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Article
Publication date: 13 November 2017

Milos Bujisic, Vanja Bogicevic, Wan Yang, Cihan Cobanoglu and Anil Bilgihan

A Hobson’s choice is a free choice in which only one option is offered. The aim of this study is to examine dimensions of “Hobson’s choice” servicescape and their effect on…

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Abstract

Purpose

A Hobson’s choice is a free choice in which only one option is offered. The aim of this study is to examine dimensions of “Hobson’s choice” servicescape and their effect on affective responses and to understand how affective responses drive consumer decisions in “true choice” and “Hobson’s choice” servicescapes.

Design/methodology/approach

Two studies have been conducted. The first study used mixed methods approach (focus groups and online survey) to examine dimensions of “Hobson’s choice” servicescape. The second study used a scenario-based experimental design to compare the effect of enjoyment and anxiety on consumer decisions in “true choice” and “Hobson’s choice” servicescapes.

Findings

Study 1 results indicate that hedonic and utilitarian servicescape attributes have a different effect on contrasting emotional responses. This study reveals a positive relationship between consumer enjoyment and hedonic stimuli in Hobson’s choice servicescape. Furthermore, inadequate utilitarian servicescape dimensions cause consumer anxiety. Study 2 results indicate that enjoyment plays a more important role in consumer decision-making in true choice settings, whereas anxiety is more important in Hobson’s choice settings.

Research limitations/implications

Hobson’s choice settings should focus on servicescape features that reduce anxiety and thus lead to affirmative consumer decisions. On the other hand, true choice settings should try to improve consumer enjoyment to create affirmative consumer decisions.

Originality/value

This is the first study to examine and compare drivers of consumer’s emotions and their effect on consumer decisions in Hobson’s choice and true choice servicescapes.

Details

Journal of Consumer Marketing, vol. 34 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0736-3761

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 12 January 2012

Festus E. Obiakor

Hobson's choice is a “no-choicechoice that gives general and special educators the traditional impetus to do what they want in classrooms. While there is some “goodness” in…

Abstract

Hobson's choice is a “no-choicechoice that gives general and special educators the traditional impetus to do what they want in classrooms. While there is some “goodness” in having this power and audacity to control whatever happens in classrooms, it does not allow for creativity, flexibility, adaptability, modification, especially in behavior management, assessment practices, instructional delivery. In addition, it presents many practical problems in this era of response-to-intervention (Rtl) and actually devalues the integrity of any form of remedial or special education. For many culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) learners who are already operating at different cultural, linguistic, and racial levels with their teachers and service providers, the Hobson's choice can have some unintended devastating educational effects. For example, by not allowing any alternatively creative options, CLD learners can be misidentified, misassessed, miscategorized, misplaced, and misinstructed. More so, it can lead to school drop out and increase in school and societal problems. Clearly, rather than impose the “no-choicechoice on CLD students who are sometimes disenfranchised because of the differences that they bring to school programs, it is important for general and special educators to be innovative in managing inappropriate behaviors in today's multicultural classrooms. This is the premise of this chapter.

Details

Behavioral Disorders: Identification, Assessment, and Instruction of Students with EBD
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78052-504-4

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 22 August 2008

Michael Macaulay and John Wilson

The purpose of this paper is to show that since its election in 1997, the Labour Government in the United Kingdom has pursued a policy agenda which in some senses represents a…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to show that since its election in 1997, the Labour Government in the United Kingdom has pursued a policy agenda which in some senses represents a continuation of the New Right agenda it inherited. Central to this agenda has been the emphasis placed on choice in public services.

Design/methodology/approach

Within the context of the New Right agenda this paper explores the concept and suggested merits of choice in public service provision. It does so by focusing on the experiences in England, particularly in relation to health and education.

Findings

By reference to the empirical evidence, the paper evaluates the conceptual arguments in favour of choice and finds that the current emphasis is consistent with the news of the New Right.

Originality/value

The paper questions the merits of choice in public service provision and, in doing so, suggests that the apparent political consensus in favour of choice can not be justified.

Details

International Journal of Public Sector Management, vol. 21 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3558

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 February 2004

Ian Clarke, Alan Hallsworth, Peter Jackson, Ronan de Kervenoael, Rossana Perez‐del‐Aguila and Malcolm Kirkup

The “food deserts” debate can be enriched by setting the particular circumstances of food deserts – areas of very limited consumer choice – within a wider context of changing…

4174

Abstract

The “food deserts” debate can be enriched by setting the particular circumstances of food deserts – areas of very limited consumer choice – within a wider context of changing retail provision in other areas. This paper’s combined focus on retail competition and consumer choice shifts the emphasis from changing patterns of retail provision towards a more qualitative understanding of how “choice” is actually experienced by consumers at the local level “on the ground”. This argument has critical implications for current policy debates where the emphasis on monopolies and mergers at the national level needs to be brought together with the planning and regulation of retail provision at the local, neighbourhood level.

Details

International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, vol. 32 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-0552

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 March 1981

J.C. Dodds

Building societies, as we illustrated in the Preface, occupy an important position in the British financial system. There are at present over four hundred societies although this…

Abstract

Building societies, as we illustrated in the Preface, occupy an important position in the British financial system. There are at present over four hundred societies although this industry is highly concentrated, with the ten largest societies (with well developed branch networks) in 1978 accounting for 66 per cent of the total assets.

Details

Managerial Finance, vol. 7 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0307-4358

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 18 September 2017

Sharon Mcculloch

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of research evaluation policies and their interpretation on academics’ writing practices in three different higher education…

2307

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of research evaluation policies and their interpretation on academics’ writing practices in three different higher education institutions and across three different disciplines. Specifically, the paper discusses how England’s national research excellence framework (REF) and institutional responses to it shape the decisions academics make about their writing.

Design/methodology/approach

In total, 49 academics at three English universities were interviewed. The academics were from one Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics discipline (mathematics), one humanities discipline (history) and one applied discipline (marketing). Repeated semi-structured interviews focussed on different aspects of academics’ writing practices. Heads of departments and administrative staff were also interviewed. Data were coded using the qualitative data analysis software, ATLAS.ti.

Findings

Academics’ ability to succeed in their career was closely tied to their ability to meet quantitative and qualitative targets driven by research evaluation systems, but these were predicated on an unrealistic understanding of knowledge creation. Research evaluation systems limited the epistemic choices available to academics, partly because they pushed academics’ writing towards genres and publication venues that conflicted with disciplinary traditions and partly because they were evenly distributed across institutions and age groups.

Originality/value

This work fills a gap in the literature by offering empirical and qualitative findings on the effects of research evaluation systems in context. It is also one of the only papers to focus on the ways in which individuals’ academic writing practices in particular are shaped by such systems.

Details

Aslib Journal of Information Management, vol. 69 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2050-3806

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 November 1972

‘One would hate to see the US carried away to extremes. All that President Nixon wants, as he has said on several occasions, is “fair trade”—and that the United States should come…

Abstract

‘One would hate to see the US carried away to extremes. All that President Nixon wants, as he has said on several occasions, is “fair trade”—and that the United States should come out ahead, which is a natural definition of fairness.’

Details

Industrial Management, vol. 72 no. 11
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0007-6929

Case study
Publication date: 22 April 2015

Samir K. Barua and N. Balasubramanian

The case describes a situation where the government as the dominant majority shareholder in a listed Public Sector Enterprise (PSE) directs it through its executive Chairman (a…

Abstract

The case describes a situation where the government as the dominant majority shareholder in a listed Public Sector Enterprise (PSE) directs it through its executive Chairman (a government selected executive) to buy a part of government's stakes in another listed PSE, in which also the government is a majority shareholder. The Chairman is summoned for a meeting in the governing ministry and ‘persuaded' to agree to the proposal, without the proposal having been discussed in the company's board. Being a government appointed employee, the Chairman faces the difficult task of putting the matter for discussion in the board while informing the board that he had already agreed to the proposal. The case describes the events that preceded the board meeting to discuss the proposal. The board faces the unpleasant task of dealing with the Chairman's lapse in not taking the board into confidence prior to his agreement conveyed at the ministry meeting. A bigger difficulty was the possibility that the proposal was not desirable from ONGC's point of view. How will the board then convey the decision to the government? What levers does the board have to deal with the matter?

Details

Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, vol. no.
Type: Case Study
ISSN: 2633-3260
Published by: Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 11 May 2010

Patricia Lewis and Ruth Simpson

This editorial aims to introduce the special issue on meritocracy, difference and choice.

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Abstract

Purpose

This editorial aims to introduce the special issue on meritocracy, difference and choice.

Design/methodology/approach

The first part is a commentary on key issues in the study of the notions of meritocracy, difference and choice. The second part presents the six papers in the special issue.

Findings

Five of the six papers in this special issue explore the work experiences of women managers/directors in senior positions within a variety of organizations. All of these papers demonstrate that despite their economic empowerment, these women are still strongly connected to the domestic realm through their continued entanglement in the traditional roles of mother and homemaker. This has led them to interpret their work situation either through a consideration of what they understand by the notion of merit or a presentation of their situation through the lens of choice. A further paper which explores the experiences of sex workers exposes the gendered nature of agency, highlighting the limitations on “choice” that different types of workers experience.

Research limitations/implications

The authors comment on how contemporary notions of merit and choice individualise women's experience within organisations, ignoring the structural and systemic elements inherent to women's continued disadvantage. This allows “blame” for women's absence in the upper echelons of organisations to lie with women themselves, explaining this in terms of their lack of skills or the traditional “choices” they make. The six papers which make up the special issue explore how women's “choices” are constrained, how the contemporary discourses of merit and choice conceal issues of structure and organizational process and how women struggle to make sense of their own and others' experiences.

Practical implications

The issues discussed in the papers have important implications for understanding women's experience of work and organizations. They highlight the need to introduce a structural and systemic element to the understanding of how women experience work at senior (and other) levels of organizations, why they take the decision to leave a senior position and why women appear to “choose” not to seek senior positions.

Originality/value

Gender and Management: An International Journal invited this special issue on meritocracy, difference and choice to draw attention to the ways in which women draw on these discourses as a means of understanding their organizational situations and how use of these discourses acts to conceal the structural and systemic element connected to their work experiences.

Details

Gender in Management: An International Journal, vol. 25 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1754-2413

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 March 1982

Before final year students of the Mountview Theatre School in North London take the production to one of America's leading middle‐west theatres in Dayton, Ohio in May, they have…

Abstract

Before final year students of the Mountview Theatre School in North London take the production to one of America's leading middle‐west theatres in Dayton, Ohio in May, they have just presented the hilarious American farce Once In A Lifetime for four performances at the Mount‐view Theatre. This brash, wise‐cracking show with its lunatic comedy situations is steeped in the Marx Brothers' tradition.

Details

Education + Training, vol. 24 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0040-0912

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