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The literature recognizes the need to study differences in consumer behavior in highly competitive and dynamic markets. In this paper, the authors look at how the heterogeneous evaluation of retailing influences customer satisfaction and loyalty. The purpose of this paper is to analyze unobserved heterogeneity on customer value dimensions perceptions in retail establishments, and their potential effects on positive forms of behavioral outcomes considering customer satisfaction as a mediating variable.

On a sample of 820 retail customers, the authors apply a finite mixture structural equation modeling that analyzes unobserved heterogeneity simultaneously. In this model, the authors study the influence of heterogeneous perceptions of excellence, efficiency, entertainment and aesthetics on customer satisfaction and of satisfaction on word-of-mouth (WOM) referral and WOM activity.

The results show two latent segments where the intensity of causal relations varies, which means that the effect of value dimensions and satisfaction are over or underestimated when heterogeneity is ignored.

The main value of the paper has been to analyze the potential heterogeneity of value dimensions (intravariable approach), and their links with satisfaction and some dimensions of loyalty (intervariable approach). Customer heterogeneity must be studied to understand the satisfaction process and WOM responses in order to design more efficient and effective relationship marketing strategies.

National parks have many fondions. They serve as nature reserves and, at the same time, they provide excellent recreation opportunities for millions of people worldwide. However, from the viewpoint of the regional local population they can also frequently restrict individual activities. For this reason, the issue of the economic potential of a national park for the relevant region is usually brought up very quickly. High expectations are frequently placed on the benefits from national park tourism. Surprisingly, there is a lack — at least for the Alpine region — of comprehensive studies of the importance of national park tourism for regional economies. The present publication aims to address and reduce this information deficit. Extensive visitor surveys carried out in and around the Swiss National Park in the summer of 1998 revealed that national park tourists booking accommodation in this region of 16 communities generated demand to the value of SFr 20.6 million. SFr 10.2 million of this amount was gross value added. This is the lower limit of the value added from national park tourism in the study area, and represents 2.5% of the regional CDP. Indirect and induced regional economic effects from national park tourism are also taken into account and based on key parameters provided by the relevant literature. In this way, the upper limit of value added by national park tourism can be estimated to be approximately SFr 17.4 million or 4.25% of the regional CDP. On the other hand, the comparative economic impact of national park day tourism can be considered very small. National park tourism contributes about one quarter of the total estimated value added of the region's summer tourism. This means that the National Park can be considered to be a major attraction for summer tourism in the surrounding region. However, the surveys also revealed that visitors to the National Park region appreciate the variety of activities offered, indicating that a national park on its own would likely be insufficient to promote a region's tourism or economy.

Den Veränderungen auf Tourismusmärkten unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Markteinbrüche der traditionellen Märkte der Alpenländer seit Beginn der 90er‐Jahre begegnen viele Unternehmungen mit massiven organisatorischen, aber auch marktpolitischen Umstellungen. Die Wettbewerbsituationen, denen sich Unternehmungen heute gegenübersehen, haben sich stark verschärft. In Zeiten turbulenter Veränderungen muß Altes konsequent auf seine Brauchbarkeit überprüft, müssen Barrieren zwischen Verantwortungsebenen aufgebrochen und Funktionsbereiche und regionale Einheiten abgebaut werden, um eine innere Dynamik entwickeln zu können. Gilt oben Genanntes ebenso für Landestourismusorganisationen? Wie wird in rezessiven Zeiten mit Marketingbudgets umgegangen? Eine Befragung von 8 Landestourismusorganisationen soll Aufschluß geben über das strategische Marktverhalten bei sich ändernden Wettbewerbsbedingungen. Bei den befragten Tourismusstrukturen handelt es sich um die Dachorganisationen von deutschen und österreichischen Bundesländern, schweizerischen Kantonen und italienischen Provinzen.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the experience of human resource (HR) professionals in managing career development for older workers. It focuses on the influence of personal, social and organisational experiences of HR professionals on (1) their approach to career development of older workers and (2) their organisation's career development practices for older workers.

Data were collected through individual semi-structured interviews with 14 HR professionals from large organisations with at least half of their workforce aged 45 and above. The transcripts were analysed thematically, with the coding process informed by Ricoeur's theory of interpretation.

Three main themes emerged within the HR professionals' narratives. They identified with (1) the protagonist mindset in career development stories, (2) the enabling enforcer of individualised career development practices and (3) the agent for change in career development practices.

This study shows that a narrative thematic analysis can be used to explore how the experiences of HR professionals can affect the design and implementation of career development strategies for this cohort of workers. Further, recruiting HR professionals with a protagonist mindset can generate organisational practices inclusive of older workers.

This study is one of the first to focus on the role of HR professionals in managing career development practices for older workers and the influence of supportive managers on their attitudes and actions with older workers.

This paper highlights the case of David Cooper, a vulnerable adult who was financially abused. It discusses the indicators that may have alerted individuals and services to the risk of financial abuse, and the measures taken by those aware of David's potential vulnerability.

The purpose of this paper is to fill a research and literature gap by examining the nature and impact of hate crime victimisation on police officers, and their responses to it. The research explores victimisation due to the occupational stigma of policing and the personal characteristics and identities of individual officers.

The research design is qualitative, based on 20 in-depth interviews with police officers in one English police force. Thematic analysis was applied to the data.

All participants had experienced hate crime arising from their occupational or personal identities. Initially shocked, officers became desensitized and responded in different ways. These include tolerating and accepting hate crime but also challenging it through communication and the force of law.

This research is based on a small sample. It does not claim to be representative but it is exploratory, aiming to stimulate debate and further research on a contemporary policing issue.

If further research works were to confirm these findings, there are implications for police training, officer welfare and support, supervision and leadership.

The police occupy a problematic position within hate crime literature and UK legislation. This paper opens up debate on an under-researched area and presents the first published study of the hate crime experiences of police officers.

Im Rahmen einer engen Kooperation zwischen dem österreichischen Baukonzern ABV und der Stadt Leningrad wurde im Sommer 1990 der internationalen Öffentlichkeit ein “Touristisches Leitbild für Leningrad mit dem Blickpunkt Jahr 2005” vorgestellt, das von einem österreichisch — russischen Experten‐Team unter der Leitung von Dkfm. Walther Czerny ausgearbeitet worden war. Im folgenden werden kurz die methodologische Vorgangsweise bzw. illustrativ und beispielhaft wesentliche Ergebnisse dieser Arbeit vorgestellt.

Sociability work, defined as the work involved in putting on community and charity events, provides one example of the intersections among gender and work. Yet sociologists have generally not included sociability work in their examinations of work. Based on ethnographic research in a breast cancer awareness organization, I analyze women’s sociability work to demonstrate how dimensions of power such as gender shape understandings of what counts and does not count as work. By applying the concept of sociability work to a contemporary group of volunteer workers in the U.S., I show first that this form of working is alive and well to day. I also highlight how sociability work complicates dominant conceptual understandings of work and consider the consequences of sociability work’s relative in visibility. I argue that excluding sociability work from the study of work shuts off critical discussion of its potential uses and misuses in shaping public policy and access to the public sphere.

This study aims to examine consumers’ perception of artificial intelligence (AI) and AI marketing communication.

Twenty in-depth interviews were conducted to collect data and phenomenological reduction was used to analyze data.

Findings suggest that consumers’ interpretation of AI is multidimensional and relational with a focus on functionality and emotion, as well as comparison and contrast between AI and human beings; consumers’ perception of voice-assisted AI centers on the aspects of function, communication, adaptation, relationship and privacy; consumers consider AI marketing communication to be unavoidable and generally acceptable; and consumers believe that AI marketing communication to be limited in its effect on influencing their evaluation of products/brands or shaping their consumptive behaviors.

According to the authors' knowledge, this study is the first research project to gauge consumers' perception on AI and AI marketing communication.

OUR Fifty‐eighth Volume begins with this issue of the LIBRARY WORLD, a fact which causes a few reflections and suggestions. It was the earliest “free” journal in librarianship in this country and was designed to represent the experiments in all forms of library service which then were developing with increasing momentum, as well as ideas, aspirations, reasonable grievances, planning, furnishing, technique, personalia—indeed everything that one librarian would desire to communicate to another and to discuss with him. Our earliest contributors were the men best known in their time and, as was inevitable in 1898, were all young. Through more than half a century THE LIBRARY WORLD has appeared regularly and, except in the recent conditions created by the “printing dispute”, punctually. The same principles control us today. The same hospitality is offered to anyone of any age who has anything to say.