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A Confrontation of Mindsets: French Retailers Operating in Poland traces the history of French retailers setting up operations in Poland in the mid 90s. The case, however, is set in 2006 when a top retailing executive recalls the important watershed period of 1996-97 when the expatriate managers in charge of setting up the first hypermarkets encountered great difficulties with their new Polish recruits. The managers were not succeeding in transferring the practices and routines that were an essential part of their business model on the home market in France: their Polish employees displayed work attitudes that were the contrary of the initiative and responsibility for enlarged jobs that characterized employees back home. This situation called into question the very viability of their business model in Poland. The case poses very clearly the question of what actions the expatriate managers should decide to take to ensure the store launchings in Poland and future growth. The issues raised concern global versus multi-domestic internationalization strategies, business models, paradigms, corporate culture, management of expats, knowledge transfer and the link between strategic implementation and organizational behavior.

The ‘Game’ is really a multi-industry case that aims at developing participants' awareness of the links between firms' strategic choices and the financial structures the choices engender. Participants are provided with Balance Sheet percentages and common ratios for firms in 12 different industries and list of different businesses and asked to match the figures with the kind of business. The goal is for participants to understand how industries' operating models impose certain financial structures.

The case is run as a kind of mystery game but leads to rather sophisticated analysis of industry and business models. The case leads students to a better understanding of the essential concepts of a business strategy course: 1) external analysis by helping students ‘see’ the structures of different industries; 2) making clear the link between the competencies and capabilities needed by firms in their internal environment to successfully compete in their industries by matching the key success factors at work; 3) providing a tangible illustrations of the competencies that must be developed to successfully pilot business strategies like cost leadership and differentiation; and, 4) developing insight into integration and outsourcing strategies and their effects.

A detailed Teaching Note accompanies the case.

The consumer culture for expectant parents has changed considerably over the past few decades. Culturally, society places a great deal of emphasis and attention on traditional families and often neglects to recognize non‐traditional families. Although previous consumer literature examines purchase intentions in preparation for parenthood through the traditional biological lens, there have yet to be studies that observe this phenomenon in the context of adoption. This study aims to provide an understanding of the consumer uncertainty and risk that affect purchase intention in this family dynamic.

This study focuses on the psychological dimensions of risk to examine consumer uncertainty as it relates to purchase decisions during the expectant stage of adoption. A literature review was conducted in order to provide a foundation for the study. After finding gaps in the current literature, a mixed approach qualitative study was conducted. Through extensive interviews and focus groups, data were gathered directly from families that meet the scenario requirement and then the findings were analyzed in the phenomenological custom of theme clustering.

The research showed that adoptive parents as consumers largely associate the uncertainty and risk involved with making purchases for a new child with their lack of reference groups. There is a clear pattern of discontent, on the part of adoptive parents, with the lack of interest in their life changing situation (adoption) paid by family, friends, and marketers. Themes that emerged through the research showed that adoptive families desire to be reflected more in the media and further, to be acknowledged as expectant parents in order to bolster confidence in their purchase decisions.

This research provides marketers with a unique perspective as it relates to adoptive parents as consumers. Through the findings of this study, companies can learn some of the key themes to address if they would like to target this segment of affluent parents. By understanding the uncertainty and risk these consumers feel regarding purchase intentions, these fears can be alleviated by companies hoping to engage this audience.

The purpose of this article is to review the research on human‐computer interfaces for library‐based commercial online information retrieval (IR) systems.

The review first focuses on basic interface issues for information retrieval such as interface style, end‐user searching, query formulation, relevance feedback and browsing. The second part deals with cognitive engineering in IR including mental models and individual differences. Finally, the topics on user interface engineering are covered. These include user interface guidelines, usability evaluation methods and interface engineering techniques.

The review shows that user interface design has received a limited attention from IR researchers. There is a need for adopting human‐computer interaction (HCI) techniques into IR interface designs, but this issue has not yet been fully recognised by the commercial database vendors and distributors. The paper recommends that applying HCI techniques could help in developing more usable IR interfaces.

The review identifies the main activities of a user‐centred design methodology and suggests that IR interface designers should use this method in future. This could have major implications in IR interface design for end‐user searching.

The review is the first to offer an overview of empirical research on IR interface design and IR usability engineering. Both IR researchers and practitioners may benefit from the description of previous research and the user‐centred design advocated by the current research.

Describes the winning formula at Neiman Marcus that has made it the No. 1 luxury retailer in the United States in terms of sales per square foot and profitability. Highlights Neiman Marcus' efforts to define who its customers are and are not and to achieve superior focus on its customers by aligning location, price, service, and merchandise to fulfill these customers' every need. Describes ways in which Neiman Marcus prevents typical silo behavior between merchandising and selling and how it ensures that the right merchandise gets to the right customer, despite the challenge of doing this in 36 micromarkets.

To show how a company integrates two strong high-performance functions—merchandising and sales—to get the right merchandise to each customer in more than 30 diverse selling locations while consistently providing exceptional customer service.

Despite the recent increase of segregated neighborhoods and schools (Schmitt, 2001), many children find themselves playing with others from different racial and/or ethnic background (Nieto, 2000). Within social science literature, there are a number of studies that explore social interactions and youngsters’ friendship groups (Adler & Adler, 1998; Corsaro, 1985; Eder, 1995; Rizzo, 1989). While instructive, too few analyze what occurs among and to students of color (for exceptions, see Fordham, 1993; Goodwin, 1990, 1998; Grant, 1984). As a consequence, intragender distinctions remain misunderstood and White girls’ group dynamics often eclipse or trivialize the cultural happenings of their racial opposites – African-American girls.

Purpose – Research on punk culture often falls prey to three main dilemmas. First, an ageist bias exists in most popular music research, resulting in the continued equating of music and youth. Second, punk culture research often uses a Marxist economic lens that implies fieldwork reveals already known conceptions of class and culture. Third, research on punk culture lacks ethnographic and narrative examinations. This ethnographic project explores my reentry into punk culture as an adult, exploring it from a new researcher perspective. It provides an insider's view of emerging cultural themes at the site that disrupts these traditional research approaches.

Methodology/approach – This ethnography examines punk culture at an inner city nonprofit arts establishment. Through grounded theory and using a fictional literary account, this research probes how rituals and cultural narratives pervade and maintain the scene.

Findings – Concepts such as carnival, jamming as an organizing process – and as an aesthetic moment – emerged through the research process. This ethnography found narratives constituted personal and communal identity.

Research limitations/implications – As a personal ethnography, this research contains experiences in one local arts center, and therefore is not necessarily generalizable to other sites or experiences.

Originality/value of paper – Using ethnography, I explored punk as one of my primary identities in tandem with younger members of the scene. It critiques Marxist and youth approaches that have stunted music scene research for decades.

This chapter will focus on the Netflix television series The Exorcist (2016–) starring Gina Davis as Angela Rance/Regan MacNeill and Ben Daniels as Father Marcus. The Rances are a well-off urban family in Chicago, with Angela, a successful and powerful professional woman. The Exorcist allows Angela Rance, a woman in midlife, to be central to the narrative, despite the paucity of positive, central roles for women over 50.

The chapter will also examine the depiction of gender through the themes of families and homes. Homes are sanctuaries but can also be a site of violence. The Rance home is the first clue that all is not well, when Angela hears noises in the walls. Families, homes, faith and betrayal are everywhere in The Exorcist, including the Rances, the Church, the priesthood, the Friars of Ascension and the homeless settlement. Traditionally, families and homes are where women can achieve creativity and some kind of agency, as well as being contained.

The third approach of this chapter will be to compare gender representations in the television series and the film The Exorcist (1973). In theory, the intervening 44 years could have seen gains for women and feminism, but 2017 has seen women’s rights eroded yet again. The film was made at the height of the women’s liberation movement and second-wave feminism, and at the start of the era of ‘video nasties’ and explicitly gory slasher and cannibal films, so I will use the historical context to frame a discussion about the two different versions.