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The marketing literature on service conversation in dyadic services has elaborated two approaches. An advisory approach involves providers giving customers expert advice on how to advance difficult projects. By contrast, a relational approach involves providers exchanging social support with customers to develop commercial friendships. Inspired by the transformative turn in service research, this study aims to develop a third approach, one that helps customers to cultivate their own agency, potential and well-being.

The emergent model of service conversation is based on in-depth interviews with providers and clients of mental health services, including psychological counseling, psychotherapy and personal coaching.

A transformative approach to service conversation involves the iterative application of a complementary pair of conversational practices: seeding microtransformations by asking questions to inspire new ways of thinking, feeling and acting; and nurturing microtransformations via non-evaluative listening to affirm customers’ explorations of new possibilities. This pair of practices immediately elevates customers’ sense of psychological freedom, which, in turn, enables their process of self-transformation, one microtransformation at a time.

This study offers dyadic service providers a conceptual framework of advisory, relational and transformative approaches to service conversation for instrumental, communal and developmental service encounters, respectively. This framework can help dyadic service providers to conduct more collaborative, flexible and productive conversations with their customers.

Three approaches to service conversation – advisory, relational and transformative – are conceptually distinguished in terms of their overall aims, provider practices, customer experiences, customer outcomes, allocations of airtime, designations of expertise, application contexts, prototypical examples and blind spots.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relative effectiveness of the second-person pronoun perspective within a brand name (as in “You”Tube) and the first-person pronoun perspective (as in “i”Phone).

Drawing on prior research on self-concept, general pronoun usage and the fit between branding tactics and positioning, it is predicted that “you” will garner more favorable consumer responses when the brand is positioned on social benefits, while “I” will garner more favorable responses when the brand is positioned on personal benefits. These predictions are tested in two experiments with US consumers.

When the brand in the experiment was positioned for its social benefits, “you” elicited more favorable brand attitudes than “I”, while the opposite was true when the brand was positioned for its personal benefits. This effect tends to be stronger among those with higher self-esteem.

Managers can make more informed pronoun brand name selections based on their brand’s intended positioning – if it is social, “you” should be used; if it is personal, “I” should be used.

The influence of pronouns in brand names is still largely unexplored. This research is the first to examine “you” brand names and also sheds light on how another marketing variable – positioning – impacts consumer preference for pronoun brand names. Finally, this work shows that such effects are more pronounced for those with higher self-esteem.

The horror genre is and always has been populated by women, who can be seen to be at once both objectified and empowered. Building off the preexisting gender hierarchies and dynamics embedded in the history of horror cinema, this chapter looks at a number of New French Extremity films that assault audiences with unrelenting scenes of violence, torture and self-mutilation, which are performed almost exclusively upon or by women. Although the films of the New French Extremity have been dismissed as exploitative in their representations of wounded and suffering female bodies, their narratives also offer internal criticisms of the misogynistic portals of victimhood that are prevalent in the genre. Through a close analysis of the films Inside (Bustillo & Maury, 2007) (French title: À L’intérieur) and Martyrs (Laugier, 2008), this chapter will examine how both films deviate from the male monster/female victim dichotomy. Although the women of these films may start off vulnerable, they take charge of their situations, while also compacting the nature of feminine identity.

The purpose of this study is to examine the negotiation tactics used in business-to-business (B2B) negotiations in creative sectors and to shed light on some of the characteristics of creative sectors that might drive these behaviors.

This is a multiple-case study involving interviews with 18 creative sector negotiators engaged in B2B negotiations.

The findings suggest that negotiators in B2B firms in creative sectors use a variety of negotiation tactics to reach agreement, but that there are some differences compared with other sectors. One group of tactics, not represented in existing taxonomies, is identified and termed closure-seeking tactics, referring to tactics intended to speed up the negotiation process and reach agreement as quickly as possible. The reasons for creative sector negotiators’ choice of closure-seeking tactics might stem from their desire to expedite the start of new projects to enable them to fulfill their creative drive.

In addition to the identification of group of tactics observed in creative sectors, but not anticipated by existing research, the findings indicate that negotiators in creative sectors seem to lack interest in, and expertise for, negotiating and might be driven more by the desire to get on with the creative process than by concerns over monetary gains when negotiating. This could reflect unique characteristics of creative sectors and the people who work in these sectors.

This work offers new insights and understanding about tactics used in B2B negotiations in creative sectors. These findings have important implications for both practitioners in creative sectors, who might be too eager to reach closure quickly, and practitioners negotiating with firms in creative sectors, who need to understand the unique characteristics of these firms.

The originality of this work lies in its consideration of tactics used in B2B negotiations in the under-studied context of creative sectors and investigation of the reasons that drive the choice of tactics.

This paper aims to observe the possible relationship between skin color, sun exposure level, UV protection and food intake and serum levels of 25(OH) D in Japanese older adults.

Elderly (n = 131; 65-93 years old), followed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology in the Kusatsu (36°N) received a self-applicable questionnaire about the quantity and quality of the daily sun exposure and behavior to avoid the sun. A color analyzer measured each red (R), green (G) and blue (B) component of skin color, and dietary vitamin D was estimated by food frequency questionnaire. Serum 25(OH) D levels were collected and categorized as sufficiency (>30 ng/mL), insufficiency (between 20 and 30 ng/mL) and deficiency (<20 ng/mL).

High proportion of participants had insufficiency (53 per cent) and deficiency (25 per cent) levels of 25(OH) D. Insufficiency levels were more prevalent in women (57 per cent, p = 0.048) and in participants that use gloves (49 per cent, p = 0.054) and sunscreen on face (76 per cent, p = 0.003) as a sun protection way. Participants with sufficiency levels of 25(OH) D presented lower values of R (p = 0.067), G (p = 0. 007) and B (p = 0.001) of skin color (what is meaning darker skin) and a higher fish intake (12 times per week).

The study is a cross-sectional design and brings a potential for measurement error in the recorded subjective variables. There is a memory bias in self-reported sun exposure and food consumption; however, in the multivariate analysis, it was demonstrated a significant association. Second, although the authors have sought to evaluate a number of variables that could affect the skin’s ability to synthesize vitamin D, there are many other factors that may affect this ability that could not be accounted for. Another limitation was the assessment of self-reported ultraviolet exposure data rather than direct measurement of exposure.

It was also concluded that darker skin color (a surrogate of longer-term sun exposure) participants had a lower prevalence of vitamin D insufficiency in this ethnic homogeneous population. When accessing patients’ skin color, the clinician must account for his or her ethnicity.

Governments should regulate supplementation or food fortification with vitamin D, with special focus in countries with geographical location of insufficient solar radiation for skin synthesis of this vitamin. With this, it becomes a priority that a safe sun exposure ensures the sufficient serum levels of 25 (OH) D without the use of supplements.

This report was the first to analyze skin color components associated to vitamin D levels, finding that blue and green colors were significant. The clinical implication of this find is yet to understand. It was also concluded that darker skin color (a surrogate of longer-term sun exposure) participants had a lower prevalence of vitamin D insufficiency in this ethnic homogeneous population. When accessing patients’ skin color, the clinician must account for his or her ethnicity.