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This article examines the relation between place, space and information behaviour.

Concepts of place and space are explored through a comparison of three leisure pursuits: running, urban exploration and genealogy, based on the authors' research and the published literature.

A socially constructed meaning of place is central to each leisure activity but how it is experienced physically, emotionally and imaginatively are different. Places have very different meanings within each practice. Mirroring this, information behaviours are also very different: such as the sources used, the type of information created and how it is shared or not shared. Information behaviour contributes to the meanings associated with place in particular social practices.

Meaning attached to place can be understood as actively constructed within social practices. Rather than context for information behaviours in the sense of an outside, containing, even constraining, environment, the meaning of place can be seen as actively constructed within social practices and by the information behaviours that are part of them.

The paper adds a new perspective to the understanding of place and space in the study of information behaviour.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: to investigate if the three service quality dimensions (service environment, interaction and outcome quality), proposed by Brady and Cronin (2001), influence the development of event loyalty, among runners of the “‘Alexander the Great’ International Marathon”, and to test if running loyalty moderates the relationship between event quality and event loyalty.

In all, 368 runners participated in the study and filled the Sport Event Quality Questionnaire (Theodorakis et al., 2015) and an adjusted version of the Leisure Involvement Questionnaire (Kyle et al., 2010).

The results indicated that only the service environment and outcome dimensions contributed significantly to the prediction of event loyalty, while, and in contrast to other sport services, interaction quality was not shown to be an important determinant for the development of event loyalty. Furthermore, running involvement was shown to play a moderating role in the relationship between event quality and event loyalty. Service quality is more important for the development of event loyalty among low- than high-involved runners. The theoretical and applied implications of these results are discussed.

The study provided results on how high- and low-involved runners perceive event quality, and for which of these groups the event quality is an important antecedent for the development of event loyalty.

Investigating the moderating role of involvement on the relationship between service quality and loyalty has also applied value. While committed runners have been traditionally seen as a key target group for event marketing professionals, the majority of runners in city marathons today are more leisure oriented. The increase in the number of leisure runners is actually the reason for the rapid growth of city marathons in the last few years. Meeting the needs of these leisure runners and increasing their loyalty levels is therefore a key task for marathon marketers today.

This study contributes to the literature, as for the first time it explores the moderating role of involvement on the relationship between service quality and loyalty in the context of a sport event.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a measure that links the causes and consequences of disruptions in freight transport operations. Such a measure is needed to quantify the scale of impact and identify the root causes of disruptions.

In order to develop this measure, an inductive approach was adopted, using four primary case studies to test the measure in an industrial environment. The case studies are from the fast moving consumer goods sector with primary and secondary distribution networks included. The “Extra Distance” measure has been evaluated against established generic criteria that define the quality of any performance measure.

The research indicates good compliance with the criteria used to evaluate the “Extra Distance” measure. The measure is also found to be useful for practitioners who are able to directly relate the measure to their distribution network operations.

Further research should see the “Extra Distance” measure further tested in other freight transport operations and industrial sectors.

The measure is directly related to a number of causes of uncertainty which helps freight transport managers to quickly identify potential solutions. The “Extra Distance” measure can be used to quantify the effects of disruptions which can occur in road freight transport networks generate unnecessary cost within distribution networks, potentially eroding profit margins which are known to be very low in the road freight transport industry.

This paper presents a novel approach to the assessment of the impact caused by uncertainty within freight transport operations.

The case provides learning opportunities in strategy, planning and control in a social entrepreneurial setting. Following are the learning objectives of this case discussion: learn to develop a Strategic Service Vision (SSV) framework ; appreciate scalability challenges specific to service organizations; evaluate franchising model as a growth enabler; and understand the approach to internationalization as a growth strategy.

GoUNESCO is a not-for-profit startup formed in January 2012, with an objective of providing platform for laypersons to engage with places of heritage value. Eight years into existence, in February 2019 GoUNESCO was experiencing substantial growth and faced need for pursuing alternate growth models that do not demand a lot of organizational bandwidth. Ajay Reddy, the founder of GoUNESCO was piloting “franchising” as a domestic growth strategy. He was keen on evaluating fitment of “franchising” (both for domestic and international expansion) in his strategic service vision. He wanted to understand what would be changes required in the strategic service vision on account of ‘franchising’, and decide whether those changes were acceptable or not.

The case can be positioned in strategy, service and/or operations management introduction courses for both full-time or Executive MBA students. This case is also quite relevant in Entrepreneurship (or Social Entrepreneurship in particular) courses.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

CSS 11: Strategy

A logistics‐based project is described which addresses the need for better intermodal transport, whilst balancing economic and environmental gains through the use of Internet technologies. Pipeline intermodal system to support control, expedition and scheduling (PISCES) provides an integrating platform for using these technologies in processing and sharing commercially sensitive data within transport chains (i.e. road, rail and barge). The paper demonstrates how information from an Internet‐based system can be used to drive a scheduling tool to provide appropriate routes for the transport of goods, using a multimodal transport model.