Search results

This paper aims to present the first results of research in progress on the history of candy, which reveals the children's gourmand culture since the Renaissance. It is a matter of showing the links between children and sweetness and how sweetness is entered, under the name of “candy”, in children's culture.

The study is conducted with historical methods. It is based on sources on the community of pharmacists, confectioners, grocers, confectioners' advertising, and an approach using historical lexicography, general literary sources, children's literature, and childhood memories in autobiographies.

The paper proves how the word “bonbon” was born in France at the beginning of the seventeenth century to signify the link between candies and childhood. The study shows how confectioners appeared and became organised and it is a surprise to discover that they did not use the word “bonbon” for their candies and pralines. One has to wait until the end of the eighteenth century before the confectionary market designates children as its main target. But the texts and the first moral tales of children's literature show that during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries “bonbons” belong to the children's material world, such as toys, and that adults were glad to give them candies as a present.

The study is limited to France and does not analyse the contemporary period.

The study is very new: any scientific enquiry has been conducted on the history of candy in children's culture and on the history of the confectioner trade.

The main purpose of the paper is to investigate and to document the current level of web usage within the confectionery industry in the South Eastern European (SEE) region. Also, the paper aims to examine the web content structure of confectioners in the given region and to explain the impact of the location and the size of the company on the quality of contents published on web sites.

The experimental research was conducted on the sample of 333 companies in the confectionery industry from 5 SEE countries. The research questionnaire included 56 web sites' characteristics divided into five categories.

The confectionery industry uses web sites as “presentation space” only, and the “show‐case” is the main purpose. The implementation of the web in the confectionery industry in SEE countries is correlated with a company's characteristics. Companies within EU member countries more often implement the web as a customer communication channel. However, confectioners in non‐EU countries have more information published on their web sites and their web sites are more interactive.

The paper contributes to a better understanding of web usage within the confectionery industry because it classifies information published on web sites into several categories and describes common web contents in the confectionery industry. Moreover, it discusses the correlation between a company's characteristics (size and location) and web implementation. Finally, it gives an overview of relevant findings of web usage as a customer communication channel within transitional economies.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze organizational diversity with a focus on the concept of socially sustained practices, grounding the analyses in a practice-based approach.

Based on data from ethnographic research, the author seeks to explain how the body and embodied marks that indicate an unequal distribution of power in society interfere with access to knowledge and in the organization of work.

Data analyses suggest that embodied prejudices affect the division of labor and access to knowledge in organizational settings, contributing to perpetuating cultural and historical structures of domination that spark conscious attempts to manage race and gender diversity.

Little research has investigated diversity from a practice-based standpoint. The originality of this paper is in its adoption of a phenomenological perspective to explain the experience of diversity as an ongoing bodily and embodied process.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the efficiency of the internal control reporting (ICR) requirements imposed by Sections 302 and 404 of the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX). The lessons learned are then applied to the current financial crisis.

The Coase Theorem is applied to the events leading up to the collapse of Enron and the enactment of SOX. The paper then analyzes the efficacy of the various examples of ICR regulation, both pre‐ and post‐SOX, noting the ways in which they effectively mitigate transaction costs and the ways in which they over‐regulate.

US investors continue to invest in foreign markets despite the fact that those markets maintain less demanding ICR requirements than those required by Section 404. Moreover, investors do not respond negatively to Section 404 disclosures. The research demonstrates that Section 404 does not provide useful information in the minds of investors. Considering Section 404's ineffectiveness and the burdensome costs it imposes on reporting companies, it is clear that Section 404 is an example of over‐regulation and should be repealed.

The transaction costs that caused the collapse of Enron and the enactment of SOX bear strong similarities to those causing the more recent subprime mortgage crisis. The lessons learned from the enactment of SOX Section 404 are directly applicable to the current financial crisis and should be noted moving forward.

By utilizing a law and economics perspective, the paper more clearly demonstrates how Section 404 is an example of over‐regulation and draws links to the current economic crisis.

Thorntons the confectioners have recently up‐graded their shops (over 180 in the UK) to introduce the “gifting” concept, with both self‐selection of packaged items and a survery for loose chocolates and toffee. Drew Management & Associates were asked to set up a labour scheduling system for these shops, to provide adequate customer service within acceptable payroll levels. This article describes how, as a result of the project, Thorntons have been able to improve the effectiveness of their retail staff by more than 6 per cent.

The purpose of this historical paper is to examine arguably the most controversial advertising campaign of all time. Critics have condemned tobacco marketer George Washington Hill's “Reach for a Lucky Instead of a Sweet” campaign in the late 1920s and early 1930s for its explicit attempt to encourage smoking among women by linking cigarettes with themes of slenderness and youth.

The paper relies on primary sources obtained chiefly from the important advertising trade journals Printers' Ink and Advertising and Selling. Many sources, in turn, pointed to historically significant advertisements from the “Reach for a Lucky […]” campaign, some of which are included among the findings. Tentative themes of analysis were: the strategic motives behind the “Reach for a Lucky […]” campaign and the campaign's outcomes and consequences, both positive and negative.

Hill aggressively pursued the female smoker of the 1920s, as did other cigarette marketers of the period. However, the paper's findings support a conclusion that Hill had additional motives for attacking “sweets,” other than merely encouraging women to smoke with a slenderness appeal. Hill's primary strategic concern must have been how to address the extraordinarily competitive situation he faced with the other “big four” cigarette brands.

Focusing on the strategic intent of the campaign and its outcomes and consequences, findings strongly suggest that prior perspectives and conclusions found in advertising history texts regarding this infamous campaign often fail to reveal its significance as an historical event.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how digital transformation changes highly traditional business processes and how it impacts value co-creation and co-destruction. More specifically, the aim is to examine, using the resource interaction approach, how the friction between non-digital and digital resources affects the co-creation and co-destruction of value in a network during digital transformation. Based on this, the authors provide managerial implications on how to handle simultaneous digital and traditional business processes to co-create value during digital transformation.

A case study is conducted of a digital platform provider and of three traditional confectioneries. In this analysis, the authors looked at the business processes of highly traditional confectioneries that have introduced online services through a digital platform and are undergoing digital transformation.

In some industries, it is neither possible nor advisable to fully digitalise all business processes, and companies have to partially retain their traditional, analogue character to create value. The process of value co-creation during digital transformation is affected by friction between the digital and non-digital resources and is mitigated by specific lubricants (e.g. mutual reliance, smooth personal communication, willingness to help, attitude towards change). This results in the improvement of processes and capabilities in terms of digital development and traditional production. Friction may also lead to value co-destruction, for example, as the result of transformation from face-to-face to digital interactions.

The authors contribute to research on the digital transformation of highly traditional companies that need to introduce new, digital technologies and resources while continuing their traditional processes. The authors develop the concept of lubricants that mitigate the friction between resources and, therefore, facilitate value co-creation in a business network. Additionally, the authors provide managerial implications for how to handle simultaneous digital and traditional business processes during digital transformation.

From time to time we report cases of food being sold under false and misleading descriptions, where the defence claims the consumer is really expecting too much for her money; like Pip, she has “great expectations.” The sale of food and drugs abounds with deceptive descriptions and devices; clever, subtle, attractive and far more extensively practised than in the old days when analysts and inspectors sought out the adulteration of food. Their annual reports contain the more lurid examples, which are but a fraction of the whole. The price of genuine products has risen out of all proportion in recent years and the introduction of artificial and synthetic materials in substitution is regrettably inevitable, but the importation of price into the offence of misdescription is likely to bring to confusion law that is probably more complete than ever before. It is the essence of all false descriptions that they should in fact mislead, but it is garnishing the point to suggest as many a defending counsel and not a few magistrates do, that the price paid must be taken into account in any alleged misdescription; that if it is low for such an expensive commodity as “cream,” then a purchaser should not be deceived into believing she was obtaining genuine cream, even if the name “cream” was being applied. As the County Magistrates at Leicester were recently asked to decide, “Who would expect real cream in a fourpenny cream bun ?” (p. 70). Still less so, if a fancy name such as “Kreem” is used; all this, Section 47, Food and Drugs Act, 1955, notwithstanding. In the case quoted, evidence was called to show that if a shopper requires a cream bun containing real cream, she will ask for a “dairy cream bun” and that the witnesses would only expect to receive the genuine article if they went to a dairy; that when buying cream confectionery from a confectioner's shop, they did not expect to receive anything but imitation cream.

It would be difficult to find, especially during the summer months, a more popular confection than “ices,” or one which, when properly made, is more harmless or wholesome. They are universally liked by the young and old of all classes everywhere, and are in demand on all and every occasion. The volume of trade done in this commodity from the barrows of itinerant street vendors and from confectioners' shops is enormous. The process of manufacture is comparatively simple and in a small way requires little outlay for appliances or materials, consequently it appeals to the vendor with little capital, and the sales generally provide a fair margin of profit. Competition in the trade is keen. The price of the article is as low as can be consistent with the use of sound ingredients, and the desire to maintain profits has caused the cheapest possible materials to be used for the manufacture, resulting in many different qualities being sold. The general descriptions of the goods very rarely convey much information as to the nature of the materials used in their composition. An inspection of the labels displayed on vendors' barrows and in shops indicates that there are ices, ice‐creams, cream‐ices and creamy‐ices, the names being sometimes enriched with a qualifying description suggesting the addition of some flavouring agent. The names appear to be very loosely and irregularly applied to a variety of frozen products which may vary from sweetened water to sweetened cream, with many intermediate qualities. A search amongst the standard recipes for making ices discloses the fact that most of them are frozen custards which should be made from sweetened milk thickened with starch or eggs, with or without the addition of cream. The idea conveyed to the more intelligent and discriminating consumer when the term “cream” forms part of the description is that a certain proportion of that substance is employed in the composition of the ices, but there are others who are indifferent to the quality or composition so long as the product is ice‐cold, sweet and palatable. If made without cream they are masquerading under false names as “ice‐creams” or “cream‐ices,” and to be correct should be termed plain “ices.” Unfortunately this is only one case amongst many in this country where legal standards are necessary but lacking. When a vendor sells as “ice‐cream” something devoid of cream he commits an offence which should be treated in the same manner as other forms of adulteration. The American Government require ice‐cream to contain not less than 14 per cent. of milk‐fat, and the Canadian Government require a standard of not less than 7 per cent. of milk‐fat. In samples recently examined by the writer and submitted as “ice‐cream,” the fat varied from 1·5 to 7·5 per cent., and in only one instance could it be definitely shown that cream was present. The others were made from milk, and the fat varied with the proportion of milk present. If proceedings had been instituted under the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts in some of these cases it is doubtful if convictions could have been obtained, and failing conviction it would have probably been costly for the local authority concerned.