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The purpose of this paper is to assess the effectiveness of undergraduates' specialised entrepreneurship programmes in Malaysian universities that have been made available to “ME generation” students. By analysing the antecedents and predicting self‐employment intention, the paper evaluates the impact of such programmes upon the employability value of undergraduates who are part of the ME generation in a developing country such as Malaysia.

A census survey was conducted on final and penultimate year students from major public and private universities in Malaysia. From these data, analyses of variables that affect self‐employment intention were performed, and the prediction of self‐employment intention was obtained.

The results show that the students do not perceive self‐realisation as their most salient beliefs and perceived that their entrepreneurship lecturers' expectations towards them to become self‐employed are not highly influential and need to be complied with. However, they believed that specialised entrepreneurship education (SEE) contributes to increasing entrepreneurial self‐efficacy and subsequently towards their self‐employment intention, and thus increases their employability value.

This research only studies students' self‐employment intention in their respective universities and not their actual behaviour. Results from the paper are limited in ability to demonstrate “actual” outcomes that result from the interaction of the antecedents in universities' confinement.

The paper provides an important analysis of the current status of entrepreneurship students in Malaysian universities. The findings provide insight on the development of effective entrepreneurship programme deliveries and methodologies.

The paper provides a basis to improve the effectiveness of SEE in Malaysian universities and in turn produce highly employable graduates.

Entrepreneurial businesses often face financial and experiential gaps, which can constrain their growth. Business angels (BAs) can provide sources of financial, human and social capital to overcome these gaps. Building on the work by Munck and Saublens, this paper aims to introduce a framework that seeks to provide a detailed understanding of the benefits that BAs can bring to the firms in which they invest.

In order to obtain a detailed understanding of the benefits that BAs bring to their investee companies, semi‐structured, in‐depth telephone interviews were conducted from an investee perspective. The key managers of nine angel‐funded companies were purposefully selected and the transcribed interviews analysed with the help of common qualitative analysis techniques.

According to investee managers, BAs provide benefits in all four areas of the proposed framework. Specifically, BAs: help overcome funding gaps; fill knowledge/experience gaps through provision of their own expertise and involvement; provide a wide range of contacts and leverage further funding, including their own follow‐on finance.

The anonymous nature of the BA market requires convenience sampling, which, in addition to the small sample size used, does not allow for generalisability. The use of telephone interviews instead of face‐to‐face interviews did not allow for observation of non‐verbal cues. Nevertheless, the study identified various areas in need of further research.

In‐depth interview data enabled a detailed exploration of the financial and non‐financial benefits of BA funding from an under‐utilised investee perspective. The paper's main value, however, lies in establishing the usefulness of a framework showing BAs' benefits in a structured manner.

The purpose of this paper is to address the issue of objective knowledge operationalisation with specific focus on varying levels of scale items’ difficulty. The ultimate goal of the study was to develop a scale to measure objective wine knowledge, which would address the domain of wine knowledge and differentiate varying levels of consumer wine knowledge.

The process of items’ development was guided by recommendations suggested by DeVellis (2003) in his influential work on theory and application of scale development. Examination of items’ performance was conducted through a series of field tests with consumer samples (N = 756) in a US wine region. Item response theory (IRT) approach was applied for items’ testing. The developed items were analysed using the two-parameter logistic model in Mplus Version 5.

The study offers a 44-item test suitable for assessing wine knowledge across a broad spectrum of expertise. For example, if the goal is to assess wine knowledge differences among relatively knowledgeable respondents, a subset of more difficult items could be chosen. Alternatively, a test for novices could be constructed from easier scale’s items.

For researchers, the study offers conceptualisation of the wine knowledge domain, suggests a parsimonious instrument to measure the construct, offers a valid and reliable measure for use in testing theories of consumer knowledge and provides empirical evidence of the value and usefulness of the developed scale.

For professionals, the proposed test may be used to test consumer knowledge and to help assess a prospective employee’s general knowledge of wine. The test can also be given at hospitality programs, outreach and continuing education programs.

The current paper takes an alternative approach to classical test theory and offers an objective wine knowledge scale tested through IRT. This approach avoids shortcomings associated with classical measurement and offers an original scale that can discriminate among respondents with different levels of wine knowledge.

The research work in this paper aims to focus on understanding the corrosion inhibition of 6061‐8 (vol.%) SiC in 3.5 per cent NaCl solution using different concentrations (250, 500, 750 and 1,000 ppm) of cerium and lanthanum chloride.

The corrosion inhibition of 6061‐SiC in 3.5 per cent NaCl solution using the rare earth chloride inhibitors was analyzed by different electrochemical techniques. The techniques employed were linear polarization, Tafel extrapolation and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). Further, surface characterization, before and after inhibitor addition, was studied using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive analysis using X‐ray.

It was observed that the polarization resistance increased after addition of LaCl₃ and CeCl₃, with maximum increase noticed for 250 ppm LaCl₃ and 1,000 ppm CeCl₃. CeCl₃ addition showed better improvement in polarization resistance value compared with LaCl₃ addition. Pitting nucleation resistance also increased with addition of LaCl₃ and CeCl₃, with maximum obtained for 250 ppm LaCl₃ and 500 ppm CeCl₃. EIS studies showed that there was a significant increase in resistance of areas not covered by the surface film after addition of LaCl₃ and CeCl₃, when compared with the case without inhibitor, with a maximum increase observed with 1,000 ppm CeCl₃. Rare earth chloride addition resulted in an increase in resistance on both cathodic intermetallic sites as well as the pitted regions by formation of precipitates of their oxide/hydroxide on those locations. This gave the high pitting nucleation resistance as well as improved corrosion resistance.

It was observed that optimum concentrations of CeCl₃ and LaCl₃ resulted in good corrosion resistance properties on 6061‐SiC in 3.5 per cent NaCl solutions. Even small quantities of these inhibitors resulted in high corrosion resistance. However, it should be noted that both LaCl₃ and CeCl₃ did not follow a simple increase in corrosion resistance with composition, despite both being rare earth chloride inhibitors, and this issue merits further research.

Metal matrix composites (MMC) are of great use in the aerospace, military and automotive industries due to their good mechanical strength/density and stiffness/density ratios. A typical example might be the reinforcement of Al alloys with SiC particulates, which leads to a new generation of engineering materials. However, the addition of a reinforcing phase can cause discontinuities in any protective surface film, increasing the number of sites where corrosion can be initiated and rendering the composite liable to severe attack. Thus, this research work was performed to investigate if a suitable concentration of lanthanide salts (LaCl₃ and CeCl₃) could be identified that could improve both uniform and pitting corrosion resistance.

Earlier studies on the corrosion inhibition of 6061‐SiC used cerium conversion coatings. More recently (i.e. during the last 1‐2 years) work has started on lanthanum conversion coating on Al alloys. However, little work has been carried out on use of these lanthanide salts (CeCl₃ and LaCl₃) as corrosion inhibitors for 6061‐SiC. The present research work was performed in order to better understand the effectiveness of these inhibitors to reduce corrosion attack on 6061‐8(vol.%) SiC.

Purpose – We study weight loss communities to contribute to the understanding of how gifting, sharing, and the relationship between them allow individuals to pursue status transitions for a social identity.

Methodology – We employed archival netnography to capture emic experiences for a stigmatized circumstance in American society. We analyze data from four communities to obtain a broad range of consumer experiences within fee versus free communities.

Findings – We explain how individuals differentially employ sharing and gifting to create and sustain communities in support of status transitions within a social identity. Further, we describe roles of gifting, sharing, and prosumption, and their contributions to the transformative process of weight loss.

Research limitations/implications – The data comes from communities that may be viewed as stigmatized within the United States, one cultural milieu. Future research should examine these concepts across additional contexts and cultures.

Practical implications – Our analysis reveals the basis for virtual community development in support of status transitions. These results underscore the necessity to examine how consumers co-opt market resources to enact private, albeit life altering, goals.

Originality/value of paper – Most extant literature focuses either on gifting or sharing with little attention to how consumers employ community and membership to achieve personal goals. Our research articulates how individuals employ market resources to enact customized rituals and achieve individual goals within communities.

This study aims to investigate how strongly Generation Y consumers differ in their values, attitudes and wine and alcoholic beverage consumption behaviour from older generations. The comparison spans seven culturally different markets.

Large representative samples totalling 11,622 wine consumers responded to a standardised survey. A factorial analysis of variance was used to determine the main and interaction effects of markets and generations.

Although significant differences were found between generations, their explained variance is very low. There were significant trans‐cultural similarities in generational differences for values and wine consumption behaviour: Gen‐Y is more oriented towards hedonic success and status and less towards social values; Gen‐Y is more likely to consume white and rosé than red wine and is most promiscuous in its alcoholic beverage consumption. A number of noticeable differences appeared between countries: wine involvement and consumption increases with age in traditional European wine markets, while they decrease in North America; environmental concerns and purchase channel usage hardly differ between generations but vary strongly between markets.

This is the first study to quantify the effect size of generational differences using large representative samples across countries with different cultural backgrounds, including traditional and established wine consumption nations.

Purpose – The purpose of the current research is to enhance our understanding of how nouveaux pauvres consumers use consumption to cope with their life situations. We use the term nouveaux pauvres to represent middle-class consumers who experience a decrease in sociocultural status relative their previous situation.

Methodology – The data for this study were collected over a four-year period in Sweden, Turkey, and the United States. Various qualitative data collection and analysis methods were used, such as phenomenological and ethnographic interviews, as well as ethnographic observation.

Findings – We identify three different ways that nouveaux pauvres consumers experience their loss of status. Some experience feelings of shame and guilt, others are left in a vacuum and some grieve their lost identity position. We then propose three different strategies that nouveaux pauvres consumers might choose to cope with the loss of status. Some engage in inventing a new consumer role for themselves, others choose a more reluctant strategy of opting out of social circles and isolating oneself, and finally there are those that engage in straightforward reconstruction of their old identity. Furthermore, each of the three consumption strategies links to a specific kind of downward movement – from unfamiliar/familiar to familiar/unfamiliar social spaces – for each individual.

Originality/value of paper – The consumer experience of downward status transformations has been curiously neglected in consumer culture theory. Since contemporary consumer cultures are increasingly characterized by liquidity and movement, it is likely that the experience of descending in status will be more common in the future and therefore of utmost importance to understand more fully.

This paper aims to analyze the current wine consumption situation with special attention being paid to the habits and preferences of young consumers.

The study was carried out on a sample of 318 consumers; 50 per cent of the sample were under the age of 35 and 50 per cent were older. The information gathered was then subjected to the appropriate statistical tests. The lifestyles and images of wine consumption of those surveyed was first looked at, followed by the results obtained related to consumption of drinks such as water, fruit juice, soft drinks, beer and, of course, wine.

Lifestyles are changing and the results found here indicate that the under‐35s are concerned about their health and to maintain a healthy lifestyle. This is reflected in a certain negative view of wine with its consumption being reserved for special occasions. With regard to knowledge of Denominacion de Origen, the results are pointing out that a small sector of the under‐35 group had only a vague notion of its meaning. This situation suggests a need for promotional activity by business and institutions aimed at increasing the knowledge of young people have of wine.

This study offers information to the wine industry for the improvement of young consumers' knowledge of the meaning of Denominacion de Origen as a guarantee of the origin of a product and of its quality.

This study investigates how older women linguists' careers developed and led to self-employment, and this not necessarily in a linear career stage fashion. The focus is on understanding the factors that influence older women to become or continue into an entrepreneurship lifestyle, beyond economic reasons.

The research questions that guided this research are: (1) How have women linguists' careers developed at older or older old age? and (2) Which factors influenced women linguists' decision to become or continue as self-employed at older or older old age? This study is based on semi-structure interviews and short narratives written by ten informants about their late-career motivations and decisions. To get a holistic view of career development of women linguistics at an older age, the approach adopted in this study is explorative and interpretive, where the theoretical perspective supporting this approach derives mainly from career and wellbeing theories.

The authors’ findings signal that these self-employed older women's careers develop along parallel, explorative or expertise directions. The factors which appear to influence these women's decision to continue their careers as entrepreneurs include economic reasons (having), clearly. They also importantly point to other themes surrounding wellbeing including social relations (loving), self-realization and lifelong learning (being), entrepreneurship as a life style (acting) and meaningful extension of one's career (belonging).

This paper discusses how older women entrepreneurs may experience wellbeing and careers integrated together. It challenges the common notion of “career” as a one-time, linear “choice”, and instead shows how older women's entrepreneurship is a complex phenomenon.

This paper aims to examine the way in which consumers integrate experts' opinions into their own evaluations of a selection of red wines.

The authors conduct an experiment to measure the influence of experts' opinions in relation to the complexity of the information, the level of consensus between different experts, and the consumer's level of category knowledge.

Confirmation is found for the effect of received information on consumers' product evaluations. Variation is found in relation to the consumer's level of category knowledge. Expert ratings have a stronger influence on individuals with low knowledge of the wine category than on those with high knowledge. The level of consensus between experts and the complexity of the information in this case have no effect on the impact of their opinions.

This paper takes a deeper look into the effect of “weak‐tie” personal information sources, particularly the opinions of experts regarding wine. Scientific research into the effect of expert judgments on consumer perceptions is still scant and businesses also need to assess the factors underlying its impact, given that the influence of expert judgment can be as crucial as quality to a product's success. The main feature that distinguishes this paper from the previous literature is that it integrates all three moderating effects in a single experiment: level of expert consensus, the complexity of the information provided and the prior knowledge of the consumer.