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The purpose of this paper is to explore the decision-making process used by luxury fashion retail buyers in Greece in order to assess the applicability of Sheth's (1981) model to the selection of brands and collections by retail buyers in luxury fashion resellers.

The study takes an interpretive approach, utilising participant observation and semi-structured interviews with retail buyers in five luxury fashion reseller companies in Greece, which boasts the world's highest proportion of luxury fashion consumers. Qualitative data were analysed thematically according to the theoretical constructs in Sheth's (1981) model of merchandise buyer behaviour.

Brand reputation, quality, appropriateness for the market and exclusive distribution were the most important criteria for supplier selection. For evaluating merchandise, the most important criteria were design, style, fashionability and quality. The most relevant influencer of decision making in supplier selection was the competitive structure in terms of the power balance between retailer and brand. For merchandise selection, the most relevant influencing factors were retailer size, management mentality, product positioning and type of decision (re-buy or new task).

Due to the exploratory nature of the study and its focus on the context of a particular geographical marketplace, the findings may not be generalised to other countries.

This paper provides an insight into the decision-making practice of retail buyers in Greek luxury fashion retailers, where the buying task involves balancing the retailer's commercial interests with a more cultural role in terms of shaping fashion trends and generating PR and publicity for the retailer. The task is further complicated by the power imbalance between retailer and brand, enabling brands to impose limitations on the buyer's decision. Additionally, the combined influence of shortening product life cycles, increasing product variety and the emergence of a new and younger luxury fashion consumer requires a shift from intuitive to scientific, data-driven decision making.

All seventeen had graciously agreed to my proposal to gather for a small conference to seek consensus. A generous grant from the Pierian Press Foundation would cover all of our expenses for a long weekend at a resort hotel; the only condition of the grant was that we offer our results to Reference Services Review for first publication. Over the past five years each of the seventeen had in turn accepted my challenge to answer the following question:

This paper aims to shed novel light to further the ongoing debate about the relationship between traditional sports and eSports by gathering empirical evidence on the role that eSports play on the consumption of traditional sports (i.e. live matches at the Stadium, TV matches spectating, merchandise or sponsor purchase), in the peculiar context of soccer.

An extensive literature review on both sports and eSports consumption has informed the creation of a novel dataset through the design and administration of a structured questionnaire to Italian citizens 18+. Questions were about eSports and soccer consumption, information-seeking behaviour and psychometric factors. All constructs have been measured against validated scales. A total of 279 high-quality responses have been analysed through a prediction model based on regression trees in the Machine Learning domain.

Results show that soccer consumption is predicted by the degree of vicarious achievement (positive effect), the degree of playing sport-related eSports (positive effect) and the degree of playing non-sport-related eSports (negative effect). Vertical analyses have been on sub-dimensions of soccer consumption (attending live matches at the Stadium, spectating TV matches, buying merchandise or sponsors’ products).

To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to offer empirical evidence to bridge two main limitations: the lack of studies about the eSports-soccer consumptions relationship and the reduction of soccer consumption as just Stadium attendance. Our results have both theoretical and practical implications.

This study aims to develop a method of segmenting markets by using the functional approach to attitudes. The adopted approach identifies and groups individuals based on what functions their held attitudes serve for them. Specific marketing mixes can, thus, be designed for each functional profile.

The multi-method approach adopted consists of a qualitative assessment of consumers’ attitudinal functions in the physical fitness context and the development of an instrument to identify the distribution of attitudinal function segments in the same context.

A valid and reliable instrument that can be used to segment a market based on functional profiles is developed.

The outlined method provides a method for practitioners to identify existing functional segments, thus creating marketing mixes based on these functional segments and, ultimately, maximizing the value created for each segment.

The value in this research lies in the integration of old concepts (functional approach and scale development) to solving a new problem. The functional approach reaches deep to determine “why attitudes are held” vs simply “what attitudes are held”. Operationalization difficulties led to the abandonment of the approach. This research, thus, contributes theoretically by actually operationalizing the functional approach via a scale development, and using the operationalized form as a new means for segmenting markets.

The purpose of the paper is to examine the efficiency of SMS based cell‐phone vocabulary learning as compared to email vocabulary delivery and snail mail vocabulary delivery at the university level.

A total of 241 first year university students studied English vocabulary in their mandatory English foundation course. Students were divided into three groups: study via cell‐phone based SMS messages, via email messages and via snail mail delivery. Vocabulary lists were delivered weekly to students via the three delivery strategies during course. Students in the three groups were tested on English vocabulary and responded to a questionnaire that examined their attitudes toward flexibility of the learning strategy; user friendliness of the learning strategy; learner control of the learning process, learner motivation; and learner autonomy.

Results of the study indicate that there were no significant differences for achievement attained by the three groups on the vocabulary test. However, there were significant differences on students' attitudes toward flexibility of learning; user friendliness of the learning strategy; learner control of the learning process, learner motivation; and learner autonomy. The students who received SMS messages had most positive attitudes on all five factors, followed by attitudes of students who received email messages, who were followed by attitudes of students who received vocabulary via snail mail.

It appears that SMS based vocabulary delivery is perceived as more effective than email delivery which is felt to be more efficient than snail mail learning. Results of the study indicate the potential for university vocabulary learning via cell‐phone based SMS messaging.

This paper indicates the value of SMS messaging for vocabulary learning at the university level.

Within teacher education, many experienced in-service teachers routinely mentor pre-service teachers during teaching practicums. Notwithstanding the benefits pre-service teachers are meant to experience from these mentor–protégé relationships and experiences, recent research has demonstrated that mentors, too, may experience some (oftentimes unintended) potential benefits. The purpose of this paper is to further investigate such potential benefits within a Canadian secondary school physical education (PE) context.

The researchers employed a qualitative case study methodology. The three primary data sources included field observations/notes, journals and interviews. More specifically, over a ten-week period, the researchers made 26 field visits, observing two mentors’ interactions with five protégés before, during, and after PE class instruction; collected the two mentors’ ten journal entries, all made in response to researcher-provided writing prompts; and interviewed the two mentors, both individually and together.

The mentor teachers viewed the mentor–protégé relationship/experience as meaningful professional development, recognizing that it approximated a professional learning community. Relatedly, the mentor teachers experienced professional growth with respect to their own teaching identity and teaching practice.

This research could inform those who structure and/or coordinate mentoring research within teacher education programs so that they might place a more purposeful focus upon the potential and/or idealized outcomes for mentors (as well as for protégés). Given the single case study methodology, this research may lack generalizability to other educational contexts.

This research adds to the emerging body of research that investigates how mentoring may provide benefits to mentors. More specifically, this research suggests benefits to mentors relate, especially, to their own teaching identity and practice.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of tax reform on entrepreneurship in South Africa using repeated cross-sectional data from the World Bank.

The paper adopts a difference-in-difference estimation technique as well as contrasting periods before and after the tax reform. This contrast is achieved by examining individuals in the formal and informal sector and measuring the effectiveness of the reform on self-employment.

The results indicate that the tax reform had a positive and significant effect on the probability of becoming self-employed in South Africa and is robust across different econometric specifications.

The authors use individual-level data to measure the effectiveness of a tax reform policy on entrepreneurship. Utilizing the South African post-Apartheid tax reform as a natural experiment allows the authors to identify the effects of taxes on the choice of becoming self-employed.

The purpose of this paper is to enable management decisions to develop innovation within an organisation by examining the relationship between job embeddedness (JE) and innovative work behaviour (IWB) while also considering the moderating effect of life satisfaction upon this relationship.

Data were collected from 213 employees of small- and medium-sized organisations in Thailand. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to assess the reliability of the measures and validity of the constructs. Multiple regression and PROCESS Macro techniques were used to test the direct and moderation effects.

The two components of JE, organisational and community embeddedness, were found to positively predict IWB. Additionally, life satisfaction was found to moderate the relationship between organisational embeddedness and IWB, but not the relationship between community embeddedness and IWB. At low levels of life satisfaction, the JE and IWB relationship was non-existent.

Organisations can potentially foster employee innovation by adopting strategies that seek to strengthen employee embeddedness in the organisation and in their community.

Studies on the effect of JE on IWB, particularly in small and medium enterprises and the influence of life satisfaction is sparse. This study redresses this imbalance in the knowledge base.

The purpose of this paper is to check the mediating role of work engagement (WE) between leader – member exchange and extra-role behaviours (ERBs) like organizational citizenship behaviour, knowledge sharing behaviour and innovative work behaviour.

Hypothetical deductive method was used. Longitudinal, time-lagged approach (three times) was used to collect the data using structured questionnaire.

It has been found that the WE plays its mediating role between leader – member exchange, organizational citizenship behaviour and innovative work behaviour but not for knowledge sharing behaviour.

Data related to dependent variables, specifically and for the whole model generally, was collected through self-reported questionnaire, which leads toward self-serving bias at respondents’ end, as exaggeration/manipulation in responses is highly expected. Second mediating role of WE between leader – member exchange and knowledge sharing behaviour has not been proven, but same mediating role has been found in case of organizational citizenship behaviour and innovative work behaviour which is beyond understanding, as all dependent variables are actually different facets of ERBs. Lastly, data for the study variable has been collected from research and development and IT-related organizations only, which can question the generalization of the survey results to other sectors/organizations.

The study concluded that leader’s exchange plays a vital role for under commands’ ERBs, and WE vitally predicts ERBs; organizational leaders need to pay attention to this part, in Pakistan, being a poor/developing country fulfilling necessary psychological needs can result in better engagement at employees end. Study findings have importance with the view of training, as while conducting training, strategies through which leaders/supervisors may be trained about how they can build good exchange with their subordinates must be incorporated. This study has significance for policy makers, while making policies, as they consider deviant work behaviours as dangerous phenomena, at the same time they need to recognize the importance of ERBs.

Early mechanism of work performance did not cover full range of behaviours, so now it has been changed from fixed tasks written in employee’s job description (in-role) to broader terms (extra-role) due to uncertain and dynamic work requirements. Extra-role behaviours are more important for the organization as compared to in-role performance. So, a pathway of WE has been established through which ERBs can be expected. Current study was an attempt to explore that how leader can play his role in this situation.

The purpose of this paper is to examine applicability of the general decision-making style (GDMS) inventory in India, using a sample of managers. In addition the authors identify various decision-making styles (DMS) of Indian managers and explore their association with respondents’ gender, age, education, experience level, annual income, sector, industry and organizational output.

The sample consisted responses of 500 Indian managers from public (13 percent) and private (87 percent) sector organizations. The data were analyzed using exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, correlation analysis, regression analysis, independent sample t-tests and ANOVA.

All decision-making sub scales (rational, intuitive, dependent, avoidant and spontaneous) had satisfactory reliabilities and internal consistencies. Results obtained factor structure that confirmed the original five-factor structure of GDMS. There were also mutual correlations among the styles. Moreover, there were significant differences in the DMS across respondents’ profile variables.

This research is based upon survey method and voluntary participation. Hence one can question generalization of findings to larger samples.

Results provide insights into DMS of the Indian managers. Organizations may use GDMS as a selection tool, respondents may hone their DMS.

A majority of researchers use survey without evaluating validity of the instruments in the selected context and sample. This research contributed to the literature and practice by testing validation of the GDMS inventory in India.