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When the UK's Milk Marketing Boards (MMB) were disbanded in 1994 the formal link between the farm gate milk price with the milk's end‐use was broken. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether milk prices fell to their “marginal value in the least remunerative use” or whether “the market had put in place some other mechanism for raising the price upwards”.

An on‐line survey of UK milk producers, open to all, conducted in the summer of 2008, explored farmers' knowledge of their milk contract, the use of their milk, and the reasons for choosing their current milk buyer.

A liquid milk price premium (of 1.06ppl.) was earned by farmers who: sold on liquid milk contracts to processors, rather than to one of the three large farmer‐owned co‐operatives; and who recently switched milk buyer. Switching incurred high transaction costs, additional uncertainty, and went against commitments to the co‐operative ideal.

Publication of differences between a buyer's milk price and a benchmark related to how the milk is processed, (a D‐score), cumulative difference values (D_C), 12 and 24 monthly moving average difference measures (D_MA12 and D_MA24 respectively) alongside milk buyers' milk price would improved supply chain transparency, and lower farmers' switching costs. It would also help farmers to treat their milk's final markets, rather than their milk buyer, as their customers.

The paper puts forward practical suggestions that have never been discussed by the UK supply chain, even though they would have direct and indirect benefits to the actors involved.

This case is real. To preserve client/consultant confidentiality, the industry has been changed and the firm disguised.

This study aims to explore the authentic questioning practices of English Language Arts teachers. Although language arts (LA) education emphasizes the value of authentic questions in discussions about literature, teachers still tend to ask known-answer questions that guide students toward one literary interpretation. However, outside their classrooms, teachers talk about literary texts from stances of openness and curiosity. Helping teachers recognize and draw on their out-of-school literary practices might help them disrupt entrenched known-answer discourses. The authors studied how the same teachers asked questions about literature in different settings. The authors asked: To what degree and in what ways did teachers’ questions about literature change when they took on different roles in discussions of literature?

Drawing on theories of classroom discourses and everyday practices, this study compared and analyzed types of questions asked by high school teachers as they took on three roles: teacher in the high school classroom, discussion leader in a professional development and everyday reader in discussion.

Analysis showed that as participants moved further away from their teacher role, they were more likely to ask authentic, curiosity-driven questions that engaged fellow readers in exploratory, dialogic interpretation. They were less likely to attempt to maintain authority over students’ interpretations.

The authors hope researchers will build on these explorations of teacher stances and language in different roles, so we can work toward disrupt entrenched known-answer discourses in the classroom.

Drawing on this study’s findings about questioning practices of participants in their role as reader (as opposed to discussion leader or classroom teacher), the authors suggest that teachers and teacher educators consider the following: First, teachers need to understand the power of interpretive authority and known-answer discourses and compare them explicitly to their own everyday practices through rehearsals and reflection. Second, teachers might focus less on theme and more on exploration of individual lines, patterns and unusual authorial moves. Finally, when preparing to teach, if teachers can reconnect with the stance and language of uncertainty and curiosity, they are likely to ask more authentic questions.

These findings suggest both the power of entrenched known-answer discourses to constrain and the potential power of making visible and drawing on teachers’ literary reading practices in out-of-school contexts.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no studies have made an empirical comparison of the relationship between the role a teacher takes on during discussion and the kinds of questions they ask about literature. This study offers insight into the value of everyday curiosity and other out-of-school resources that teachers could – but often do not – bring to their facilitations of classroom discussions. The findings suggest that teachers, teacher educators and researchers must recognize and recruit teachers’ everyday practices to the LA classroom.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into European organic consumers’ attitudes towards natural food and in their sensory preference for it. It explores whether there is any evidence for a latent dimension that represents consumers’ attitudes towards naturalness and which aspects can be assigned to this dimension. However, the main scope is to investigate whether attitudes towards naturalness are able to predict the liking of natural food.

Sensory tests of strawberry yoghurt are combined with consumer information obtained by means of a standardised questionnaire. About 1,800 organic consumers from France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Switzerland were asked to blindly test two strawberry yoghurt samples that differed only in their absence/presence of an aroma additive.

On average, the consumers revealed a positive attitude towards natural food, but a negative sensory preference for the more natural yoghurt sample. Correlations between these two variables indicate that for most countries one cannot conclude that more naturalness-oriented consumers actually prefer the taste of more naturally flavoured yoghurts. This finding is interpreted as an attitude-liking gap.

More research is necessary in order to clarify the reasons for the attitude-liking gap, since the authors can only speculate about these. Also, suitable data are needed to confirm the assumption made here that the naturalness of strawberry yoghurt can be determined by the degree of flavour intensity, especially against the background that the sensory skills of consumers are usually weak.

No attempt has been undertaken so far to test the claim that natural food products taste better and whether consumers with a positive attitude towards naturalness actually prefer the taste of a natural product over the taste of a more processed one. The present study attempts to fill this gap by exploring the preference for naturalness in a cross-national context.

This paper tests whether employers responded particularly negatively to African American job applicants during the deep U.S. recession that began in 2007. Theories of labor queuing and social closure posit that members of privileged groups will act to minimize labor market competition in times of economic turbulence, which could advantage Whites relative to African Americans. Although social closure should be weakest in the less desirable, low-wage job market, it may extend downward during recessions, pushing minority groups further down the labor queue and exacerbating racial inequalities in hiring. We consider two complementary data sources: (1) a field experiment with a randomized block design and (2) the nationally representative NLSY97 sample. Contrary to expectations, both analyses reveal a comparable recession-based decline in job prospects for White and African American male applicants, implying that hiring managers did not adapt new forms of social closure and demonstrating the durability of inequality even in times of structural change. Despite this proportionate drop, however, the recession left African Americans in an extremely disadvantaged position. Whites during the recession obtained favorable responses from employers at rates similar to African Americans prior to the recession. The combination of experimental methods and nationally representative longitudinal data yields strong evidence on how race and recession affect job prospects in the low-wage labor market.

This paper aims to report the results of a comprehensive literature review concerned with exploring the distinctive roles of the underlying multidimensional psychological mechanisms through which organizational culture (OC) affects TQM.

A thorough review of the relevant existing studies focusing on the direct and indirect links between OC, employee readiness for change (ERFC), employee commitment to change (ECC) and TQM implementation was conducted. To identify studies to include in the review, electronic searches of prominent databases and journals were carried out for the period 1980 to 2020.

The thorough analysis of relevant studies indicates that various types of OC influence TQM through certain psychological mechanisms namely ERFC dimensions and employee affective commitment to change. As a consequence, the paper develops a set of propositions and a novel integrative conceptual framework to explain the mediating roles of ERFCs and EACC in the OC–TQM relationship and then concludes by suggesting future lines of research and highlighting practical managerial implications.

Drawing on academic perspectives from multiple literature streams, this study offers a more advanced understanding of the relationship between OC and TQM implementation via exploring multiple mediating paths.

This study presents an analysis of the evolution of advertising's portrayal of women in motorsport. The construct of source credibility is examined and used as a framework to better understand the limitations and opportunities of female athlete endorsers in general and female racing car drivers in particular. The advertising images of pioneer drivers Janet Guthrie, Lyn St. James and Sarah Fisher are discussed and compared to that of Danica Patrick, a media star in the Indy Racing League (IRL). Patrick has been successful in capitalising on her expertise and attractiveness to enhance her image and endorse products. Attitudes towards using sex appeal to sell products are presented and discussed.

Strategic Measurement Systems (SMS) collect and analyze the performance information needed to manage processes and competencies that produce significant competitive advantage. An increasing number of companies are augmenting their traditional financial performance systems with these new measurements.

There is evidence that both hypnotherapy and virtual reality (VR) can be helpful in reducing perceived stress in the general population. This is a feasibility and acceptability trial of an intervention combining hypnotherapy and VR to establish its acceptability in students. This study aims to establish whether students found the experience acceptable, described any adverse effects and whether they reported feeling calmer after the experience.

The study was testing the hypothesis that students would attend the sessions and find the experience acceptable. A secondary hypothesis was that preliminary qualitative and quantitative evaluation of measures of stress and wellbeing would signal potential improvements.

All participants completed all three sessions. No side effects were reported. Visual analogue scales recorded each day assessing the immediate effect improved. At the end of the intervention, there was an increase in wellbeing of 2.40 (95% CI: 1.33, 3.53, p = 0.006), and a decrease in depression of 0.73 (95% CI: 0.40, 1.07, p = 0.010), reflecting large effect sizes of 0.76 and 0.83, respectively. Qualitative feedback was generally very positive.

This study is small with just 15 students and was over a short period of time. The recruitment method meant there was no way to establish whether the volunteer students were representative of the general student population in terms of mental wellbeing. There was no control arm.

The preliminary results suggest that a larger controlled trial is justified.

This VR experience may have benefit to university students and to the wider population.

This described the evaluation of a novel intervention for perceived stress combining hypnotherapy and virtual reality in a group of healthcare students, with promising results suggesting further evaluation is needed.

Worker cooperative practitioners and developers often claim that democratic worker ownership advances egalitarianism within and beyond the workplace, but most of the empirical evidence in the USA is based on ethnographic case studies or small-scale surveys. This study aims to leverage the first national survey about individuals' experiences in these unique firms to test for the presence of inequalities by gender, race and immigration status in the broader sector.

The study uses a 2017 survey comprising a sample of 1,147 workers from 82 firms. This study focuses on measures of workplace benefits that capture material and psychological ownership, wealth accumulation, wages, workplace autonomy and participation in governance. This study uses ordinary least squares regression models with fixed effects alongside pooled models to determine the effects of gender, race, immigration status and the intersection of gender and race on these outcomes, both within and between firms.

This study finds no evidence of wage gaps by gender, race or immigration status within worker cooperatives, with job type, tenure and worker ownership status instead explaining within-firm variation in pay. Still, this study documents sector-wide disparities in material and non-material outcomes by gender, race and immigration status, reflecting differences in individual-level human capital and job characteristics as well as widespread occupational segregation and homophily.

The paper offers a novel contribution to the literature on workplace empowerment and inequality in participatory firms by analyzing race, gender and immigration status in the most robust dataset that has been collected on worker cooperatives in the USA.