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This study aims to explore the role of interactants' nonverbal sensitivity, anxiety and sociodemographic characteristics in learning and satisfaction within the genetic counseling context.

This is a combined simulation and analogue study. Simulations were videotaped with 152 prenatal and cancer genetic counselors and nine simulated clients. The videotapes were shown to 559 subjects recruited to act as analogue clients (ACs) with the instruction to imagine themselves as the client in the simulation. The profile of nonverbal sensitivity (PONS), a video and audio test of accuracy in the interpretation of nonverbal cues, was administered to both the genetic counselors and ACs. In addition, the ACs completed a literacy screen and post session measures of learning and session satisfaction.

The study finds that ACs' post‐session knowledge score was positively associated with both their own and the counselors' audio PONS scores. Also related to knowledge were clients' literacy, younger age and non‐minority ethnicity. Ratings of session satisfaction were inversely related to ACs' and counselors' video PONS scores and ACs' literacy and anxiety.

While based on the performance of a large number of practicing genetic counselors, simulated and analogue clients are used to explore study questions.

The nonverbal sensitivity of both providers and ACs plays a role in medical communication and its cognitive and affective consequences. These findings warrant greater attention to nonverbal dynamics in future research and interventions.

No similar studies have investigated the role of nonverbal sensitivity in predicting learning and satisfaction for users of health care services.

Blockchain has been considered as a disruptive technology and every industry stands to benefit from it. According to Deloitte, increasing number of managers claim that their firms will suffer loss in competitive advantage if they do not adopt blockchain. Despite this motivation, insufficient knowledge on how can blockchain add value inhibits the commitment to its adoption. To better understand the possible influence of blockchain, two dimensions (exploitation and exploration) of blockchain initiatives are distinguished. This research aims to examine the impact of ambidextrous blockchain initiatives on firms' operational efficiency, as well as the moderating role of unabsorbed slack and environmental munificence.

In this paper, secondary panel data were collected from multiple sources to test the proposed hypotheses. Content analysis was adopted to operationalise ambidextrous blockchain initiatives from firms' official announcements.

The authors find that firms' ambidexterity in blockchain initiatives have significantly positive impact on operational efficiency. Furthermore, when firms have lower unabsorbed slack or in more munificent environments, they may benefit from managing a balance between exploration and exploitation.

This research offers some insightful theoretical and managerial implications of ambidextrous blockchain initiatives. The findings of this study contribute to blockchain literature by providing theory-driven empirical research.

This study aims to explore the impact of tourists’ perceptions of two rural destination attractiveness dimensions on tourists’ environmentally responsible behavioral intentions (ERBI). Further, the mediating effects of tourists’ green self-identity on the relationship between the perception of rural destination attractiveness and ERBI are investigated.

This study collected survey data from 188 tourists who had visiting experiences in rural attractions located in the Guangdong Province of China. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to test the proposed hypotheses.

The results found that rural destination specialty fresh food attractiveness perceived by tourists was positively associated with their ERBI. Moreover, tourists’ green self-identity positively mediated the perception of rural destination attractiveness and ERBI.

This study explains how the tourists’ perceptions of two rural destination attractiveness dimensions influence their ERBI. By exploring the mediating role of tourists’ green self-identity, this study also emphasizes the transforming mechanism from tourists’ perceived experience to their ERBI. The study provides insights into nature-based tourism destination management and sustainability practices.

The aim of this paper is to call for an increased focus on the ethics of direct-to-consumer (DTC) prescription drug advertising. This is important, not only to improve DTC prescription drug advertising, but also to inform DTC advertising of future medical advances.

This conceptual paper discusses two examples of medical advances – personal genetic testing services and surgically implanted medical devices – to explain how investigating the research of DTC prescription drug advertising can set the stage for more ethical advertising of future medical advances.

Specific issues related to health literacy, at-risk populations impacted by health disparities, and medicalization of issues common to aging relate to the DTC advertising of prescription drugs and other medical advances. Creative approaches to investigating these issues in the context of prescription drug advertising can enrich the debate about drug advertising, but also prepare researchers, policymakers, and consumers for future advertising of new medical developments.

The value of this paper is its call for increased focus on the ethics of DTC prescription drug advertising, to improve the current marketing environment but also lay the foundation for other healthcare marketing in the future.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between personal public relations practices, which trigger parasocial relationships between celebrities and their followers, and initial reactions to celebrity crises. For this purpose, the study analyzed Johnny Depp’s (JD’s) communication practices over a period of 15 years and assessed online perceptions of responsibility attribution and message valence in the aftermath of JD’s 2016 divorce and accusations of domestic violence.

The study employed the case study methodology and analyzed two data sets. First, a frequency analysis was conducted to determine the most prevalent cultural dimensions (Hofstede, 2011) present in JD’s interviews (n=116). Second, several χ² tests were run on an additional sample of analysis (n=1,044) which comprised reactions on Twitter in the aftermath of the crisis. The study tested whether there was a relationship between culture, responsibility attribution, and message valence.

The results indicate a relationship between the dimension of long-term/short-term orientation and message valence, indulgence/restraint and responsibility attribution and finally, male dominance and message valence. These results suggest that, to a certain degree, the reactions to the crisis analyzed mirrored the celebrity’s public relations practices. Namely, cross-culturally initial responsibility attribution and message valence were influenced by the degree to which the celebrity’s values carried more weight in a culture than in others.

The study only considered tweets that were written in English and stemmed from profiles that identified the location of the users. Furthermore, this analysis took a case study approach and assessed JD’s public relations practices. Therefore, it is difficult to generalize the results and their implications especially in circumstances in which celebrities do want to promote an image that deviates from their real identity so as to hide certain less appealing aspects of their lives. Nonetheless, the study represents a step forward toward the transition from marketing celebrities to promoting them transparently and around their personal values.

Currently, the entertainment industry is dominated by a marketing approach that commodifies celebrities to the extent to which their promotion deviates significantly from their personal values. As a result of this deviation, the approach makes it difficult to appropriately address crises since the latter constitute unexpected events. In addition, the marketing approach has been shown to further erode a celebrity’s well-being and lead to self-destructive behaviors. Conversely, a personal public relations approach allows practitioners to anticipate reactions to crises and respond adequately, therefore reducing further reputational damage. In addition, personal public relations practices trigger parasocial relationships between a celebrity and their followers by focusing on the transparent promotion of a celebrity, and therefore address concerns that celebrities raised in the past with regard to their objectification.

Personal public relations practices shed light on the reality behind stardom and the promotion of personal values may be inspirational for celebrity followers. While marketing celebrities exposes publics to the glamorous life at Hollywood, personal public relations sheds light on the factors that triggered it, among which commitment, hard work, and/or dedication.

Currently, there is a paucity of studies that shed light on personal public relations and parasocial relationships in international contexts. In addition, the strategic communication literature with regard to celebrity crises lacks studies that analyze the publics’ reactions to crises. The present study aimed to fill these gaps.

In 2017, racial minorities made up 18.6% of the population in Appalachia compared to 39.3% of the United States population. Of this 18.6%, Black/African Americans represent the largest minority group, at 9.7% (Pollard & Jacobs, 2019). This chapter focuses on the positionality and experiences of Black women educators teaching critical perspectives at the intersection of race, gender, and class in rural Appalachia. Using Black feminist thought (Collins, 1986, 2000), a coautoethnography is used to highlight the authors' teaching experiences as Black women educators from non-Appalachian areas. Themes and recommendations identified across the authors' experiences are presented.

This research examines micro‐enterprises pursuing gradual growth. While very little research has been targeted specifically at the growth of micro‐enterprises, there are a host of possible influencing factors suggested by the rather broader small business literature. Less research has attempted to integrate the factors that influence growth of small firms into some form of model. Those models that were found had a number of shortfalls when it came to understanding the development of micro‐enterprises. A framework has been developed through this research that addresses these shortfalls. First, it has targeted specifically gradual growth micro‐enterprises; secondly, it is rigorously under‐pinned through empirical research; thirdly, it attempts to comprehensively cover the range of factors that influence development; fourthly, it focuses on the complex interaction of factors that may influence development. The research findings and implications are presented in two parts. Part 1 develops an empirically verified framework that explains how growth is influenced by a myriad of interacting factors. This leads to a discussion of the policy implications of the framework. Part 2 is presented in the next edition of the Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development (JSBED) and will explore the managerial implications of the framework. This will provide a diagnostic toolkit to help micro‐enterprise owner‐managers and advisers pursue growth. The paper is derived from research conducted initially for the submission of a PhD thesis at the University of Brighton (Perren, 1996).

Disturbing increase in the use of virgin resources to produce new products has threatened the environment. Many countries have reacted to this situation through regulations which aim to eliminate negative impact of products on the environment shaping the concept of environmentally conscious manufacturing and product recovery (ECMPRO). The first crucial and the most time-consuming step of product recovery is disassembly. The best productivity rate is achieved via a disassembly line in an automated disassembly process. In this chapter, we consider a sequence-dependent disassembly line balancing problem (SDDLBP) with multiple objectives that is concerned with the assignment of disassembly tasks to a set of ordered disassembly workstations while satisfying the disassembly precedence constraints and optimizing the effectiveness of several measures considering sequence-dependent time increments among disassembly tasks. Due to the high complexity of the SDDLBP, there is currently no known way to optimally solve even moderately sized instances of the problem. Therefore, an efficient methodology based on the simulated annealing (SA) is proposed to solve the SDDLBP. Case scenarios are considered and comparisons with ant colony optimization (ACO), particle swarm optimization (PSO), river formation dynamics (RFD), and tabu search (TS) approaches are provided to demonstrate the superior functionality of the proposed algorithm.