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The forecasting power of commodity futures is a matter of intensive research as evidenced by a number of related publications. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how advanced forecasting techniques improve the predictability of sugar futures in the Indian commodity market.

The forward premium is estimated using ordinary least square regression technique. Different linear and nonlinear models are used to forecast the sugar future spot prices from the futures prices. The forecasting accuracy of each pair of models is then compared by estimating the corresponding Diebold-Mariano test statistics.

From the estimated forward premiums, it is found that there is more volatility toward the date of maturity for a three-month horizon compared to six-month, and 12-month horizons. It is established that the futures prices of sugar, when used in a model, are able to generate better forecasts for the future spot prices. Moreover, the forecasting accuracy is found to be better for a shorter futures horizon.

The present study is restricted only to sugar. If sufficient data are available, the same study could be extended to other commodities as well. The findings imply that technical traders would benefit by using advanced forecasting techniques along with futures prices of sugar to determine the expected future spot prices.

The findings in this paper suggest that though simple statistical models may be adopted to relate future spot prices to futures prices, more accurate prediction of the price behavior is possible with advanced forecasting methods like the artificial neural network.

The findings will help market participants such as traders to be better informed about the future spot prices and hence get a better deal.

This is one of the first investigations to assess the predictability of commodity futures by employing advanced forecasting techniques.

This study replicates and extends the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT2) to explain the drivers of future use intention of fitness apps among users. It extends existing theory by investigating continuance usage and adding health consciousness as a driver; an extension, which has implications for future studies on emerging technologies in the health care sector and beyond.

Building on the UTAUT2, the author built a path model of future app-use intention. A survey involving 591 respondents from the United Kingdom was conducted, and the data was analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The results of this study confirm that five drivers explain future use intention, namely habit, perceived playfulness, health consciousness, perceived performance and price value. These findings have implications for sports marketing theory and practice, as well as for policymakers, in that health consciousness is important for fitness app adoption, which in turn has repercussions for entire health care systems.

This study makes two main contributions. It extends technology acceptance theory by using a sample of users to explain future use intention of fitness apps and adds the construct health consciousness as a nontechnological element of the continuance usage of fitness apps to the model. The result is a path model that confirms the importance of personal health consciousness and potential generalizability to future health industry technologies with further implications for sports marketing management theory and practice.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the factors, including behavior, that impact the knowledge and use of futures contracts among Brazilian coffee producers. The results are based on primary data obtained from a sample of 244 farmers.

A multinomial logistic regression model is adjusted to analyze the determinants of the producers’ choices.

The results show that behavioral variables play an important role in the decision to use futures contracts: risk propensity, self‐confidence in management, and the level of market monitoring. Variables such as education and crop size also factor into this decision.

A limitation of this study is that the analysis of farmers’ decisions and behavior was limited to one year. Future research which examines a more comprehensive group of producers over a longer period can reveal in more detail the determining factors for the use of futures contracts as a price risk management tool in the coffee market.

The paper is the first to interview Brazilian coffee producers about their hedging decisions on a large scale. The main contributions this paper makes to the literature are the inclusion of behavioral variables in its analysis that will prove valuable in both future research and in the investment industry.

Este trabalho avalia os principais fatores, incluindo aspectos relativos ao comportamento, que interferem no conhecimento e respectivo uso de contratos futuros entre produtores de café no Brasil. Os resultados baseiam‐se em dados primários obtidos de uma amostra de 244 agricultores das principais regiões produtores de café no Brasil. Um modelo de regressão logística multinomial é ajustado para analisar os determinantes das múltiplas escolhas dos produtores. Entre os principais resultados do trabalho, destaca‐se o fato de as variáveis comportamentais cumprirem um importante papel na determinação da decisão do uso de contratos futuros, em especial a propensão ao risco, o grau de confiança na gestão e grau de acompanhamento do mercado. Além disso, variáveis como escolaridade do produtor e tamanho da produção se mostraram significativas.

This paper aims to explore the determinants of citizens’ future use of mobile applications provided by government. Research on citizen-initiated contacts with government has focused on both non-technology and technology related contacts. Existing research, however, has not examined the impact of mobile applications or “apps” on citizen-initiated contacts with government. Furthermore, existing research has not examined satisfaction with mobile government and whether this impacts future use.

The authors examine future use of mobile apps through an empirical analysis of a public opinion survey of citizen users in four of the largest cities in China (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen).

Using ordered logistic regression analysis, this study found that the strongest predictors of future use were demand and satisfaction with mobile apps. However, there was no wide-scale evidence of socioeconomic status and age impacting mobile apps future use.

The findings in this study contribute to both theory and practice of the determinants of mobile government adoption.

The results challenge the citizen-initiated contact theory, as socioeconomic status was not a major predictor of mobile apps future use in China. The results further indicate that satisfaction was a good predictor of mobile apps future use.

Customer uncertainty of future contacts with the service provider creates a wide range of expectations of the relationship. Such variation and effective management of customer expectations have been not been well studied. The purpose of this research is to investigate the role of customers' expected future use in relationship based customer retention for continuously provided services, proposing and testing an empirical model that explores the interconnectedness of relationship quality, expected future use and customer retention.

A theoretical framework is developed to suggest the role of expected future use in relationship‐based retention. Extant research from various academic fields, including marketing and psychology, is reviewed, deriving our hypotheses. Data collected from customers of a health club is examined through structural equation modeling (SEM).

The study supports the assertion that that the effect of relationship quality (trust, commitment, and satisfaction) on service retention is mediated by customers' expected future use. Results show that relationship quality (satisfaction, trust and commitment) is related to expected future use and retention, while expected future is also related to retention.

This study represents an early attempt at exploring the role of customer's anticipation of future use in service retention. Future research is discussed, with an emphasis on developing additional indicators of relationship quality and future expectation related variables.

Service firms can increase retention through enhancing relationship quality and expected future use. Customers' expected future use plays an important role in service retention, and represents a valuable marketing opportunity in customer relationship management. Marketing managers will find it beneficial to integrate expected future use into marketing communication, retention‐based marketing, and other marketing interactions.

This research represents one of the first studies in service retention literature by empirically examining the role of expected future use in relationship‐based retention. Existing theories of relationship quality may also be improved with such an inclusion of customer psychological mechanism. The model provides insights into the effects of customer's expectations of future usage on customer intentions beyond traditional relationship marketing models.

The greatest revolution in financial management over the last 20 years must be the growth in the use of derivative securities. We can also consider this area to be part of the much larger concept of financial engineering. Limited in their use for many years, innovative financial institutions have now introduced derivatives of every colour and flavour. Principal driving forces in this growth have been:

The paper aims to review all the techniques for developing scenarios that have appeared in the literature, along with comments on their utility, strengths and weaknesses.

The study was carried out through an electronic search using internet search engines and online databases and indexes.

The paper finds eight categories of techniques that include a total of 23 variations used to develop scenarios. There are descriptions and evaluations for each.

Futurists can use this list to broaden their repertoire of scenario techniques.

Scenario development is the stock‐in‐trade of futures studies, but no catalog of the techniques used has yet been published. This list is the start at developing a consensus list of techniques that can be refined as the field matures.

Many writers assume that consumers’ use of the Internet will follow the development of Web sites by Realtor.com and other Realtor‐sponsored sites on the Internet. This study examined this proposition by surveying consumers’ Internet use in their home purchases. A model of consumers’ Internet use in home purchases is developed and tested. Results showed that fewer than 40 percent of the home purchasers ever used the Internet for real estate related information during their home purchases. Awareness of Internet real estate information, access to Internet, age, perceived effectiveness of Internet in home purchase, and satisfaction with Realtor are found to be important factors in determining consumers’ use of Internet during home purchases.