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The purpose of this paper is to determine if the star power of an athletic endorser influenced consumers’ consumption of the advertised product. Specifically, does the amount of star power an athlete is thought to have impact consumers’ direct consumption of the advertised product and media consumption of the athlete? Moreover, the components of star power, along with congruency measures, were examined to determine which components of star power influenced both direct and media consumption.

Four advertisements were created that used an athlete with high star power and an athlete with low star power. Respondents viewed two of the advertisements, but did not know which athlete had high star power or low star power. They were asked to answer a questionnaire that contained questions pertaining to the components of star power (source attractiveness, source credibility, professional trustworthiness, likeable personality and character style), congruency of the athlete and product, direct consumption of the advertised product and media consumption of the athlete.

Results indicated that overall star power increased the direct consumption of the advertised product and the media consumption of the athlete, however not each component was found to be significant. Character style was the only component that was consistently significant across all four advertisements. The congruency between the athlete and product was also found to be significant across all four advertisements.

First, this study only looked at two athletes; others may generate different results. Second, the products used in the study were fashion related; other categories of products may also generate different relationships. Third, only two brands were used. It was also assumed that the respondents knew the athlete in the advertisement. Finally, the questions used to measure direct consumption did not distinguish between buying the brand in the store or online.

This study has the potential to contribute theoretically by analyzing how and which components of star power affect consumption of endorsed products, as well as which components influence consumers. Moreover, adding a congruency measure will aide in strengthening the measurement of endorser effectiveness. The justification of the present study lies in the need to determine how the dimensions of star power an athlete possesses contribute to the consumption behaviors of consumers.

This paper aims to present the author's reflections on prison research studies undertaken over the last ten years.

Some reflections come from personal diaries while others are lasting memories, which made a significant impact on the author as a young researcher.

The reflections highlight several important aspects of researching prisons: that people in prison may be quite selective about information they disclose if interviewed; that prisons, rather than prisoners, can act as significant barriers for researchers – operationally as well as institutionally; that this why the researcher should try to go beyond “the interview” at all opportunities and look to engage as much as possible with interviewees – even if it means walking around the wing, playing pool with them or seeing their cells.

The short paper will be useful for any researchers entering custody with the task of undertaking quick‐fire research studies.

This study aims to develop an empathetic and user-centric customer support service design model. Though service design has been a critical research focus for several decades, few studies focus on customer support services. As customer support gains importance as a source of competitive advantage in the present era, this paper aims to contribute to industry and academia by exploring the service design model.

The study adopted a theories-in-use approach to elucidate mental models based on the industry’s best practices. In-depth interviews with 62 professionals led to critical insights into customer service design development, supported by service-dominant logic and theory of mind principles.

The ensuing insights led to a model that connects the antecedents and outcomes of empathetic and user-centric customer service design. The precursors include people, processes and technology, while the results are user experience, service trust and service advocacy. The model also emphasises the significance of the user’s journey and the user service review in the overall service design.

The model developed through this study addresses the critical gap concerning the lack of service design research in customer support services. The key insights from this study contribute to the ongoing research endeavours towards transitioning customer support services from an operational unit to a strategic value-creating function. Future scholars may investigate the applicability of the empathetic user service design across cultures and industries. The new model must be customised using real-time data and analytics across user journey stages.

The empathetic and user-centric design can elevate the customer service function as a significant contributor to the overall customer experience, loyalty and positive word of mouth. Practitioners can adopt the new model to provide superior customer service experiences. This original research was developed through crucial insights from interviews with senior industry professionals.

This research is the original work developed through the key insights from the interview with senior industry professionals.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the nature and ongoing incidence of what is termed “corporate dissonance”, making explicit reference to developments relating to corporate communications since the publication of Company Image and Reality in 1984 and the founding of the International Corporate Identity Group in 1994.

Insights and reflections derived from consultancy experience, and from observations made by past and present captains of industry along with leading exponents of corporate marketing and from the literature, form the approach adopted in the paper.

The paper finds that, although organisations and writers have embraced the language relating to corporate marketing and to corporate‐level marketing concepts such as corporate identity, corporate branding, corporate communications and corporate reputation, corporate performance has not matched the promise of the new corporate language: this phenomenon term is called: “corporate dissonance”. In terms of corporate communications 21 shifts have been identified occurring over 25 years.

The paper presents a salutary reminder that the imperative is to calibrate rhetoric with behaviour and that the basis of corporate and corporate brand reputations is derived from what institutions have done and not what they would ideally do (what has been termed the “promise/performance gap”).

Supply chain agility (SCA) has recently received considerable attention in the literature and in practice. Despite its popularity, the concept of SCA seems to be vaguely defined and loosely structured. More specifically, definitional ambiguity and conceptual fragmentation have prevented the concept of SCA from reaching its full potential. The time is ripe to address these issues through a systematic literature review.

A review and synthesis of the literature on SCA was undertaken. The authors selected 56 top-tier related articles for further analysis after applying rigorous filtering procedures.

The results of the review confirm that several key themes surround SCA's definition and enablers. In addition, consensus needs to be reached in terms of its performance dimensions and measures. Accordingly, this study constructed an encompassing definition, scrutinized SCA enablers and outcomes and thus developed an original framework for SCA, providing a unique conceptual contribution. Several research directions were also addressed accordingly.

The novelty of this research lies in the selection of highly recognized publications. It also provides an encompassing definition of SCA, consolidates its enablers for better communication and synthesizes its performance implications.

This paper aims to summarize a three‐year federal grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to create a statewide digital collection.

This paper describes the Cornerstone Project: its background, the processes used to determine appropriate standards, guidelines, and best practices for digital collections, the technology selected for the digital production centers and the web portal, and its plans for the future. The project is a collaborative statewide initiative to make unique historical treasures from Alabama's archives, libraries, museums, and other repositories electronically accessible to Alabama residents as well as students and scholars around the world.

The project has demonstrated a successful model for statewide collaboration among all types of repositories. NAAL member institutions are helping other repositories create digital collections of unique Alabama historical resources.

The Cornerstone Project offers practical procedures that can be replicated by any consortia considering distributed digital collection building.

The project offers training to help librarians, archivists, and other staff successfully plan, implement, and complete digitization projects. Three shared digital production facilities at the Alabama Department of Archives and History (ADAH), Auburn University, and The University of Alabama serve as training centers and assist with local digitization efforts.

Given the in creasing globalisation of economies, a growing number of marketing firms are expecting more of their profits to be derived from international sales. However, failure to account for or understand the effects of differences in consumers' cultural values on decision‐making will hinder a marketer's efforts to expand internationally. Using samples of Middle‐eastern and US consumers, the study found cultural values and consumer ethical beliefs to be significantly different between the two groups. In addition, these cultural values explained a significant part of the variation in consumer ethical beliefs in both cultures.

In highlighting brain wave responses of emotional processing, the purpose of this study is to investigate (1) the effect of sport participation involvement on affective reaction in viewing photos; and (2) the association between affective reaction and behavioral intentions.

Using lateralized event-related potentials, the authors examined how brain wave reactions are different based on different sport involvement between two groups where one group had varsity sport experience while the other expressed that they were not fans of the sport.

Results indicated a significant difference in lateralization between groups. Brain responses were greater in the high involvement group and positively correlated with the intention to attend future games.

The findings in this study elucidate the linkage between one's history of sport involvement and affective brain wave responses. Implications from neurophysiological evidence provide means to further dissect the multifaceted construct of involvement in the field of sport marketing.

The purpose of this paper is to articulate a meaningful response to recent calls to “indigenize” and “decolonize” the Anthropocene in the social sciences and humanities; and in doing so to challenge and extend dominant conceptualisations of the Anthropocene offered to date within a posthuman and more-than-human intellectual context.

The paper develops a radical material and relational ontology, purposefully drawing on an indigenous knowledge framework, as it is specifically exemplified in Maori approaches to anthropogenic impacts on species and multi-species entanglements. The paper takes as its focus particular species of whales, trees and humans and their entanglements. It also draws on, critically engages with, and partially integrates posthuman and more-than-human theory addressing the Anthropocene.

The findings of this study are that we will benefit from approaching the Anthropocene from situated and specific ontologies rooted in place, which can frame multi-species encounters in novel and productive ways.

The paper calls for a more expansive and critical version of social science in which the relations between human and more-than-human becomes much more of a central concern; but in doing so it must recognize the importance of multiple histories, knowledge systems and narratives, the marginalization of many of which can be seen as a symptom of ecological crisis. The paper also proposes adopting Zoe Todd’s suggested tools to further indigenize the Anthropocene – though there remains much more scope to do so both theoretically and methodologically.

The paper argues that Anthropocene narratives must incorporate deeper colonial histories and their legacies; that related research must pay greater attention to reciprocity and relatedness, as advocated by posthuman scholarship in developing methodologies and research agendas; and that non-human life should remain firmly in focus to avoid reproducing human exceptionalism.

In societies where populations are coming to terms in different ways with living through an era of environmental breakdown, it is vital to seek out forms of knowledge and progressive collaboration that resonate with place and with which progressive science and humanities research can learn and collaborate; to highlight narratives which “give life and dimension to the strategies – oppositional, affirmative, and yes, often desperate and fractured – that emerge from those who bear the brunt of the planet’s ecological crises” (Nixon, 2011, p. 23).

The paper is original in approaching the specific and situated application of indigenous ontologies in some of their grounded everyday social complexity, with the potential value of opening up the Anthropocene imaginary to a more radical and ethical relational ontology.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between two variables, self‐efficacy and job involvement, of internal auditors of companies. It also aims to explore its intervention on self‐efficacy and job involvement using organizational power as another variable.

A survey is conducted on 600 publicly listed Taiwanese companies that have subsidiaries in China. A total of 600 questionnaires are distributed to their internal auditors.

The results show that there is a significant and positive correlation between self‐efficacy and job involvement of internal auditors. Organizational control power does not exhibit intervening effects on self‐efficacy or job involvement.

This paper can offer a new perspective for managers of internal auditors because internal auditors' self‐efficacy can influence job involvement. Therefore, at the same time of supervising internal auditors, managers should not overlook the need to strengthen internal auditors' self‐efficacy.

Past discussions on internal auditors are widespread. However, the conclusion of this paper, which is focused on the exploration of the relationship between self‐efficacy and job involvement, can offer a different insight on the internal auditor domain.