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1 – 10 of 14Irena Papadopoulos and Sue Shea
In recent years, the number of refugees and migrants entering Europe has increased dramatically. Such trauma may affect not only refugees themselves, but also care givers and…
Abstract
Purpose
In recent years, the number of refugees and migrants entering Europe has increased dramatically. Such trauma may affect not only refugees themselves, but also care givers and rescue workers. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the intensity and psychological impact of the refugee crisis, with a view to suggesting ways of moving forward.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on recent literature, this paper briefly looks at the importance of attention to health and social issues, before discussing the psychological trauma of refugees and potential emotional trauma of those involved in rescue operations.
Findings
The provision of psychological support which is both compassionate and culturally competent should be viewed as essential. Furthermore, the development of resources and tools to assist with the current refugee crisis could enable care givers, rescue workers, and healthcare professionals to provide psychological support to migrants and refugees. Such resources could also encourage, and support, frontline responders in caring for their own personal psychological well-being.
Originality/value
The content of this paper could help to encourage further research in this field, including research into the emotional trauma of rescue workers. Furthermore, it is intended that this paper could contribute to an on-line knowledge base when considering the development of tools and resources to assist with the current refugee crisis.
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Pelagia Soultatou, Peter Duncan, Kyriacos Athanasiou and Irena Papadopoulos
The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of health‐related needs on a policy design and curriculum enactment basis in terms of the national school health education…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of health‐related needs on a policy design and curriculum enactment basis in terms of the national school health education curriculum in Greek secondary education.
Design/methodology/approach
A single case study, using an ethnographic approach, was conducted in Greece, seeking to understand the continuum from policy design to curriculum enactment in respect of health‐related needs. Three sources of data were used to meet this goal: policy texts, observation, and interviews. Multilevel sampling was employed to select one secondary school as a site for “good practice”. Grounded theory coding, thematic analysis and critical discourse analysis identified themes associated with the idea of health‐related through the corpus of data.
Findings
On a policy plan level the concept of health‐related needs was coupled with and reduced to a predetermined list of health‐related subjects; and the list of health‐related topics had not been updated for long and was characterised by a rather biomedical orientation. On a school practice level the stage of needs assessment was not applied, the list of health‐related subjects advocated in the policy plan was used on a proactive, normative and top down basis, and the students' felt needs tended to be disregarded.
Originality/value
This study followed up the continuum from policy design to school practice regarding the concept and practice of health needs, highlighting the possibilities and the problems from both perspectives.
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This study focuses on consumer choice behavior in the context of a new European Union (EU) member state by examining cognitive, affective and normative mechanisms in consumer…
Abstract
Purpose
This study focuses on consumer choice behavior in the context of a new European Union (EU) member state by examining cognitive, affective and normative mechanisms in consumer preference formation for domestic vs imported products.
Design/methodology/approach
Data is drawn from a survey of 714 adult consumers. The research instrument included construct measures adapted from previous studies. The measurement model of domestic consumption was tested via covariance analysis. Once the construct reliability and validities were established, the structural model was evaluated to test the hypothesized relationships.
Findings
The findings suggest that affective and normative constructs (i.e. consumer ethnocentrism and patriotism) are stronger determinants of domestic consumption than rational considerations (the cognitive mechanism) such as perceptions of relative product quality of domestic vs imported products. The role of patriotism and cosmopolitanism as factors fuelling ethnocentric tendencies are confirmed.
Practical implications
Our results, showing the considerable relative strength of patriotism and ethnocentrism on domestic consumption suggest that managers of local brands and domestic institutions should be able to enhance their communication programs and develop close bonds with their consumers. This finding is an important signal to international entrants in positioning their international offerings, particularly as strong local brands are gaining market share in many emerging consumer markets.
Originality/value
In view of emerging transnational groupings such as the EU, this study examines possible consumer resistance to economic integration. It uses realistic data set drawn from adult consumers and focuses on a relatively homogeneous country with a small population allowing for a good external validity of findings.
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Tanja Dmitrovic and Irena Vida
This paper examines consumer motivations for shopping abroad and explores the role of demographic versus socio‐psychological factors in explaining the phenomenon of cross‐border…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper examines consumer motivations for shopping abroad and explores the role of demographic versus socio‐psychological factors in explaining the phenomenon of cross‐border shopping.
Design/methodology/approach
Empirical data were collected via personal interviews from adult consumers living in Croatia and Serbia and Montenegro. The research instrument consisted of construct measures adapted from previous studies and open‐ended questions related to demographics and consumer motives for cross‐border shopping trips.
Findings
A discriminant analysis of cross‐border out‐shoppers and domestic in‐shoppers in the two countries confirmed the unstable effect of demographic variables on out‐shopping behaviour and established the significant role of economic patriotism in consumer decision making. Differences in the results across the two countries indicate that a contextual approach should be adopted in international out‐shopping studies.
Practical implications
Countries with high level of out‐shopping activity are potentially attractive targets for international retailers and marketers. Our out‐shopper profiles suggest that market opportunities exist for international discount retailers in Croatia and for upscale retailers in Serbia.
Originality/value
Unlike most research focusing on the out‐shopping phenomenon, the distinguishing feature of the study is that it examines socio‐psychological and demographic rather than macro‐economic variables as determinants of cross‐border shopping. In particular, the role of economic patriotism has rarely been investigated in this context.
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Aya Mohamed Izzularab, Farouk Radwan, Ramadan Gad and Peter Björk
This study aims to investigate the effect of country image on investment intention and the role of investment image as a mediating factor. Both cognitive and affective country…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the effect of country image on investment intention and the role of investment image as a mediating factor. Both cognitive and affective country image dimensions were addressed to assess the functional and emotional aspects of the country image and their effects on investment intention. The current study targeted Egypt, as one of the developing countries, from the point of view of Nordic investors.
Design/methodology/approach
Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used to test the proposed model using data collected from 124 top managers of different companies in the clean energy sector in Nordic countries.
Findings
The results showed that cognitive and affective country images are positively related to the investment image, and that investment image is positively correlated with the investment intention. The investment image has a full mediating role in the relationship between cognitive and affective country images and investment intention.
Originality/value
The past few decades have witnessed a growing interest in country image research; however, limited studies have investigated the impact of country image on foreign investment intention. This study adds to the understanding for the potential contribution of the investment image of developing countries in the decision-making process for the foreign direct investment.
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Eladio Arnalte-Alegre and Dionisio Ortiz-Miranda
This chapter presents an overview of the ‘big’ data of Mediterranean agriculture, with a special focus on the four EU countries (Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece), in order to…
Abstract
This chapter presents an overview of the ‘big’ data of Mediterranean agriculture, with a special focus on the four EU countries (Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece), in order to provide a backdrop for the rest of cases analysed in the volume. In this regard, two thesis are discussed: the assumption that farming systems in the South have not followed the process of ‘productivist modernisation’ characterising post-war Northern European agricultural change, and that, precisely due to this reason, most holdings and regions from the South would have more possibilities to adapt to new approaches of multifunctional rural development.Thus, the chapter tackles both the static and dynamic structural traits of Southern agricultures and their differences with the North, as well as several aspects of the organisation of farming in the Mediterranean and other key components of productivist modernisation: farm intensification and specialisation. Later, the diffusion of multifunctional dynamics is addressed, in order to introduce some reflections about their meaning and scope in the Mediterranean regions. The chapter ends with a straightforward typology of Southern farming systems and a concluding section, which goes back to discuss the two initial theses.
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Irena Vida, Tanja Dmitrović and Claude Obadia
In view of the increasingly dynamic ethnic composition of nation states in Europe and elsewhere, this paper aims to examine the effects of ethnic affiliation on ethnocentrism and…
Abstract
Purpose
In view of the increasingly dynamic ethnic composition of nation states in Europe and elsewhere, this paper aims to examine the effects of ethnic affiliation on ethnocentrism and domestic purchase bias, and to test a model of consumer ethnocentrism antecedents and outcomes in a multi‐ethnic transitional economy.
Design/methodology/approach
Empirical data were collected via personal interviews from 580 urban consumers in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was, in the aftermath of violent ethnic conflicts in the Balkans, divided into two major sub‐regions inhabited by three clearly identifiable ethnic groups. A structural model with five first‐order reflective constructs was evaluated to test the hypothesized relationships.
Findings
The findings confirm that both national identity and nationalism are significant predictors of consumer ethnocentrism, and that ethnic affiliation has a direct effect on both consumer ethnocentrism and on domestic purchase bias. However, the antecedent nature of cultural openness in relation to consumer ethnocentrism was not confirmed.
Practical implications
While it has been suggested previously that, when consumers have dual allegiances, the construct of national identity may be of a lesser explanatory power, the results attest to the value of both nation‐state level constructs in the model as reliable predictors of consumer ethnocentrism. The findings also suggest that a differentiated marketing strategy may be warranted on entering multi‐ethnic markets.
Originality/value
Unlike most prior studies that tested ethnocentrism models across different countries with citizens of each country being addressed as a culturally/ethnically uniform group, this study does not limit in‐groups to a nation state, but examines groups based on ethnic affiliation.
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Balan Sundarakani, Haile-Selassie Rajamani and Anas Madmoune
The UAE has set an ambitious target to become one of the most sustainable countries in the world. In addition, the country's infrastructure is playing a pivotal role in terms of…
Abstract
Purpose
The UAE has set an ambitious target to become one of the most sustainable countries in the world. In addition, the country's infrastructure is playing a pivotal role in terms of electric vehicle (EV) usability with regard to its roads, power generation capacity, availability of charging stations and the drive towards customer adoption. The readiness for EVs in the UAE is assessed in this study as part of its development towards its sustainable target. This research aims to study EV readiness among the UAE car users from a sustainability perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
The proposed methodology follows with a comprehensive literature review to identify the various drivers of EV readiness and their contribution to sustainability. A list of hypotheses was developed based on the identified drivers to EV readiness. A questionnaire survey was designed to validate the hypothesis, and data were collected from consumers in the UAE. In total, 140 complete responses were received across different consumers and the results were studied using partial least square based structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) method.
Findings
An initial framework for EV readiness was developed, and analyses of the variables that are driving the relationships was done. The analysis confirmed that quality of service, power quality and infrastructure are positively linked to EV readiness in the UAE. However, the role of blockchain as a moderator to enhance the relationship between power quality, infrastructure and sustainability is not significant, indicating blockchain adoption in the UAE is still nascent in nature. However, its adoption has some potential to save energy.
Research limitations/implications
The research is limited to the UAE region in terms of sample collection and respondents' profile. Further, research on EV readiness seemed to be early at present and therefore this research on EV readiness and its associated variables could set future research directions.
Originality/value
Logistics industry and automotive industries will benefit from the outcomes of the study especially while operating in the UAE. Also, the research recommends EV makers to understand the relationship between quality of service, power quality, infrastructure, EV readiness and sustainability in order to move towards a more sustainable transportation future.
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