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There are initiatives proposed in a number of states that would mandate calorie information disclosures from restaurant chains on their menus and menu boards. Such labeling laws have already been passed in New York City, Philadelphia, Seattle, and the states of Massachusetts and California. This paper aims to analyze whether nutrition disclosures are necessary for the average consumer to identify meal calorific content, to address consumer motivation to attend to nutrition labels, and to assess whether such labeling efforts may influence consumers' subsequent behaviors.

To address issues related to nutrition labeling of chain restaurants, a food court field study and a longitudinal quasi‐experiment were conducted.

The results indicate that as meal calorie, fat, and sodium levels increase, the level of consumers' underestimation of calories and nutrients increases. Consumers generally need the help of nutrition labeling to identify the content of menu items. Furthermore, there is an effect of perceived item healthfulness on repurchase intentions, and this effect is strengthened by disclosure of nutrition information. However, even after nutrition disclosure, the strength of the effect of taste perceptions on repurchase intentions dominates the effect of meal healthfulness.

This paper identifies that consumers do not have adequate nutrition knowledge when it comes to foods consumed outside the home. Relative comparisons among alternatives may be made, but consumers do not understand the absolute nutritional value of foods consumed. The authors identify that nutritional labeling does influence healthier consumer decisions. However, the key variable is consumer motivation. Only for the most nutritionally motivated consumers will this influence of healthfulness withstand the influence of taste.

The purpose of this paper is to assess how regret affects consumer satisfaction levels, extent of rumination, and brand‐switching intention. The paper also seeks to examine any mediating effects between regret and rumination that can be found due to consumers' negative emotions.

A purchase‐decision scenario was presented to 125 undergraduate students. A between‐subjects experimental design was conducted and structural equation modelling was utilized to evaluate the model fit.

The results indicate that regret decreases consumer satisfaction level and increases brand‐switching intention. Negative emotion was found to demonstrate an indirect effect between regret and extent of rumination. The findings also suggest that negative emotion acts as a partially mediating variable between the effect of satisfaction levels on extent of rumination and the effect of regret on satisfaction levels.

This study emphasizes the importance of post‐purchase consumer satisfaction. Marketers must pay particular attention to both regret and negative emotion toward purchase decisions. By understanding how specific recourse can be taken to mitigate regret, negative emotions, and ruminative thinking, firms can potentially enhance a brand's image and instil brand loyalty.

This research further validates existing research regarding regret and consumption, while introducing the concept of rumination into the marketing literature. Marketers will have a better understanding of how regret, negative emotions, and rumination can play a role in post‐purchase consumption behaviours.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the origins, members, activities, and influence of the Ratio Club, a British cybernetic dining club that met between 1949 and 1958. Although its membership included some of the best known British cyberneticists, such as Grey Walter and Ross Ashby, along with pioneering scientists such as Alan Turing, the club is poorly documented, and its significance is difficult to establish from published sources.

The approach involved the consultation and analysis of unpublished material in both private and public archives in the UK and the USA, coupled with interviews with surviving members, guests, and contemporaries.

The Ratio Club grew out of a distinctively British strand of cybernetic activity that was mainly fuelled by the deployment of biologists to engineering activities during the Second World War. It was also strongly influenced by the approach of the psychologist Kenneth Craik. Although members were keenly aware of contemporary American developments, such as Wiener's approach to the mathematics of control, and the psychological and sociological concerns of the Macy Conference, the emphasis of the club was on the application of cybernetic ideas and information theory to biology and the brain. In contrast to the wide influence the later Macy conferences exercised through their published transcripts, the Ratio Club influenced its core disciplines though its members, several of whom became prominent and effective advocates of the cybernetic approach.

This is the first journal paper to give an authoritative, detailed, and accurate account of the club's origins, activities, and importance.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Term. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

The purpose of this study is to examine the attitude of accountants towards advertising and to investigate changes in attitude that may have occurred between 1993 and 2004.

Data were collected from accountants using a mail survey approach in 1993 and using an e‐mail survey approach in 2004. Questions on the two surveys were identical and a random sample of accountants was selected for each study. Statistical tests were used to compare responses from 1993 with responses in 2004.

Analysis of the results revealed significant positive shifts in the attitudes accountants have toward advertising of accounting services. Negative attitudes toward various aspects of advertising shifted to either a neutral or a positive position. This dramatic, positive shift in advertising attitudes by accountants occurred while skepticism towards advertising remained relatively high, overall, among the general public. Between the two time periods, changes in the use of various marketing tools (such as web sites to attract new clients) were also found to have occurred. In addition, the use of marketing professionals by accounting service providers increased substantially over the 11‐year time period of the longitudinal study.

Sample selection and size create some concern about generalizability of the study. With any random sample selection process, the view of the non‐respondents is not known nor whether those who responded tended to have a higher level of acceptance of advertising.

For marketing professionals, this shift to a more positive attitude by accountants provides opportunities to offer greater marketing and advertising services. This shift also signals an increasing awareness on the part of accountants to market their services.

The real estate industry is an e‐commerce anomaly. Although the overall growth of ecommerce is driven by the business‐to‐business sector, the majority of real estate e‐commerce is derived from its retail‐oriented residential sector. This study examines the structure of residential and commercial real estate websites, with the goal of determining whether some patterns of content might increase the quality and quantity of information available to buyers and sellers thereby contributing to the disparity between residential and commercial real estate e‐commerce growth. The results of the research show residential real estate websites offer richer informational content than commercial real estate websites. No significant differences are found for the user friendliness and functionality (ie ancillary services) provided by residential and commercial real estate websites.