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This study investigates the impact of cultural distance on foreign box office performance of East Asian cinematic production in European markets. Predicated on two dimensions of a film's cultural specificity, namely content- and aesthetics-based components, this research advances current knowledge on the moderating effects of cultural specificity.

The authors compile a data set of 515 East Asian films released in European countries during the 2010–2018 period. Data are analyzed by hierarchical linear modeling.

Results show that cultural distance plays a negative role in affecting foreign box office performance and that aesthetics specificity of films weakens such a relationship, while content specificity of films can further strengthen the relationship.

The findings suggest that cultural specificity is a crucial element and a relevant marketing tool in the cross-country film trade. Film producers and distributors need to consider both distribution strategy and intercultural context in order to align effectively with differing cultural distance and specificity.

This study proposes a new categorization framework of cultural specificity and demonstrates the moderating roles of content and aesthetics specificity on the relationship between cultural distance and films' foreign box office performance. It offers implications for both theory and practice in global film marketing and trade.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and empirically test a new framework that shows how different signals of movie quality along with key control variables affect consumers’ post-consumption evaluations, critics’ reviews (CR), and movie box office revenues.

The data set consists of a sample of 332 movies released between 2000 and 2008. Regression was used to test the study hypotheses.

The results suggest that the three signals of movie quality exhibit different effects on three movie performance measures. Of the three cues, the peripheral quality signal is positive related to movie box, moviegoers’ evaluations (ME), and CR. Furthermore, star performance quality is positive related to both ME and CR. Surprisingly, overall quality signal does not display any influence on movie performances.

The primary limitation is the use of cross-sectional study design and future research should apply for time-series technique to test the relationships between movie quality signals and movie performances.

The findings suggest that consumers and critics evaluate movie qualities based on various movie quality signals. Furthermore, the characteristics of movies also have mixed impacts on movie performances. Movie studios may take these findings into account to produce better movies.

This study proposes and empirically tests the impacts of three groups of movie signals – peripheral quality signal, star performance quality signal, and overall quality signal on motion picture performance. This study contributes to service quality literature and signal theory by categorizing different Academy Awards into three groups of quality signals and by empirically testing the proposed relationships.

The purpose of this paper is to offer improvement in routing and collection load decisions for a green logistics system that delivers lunch boxes.

A mathematical model is introduced into the literature for the 130 years old logistics systems whose delivery accuracy is better than the Six Sigma standard without using sophisticated tools. A simulated annealing (SA) approach is then used to find the routing and collection load decisions for the lunch box career.

The findings establish that we can improve the world-class lunch box delivery (LBD) system. The suggested improvement in terms of reduction in distance travel is nearly 6%. This could be a huge relief for thousands of lunch box careers. The uniformity in collection load decisions suggested by the proposed approach can be more effective for the elderly lunch box carriers.

The research provides a mathematical framework to study an important logistics system that is running with a supreme level of service accuracy. Collecting primary data was challenging as there is no scope for recording and maintaining data in the present logistics system. The replicability of the system for some other city in the world is a challenging question to answer.

Better routing and collection load decisions can help many lunch box careers save time and bring homogeneity in workload into the system.

An efficient routing decision can help provide smoother traffic movements, and uniformity in collection load can help avoid unwanted injuries to about 5,000 lunch box careers.

The originality of this paper lies in the proposed mathematical model and finding the routing and collection load decisions using a nature-inspired probabilistic search technique. The LBD system of Mumbai was never studied mathematically. The study is the first of its kind.

The purpose of this paper is to design a community‐based social marketing (CBSM) campaign to foster sustainable behavior change in paper reduction, commingled recycling, and purchasing environmentally preferred products (EPP) with faculty and staff at Pacific University Oregon.

A CBSM campaign was developed after a nine month pilot study. A six‐month mixed methods research approach used pre‐postsurveys, office supply purchasing reports, a recycling study, and a waste audit. The CBSM campaign strategies used were prompts, communication, incentives, commitment, convenience, norms and social diffusion.

The campaign titled, Greening Pacific! successfully identified and ranked key barriers to paper reduction, recycling and purchasing environmentally preferable products and developed CBSM tools and materials that were instrumental in affecting change. The CBSM campaign strategies and materials that were effective include recycling and paper reduction prompts, a sustainable office pledge, initiating a green team and training staff leaders, and deskside recycling box distribution. An increase in campus‐wide purchasing of recycled content paper and EPP was found. Post‐survey results found that 74 percent of staff and faculty changed their behavior because of the CBSM campaign.

The study could have benefited from a longer data collection period.

Establishing aspects of green office practices on campuses can have significant impacts on purchasing EPP, waste reduction, energy and cost savings, and reducing the use of toxic chemicals. CBSM is a valuable framework for fostering behavior change.

Community‐based social marketing provides higher education institutions and other organizations with an effective model to foster environmental change in a targeted and community‐oriented way.

Does the three sector model of public (government), private (business), private/nonprofit still have validity? Did it ever? The following article examines the definitions, history, economic constructs, and evolving position of nonprofit organizations in the United States and finds the three sector model lacking. A briefcase study of a Denver-based not-for-profit community development corporation illustrates the many overlapping roles these organizations play including for-profit business, governmental functions as well as traditional nonprofit sen ice-oriented activities. A new paradigm is called for that reflects the "brave new world" of collaboration between and among public and private entities.

The purpose of this paper is to look into the topic of IP category extensions in an entertainment setting. The main goal of the study is to explore the reciprocal spillover effect of customer experience (CX) ratings with an intellectual property (IP) in one medium (i.e. film) on the sales of the same IP in other media (i.e. comic books).

The study is based on 21-years of monthly top 300 comic book direct market sales data linked to the release schedule and domestic box office gross figures for films featuring Marvel and DC comic book IP appearing in the weekly top 50 films over the same time period. The analysis is based on a hierarchical linear (i.e. mixed) model to account for the nested structure of the data.

The analysis reveals that CX ratings of weekly top 50 films featuring comic book IP have a quadratic relationship with comic book sales by the two major publishers. Films receiving very good but not excellent ratings are associated with the highest levels of incremental comic book sales.

The model is based on sales of periodical comic books in the direct market only (i.e. specialty shops) and does not account for sales of digital comics or collected editions through other channels. The analysis is also limited to IP for the two major publishers (Marvel and DC comics).

This study expands current knowledge on CX spillover effects between different media, contributing to entertainment and CX-literature alike.

The purpose of this paper is to profile various types of Web-based tools to facilitate research collaboration within and across institutions.

Various Web-based tools were tested by the author. Additionally, tutorial videos and guides were reviewed.

There are various free and low-cost tools available to assist in the collaborative research process, and librarians are well-positioned to facilitate their usage.

Librarians and researchers will learn about various types of tools available at free or at low cost to fulfill needs of the collaborative research process.

As the tools highlighted are either free or of low cost, they are also valuable to start-ups and can be recommended for entrepreneurs.

As the realm of Web-based collaborative tools continues to evolve, the options must be continually revisited and reviewed for currency.

WE have, of course, been fighting a losing battle. By now it appears that all of the three major political parties are in favour of worker participation at board level. Prettywell everybody is convinced that it is bound to come. So let us, too, assume that that is so and take a look at the implications.

To examine how public servants are depicted in film, I discuss the changes over time of Batmanʼs Commissioner Gordon, particularly his character arc in the contemporary The Dark Knight trilogy. An important aspect of Gordonʼs evolution is in contrast to the filmsʼ other prominent public servant, District Attorney Harvey Dent. The Gordon-Dent contrast illustrates aspects of the Friedrich-Finer debate over administrative discretion, a classic debate in public administration. The trilogyʼs verdict on public service is mixed: the flawed, rule-bending, expedient public servant survives while the fabricated hero is a sham. Commissioner Gordon is far more interesting than he had been for decades, but is he just an expedient bureaucrat ultimately pursuing self preservation? In contrast, the (pre-villain) Harvey Dent, who refuses to compromise his principles, is ultimately undone by his absolutism. For the complexity of his character and its centrality to the plot, I judge the depiction of Commissioner Gordon-warts and all-to be better than simplistic caricatures of bureaucrats and promising for future public servants in film.