Simona Wade and Orla B. Kennedy
The purpose of this paper is to investigate gym and non‐gym users' use and understanding of nutrition labels.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate gym and non‐gym users' use and understanding of nutrition labels.
Design/methodology/approach
A consumer survey in the form of a questionnaire conducted in the Greater London area in February/March 2005. Subject recruitment process took place in both a gym and university setting. Frequency tables and χ2‐test are used to assess relationships between variables (p=0.05).
Findings
The resulting sample consisted of 187 subjects, with predominance of females and gym users. Of the subjects, 88 per cent reported to at least occasionally read nutrition labels, with higher reading rates amongst women, irrespective of gym user status. Total and saturated fats are the most often information viewed on labels, however the overall knowledge of the calorie content of fat is low, with 53 per cent of subjects responding saturated fat contains more calories per gram when compared with other types of fats. This paper does not find significant differences in the use and understanding of nutrition labels between gym and non‐gym users, but highlights the publics' continued lack of understanding of nutrition labels.
Originality/value
This paper is unique as it investigates whether there is any difference between gym/non‐gym users' use and interpretation of use of nutrition labels. It finds gender impacted more on nutritional labels knowledge than gym user's status. This points to a gender issue and questions the quality of information available to the general public. This paper is valuable as it highlights and identifies an area that requires further research and assessment, and is therefore useful to key stakeholders responsible for public health nutrition.
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Leonie Lynch, Maurice Patterson and Caoilfhionn Ní Bheacháin
This paper aims to consider the visual literacy mobilized by consumers in their use of brand aesthetics to construct and communicate a curated self.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to consider the visual literacy mobilized by consumers in their use of brand aesthetics to construct and communicate a curated self.
Design/methodology/approach
The research surveyed a range of visual material from Instagram. Specifically, the goal was to use “compositional interpretation”, an approach to visual analysis that is not methodologically explicit but which, in itself, draws upon the visual literacy of the researcher to provide a descriptive analysis of the formal visual quality of images as distinct from their symbolic resonances. The research also incorporates 10 phenomenological-type interviews with consumers. Consistent with a phenomenological approach, informants were selected because they have “lived” the experience under investigation, in this case requiring them to be keen consumers of the Orla Kiely brand.
Findings
Findings indicate that consumers deploy their visual literacy in strategic visualization (imaginatively planning and coordinating artifacts with other objects in their collection, positioning and using them as part of an overall visual repertoire), composition (becoming active producers of images) and emergent design (turning design objects into display pieces, repurposing design objects or simply borrowing brand aesthetics to create designed objects of their own).
Research limitations/implications
This research has implications for the understanding of visual literacy within consumer culture. Engaging comprehensively with the visual compositions of consumers, this research moves beyond brand symbolism, semiotics or concepts of social status to examine the self-conscious creation of a curated self. The achievement of such a curated self depends on visual literacy and the deployment of abstract design language by consumers in the pursuit of both aesthetic satisfaction and social communication.
Practical implications
This research has implications for brand designers and managers in terms of how they might control or manage the use of brand aesthetics by consumers.
Originality/value
To date, there has been very little consumer research that explores the nature of visual literacy and even less that offers an empirical investigation of this concept within the context of brand aesthetics. The research moves beyond brand symbolism, semiotics and social status to consider the deployment of abstract visual language in communicating the curated self.
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Orla Kennedy, Barbara Stewart‐Knox, Peter Mitchell and David Thurnham
There is an apparent lack of research investigating how different test conditions influence or bias consumer sensory evaluation of food. The aim of the present pilot study was to…
Abstract
There is an apparent lack of research investigating how different test conditions influence or bias consumer sensory evaluation of food. The aim of the present pilot study was to determine if testing conditions had any effect on responses of an untrained panel to a novel chicken product. Assessments of flavour, texture and overall liking of corn‐fed chicken were made across three different testing conditions (laboratory‐based under normal lighting; laboratory‐based under controlled lighting; and, home testing). Least favourable evaluations occurred under laboratory‐based conditions irrespective of what lighting was used. Consumers perceived the product more favourably in terms of flavour (p < 0.001), texture (p < 0.001) and overall preference (p < 0.001) when evaluated in the familiar setting of the home. Home testing produced more consistent assessments than under either of the two laboratory‐based test conditions. The results imply that home evaluation should be undertaken routinely in new food product development.
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Arch G Woodside and Elizabeth J Wilson
The hypothesis is supported that substantial similarities exist in supplier choice strategies across industrialised nations. The nine studies reviewed indicate that a four‐step…
Abstract
The hypothesis is supported that substantial similarities exist in supplier choice strategies across industrialised nations. The nine studies reviewed indicate that a four‐step process is common to the majority of capital goods purchases and purchases of component parts and raw materials in some European countries and the United States
Christy Craig, Emily Oertling, Twyla Hill and Cheyla Clawson
This collaborative paper presents three case studies on four scholars' experiences with remote data collection. The authors highlight the challenges and strengths of online…
Abstract
Purpose
This collaborative paper presents three case studies on four scholars' experiences with remote data collection. The authors highlight the challenges and strengths of online qualitative research across three disparate projects: an interdisciplinary exploration of matrilineal heritage, an examination of Irish women's sexual identity and an investigation of dress practices among Tz'utujil-Maya.
Design/methodology/approach
Qualitative researchers traditionally go into the field to explore and understand social phenomena. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, while people faced the daily realities of a worldwide crisis from within their homes, remote data collection became a necessary strategy to pursue knowledge. As a result, researchers adapted to unknowns regarding recruiting, scheduling, technology, interviewing and analysis.
Findings
Participant and researcher experiences during the adaptation to remote interviewing yielded important lessons on research strategies.
Originality/value
Outcomes from these studies highlight the potential value of online data collection alongside the necessity for flexibility in designing and conducting qualitative research.
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Many important electronic systems are modelled by discrete‐time equations with nonlinearities that are discontinuous and piecewise‐linear, often arising as a result of…
Abstract
Purpose
Many important electronic systems are modelled by discrete‐time equations with nonlinearities that are discontinuous and piecewise‐linear, often arising as a result of quantization. Approximations based on linearization – the standard engineering response to nonlinearity – are often quite unhelpful in these systems, because of the form of the nonlinearity. Certain methods and results have been developed over a number of years for the analysis of discontinuous piecewise‐linear discrete‐time dynamics. The aim of this tutorial paper is to review that body of knowledge, and to show how it can be applied to representative electronic systems.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses an important electronic circuit – the ΣΔ modulator – as a central example, and considers the dynamical behaviour exhibited by this circuit and related circuits.
Findings
The circuits under investigation exhibit complex forms of behaviour that can be explained by the application of methods of nonlinear discrete‐time dynamics.
Originality/value
This paper is intended to provide a brief introduction to the body of research that exists into the behaviour of nonlinear discrete‐time circuits and systems with discontinuous piecewise‐linear nonlinearities.
This chapter examines symphysiotomy in twentieth-century Ireland as one example of a systematized obstetric violence that has characterized Ireland’s modern history. Expanding…
Abstract
This chapter examines symphysiotomy in twentieth-century Ireland as one example of a systematized obstetric violence that has characterized Ireland’s modern history. Expanding scholarly interpretations of state- and Church-inflicted abuse of women in the twentieth century, this analysis establishes the medical profession as a central actor alongside the twentieth-century state-Church coalition that regulated women’s reproductive lives and engaged in systematic repression. This chapter recognizes that Ireland’s history of reproductive abuse and coercion did not just involve contraception or abortion but also labor and birth experiences. In addition, it offers a more complete and complex interpretation of obstetric violence by highlighting the experiences of married women with wanted pregnancies; almost all research to date focuses on the experiences of unmarried pregnant women or unwanted pregnancies. This examination of symphysiotomy and obstetric violence in Ireland illuminates the ways in which religious, national, and medical power has been mapped on women’s reproductive bodies, particularly in the decades after independence in 1922. It also makes essential links between Ireland’s past and present, demonstrating that a careful analysis of the history of obstetric violence and the religious underpinnings of it are essential in understanding Ireland today. With this research, we also place symphysiotomy within the context of the global reproductive justice movement, asking how a reproductive justice framework – one that links reproductive rights with social justice – can help us interpret obstetric violence and address the wounds of Ireland’s past.
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The main research questions critically examine online videos that draw attention to a local community of musical practice, noticing how these can potentially be included within…
Abstract
Purpose
The main research questions critically examine online videos that draw attention to a local community of musical practice, noticing how these can potentially be included within the tourism promotion strategies. This paper develops a case study of four videos realised by the Louth County Board of the organisation Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann (CCÉ) in Co. Louth, Ireland, as a part of the FleadhFest 2021 initiative. It highlights the role that virtual spaces have in enhancing a sense of belonging to a music/festival community as well as the possibility that visual and audio supports have in promoting and celebrating a destination and its cultural features.
Design/methodology/approach
The analysis involves a netnographic examination of these videos (Janta, 2017), informed by the concept of “tourist gaze” (Urry, 1990; 2002) and influenced by film-induced tourism studies (Beeton, 2005).
Findings
Results show how festival and event organisers responded to COVID-19 social restrictions by creating a virtual space for celebrating music heritage and local musicscape, placing an emphasis on local musical scene.
Research limitations/implications
The research aims to inform future developments in how the organisation operates within and engages with virtual space, its members and a wider audience.
Originality/value
This is the first study to consider the virtual activities of CCÉ from an ethnomusicological as well as tourism, perspective.
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Corina Sheerin and Caitriona Hughes
This research aims to explore the role of social capital and specifically networks in role, and career development for women within two very distinct gender-segregated contexts of…
Abstract
Purpose
This research aims to explore the role of social capital and specifically networks in role, and career development for women within two very distinct gender-segregated contexts of the labour market, namely, investment management and human resource management (HRM).
Design/methodology/approach
This research is qualitative in nature, underpinned by an interpretivist philosophical stance. Thematic analysis is used to analyse the findings from 32 in-depth interviews with HR and investment management managers.
Findings
The findings advance our understanding of social capital and its development as a social process, which differs according to labour market contexts. The results indicate divergence among participants regarding how they access networks as well as the perceived role and benefits of networking and social capital accumulation in their career and personal development.
Practical implications
For human resource development (HRD) practitioners, there are implications in relation to the need to tailor development and support structures cognisant of the occupational context. Specifically, the findings of this study indicate the acute need to support network access for those “outsider” women in male-dominated spaces. A need to enhance awareness of the benefits of networks to both organisations and employees across the labour market is warranted. For organisations, networks underlie social capital accumulation, which in turn increases efficiency and generates business solutions. For the employee, networks are an important self-development and career advancement tool. Such connections need to be supported and developed. Within patriarchal spaces particularly, HRD professionals need to provide support to women in extending their networks both within and outside the organisation.
Originality/value
This research makes an essential contribution to the literature by examining the influence of context in the development of social capital within two polarized labour market locations. The findings highlight the difficulties women face when developing social capital in investment management in contrast to the relative ease, which HRM professionals experience. Such findings also bring to light the essential role of HRD professionals as advocates for change in such contexts.