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The purpose of this paper is to offer a state of the art description of open air markets (OAM), a little-known phenomenon that is indispensable in Africa’s consumer packaged goods industry.

A qualitative methodology comprising in-depth semi-structured interviews and direct observation was employed.

Analysis of data from Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy and most populous country, reveals that channel members have roles that are different from that of their Western counterparts. For example, distributors often do not distribute and principals are expected to actively sell on behalf of their distributors to empty the latter’s warehouse. Also, while many end-users in developing countries expect credit sales and opportunity to bargain, extant literature does not include these demands in the formal list of service output demands. Another major finding is the surprising order underlying OAM. It is the bedrock of commercial activities: for most consumer packaged goods manufacturers, sales through OAM account for over 90 percent of revenue.

The focus on one industry and country limits the generalizability of the above findings.

Africa is the next growth frontier. Tapping into this growth requires a deep understanding and appreciation of the important role played by its unique marketing channels.

Given the dearth of documented knowledge about marketing channels in emerging markets, this study addresses an important gap. Its findings could inform theory development and encourage more research on marketing channels in developing countries.

This chapter discusses the impact of the sociological imagination and ethnographic research methods on identifying the ‘real’ nature of conceptualized phenomena. The examination is done by comparing the researcher’s experience of work-related precarity in ethnographic methods and in the researcher’s personal circumstances immediately following the fieldwork. Such a juxtaposition shows what had been emphasized by ethnography and the effects of the researcher’s social context on the concepts under study. In the case of fieldwork, many of the practical difficulties of precarious work were encountered. However, the context of being an ethnographer altered how work precarity was felt. In the personal circumstances that followed the fieldwork, precariousness was strongly felt in a more general manner. This occurred in a discrete event that involved multiple factors of employment, housing, institutions relied on, and personal relationships. Such differences between fieldwork and personal circumstances illuminate on the tendency to isolate phenomena in fieldwork, which poses the risk of making ethnographic reality out of ideal types.

Private household insurance has been relatively uncommon among households in Samoa to date. Meanwhile, numerous other adaptation interventions are also being implemented, including community-based adaptation (CBA) projects which draw on the skills of the community to address the climate change-related hazards that are expected to affect local communities. Through semi-structured interviews with community members from the urban/peri-urban area around Apia (with and without insurance) and an insurance company representative, this research explores private household natural perils insurance uptake in Samoa and the effect that the uptake of this insurance has on household engagement in other climate change adaptation (CCA) strategies such as CBA projects. Findings suggest that individuals whose homes are already insured with natural perils insurance are more likely to express more individualistic values or beliefs than those without natural perils insurance. Insured homeowners commonly framed adaptation as a technical challenge, with insurance being part of the technical and expert-led approach to prepare for, manage and recover from extreme events. In contrast, householders without insurance perceived CCA as less of a technical task and more of a social process. Those individuals with private household natural perils insurance coverage (in keeping with their more individualistic values) reported that they were less engaged in CBA projects compared to participants without insurance (who held more communalistic values). Given the importance of household participation in CBA projects, an increased uptake of insurance may have problematic outcomes for the adaptive capacity of the broader community.

The purpose of this paper is to apply a computer-aided engineering approach in order to improve the performance and the reliability of an innovative internal combustion engine. The engine is called twin engine packs system and it consists into the presence of two independent piston engines working in the same crankcase, thus allowing the helicopter to meet the safety standards of the fail-safe design approach, as happens with the twin-turbine helicopters, but with reduced operative costs. The goal is to propose to the designers modifications aimed to improve the performance of the components.

The crankshaft, connecting rod and the piston of the engine have been investigated by means of numerical FE models. Numerical fatigue assessments have been performed along with vibrational modes and buckling analysis in order to verify the structural integrity of the system.

On the basis of the numerical results, some modifications have been proposed to the designers and the originally proposed geometry has been modified. Eventually, the mass of the engine has been reduced keeping a high reliability level.

The prototype of the engine has been built following the modifications proposed in this paper. This paper represents a comprehensive application of a CAE methodology to a real industrial application.

This paper shows a complete CAE procedure applied to a real working engine whose performances and reliability have been improved by following the findings of this paper.

Life satisfaction is an ultimate goal in human existence, and it is also an important factor in the work domain. It may both trigger work-related outcomes and be influenced by work-related factors. The authors are here concerned with career satisfaction and its association with life satisfaction. From a bottom-up perspective, career satisfaction should enhance life satisfaction; from a top-down perspective, the influence should work in the reverse direction; and from an interactionist perspective reciprocal influences are conceivable. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The authors tested these perspectives in two longitudinal studies with three points of measurement each. Study 1 (n=517) covered a period of five years and Study 2 an eight-week period (n=99). The authors analyzed the data by means of latent growth curve modeling and cross-lagged analysis.

Both studies revealed that life satisfaction and career satisfaction are positively associated both within and across time. The directional association between both constructs is well-represented by a top-down model; further, by a reciprocal influence model. The bottom-up model received least support. Study 2 additionally showed that work centrality is a moderator.

The authors discuss these findings with respect to both the relevance of life satisfaction in the work domain and the relationship between global and domain-specific life satisfaction.

The present research is the first one that investigates the association between career satisfaction and life satisfaction using two longitudinal studies.

Previous research indicates that dissatisfied consumers in other countries react differently as compared to those in the USA, due to their cultural orientation. These studies, however, have not recognized that retail policies (regarding returns and exchanges) in the USA are much more liberal and “consumer friendly” than in other parts of the world, and thus it is possible that their conclusions are flawed. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to determine the extent to which cross-national differences in complaint behavior are due to cultural vs situational factors.

To examine this issue, a two-part study was conducted. Study 1 compared consumers living in China, India and Mexico to cohorts who immigrated to the USA. Study 2 compared individuals from those same countries to subjects who are native to the USA.

The findings indicate that situational factors (i.e. consumer-oriented vs restrictive refund/return/exchange policies) have a large impact on consumer complaint behavior (i.e. redress, negative-word-of-mouth and exit), and that the effects of culture are minor.

To infer cause-effect, and establish scientific theory, one must rule out alternative hypotheses. Researchers who are investigating cross-cultural complaint behavior must take situational factors into account.

With the emergence of “global consumers” consumer expectations around the world are changing. Astute retailers should institute and promote more liberal return policies, thereby mitigating consumers’ perceived risk.

This study dispels the notion that culture is responsible for differences in cross-national consumer complaint behavior.

Children experience toxic stress if there is pronounced activation of their stress-response systems, in situations in which they do not have stable caregiving. Due to their exposure to multiple poverty-related risks, African American children may be more susceptible to exposure to toxic stress. Toxic stress affects young children’s brain and neurophysiologic functioning, which leads to a wide range of deleterious health, developmental, and mental health outcomes. Given the benefits of early care and education (ECE) for African American young children, ECE may represent a compensating experience for this group of children, and promote their positive development.

This paper combines the literature on knowledge transfer and that on organizational behavior to analyze how perceived empowerment and perceived engagement affect knowledge transfer offices’ (KTOs’) performance, measured in terms of the number of license agreements.

The authors measured the cognitions which constitute perceived empowerment and perceived engagement through a survey sent to Italian KTOs’ professionals. The authors performed “fuzzy set qualitative analysis” to investigate if this cognition, together or in isolation, may influence KTOs’ management performance, measured by the number of license agreements.

The results highlight the role of individual cognitions in influencing KTOs’ performance. Furthermore, an important finding from the analysis of the main configurations is that the co-presence of perceived engagement and perceived empowerment leads to more license agreements only in the presence of specific individual cognitions. More precisely, the level of organizational citizenship behavior, the degree to which an individual influences results at work (degree of impact) and the value of a work goal (degree of meaning) are the cognitions which lead to a higher number of license agreements.

Despite the growing interest in the investigation of the determinants of KTOs’ performance, a relevant research gap still concerns the explanation of KTOs’ performance considering individual cognitions such as attitudes, norms, perceived behavioral control and intentions. This study looks at the combined effect of the individual cognition of perceived engagement and perceived empowerment on KTOs’ performances.

Organizational learning relies on problem-solving as a way to generate new knowledge. Good problem solvers should adopt a problem-solving orientation (PSO) that analyzes the causes of problems to arrive at an effective solution. The purpose of this paper is to investigate this relevant, though underexplored, topic by examining two important antecedents of PSO: knowledge sharing mechanisms and transformational leaders’ support.

Hierarchical linear modeling analyses were performed on a sample of 131 workers in 12 plants. A questionnaire was designed to collect data from shop-floor employees. Knowledge sharing was measured using the mechanisms of participative practices and standardized practices. Management support was assessed based on the extent to which supervisors engaged in transformational leadership.

Knowledge sharing mechanisms are an antecedent of PSO behavior, but management support measured in terms of transformational leadership is not. However, transformational leadership affects the use of knowledge sharing mechanisms that, in turn, is positively related to PSO behavior.

The research provides practical guidance for practitioners to understand how to manage knowledge in the workplace to promote employees’ PSO behaviors.

Though problem-solving activities are intrinsic in any working context, PSO is still very much underrepresented and scarcely understood in knowledge management studies. This study fills this gap by investigating the antecedents of PSO behavior.

This study aims to examine mental health amongst two cohorts of single mothers in Australia before and after major social welfare reforms, which limited single parents’ access to welfare payments to encourage labour market participation.

The study analyses The Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health, which surveyed 9,145 women born in the 1970s in 2003, and 8,346 women born in the 1990s in 2019.

Compared with other women of similar age, single mothers reported a higher prevalence of depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicidal thoughts and lower levels of mental health, although the magnitude varied between age groups and cohorts. This difference disappeared after controlling for socio-demographic characteristics. Mental health of single mothers improved relative to that of other women between cohorts (1970s cohort surveyed in 2003, aged 25–30 versus 1990s cohort surveyed 2019, aged 24–30) and within the same 1970s cohort (surveyed 2003 and 2018), all else equal. Single mothers from the 1970s cohort aged 40–45 years and those in the 1990s cohort aged 24–30 years old were more qualified and held better jobs than the 1970s cohort at aged 25–30. Stress-related to money, ability to manage on available income and experiencing domestic violence were negatively associated with mental health across all cohorts and ages. Social support had a strong positive association with mental health.

The study suggests low welfare payment to encourage greater labour market participation is associated with financial distress linked to poor mental health.