Search results

The global dietary landscape is increasingly witnessing a shift in meat consumption patterns. However, an important question still concerns the direction in which these changes will continue and to what extent, in the near future, most consumers will completely give up meat products in their diet or will only limit their consumption. The second question is who is most susceptible to reducing meat in their diet and who will resist this trend. When looking for an answer to those questions, we employed an agent-based model (ABM) to analyse the data from a nationally representative survey conducted in Poland.

The model takes into account key factors influencing dietary choices through the channel of social influence, including health and ethical concerns, locus of control, food neophobia and meat eating justification.

Our simulations indicate the future dominance of reducetarianism, an upswing in vegan/vegetarianism, and a decline in omnivorism. Additionally, distinct dietary trajectories are emerging among different demographic groups, often echoing initial disparities or unveiling new patterns. The study further confirms the importance of individuals as embedded actors in the transformation of the food system.

The results offer a micro-based understanding of the evolution of dietary patterns, highlighting the value of the ABM in forecasting eating behaviour.

Although the interest in firm media sentiment has been increasing, the impact of news media sentiments on consumers’ perception of firms’ offerings and, subsequently, their sales remain unknown. This study aims to address this research question in this study. Furthermore, the authors consider the role of two boundary conditions, i.e., offerings’ similarity and offerings’ service ratio, that moderate the main relationship.

Using a comprehensive and novel data set of over 900 firms between 2009 and 2019 from multiple sources, this study addresses the research questions. The authors use a fixed effects panel regression model to estimate the model.

A firm’s news media sentiments can influence consumers’ perception of the corporate brand, thereby driving sales growth. This study finds that when a firm’s offerings are not differentiated from its competitors, news media sentiments become more important and so does when a firm offers more services than a product.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to assess customers’ responses as manifested in the sales growth of a firm’s offerings, using both primary and secondary data and analysis.

The findings provide actionable insights to managers by identifying specific offerings-related attributes – similarity and service ratio – where media sentiments play a critical role in influencing sales growth.

While existing studies in marketing have primarily considered user-generated social media sentiments, this study departs from this literature by investigating earned media sentiments through traditional media outlets such as newspapers and business magazines, which have rarely been studied in marketing.

This chapter examines how entrepreneurs are addressing some of society's greatest challenges by taking over some of the functions of government and charities. It's driving change, but is it the kind of change we want to see? The chapter examines the growing body of literature on entrepreneurship which looks at this question and focuses on some key areas. These areas, including entrepreneur values and motivation, prosocial behaviour, entrepreneurial education and more form the concepts that underpin both the research and the online training intervention I've developed. The chapter highlights one of the most important findings from a review of the existing literature; that the world needs people with prosocial values and motivations, and entrepreneurs as a group could make a significant contribution to society. In the chapter, there's also a discussion about what needs to happen to enable them to make that contribution and an examination of what the existing research says.

This chapter considers the challenges of applying engineering practices to knowledge. Knowledge cannot be managed like other forms of capital because it is tacit and intangible. Research has identified economic properties and behaviors that set it apart from physical and financial capital. The authors translate the economic typology of human, structural, and relational capital to Blackler’s four forms of characterizations: embrained, embodied, embedded, and encultured. Knowledge elicitation techniques are discussed, and aligned with Blakely’s four forms of characterizations.

This study proposes and tests a model to analyse whether achievement, social and immersion motivational affordances embedded in gamified review platforms motivate consumers to altruistically create content in the post-consumption stage.

We used data from a sample of 343 reviewers and employed SmartPLS to test the research model.

Findings revealed that, while achievement affordances (i.e. points, levels and badges) have no significant effect, immersion affordances (i.e. avatars) and more especially, social affordances (i.e. receiving helpful votes from readers and having followers) are key for review platforms, as they drive consumers to develop pure, reciprocal and competitive forms of altruism, which, in turn, motivate them to create content.

This study examines the antecedents and consequences of altruistic purpose in the context of gamified review platforms by proposing research questions aimed at eliciting the effects of achievement, social and immersion affordances on altruism, and by providing the first empirical evidence for these paths.

This study provides practical guidance on how review platforms can implement social and immersion affordances to foster altruism and, ultimately, promote user-generated content in the form of comments, photos and videos.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the current study is the first to develop a model to predict whether gamification affordances promote forms of altruism that result in user-generated content. The findings will improve practitioners’ strategies by focussing on social and immersion motivational affordances.

The 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing were the first sporting mega-event held in a country that limits access to popular Western social networks. Since both domestic and international audiences were crucial for the organizers, the purpose of this study was to identify similarities and differences in content published and engagement generated on the event’s official social media accounts in the months preceding the Olympics.

For 1,200 consecutive original posts published on Facebook, Sina Weibo and Twitter, we coded the time of publication, motivation targeted by the message according to Raney’s typology of motivations for sport spectatorship, multimedia additions and number of likes/reactions, comments and shares.

All accounts were dominated by posts targeting cognitive motivations. The Weibo profile was much more active and followed. There, 71.5% of content conveyed learning, while the most engaging content provided entertainment. Content on Western networks was more varied but virtually duplicated across networks. The most engaging posts targeted euphoric stress, escape and aesthetic pleasure. Comparable content elicited different engagement on Chinese and Western social media. Graphics and video were the most engaging features on all networks; polls were the least engaging.

Agenda-setting effects of social media content differ across cultures and are co-created by user comments.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first cross-cultural comparison of pre-event social media promotion by non-Western sporting mega-event hosts. Organizers diversified content strategies to cater to different audiences and pursue different policy goals. We proved cultural differences in content preference and engagement and showed the relevance of Raney’s typology of sport spectatorship for social media.

The combination of previously unassociated terms in a metaphor can helpfully illustrate particular characteristics of a person, phenomenon or practice. However, it can also obfuscate because the focus on some elements may come at the expense of others. The metaphor of the landscape is somewhat ubiquitous in academic literature, and this paper is specifically interested in the ‘higher education landscape’, which is widely used in scholarly – as well as media and policy – writing. By applying thematic analysis to a sample of publications which invoke the term, this paper comprises what Haslanger calls a descriptive and ameliorative approach to investigate both how and why this metaphor is used. By considering these publications cumulatively, we can identify that the higher education landscape enables scholars to simultaneously acknowledge higher education's temporal, social and political positioning, its state of what can feel like permanent and wide-ranging flux, and its diverse cast of interrelated actors. In this way, it serves as a useful and evocative container metaphor for higher education's activities and constituents and the interrelationships and tensions between them. At the same time, its somewhat indiscriminate and indeterminate use can conflate and mask the detail and nature of these dynamics, and it is possible to discern in its application a collective sense of nervousness and uncertainty about higher education more generally.

This study aims to explore how digital platforms (DPs) contribute to value co-creation in municipal solid waste (MSW) management systems.

The present paper conducts an explorative analysis using single case study methodology. The case in question involves a DPs operating in Italy.

Empirical analysis shows that DPs help engage citizens in MSW and reduce the fragmentation in waste management systems by fulfilling a brokerage role that connects citizens, municipalities and waste management companies. The development of bidirectional knowledge and resource flow among actors contributes to better waste recycling processes, as well as fosters economic, environmental and social value co-creation in a complex public service.

This research is limited to a single case study within the Italian context, which may influence the generalizability of the findings. Future research could expand the scope to include multiple case studies across different geographical regions.

For practitioners and policymakers, this paper underscores the strategic benefits of adopting DPs in MSW management systems and thereby improving public service delivery.

The case analysis highlights that DPs can assist public actors in achieving numerous sustainable development goals by enhancing recycling rates and activating learning mechanisms among citizens.

This study contributes to literature by connecting different fields of research (i.e. waste management and public management) and using network theory to show how DPs can contribute to the economic, environmental and social sustainability of MSW while generating relevant benefits for the actors involved.

This study investigates how the organizational climate influences work–life balance (WLB) among women employees in universities across Jammu and Kashmir, with a focus on the mediating role of self-efficacy.

Adopting a quantitative research design, this study utilized a survey methodology to collect data from women employees in 11 universities within Jammu and Kashmir. The study analyzed responses from 587 participants through partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) using SmartPLS 4.0.

The findings underscore the significant positive impacts of organizational climate dimensions – autonomy, integration, involvement, support, training and welfare – on work–life balance. Self-efficacy was found to partially mediate the relationships between organizational climate dimensions and work–life balance, underscoring its role in enhancing employees’ capacity to manage work and personal life. The study highlights the importance of a supportive organizational climate in fostering self-efficacy and, subsequently, achieving a satisfactory work–life balance among women employees in academic settings.

This research contributes to the existing literature by exploring the nuanced relationship between organizational climate, self-efficacy and work–life balance, specifically among women employees in the educational sector of Jammu and Kashmir. By highlighting self-efficacy as a critical mediator, the study offers novel insights into the mechanisms through which organizational climate affects work–life balance, providing valuable implications for policy and practice in educational institutions.

Disasters, including health crises and weather emergencies, are increasingly prevalent. While many people are highly resilient, the traumatic experience of emergencies and disasters can affect individuals and communities, including library staff and library users. Traumatic effects can persist long after the immediate impact of an event and may be magnified by cumulative exposure to traumatic events. Libraries are not immune from emergencies and disasters and also experience many other hazards. With attention to trauma and a focus on resilience, libraries can build strong organizations even during difficult circumstances presented by emergencies and disasters. This chapter shares research-based approaches from the literature along with promising practices shared by contributing libraries.