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A comparative case study of two academic libraries in two continents aims to investigate reasons behind similarities and differences between Universidad del Bío‐Bío (UBB) in Concepción, Chile, and California State University San Marcos (CSUSM).

Empirical data and interview transcripts are analyzed in the paper to provide insight into characteristics of academic libraries in an international context.

The paper finds that, while institutional age, student population size, and number of librarians are comparable, the services, usage, and collections at each library are distinct.

There are few international comparative case studies of academic libraries.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on food consumption as part of the wicked problem of obesity. Specifically, the authors seek to explore the complex interplay between stakeholders such as food producers, marketers, health and medical practitioners and policymakers and their influence on the ways in which individuals consume food and also chart a course forward using a systems approach, social marketing techniques and social enterprise to develop solutions to effect change.

This is a conceptual paper that proposes the food system compass to understand the complex interplay between stakeholders.

This new tool will provide social marketers with an improved understanding of the complexity of interactions between stakeholders and outcomes and integrating the necessity for coordination within and across micro, meso, exo and macro levels of the system as well as across sectors, institutions and stakeholders.

This is a conceptual paper and proposes the food system compass which offers a foundation for future research to expand upon.

This paper seeks to advance the theoretical base of social marketing by providing new insights into the trans-disciplinary and dynamic circumstances surrounding food consumption and obesity and highlights leverage points where joint actions can be facilitated with actors across and between micro, meso, exo and macro levels.

Hospitality businesses have been challenged to pick fitting electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) management strategies, yet accurate return on investment assessments and contextual contingencies interpretation essential for leveraging eWOM power are largely absent. This study aims to fill these gaps and develop a tool aiming at more holistic and accurate eWOM management assessment.

An agent-based model is developed based on eWOM-related hospitality/business theories and empirical evidence on the NetLogo 6.0.2 platform, wherein a series of simulated experiments are conducted.

Simulation patterns suggest that conformity to the majority’s choice of eWOM usage can be beneficial for consumption satisfaction, yet conformity to a group’s eWOM posting choice can compromise satisfaction. Compared to the brief reputation-boosting benefit of exaggerated advertising, honesty in advertising is preferable given its compatibility with competing eWOM distribution and long-term reputation benefits.

A preliminary tool is developed for hospitality businesses that aids the clearer interpretation of and more accurate/cost-efficient assessment of effectiveness in managing eWOM distribution. Generic directions for improved eWOM management are also provided.

A prototype model is established that surpasses existing models in its ability to capture the complexity of eWOM management and more accurately assess management effectiveness. The authors also reveal emerging novel patterns concerning the interactive dynamics of eWOM behaviors and contextual influences. The research also adds to the scarce agent-based model applications in hospitality research/practices and recommends future potential applications.

Mindfulness is gaining popularity in the business world as a way to improve mental health and productivity in employees. However, the application of mindfulness for employees in the hospitality sector is still in its nascent stage. This paper aims to synthesize the evidence on the effectiveness of mindfulness practice on employees in this high-pressure service industry.

This narrative review identifies and integrates insights from journal articles researching mindfulness in the hospitality industry. Synthesis and reflective description of the literature reveal an exigent need for practice, policy-making and future research.

This review paper describes mindfulness-based interventions used in the literature. It shows how the practice of mindfulness stimulates a culture of well-being and effectiveness at work, consequently having a positive impact on the customer and the organization. It points to the role of mindfulness in helping hospitality employees deal with stress, depression, anxiety, burnout and emotional labor peculiar to this industry, lowering absenteeism levels and turnover intention.

This paper has implications for hospitality managerial practice, human resource (HR) policy development, employees at all levels in the hospitality industry, business coaches/trainers, educationists, students pursuing hospitality management and researchers.

This first review article on mindfulness in the hospitality industry lays the foundation to accentuate the need and benefits of prioritizing mindfulness in this sector. It provides directions for future research, application in HR management in hospitality and designing effective interventions.

The purpose of this paper is to report on the use and content of written guidance produced by mental health services in England and Wales describing hospital leave for informally admitted patients.

Guidance on leave was requested from National Health Service (NHS) mental health trusts in England and health boards in Wales (n = 61) using a Freedom of Information submission. Data were analysed using content analysis.

In total, 32 organisations had a leave policy for informal patients. Policies varied considerably in content and quality. The content of policies was not supported by research evidence. Organisations appeared to have developed their policies by either adapting or copying the guidance on section 17 leave outlined in the Mental Health Act Codes of Practice for England and Wales (Department of Health, 2016; Welsh Government, 2016). Definitions of important terms, for example, leave and hospital premises, were either absent or poorly defined. Finally, some organisations appeared to be operating pseudo-legal coercive contracts to prevent informal patients from leaving hospital wards.

Research should be undertaken to explore the impact of local policies on the informal patient’s right to life and liberty.

All NHS organisations need to develop an evidence-based policy to facilitate the informal patient’s right to take leave. A set of national standards that organisations are required to comply with would help to standardise the content of leave policies.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study to examine the use and content of local policies describing how informal patients can take leave from hospital.

This review integrates and builds linkages among existing theoretical and empirical literature from across disciplines to further broaden our understanding of the relationship between inequality, imprisonment, and health for black men. The review examines the health impact of prisons through an ecological theoretical perspective to understand how factors at multiple levels of the social ecology interact with prisons to potentially contribute to deleterious health effects and the exacerbation of race/ethnic health disparities.

This review finds that there are documented health disparities between inmates and non-inmates, but the casual mechanisms explaining this relationship are not well-understood. Prisons may interact with other societal systems – such as the family (microsystem), education, and healthcare systems (meso/exosystems), and systems of racial oppression (macrosystem) – to influence individual and population health.

The review also finds that research needs to move the discussion of the race effects in health and crime/justice disparities beyond the mere documentation of such differences toward a better understanding of their causes and effects at the level of individuals, communities, and other social ecologies.

This study aims to contribute to the ongoing discussion of how consumers approach shopping directly via social media by explicating decisions related to trust on social media and how various types of electronic word of mouth (eWOM; ratings and reviews, recommendations and referrals and social media communities) contribute to these decisions.

A total of 198 respondents with experience shopping directly via social media were instructed to select the platform on which they had the most shopping experience (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, etc.) to answer relevant survey questions. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used for analyzing the results.

Findings reveal that eWOM provided by strong ties (recommendations and referrals; social media communities) is superior to weak ties (ratings and reviews). Surprisingly, ratings and reviews do not significantly relate to trust in the retailer, suggesting that this information may be necessary but not sufficient for trusting retailers on social media.

This research distinguishes trust decisions related to shopping on social media and clarifies how each type of eWOM uniquely influences trust in the retailer by using tie strength theory.

Young people transitioning from child to adult mental health services are frequently also known to social services, but the role of such services in this study and their interplay with mental healthcare system lacks evidence in the European panorama. This study aims to gather information on the characteristics and the involvement of social services supporting young people approaching transition.

A survey of 16 European Union countries was conducted. Country respondents, representing social services’ point of view, completed an ad hoc questionnaire. Information sought included details on social service availability and the characteristics of their interplay with mental health services.

Service availability ranges from a low of 3/100,000 social workers working with young people of transition age in Spain to a high 500/100,000 social workers in Poland, with heterogeneous involvement in youth health care. Community-based residential facilities and services for youth under custodial measures were the most commonly type of social service involved. In 80% of the surveyed countries, youth protection from abuse/neglect is overall regulated by national protocols or written agreements between mental health and social services, with the exception of Czech Republic and Greece, where poor or no protocols apply. Lack of connection between child and adult mental health services has been identified as the major obstacles to transition (93.8%), together with insufficient involvement of stakeholders throughout the process.

Marked heterogeneity across countries may suggest weaknesses in youth mental health policy-making at the European level. Greater inclusion of relevant stakeholders is needed to inform the development and implementation of person-centered health-care models. Disconnection between child and adult mental health services is widely recognized in the social services arena as the major barrier faced by young service users in transition; this “outside” perspective provides further support for an urgent re-configuration of services and the need to address unaligned working practices and service cultures.

This is the first survey gathering information on social service provision at the time of mental health services transition at a European level; its findings may help to inform services to offer a better coordinated social health care for young people with mental health disorders.

A piece of frequently given informal advice to those starting in the world of research is to ‘pick a topic you'll be able to stick with for three or four years’ – and often that's the end of it. This chapter suggests that we should understand the importance of confronting the ‘affective gap’ in how research is currently conceived. It does so by considering how usually we do not engage with the issues underlying this ‘sticking with’ and what allows us to sustain our attention and effort across the years of a research project. Through a case study of my own confrontation with the question of how I chose and changed my own PhD research topic, this chapter introduces the idea of affective research through an exploration of the concept of affect and its relevance to research. The first part of this chapter explores affect through a brief overview of four different scholarly literatures, to provide an initial framework and some clarity for what is often an opaque subject. This is then grounded through an affective engagement with the issue of choosing a research topic and how this affects our research. It concludes with a brief overview of the other chapters in the volume.

This paper aims to investigate the temporal dynamics of users browsing activity on a hotel website in order to derive effective marketing strategies and constantly improve website effectiveness. Users' activities on the hotel's website on yearly, monthly, daily and hourly basis are examined and compared, demonstrating the power of informatics and data analytics.

A total of 29,976 hourly Weblog files from 1 August 2014 to 31 December 2017 were collected from a luxury hotel in Hong Kong. ANOVA and post-hoc comparisons were used to analyse the data.

Users' browsing behaviours, particularly stickiness, on the hotel website differ on yearly, monthly, daily and weekly bases. Users' activities increased steadily from 2014 to 2016, but dropped in 2017. Users are most active from July to September, on weekdays, and from noon to evening time. The month-, day-, and hour-based behaviours changed through years. The analysis of big data determines strategic and operational management and marketing decision-making.

Understanding the usage patterns of their websites allow organisations to make a range of strategic, marketing, pricing and distribution decisions to optimise their performance. Fluctuation of website usage and level of customer engagement have implications on customer support and services, as well as strategic partnership decisions.

Leveraging the power of big data analytics, this paper adds to the existing literature by performing a comprehensive analysis on the temporal dynamics of users' online browsing behaviours.