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The purpose of this paper is to report research testing scales developed from a combination of vested interest (VI) theory and the extended parallel process model of fear appeals. The scales were created to measure variables specified by an expanded model of VI: certainty, salience, immediacy, self-efficacy, response-efficacy, and susceptibility.

A survey was designed with subscales for each element and combined with additional disaster and risk perception variables. Survey data were collected from two populations in the US state of Oklahoma. Results from scale development and regression analyses are reported.

Results show that the scales are robust and flexible to contextual modification. The scales return good to excellent reliabilities, providing evidence that the variables articulated by VI theory predict perceived salience and perceived preparedness.

This study adds to the research pointing to the efficacy of VI theory in providing insight into the perceptual barriers to preparedness. These results demonstrate that perceived vestedness can be a valuable tool in crafting messages to inform audiences of risks and motivate them to prepare.

These results can facilitate the creation of more effective hazard and risk messages. Related research shows households that are prepared for natural and manmade hazards enjoy higher rates of survivability and lower levels of consequences.

This paper presents new results concerning perceived vestedness and the utility of the scales. The research should be of value to practitioners and policymakers concerned with motivating public audiences to prepare for natural and manmade hazards.

How often today do you hear a woman described as “pleasingly plump”? Never, because this is the “Fitness Generation.” In the past, a woman could be heavy (or zoftig), but today overweight women are just plain fat, ugly, and unhealthy. Even the euphemism “overweight” means “unhealthy.” It comes from “over the weight for maximum life expectancy”—or over the ideal weight determined by life insurance companies—and has extremely negative connotations itself.

This chapter advances the notion of projects of passion as a class of phenomena for which profit seeking is secondary to the pursuit of a “calling.” Drawing on a comparative case analysis of seven temporary art projects realized over 35 years by renowned artist-entrepreneurs Christo and Jeanne-Claude, it defines a theoretical model of the unique elements and aspects of the process through which projects of passion unfold. In the model, freedom and novelty are singled out as unique drivers of project motivation, individual business models and rhetorical strategies as process mechanisms, and authenticity and impact (the aesthetic, social, and economic value appropriated by third parties) as project outcomes. The chapter concludes with implications for the strategic management of projects and opportunities for further research.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

This study revisits the Great Canadian Grain Logistics Crisis of 2013-14 to explore the competitiveness of the country's grain exports. An approach to comprehending the dilemmas of the international grain supply chain and trade, and national logistics policy in an era of multinational corporations, draws upon the literature on global value chain analysis. This analysis identifies both the grain industry's global and local dimensions. An important literature on the 'politics’ of the supply chain is also called into play to discuss who controls what aspects. This task of interpreting the various steps in Canada's grain logistics chain recognizes the key economic actors - producers, grain companies, railway companies, port terminal operators and export buyers - and political struggles between them as they each seek to maximize their self-interest. Policy implications for streamlining logistics operations are drawn from identifying where changes in the supply chain arrangements have gained or lost opportunities in export markets, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region.

This chapter presents results of a qualitative study among European champions in social media management. It aims to describe a strategic process and its implications for social media strategic management.

The chapter is based on four in-depth case studies involving both primary and secondary data analysis and interviews.

Social media management is governed by similar principles as corporate communication management. However, there is an important role of personal preferences of senior executives for an effectiveness of the strategic process.

The model allows describing the social media management in the multinational companies. Organizational learning process drawn in this chapter can be directly applied in the multinational companies from various industries.

Social media create an environment in which established actors need to learn how to communicate socially. Sophistication of the tools requires sophistication of the strategies and processes.

This chapter analyzes companies from various industries which are considered successful in social media strategic management. It creates a model which is applicable in various industries. It provides also insights into social media strategies from the research among social media global leaders.

Past theorizing and empirical work suggest that long-standing strategic leaders generate harmful attention and information-processing effects in their organizations, which in turn impair organizational learning and performance. In contrast, our argument is that longevity and its attendant inertia foster useful transformational and strategic persistence for organizations pursuing stretch goals. Through attentional vigilance and restricted focus, inertia may create the cognitive profile necessary for effective learning when organizations pursue the seemingly impossible. We empirically examine our ideas in the context of the French royal navy and the naval battles it had with the British in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. More specifically, we focus on two distinct but related stretch periods during which the French royal navy was tasked with building a powerful naval force and using it to gain naval supremacy over Great Britain. Given its exceptionally weak starting position at the beginning of the two studied periods and its desire to displace the established and advantaged navy of the era, the French had a lofty task. Our results are supportive of the stability argument, with leader longevity and inertia being positive for outcomes.

In 1938, the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) was established to regulate the fare and route structures of the domestic airline industry. At that time, policy‐makers were fearful that free market conditions in the airline industry would not foster the growth which was deemed to be optimal in the public interest. After forty years of industry development, however, the market structure of the airline industry does not provide justification for regulation. Furthermore, the regulation itself has created problems which are undesirable to both the industry and the public. On October 25, 1978, President Carter signed into law a bill that will gradually remove the regulatory restrictions under which interstate domestic airlines have operated since 1938. All regulatory control over the airlines will end by 1982, and the CAB will be abolished in 1985.

Migration has a strong political significance and a crucial constitutive role for identity. The liminal status and exclusion of migrants delimits the inside/outside of political communities and allows for the constitution and coherence of identity. Migration is also a challenge: while it is often presented as a managerial issue related to states’ economic and labour considerations, it essentially challenges and undermines their national and cultural self-image. Migration management also reflects the values and qualities communities identify in themselves; thus immigration policies put communities and states to the test for the way such values are upheld. This contribution explores migration’s constitutive role for European identity and the challenges it presents it with. Explaining the securitisation of migration management in Europe and its racial and dehumanising characteristics, it argues that the two-tier human rights system created in the European space affecting migrants undermines European identity value claims and threatens to undo them. It claims that the time has come to acknowledge European identity’s historical constitution in colonialism, and to envisage it as a fluid, open-ended project accommodating in earnest racial and cultural diversity, pluralism and difference.

The current research investigates the regional differences in benefiting from innovation toward growth ambitions in a sample of female entrepreneurs in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Nordic region. A sample of 4,048 early-stage female entrepreneurs from these two regions who were participated in annual surveys of Global Entrepreneurship Monitor was selected for further analysis. The results of data analysis using hierarchical linear modeling (mixed models) revealed that innovation benefits growth ambitions of early-stage female entrepreneurs. Further, the regional differences affect the benefit of innovation in shaping growth ambitions, so that, in Nordic region, the early-stage female entrepreneurs expect more growth out of their innovation as compared with their counterparts in MENA region. These results have been discussed regarding to existing literature, and future research directions have been suggested based on the results.