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In this paper we present an account of an undergraduate team‐based assignment designed to facilitate, exhibit and record team‐working skills in an e‐mediated environment. By linking the student feedback received to Hofstede’s classic model of cultural dimensions we aim to show the assignment’s suitability in revealing the student’s multi‐cultural context. In addition to anecdotal evidence we also present a quantitative analysis that shows that the desired learning outcomes have been met. In a further discussion we show how the qualitative data collected can be used to quantitatively determine a cultural fingerprint of the groups that is useful to predict the team’s suitability for a given task in a real‐world project.

Institutions and culture as well as their distance between home and host countries matter for international business activities. Yet, the exact nature of this influence is still not fully understood. In this chapter, we develop the concept of institutional and cultural compatibility and propose empirical measures of both to contribute to our understanding in this regard. We argue that the institutional and cultural profiles of home and host countries can create synergies that facilitate bilateral foreign direct investment (FDI) flows (that is being compatible) even if they are characterized by high distances. We apply our measures of compatibility to a sample of bilateral FDI flows between 127 host and 122 home countries over 12 years.

This paper aims to extend the technology acceptance model (TAM) to explore the factors influencing a hotel customer’s intention to use a fingerprint system instead of a traditional keycard system and the moderating factors (i.e. gender and age) on the relationships between the proposed factors and the customer’s intention to use fingerprint technology. When hotels add new technologies, the potential vulnerability of their systems also increases. Underestimating such risks can possibly result in massive losses from identity theft and related fraud for hoteliers. Customers who are aware of these risks may become more open to innovative methods of identification or verification, such as biometrics.

The online survey instrument was developed based on TAMs. The authors collected complete 526 responses from hotel customers and tested the hypotheses using structural equation modeling.

This study found seven factors (i.e. perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, subjective norm, perceived convenience, perceived data security, perceived property security and personal concerns) which significantly influence a hotel customer’s intention to use fingerprint technology. Gender and age played important moderating roles in the relationships between some of these factors and the intention to use.

Recommendations are made as to how hotels can benefit from the implementation of biometrics, particularly fingerprint systems. For example, a hotel’s marketing campaign can be more effective by emphasizing the advantages of fingerprint technology related to “data security and convenience” for younger consumers (i.e. Gen X and Gen Y).

Both educators and practitioners will benefit from the findings of this empirical study, as there are very few published studies on a customer’s fingerprint technology acceptance in the hotel context.

Criminology both as a field of study and as a practice draws on a broad range of disciplines from the social, behavioural, human, natural and medical sciences. However, over recent times, the natural and medical sciences have been dismissed, overlooked and even ridiculed, largely since the rise of critical criminology and related contemporary conflict and social harm approaches from the 1960s onwards. This has led to a chasm emerging between the study of criminology and the practice of criminology such as within a policing context. This paper aims to provide a review of an emerging forensic biological method, that of neuroscience, within a criminological context, to illustrate the importance of criminology embracing and reawakening its natural and medical science roots.

The paper draws on a conceptual design to realign criminology with the full range of disciplines used to inform its theory and application.

Through illustrating the role of forensic neuroscience, the paper reawakens the scientific method and inquiry of criminology reflecting the importance of the discipline being, and remaining, multi- and trans-disciplinary in nature. The paper, while reflecting on the limitations of scientific method and inquiry, outlines the strengths this approach to criminology engenders, promoting and delivering a scientific-based research agenda that aims to support industry partners in the prevention, disruption and reduction of crime, disorder and threats to public security.

Firstly, it is important for criminology as a field of study to (re)engage with its scientific method and inquiry. Secondly, criminology, by engaging in robust scientific method and inquiry, has a significant contribution to make to professional practice and the work of industry professionals. Thirdly, while there are limitations to such scientific method and inquiry, it should not lead to this component of criminology being discarded. Fourthly, there is a need for contemporary research in the area of scientific method and inquiry and its application to criminological contexts, including that of police practice. Finally, by engaging in scientific method and inquiry that is evidence based, a chasm between the field of study and the practice associated with criminology can be addressed.

This paper addresses the gap between criminology as a field of study and as a practice by reengaging with scientific method and inquiry, illustrating the need and value of criminology being and remaining multi- and trans-disciplinary, ensuring professions underpinned by criminology are supported in their practice.

To create a competitive edge in today's tourism marketplace, cities seek to differentiate themselves and create a positive image. Yet, there is little consensus about city branding processes and few case studies. This paper aims to explore Milan's brand image and personality, focusing on the extent to which its image is dominated by business and fashion or culture and heritage and the implications of this positioning for Milan's re‐branding in preparation for Expo 2015.

The paper combines quantitative and qualitative primary research. It reports the findings of a questionnaire survey, a web survey, desk research and focus group research. It analyses actual and potential tourists' perceptions, Milan's heritage product, current brand personality and the brand fingerprint.

Business tourism is central to Milan's prosperity; in contrast, its significant cultural attractions remain marginal to its tourism offer. This results in a narrow range of tourist perceptions of the destination and highly seasonal tourist activity.

This paper represents the discovery phase research for a new city brand and further longitudinal and qualitative work is required.

The paper includes implications for the development of a consistent destination branding strategy analyzing the first steps of the definition of the Milan's brand.

The paper makes practical recommendations to tourism and place marketing practitioners for broadening Milan's brand to build on the city's strong architectural and cultural heritage. It also has value for tourism academics since it makes a methodological contribution to the place branding literature through its use of projective techniques.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a rationale and step‐by‐step description of how to use rhetorical criticism as a method for accounting for organizational isomorphism in organizational fields.

The idea that rhetoric is an important form of organizational discourse has gained interest among organizational scholars in recent years. Institutional theorists, especially, have been willing to embrace the “rhetorical turn” in organization studies. These scholars recognize that rhetoric plays an important role in creating, maintaining, and disrupting organizational and institutional orders. This paper adds to this research agenda by suggesting that organizational isomorphism can be partly understood as a rhetorical phenomenon. A method of rhetorical criticism – a qualitative approach for analyzing the rhetorical dimensions of texts and practice – and its efficacy for institutional research is explicated. Using a popular television program about crime scene investigations (which has arguably produced a “CSI effect” that influences the criminal justice system as an organizational field) as a sustained example, steps are provided for conducting rhetorical criticism of popular culture texts in order to account for isomorphic trends in an organizational field.

Rhetorical analysis of cultural and organizational artifacts, including institutional work, can expose myths and ceremonies that guide practices effectively and problematically.

The potential value of the paper is in its function as a guide for (neo)institutional and organization scholars looking for innovative approaches to studying organizations from a cultural perspective.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it explains the current records management practices for Canadian criminal records. Second, it details the larger social and cultural implications of those practices, toward considering the role records management plays in long‐term sustainable offender rehabilitation outcomes.

This paper is based on a thorough literature review, which considered research on the history of Canadian criminal record management; current records management procedures for Canadian criminal records; and current Canadian social and cultural understandings of offenders, criminal records, and the relationship between criminal record management and public policy.

This paper finds that Canadian records management procedures for criminal records can have grave impacts on offenders' lives. Specifically, this paper explores how records management practices are shaped by the social norms and values embedded in public policy mandates, which ultimately appear to disrupt, rather than support, offenders' rehabilitation.

This paper's research is limited by its current approach. Consequently, it encourages researchers to further develop its findings in the future, both domestic to Canada and internationally.

This paper includes implications that advocate for increased awareness about how public policy dictated records management procedures can limit offenders' ability to reintegrate into society.

This paper addresses the grave social consequences and burdens offenders face when they are unable to seal their previous criminal record.

This paper addresses the need to study how offenders' rehabilitation is affected by the policy dictating the management of their criminal record.