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The purpose of this paper is to segment travelers by their predispositions regarding the adoption of smartphones to purchase travel-related services, which is crucial for developing specific marketing strategies for each group of tourists.

A survey was conducted with 1,014 Brazilian travelers assessing their smartphone usage frequency and predispositions regarding travel purchases. The authors selected three variables related to the users’ acceptance of technology (perceived usefulness, ease of use and intentions to use smartphones for tourism purchases) and m-commerce perceptions of risk. Segmentation was conducted employing cluster analysis.

The authors identified three significantly different clusters of travel consumers: “Risk Ignorers,” “Cautious Users” and “Conservatives.” Risk perceptions appeared to be the main discriminating variable, followed by perceptions that smartphone apps are useful and free of effort.

The non-probabilistic snowball sampling technique of Brazilian travelers may limit the generalization of the findings. Also, the use of intentions as one of our clustering variables instead of actual purchase behavior might bring limitations.

Segmentation enables the development of specific marketing strategies for each group, encompassing different risk profiles. Cautious travelers demand the development of safe and trustworthy m-commerce environments, as well as reassuring communication approach to reduce their perceptions of risk in performing mobile-mediated transactions. Conservatives demand marketers to build simpler and more straightforward apps to entice them.

The study reveals more fine-grained nuances to the role of mobile technology and its impact on travelers, unveiling important differences across travelers’ predispositions toward smartphone adoption that is distinctively associated with usage patterns regarding their risk profiles.

This paper aims to investigate the divestment behavior of emerging market multinationals from Latin America – multilatinas – by examining how their foreign market entry decision impacts the likelihood of subsidiary divestment.

The hypotheses are tested using Cox’s proportional hazard rate model in a longitudinal database of Brazilian multinational companies established in 43 countries.

Results indicate that these subsidiaries can thrive in environments that bear similarities to their home country, being less likely to divest in institutionally weak countries. Contrary to developed country multinationals, these firms benefit from foreign entry decisions that entail handling partnerships abroad; thus, wholly-owned greenfield (WOGF) investments have a higher likelihood of being divested.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to analyze foreign divestment from multilatinas, accounting for how entry mode strategy and host country institutions may impact these firms’ de-internationalization.

The objective of this study is to determine the relative importance that the visually impaired give to restaurant service attributes during leisure outings, and the relative utility they allocate to the various levels of these attributes.

The study was conducted in two stages. The first stage consisted of exploratory research using focus groups; the second consisted of a survey using a structured questionnaire administered to 203 visually impaired consumers; conjoint analysis was used.

The ideal restaurant profile for survey respondents is one in which: the menu is read by the server; service is provided by empathetic servers; low‐intensity light and sound are used; round tables are preferred over rectangular tables; and the server can be summoned using a button.

The use of a non‐probabilistic sample may limit the generalizability of findings.

This study's results can be useful to restaurant managers by improving their understanding of the needs of visually‐impaired consumers.

The study contributes to the inclusion in society of the visually impaired as consumers by giving them a voice to express their needs and wants.

Previous studies have not considered the relative utility conferred to restaurant attributes by consumers. The use of conjoint analysis allows the evaluation of the relative importance of these attributes and their levels, while at the same time shedding light on tradeoffs made by the visually impaired consumer in selecting restaurant attributes.

New mobile platforms, connected seamlessly to the Internet via wireless access, become increasingly more powerful as each day passes. Smartphones and tablet computers, as well as other ultraportable devices, have already gained enough critical mass to be considered mainstream devices, being present in the daily lives of millions of higher education students. Whole firms, devoted solely to developing high-quality and high engagement content to these devices, have emerged, populating an application market of thousands of teaching applications (apps) focused on diverse higher education topics, from physics and calculus to anatomy and law. Many universities throughout the world have already adopted or are planning to adopt mobile technologies in many of their courses as a better way to connect students with the subjects they are studying. These new mobile platforms allow students to access content anywhere/anytime to immerse himself/herself into that content (alone or interacting with teachers or colleagues via web communication forms) and to interact with that content in ways that were not previously possible (via touch and voice recognition technologies, for instance). The study of such technologies and their possible uses for higher education, as well as the impacts they can have on stimulating more active participation and engagement with the course subjects and research in higher education, while at the same time fostering collaboration among students and even different institutions, is the goal of the proposed chapter. Through the evaluation of the teacher/student acceptance and adoption of such mobile technologies, this chapter plans to provide a thorough overview of the possibilities and consequences of mobile learning in higher education environments as a gateway to ubiquitous learning – perhaps the ultimate form of learner engagement, since it allows the student to learn, access and interact with important content in any way or at any time or place she/he might want.

Lars Birch Andreasen is Associate Professor at the Department of Learning and Philosophy at Aalborg University, Denmark, where he is a member of the Research Lab: ICT and Designs for Learning. He holds a Ph.D. in Education from the Danish University of Education and an M.A. in Cultural Sociology from Copenhagen University. His research interests are dialogic communication, problem- and project-based learning, collaboration in virtual learning environments, information literacy, and lifelong learning.

The chapters in this book focus on three key areas of innovation in teaching and learning in higher education today: smartphone devices, texting applications, and multipurpose, multimedia mobile communicative applications such as Skype. Today's educators have at their disposal a wide array of digital technologies that enable them to enhance the teaching and learning process. These technologies, coupled with more valid and reliable learning theories, are revolutionizing the way we teach and are altering our notions of what it means to learn and live in a post-industrial, globalized world. Both individually and socially, these new mobile technologies are becoming increasingly popular and useful as educational tools across a wide range of disciplines as a means to engage and retain students. If used appropriately and purposefully, these mobile technologies are well suited for the increasingly interconnected and interdependent world we live in and they provide educators with another set of tools by which to enrich the teaching and learning process and educational outcomes (Kukulska-Hulme, 2012).