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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships between consumer motivations, their interactions with hospitality spaces and experiential outcomes. Enhancing consumer experience is of clear interest to industry professionals. This quantitative study explores the impact of escapism and entitlement to leisure upon involvement in liminoid consumptions spaces, thereby contributing a theory of liminoid motivators within commercial hospitality.

This study adopts a quantitative methodology, using a survey of a sample of student nightclubbers in the UK. Data are analysed through Partial Least Squares.

Hospitality consumers are positively affected by the feelings of increased involvement experienced in consumption spaces that exhibit liminoid characteristics.

Surveys involve potential for error regarding respondents’ ability to agree with questionnaire statements. Data collection was conducted in Scotland, and so, results may not be generalised to other commercial hospitality spaces outside of Scotland.

Hospitality consumers become more involved, and thereby more satisfied, in liminoid consumption spaces when motivated by escapism and entitlement to leisure. Attending to the liminoid motivators that drive consumers away from work and domesticity, and towards commercial hospitality spaces, will go some way towards creating the desired consumer experience.

This is the first quantitative study to investigate consumer motivations to escape and entitlement to leisure as antecedents of involvement in a commercial hospitality context. It develops a theory of hospitality consumption using the liminoid anthropological concept.

The internet driven information revolution is frequently cited as one of the key drivers (re‐)shaping contemporary consumption. In particular, the internet has been seen as disrupting established conventions in professional services. Popularly, it has been viewed as a liberating medium, a mechanism by which consumers and citizens have been able to challenge the authority of the professional establishment. Yet for consumers, the internet can equally be viewed as generating new uncertainties and challenges in terms of negotiating a new settlement with professionals and reconfiguring the service encounter. The purpose of this paper is to explore experiences of consumers with the use of internet derived information in respect of complex professional services and the impact of such information utilisation on the format of the service encounter.

Empirical data is generated through interviews with professionals (n=24) and consumer focus groups (n=10/53).

The paper argues that the multi‐faceted nature of the internet creates informational “spaces” which present both opportunities and threats to consumers in renegotiating the service encounter. Balancing the paradoxes created by these informational spaces is at the core of the challenge confronting contemporary service consumers. Irrespective of the nature of that space, the effect is to create a driver for change, challenging the established practices of both consumer and professional to reshape the service encounter.

Focus group research does not enable a judgement about the prevalence or distribution of behaviours among consumers. Nevertheless, this paper advances understanding of contemporary consumption practices and provides a new perspective on nature of consumer utilisation of information within the consumption process.

It is inevitable that professionals and service organisations will be required to respond to a complex and rapidly evolving set of consumer behaviours and rethink approaches to the delivery of professional services.

The paper addresses an emergent phenomenon and provides unique insights into the changing dynamics of consumption practices in the contemporary knowledge economy.

This paper aims to explore the SME managers' understanding of, and attitudes towards human capital (HC) and well-being as factors impacting on the business performance of their organisations.

The study from which this paper reports included qualitative data collected through 42 semi-structured interviews with senior managers of SMEs from growth industries in the service sector. Research was undertaken in three European Union countries: Scotland (UK), Finland and Bulgaria. These countries are considered to be at different stages in the development of a knowledge-based economy (KBE) and innovation.

It is evident that whilst SME managers are interested in knowledge, skills and experience as key elements of HC, peoples' soft skills and attributes, such as attitude, willingness and ability to learn and develop, and enthusiasm about the(ir) work are often considered more important. HC is seen as potentially an abundant resource, providing scope for competitive advantage at both personal and enterprise levels.

The key findings from this paper inform future policy and HRM practices in respect to the development of a KBE through highlighting positive impacts for SMEs' strategy management practice.

The key findings from this paper inform future policy and HRM practices in respect to the development of a KBE through highlighting positive impacts for SMEs' strategy management practice.

This paper indentifies SME managers recognition of individual's potential to gain new knowledge coupled with a willingness to learn as important – and often more so than formal knowledge and experience. It gives valuable insights about well-being viewed through the prism of SME management. It offers opportunities for personal development as well as the acquisition of new knowledge and skills. These can have a positive impact on potential employability and also the evaluation job content.

The dominant view of responsible leadership (RL) has so far lacked adequate testing for employees' motivational outcomes, including presenteeism. Presenteeism, or attending work while being ill and unable to work at full capacity, causes productivity loss and imposes a significant economic burden to businesses and national economies. Applying the social identity theory of leadership (SITL), this paper aims to offer a conceptual framework supporting the relationship between RL and presenteeism and incorporating the mediating roles of organisational commitment and employees' turnover intentions.

This paper conducts a systematic literature review using a Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) flowchart with the existing research on RL, presenteeism, organisational commitment and employee turnover intentions covering the main contributors to this research stream. The proposed model offers eight propositions to promote the examination of RL in more insightful ways.

A shift in focus to the aspect of value-based leadership and presenteeism allows this paper to explore probable employee motivational outcomes, especially with consideration of organisational commitment and turnover intentions. While extant studies about presenteeism have tended to identify negative consequences, this paper explores different contexts in which RL could be crucial and positive. Based on a PRISMA flowchart, this paper provides a conceptual framework and directions that scholars might use to guide organisations and evaluate future research studies in RL and presenteeism.

The implications of this paper lie first in highlighting the demand for scholars to employ RL when conducting research reviews in organisational leadership and presenteeism. Beyond this broad purpose, this paper will help researchers to develop a holistic and pragmatic research approach more systematically and coherently. It is hoped that this conceptual framework can potentially lead to higher employee productivity and retention.

The systematic literature review offers a novel framework that will allow future researchers to conduct and explore empirical studies in organisational leadership. The suggested propositions will direct future scholars and practitioners to explore solutions in which presenteeism can be recognised at work and managed to achieve practical application of RL within organisational settings.

This study examines the relationship between gender and religious affiliation to the preferred conflicts styles of 384 student participants living in and attending university in South Africa, Israel, Bosnia‐Herzegovina and Northern Ireland. Participants report living in stressful social contexts that are often characterized by reports of terrorism perpetrated by paramilitaries, the state, violence that is brought on by long standing ethnic hatreds and years of division between major groups contending for control of political and social institutions, civilian uprisings, and in some cases low scale civil war. The results indicate that the independent variables—gender and religion—provide statistically significant observable differences in how people report they engage in conflict as seen in their choice of conflict styles. In particular, the findings on gender differences provide a surprising result that is partially attributed to the contextual factors of warfare and one's active participation in it. The results on religious affiliation provide a number of intriguing patterns among various religions including a desire to accommodate or collaborate with others and a strong dislike of avoidance. There are other more specific patterns that can be partially attributed to contextual factors as well. With so many contexts being present in the study a number of intriguing explanations and working hypotheses are brought forth to help explain why these patterns on gender and religious affiliation exist.

To better understand the uptake of cosmetic procedures in the wake of Instagram, this study aims to unravel how the aesthetic labour of influencers acts as the packaging of the cosmetic servicescape. In doing so, the authors contribute to theorising of aesthetic and emotional labour within the services marketing literature, fleshing out the bodywork of influential others not as employees but endorsers, who act like the “walking billboards” (Zeithaml and Bitner, 2003) for the cosmetic service industry.

This study adopts a dual qualitative approach to data collection, coupling netnographic material from Instagram posts with 16 in-depth interviews with female Instagram users who have undergone or hope to undergo cosmetic surgery. Using mediated discourse analysis, the authors weave their visual and discursive data together for a richer account of the commoditisation of cosmetic surgery.

Adopting a postfeminist neoliberal lens, where women are viewed as aesthetic entrepreneurs who are constantly working on the body and the self, the findings of the study reveal how influencers’ aesthetic and emotional labour help package, propagate and demystify the cosmetic servicescape. Through their visual storytelling, we see how influencers help endorse (local) cosmetic services; commoditise cosmetic procedures through the conspicuous display of their ongoing body projects whilst masking the labour and pain involved; and how face-filters that use augmented reality (AR) technology foster new forms of (digitised) body dysmorphia.

The authors shed light on the darker side of social media and body-enhancing technologies, where tales of body transformation trivialise cosmetic intervention and AR technology induces a digitised body dysmorphia.

This paper synthesises the literature on the issues related to the older patient, health service quality and its measurement. It discusses the need to consider these perspectives in the definition and assessment of quality of a community‐focused aged healthcare programme, and critically examines the existing evaluation of quality in healthcare, contrasting the patient's role and impact on the quality of the service and its outcome. The paper then reviews the documented problems associated with using satisfaction as an indicator of the patient's view of quality. An alternate validated approach to measuring the patient's perception of the quality of the service is identified in the services literature; this multidimensional hierarchical tool and scale, which specifically measures the patient's view of quality, is presented. The tool covers nine sub‐dimensions, four dimensions and the global perspective of quality as perceived by the patient. An adaptation of this tool is presented to measure the patient's view of quality using the relatively new Transition Aged Care programme as an example, and make the argument for the holistic measurement of transitional aged care quality, using a validated and reliable patient‐specific tool. Importantly, the paper proposes that the identification of the patient view of service quality will offer information that could specifically assist with service improvement.

This paper reports on insights from an evaluation of Birth Companions (BC) (a UK-based charity) perinatal support in two prison settings in England. The initiative involved the provision of group and/or one-to-one perinatal support and training women prisoners as peer supporters.

A mixed-methods study was undertaken that involved observations of support groups and peer support supervision sessions (n = 9); audio recorded interviews (n = 33) with prison and health-care staff, women in prison, peer supporters and BC staff; analysis of existing routinely collected data by BC and notes undertaken during regular meetings (n = 10) with the BC Project Manager. Thematic analysis was undertaken supported by MAXQDA qualitative data analysis software.

BC provided instrumental/practical support, emotional support, information support, signposting to services and advocating for women to the prison concerning their perinatal needs and rights. Key themes revealed that support had an impact on the lives of perinatal women by creating a safe place characterised by meaningful interactions and women-centred approaches that facilitated access to wider care and support. The service made a difference by empowering women and providing added value for peer supporters, prison, health-care and BC staff. Key enablers and strategies for the care of perinatal women and the delivery of perinatal support are also detailed.

Through longitudinal data and the involvement of a range of stakeholders, this study evidences the subtleties of support provided by BC and the potential it has to make a difference to perinatal women in prison and those volunteering or working within the prison system.

IT is fitting that a new series of this magazine should be introduced by some reflections on the whole question of book selection, both for the general public and libraries.

Recent global migration trends have led to an increased prevalence, and new patterning, of intercultural family configurations. This paper is about intercultural couples and how they manage tensions associated with change as they settle in their new cultural context. The focus is specifically on the role food plays in navigating these tensions and the effects on the couples’ relational cultures.

A qualitative relational–dialectic approach is taken for studying Polish–Irish intercultural couples. Engagement with relevant communities provided multiple points of access to informants.

Intercultural tensions arise as the couples jointly transition, and food consumption represents implicit tensions in the household’s relational culture. Such tensions are sometimes resolved, but sometimes not, leading to enduring tensions. Dialectical movement causes change, which has developmental consequences for the couples’ relational cultures.

This study shows how the ways that tensions are addressed are fundamental to the formation of a relational family identity.

Recommendations emphasise the importance of understanding how the family relational culture develops in the creation of family food practices. Marketers can look at the ways of supporting the intercultural couple retain tradition, while smoothly navigating their new cultural context. Social policy analysts may reflect on the ways that the couples develop an intercultural identity rooted in each other’s culture, and the range of strategies to demonstrate they can synthesise and successfully negotiate the challenges they face.

Dealing simultaneously and separately with a variety of dialectical oppositions around food, intercultural couples weave together elements from each other’s cultures and simultaneously facilitate both relational and social change. Within the relationship, stability–change dialectic is experienced and negotiated, while at the relationship’s nexus with the couple’s social ecology, negotiating conventionality–uniqueness dialectic enables them reproduce or depart from societal conventions, and thus facilitate social change.