Cony M. Ho, Kuan-Chou Ko, Steven Liu and Chun-Chieh Wu
This study aims to understand the impact of extreme weather events on fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) consumption and to examine the role of anticipated product scarcity and…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to understand the impact of extreme weather events on fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) consumption and to examine the role of anticipated product scarcity and FMCG types on such behavior.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper conducted five studies, combining archival data analysis with behavioral experiments. The archival data included sales data from a supermarket chain and weather data from the National Weather Service. The experiments were designed to test the effect of extreme weather cues on consumption, the psychological mechanism behind this effect and moderators.
Findings
This research found that consumers’ anticipation of extreme weather events significantly increases their consumption of FMCGs. This research further discovered that these behaviors are driven by anticipated product scarcity and moderated by consumers’ altruisms and FMCG types.
Research limitations/implications
Limitations of the research include the reliance on reported sales data and self-reported measures, which could introduce biases. The authors also primarily focused on extreme weather events, leaving other types of disasters unexplored. Furthermore, cultural differences in disaster response might influence results, yet the studies do not fully address these nuances. Despite these limitations, the findings provide critical insights for FMCG retailers and policymakers, suggesting strategies for managing demand surges during disasters. Moreover, understanding consumer behavior under impending disasters could inform intervention strategies, potentially mitigating panic buying and helping ensure equitable resource distribution. Last, these findings encourage further exploration of environmental influences on consumer behavior.
Practical implications
The findings have practical implications for products, brand managers and retailers in managing stock levels and product distribution during disasters. Furthermore, understanding the psychological mechanisms of these behaviors could inform policymakers’ designs of public interventions for equitable resource allocation during extreme weather events.
Social implications
The research provides significant social implications by highlighting how extreme weather events impact FMCG consumption. This understanding can guide public policymakers in creating efficient disaster management plans. Specifically, anticipating surges in FMCG purchases can inform policies for maintaining price stability and preventing resource shortages, mitigating societal stress during crises. Moreover, these findings encourage public education around responsible purchasing during disasters, potentially reducing panic buying. By collaborating with FMCG manufacturers and retailers, governments can ensure a steady supply of essentials during extreme weather events. Thus, the research can play a crucial role in enhancing societal resilience in the face of impending disasters.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to integrate the impact of extreme weather events on consumption behavior with the psychological theory of anticipated product scarcity. The unique focus on FMCGs offers a novel perspective on consumer behavior literature.
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The majority of research to date has focused on how to leverage the effectiveness of in-game marketing campaigns. However, the author’s understanding of how to segment consumers…
Abstract
Purpose
The majority of research to date has focused on how to leverage the effectiveness of in-game marketing campaigns. However, the author’s understanding of how to segment consumers for game consumption is limited. This research aims to focus on how consumers’ political ideology could influence consumers’ game choices.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used one state-level Google trend data and two experiments to show the effect of political ideology on consumers’ game choice.
Findings
This study found that liberals prefer non-persistent world games and conservatives prefer persistent world games. These effects occur because consumers’ political ideology alters their motivation to search for new opportunities, and this motivation, in turn, determines their choices. Finally, this study demonstrates the moderating role of brand familiarity in the effect of political ideology on game choice.
Research limitations/implications
This study offers a new angle for game and marketing research about how consumers’ beliefs such as political ideology can change consumers' thoughts and preferences about games.
Practical implications
This study offers new insight into the gaming industry and marketers. They can use political ideology as a new and effective way to segment consumers.
Social implications
These findings offer important insights into the ubiquitous nature of games in consumers’ everyday lives by detailing how political ideology influences game choice.
Originality/value
This paper fulfills an identified need to study how an important industry such as gaming can be effectively segmented through an important factor such as political ideology.
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Man has been seeking an ideal existence for a very long time. In this existence, justice, love, and peace are no longer words, but actual experiences. How ever, with the American…
Abstract
Man has been seeking an ideal existence for a very long time. In this existence, justice, love, and peace are no longer words, but actual experiences. How ever, with the American preemptive invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and the subsequent prisoner abuse, such an existence seems to be farther and farther away from reality. The purpose of this work is to stop this dangerous trend by promoting justice, love, and peace through a change of the paradigm that is inconsistent with justice, love, and peace. The strong paradigm that created the strong nation like the U.S. and the strong man like George W. Bush have been the culprit, rather than the contributor, of the above three universal ideals. Thus, rather than justice, love, and peace, the strong paradigm resulted in in justice, hatred, and violence. In order to remove these three and related evils, what the world needs in the beginning of the third millenium is the weak paradigm. Through the acceptance of the latter paradigm, the golden mean or middle paradigm can be formulated, which is a synergy of the weak and the strong paradigm. In order to understand properly the meaning of these paradigms, however, some digression appears necessary.
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Le Thi Hong Na, Jin-Ho Park and Minjung Cho
Accounting for seventy five percent of urban housing in Vietnam, street houses refer to a mixed-use housing typology that emerged in the 17th century. Such housing has evolved in…
Abstract
Accounting for seventy five percent of urban housing in Vietnam, street houses refer to a mixed-use housing typology that emerged in the 17th century. Such housing has evolved in response to Vietnam's unique culture and environmental conditions. Residential and commercial functions are integrated in a flexible and expandable manner, creating a variety of compositional possibilities in spatial layouts. In addition, transitional spaces such as courtyards, balconies, loggia, and terraces provide shading, cooling, and ventilation effects throughout the building. As one of the most adaptive and popular urban dwellings, the street house has promoted daily domestic activities and the identities of Vietnamese urban areas. However, such valuable aspects have received less attention in many recent urban developments in Vietnam. As such, the goal of this study is to identify and analyze the unparalleled ingenuity of the street house, particularly focusing on its spatial flexibility and environmental responsiveness. Furthermore, this study is intended to apply analytical investigations to the design of contemporary high-rise housing in Vietnam.
With such purposes, this paper is structured in two sequences. In the first phase, typological characteristics of the street house are studied; a field survey is performed to address the evolutionary transformation of the street house. By studying several precedents in Vietnam, our study focused on understanding the ways in which spaces are manipulated and in which diverse indoor and outdoor spaces are created. In addition, passive environmental systems are studied, meaning systems that are integrated with the spaces in order to control the microclimatic conditions of the house. Next, the morphology of the forms and space components are carefully examined through the contemporary examples of street house models in Vietnam. Especially, the flexible nature of the street house, in terms of spatial composition and expansion, is identified. In the second phase, a transition from the street house to high-rise housing is explored based on the previous analytical studies; compositional logic for arranging internal and external spaces are outlined to generate typological unit plans of street houses. Out of diverse design possibilities, an exemplary high-rise building is proposed to address the notions of spatial flexibility and integrated passive systems that are found in the street house. Ultimately, the proposed design aims to enrich dwelling environments for new high-rise urban communities.
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Amelia Manuti, Giuseppe Mininni and Stefania Attanasio
Narrative is believed to be a crucial component of sense-making in organizations, and previous research in the field suggests that multiple levels and forms of narrative are…
Abstract
Purpose
Narrative is believed to be a crucial component of sense-making in organizations, and previous research in the field suggests that multiple levels and forms of narrative are inherent to the definition of professional identities (Clarke et al., 2009; Ybema et al., 2009; Brown and Lewis, 2011). For example, narrative can be found in the stories told by organizational actors as they informally interact in the workplace, in the formalized basic assumptions that support organizational strategy-making, in the accounts people give of their work, and in the artifacts they produced and experienced while engaged in accomplishing tasks. The purpose of this paper is to consider narrative as a way of giving sense to organizational membership, of constituting an overall and possibly shared sense of direction, of focussing one’s professional identity, and of enabling and/or constraining the ongoing activities of actors. The context of the research was given by a group of sport federations enrolled within the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI), which is the national most authoritative network of professional local sport organizations.
Design/methodology/approach
Participants involved in the study were 42 professional referees belonging to this network and active in different sport disciplines and 12 people from the CONI management. In-depth narrative interviews were collected in the aim to investigate the narrative cues revealing the organizational sense-making processes that animate the representation of this professional identity both at a subjective and at an organizational level. Data have been explored adopting the semiotic square and diatextual analysis as to highlight the strict relationship between text, context and interlocutors.
Findings
Data have been explored adopting the semiotic square and diatextual analysis as to highlight the strict relationship between text, context and interlocutors. Results showed that there was an evident gap between what the management formally defined as strategic vision, mission and cultural guidelines that actually shape the organizational identity of the CONI and what was concretely experienced by its actors, in this case the referees.
Originality/value
Most of the studies conducted in sport organizations focussed either on an intra-organizational level investigating the specific features of given professional categories such as athletes and/or coaches, or at an inter-organizational level, paying attention mostly to the marketing and networking strategies oriented toward stakeholders. On the other hand, most studies conducted on referees have devoted attention strictly to performance assessment, that, in line with a positivist approach, considered the latter as an output of situational and psychological variables (e.g. Marie, 1999; MacMahon et al., 2007). Conversely, the findings coming from the present study contributed to support the promotion of an alternative organizational approach, more specifically based on the strategic relevance of horizontal (within the federations) and vertical (between the federations and the center of the network) communication as to enhance the identification process which give sense to the organizational basic assumptions.
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Numbers of worthy people are no doubt nursing themselves in the fond and foolish belief that when the Food Bill has received the Royal assent, and becomes law, the manufacture and…
Abstract
Numbers of worthy people are no doubt nursing themselves in the fond and foolish belief that when the Food Bill has received the Royal assent, and becomes law, the manufacture and sale of adulterated and sophisticated products will, to all intents and purposes, be suppressed, and that the Public Analyst and the Inspector will be able to report the existence of almost universal purity and virtue. This optimistic feeling will not be shared by the traders and manufacturers who have suffered from the effects of unfair and dishonest competition, nor by those whose knowledge and experience of the existing law enables them to gauge the probable value of the new one with some approach to accuracy. The measure has satisfied nobody, and can satisfy nobody but those whose nefarious practices it is intended to check, and who can fully appreciate the value, to them, of patchwork and superficial legislation. We have repeatedly pointed out that repressive legislation, however stringent and however well applied, can never give the public that which the public, in theory, should receive—namely, complete protection and adequate guarantee,—nor to the honest trader the full support and encouragement to which he is entitled. But, in spite of the defects and ineffectualities necessarily attaching to legislation of this nature, a strong Government could without much difficulty have produced a far more effective, and therefore more valuable law than that which, after so long an incubation, is to be added to the statute‐book.
Presents a special issue, enlisting the help of the author’s students and colleagues, focusing on age, sex, colour and disability discrimination in America. Breaks the evidence…
Abstract
Presents a special issue, enlisting the help of the author’s students and colleagues, focusing on age, sex, colour and disability discrimination in America. Breaks the evidence down into manageable chunks, covering: age discrimination in the workplace; discrimination against African‐Americans; sex discrimination in the workplace; same sex sexual harassment; how to investigate and prove disability discrimination; sexual harassment in the military; when the main US job‐discrimination law applies to small companies; how to investigate and prove racial discrimination; developments concerning race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; developments concerning discrimination against workers with HIV or AIDS; developments concerning discrimination based on refusal of family care leave; developments concerning discrimination against gay or lesbian employees; developments concerning discrimination based on colour; how to investigate and prove discrimination concerning based on colour; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; using statistics in employment discrimination cases; race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning gender discrimination in the workplace; discrimination in Japanese organizations in America; discrimination in the entertainment industry; discrimination in the utility industry; understanding and effectively managing national origin discrimination; how to investigate and prove hiring discrimination based on colour; and, finally, how to investigate sexual harassment in the workplace.
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With the accelerating process of urbanization, the greening areas in high density cities are becoming less and less, and the aerial greening provides a possible way for the update…
Abstract
With the accelerating process of urbanization, the greening areas in high density cities are becoming less and less, and the aerial greening provides a possible way for the update of the urban building headspace greening. Based on this, the application of aerial greening in the urban headspace was studied. Starting from the plant, water, landscape sketch, pavement and other construction elements, the ecological art planning and design of the urban building headspace was studied. Then, the transformation of an old factory was studied, and the rain-flood gardens and infiltration floors linked to biological corridors were introduced in the high flood risk areas. In the building headspace, a rainwater harvesting system and an air garden were designed, and the ecological planning of aerial walkway was carried out to the front abandoned viaduct. The practice proves that the introduction of ecological science and technology and art culture in the urban headspace plays an important role in purifying urban air and increasing urban greening.
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Using a sample of UK FTSE 350 companies continuously listed in the period 2007-2011, this paper aims to investigate the impact of the quality and quantity of corporate…
Abstract
Purpose
Using a sample of UK FTSE 350 companies continuously listed in the period 2007-2011, this paper aims to investigate the impact of the quality and quantity of corporate environmental disclosure on analysts’ recommendations.
Design/methodology/approach
The study adopted a method based on that developed by Beck et al. (2010). The “CONI” approach measures information diversity, content and volume. It involves dual qualitative and quantitative measurement, which is suitable for the purpose of this paper.
Findings
The findings suggest that the quality of environmental disclosure is associated with more favourable buy recommendations. Mere volume of disclosure is insufficient for effective signalling about environmental strategies. Further tests show that only discretionary quality disclosure that is influenced by managerial intervention receives optimistic recommendation, suggesting that analysts are more likely to give better recommendation when managers have a higher level of discretion in their disclosures.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the academic literature by empirically examining the association between sell-side analyst recommendations on both innate and discretionary components of environmental disclosures (quality and volume) within the UK context. This is a significant extension of the existing literature, which has focused on the related association between analyst recommendations and corporate social responsibility, mainly measured by corporate social responsibility ratings or a dummy variable reflecting the existence of supplementary corporate social responsibility reports in different international setting. The topic is of interest to contemporary accounting scholars and responds to calls for more research into how analysts use nonfinancial data such as environmental data in making recommendations.
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Future legislation relating to the control of the national milk supply formed the subject of discussion in the House of Commons on the 5th March. Although no new points were…
Abstract
Future legislation relating to the control of the national milk supply formed the subject of discussion in the House of Commons on the 5th March. Although no new points were brought out, the need for fresh legislation was emphasised in this discussion, especially the need for a general Act that would, while giving the central authority increased powers, do away “with the piecemeal, voluntary, and local enactments at present in existence. It is evident that if any radical change in the present system is to be effective it must not only be general as regards this country, but it must also be imperial” and international; inasmuch as it must deal both with the supplies that are produced at home and with those imported from abroad. It would obviously be in the highest degree unfair to the English farmer to make his stock, workpeople, and premises liable to the frequent expert inspection demanded, and, at the same time, to allow milk to enter this country from abroad without the application of an equally rigorous inspection on this side, and without some form of guarantee from the government of the country of origin. In all matters connected with food supply improved methods of preserving and sterilising as well as increased facilities for international commerce have resulted, as time has gone on, in a large number of food preparations of all kinds being thrown upon the markets. The trade in cheese and butter substitutes as well as that in canned and otherwise preserved meats, and the supply of cereal preparations, afford well known instances, and the milk trade is not singular in the circumstance that a considerable and increasing amount of, milk is treated in various ways, both at home and abroad, for consumption in this country.