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The purpose of this paper is to remove confusion surrounding the terms responsibility and accountability from the general and project management arenas by creating “refined” (with unnecessary elements removed) definitions of these terms.

A method of deriving refined definitions for a group of terms by ensuring that there is no internal conflict or overlap is adopted and applied to resolve the confusion.

The confusion between responsibility and accountability can be characterised as a failure to separate the obligation to satisfactorily perform a task (responsibility) from the liability to ensure that it is satisfactorily done (accountability). Furthermore, clarity of application can be achieved if legislative and organisational accountabilities are differentiated and it is recognised that accountability and responsibility transition across organisational levels. A difficulty in applying accountability in RACI tables is also resolved.

Clear definition of responsibility and accountability will facilitate future research endeavours by removing confusion surrounding the terms. Verification of the method used through its success in deriving these “refined” definitions suggests its suitability for application to other contested terms.

Projects and businesses alike can benefit from removal of confusion around the definitions of responsibility and accountability in the academic research they fund and attempt to apply. They can also achieve improvements in both efficiency and effectiveness in undertaking organisation-wide exercises to determine organisational responsibilities and accountabilities as well as in the application of governance models.

Refined definitions of responsibility and accountability will facilitate building social and physical systems and infrastructure, benefitting organisations, whether public, charitable or private.

Clarity resulting in the avoidance of confusion and misunderstanding together with their consequent waste of time, resources and money.

The purpose of this paper is to resolve and remove from the governance arena in general and the project arena in particular, conflict which occurs when parties do not realise they have different meanings for common governance terms.

Review literature on definitional confusion in general and on governance in particular and develop a method for defining an internally consistent group of terms, then apply this to a group of terms in the governance arena.

Several important subjects commonly arranged under the governance banner do not actually constitute governance (strategy, behaviour, decision making).

Further work is necessary to remove similar confusion in other closely related areas, including power itself and authority as well as project and general management terms such as responsibility and accountability.

Projects and business alike can potentially achieve significant improvements in efficiency and effectiveness through gaining consistency across current models, frameworks, policies and procedures thus reducing cross-boundary conflict.

Creation of a unifying feature within the project and management literature, shifting the understanding of the boundaries and limitations of governance. These definitions will help progress governance from complexity to simplicity, from an art to an understandable practice, from a concept that has been hijacked for partisan and political gain to a lean social tool which can be put to use for the benefit of organisations, whether public, charitable or private.

The value is clarity – resulting in the avoidance of confusion and misunderstanding together with their consequent waste of time, resources and money.

Although many scholars have acknowledged inconsistencies in the use of the retail brand term within the existing empirical literature, no one has conducted a systematic study to clarify the confusion of terms. Aiming at unifying the use of terms, this study aims to explore the terms that best express each retail brand concept, and discusses the definitions of proposed terms that can distinguish the connotation of different retail brand concepts.

Through a systematic review, 463 articles were obtained, from which retail brand terms and their definitions were further extracted. Semantic analysis and content analysis were adopted to analyze terms and definitions, respectively.

Semantically, the terms that best express four levels of retail brand concepts are own product brand, store brand, platform brand and retailer brand. Six key elements to distinguish different levels of a retail brand are identified through the content analysis of definitions, and on this basis, four proposed terms are defined.

Noting that no study focuses on the conceptual confusion of retail brands in recent decades, the findings are expected to clarify the confusion of terms and unify the use of terms, hence facilitating the communication between scholars and the sharing of research results.

The purpose of the paper is to bring to the attention of academics the innovations which have rapidly been developed to sell goods and services across sectors using what the authors describe as “confusion marketing”.

This is a conceptual, integrative, critical assessment of a number of marketing disciplines addressing aspects of confusion marketing. Confusion practices are evolving rapidly, with little theoretical explanation of why many of them are successful. This paper seeks to answer such questions by examining a wide range of sectors and confusion practices.

Patterns are identified across sectors, companies and business practices, providing the basis for this holistic assessment of marketing research on confusion since its inception and the design of a systemic framework of confusion.

The study attempts to bring all marketing schools and traditions of confusion together and presents a synthesis of scholarly accomplishments in the area by matching them, where possible, to current practices. It advances extant literature by designing a systemic framework which has, so far, been absent in marketing and by identifying avenues for future research maturation.

This discussion challenges assumptions regarding the ethicality, sustainability and profitability of confusion practices. Businesses practicing confusion are successful, suggesting that such practices may be economically sustainable. Contrary to expectations in marketing, confusion seems to benefit some consumers; confusion practices are not necessarily unethical or detrimental.

Confusion is a controversial area in marketing. Although the literature on confusion has grown, extant research continues to concentrate on consumers’ perceptions of confusion and tends to assume that confusion practices are undesirable, unethical and unsustainable. This paper provides a first integrative critical analysis of marketing thinking and challenges the aforementioned literature assumptions, demonstrating that past research has not sufficiently explained the nature, consequences and success of confusion marketing.

The purpose of this paper is to suggest a novel framework of consumer confusion based on the appraisal theories of emotions. Extant theoretical and empirical evidence on confusion continues to be vague on the connection between the emotional dimensions and behavioural consequences. The appraisal theories of emotions can help to expand the field of inquiry which is related to the topic of consumer confusion.

A concept-centric review of 112 publications on consumer confusion and research on emotions provides an integrative critical analysis of the nature of confusion and extends the literature. The review demonstrates that past research has advanced the understanding but not sufficiently explained all of the processes implicated in consumer confusion.

On the above grounds, the paper suggests that although confusion is environmentally driven, it can be seen as a dynamic process implicating two levels of consumer appraisals. Uncertainty/lack of understanding, goal inconsistency and motivational state form the basis of confusion; agency attribution and coping potential are, however, shaping the development of subsequent emotions and ultimately the expectations on consumer behaviour. Considered as a dynamic process, confusion has coping and behavioural implications. At the most central level, the importance of agency (or attribution) and coping potential is highlighted and the way these appraisals lead to different emotions and behaviours is discussed.

The paper advances extant consumer decision-making literature and proposes diverse emotions that are associated with the experience of confusion, behaviours that are expected, along with marketing implications and actions required for each of them.

Consumer confusion is an emerging phenomenon of interest that significantly drives choice behaviour. Considering the dearth of scholarly focus on confusion faced by consumers in a healthcare setting, this paper aims to conceptualize and validate a patient confusion model consisting of its drivers and outcomes.

Drawing upon adaptive decision-making framework and consumer confusion literature, patient confusion model has been developed. Empirical data of 310 patients from three private sector hospitals in India was collected through pen and paper survey administration. The hypothesized patient confusion model was tested using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to derive confirmatory results.

The results confirm the role of decision-making variables such as information overload, information similarity, information ambiguity, information asymmetry, patient involvement and physician-patient communication in the occurrence of patient confusion. A significant impact of confusion on switching intention was also confirmed, providing insights for healthcare managers.

The effect of confusion on switching intention of consumers found through the present study holds significant implications from a healthcare management standpoint. Dissemination of credible information, improved communication between doctors and patients and creation of organized channels of health information provision also represent some of the notable implications for healthcare managers to mitigate patient confusion.

This study presents an empirically validated model of patient confusion creating a research agenda for theory development in this emerging area. Consumer confusion represents a core consumer behaviour problem that is of utmost significance in the healthcare sector. This paper is one of the first and early attempts to address this research problem.

The purpose of this study is aimed at analysing the contributors of consumer confusion from the perspective of both information providers and recipients.

Using Sri Lanka as a case study, this study demonstrates views of consumer confusion in terms of information and its contributors in light of the framework adopted by Lu and Gursoy (2015).

The results ascertain that too much, too similar and too ambiguous information from information providers’ perspective have a significant impact on consumer confusion in the context of the inbound tourist industry in Sri Lanka. Most importantly, it is evident that the information recipients’ knowledge and behaviour attributes, namely, internet experience, learning orientation, tolerance for ambiguity, price consciousness and requirement for cognition have no significant impact on consumer confusion. Furthermore, the quality and quantity of information provided are crucial for the minimisation or avoidance of consumer confusion.

The practical implications drawn from this study could influence all stakeholders of the inbound online tourism trade including managers, advertising executives and marketing experts in providing good quality information to promote tourism.

The contribution of this research is related to the analysis from a theoretical and an empirical perspective of both the information providers’ and decision-making of recipients.

这项研究旨在从信息提供者和接受者的角度分析造成消费者困惑的因素。

以鲁和古尔索伊（2015）所采用的框架为基础, 本研究以斯里兰卡为例, 就有关信息及其贡献因素方面展示了消费者困惑的观点

调查结果确定, 就斯里兰卡入境旅游业而言, 从信息提供者的角度来看, 太多, 太相似和太含糊的信息会对消费者混乱产生重大影响。最重要的是, 很明显, 信息接收者的知识和行为属性, 即互联网体验, 学习倾向, 对歧义的容忍度, 价格意识和认知需求, 对消费者的困惑没有显着影响。此外, 所提供信息的质量和数量对于最小化或避免消费者混淆至关重要。

这项研究得出的实际意义可能会影响入境在线旅游业的所有利益相关者, 包括管理人员, 广告主管和营销专家, 以提供高质量的信息来促进旅游业。

此项研究贡献与从信息提供者和接收者的决策的理论和经验角度进行的分析相关。

este estudio tiene como objetivo analizar a los contribuyentes de la confusión del consumidor desde la perspectiva de los proveedores de información y los destinatarios.

utilizando Sri Lanka como el caso, esta investigación demuestra puntos de vista de la confusión del consumidor en términos de información y sus contribuyentes a la luz del marco adoptado por Lu y Gursoy (2015).

los hallazgos determinan que demasiada información, muy similar y demasiado ambigua desde la perspectiva de los proveedores de información tiene un impacto significativo en la confusión del consumidor en el contexto de la industria turística entrante en Sri Lanka. Lo más importante es que es evidente que los atributos de conocimiento y comportamiento de los destinatarios de la información, a saber, la experiencia de Internet, la orientación al aprendizaje, la tolerancia a la ambigüedad, la conciencia del precio y la necesidad de cognición no tienen un impacto significativo en la confusión del consumidor. Además, la calidad y la cantidad de información proporcionada son cruciales para minimizar o evitar la confusión del consumidor.

las implicaciones prácticas derivadas de este estudio podrían influir en todas las partes interesadas del comercio de turismo en línea entrante, que incluyen gerentes, ejecutivos de publicidad y expertos en marketing para proporcionar información de buena calidad para promover el turismo.

la contribución de esta investigación está relacionada con el análisis desde una perspectiva teórica y empírica tanto de los proveedores de información como de la toma de decisiones de los destinatarios.

The goal of this paper is to use the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) paradigm to understand how ineffective marketplace stimuli affect perceptions related to online travel package booking, which in turn cultivate various types of confusion, and how these confusions are channelled into behavioural dispositions of consumers, such as negative electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). It also aims to investigate the moderating effects of gender and technology self-efficacy for the suggested framework.

A sample of 437 participants who had recently booked an online travel package, underwent an analysis using a survey study design. Structural equation modelling with multigroup analysis was used to evaluate the hypotheses and the moderation effect.

The findings suggest that inefficient market stimulus results in various forms of confusion, further contributing to negative eWOM. The results also imply that technology self-efficacy lessens the effect of various confusions on adverse eWOM, and gender is found to have a moderating effect on the relationships between ineffective marketplace stimuli, confusion and negative eWOM.

The research offers tourism and hospitality management advice on how to deal with inefficient marketplace stimulation to lessen confusion, which then reduces unfavourable eWOM. Additionally, the moderate impact of technology self-efficacy and gender established through the current study has important ramifications from a tourism managers' perspective.

This study develops and validates an empirical model, which will be utilised as a framework to fully understand consumer confusion brought on by ineffective marketplace stimulation, which causes adverse eWOM. The study also gives new perspectives on the moderating roles of gender and technology self-efficacy, which have received little attention in earlier studies.

Providing employees with meaning in their work has inspired numerous researchers to study the role of personal meaningful work and its related outcomes. Despite this high level of interest, the theoretical views and methodological approaches used to explore this concept still require refinement and development. Without a comprehensive review of these views and approaches, the concept of meaningful work will remain an ill defined notion. The purpose of this paper is to address this gap with a review of the theoretical and empirical research on meaningful work.

The paper includes a discussion on the concepts of “meaning” and “work”, and its importance and the sources for conceptual confusion, and a synthesis of the common features that form the idea of meaningful work in numerous empirical and theoretical studies.

The paper found meaningful work is derived when the employee has a perfect understanding of the nature and expectations of the task environment (i.e. the work has a clear goal, purpose and value that is connected to the employee), the employee feels a sense of fit or congruence between their own core values and the job requirements and organizational mission and goals, and when perfect understanding exists of how employees’ roles contribute to the purpose of the organization.

As part of an effective HRM strategy, organizations should actively encourage and develop managers’ abilities to redesign jobs and the climate to build enhanced feelings of meaning in work. Furthermore, organizations can promote greater experiences of meaningful work among employees by implementing the “job crafting” concept. Also, the role of top management is to focus on job elements that would possibly change personal needs of employees and hence perceive their jobs to be more meaningful.

Given the limited amount of recent literature focused on defining meaningful work, this paper provides valuable resources to help organizations succeed in their understanding of how to engage in creating meaningful work environment. It also examines the underlying features that constitute the meaningful work concept and offers guidance for future research by presenting the current state of knowledge about meaningful work.

The paper seeks to identify the sources of confusion in the Chinese personal computer market and the confusion reduction strategies used.

A self‐completion questionnaire with a sample of 140 respondents was used.

Technological complexity is the major source of confusion. Word of mouth is the most common source of information used to reduce confusion due to its credibility and reliability.

Technical confusion leads to similarity confusion and overchoice confusion. Manufacturers and retailers need to address technical confusion to reduce the overall level of confusion in the PC market.

The paper examines confusion in an Eastern culture, whereas previously it has been predominantly investigated in Western cultures.