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Retailers who stay open for longer times may be overestimating demand during these times and might struggle to turn round a profit by operating extended trading hours. This paper aims to analyse the frequency and time at which consumers make unscheduled store visits in order to suggest ways that retailers might use to attract more patronage in this mode of grocery shopping.

The research methodology includes administration of a structured questionnaire among randomly selected shoppers, exiting two supermarkets across a major Australian city. The survey seeks information about various aspects of shopping behaviour, in a range of contexts and within selected demographics. Two econometric models aimed at predicting frequencies and times of the day that shoppers do unscheduled shopping are constructed.

The study identifies shopping profiles of consumers who are inclined to make unscheduled visits to the grocers.

The investigation does not discriminate between idiosyncratic unscheduled purchase behaviour during extended trading times on weekdays and weekends. Greater understanding of the extenuating factors that encourage unscheduled shopping on Sundays will give an added dimension to the policy issues debate on Sunday trading.

Retailers can attempt to condition their patrons to expand purchases during the time the store keeps its doors open longer.

The findings could impel retailers during the extended trading times, to take affirmative actions to make customers' unscheduled visits more experiential, and help the stores achieve higher customer outlays.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe a study, conducted in Thailand, which examined the working class and middle class consumers’ evaluation and purchase intentions of high equity versus low equity Thai fashion labels of sophisticated and standard apparel, outsourced for production to three Asian countries of varying manufacturing competence. Design/methodology/approach – Data from a field survey was analysed through a 2×2×3 factorial design and the influence of a particular factor over the others in specific scenarios was observed. Findings – Consumers from both social classes are inclined to be partial to a specific quality dimension of their national brands made abroad. When considering purchase of reputed brands of standard products, working class consumers are particularly concerned about the item's country‐of‐origin (COO). On the other hand, middle class consumers’ apprehensions of multi‐featured products’ COO run across both high and low equity brands. Research limitations/implications – Common methods bias may have occurred in this study as a result of respondents in the self‐report survey wanting to avoid cognitive dissonance, trying to correlate their responses with their answers to previous questions. Practical implications – Consumers belonging to a particular social segment in the brands’ home country can be encouraged to buy their national brands produced abroad on the promise that these products will deliver their favoured quality features. Originality/value – The research results are presented in the form of a consumer typology based on the dimensions of perceived quality, and explain the effect of the interaction of country's competence, brand equity and product purchase involvement on middle class and working class consumers’ evaluation and purchase intention of brands outsourced for production abroad.

An economic analysis is presented of the Standard Reinsurance Agreement (SRA), the contract governing the relationship between the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation and the private insurance companies that deliver crop insurance products to farmers. The paper outlines provisions of the SRA and describes the modeling methodology behind the SRA simulator, a computer program developed to assist crop insurers and policy makers in assessing the economic impact of the Agreement. The simulator is then used to analyze how the SRA affects returns from underwriting crop insurance. The results are presented in aggregate and also at the regional and individual company levels.

The following bibliography focuses mainly on programs which can run on IBM microcomputers and compatibles under the operating system PC DOS/MS DOS, and which can be used in online information and documentation work. They fall into the following categories:

Studies of the city traditionally posit a division between a city’s economy and its culture, with culture subordinate in explanatory power to “work.” However, post-industrial and globalizing trends are dramatically elevating the importance of culture. Cultural activities are increasingly crucial to urban economic vitality. Models to explain the growth of cities from the era of industrial manufacturing are outmoded. Loss of heavy industry impacts the dynamics of urban growth, increasing the relative importance of the city both as a space of consumption and as a site for “production” which is distinctly symbolic/expressive. Some have seen globalization, the wired city, and electronic communication as destroying cities as proximity should decline in importance. This may be correct for some production concerns, but this in turn raises questions about consumption versus production decisions affecting urban growth and dynamics. Even in a former industrial power like Chicago, the number one industry has become entertainment, which city officials define to include tourism, conventions, restaurants, hotels, and related economic activities. Citizens in the postindustrial city increasingly make “quality of life” demands, treating their own urban location as if tourists, emphasizing aesthetic concerns. These practices impact considerations about the proper nature of amenities that post-industrial cities can sustain. The city increasingly becomes an Entertainment Machine, leveraging culture to enhance its economic well being. The entertainment components of cities are actively and strategically produced through political and economic processes. Entertainment becomes the work of many urban participants. We elaborate this theme in general and illustrate its force with case study materials from Chicago and a national study of U.S. mayors in cities over 25,000 in population.

This study aims to analyse the influence of the pillars (hard and soft skills) of digital academic entrepreneurship on students' entrepreneurial intention.

This was done by adopting a quantitative methodology involving empirical research with a sample of 761 university students from two countries and adopting structural equation analysis to validate the theoretical model proposed.

The results indicate a direct influence between hard and soft skills and entrepreneurial intention, and a positive, indirect influence between these and entrepreneurial intention mediated by the dimensions of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) – entrepreneurial attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control. Therefore, the pillars of digital academic entrepreneurship have a direct and indirect influence on university students' entrepreneurial intention.

This study also contributes to better operationalization of entrepreneurial education in university environments, since the development of hard and soft skills can be planned better based on the model proposed here. Considering the relations between the dimensions of hard and soft skills and those of TPB, this study shows there can be an influence on students' entrepreneurial intention.

In this study, a new and innovative construct is inserted in the model of entrepreneurial intention: “structural pillars of digital academic entrepreneurship” through structural equation modelling, to determine the degree of influence of these pillars (hard and soft skills) constructs on HEI students' entrepreneurial intention.