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This study examines how the locus of agency of brands' artificial intelligence (AI)–powered voice assistants (VAs) could lead to brand loyalty through perceived control, flow and consumer happiness under the moderating influences of brand image and voice congruity.

This study conducted a 2 (locus of agency: high vs. low) by 2 (brand image-voice congruity: congruent vs. incongruent) between-subjects experimental design. MANOVA, ANOVA and structural equation modeling (SEM) were conducted to test the hypothesized model.

ANOVA results revealed that human-centric (vs. machine-centric) agency led to higher perceived control. The interaction effect was significant, indicating the importance of congruency between brand image and VAs' voices. SEM results confirmed that perceived control predicted brand loyalty fully mediated by flow experience and consumer happiness.

This study provides evidence that the positive technology paradigm could carve out a new path in existing literature on AI-powered devices by showing the potential of a smart device as a tool for improving consumer–brand relationships and enriching consumers' well-being.

Includes four outstanding essays from the Scottish Schools Essay Competition, illustrating how children see libraries and bookshops, and improvements they would like to see made. Demonstrates not only good creative writing, but an awareness, on the part of the young, of what is currently available and what could become available for the library/bookshop user. Includes some criticism and some praise, particularly with regard to the modern library.

Studies of direct‐to‐consumer pharmaceutical advertising (DTCA) have examined the views of consumers and healthcare providers but the perspective of pharmaceutical advertisers has been largely absent. This study sought to fill that gap by exploring the perspectives of advertising professionals working on pharmaceutical brands.

Interviews were conducted among 22 advertising professionals regarding the use of emotion in DTCA and considerations about consumer distrust and ad credibility.

Results suggest emotion is used to gain attention, increase involvement, and enhance information processing. Consumer trust of pharmaceutical companies was recognized as an issue, and various thoughts were provided on trust‐building strategies. However, several respondents expressed doubt that negative opinions of the industry translated into negative evaluations of the specific ads or brands with which consumers were familiar.

Based on participants' assertions, this paper poses a number of specific avenues for future research regarding the effects of emotion on response to DTCA and consumers' conflicting sense of trust within the pharmaceutical category.

While scholars examining the design and effects of DTCA have inferred the motivations of pharmaceutical advertisers, this study provides insight on practitioners' actual intentions behind the messages created for DTCA.

Who will lead Ambridge in the years to come? Theories rooted in psychology and political science, when applied to family dynamics in The Archers, allow for some educated guesses. Social learning theory suggests that children who see their parents vote, run for office and participate in other civic activities are more likely to do the same in adulthood. Emma Grundy did just that when she followed in the footsteps of her father, Neil Carter, in winning a seat on the parish council. Previous research has found that birth order also can shape future leaders, with the eldest child more likely to benefit developmentally from parents' undivided attention in the early years, and also more likely to establish a hierarchy of power over younger siblings. With these factors in mind, who are the most probable contenders to lead Ambridge in the spheres of politics, business and civic affairs? The extant research points to Pip Archer, Lily Pargetter, Phoebe Aldridge and George Grundy. The unique circumstances of Ruairi Donovan's childhood suggest he may also be a formidable candidate. And, as is the case in so many contexts, one would be wise not to overlook Molly Button.

In our chapter we describe the analysis of categorisations as an important part of narrative criminology. Categorisations of people (as offenders, victims, witnesses, etc.) are a central component of the communicative construction and processing of crime. Categories are associated with assumptions about actions and personal characteristics. Therefore, categorisations play a prominent role in the question of whether and how someone should be dealt with or punished. Narratives essentially consist of categorisations as well as the representation of a temporal course of interactions and actions. Analysing categorisations can therefore provide decisive insights for narrative criminology. With the research method of ‘Membership Categorisation Analysis’, categorisations can be reconstructed in detail. We describe this potential by reconstructing how the defendant ‘Dave’ categorised himself in the context of his main trial and how he was categorised by others in order to justify a judgement against him. Our analysis shows that categorisations, which are socially impactful and often controversial, must be established by particular narrative manoeuvres.

This paper provides a quantitative review of the literature on the repercussions of idiosyncratic information on firms’ cost of equity (CoE) capital. In total, I review the results of 113 unique studies examining the CoE effects of information Quantity, Precision and Asymmetry. My results suggest that the association between firm-specific information and CoE is subject to moderate effects. First, the link between Quantity and CoE is moderated by disclosure types and country-level factors in that firms in comparatively weakly regulated countries tend to enjoy up to four times greater CoE benefits from more expansive disclosure—depending on the type of disclosure—than firms in strongly regulated markets. Second, a negative relationship between Precision and CoE is only significant in studies using non-accrual quality proxies for Precision and risk factor-based (RFB)/valuation model-based (VMB) proxies for CoE. Third, almost all VMB studies confirm the positive association between Asymmetry and CoE, but there is notable variation in the conclusions reached when ex post CoE measurers are used.

The average American child spends more time “playing”¹ than doing any other activity besides sleeping and attending school (watching television comes in next, with children gradually replacing play time with TV time as they grow older) (Hofferth & Sandberg, 2001a, b). In fact, free, unstructured time makes up between 20 and 50% of children’s waking hours² (Hofferth & Sandberg, 2001a, b; Larson & Richards, 1989). Nonetheless, sociologists currently know very little about how children’s free time use influences their well-being. Although scholars, teachers, and parents all have strong opinions about the types of free-time activities that they think are “best” for children, recent studies of the association between children’s time use and their well-being have failed to find consistent associations (Hofferth & Sandberg, 2001a, b; McHale, Crouter & Tucker, 2001).