Search results

The number of years a person has lived is a poor indicator of their self‐perceptions, attitudes and behaviours. For these reasons, gerontologists have looked to alternative measures of age, including self‐perceived or subjective age. While American researchers have built up a body of knowledge pertaining to self‐perceived age for more than half a century, little is known about the concept in the UK. This paper presents the findings of an empirical study into the self‐perceived age of a group of UK citizens (n = 356) aged 50‐79 (mean age 60.2 years). Using the cognitive age scale, respondents were asked how old they perceived themselves to be on the dimensions of feel, look, act and interests. Overall, respondents indicated a self‐perceived age of more than 10 years younger than their chronological age. These results suggest that the phenomenon is at least as extensive as in the US, where it is frequently argued that youth is valued over age. Policy and practice implications are discussed.

Draws on the results from a survey of real estate practices to identify changing trends in the property industry. This is then used as a basis for identifying and exploring how these changes are being manifested as commercial business propositions, and where this may lead the industry.

The adoption of several basic financial management practices is examined for a group of New York dairy farms. The study provides estimates of the extent to which various business analysis and control, investment analysis and decision making, and capital acquisition practices have been adopted. Many practices, such as net present value analysis, are not widely adopted by farmers. The relationship between the adoption of financial management practices and farm profitability is also examined. Results suggest that the adoption of financial management practices, such as using investment analysis techniques, significantly impacts farm financial performance.

We examine two conceptualizations of consumer-brand relationships: identification, as identity-based relationships between a consumer and a brand, and the related construct of attachment as a bond based on security and personal history with the brand.

Predictions emanating from the two constructs’ disparate theoretical traditions regarding the relative antecedents and outcomes of these brand relationship constructs are tested in a survey of real consumer-brand relationships, where the two are likely to co-occur.

Identification is more socially motivated, wherein the brand is used for “identity building” and impression management, such as through public endorsement. In contrast, attachment is more personally motivated; it is more likely to be founded on an intimate history with the brand and feelings of security inspired by the brand.

This is the first work in marketing to explicitly compare identification with attachment in contexts where they co-occur. In doing so, it underscores the validity and usefulness of these two related but distinct relationship constructs.

To explore identity dynamics in the lived experience of a strategic change over time.

Qualitative data were collected through a longitudinal engagement with the focal organisation. Narrative analysis was used to trace the identity dynamics of senior figures in an organisation as it went through strategic change. This entailed a change of CEO and chairman, alterations to the composition of the board and the executive team and, in association with these changes in personnel, alterations to the strategy and direction of the company.

The identity dynamics were at times comfortable and uncomfortable fits for the individuals involved, and over time expectations and realisations impacted on the processes of change in ways that were unexpected and unintentional for the actors. The outcome of the analysis shows the disruptive impact of identity dynamics on the practice of strategic change.

The nature of the research undertaken does not seek to represent a holistic case study but, rather, is focused on a depth analysis of selected interactional data.

A critique of traditional views of resistance to change is presented and an alternative approach to analysing reactions to change is proposed.

The paper contributes a narrative approach to the discursive analysis of strategic change. It also elaborates the significance of “identity work” in such settings.

Historians have long understood that transforming people into property was the defining characteristic of Atlantic World slavery. This chapter examines litigation in British colonial Vice Admiralty Courts in order to show how English legal categories and procedures facilitated this process of dehumanization. In colonies where people were classified as chattel property, litigants transformed local Vice Admiralty Courts into slave courts by analogizing human beings to ships and cargo. Doing so made sound economic sense from their perspective; it gave colonists instant access to an early modern English legal system that was centered on procedures and categories. But for people of African descent, it had decidedly negative consequences. Indeed, when colonists treated slaves as property, they helped to create a world in which Africans were not just like things, they were things. Through the very act of categorization, they rendered factual what had been a mere supposition: that Africans were less than human.

This book offers theoretical frameworks and results of hundreds of empirical studies designed to investigate aspects of social identity dimensions of difference. Part I provides a foundation for examining social identity by defining it in terms of systems of power and hegemony, offering discussion of relationships between researchers and their participants (or, employees), and focusing on an ever-expanding literature which addresses the many ways that social identity dimensions overlap and intersect for individuals. Part II offers in-depth looks at specific social identity dimensions of culture, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, social class, physical and psychological ability, and faith/spirituality. As the final installment, Chapter 12 summarizes the book’s major themes. The message speaks to human resources and diversity managers in organizations as well as researchers; encouraging them to actively disassemble homogeneity at the top of organizations and to support enabling of all humans to reach their full human potential across organizations and in all social realms. Promoting and enabling social identity difference throughout organizations is no easy task due to multiple challenges. Indeed, incremental gains and small wins mean moving forward; the right direction.

Despite the attention being paid to business ethics, it seems the behaviour of business leaders and employees has not improved. This paper takes a different approach to understanding why this is the case. A distinction made in the higher education literature between surface and deep approaches to learning is adapted to provide an insight into the reason for the difference between the rhetoric concerning ethics and actual business practice. It is argued that a surface approach to ethics, which is associated with self‐interest, will not promote ethical behaviour, while a deep approach, motivated by the desire to do the right thing, does have the potential to do so. The difference between the rhetoric and business practice suggests that most businesses either intentionally or unintentionally adopt a surface approach to ethics.