Search results

In the competitive retailing environment, retailers who provide service experiences that stand out from the competition can gain a competitive advantage. Increasingly, an important aspect of the service experience involves product returns, in particular, the fairness of returns policies and procedures. Previous research studies support that interpersonal justice and informational justice relate positively to consumer attitudes and behaviors. In this paper, the authors examine the relative effects of interpersonal justice and informational justice on return satisfaction, positive word-of-mouth (PWOM) and trust. Additionally, the authors examine the moderating effects of returns process convenience and returns policy restrictiveness as indicators of procedural justice.

A scenario-based experiment methodology was used to test the relationships of interest.

Results support that the effects of interpersonal justice on the outcome variables are stronger than the effects of informational justice. There is also support for a moderating effect of returns process convenience on the relationships between interpersonal justice and each outcome variable, as well as partial support for the moderating effect of returns policy restrictiveness on the relationship between interpersonal justice and PWOM.

The research extends previous work on the effects of justice on customer outcomes. Results support the importance of retailers treating customers with fairness during the returns experience and further support the benefits of providing a convenient returns experience.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the association between farm/farmer characteristics and unsubsidized farm insurance premium expenditure in Ireland. The distribution of farm insurance expenditures is wide, and it is important to understand the extent to which individual factors influence demand for different levels of insurance premium.

The quantile regression approach and farm accountancy data from the Teagasc National Farm Survey are used to model the association between farm/farmer characteristics and farm insurance demand in Ireland.

Asset values (livestock, buildings and machinery) are positively associated with total insurance expenditure. Both forestry area and crop area are significantly associated with farm insurance expenditure with a stronger influence on the middle and upper part of the distribution. The interaction between farm income and farmer age is positively associated with insurance expenditure pointing to the importance of farm income protection.

The research is mainly concerned with insuring against substantive risks, which are capable of threatening the asset base and continuation of the farm business. Future research can integrate questions in relation to farm safety and farmer health with research on the economic survival of the farm business.

Farmers in Ireland adopt unsubsidized farm insurance as a risk management tool. This situation is relevant to other EU member states including Belgium, Denmark, Germany and Sweden. The findings can be used to inform stakeholders and policymakers about the relative impact of different factors on insurance expenditure.

Previous research has typically focused on the linear relationship between farm/farmer characteristics and insurance demand without accounting for variability across the size distribution. This research is based on the quantile regression approach where the association between farm/farmer characteristics and farm insurance expenditure can be assessed at different points of the distribution.

This paper investigates the dynamics between state affect and trusting cognitive beliefs on post-adoptive information technology (IT) use behaviors in the form of intention to explore and deep structure usage. That state affect can influence behaviors is recognized in practice. In fact, some studies examine the impact of affective constructs, but the way state affect impacts how individuals use IT remains largely unexplored. The authors theorize that state affect, in the form of positive and negative affect, will influence trusting cognitive beliefs regarding an IT artifact (in terms of perceived helpfulness, capability and reliability) and, more importantly, directly influence intention to explore and deep structure usage.

The authors test the model using a sample of 357 IT users. Survey items were derived from established measures, and the data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

Results of this study suggest that positive affect and negative affect impact trusting cognitive beliefs. Trusting cognitive beliefs positively impact intention to explore with an IT and deep structure usage of an IT. Even in the presence of trusting beliefs, though, positive affect directly impacts intention to explore. Positive affect and negative affect both also have various indirect, mediated effects on intention to explore and deep structure usage.

In order to maximize value from workplace IT, the results suggest managers foster an authentic, positive work environment in order to harness or redirect employees' emotional energies.

In Trinidad and Tobago, there is significant reliance on the traditional and centralized police service to engage in crime response and suppression in urban and rural areas. In this regard, policing scholarship has largely focused on the impact of policing within urban areas, producing a gap in knowledge on what policing rural spaces entails. Despite this, there is some understanding that policing rural spaces can engender diverse challenges and calls for variability in policing strategies. The current study examines the lived experiences of police officers stationed in rural communities in Trinidad and Tobago.

Using the descriptive phenomenological approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted with eleven police officers stationed in rural communities throughout the country.

Interviewees narrated the importance of community dynamics and community-specific needs in shaping their roles and functions when operating in and serving these communities. Three major themes were identified: (1) network activity in policing; (2) engagement in localistic and service-oriented approaches and (3) community-specific challenges.

The findings suggest that while there is an emphasis on traditional law enforcement responsibilities, in the rural context, police responsibilities and duties are constantly being redefined, reframed and broadened to meet the contextual community and geographic-specific diversities and demands.

This paper aims to investigate associations between firm resources and reliance on entrepreneurial marketing (EM) channels among agrofood ventures. It accounts for agropreneur gender and racial/ethnic status in the context of marketing channel portfolio composition. The authors examine the established assumption that resource limitations drive EM and whether socially disadvantaged status of agropreneurs is associated with marketing strategy beyond standard resourcing measures.

Using 2015 Local Foods Marketing Practices Survey data, the authors apply linear regression to investigate differences in the use of EM channels, accounting for resources, social status and other factors.

Limited-resource ventures rely more on consumer-oriented channels that require EM practices. Socially disadvantaged entrepreneurs favor these channels, even when accounting for resources. Notably, ventures headed by men of color rely more on the most customer-centric local foods marketing channel.

Future research should investigate how social and human capital influences the use of EM.

Entrepreneurial support policy and practice for agropreneurs should be cautious about the “double-burden” folk theorem of intersectional disadvantage and review how to best direct resources on EM to groups most likely to benefit.

This paper uses a unique, restricted, nation-wide, federal data set to examine relationships between resource endowments, social status and the composition of agrofood enterprises’ marketing channel portfolios. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the first to include racial- and ethnic-minority status of agropreneurs and to account for intersectionality with gender.

This paper aims to investigate how narrative is constructed to create connections with fat readers, how books function to envision spaces of fat liberation for young readers and to highlight the incredible importance of providing bigger mirrors (Bishop, 1990) for fat representation in children’s literature.

This paper analyzes and reflects on two texts that contain counternarratives of fatness: The (Other) F Word: A celebration of the fat and fierce edited by Angie Manfredi (2019) and Big by Vashti Harrison (2023) to interrogate how these two narratives intentionally disrupt anti-fat bias.

Body size and fatness are identities that need to be included in diversity efforts within education. Books like The (Other) F Word: A celebration of the fat and fierce (Manfredi, 2019) and Big (Harrison, 2023) offer positive representations of fatness, disrupt biases around body size and provide spaces that allow fat students to find joy, hope, connection and, more than anything, imagine a way toward liberation.

This paper highlights the need to include more narratives of positive fat representation within children’s literature and calls for educators to interrogate their own anti-fat biases and practices.

There is a lack of research on fat representation specifically within children and young adult literature. This paper provides an analysis of two pieces of literature with fat representation that brings attention to the need for this type of future research.