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E-commerce platforms offer service guarantees (SGs) to improve consumers’ perceived quality and satisfaction. This survey aimed to test the direct and indirect effects of SGs on consumers’ perceived quality and satisfaction concerning the services of an international e-commerce platform.

The survey sample consisted of 378 consumers of an international e-commerce platform. Structural equation modelling (SEM) tested two structural models.

The first hypothetical model demonstrated that SGs positively and directly affects perceived quality and consumers' satisfaction on an e-commerce platform. This model also revealed that the perceived quality directly and positively impacted consumer satisfaction. The second hypothetical model confirmed that perceived quality mediates the relationship between SGs and satisfaction. Moreover, SGs positively and indirectly impacts consumer satisfaction.

This study suggests that e-commerce platforms use SGs as a marketing strategy in their business models to increase perceived quality and consumer satisfaction. However, to positively impact the perception of quality and consumer satisfaction, such SGs must have the following characteristics: unconditional, easy to understand and communicate, meaningful, easy and painless to invoke, and easy and quick to collect.

This research demonstrated the direct effects of SGs on perceived quality and consumer satisfaction on an international e-commerce platform. SGs directly impacts consumer satisfaction with the platform, even if they have not experienced its quality attributes (reliability, customisation, security and design). The indirect effects of SGs on consumer satisfaction were also proven, mediated by perceived quality. No previous study demonstrated such relationships simultaneously on e-commerce platforms.

The purpose of this paper is to assess whether greater participation of venture capital/private equity (VC/PE) funds in the companies’ capital structure at the moment of initial public offering (IPO) contributes to the reduction in the underpricing of their shares.

Descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, mean difference test and cross-sectional regression were used. The final sample consisted of 89 companies making IPO in Brasil Bolsa Balcão between 2007 and 2017.

The participation of VC/PE funds was shown to mitigate the effect of information asymmetry on managers and shareholders, thus reducing the underpricing of companies at the moment of IPO (H1). However, the expectation that a greater participation of these funds promotes further reduction in a potential underpricing (H2) was not confirmed.

One can highlight the small amount of IPOs during the sampling period due to the occurrence of international and national economic crises, as well as the difficulty in obtaining information on the participation of VC/PE funds in the companies’ capital structure.

It was observed that information asymmetry had a mitigating effect from the presence of these funds in the companies, which can improve the pricing of their shares, decrease the costs and make volume captions viable for investments, in addition to giving credibility to the market information effectiveness.

This study differs from others in that it assesses not only the influence of VC/PE funds on the reduction of the underpricing of IPO shares, but also the participation of these funds in the capital of these companies.

The aim is to describe the analysis conducted by a leading company in the dairy (yogurt and fermented milk) sector in Brazil regarding the decision to implement a door‐to‐door distribution channel, in which one of the authors was involved.

A brief overview of the marketing channels is presented and the descriptive case study method was used to present the main company information.

The paper describes the decision‐making process that was used to define how basic services like breaking bulks, product variety, special convenience and wait time should be performed in this case. It also emphasizes the main channel decisions, the channel objectives and the chosen door‐to‐door structure for the company described in the case study.

Even though case analysis has a theoretical background, the decision process used here cannot be generalized, being only a guide for academics and practitioners about how company A addressed the direct marketing issue.

The paper presents specific analysis of the Brazilian yogurt market and use as theoretical background the strategic environmental analysis. As a real case, it can be useful for practitioners as reference for decision making, as well for teaching purposes for case studies with college and MBA students. Finally, the paper presents as main contribution a “method for developing new marketing channels”.

Investigates the differences in protocols between arbitral tribunals and courts, with particular emphasis on US, Greek and English law. Gives examples of each country and its way of using the law in specific circumstances, and shows the variations therein. Sums up that arbitration is much the better way to gok as it avoids delays and expenses, plus the vexation/frustration of normal litigation. Concludes that the US and Greek constitutions and common law tradition in England appear to allow involved parties to choose their own judge, who can thus be an arbitrator. Discusses e‐commerce and speculates on this for the future.

The purpose of this paper is to describe generic eating out experiences that can be provided by commercial eating out establishments, presenting a typology of experience providers.

The research carried out sought to make an understanding of the experiential environments in which eating-out is performed, as well as the experiences that it seeks to produce, and was conducted from a market-orientated ethnography in selected markets from the UK and Brazil.

Six ideal models of service providers, according to the main characteristics of the stimulus provided by the service encounter, were identified: authentic, relaxed, “all you can eat”, “as home”, efficient and distinction environment. The diversity of food service environments is somehow an answer to the diversity of customers and expectations regarding eating-out. The access of different social classes to eating-out opens the space for more variety, and the creativity that food service managers have on building an appropriate set of stimulus, is a distinctive skill.

The restaurant side of experience encounters was the focus of analysis, but for a deeper understanding of experiential consumption on eating out these results must be confronted to consumer research based on psychophysical methods to assess consumer responses to eating out.

Theoretical implications of this paper rely on the understanding that there are distinct forms of service encounters, providing an alternative view of servicescapes that allows a better understanding of business strategies and host-guest relationships on food service.

In 1969, Warren Nutter left the University of Virginia Department of Economics to serve as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs in the Nixon administration. During his time in the Defense Department, Nutter was deeply involved in laying the groundwork for a military coup against the democratically elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende. Although Nutter left the Pentagon several months before the successful 1973 coup, his role in Chile was far more direct than the better-known cases of Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, James Buchanan, and Arnold Harberger. This chapter describes Nutter’s role in Chile policymaking in the Nixon administration. It shows how Nutter’s criticisms of Henry Kissinger are grounded in his economics, and compares and contrasts Nutter with other economists who have been connected to Pinochet’s dictatorship.

This study began with the following question: how hospitality concepts have contributed to the quality of cities and to the qualification of urban tourist destinations. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the historical evolution of the concepts of hospitality and their implications in the contemporary concept of the hospitality of the built space.

In this study an analytical empirical approach was used, focusing on the concepts and paradigms that support the studies of the hospitality of built space. The method was based on the representation of hospitality as spatial reading indexes according to the categories of analysis: identity, accessibility, and readability, as stated by Grinover (2007), Raymond (1997) and Lynch (1997). The empirical study, in the Brazilian context, took as its object of analysis the urban hospitality of the three cities that were capitals of Brazil throughout its history: Salvador da Bahia, Rio de Janeiro and Brasília.

The results of the research confirm the pertinence of the categories of analysis proposed for the understanding of hospitality of the built space and proposes other categories of analysis related to accessibility in its interfaces with identity and readability.

This study can contribute with new understandings in the field of the hospitality of the built space as support to public managers and trade tourist managers that can give quality to the urban space for tourists, and for the citizens as well. Because, in the Brazilian context, the formulation of public policies for public transport services, mobility, accessibility and recreation areas are linked to public managers; in the same way that private initiatives and incentives for leisure, entertainment, and tourism are linked to the managers of the tourist trade.

New possibilities of the understanding of urban hospitality in tourist destinations by the categories of analysis listed – identity, readability and accessibility. Accessibility was the spatial condition that most needed attention as urban hospitality in the Brazilian tourist destinations studied. Otherwise, a contribution was made to the area of study in urban hospitality, given the scarcity of scientific literature on the subject.

The paper contributes to the literature on investment and poverty in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Specifically, the study examined the separate role of private and public investment in poverty reduction in a panel of 40 sub-Saharan African countries.

For robustness, the study adopts a variety of estimation techniques. These include the fixed effect (within) regression model, the two-step system generalised method of moments (GMM) and the pooled OLS with Driscoll-Kraay robust standard errors to account for the well-known problems of endogeneity, heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependence inherent in panel data.

The empirical results show that the reducing impact of public investment on poverty is marginal, while private investment has a significant reducing impact on poverty. The study also found that access to social services, such as water and sanitation, and credit are important determinants of investment in SSA. The research and policy implications are discussed.

The study investigated the separate effect of private and public investments on poverty in SSA, unlike the existing studies that adopted total investment.