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Products have a distinct life cycle, beginning with conception of new technology and ending with the decline and eventual discontinuation of a product as new products replace it. Throughout the entire life cycle of a product, online databases can provide important information to support the activities during each stage. While a technology which may result in a new product is being developed, a multitude of scientific and technical data‐bases are invaluable for research and development activities. When the technology is applied to a new product, engineers can access patents, technical and chemical research, and industry news online to assist in product and manufacturing process development; concurrently, marketing personnel can investigate the marketability of the new product using a variety of business, industry and trade information available online. Once the product has been determined to be marketable, business and product/industry databases can provide essential information related to distribution channels, pricing, promotional schemes, advertising campaigns and test marketing. As a product grows and matures, a marketer can use directory, general business, product/industry, and advertising industry databases to increase or retain market share for his product and to monitor the competition.

Mead Data Central up for sale. Mead Data Central has been put up for sale by its parent Mead Corp., which wants to concentrate on its core forestry business. Mead has not put a price tag on how much it will ask for MDC, which earned $50 million on revenues of $551 million last year. Mead itself posted profits of $124 million on sales of $4.79 billion last year.

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.

Gives a bibliographical review of the finite element meshing and remeshing from the theoretical as well as practical points of view. Topics such as adaptive techniques for meshing and remeshing, parallel processing in the finite element modelling, etc. are also included. The bibliography at the end of this paper contains 1,727 references to papers, conference proceedings and theses/dissertations dealing with presented subjects that were published between 1990 and 2001.

The present study aimed to explore the consequences of perceived authenticity in artificial intelligence (AI) assistants and develop a serial-mediation architecture specifying causation of loyalty in human–AI relationships. It intended to assess the predictive power of the developed model based on a training-holdout sample procedure. It further attempted to map and examine the predictors of loyalty, strengthening such relationship.

Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) based on bootstrapping technique was employed to examine the higher-order effects pertaining to human–AI relational intricacies. The sample size of the study comprised of 412 AI assistant users belonging to millennial generation. PLS-Predict algorithm was used to assess the predictive power of the model, while importance-performance analysis was executed to assess the effectiveness of the predictor variables on a two-dimensional map.

A positive relationship was found between “Perceived Authenticity” and “Loyalty,” which was serially mediated by “Perceived-Quality” and “Animacy” in human–AI relational context. The construct “Loyalty” remained a significant predictor of “Emotional-Attachment” and “Word-of-Mouth.” The model possessed high predictive power. Mapping analysis delivered contradictory result, indicating “authenticity” as the most significant predictor of “loyalty,” but the least effective on performance dimension.

The findings of the study may assist marketers to understand the relevance of AI authenticity and examine the critical behavioral consequences underlying customer retention and extension strategies.

The study is pioneer to introduce a hybrid AI authenticity model and establish its predictive power in explaining the transactional and communal view of human reciprocation in human–AI relationship. It exclusively provided relative assessment of the predictors of loyalty on a two-dimensional map.

Understanding the antecedents to and outcomes of customer satisfaction is a critical issue for both academics and bank marketers. Previous research has identified service quality, expectations, disconfirmation, performance, desires, affect and equity as important antecedents of customer satisfaction. The current paper reports findings from a survey which looked into the impact of service quality dimensions and customer expertise on satisfaction. A sample of 167 respondents took part in this study. Findings indicate that both core and relational dimensions of service quality appear to be linked to customer satisfaction. Findings also indicate that expertise is negatively related to satisfaction. The paper discusses implications for bank managers.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on psychological capital (PsyCap) – one of the emerging topics of human resource management, by examining its antecedents and outcomes through the lens of social exchange theory.

A meta-analytic approach was applied to validate the proposed hypotheses. Altogether, 105 primary studies published between 2000 and 2018 were collected and used.

Results show that leadership styles (authentic leadership, ethical leadership, abusive leadership) and organizational support are antecedents and desirable work attitudes (job satisfaction, organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behavior) are consequences of PsyCap. Employee’s characteristics significantly moderated the relationship between PsyCap and work attitudes.

This was the first attempt to examine PsyCap in a theoretical framework with its antecedents and outcomes and furthermore, to apply a meta-analytic method. The moderating role of employee characteristics in the relationship between PsyCap and work attitudes is also explored.