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The purpose of this paper is to provide an evaluation of traineeships as an active labour policy for young people in Italy. The role of traineeships as a formative experience for improving youth employment is stated by law and the specific evaluation of the regional Quality Traineeships Programme allowed for a more in-depth analysis of the role quality criteria plays in traineeship implementation.

Such evaluation relies on administrative data, while a counterfactual approach was used to compare trainees to unemployed young people registered with Public Employment Services. The impact of traineeships on youth careers was measured in terms of employment probability, but innovatively, the actual placement was measured in terms of both hiring and along a “quality” metric with respect to entry in the labour market. It is reasonable to assume that young people are interested in traineeships as an investment towards a more satisfying career (not just as a gateway to recruitment). At last, the authors introduce a persistency analysis of the effects on youth employment rates.

The results show that traineeships hinder rapid transition to work, but they are effective stepping-stones for young people seeking a quality career. A benefit of 7 percentage points was estimated on the probability of finding a quality job after completing the traineeship and a long-lasting effect on trainees’ employment rate is demonstrated by the persistency analysis. These benefits are strengthened for participants in the Quality Traineeships Programme, confirming the relevance of desirable learning and contractual conditions in supporting the effectiveness of internships in Italy.

As far as the authors know, this paper is the first study that specifically refers to traineeships as an active policy in Italy and the questions resulting from the research suggest new trends in the debate over the role of policies for supporting youth employment. The administrative archives used in the analysis and the persistence effects on youth employment rates are further innovations to the empirical literature on the effectiveness of Italy’s training programmes.

In the context of European consumers’ experiences of austerity, this study aims to advance current resilience theory in marketing through developing persistent resilience from a context of austerity influenced consumption.

Following an interpretivist approach, 38 face to face, in-depth interviews were conducted with European consumers from Ireland, UK, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece who were affected in some way by the global financial crisis.

Building upon limited conceptual and empirical investigations in social geography, the analysis identifies the themes of persistent stressors and temporal orientation as constants, alongside day-to-day coping, relating and pragmatism, consumer adjustment, repertoires of resistance and transformation as key elements of persistent resilience within the consumption context of austerity.

The study addresses the limited theoretical and empirical focus on persistent resilience and austerity and directly contributes to consumer behaviour and marketing theory in understanding persistent resilience and its implications.

Changes to behaviours as a result of persistent resilience included reducing and stopping consumption, discount shopping, alternative consumption in the form of growing or making and mindful consumption through wastage reduction and re-use.

The study highlights the significant social impact of austerity while also identifying positive outcomes for social relations among family, friends and the wider community.

This study develops and extends Golubchikov’s (2011) theory of persistent resilience through exploring European consumer responses to austerity, identifying key consumption characteristics relevant for marketing theory and practice.

This study aims to integrate and extend existing approaches from self-identity literature by examining the underexplored aspects of online private self-disclosure. The study first explores the experiential value co-created when consumers voluntarily self-disclose on public platforms. Second, it sheds light on what motivates such consumers to disclose private self-images and experiences, thus giving up some degree of privacy on an unrestricted platform.

This study conducted 65 laddering interviews and observed the profiles of ten consumers, who actively posted self-images on Instagram, through a netnographic study. Then, this study implemented a means-ends chain analysis on interview data.

This study found that online private self-disclosure can involve a co-created experiential value that consists of consumers’ self-affirmation, affective belief and emotional connection. These value components derive from three higher-order psychological consequences – empowerment, buffering offline inadequacy of self-worth and engagement – and four functional consequences – opportunity to learn, online control, self-brand authenticity and impression management.

Operationally, this study proposes that Instagram could be configured and synched with other social networking sites to provide a more complete representation of the online self. Using algorithms that simultaneously pull from other social networking sites can emotionally connect consumers to a more relevant and gratifying personalized experience. Additionally, managers could leverage the findings to tailor supporting tools to transfer consumers’ private self-disclosure skills learned during online communication into their offline settings.

This research contributes to the extant marketing literature by providing insights into how consumers can use private self-disclosure to co-create experiential value, an emerging concept in modern marketing that is key to attaining satisfied and loyal consumers. This study shows that, even in anonymous online settings, consumers are willing to self-disclose and progress to stable intimate exchanges of disclosure by breaking their inner repression and becoming more comfortable with releasing their desires in an emotional exchange.

This study examines the accuracy of a homogenization scheme for the linear buckling analysis of structures assembled from beam-based lattice plates. Regardless of in-plane acting loads, the buckling behavior is characterized by the abrupt out-of-plane deformation. Apparently, if the lattice plates are modeled as homogenized ones, the out-of-plane effective material properties should be considered. However, as prevalently implemented in literature, the in-plane effective material properties are assigned to the homogenized plates for the linear buckling analysis, and thus, the results are erroneous.

The linear buckling analysis is performed by two finite element models, i.e. the high- and low-fidelity finite element models. In the former one, each strut of the lattice structures is modeled as an Euler–Bernoulli beam, and thus, all the geometrical features are explicitly simulated. On the other hand, the low-fidelity one involves the homogenized plates having the out-of-plane effective material properties determined from the lattice counterparts using an energy-based homogenization method.

The accuracy of the homogenization scheme is confirmed by the comparison of results obtained by the high- and low-fidelity finite element models. Six topological configurations of the unit cells are considered, and the first five buckling modes are inspected. In all examinations, the low-fidelity finite element model offers the acceptable level of accuracy, i.e. the relative difference between two finite element models is lower than 5%. Furthermore, it is recommended to use the out-of-plane effective material properties rather than the in-plane ones to ensure the precise simulation.

The current study is original. In literature, there are some studies regarding the buckling analysis of lattice plates or panels with out-of-plane material properties. However, these studies use the analytical approach, and consequently, they are confined to lattice structures whose geometry is simple. In the present paper, structures assembled from beam-based lattice plates are examined. It can be noticed that these structures can have complex geometry. Therefore, the feasibility and accuracy of using out-of-plane effective material properties with homogenized plates for the linear buckling analysis of lattice plates are validated.