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Consumers’ product evaluations are often influenced by information contained in their memories. Prior to product evaluations, consumers are often exposed to data that permits them to judge the covariation relationships among different product attributes. However, these attribute covariance perceptions may lead to biased product evaluations. Using an experimental design, this study examines the accuracy of consumers’ product attribute covariance beliefs as a function of their product experience and the relevancy of product information to which they are exposed prior to evaluating product performances. The results indicate that even limited product information affects consumers’ beliefs about product performances on attributes for which no information is available. In other words, specific product information may serve as a cue or indicator for other product characteristics via attribute covariance inferences. The accuracy of these inferences appears to be, at least partly, the function of the consumers’ product experience. Consumers with high levels of product experience are more effective at encoding and retrieving product attribute performance information. Implications of the findings are discussed and suggestions for future research are provided.

The purpose of this paper is to outline an instructional design approach for further development of an African ancestry learning center in order to enhance its educational utility. This is being done in an effort to use technology in transformative ways that extends the practices and opportunities for African Americans.

Assessing the needs of learners, performing a content analysis, and designing online resources and systems that meet learner's needs accomplished this goal.

This paper identifies a design process whereby technology can be used to connect people of African descent to a lost history.

This paper provides a method to leverage technology for people of African descent to engage in genealogy research, while acknowledging their unique historical journey.

The overall aim of the chapter is to explore how preschoolers with different language backgrounds accomplish everyday interaction at a Swedish preschool, where the lingua franca (common language) is Swedish. More specifically, it aims to analyze how the target children, despite their limited language resources in Swedish, use their existing communicative resources to make friends and achieve intersubjectivity in front of two alphabet charts illustrating the Arabic and Latin alphabets, respectively.

The data are drawn from a single play episode between three boys and a girl, aged four years. Their interaction was video-recorded, and the analytical framework of the study is influenced by ethnomethodological work on social action focusing particularly on participants’ methodical ways of accomplishing and making sense of social activities.

The analyses show that the children’s trajectory of achieving intersubjectivity was partly bothersome as their interpretation of the alphabet charts diverged, due to their different language knowledge and earlier experiences. Hence, to attain joint understanding and intersubjectivity, they used a range of communicative resources: besides speaking Swedish they used word mixing, attention-getters (“look” and “check it out”), and nonverbal moves such as pointing, gesturing, intone, and screaming. It is notable that, despite some problems in understanding, their desire to make friends and have fun together seemed to compensate for their joint failure to always understand each other.

Detailed analyses and observations of how children with diverse language backgrounds use their communicative resources to achieve intersubjectivity and make friends can be useful for preschool teachers’ understanding of how they can further support the children’s socialization and capturing of the majority language – here Swedish.

The present chapter contributes to a wider understanding of how second-language learning is a complex trajectory edged with both setbacks and successes, especially when all the children interacting have diverse language backgrounds and experiences. However, the analysis highlights how, in their endeavor to make friends, the children find ways to solve problems in situ in their own way, and enjoy each other’s company despite the fragility of the play and their language shortcomings.

Graduate students of the University of New England (U.N.E.) during the period 1970–1984 wrote one hundred dissertations on morale in a wide variety of educational institutions. The Staff Morale Questionnaire (S.M.Q.) developed and progressively refined at U.N.E. was extensively used in these and other studies in Australia. The project's greatest value lay in the way it enabled external (i.e. off‐campus) students to develop their academic critical abilities in a guided research effort, and in the ripple effect which has enabled numerous administrators in Australian schools to gain some sensitisation to and understanding of the importance of organisational morale.

In this chapter, the authors discuss how school counselors may create a college-going environment for African American males in middle school. The authors use Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) Ecological Systems Theory to explain how environmental influences impact African American males’ college trajectory, both positively and negatively. Moreover, they use Ecological Systems Theory to discuss how multiple stakeholders (e.g., school counselors and parents) and various structured activities that align with the Eight Components of College and Career Readiness (NOSCA, 2010) may promote college preparation among Black male middle school students. The authors also present two case vignettes as examples of how school counselors may assist African American males for postsecondary options. In closing, the chapter concludes with implications for educational policy, research, and practice.

This paper examines the gray market for consumer products, with a particular emphasis on the reasons for gray market growth, the distinct channels of distribution for gray market products, and the means by which the gray markets may be terminated. Secondary emphasis is provided on the factors that lead to gray market emergence and on the impact of exchange rates on gray markets. A major conclusion of the analysis is that gray markets for consumer products will continue to grow as manufacturers benefit from gray markets. This growth will be associated with products manufactured and distributed within the national market rather than imported products which fueled the gray market growth of the previous five years.

While a company cannot control every channel of the distribution chain, there are some methods that can be used to prevent products from being pulled into the gray market.

Due to the economic and strategic importance of telecommunication services, as well as projected growth rates in the information industries, countries have adopted policy restrictions on transborder data flows (TBDF) both into and out of their countries. The reasons for these measures include privacy concerns, national security and the competitiveness of national industries. The short‐term effects on multinational industries have been an increase in data processing costs and a loss of efficiency. Although trade has not yet been restricted in the long‐term, it is possible that trade, particularly in services, will be severely affected. The evolution and types of barriers to transborder data flow are described and their immediate impact on the telecommunications industry and possible ramifications for world trade in general are assessed.

The availability of external equity finance is a key factor in the development of technology‐based firms (TBFs). However, although a wide variety of sources are potentially available, many firms encounter difficulties in securing funding. The venture capital community, particularly in the UK, has done little to finance early stage TBFs and has failed to cater adequately for the specific value‐added requirements of these firms. Non‐financial companies have the potential to become an important alternative source of equity finance for TBFs through the process of corporate venture capital (CVC) investment. Based on a telephone survey of 48 UK TBFs that have raised CVC, examines the role of CVC in the context of TBF equity financing. Shows that CVC finance has represented a significant proportion of the total external equity raised by the survey firms and has been particularly important during the early stages of firm development. In addition, CVC often provides investee firms with value‐added benefits, primarily in the form of technical‐ and marketing‐related nurturing and credibility in the marketplace. Concludes with implications for TBFs, large companies, venture capital fund managers and policy makers.