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The rise of all forms of information systems has been one of the major factors affecting the nature of work over the last decade. This article reports on research that suggests that whilst females may now gain more experience of computers and information systems at an earlier age, this does not appear to lead to more favourable evaluations of jobs involving computers. If women overcome initial negative perceptions of jobs involving computers then the particular style, manner, skills or approach that are seen as prerequisite for success, can constitute an additional barrier over and above that of the “glass ceiling”. The study looked at factors influencing initial attitudes towards computers, female attitudes to jobs involving computers and factors influencing self‐selection into gender‐typical and atypical jobs, including IT‐based jobs. The article considers the actions required from managers in many roles, including those with responsibility for staff development, marketing and recruitment.

This study aims to identify integrated marketing communication (IMC) antecedents and the consequences of planned brand identity in the context of higher education, and empirically test a number of hypotheses related to the constructs of these antecedents and consequences.

A model of the IMC antecedents and consequences of planned brand identity was tested in a survey conducted among stakeholders in two London-based universities. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was applied to gain insight into the various influences and relationships.

The study identifies and confirms key constructs in planned brand identity. IMC antecedents of planned brand identity, such as brand elements, service attributes, public relations and place/country of origin, were found to positively influence the planned brand identity consequences of awareness, image and reputation. However, websites, social media, advertising and direct marketing were not found to have significant influence.

The focus on two UK universities limits the generalisability of the findings. Future research should be conducted in other country settings to test the relationships identified in the present study. Also, future research may build on the study’s findings by investigating the attitudinal and behavioural consequences of brand identification in the higher education context.

Professionals responsible for universities’ promotional and branding activities need to evaluate the relative contributions of the IMC antecedents of planned brand identity. Brand elements such as design, colour and name, for example, should be reviewed to determine whether modifications are required in different international markets. The increasing prevalence of social media, one of the key antecedents of brand awareness, offers opportunities for universities to engage in brand co-creation by interacting with past, present and future students on relevant digital platforms. Finally, the place/country-of-origin cue is of particular relevance to institutions of higher education given the increasing numbers of students at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels who are choosing to study abroad (Melewar and Akel, 2005). The attraction of the UK as a country to study in, or the appeal of individual cities such as London, should be fully integrated into universities’ IMC strategies.

The study makes two main contributions. First is the theoretical contribution by identifying the core IMC antecedents and consequences of planned brand identity for universities and from this extrapolate key directions for future research. Second it is indicated that a number of managerial implications are designed to assist in the formulation of improved professional practice.

This study analyzes the rise of genome instability in the life sciences and traces the problematic of instability as it relates to the sociology of health. Genome instability is the study of how genomes change and become variable between generations and within organisms over the life span. Genome instability reflects a significant departure from the Platonic genome imagined during the Human Genome Project. The aim of this chapter is to explain and analyze research on copy number variation and somatic mosaicism to consider the implications of these sciences for sociologists interested in genomics.

This chapter draws on two multi-sited ethnographies of contemporary biomedical science and literature in the sociology of health, science, and biomedicine to document a shift in thinking about the genome from fixed and universal to highly variable and influenced by time and context.

Genomic instability has become a framework for addressing how genomes change and become variable between generations and within organisms over the life span. Instability is a useful framework for analyzing changes in the life sciences in the post-genomic era.

Genome instability requires life scientists to address how differences both within and between individuals articulate with shifting disease categories and classifications. For sociologists, these findings have implications for studies of identity, sociality, and clinical experience.

This is the first sociological analysis of genomic instability. It identifies practical and conceptual implications of genomic instability for life scientists and helps sociologists delineate new approaches to the study of genomics in the post-genomic era.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between innovation and authenticity by developing a conceptual framework that illuminates the key constructs.

The paper adopts a common perspective – the customer – for both innovation and authenticity. A conceptual framework identifying the roles of centrality and distinctiveness in the innovation–authenticity relationship is developed and justified based upon prior research regarding brand extensions and authenticity.

The innovation–authenticity relationship can be visualized and managed using two constructs: centrality and distinctiveness. Centrality is proposed to have a positive relationship, whereas distinctiveness is proposed to have a non-linear (inverted-U) relationship.

The paper contributes a new conceptualization of the innovation–authenticity–loyalty relationship. It applies C–D Mapping in a completely new way to provide managerially relevant visualization of customers’ perceptions of a new innovation vis-à-vis the parent brand to guide strategic decision making. The paper also suggests areas for further research to improve our understanding of successful innovation–authenticity alignment.

The purpose of this paper is to critically evaluate whether a Lean Six Sigma (LSS) leadership model could be effectively utilized to resolve efficiency and effective issues like rising costs, quality of education, graduation and retention rates encountered in higher education institutions (HEIs) in the modern era.

The authors systematically reviewed the literature on key concepts of LSS and leadership in HEIs in to develop a theoretical model using an inductive theory-building approach in accordance with the exploratory nature of the study.

The results of the study proposed a conceptual LSS leadership framework, which provides a basis for testing of LSS leadership representations in HEIs. The results suggest that LSS leadership has advantages for HEI to overcome currents issues and challenges.

This research is a theoretical study based on the existing literature that identified characteristics that may be adopted in higher education. The proposed LSS leadership framework is based upon leadership, statistical thinking, continuous change and improvement. This model is based upon service and the concepts of adaptive, rather than technical work, of leaders in higher education.

The proposed LSS leadership framework brings new aspects and perspectives of leadership in HEIs. LSS leadership model has its practical meaning in providing a fundamental base for HEIs to overcome challenges, fulfill missions, and sustain improvements.

HEIs are a foundation for principles of democracy, equality and diversity. HEIs have been a path for citizens but HEIs are facing challenges that are reducing the ability of individuals to improve themselves. Leadership of HEI needs to incorporate new principles to adapt to a changing society.

LSS project leaders have achieved improved bottom line results and customer satisfaction in a wide range of industries, but LSS application in the HEIs remains to be explored. This paper proposes an effective LSS leadership model, which can help improve the quality of education, reduce non-value added costs and enhance operational efficiency of HEIs.

This paper aims to draw upon the notion of practice as performance from social practice theory to unravel the onsite process of Chinese outbound tourist shopping.

The study took a mixed methods approach. Qualitative data were collected via 110 participant observations conducted in Australia, and quantitative techniques were used to analyse the data in Leximancer.

Chinese tourist shopping practices are performed on site through a range of intra-personal and inter-personal embodied actions, with the patterns these actions constitute being different across shopping settings. The frequency of inter-personal actions also reflects the importance of social interactions and communications in the shopping performances of Chinese tourists, some of which are conducted with people not present in the settings via social media.

This study uses a social practice framework from sociology to examine in detail how Chinese outbound tourists shop on site. The embodied actions identified in the study present a rich and detailed picture of the flow of Chinese tourist shopping performances. This allows for improved understanding of the forces for change in this aspect of Chinese outbound tourism.

本研究采用混合研究方法，以在澳大利亚收集的110个参与式观察作为质性数据，并通过运用Leximancer软件来对这些数据进行量化分析。

本研究旨在运用社会实践理论中实践作为展演的概念来揭示中国出境游客购物的现场过程。

中国出境游客的现场购物实践通过一系列自我具身行动与人际具身行动而得以展演，并且由这些具身行动所构成的模式因购物环境的差异而有所不同。人际具身行动的频繁出现体现了社会互动与沟通在中国游客购物展演中的重要性。其中，一些社会互动与沟通是与不在现场的他者借助社交媒体进行。

本研究运用社会学中的社会实践概念来详细地研究中国出境游客如何在现场进行购物。文中所发现的具身行动展示了一幅丰富且详实的中国游客购物展演流程的画卷。这为更好地理解中国出境游客购物变化的影响因素提供了新的思路。

El estudio adoptó un enfoque de métodos mixtos. Los datos cualitativos se recopilaron a través de 110 observaciones de participantes realizadas en Australia, y se utilizaron técnicas cuantitativas para analizar los datos en Leximancer.

Este estudio se basa en la noción de práctica como desempeño de la teoría de la práctica social para desentrañar el proceso in situ de las compras turísticas chinas en el exterior.

Las prácticas de compras turísticas chinas se realizan en el sitio a través de un conjunto de acciones intrapersonales e interpersonales incluidas, constituyendo estos patrones diferentes entornos de compra. La frecuencia de las acciones interpersonales también refleja la importancia de las interacciones sociales y las comunicaciones en las actuaciones de compras de los turistas chinos, algunas de las cuales se realizan con personas que no están presentes en los entornos a través de las redes sociales.

Este estudio utiliza un marco de práctica social de la sociología para examinar en detalle cómo los turistas chinos emisores compran en el sitio. Las acciones incluidas identificadas en el estudio presentan una imagen rica y detallada del flujo de actuaciones de compras turísticas chinas. Esto permite una mejor comprensión de las fuerzas para el cambio en este aspecto del turismo emisor chino.

This paper aims to define and frame the understanding of customer journeys, associated areas of consumer decision-making process stages and touch point categories based on an ownership perspective.

The research is based on a detailed literature review of customer journeys, in peer-reviewed marketing and retail journals, within the last decade. The Chartered Association of Business Schools (ABS) academic journal guide marketing discipline list was used because it only includes peer-reviewed journals, based on an internationally accepted quality ranked list.

The detailed analysis of the journals identified three groups of touch points (brand owned, partner owned/managed and outside the control of brand owner/partner) and three decision-making process stages (pre-purchase, purchase and post–purchase) that informed a clearer definition and understanding of the customer journey.

Limitations concern the ABS database was used and a ten-year date period was selected, which may exclude some relevant journal articles, particularly those written in a language other than English.

The authors have provided a revised definition of customer journey, clarified the decision-making stages and subsequent categorisation of touch points from an ownership perspective.

Photos are powerful tools to attract individuals’ attention and convey service experiences. Yet exactly how visual cues in a photo contribute to the perceptions of the staged servicescape, and how these perceptions inspire online booking/reservation behaviors, remains underexplored. Addressing the gap, this study aims to uncover (1) how perceptual information mediated by an online photo contributes to the formation of consumers' holistic perceptions of the service environment and (2) how such consumers' holistic perceptions further influence customers' online purchasing behaviors.

This research adopts an innovative crowdsourcing approach and refers to field data on consumers' online hotel booking behaviors to examine relationships among inferred servicescape dimensions, consumers' holistic perceptions of the mediated servicescape and their actual online booking/reservation behaviors (e.g. page-view and meta-click behaviors).

Confirmatory factor analysis and path analysis indicated that five mediated servicescape dimensions (i.e. color, lighting, furnishings, layout and style) contribute significantly to consumers' perceptions of the mediated servicescape (CPMS) and exert different impacts on CPMS. Connecting the crowdsourced rating and consumer behavioral data, CPMS is found to influence consumers' aggregated page-view and meta-click behavior, especially in the US market.

Building upon servicescape theory, the medium theory and the online booking literature, this research proposes a novel conceptual framework of CPMS to theorize the process by which visual cues in online photos contribute to CPMS and subsequent online purchase behaviors. Findings from this research extend Bitner's servicescape framework to mediated service contexts and provide practical implications for promoting service businesses.

Child abuse is no longer something we must talk about in cautious tones. The creation of the National Committee for Prevention of Child Abuse and the launching of a national awareness campaign in 1984 has resulted in a welcome but typical media blitz which has raised our consciousness but given little in the way of a solution. Parents are turning to the library for materials to help them introduce the hereto‐fore unspeakable of child abuse to their children.

Administering healthcare within developing contexts of Africa presents a myriad of challenges. This includes competing priorities, cultural differences, language barriers, resource limitations, supply chain management disruptions, and an infinite array of ever-changing political, social, environmental, and economic dynamics. However, leadership and more specifically, intentional relationship development grounded in strategic diffusion networks have the potential to mitigate these challenges and maximize the adoption of life-saving technologies, pharmaceuticals, and treatment plans. This chapter provides context for the systemic healthcare challenges facing developing contexts across Africa, utilizes the theoretical frameworks of adaptive leadership and complexity leadership to create a holistic approach to relationship-building within these contexts, and illuminates the strategic influence, agency, and adoption and diffusion strategies that ultimately have the potential to create pathways to promise and save lives within underserved and under-resourced communities.