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The purpose of this study is to investigate the efficacy and impact of effectual logic used by owner-managers of established micro firms when making buying decisions.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 13 owner-managers of micro firms, concerning their decision-making processes when selecting suppliers. Interviews were transcribed verbatim, then analysed thematically.

This study contributes to the literature in respect of effectuation by considering its use by a micro firm owner-manager to develop relationships with trusted suppliers. The findings suggest effectuation positively promotes flexibility and reduces loss potential, thus positively affecting the price that the owner-manager is willing to pay. Furthermore, it also appears to necessitate effectual selling, with an ongoing iterative process, in which effectual selling leads to effectual buying. In contrast to extant literature, this study suggests that application of effectual logic to buying and selling decisions, by a micro firm owner-manager can create, rather than reduce, uncertainty.

This study is based on single interviews with a sample of owner-managers of micro firms that operate within the same industry and within a single country. The subjective nature of qualitative research, homogeneity and size of sample may prevent generalisation of the findings.

Effectual buying and selling appears to provide a micro firm with the ability to engage with flexible suppliers so as to offer a heterogeneous array of products and services to its customers, thus promoting sales success. Yet, the lack of homogeneity of customer needs and need for supplier flexibility may lead to overall costs being greater than those that could be achieved if the micro firm specialised in a smaller range of products and services and developed internal resources to meet the needs of its customers.

In contrast to extant literature that states that effectuation is a way to reduce uncertainty to a level at which a decision can be made, this study suggests that continual use of effectual logic by owner-managers of micro firms when making buying and selling decisions can instead create more uncertainty in the longer term.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the impact of effectuation when used by small suppliers within key account management (KAM) relationships.

An exploratory longitudinal case study approach was used to examine a single small supplier operating in the snack foods sector of the UK foods industry, as it entered into a new KAM relationship with a major retailer and undertook four new product development projects.

Findings suggest effectuation may positively moderate the ability of a small supplier to enter into a KAM relationship by enabling it to obtain resources and limit risk. However, once within the relationship, the use of effectuation may negatively impact success by increasing the potential for failure to co-create new product development, leading to sub-optimal products, impacting buyer confidence and trust. Furthermore, a failed KAM relationship may impact other customers through attempts to recover revenues by selling these products, which may promote short-term success but, in the long-term, lead to cascading sales failure.

It cannot be claimed that the findings of just one case study represent all small suppliers or KAM relationships. Furthermore, the case presented specifically concerns buyer-supplier relationships within the food sector.

This study appears to suggest caution be exercised when applying effectuation to enter into a KAM relationship, as reliance on effectual means to garner required resources may lead to the production of sub-optimal products, which are rejected by the customer. Additionally, a large customer considering entering into a KAM relationship with a small supplier should take care to ensure their chosen partner has all resources needed to successfully deliver as required or be prepared to provide sufficient support to avoid the production of sub-optimal products.

Findings suggest the use of effectuation within a KAM relationship has the potential to develop a dark side within business-to-business buyer-supplier relationships through unintentional breaches of trust by the selling party.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the effect of effectuation logic on the buying intentions of small firm owner-managers.

Literature relating to organisational buying, marketing and personal selling and entrepreneurial decision making was synthesised.

This paper presents a conceptual model based on propositions relating to how effectuation logic may explain the predilection of small firm owner-managers to select trusted suppliers from within personal and business networks, and to engage on flexible terms. It suggests that supplier relationship decisions made using effectuation logic may enable wider choice of suppliers than the formal processes of large firms.

The findings were developed from a narrative review of literature and are yet to be empirically tested.

By synthesising research findings on small firm buyer behaviour, the IMP interaction approach and effectuation, it has been possible to develop a predictive model representing buyer–seller relationships in the context of small firms which suggests that owner-managers select suppliers in line with the principles of effectuation means and effectuation affordable loss.

This paper is derived from a larger study that explored how the rationality of freedom became inscribed in educational practices that shaped and reshaped limits that constitute the responsible parent. Here, I draw on part of the study to diagnose how romantic discourse on childhood, which rewrote religious and secular discourse in the eighteenth century, was refashioned in the nineteenth century to rewrite the responsible parent. In this historical inquiry, I follow Foucault’s lead and analyse thoughts of freedom not as a value that we cannot live without or an illusion that hides the truth of our oppression but as a political tool for producing the ‘other’ as a means of inciting the autonomous parent to recognise the self as an ethical subject responsible for educating the child. What this exposes is how the writing and rewriting of the responsible parent in terms of educating the child within liberal government is reliant on fabricating ‘otherness’ as a threat to freedom.

This study aims to deepen the understanding of the challenges and implications entailed by deploying mobile clinics in conflict zones to reach populations affected by violence and cut off from health-care services.

This research combines an integrated literature review and an instrumental case study. The literature review comprises two targeted reviews to provide insights: one on conflict zones and one on mobile clinics. The case study describes the process and challenges faced throughout a mobile clinic deployment during and after the Iraq War. The data was gathered using mixed methods over a two-year period (2017–2018).

Armed conflicts directly impact the populations’ health and access to health care. Mobile clinic deployments are often used and recommended to provide health-care access to vulnerable populations cut off from health-care services. However, there is a dearth of peer-reviewed literature documenting decision support tools for mobile clinic deployments.

This study highlights the gaps in the literature and provides direction for future research to support the development of valuable insights and decision support tools for practitioners.

The paper aims to focus on the individual contribution of water to the lubrication regimes in articular joints because understanding of these regimes is crucial not only for the treatment of diseases like osteoarthritis but also for the development of new implants to have a longer service cycle.

Cartilage specimen and the synovial fluid were both isolated from bovine knee joints that are enclosed by a synovial membrane under sterile conditions of a biosafety Level 2 (BSL2) cabinet. Subchondral bone was removed from the cartilage because it not only creates a stable base to place the specimen on the holder, but it also acts as a primary shock absorber protecting the overlaying cartilage under high-impact loads. A specimen holder specially designed for tests and was attached to the linear oscillation (SRV) test machine. The SRV test machine provides a reciprocating sliding motion between the cartilage samples that are submerged into the selected biological media. The entire system can be mounted on the BSL2 cabinet, sealed with the convoluted gaiter and transported to the SRV machine with a specifically designed handle for the entire system. The process ensures sterile conditions for tests on biological samples that are highly sensitive to the environmental conditions.

A remarkably low coefficient of friction value for distilled water constitutes more evidence to support the assumption of the impact of water in the friction behaviour of the cartilage-against-cartilage contact. As the fluid in articular cartilage (AC) effectively serves as a synovial fluid reserve and 70-80 per cent of its composition is distilled water, it can be stated that the tribotest system mimics the natural working conditions of an actual knee joint adequately.

Time and limited availability of the animal-driven samples led to a focus on certain parameters mentioned in the approach. A planned scan of parameter matrix, such as variation of load and speed, would allow deeper knowledge on the lubrication regimes.

Study of relevant tribological contact in human joints might give ideas on new designs for artificial joints.

Understanding of lubrication regimes is crucial not only for the treatment of diseases like osteoarthritis but also for the development of new implants to adapt motion of related joint.

Exclusion of water and application as the primary lubricant in the test system brings a new perspective to joint lubrication.

This paper examines bilateral and multilateral cointegration properties of the German stock market and the three most credible Central European candidates for membership in the European Union. The cointegration tests cover the time period of July 5, 1995, to March 27, 2002. The DAX is used to represent the German equity market and the IFCI indices represent the Central European equity markets. Application of the Johansen (1988) cointegration procedure indicates that there is no long‐term relationship between the German market and the Central European markets, either individually or as a group. The Granger‐causality test does reveal some short‐term effects running from the German to the Polish market but no reverse causality. Overall, the results suggest that neither trade, financial liberalization, nor the introduction of the Euro has yet had sufficient impact to bring these markets into a long‐term relationship.

The present study aims to examine the influence of emotional content and gender pertaining to victim impact statements (VIS) on sentencing outcomes.

The authors used a 2 (emotionality)×2 (participant gender)×2 (victim gender)×2 (statement gender) factorial design. Participants (n=715) read a crime vignette and corresponding VIS, and completed questionnaires pertaining to sentencing recommendations, legal attitudes, and levels of emotional empathy (counterbalanced).

Results indicated that participant gender was related to the emotional appeal of the VIS, and ratings of punishment severity. Emotional empathy was positively associated with perceptions of credibility and emotionality. Higher legal attitudes scores were positively correlated with higher minimum sentences, ratings of credibility, emotional appeal, as well as more severe punishments.

This study has important implications with respect to perceptions of VIS in relation to how emotional they are, who the victim is, who the statement is written by, and who hears the statement. Given the lack of previous research in this area, the study provides data that warrant further investigation.

This study examines how transformational leadership on the part of senior attorneys in law firms may affect their subordinate attorneys' performance in an industry experiencing both distinctive leadership challenges and widespread economic upheaval. Specifically, our multilevel theoretical model attempts to capture the moderated mediation relationships between transformational leadership, innovative climate, entrepreneurial orientation, and individual performance.

The study employs of a multilevel path analysis to examine the earlier described conceptual model utilizing primary data collected from 484 attorneys at 31 professional service firms.

The authors used multilevel path analysis to examine the existence and the extent of a multilevel mediation effect. They found that a firm's entrepreneurial orientation mediates the relationship between supervising attorneys' transformational leadership and individual attorneys' performances. The authors also found that the indirect effect of supervising attorneys' transformational leadership on individual attorneys' performances through entrepreneurial orientation is conditional on the degree of firm innovative climate.

The authors draw on theories of social learning to construct a dual-level theoretical model that connects domains within the leadership and entrepreneurship literatures. It does so by examining the relationships between the law firms' supervising attorneys' change-oriented leadership and their subordinate attorneys' billable hours during a period of severe economic disruption.

This paper aims to address some limitations in existing approaches to the study of mis- and dis-information and offers what the authors propose as a more comprehensive approach to framing and studying these issues, geared toward the undergraduate level of learner. In doing so, the authors prioritize social shaping of technology and critical informatics perspectives as lenses for explicating and understanding complex mis- and dis-information phenomena. One purpose is to offer readers an understanding of the mis- and dis-information studies landscape, and advocate for the merit of taking the given approach the authors outline.

The paper builds upon design-based research (DBR) methods. In this paper, the authors present the actual curriculum that will be empirically researched in 2022 and beyond in a program of iterative DBR.

Findings of this conceptual paper comprise a fully articulated undergraduate syllabus for a course the authors entitled, “Disinformation Detox.” The authors will iterate upon this curriculum development in ongoing situated studies conducted in undergraduate classrooms.

The value and originality of this article is in its contribution of the ontological “innovation” of a way of framing the mis- and dis-information knowledge domain in terms of social shaping and critical informatics theories. The authors argue that the proposed approach offers students the opportunity to cultivate a complex form of what Milner and Phillips describe as “ecological literacy” that is in keeping with the mis- and dis-information problem domain.