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This study is to develop an accurate assessment tool to identify the factors that may influence determining the appropriate use for historic buildings.

The research method in this study is qualitative. The integrated MCDM (multi-criteria decision-making) method is used to determine the most appropriate use for historic buildings, which ultimately led to the development of the MAU (most appropriate use) model.

The results of this study show that, in terms of preserving identity and cultural heritage, the role intangible criteria have to play is seemingly more important than that of tangible criteria. Also, weighted criteria in the matrix relating the “use” options demonstrate cultural-social, commercial and educational uses being apparently more important than other uses.

The novelty of this research is in providing a framework to facilitate contribution to determine the most suitable use for historic buildings with the ability to set criteria and separate weights for each building aiming to increase the useful life to the maximum extent and delaying the need for a subsequent major overhaul.

Evidence in the literature has indicated that customer-linking marketing capabilities such as customer relationship management (CRM) and brand management are important drivers of marketing performance and that marketing analytics use (MAU) enables firms to gain valuable knowledge and insights for improving firm performance. However, there has been little focus on how firms improve their CRM and brand management via MAU. This study aims to draw on the absorptive capacity theory, research on marketing capabilities and marketing analytics to examine the capability-developing mechanisms that enable a firm to use marketing analytics to enhance its CRM and brand management capabilities, thereby improving its marketing performance.

A research model is developed and tested based on an analysis of 289 responses collected using an online survey from middle and senior managers of Chinese firms with sufficient knowledge and experience in using marketing analytics for survey participation.

The findings demonstrate that MAU is positively related to both CRM and brand management capabilities, which in turn are positively associated with marketing performance; and that both CRM and brand management capabilities mediate the relationship between MAU and marketing performance.

The study’s outcomes were based on data collected from a survey, which was distributed using mass e-mails. Thus, the study is unable to provide a meaningful response rate. The research results are based on and limited to Chinese firms.

MAU is essential for enhancing customer-linking marketing capabilities such as CRM and brand management, but it alone is not sufficient to improve marketing performance. Firms wishing to improve marketing performance should leverage the knowledge and insights gained from MAU to enhance their critical customer-linking marketing capabilities.

This study explicates the capability-developing mechanisms through which a firm can use its market-sensing capability as manifested by MAU to enhance customer-linking marketing capabilities and to improve its marketing performance. In so doing, this study extends our understanding of the critical role of absorptive capacity in helping firms identify, assimilate, transform and apply valuable external knowledge.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of the amount of trade credit granted to shrimp farmers in Ca Mau.

Based on the literature review, the authors proposed six hypotheses on the determinants of the amount of trade credit granted to shrimp farmers. Data collected from 120 shrimp farmers in Ca Mau were used to test the proposed hypotheses.

Two out of six determinants, i.e. the size of input order (a pulling factor) and the competition among input suppliers (a pushing factor), are significantly positively associated with the amount of trade credit granted to shrimp farmers. No impact of the other determinants was found. The findings imply that shrimp farmers should join cooperatives to enhance access to trade credit and mitigate the risk for input suppliers.

This paper sheds light on the fact that trade credit is still granted to such risky buyers as shrimp farmers, which has not been explored by previous studies.

In the study of choice processes the classical model is Utility Theory — its characteristics and limitations are discussed. Several taxonomies of choice heuristics from the literature are compared and information processing models are then analysed. The article concludes with suggestions for future research.

Looks at the marketing literature on the subject of multi‐attribute utility models. Reviews the multiple objective and multi‐dimensional preference models within the framework of multiple attribute utility theory. Suggests that much of the research in this area has been information‐ rather than decision‐oriented and, as a result, this has not been integrated successfully into the field of strategic marketing policy‐making.

End‐of‐life (EOL) products have become a major environmental issue among countries and manufacturers. This is due to the growing number of EOL products and their hazardous contents. Many collection strategies and pilot projects have been conducted to manage EOL products, especially Waste Electrical and Electronics equipments (WEEEs). However, as characteristics of a population are different to one another, a customized collection strategy is required. The purpose of this paper is to find an effective collection strategy which considers cost and environmental impact simultaneously.

This paper presents an integrated collection strategy which combines a Fuzzy Colored Petri Net forecasting method and collection network model to collect EOL products. Colored Petri Net is used in modeling the integrated collection strategy. To test the collection strategy, a case study on mobile phone collection in Australia is presented.

The integrated collection strategy developed in this paper finds that by providing demographic data and historical sales of a relevant product in a certain location, the best strategy to collect EOL products in that location can be determined. This paper finds that the best strategy that suits one location might be different to other locations.

This paper presents a model which provides a customized collection strategy that follows the characteristics of a population. This strategy allows government organizations or manufacturers to simulate the strategies to collect EOL products in different locations.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether there is a need to consider gender or sex differences as variables in information behaviour research and, if so, how?

A metasynthesis approach is used. A preliminary framework to categorise information behaviour research on women is developed by integrating main themes from feminist research and information behaviour research. Within each category, studies are compared and contrasted, to identify similar and divergent themes. Themes are then compared across categories, to synthesise the main concepts.

The categorisation works for most studies, apart from a group of studies on health information use, communicating risk and decision making. The meta‐synthesis indicates the importance of concepts such as situation (as mesh), intermediaries (as node with connections), and connecting behaviour. Gender‐related or, rather gender‐ascribed, constructs, such as concern for others, not gender alone are likely to be important variables in information behaviour.

The meta‐synthesis is a top‐level synthesis, as the number of studies prohibited a more detailed approach. Further meta‐synthesis of a few high quality research studies would help to confirm the findings.

The synthesis illuminates a different perspective on information behaviour: the network of information users rather than the individual information seeker.

The synthesis integrates some feminist research themes with information behaviour research, and the findings have implications for general information behaviour research.

The purpose of this paper is to identify how project portfolio selection (PPS) methods have evolved and which approaches are more suitable for radical innovation projects. This paper addressed the following research question: how have the selection approaches evolved to better fit within radical innovation conditions? The current literature offers a number of selection approaches with different and, in some cases, conflicting nature. Therefore, there is a lack of understanding regarding when and how to use these approaches in order to select a specific type of innovation projects (from incremental to more radical ones).

Given the nature of the research question, the authors perform a systematic literature review method and analyze 48 portfolio selection approaches. The authors then classified and characterized these articles in order to identify techniques, tools, required data and types of examined projects, among other aspects.

The authors identify four key features related to the selection of radical innovation projects: dynamism, interdependency management, uncertainty treatment and required input data. Based on the content analysis, the authors identified that approaches based on different sources and nature of data are more appropriated for uncertain conditions, such as behavioral methods, information gap theory, real options and integrated approaches.

The research provides a comprehensive framework about PPS methods and how they have been evolving over time. This portfolio selection framework considers the particular aspects of incremental and radical innovation projects. The authors hope that the framework contributes to reinvigorating the literature on selection approaches for innovation projects.

This paper deals with the organizing of interactive product development. Developing products in interaction between firms may provide benefits in terms of specialization, increased innovation, and possibilities to perform development activities in parallel. However, the differentiation of product development among a number of firms also implies that various dependencies need to be dealt with across firm boundaries. How dependencies may be dealt with across firms is related to how product development is organized. The purpose of the paper is to explore dependencies and how interactive product development may be organized with regard to these dependencies.

The analytical framework is based on the industrial network approach, and deals with the development of products in terms of adaptation and combination of heterogeneous resources. There are dependencies between resources, that is, they are embedded, implying that no resource can be developed in isolation. The characteristics of and dependencies related to four main categories of resources (products, production facilities, business units and business relationships) provide a basis for analyzing the organizing of interactive product development.

Three in-depth case studies are used to explore the organizing of interactive product development with regard to dependencies. The first two cases are based on the development of the electrical system and the seats for Volvo’s large car platform (P2), performed in interaction with Delphi and Lear respectively. The third case is based on the interaction between Scania and Dayco/DFC Tech for the development of various pipes and hoses for a new truck model.

The analysis is focused on what different dependencies the firms considered and dealt with, and how product development was organized with regard to these dependencies. It is concluded that there is a complex and dynamic pattern of dependencies that reaches far beyond the developed product as well as beyond individual business units. To deal with these dependencies, development may be organized in teams where several business units are represented. This enables interaction between different business units’ resource collections, which is important for resource adaptation as well as for innovation. The delimiting and relating functions of the team boundary are elaborated upon and it is argued that also teams may be regarded as actors. It is also concluded that a modular product structure may entail a modular organization with regard to the teams, though, interaction between business units and teams is needed. A strong connection between the technical structure and the organizational structure is identified and it is concluded that policies regarding the technical structure (e.g. concerning “carry-over”) cannot be separated from the management of the organizational structure (e.g. the supplier structure). The organizing of product development is in itself a complex and dynamic task that needs to be subject to interaction between business units.

This paper aims to investigate shrimp income losses of farmers in the four farming systems in the research areas of Ca Mau, Vietnam, and determine the vulnerability of shrimp farming income to climate change events.

Field research interviews were conducted with 100 randomly selected households across the four farming systems to access shrimp income status and vulnerability levels to climate change events. Four focus groups, each aligned to a particular farming system, were surveyed to categorise likelihood and consequences of climate change effects based on a risk matrix worksheet to derive levels of risk, adaptive capacity and vulnerability levels.

Shrimp farmers in the study areas have been facing shrimp income reduction recently and shrimp farming income is vulnerable to climate change events. There are some differences between farmers’ perspectives on vulnerability levels, but some linkages are evident among shrimp farmer characteristics, ramifications for each farming system, shrimp income losses and shrimp farmers’ perspectives on vulnerability levels of shrimp incomes. From an income perspective, farmers operating in intensive shrimp farming systems appear to be less vulnerable to existing and expected climate change effects relative to those in mixed production or lower density systems.

Having identified the vulnerability level of shrimp farming income to climate change events in different farming systems based on shrimp farmers’ perspectives, the paper adds new knowledge to existing research on vulnerability of the aquaculture sector to climate change. The research findings have implications for policymakers who may choose to encourage intensive shrimp farming to enhance shrimp farmer resilience to the effects of climate change as well as improving cultivation techniques for shrimp farmers. The findings could thus guide local government decision-making on climate change responses and residents of Ca Mau as well as within the wider Mekong Delta in developing suitable practical adaption measures.