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Using a qualitative methodology, the present research attempts to understand members’ perceptions of empowerment in two New Zealand organizations that have undergone various reforms in the workplace. In a departure from the literature, our study reveals the context‐specific nature of empowerment and offers probable reasons for the lack of a unified (or universal) definition. From our case data, we also identify several factors that either facilitate or inhibit the empowerment process, and that have significant implications for organizations seeking to empower their employees.

Residents' supportive attitudes are essential for the successful development of ecotourism. Although existing literature has heavily relied on social exchange theory to explain residents' attitudes, this study explores a new theoretical direction by focusing on the cognitive process of residents' attitude formation. This study adopts the knowledge theory of attitude–behavior consistency that emphasizes the amount, relevance and complexity of ecotourism knowledge in shaping residents' positive attitudes toward tourism development in the regional community.

Based on a survey of 394 residents of Otavalo, Ecuador, this study confirmed the reliability and validity of measurements, used PLS-SEM for statistical analysis, and evaluated the effect of ecotourism knowledge on residents' attitudes toward ecotourism.

Under the control of community attachment and fair distribution of economic benefits supported by existing literature, this study finds that ecotourism knowledge has a positive and significant effect on residents' supportive attitudes toward tourism development.

By elucidating the cognitive process of residents' attitude formation and change, this paper shows the applicability of a knowledge-based theory to residents' attitudes toward tourism development, and offers practical implications for ecotourism policymakers and educational program developers.

This study adopts the knowledge theory of attitude–behavior consistency and shows the positive influence of ecotourism knowledge on residents' attitudes.

This lesson plan uses Amelia to Zora as an anchor book for an extended unit to discuss women’s contributions to the modern world. The lesson plan provides an annotated bibliography of biographies about the women profiles in the book as well as women selected by the instructor and students. The lesson plan is recommended for use in grades 5 and above and emphasizes social interaction among students in the whole process.

The purpose of this paper is to explore what drives customer acceptance of frontline service robots (FSR), as a result of their interaction experiences with FSR in the context of retail banking services.

Applications of the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology and service robot acceptance model frame the exploration of customers’ interaction experiences with physical FSR to explain acceptance. A thematic analysis of information obtained through observations, focus groups and participant interviews was applied to identify themes.

This study identifies 16 dimensions that group into five main themes that influence customer acceptance of FSR in retail banking services: (1) utilitarian aspect, (2) social interaction, (3) customer responses toward FSR, (4) customer perspectives of the company brand and (5) individual and task heterogeneity. Themes 1 and 2 are labeled confirmed themes based on existing theoretical frameworks used; themes 3–5 are additional themes.

This study provides actionable suggestions to allow managers to reflect on their strategy and consider ways to design and improve the delivery of services that involve FSR.

This study adds to our limited knowledge of how human-robot interaction research in robotics translates to a relatively new research area in frontline services and provides a step toward a comprehensive FSR acceptance model.

This paper aims to understand the relationship between family togetherness and consumption. This is important given the inherent tension permeating discourses of family consumption and a lack of a critical understanding about how togetherness is experienced, expressed and performed. The Nintendo Wii and Wii gaming were explicitly chosen to engage in a more nuanced understanding and to provide a route to access families in their natural consumption habitat.

An interpretive ethnographic methodology was utilised to investigate family consumption in context and used in conjunction with the biographical narrative interpretive method to capture reflective and detailed informants’ consumption experiences. Holistic content analysis was used to interpret and aid thematic development.

Opportunities for idealised family togetherness afforded by the Wii still appeal to family members. Idealised family togetherness is accessed through collective, “proper” Wii gaming but is ultimately unsustainable. Importantly, the authors see that relational togetherness and bonding is also possible, and as such, the lived experience, expression and performance of family togetherness are not prescriptive.

Family togetherness is a useful and important lens through which to understand the dynamic relationship between family, consumption and the marketplace. The authors suggest that current conceptualisations of togetherness are too idealised and prescriptive and should be open to critical rethinking and engagement by both academics and industry practitioners to communicate with and about families and to explore how to be part of relevant and meaningful family conversations.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether new rural ventures represent effective rural entrepreneurship or are just entrepreneurial ventures located in rural settings.

Data were collected from a direct questionnaire involving 408 new ventures headquartered in Portuguese business incubators and science parks, of which 142 are located in rural areas. To analyse data, the authors performed a preliminary and exploratory statistical analysis.

The authors demonstrate that only a small percentage of ventures operating in rural areas constitute examples of effective “rural entrepreneurship”, with the bulk of them being just enterprises located in rural settings. Rural new ventures tend to be small (in terms of employees and turnover), rely mainly on the internal market and lag behind other new ventures (located in both rural and urban municipalities) in terms of performance.

The study only includes new knowledge-intensive ventures, that is, those headquartered in business incubators and science parks. Therefore, it cannot be generalised to other new ventures located in rural settings.

The extant literature on entrepreneurship has neglected the empirical implications of mixing, confounding and/or merging the concepts of “rural entrepreneurship” and “entrepreneurship activities in rural areas”. In this study, the authors discuss and analyse the empirical boundaries of such concepts and uncover the magnitude of pure “rural entrepreneurship”.

WE write on the eve of an Annual Meeting of the Library Association. We expect many interesting things from it, for although it is not the first meeting under the new constitution, it is the first in which all the sections will be actively engaged. From a membership of eight hundred in 1927 we are, in 1930, within measurable distance of a membership of three thousand; and, although we have not reached that figure by a few hundreds—and those few will be the most difficult to obtain quickly—this is a really memorable achievement. There are certain necessary results of the Association's expansion. In the former days it was possible for every member, if he desired, to attend all the meetings; today parallel meetings are necessary in order to represent all interests, and members must make a selection amongst the good things offered. Large meetings are not entirely desirable; discussion of any effective sort is impossible in them; and the speakers are usually those who always speak, and who possess more nerve than the rest of us. This does not mean that they are not worth a hearing. Nevertheless, seeing that at least 1,000 will be at Cambridge, small sectional meetings in which no one who has anything to say need be afraid of saying it, are an ideal to which we are forced by the growth of our numbers.

The reorganization of the Portuguese national healthcare system around networks of hospital centers was advanced for reasons promoted as those of effectiveness and efficiency and initially presented as an opportunity for organizational transcendence through synergy. The purpose of this paper is to study transcendence as felt by the authors’ participants to create knowledge about the process.

The paper consists of an inductive approach aimed at exploring the lived experience of transcendence. The authors collected data via interviews, observations, informal conversations and archival data, in order and followed the logic of grounded theory to build theory on transcendence as process.

Transcendence, however, failed to deliver its promise; consequently, the positive vision inscribed in it was subsequently re-inscribed in the system as another lost opportunity, contributing to an already unfolding vicious circle of mistrust and cynicism. The study contributes to the literature on organizational paradoxes and its effects on the reproduction of vicious circles.

The search for efficiency and effectiveness through strategies of transcendence often entails managing paradoxical tensions.

The case was researched during the global financial crisis, which as austerity gripped the southern Eurozone gave rise to governmental decisions aimed at improving the efficiency of organizational healthcare resources. There was a sequence of advances and retreats in decision making at the governmental level that gave rise to mistrust and cynicism at operational levels (organizations, teams and individuals). One consequence of increasing cynicism at lower levels was that as further direction for change came from higher levels it became interpreted in practice as just another turn in a vicious circle of failed reform.

The authors contribute to the organizational literature on paradoxes by empirically researching a themes that has been well theorized (Smith and Lewis, 2011) but less researched empirically. The authors followed the process in vivo, as it unfolded in the context of complex strategic change at multiple centers.

With the growing interest in eudaimonia in the past years and the need to better understand festival visitors' motivation in the context of music festivals, this study aims to propose visitor segmentation based on the values of hedonia, life satisfaction and eudaimonia.

The analysis in this study employs a case research method that follows the abductive paradigm. The authors begin their conceptual foundation with a review of the literature on hedonia, life satisfaction and eudaimonia. The authors then use the preliminary conceptual foundation as the basis of rival analysis through a focus group and interviews with senior executives, government officials, communities and other related stakeholders. The authors also carry out an exploratory factor analysis to determine the building blocks of eudaimonic festival experiences. Last, using cluster analysis, the authors support their conceptual proposition from the initial qualitative inquiries.

From the three studies that the authors performed, their findings suggest that, based on hedonia and eudaimonia, festival attendees can be divided into three distinct segments: (1) pleasure seekers (i.e. visitors who look for personal pleasure, enjoyment and affection), (2) playful learners (i.e. visitors who not only seek pleasure, but also consider the urgency to think about the need to grow as a person) and (3) transcendentalists (i.e. visitors who seek a balance of pleasure, escapism, self-reflection, personal meaning and impact through attending festival activities).

This study argues that the ideas of hedonia and eudaimonia are present in the context of the music festival. Theoretically, this paper suggests that festival-goers can be divided into three clusters based on the values of hedonia and eudaimonia: pleasure seekers, playful learners and transcendentalists. Practically, this study suggests that festival organisers should consider developing music concert events by taking into account the eudaimonic and hedonistic desires, intrinsically possessed by the festival-goers, which is expected to add value to the produced musical event.

This study is the first to present visitor segmentation in a music festival setting based on the values of eudaimonia, life satisfaction and hedonia.

Narrative is believed to be a crucial component of sense-making in organizations, and previous research in the field suggests that multiple levels and forms of narrative are inherent to the definition of professional identities (Clarke et al., 2009; Ybema et al., 2009; Brown and Lewis, 2011). For example, narrative can be found in the stories told by organizational actors as they informally interact in the workplace, in the formalized basic assumptions that support organizational strategy-making, in the accounts people give of their work, and in the artifacts they produced and experienced while engaged in accomplishing tasks. The purpose of this paper is to consider narrative as a way of giving sense to organizational membership, of constituting an overall and possibly shared sense of direction, of focussing one’s professional identity, and of enabling and/or constraining the ongoing activities of actors. The context of the research was given by a group of sport federations enrolled within the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI), which is the national most authoritative network of professional local sport organizations.

Participants involved in the study were 42 professional referees belonging to this network and active in different sport disciplines and 12 people from the CONI management. In-depth narrative interviews were collected in the aim to investigate the narrative cues revealing the organizational sense-making processes that animate the representation of this professional identity both at a subjective and at an organizational level. Data have been explored adopting the semiotic square and diatextual analysis as to highlight the strict relationship between text, context and interlocutors.

Data have been explored adopting the semiotic square and diatextual analysis as to highlight the strict relationship between text, context and interlocutors. Results showed that there was an evident gap between what the management formally defined as strategic vision, mission and cultural guidelines that actually shape the organizational identity of the CONI and what was concretely experienced by its actors, in this case the referees.

Most of the studies conducted in sport organizations focussed either on an intra-organizational level investigating the specific features of given professional categories such as athletes and/or coaches, or at an inter-organizational level, paying attention mostly to the marketing and networking strategies oriented toward stakeholders. On the other hand, most studies conducted on referees have devoted attention strictly to performance assessment, that, in line with a positivist approach, considered the latter as an output of situational and psychological variables (e.g. Marie, 1999; MacMahon et al., 2007). Conversely, the findings coming from the present study contributed to support the promotion of an alternative organizational approach, more specifically based on the strategic relevance of horizontal (within the federations) and vertical (between the federations and the center of the network) communication as to enhance the identification process which give sense to the organizational basic assumptions.