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Owing to their growing numbers and importance, both managers and researchers are increasingly concerned with the work experiences of boundary‐spanning employees. Employee perceptions of organizational support (POS) may be particularly relevant to this crucial employee group. Thus reports a study of the relations between two individual‐level and two organizational‐level antecedents to boundary‐spanner POS. The results indicate that employee gender, amount of formal organizational recognition received, and the quality of task‐related training are associated with POS. However, type of employee pay plan is not. Concludes with a discussion of these findings and their implications for effectively managing boundary‐spanning employee POS.

Examines the concept of institutional (university) image from a cultural studies approach and from a quantitative perspective. Building on these and other research findings, posits that multiple changing images exist within each individual and that these images are affected by certain factors. Examines university image from an external stakeholder perspective, based on a telephone survey study of respondents from across the university’s home state. The results confirm multi‐image conceptualization of the university setting and, importantly, examine the factors – personal, environmental, and organizational – that give rise to the multiple image concept. Complementing much corporate image research that views image(s) as primarily controlled by the organization, these findings suggest that corporate image, considered also as a receiver‐oriented and audience‐specific construct, can vary as a function of other, external, determining factors but that organizational factors are, nevertheless, very influential factors for one’s decision making about image.

Noting the recent wave of books on business and spirituality, the editor of a business journal recently sardonically observed that there must be more Zen in American boardrooms than in Buddhist monasteries. While the spirituality of business may be withering, the business of spirituality appears only too alive. Elmer Gantry has left the revivalist tents and entered the convention hall circuit of motivational speakers and corporate awards banquets.

This paper analyzes the impact of menu descriptions on the selection of menu items. Furthermore, this paper examines the relationship between menu descriptions and the perceived value of the item.

This study uses the different components of prospect theory (e.g. anchoring effects and framing effects). An experimental research design using mock menus was used to investigate the impact of item presentation, item selections, and menu descriptions on consumer judgments of consumer choice and price value.

The results found that detailed menu descriptions negated the impact of the price increases on the menu items.

The implications of this study are valuable to restaurateurs because it shows that menu descriptions have the potential to increase revenue while also increasing the value perception. The study can also be applied to similar competing restaurants. Restaurants can be successful when magnifying the differences with detailed descriptions.

The implications of this study can aid restaurateurs that are either developing new menus or increasing their prices. Restaurateurs are encouraged to provide a more detailed menu description in order to increase the perceived value by the guest.

This study creates new knowledge that addresses issues significant enough to warrant intellectual engagement. It fills a gap in the academic and practitioner literature by examining a profitable yet understudied cottage industry (artisan vendors). It examines marketing concepts that influence dedication to authentic craftsmanship and artisans' willingness to continue in the industry.

This study examines historical evidence and connects it with subjective and interpretive analyses from 29 in-depth interviews of today's US artisan vendors to identify sustainable marketing best practices for the industry.

Researchers uncovered factors behind artisan vendors' willingness to stay committed to their craft and remain in the industry. From the findings of this study, marketing best practices (branding, brand communities and product adaptation while remaining authentic to their craft) were identified as tools for resilience and remaining a viable competitor in the marketplace.

Historically, artisan vendors have been engaging in marketing practices before terms defined their activities. Thus, this study is original in that it contributes to the academic literature by first conducting an analysis of the history of an understudied cottage industry (artisan vendors) starting in the Mesopotamian Era. The key marketing factors discovered in the historical study contributing to the resilience of this industry were then used to conceptualize a qualitative study of the highly profitable US artisan vendor industry.

This study compares the strategies and impact of six British activist groups, as documented in 1997, with data gathered on the same groups in 2000. These groups, Voice of the Listener and Viewer, Campaign for Quality Television, Deaf Broadcasting Council, Consumers Association, National Consumers Council and National Listeners and Viewers Association, attempted to build a public sphere for generating debate around and catalysing changes to broadcasting policies and programming. They were tracked in 2000 in order to identify those issues, relationships and groups that had endured. The research design provided a telescopic look at their interactions with their targets and with each other during a period of rapid technological and industry change. In a multichannel broadcasting environment where convergence and globalisation are buzzwords, activists used public relations to create a broader public forum for a wide range of significant issues with which to engage demographically, psychographically and geographically diverse publics. The ensuing media education, media advocacy and relationship building, although elite in origins, strengthened democratic discourse, thus reaffirming broadcasting’s invaluable role in civil society.

Adjustment to the new locale is one of the primary factors that influence performance on an international assignment. The purpose of this paper is to propose a model that depicts how online social networks may contribute to international assignees’ adjustment via their influence on well-being and knowledge transfer.

The present research uses network theory and readily available technology to develop a model of how online supportive social networks and informational social networks may increase the international assignee’s well-being and knowledge transfer (with prior/next assignees and with the organization). These increases will subsequently have a positive impact on the assignee’s adjustment and ultimately his/her job performance.

Since this paper is conceptual rather than empirical, there are no findings; however, it is argued that online social networks may have a positive impact on an expatriate’s well-being, knowledge transfer, adjustment, and job performance.

This paper is a conceptual piece, so data will need to be collected to test the model developed here. Furthermore, other factors may influence international assignee adjustment, such as spouse and/or family adjustment.

Suggestions are provided regarding how organizations can utilize in-house or external online social networks to assist international assignees.

Despite the ubiquity of online social networks, there is a paucity of research examining the potential impact of online social networks on international assignees.