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The aim of this study is to examine the agency problems that arise between retail property owners and outsourced facility management (FM) service vendors in Ghana.

This study was carried out using telephone and face-to-face interviews. Nine facility managers (n =9) and six retail property owners (n = 6) purposively selected participated in the interviews. The responses from the interviews were analysed using content analysis. To begin with the analysis, the recorded audio for each respondent during the interviews was transcribed to augment what was written during the interviews. The next step was the development of a coding framework where each of the agency problems was assigned unique codes and grouped under themes. Each response was assigned a predefined code based on the agency problems identified in the literature. The research team discussed the consistency of the thematic codes assigned to each of the responses to ensure that each response was captured under the appropriate agency problem theme it best represents.

The results showed that agency problems in FM outsourcing in the Ghanaian retail sector are related to disagreement on expenditure associated with maintenance and repairs and improper tenant information sharing and use by FM service providers. Based on the findings, it is recommended that property owners explore the mixed approach to FM to mitigate the risks of complete outsourcing of FM services. It is also recommended that a clear path on how tenant information can be shared be pre-agreed in FM contracts.

This study provides new literature relating to agency problems in outsourcing and may be the first of its kind for FM in the Ghanaian retail industry. The findings could serve as a starting point for service providers and their principals to find common grounds to understand each other and mitigate the agency problems that could arise and their overall impact on performance.

All hypothesized relationships were significant. Specifically, H1 was supported as disconfirmation and surprising consumption were significantly correlated. Moreover, arousal (H2) and outrage (H4a) were functions of surprising consumption and negative affect (H3) and outrage (H4b) were functions of arousal. H4c was also supported as negative affect had a significant direct effect on consumer outrage. In addition, disconfirmation had negative direct effects on both negative affect (H5) and dissatisfaction (H6a) and dissatisfaction was a function of negative affect. Finally, both outrage (H7a) and dissatisfaction (H7b) had significant negative effects on behavioral intentions.

Respondents were recruited to participate in the data collection in a “college town” in the Southeastern United States. Respondents were provided a paper and pencil data collection instrument that include complete survey instructions and the balance of the research design. To adequately test all hypotheses, the researchers developed a unique scenario that described an extreme service failure that takes place during a hotel check-in. Each respondent was asked to read the scenario and then reflect upon it as they responded to items that assessed their feelings toward the hotel check-in experience.

The results provide additional evidence in support of the existence of the satisfaction-dissatisfaction continuum, as well as specifically identifying the affective nature of levels of satisfaction that fall surprisingly well-below the zone of tolerance. The authors feel that the present study is a necessary step to provide a more comprehensive view of the satisfaction-dissatisfaction continuum. Likewise, the authors posit initial evidence of the antecedents and consequences of consumer outrage. This research supports the prior assumptions of Westbrook (1987) about the vast detrimental effects of negative affective responses to service or product failures.

Future research needs to discover just how extremely deficient service has to be to elicit outrage. Is outrage a personal phenomenon with every consumer experiencing it to different degrees? As such, is outrage triggered at different points on the satisfaction-dissatisfaction continuum? The zone of tolerance seems to suggest this, but it would be interesting to discover if at some collective level of dissatisfaction consumers generally begin to show signs of outrage. Likewise, it would be interesting to understand how the level and pattern of outrage results in customers exiting the relationship but also results in loyal customers becoming enemies (e.g. Gregiore et al., 2009; Gregiore and Fisher, 2008).

The motivation for the current study is both pragmatic and theoretical. As alluded to above, it is evident that the level of service customers’ emotional responses to their service experiences are increasing in frequency and intensity. These negative emotions affect the efficacy of service workers and impede the financial performance of service providers. The popular mantra of “anti-woke” consumers, “Go Woke, Go Broke,” is indicative of the importance of negative emotion. Sometimes referred to as “brand activism” (Moorman, 2020; Sarkar and Kotlet, 2019), recent public stances on social and political issues have led to a boycott of Gillette razors, the burning of Nike shoes, and the canceling of Costco Memberships in what has been called “virtue signaling” (Vredenburg et al., 2020). While none of these actions are desirable, the importance of investigating the impact of strong negative emotions (i.e. outrage) is further demonstrated in reports that 65% of consumers expect companies to authentically support such issues (Barton et al., 2018; Edelman, 2018; Larcker and Tayan, 2018; Moorman, 2020).

The rise of the regulatory state during the Gilded Age was closely associated with the development of institutionalist ideas in American academia. In their analysis of the emergent regulatory environment, institutionalists like John Commons operated with a fundamentally marginalist theory of value and distribution. This engagement is a central explanation for the ultimate ascendancy of neoclassical economics, and the limitations of the regulatory environment that emerged in the Progressive Era. The eventual rise of the Chicago School and its deregulatory ambitions did constitute a rupture, but one achieved without rejecting preceding conceptions of competition and value. The substantial compatibility of the view of markets underlying both the regulatory and deregulatory periods is stressed, casting doubt about the transformative potential of the resurgent regulatory impulse in the New Gilded Age.

All over the world, different types of disabilities affect people and their quality of life. And schools, families, and federal and state agencies are obligated to play very important roles in advancing special education values for students with physical and other health impairments. To maintain and advance these values, the needs of students must be met to the greatest extent possible. Advancing values comes with recognizing the strengths, preferences, interests, related services, community experiences, development of employment, other postschool adult living objectives, and the acquisition of daily living skills. The question is, are these values consistently met, especially for students with physical and other health impairments? This chapter answers this question by discussing how these values can be met and advanced for students with physical and other health impairments.

Color psychology theory reveals that complex images with very varied palettes and many different colors are likely to be considered unattractive by individuals. Notwithstanding, web content containing social signals may be more attractive via the initiation of a social connection. This research investigates a predictive model blending variables from these theoretical perspectives to determine crowdfunding success.

The research is based on data from 176,614 Kickstarter projects. A number of machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques were employed to analyze the listing images for color complexity and the presence of people, while specific language features, including socialness, were measured in the listing text. Logistic regression was applied, controlling for several additional variables and predictive model was developed.

The findings supported the color complexity and socialness effects on crowdfunding success. The model achieves notable predictive value explaining 56.4% of variance. Listing images containing fewer colors and that have more similar colors are more likely to be crowdfunded successfully. Listings that convey greater socialness have a greater likelihood of being funded.

This investigation contributes a unique understanding of the effect of features of both socialness and color complexity on the success of crowdfunding ventures. A second contribution comes from the process and methods employed in the study, which provides a clear blueprint for the processing of large-scale analysis of soft information (images and text) in order to use them as variables in the scientific testing of theory.

This study aims to identify the political alignment and political activity of the 11 Presidents of Britain’s most important scientific organisation, the Royal Society of London, in its early years 1662–1703, to determine whether or not the institution was politically aligned.

There is almost no information addressing the political alignment of the Royal Society or its Presidents available in the institution’s archives, or in the writings of historians specialising in its administration. Even reliable biographical sources, such as the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography provide very limited information. However, as 10 Presidents were elected Member of Parliament (MP), The History of Parliament: British Political, Social and Local History provides a wealth of accurate, in-depth data, revealing the alignment of both.

All Presidents held senior government offices, the first was a Royalist aristocrat; of the remaining 10, 8 were Royalist or Tory MPs, 2 of whom were falsely imprisoned by the House of Commons, 2 were Whig MPs, while 4 were elevated to the Lords. The institution was Royalist aligned 1662–1680, Tory aligned 1680–1695 and Whig aligned 1695–1703, which reflects changes in Parliament and State.

This study establishes that the early Royal Society was not an apolitical institution and that the political alignment of Presidents and institution continued in later eras. Furthermore, it demonstrates how the election or appointment of an organisation’s most senior officer can be used to signal its political alignment with government and other organisations to serve various ends.