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Relatively simple and standard sensing equipment is quite adequate for some quite advanced and productive applications with robots, as has been demonstrated at the Cranfield Robot Automation Group. Jack Hollingum went to find out about it from David Williams.

Since the development of the COVID-19 vaccinations, questions surrounding race have been prominent in the literature on vaccine uptake. Early in the vaccine rollout, public health officials were concerned with the relatively lower rates of uptake among certain racial/ethnic minority groups. We suggest that this may also be patterned by racial/ethnic residential segregation, which previous work has demonstrated to be an important factor for both health and access to health care.

In this study, we examine county-level vaccination rates, racial/ethnic composition, and residential segregation across the U.S. We compile data from several sources, including the American Community Survey (ACS) and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) measured at the county level.

We find that just looking at the associations between racial/ethnic composition and vaccination rates, both percent Black and percent White are significant and negative, meaning that higher percentages of these groups in a county are associated with lower vaccination rates, whereas the opposite is the case for percent Latino. When we factor in segregation, as measured by the index of dissimilarity, the patterns change somewhat. Dissimilarity itself was not significant in the models across all groups, but when interacted with race/ethnic composition, it moderates the association. For both percent Black and percent White, the interaction with the Black-White dissimilarity index is significant and negative, meaning that it deepens the negative association between composition and the vaccination rate.

The analysis is only limited to county-level measures of racial/ethnic composition and vaccination rates, so we are unable to see at the individual-level who is getting vaccinated.

We find that segregation moderates the association between racial/ethnic composition and vaccination rates, suggesting that local race relations in a county helps contextualize the compositional effects of race/ethnicity.

Nonfamily farms are responsible for a disproportionate amount of US agriculture production. The importance of these operations to the volume of agriculture production in the United States has led researchers and policymakers to understand nonfamily farms as large commercial operations. This paper examines whether the distinction between family and nonfamily helps explain the financial outcomes of farm operations and households.

We test for differences in financial outcomes of the household and operations of family and nonfamily farms using an Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition. We compare these results to a decomposition of other possible typologies.

We present evidence that nonfamily farms are a heterogeneous group with a majority of small operations that are dominated by a small number of large operations. We discover that differences associated with the family-nonfamily distinction are largely explained by observable farm and operator characteristics that arise mechanically from the definition. However, we find suggestive evidence that family-nonfamily classification captures differences in economic behavior that lead to higher profitability measures to nonfamily farms. We find little evidence of any inherent structural differences between family and nonfamily farms that helps explain financial outcomes related to leverage or household finances.

We conclude that including nonfamily farms in official statistics of farm households may provide a more comprehensive overview of the farm sector, as our results suggest that family and nonfamily farms do not have innate differences that help explain many of their financial outcomes.

We incorporate previously unused data on nonfamily farm households and test the difference in mean financial outcomes between family and nonfamily farms.

The purpose of this study is to investigate motives for engaging in electronic word of mouth (eWOM) about organizations on social media sites. This study explores motives for posting positive eWOM and motives for posting negative eWOM. It also investigates whether existing WOM frameworks adequately capture consumers’ motives for spreading eWOM within the context of social media. This study seeks to confirm established motives in literature while also identifying new motives specific to social media.

A qualitative study was conducted using the critical incident technique. In all, 64 positive incidents and 60 negative incidents were analyzed.

This study provides a typology for understanding consumers’ motivations for engaging in positive and negative WOM within the context of social media. Four new motives for sharing eWOM are identified; eight established WOM motives are re-confirmed; and new subcategories for eWOM motives are proposed. The study also finds that further refinement of WOM motives and scales within a social media context is needed.

An integrated conceptual framework of both positive and negative motives is developed to illustrate a more comprehensive model of motives of eWOM within social media. Managerial implications for managing negative eWOM and amplifying positive eWOM are discussed. A limitation is that the study is exploratory in nature.

This study identifies new motives for sharing eWOM, re-labels existing WOM and eWOM motives with more descriptive and comprehensive titles and confirms established WOM and eWOM motives within the context of social media. This study is conducted across multiple firms and industries, leading to more generalizable results.

The development of multinational subsidiaries is of interest to academics, policy‐makers and the business community. Although there is a considerable literature on subsidiary typologies, there is a dearth of empirical investigation to accompany this. This article reports on a field‐work survey which was undertaken to analyse the nature of subsidiary development in the UK economy. A large sample of companies were asked to provide details of their value‐added activities and degree of strategic autonomy granted by their parent organisations. These data were collected in respect of their entry to the UK and at the time of the survey so that a comparison would yield conclusions about subsidiary development. The analysis of the data reveals that subsidiary development is associated with the ownership (i.e. geographical location) of the parent company, as well as the entry mode which the parent company chooses to enter the host economy. The precise nature of these relationships is complex and the article concludes by suggesting some future research agendas in this area.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate aspiring immigrant opportunity (AIO) entrepreneurs' start-up location decisions.

The authors used conjoint analysis to explore 1,264 location decisions nested within 79 highly educated, first-generation AIO entrepreneurs.

The authors found that although government support positively influences business location decisions, network support decreases the perceived benefits of government support for AIO entrepreneurs. Furthermore, locations with high costs of doing business are unattractive to AIO entrepreneurs, but financial capital access through ethnic and nonethnic sources in these locations enhances the appeal of high-cost locations.

The generalizability of the findings to AIO entrepreneurs should be considered with caution. Future research should longitudinally examine immigrant opportunity entrepreneurs' location decisions and their implications for their start-up and community-level performance outcomes. The authors also encourage replication of the study.

The findings of this study have implications for AIO entrepreneurs who intend to make start-up location decisions. Also, government policymakers can use the findings of this study to better attract AIO entrepreneurs to different locations.

By integrating ethnic enclave theory and location theory, this research contributes to theory and practice about immigrant opportunity entrepreneurs' start-up location decisions which are currently underexplored in the immigrant entrepreneurship literature.

The relationship between musicians and the music industry has often been depicted as a dichotomy between creativity and commerce with musicians conflicted between their roles as artists and their roles as marketers of sound. Recently, marketing researchers have problematized this dichotomy and suggested musicians perceive these roles as inevitable and indivisible. However, the processes of how musicians market their sound to the industry gatekeepers remain unclear. This study seeks to find the key industry gatekeepers for musicians and how musicians sell their personal sound to them.

Using an interpretative phenomenological approach, ten interviews with professional musicians across different music genres provided insight into the strategies musicians use to market their sound to industry gatekeepers.

In total, three key gatekeepers and the five strategies that musicians use to sell their sound are identified. The gatekeepers are record labels, other musicians and consumers. Musicians sell their sound to these gatekeepers through the externally directed strategies of using social media to build relationships, defining their personal sound through genre and creating a unique sound, and through the internally directed strategies of keeping motivated through sound evolution and counting on luck.

The findings are limited by the small number of musicians interviewed and the heterogeneous representation of music genres.

The study contributes to theoretical understandings of how musicians as cultural producers market their sound in a commercial industry.

Luxury brands seek to differentiate themselves from competitors by engaging in corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices. Although many luxury brands participate in CSR activities, it is unclear if luxury brands communicate these CSR activities to consumers. Therefore, this study aims to explore two questions: are luxury jewelry brands communicating CSR (including women’s empowerment) in their advertising? And how should luxury jewelry brands communicate CSR messages in their advertising?

This paper uses a content analysis of luxury jewelry print advertisements and in-depth interviews with 20 female jewelry consumers analyzed using grounded theory to construct the luxury brand CSR advertising strategies theory.

Very few (3%) of print advertisements contain CSR messages, including femvertising and the theory presents four paths for brands to consider when promoting CSR practices, namely, ethical sourcing, cause-related marketing product, a signal of product care and quality and signal of an authentic relationship with the consumer.

The model provides four potential CSR advertising strategies and guidelines luxury jewelry brands can use to create successful advertising campaigns.

Luxury jewelry advertising has not been empirically examined and the study fills gaps in the understanding of luxury brands’ communication strategies. It adds to the knowledge and theorizing of the use and appropriateness of CSR appeals in a luxury brand context.