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The purpose of this study is to offer a better understanding of contemporary consumer behaviour. This study relates to the complex and value-laden phenomenon of “gift-giving” from the perspective of bicultural consumers. The focus was on the gift-giving practices of Chinese immigrants in Canada within both their current and their past residencies (Canada and China, respectively).

Conceptual guidelines for this study embodied the gift-giving conceptual framework of Sherry (1983) and Chinese cultural values on gift giving (Yau et al., 1999). A qualitative research study was implemented. Specifically, in-depth interviews with Chinese immigrant women mainly from the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) in Ontario, Canada, offered empirical evidence relating to the gestation stage of gift giving.

The findings indicate the complexity of acculturation in gift-giving practices. In terms of gift-giving occasions, Chinese immigrants in Canada, for the most part, adopted the Canadian gift-giving occasions. However, the important role of ethnicity in decision-making is found through their strong sense of differentiation between Chinese and Canadian gift receivers. The results also indicate some Chinese cultural values such as relationship, reciprocity and group orientation as being still important in shaping gift-giving practices, even after immigration to a new country quite distant from the homeland. One cautionary note is that some cultural values such as relationship can be common to both Chinese and Canadian cultural groups.

This research was conducted mainly in the GTA in Ontario, Canada. Future studies could address other large Canadian cities with significant bicultural Chinese populations such as Vancouver in British Columbia and Motreal in Quebec.

This research extends the knowledge of bicultural consumers by examining the evolving gift-giving practices of Chinese immigrants living in Canada. A good understanding of the cultural values important to bicultural consumers will help marketers to efficiently and effectively allocate their marketing resources in attracting these niche consumers.

This study has contributed to the broader field of marketing research. Specifically, the current study offers the importance of understanding values transference of bicultural consumers and their behaviours in integrating into the mainstream gift-giving cultural context.

This study has contributed by offering evidence of how a minority consumer group formed complex acculturation realities within a gift-giving consumption context. This contribution can be counted as a step towards theoretical advancement in the field of acculturation and of understanding bicultural consumers.

The purpose of this research is to explore the views of individuals responsible for quality assurance in Hong Kong (HK) food and beverage companies with regards to their acceptance or rejection of the ISO 9000 quality management system or HACCP food safety system standards, along with the reasoning underlying such views. Thirty Hong Kong food or beverage manufacturing companies were approached and in‐depth interviews in the form of surveys were conducted with 11 companies. Participating companies included companies that had implemented both the ISO 9000 and HACCP standards, companies that had implemented only ISO 9000 or HACCP, and a company that had implemented neither. Half of the companies that participated in this study were large companies with 500 or more employees. The use of ISO 9000 was reported to improve the maturity of other quality systems. The use of HACCP was reported to improve the maturity of other food safety systems. While more companies used HACCP than the ISO 9000 standard to comply with customers’ requirements, the difficulties in the training of staff and added costs for documentation/data storage were reported as common to both standards.

The purpose of this study is to explore the broad issues related to business excellence and the application of such programs.

In brief, this study investigated the use of business excellence programs including the use of the ISO 9000:2000 series of standards, by Canadian organizations. The results of a national survey on the use of business excellence programs are reported.

The use of business excellence programs by Canadian organizations appears to be related to the size and location of the organization. Organization size and location also appear to be related to the sequence in which businesses choose to implement various components of business excellence as well as the difficulty they experience with that implementation. There may be differences in the use of business excellence programs between organizations within different industry sectors, and those with different organizational structures. Finally, the use of business excellence programs was found not to affect organizations' self‐reported level of excellence.

The results of this study have implications for government policy makers who seek to better support businesses, quality program administrators, and business practitioners.

The purpose of this study is to identify attitude differences between smokers and non‐smokers regarding smoking in restaurants and existing smoking by‐laws. The findings can assist restaurant managers to resolve the dilemma of in‐restaurant smoking. Qualitative research methods were used to capture the holistic and meaningful characteristics of real‐life events. Three different data collection techniques were employed for methodological triangulation. Content analysis was applied to the data, collected through participant observations, focus group interviews, and in‐depth interviews. To account for the relationship between a theoretical perspective and certain messages, the categories used in the content analysis were determined by both induction and deduction. The findings enhance the understanding smoking and non‐smoking customers’ thoughts, feelings, and actions in restaurants, and clarifying the resulting challenges for restaurant managers.

The purpose of this paper is to report on the development and nomological testing of a 17‐item scale measuring the five dimensions of service convenience (decision, access, transaction, benefit, and post‐benefit) as proposed by Berry, Seiders, and Grewal.

A cross‐sectional survey methodology was used to collect the data.

Reliability and validity assessments provided evidence of the scale's psychometric validity. Service convenience was found to be a significant predictor of overall satisfaction in the context of personal cellular telephone and internet usage.

This study uses a student sample which may limit its generalizability to other respondents. Also, the cross‐sectional survey methodology does not allow for the investigation of causation. Future research should investigate other contexts outside of the cellular and internet services examined in this study and across a broader sample. Furthermore, the ability to retrospectively rate service convenience, the trade‐off between price and convenience, and the continuum of convenience need to be investigated further.

This study provides psychometrically valid scales to measure service convenience as conceptualized by Berry et al..

The purpose of the paper is to propose and examine with evidence from Ecuador a behavioral framework that helps understand environmental practices in a small rural community.

This research is a multidisciplinary study that integrates ethnographic, feminist, and fourth generation approaches. Qualitative and quantitative methods were applied.

Findings indicate a number of relevant determinant factors (social norms, personal norms, intention to act), moderating factors (knowledge of the issues, awareness of the consequences, knowledge of the strategies and action skills, assumption of the responsibilities), and socio‐demographic factors (gender and social class) that influence solid waste (garbage) management behavior in a small rural community in the Ecuadorian Andes.

This study recommends general public training for the stakeholders of this community taking into account gender and social class differences. The importance of generating role models in groups such as business owners and teachers to lead in waste management behavior is also suggested.

This study develops a behavioral framework with supporting empirical evidence from Ecuador that aids the understanding of environmental management practices of women and men from a small cohesive community

The purpose of this paper is to propose a new measure for organization health. It is proposed that the Donohue tripartite paradigm model can be used to pierce the veneer of the satisficing account to identify the moral appraisal stakeholders have made of corporate strategies based on external (i.e. economic, etc.) standards.

A cognitive mapping process through narratives is used to operationalize a tripartite paradigm framework to measure human capital. An existential‐phenomenological approach is adopted to ensure the figural integrity of data.

This paper can be viewed as the prototypical development phase for a methodology to support future real‐time ethical inquiry concerning social responsibility within the corporate world.

The tripartite paradigm model expressed by Donohue was intended for “real‐time” application. This study, however, proposed a retrospective analysis of stakeholder decision‐making within a firm as a means of unearthing any deficiencies that might block the operationalization of Donohue's generalist theory.

This appraisal can identify the conflict of conscience that characterizes a stakeholder's “lived‐worlds” based on their participation and exposure to company decision making. This diagnostic tool can assist stakeholders in identifying evidence of decline early enough in the history of an organization for proactive remedial action to be taken.

It is the hope of this study that the proposed cognitive mapping process can derive a measure of organizational health through an existential‐phenomenological approach to ensure the integrity of the data. Ultimately, the aim is that this will be a tool that can explore the phenomenon of misrepresentation and its effect on social cooperation within a market culture.

This study explored the experiences of quality professionals with the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) system in the food industry in Canada. Similarities and differences between HACCP and ISO 9000 quality management systems were also highlighted. In this study, qualitative research was undertaken with selected medium to large‐sized food manufacturing companies. In‐depth telephone interviews were performed with quality professionals to allow the researcher the opportunity to elicit expertise and experience that are unique to the respondent. While the study was designed to be exploratory in nature and to form the basis for future research, several themes were identified. First, all companies used HACCP in conjunction with other internal programs such as product testing and supplier qualification to ensure product quality. Second, all companies perceived internal auditing as a way to ensure the quality programs. Finally, companies that had implemented both HACCP and ISO 9000 mentioned two main obstacles, i.e. resistance to change and fear of documentation.