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One strategic design parameter in capacity management is the setting of a planned level of capacity utilization at which the manufacturing operation will operate long term. Seeks to examine systematically the implications of varying levels of capacity utilization within an assemble‐to‐order firm through experiments with a simulation model. Four performance measures and a total weekly cost measure are analysed under nine capacity utilization levels, two demand patterns, and 11 ratios of the costs of idle capacity to the costs of late orders. The prescribed capacity utilization level is a function of the firm′s competitive goals, demand pattern, and cost structures.

Draws attention to the importance of listening skills. Approximately three fourths of the business day is spent engaged in some form of communication. Effective listening is central to enhanced communication but managers do not always listen because active listening is not a natural process. It requires both mental and physical effort on the part of the listener. Intra‐organizational listening can become a powerful competitive tool. Suggestions for improving listening skills on an organizational and an individual level are provided.

This paper is an exploratory study of one approach to incorporating situational information into information retrieval systems, drawing on principles and methods of discourse linguistics. A tenet of discourse linguistics is that texts of a specific type possess a structure above the syntactic level, which follows conventions known to the people using such texts to communicate. In some cases, such as literature describing work done, the structure is closely related to situations, and may therefore be a useful representational vehicle for the present purpose. Abstracts of empirical research papers exhibit a well‐defined discourse‐level structure, which is revealed by lexical clues. Two methods of detecting the structure automatically are presented: (i) a Bayesian probabilistic analysis; and (ii) a neural network model. Both methods show promise in preliminary implementations. A study of users' oral problem statements indicates that they are not amenable to the same kind of processing. However, from in‐depth interviews with users and search intermediaries, the following conclusions are drawn: (i) the notion of a generic research script is meaningful to both users and intermediaries as a high‐level description of situation; (ii) a researcher's position in the script is a predictor of the relevance of documents; and (iii) currently, intermediaries can make very little use of situational information. The implications of these findings for system design are discussed, and a system structure presented to serve as a framework for future experimental work on the factors identified in this paper. The design calls for a dialogue with the user on his or her position in a research script and incorporates features permitting discourse‐level components of abstracts to be specified in search strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to present findings from an experiment designed to test the impact of crowding perceptions (both human and spatial), emotions (positive and negative) and shopping values (utilitarian and hedonic) on shopper satisfaction. Culture is explored as a moderating variable with the expectation that it systematically affects perceptions and values, which, in turn, influence the shopper's experience with the store.

Data were collected via a 2×2×2 full factorial between subjects design with two variables, one manipulated and one measured. The two manipulated variables were spatial density (high versus low) and human density (high versus low). The measured variable was country of origin, where subjects were coded as either American or Australian.

Culture moderates the effects of perceived spatial crowding as well as both hedonic and utilitarian shopping values on shopper satisfaction. Specifically, the adverse effect of perceived spatial crowding on shopper satisfaction is less pronounced for Australians than is the case for Americans. With respect to both utilitarian and hedonic shopping values, the positive relationship between shopping values and shopper satisfaction is greater for Australians than for Americans.

Shopping has been generally described by Rintamaki et al. as “relativistic, because it involves preferences among objects, it varies among people, and it is specific to the context”. This paper demonstrates that culture clearly affects shopper's perceptions and shopping values, which in turn affect shopper satisfaction. It is reasonable to speculate that these effects would be even more pronounced had countries with greater cultural distance been examined.

How can we foster entrepreneurship? This was one of the basic questions to ask when we, like many others, started to consider different approaches concerning how to motivate students to become interested in entrepreneurship. We soon became puzzled by the theoretical approaches to entrepreneurship. Something seemed to be lacking, for example, the important question of how should one educate entrepreneurs? However, as noticed by Landström (2000) and Sundnäs, Kjellam and Eriksson (2002), it is through the expansion of the theoretical roots of entrepreneurship, i.e. from the economic, behavioural and business studies to multidisciplinary research, that the picture becomes more understandable, albeit more complex.

A fear appeal is a communication tactic designed to scare people into adopting desired behaviors (e.g. wash hands to avoid contracting COVID-19). While it is generally acknowledged that fear appeals can be persuasive at motivating behavior, this paper aims to identify how to optimally identify how to optimally frame the focal threat to increase their effectiveness as well as to uncover additional underlying processes.

The authors conducted four experimental studies.

This research validates that exposure to fear appeals can strongly motivate behavior. However, this study shows that this effect is moderated by threat specificity. Specifically, this study demonstrates that people are more motivated to engage in behaviors that facilitate threat avoidance after exposure to a personally relevant threat that represents a nonspecific (e.g. aging appearance) rather than a specific outcome (e.g. wrinkles). This effect is mediated by perceptions of assimilation (versus contrast) to the focal threat. This study reliably shows the effect across three threat domains (i.e. aging appearance, weight gain, illness) and for different behaviors.

Theoretically speaking, this study contributes to the fear appeal literature by identifying a new type of message framing that has the potential to increase fear appeal’s persuasive power, and uncovering a distinct mechanism by which fear appeals impact behavior. Practically speaking, the findings confirm that fear appeals have the potential to help marketers mobilize consumer behavior, especially when the communication highlights a nonspecific rather than specific threat.

The purpose of this paper is to present a model concerning family business participation. The model can both be used to explain why somebody chooses to become a family business member and how family entrepreneurs act inside their firms. In this paper the author will present a holistic, socio-cultural and constructivist model concerning entrepreneurship behaviour.

The model is based on field theory or the perceptions of human behaviour presented by Kurt Lewin. However, the model is expanded to include modern system theories and family business aspects. The author sees family business participation as an emerging behaviour in a complex social system. The central concept or construct, to help the author understand this emerging behaviour, is the psychological life space of the individual. It is not only family that affects the life space. This life space is affected by the current life situation, the past activities as well as the potential aspirations or “dreams” about the future.

A holistic, socio-cultural and constructivistic model is developed. It starts from the notion of a “psychological life space” construct, suggested by Kurt Lewin. The author has developed the concepts further, thereby expanding the area concerning entrepreneurship and modern theories of human behaviour by adding environment and culture to the model. The temporal dimension can be divided into three parts: i.e. the past (experience), the present (real-time) and the future (aspirations). All actions and changes happen in the present, although they are affected by the past and the aspirations for the future. These three parts will continually affect the individual's decision making. In other words the life space is never static, but constantly changing over time Thus, an individual's choice to enter, expand or exit a family business can be explained by the complex relationship between realistic and unrealistic views of the past, present and the future.

It is only a model. However, it can cast new light on the understanding of how family businesses work and could transfer knowledge to the next generation of the family business.

A better understanding of the development of the complex behavioural patterns and factors behind entrepreneurial family formation is given. This enables the author to design methods to explore and analyse individual life spaces. If the author would have such methods, the author might be able to see how and why individuals’ behaviour becomes family entrepreneurially oriented, thereby giving use effective ways and new instruments to support growth and stability in our society.

The field theory, or as it has also been named, topological psychology, has been more or less forgotten for a long time, or overshadowed by other theories of human behaviour. However, according to Martin Gold (1999), Lewin has in recent years again become one of the most frequently quoted social researchers. The paper contributes in this process by applying it to a family business context.

As we stand on threshold of 3E crisis of economics, ecology and emotions, organizations need innovative approach to replace the business model of last era. The business model has reduced humans to either consumers or resources to produce. My research is based on startling employee survey results of non-engagement, lack of “heart” and “values” at work, observing employees and management in different organizations as human resources head in mindless chasing of profits and devaluing human potential. My personal journey of practicing Yoga and research of Patanjali Yoga Sutras have revealed insights, shown the Pathway and given practices of how human beings can participate in personal evolution creating shift in organizations’ mindset. Inner compass of ethics through self-governance, truth, non-violence, non-stealing and self- learning as organization development interventions can create culture of the organization.

There has been little thought given in science to the impact of direct brain‐machine interfacing upon the future development of human consciousness. Even less thought has been given to the possibilities for both optimizing and thwarting development in the cyborg child. A neurocognitive model of the evolution of cyborg consciousness is summarized, and from this model grounded speculations are offered pertaining to the future development of the higher cognitive functions in the cyborg child. It will be shown that cybernetic implants are “multistable”; that is, the artificial intelligence (AI) component of the cyborg brain‐machine linkage may function to condition development along ideological lines (the brain conditioned by the “ideological chip”), or may operate to open up neurocognitive development to new and heretofore unrealized limits (the brain’s development optimized by the “guru programme”). Development of the cyborg child may be conditioned in the interests of ideological concerns, or may lead to a consciousness that easily transcends all forms of ideology. Application of the guru programme may foster the emergence of new levels of cognitive complexity and information processing (à la Piagetian and neo‐Piagetian theory) that in turn allows new strategies of adaptation previously beyond human comprehension. The ethical and regulatory problems raised by cyborg technologies are addressed.