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Risk communication is a critical component of individual health decision making and behavior. In disaster situations, it is crucial that risk-related messages are communicated accurately and that they reach and inform target audiences about the steps they can take to protect their health. Despite a global recognition of the importance of risk communication in responding to disasters, there remains a dearth of evidence on how to evaluate the effectiveness of risk communication messages. The purpose of this paper is to develop and assess a pilot tool to evaluate the effectiveness of disaster risk messages.

A pilot evaluation tool was developed using the existing risk communication literature. An expert assessment of the tool was conducted using an open-ended survey and a focus group discussion with 18 experts at the Public Health Agency of Canada in February 2013.

The tool measures content, reach, and comprehension of the message. It is intended to be a quick, internal evaluation tool for use during a disaster or emergency. The experts acknowledged the practicality of the tool, while also recognizing evaluation challenges.

This pilot exploratory tool was assessed using a relatively small sample of experts.

This tool offers public health and disaster preparedness practitioners a promising approach for evaluating and improving the communication and management of future public health emergencies.

This is the first practical tool developed to evaluate risk communication messages in disaster situations.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of brand attachment and familiarity on perceived congruence between the logo and the brand. It explores the role of an under-researched factor, surprise, on perceived congruence in the case of a radical logo change.

A study was conducted with 220 students following a university logo change. Perceived congruence between the logos (old and new) and the school brand values was measured for two kinds of students, current and future (i.e. applicants).

Results show the importance of surprise in the acceptance of a logo change. Brand familiarity and brand attachment affect surprise in opposite ways, such that higher familiarity increases negative surprise, whereas higher attachment enhances positive surprise.

This research used a school logo. Because schools represent a particular type of company, brand attachment to another type of brand could be different. The current model needs to be tested in different contexts.

Companies must pay special attention when communicating with their most attached consumers. In particular, companies that aim to change their logos must prepare for the change by relying on communications that can lead to positive surprise.

This study was conducted in a real context of logo change. It is the first study to focus on the link among familiarity, attachment and surprise when a radical logo change takes place within a company.

With the long awaited ratification of the Lisbon Treaty on 1 December 2009, it appears that plans within Europe to achieve an ‘ever closer union’ are back on track, yet, in the field of illicit drug policy, harmonisation remains as elusive a goal as ever. Sweden and the Netherlands have long provided examples of the different paradigms of drug policy operating within Europe and this article seeks to examine whether, as European Union harmonisation moves forward, recent developments bring the two any closer to convergence on this contentious issue. In addition to changes in Swedish and Dutch drug policy, the progress of the drug policy of other European countries has been evaluated. The article concludes that the Swedes and the Dutch remain ultimately wedded to their national policies and that movement both towards increased repression of drug use and increased liberalisation of drug use can be observed among other European countries. Harmonisation of European drug policy therefore remains in a state of stalemate.

In digital education curricular initiatives, some teachers are taking on key roles when appointed as instructional coaches (ICs) and become crucial in the sustainability of the initiative by coaching teachers. This study aimed to find out the difficulties ICs are facing when mentoring teachers in the development of the digital skills and to identify the coaching activities the coaches offer.

Employing a mixed-methods research design focusing on a qualitative approach, the research team conducted 6 focus groups with 38 ICs from 12 primary schools in Switzerland. Quantitative descriptive data were collected through a survey submitted before and after the focus group.

The results indicate that (1) the professional development (PD) activities offered to teachers vary greatly depending on the instructional coach characteristics and the school to which the teachers belong, (2) the in-service training of ICs should include coaching and leadership skills and (3) distributed leadership to ICs could facilitate the adoption of technologies by teachers and support change in the school.

Some ICs offer activities with a low involvement of the teacher. ICs' training programs should provide strategies to better take advantage of PD activities. The authors suggest training ICs in PD activities, aligned with Gibbons and Cobb's (2017) such as analyzing classroom video or lesson study involving a group of teachers working together with an expert to improve a lesson. District and school leaders should provide ICs with explicit guidance and more resources to achieve systemic change. ICs should also be empowered by being involved in the development of the school's continuing education training plans.

This study presents a new perspective about understanding and applying in-service teacher PD in the context of a digital education curricular initiative.

In this study, the authors developed a conceptual model to investigate sustainable consumption behavior, specifically the intention to use reusable bags, and its relationship with two crucial factors influencing the use of single-use plastic bags: cost savings and convenience. This study also aims to explore the mediating roles of environmental concern, guilt and self-efficacy.

A quantitative study using online survey involving 421 respondents was conducted, and data analysis performed using structural equation modeling.

The results indicate that self-efficacy influenced environmental concern and sustainable consumption, while perceived savings did not. Perceived convenience significantly influenced sustainable consumption behavior. Environmental concern had indirect effects on the relationships between perceived savings, perceived convenience and sustainable consumption behavior, whereas guilt did not moderate the relationship between environmental concern and sustainable consumption behavior.

The main contribution lies in the insights for promoting the sustainable use of reusable shopping bags, benefiting both theoretical understanding and practical applications in efforts to encourage sustainable consumption behavior.

The purpose of this paper is to explore, though a survey and two short case studies, the issues smaller firms face with the adoption of new technologies.

A survey of the pressures to adopt new technologies and the existence of specialist technology skills was conducted of small ICT oriented firms in the West Midlands region of the UK. This provides background context for short case studies of two firms and the issues they faced with the adoption of new technologies.

Pressure to adopt new technologies largely emanated from within the small firms surveyed. Those firms with IT educated owner‐manager were perhaps better able to evaluate and respond to that pressure. This is further illustrated in the case studies which show what can happen where an owner‐manager is or is not willing to listen, learn and provide appropriate resources to ensure the smooth adoption and implementation of new technologies.

While a range of factors and their effect on the adoption of new technologies have been considered, this is often not in the context of smaller firms where owners/owner‐managers can play a critical decisional role. This study shows the effect of the way in which owners/owner‐managers behaviour can affect the adoption of new technologies.

The study indicates that although ICT‐oriented firms could be expected to understand the importance of new technologies this is not necessarily the case.

This is a study of the issues associated with adopting new technologies in ICT‐oriented small firms, where barriers such as capacity and readiness would be thought not to exist.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the extent to which collaborative consumption (CC) enthusiasts are significantly more likely to engage into specific forms of socially responsible consumption (SRC), in contrast to regular consumers.

The authors administered an online questionnaire survey to a panel of 1,006 consumers. A cluster analysis combined with analyses of variance then determined the extent to which CC enthusiasts were more likely to engage in the focal SRC behaviors as opposed to others.

CC enthusiasts differ positively from other consumers concerning sustainable transportation, citizen consumption and composting but negatively from other consumers concerning recycling; they do not differ significantly with regard to environmental, animal protection and local consumption.

Conflating CC and SRC remains debatable. This study provides some preliminary evidence about the complex associations that exists between the two constructs.

Whilst country-of-origin (COO) effects have been studied extensively since the 1960s, little research has explored these effects with respect to ecological considerations. The purpose of this paper is to explore the COO ecological image (CEI) construct by defining its facets across consumers and professionals from two different countries, namely, France and Australia.

Because of the exploratory nature of the research, the authors used two qualitative techniques, namely, semi-structured interviews and focus groups.

Findings indicate the CEI construct is composed of eight dimensions, namely, policy, technological, economic, people characteristics, natural, climatic, historical and eco-product features.

The research provides insights into the CEI construct and justifies future studies to develop a scale measure for it. However, the generalisability of the results must be considered limited due to the qualitative exploratory nature of the study.

The research offers implications for companies and policymakers by allowing them to understand how consumers form a CEI. It suggests new applications respective to how to leverage positive aspects of a CEI and how to mitigate negative ones.

The study extends the literature on COO by identifying the possible dimensions of the CEI construct, thus providing better insights into the little-explored link between COO and sustainable products.

This paper seeks to investigate the key drivers and barriers of adopting mobile customer relationship management (mCRM) services in small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) and proposes an mCRM strategy framework.

Previous SME technology adoption literature has used different models to explain how SMEs accept or reject technology innovations. There is a lack of research in mobile technologies such as mCRM services. Using a secondary research method, this study critically analyses the impact of mCRM services adoption by UK SMEs.

Rapid development in mCRM applications enables SMEs to gain competitive advantages. This paper argues that mCRM services help SMEs to create different levels of relationship bonds with their customers, which in turn can create value proposition and improve business performance.

This study suggests that SME owners/managers need to understand their business needs and processes, and the mobile technology, to focus on their CRM strategies, and allocate resources in order to successfully adopt mCRM services to exploit the full potential. The conceptual model needs to be tested empirically.

This study demonstrates that business values and core services can be specific to mCRM strategy. It proposes and discusses the theoretical and practical implications of the mCRM strategy framework and suggests further research directions.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the problem of information and knowledge management (IKM) in higher education institutions. The research aims to determine the way in which the knowledge resources of a higher education institution are managed. The author intends to define how the information system is shaped and how information and knowledge are used in the reporting processes and for decision-making efficiency.

In total, 38 university administration employees from six higher education institutions in Poland participated in the study. Information barriers and benefits resulting from the implementation of the central reporting system “POL-on” were identified by using the sense-making technique. The purpose of the interviews was to determine the procedural and behavioural conditions of the reporting and decision-making processes in higher education institutions in Poland.

This paper suggests four characteristics of IKM in higher education institutions. A link between the information culture of the institution, its size and structure as well as the adopted model of IKM is demonstrated.

The main contribution of this paper is to introduce a framework for studying the IKM in higher education institutions from the perspective of information culture. Higher education institutions have developed different styles of striving for efficiency regarding decision making and reporting in administration. The IM and KM are now proved to be an integrated process in administrative activities of higher education institutions.