures general linear model using two measures of physiological arousal revealed significant effects on EDA while watching escalating conflict as a function of victimization history. Results are discussed in terms of the signal detection and excitation-transfer theories toward explaining responses to escalating conflict.

A limitation of this study was asking participants to document all abuse while not differentiating between different forms (i.e. emotional, verbal, physical). A future study could investigate how well participants can detect different forms of abuse. This area of research could be beneficial especially in the form of past history. For example, if an individual has been a recipient of emotional abuse, do they detect significantly more signals of emotional abuse than they would for physical abuse?

The findings of our study have could practical publications for advising people who cope with conflict as they vary in their use of negotiation and physical force. The fact that physiological arousal was heightened after exposure to the conflict escalation video as a function of victimization due to physical force has ramifications for watching media with violent content. Therapists could ask survivors if they feel based on their experience, that they could help others to recognize aggressive signals or if they are immune to these signals, given the debate over victim desensitization vs heightened sensitivity.

The authors feel it is imperative to note that our current study was designed to gain a deeper understanding of domestic violence in order to ultimately benefit victims in the recovery process and to (ideally) prevent recurrence of domestic violence in the future. This research is not intended to implicate victims in anyway as being responsible for the consequences of domestic violence due to an inability to detect signals of aggression. Indeed, future research should examine how to skillfully advise domestic violence victims while protecting their already vulnerable self-images.

Every day, people are exposed to violence through social media, news, movies and television. Hence, we may become either sensitized to violence or desensitized. These are competing hypotheses that we tested in conjunction with physiological arousal. It is important to analyze reactions to viewing violence due to the sheer amount that is readily disseminated.

In marketing and consumer research, the study of Indigenous ideas and rituals remains limited. The authors present an Indigenous-informed study of consumption rituals co-produced with members of the Shipibo–Konibo Indigenous group of the Peruvian Amazon. Specifically, the authors worked with the Comando Matico, a group of Shipibos from Pucallpa, Peru. This study aims to investigate how Indigenous spiritual beliefs shape health-related consumption rituals by focusing on the experience of the Shipibos and their response to COVID-19.

Drawing upon the principles of Indigenous research, the authors co-produced this study with the Comando Matico. The authors collaboratively discussed the research project’s design, analysed and interpreted data and co-authored this study with members of the Comando Matico. This study uses discourse analyses. The corpus of discourse is speech and text produced by the Comando Matico in webinars and online interviews during the COVID-19 pandemic. The full and active participation of the Comando Matico informed the discourse analysis by ensuring Indigenous knowledge, and worldviews were infused throughout the process.

The authors foreground how Indigenous spiritual beliefs act as a force that imbues the knowledge and practice of health, wellbeing and illness, and this process shapes the performance of rituals. In Indigenous contexts, multiple spirits coexist with consumers, who adhere to specific rituals to respond to and relate to these spirits. Indigenous consumption rituals involve the participation of non-human beings (called rao, ibo, yoshin and chaikoni by the Shipibos) and this aspect challenges the traditional notion of rituals and ritual elements in marketing.

The authors demonstrate how Indigenous spiritual beliefs shape consumption rituals in the context of health and draw attention to how the acknowledgement of alternative ontologies and epistemologies can help address dominant hierarchies of knowledge in marketing theory.

THAT WAS A BRAVE and surprising report that Prof. Elie Kedourie sent in to the Centre for Policy Studies, the more so because the professor is himself working at London University.

The authors of this study aim to investigate possible explanations of the prevalence of price clustering in the final offer prices of mergers and acquisitions (M&A).

The authors use final offer price in M&A deals to investigate the price clustering phenomena. The authors used regressions and logistic regressions to examine potential factors that might affect pricing strategy by looking into one-time acquirers and experienced serial acquirers.

Price clustering increases with negotiation uncertainties characterized as competitive bidding, number of bidders, challenged deals and duration. Moreover, the authors find persistent price clustering in experienced serial acquirers that are more experienced and better equipped with handling uncertainties, suggesting a preference of using round numbers regardless of levels of uncertainties. The authors' evidence shows that price clustering results from a combination of Harris' (1991) costly negotiation hypothesis where round prices may be used to lower search costs and psychological bias and preference.

The authors appear to be the first to investigate alternative theories that support M&A offer price clustering behavior, finding that both the costly negotiation and psychological bias and preference theories apply to M&A final price formation. Thus, the authors' major contribution, specific to the M&A process, is a clarification of physical and psychological factors associated with bidding and negotiation behavior. The authors are confident that the authors' study impacts conventional knowledge regarding M&A deal negotiation strategies, including bidding behavior, contract negotiation, financial analysis, management practices and risk management.

EVERY OTHER MONTH the Institute of Directors writes to a representative section of its membership, 200 in all. They are asked their opinion of the economy in general and how the immediate future looks to them.

The management of children′s literature is a search for value and suitability. Effective policies in library and educational work are based firmly on knowledge of materials, and on the bibliographical and critical frame within which the materials appear and might best be selected. Boundaries, like those between quality and popular books, and between children′s and adult materials, present important challenges for selection, and implicit in this process are professional acumen and judgement. Yet also there are attitudes and systems of values, which can powerfully influence selection on grounds of morality and good taste. To guard against undue subjectivity, the knowledge frame should acknowledge the relevance of social and experiential context for all reading materials, how readers think as well as how they read, and what explicit and implicit agendas the authors have. The good professional takes all these factors on board.