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The purpose of this paper is to adopt the uses and gratifications theory (Katz et al., 1974) to understand the phenomenon of relationship building on Facebook. In addition to company-related uses and gratifications, self-related uses and gratifications – expressing self-concept and seeking social interactions and entertainment – were identified. Company reputation and tribalism were incorporated in the theoretical model as underlying mechanisms to explain the effect of the company Facebook page usage on relationship building and engagement behaviors.

A survey was conducted in a Southeastern university in the USA with 459 college students. A three-phased model was proposed and analyzed using structural equational modeling.

The study results demonstrated that the use and gratification of expressing self-concept led to better perceptions of company tribalism and improved relational outcomes (trust and satisfaction). Company-related uses and gratifications, on the other hand, increased trust and satisfaction by increasing perceived company reputation. Satisfaction was found to significantly encourage individuals’ word-of-mouth activities about the company as well as Facebook engagement.

Although extensive research has been conducted on the topic of companies’ social media pages, most prior studies focused on company communication practices and strategies. This study explored this phenomenon from the public’s perspective regarding various usage motivations and patterns. Company tribalism, as a relatively new concept, was introduced to explain how expressing self-concept through companies’ social media pages could benefit relationship building and eventually result in engagement behaviors.

This lecture series on Symbolic Interaction, Sociology, and Changing Society is designed to present productive and provocative scholars who have addressed critical issues in creative ways and offered new directions to pursue. Professor Michael Schwalbe (North Carolina State University) was chosen to be the second speaker in the series because of his insightful, imaginative, and important scholarship on inequality.

This case study draws on interviews conducted with officials from the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM), City of Woonsocket and Town of North Smithfield. Additionally, it pulls from relevant legal documents, recordings and minutes from meetings of the Woonsocket City Council and North Smithfield Town Council, City Council resolutions, state legislation and local press coverage.

From 2012–2017, the communities of Woonsocket and North Smithfield engaged in a protracted dispute concerning wastewater disposal. For 30 years, the two jurisdictions had maintained a signed service agreement. Following its expiration; however, Woonsocket imposed a new host fee on North Smithfield. Woonsocket needed to upgrade the facility to comply with mandates from the RI DEM. Over the next five years, leaders from both jurisdictions vociferously fought over the new fee. At the same time, leaders within communities experienced their own divisions. This case study highlights the challenges that decision-makers faced in both communities.

This case is appropriate for graduate and executive level courses in environmental policy, communication and leadership.

Since the 1960s there have been over twenty attempts at changing the ambiguous and confusing 1950 Shops Act; the most spectacular failure was the most recent attempt, the Shops Bill in April 1986. This piece of legislation foundered although it carried the support of the Prime Minister, her Cabinet, and a sizeable number in the House of Commons. In all cases attempts to change the legislation has been successfully blocked by a coalition of churchmen, trades unions, some retailers and other committed sections of the general public. The latest attempt, in the form of a (Tory) Private Member's Bill, is currently under way. Its thrust is a much more watered‐down set of proposals than those suggested in the Auld Report (and subsequent 1986 Shops Bill), calling for only DIY stores and garden centres to be allowed to open on a Sunday. Dr Clements takes a look at the implications these proposals might have on enforcement of the law, and reports the findings of two consumer studies that suggest that the proposals are not going far enough for many consumers. Empirical data referred to in the paper is drawn from two studies, each of over 1,000 households randomly selected in North Staffordshire, in November 1983 and again in November 1985.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the transportation environment triggers, exacerbates and sustains truckers’ risks for obesity and associated morbidities.

An extensive literature review of PubMed Central and TRANSPORT databases was conducted on truckers’ obesity risks and 120 journal articles were identified for closer evaluation. From these, populations, exposures, and relevant outcomes were evaluated within the framework of the broad transportation environment.

Connections between the transportation environment and truckers’ risks for obesity‐associated comorbidities were delineated, and an original conceptual framework was developed to illustrate links between the two. This framework addresses links not only between the transportation environment and trucker obesity risks but also with other health strains – applicable to other transport occupational segments. Moreover, it provides direction for preliminary environmental‐scale interventions to curb trucker obesity. The utilization of this framework further underscores the need for: an appraisal of the health parameters of trucking worksites; assessment of truckers’ obesity‐risk trajectories, and examination of potential causality between the transportation environment, inactivity and diet‐related morbidities; and the development, implementation and evaluation of interventions to mitigate trucker obesity. While there is a geographic emphasis on North America, data and assertions of this paper are applicable to trucking sectors of many industrialized nations.

The paper brings to light the influences of the transportation environment on trucker obesity‐associated morbidity risks.

Industrial robots are increasingly used by many manufacturing firms. The number of robot manufacturers has also increased, with many of these firms now offering a wide range of robots. A potential user is thus faced with many options in both performance and cost. Proposes a decision model for the robot selection problem using both a robustified Mahalanobis distance analysis, i.e. a multivariate distance measure, and principal‐components analysis. Unlike most other models for robot selection, this model takes into consideration the fact that a robot′s performance, as specified by the manufacturer, is often unobtainable in reality. The robots selected by the proposed model become candidates for factory testing to verify manufacturers′ specifications. Tests the proposed model on a real data set and presents an example.

In July 1985 the government decided in favour of major reform of wages councils. It restricted their scope to setting minimum hourly and overtime rates of pay and removed people under 21 completely from their coverage. This raises questions about the functions of wages councils within the British industrial relations system. There is a need to adopt an industrial relations perspective on wages councils. Contemporary debate on the continued usefulness of wages councils is biased against them by virtue of failing to recognise that they exist not only to protect workers from low pay, but also represent state attempts to create collective bargaining and industrial democracy in situations where the capacity of workers for collective organisation has been too low to support voluntary developments. All these different identities of wages councils need to be understood and combined to achieve a comprehensive conception of their actual significance. There is a need for more research based on appropriate methodologies, studying the wages council sector itself and for studies to measure the effects of wages councils on efficiency and productivity.

Extreme temperature and humidity are major causes of errors in industrial precision and in dimensional measurement. In addition, hot and/or humid workplaces have adverse effects on humans which include reduced work time due to more frequent and longer breaks, reduced production rates, and increased error rates. Managers considering investments in air conditioning their manufacturing facilities must weigh many uncertain benefits against more certain costs. In this paper, we identify the benefits resulting from air conditioning manufacturing facilities and develop a Monte Carlo computer simulation model to evaluate investments in air conditioning. The model uses projected incremental cash flows to compute net present value and internal rate of return. Simulation is used to take into account the uncertainty associated with projecting the benefits of air conditioning, deal with possible correlation among some benefits of air conditioning, and sensitize decision makers to the range of possible outcomes. The proposed model is programmed into user‐friendly menu‐driven software which is tested on actual cases and is illustrated in this paper.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the importance of having conversations with staff regarding organizational change and financial futures.

This article refers to several relevant works already published.

The book and articles discussed provide guidelines for preparing for and having staff discussions.

This point of view is based on the author's experiences and actions on related matters.

It has often been said that a great part of the strength of Aslib lies in the fact that it brings together those whose experience has been gained in many widely differing fields but who have a common interest in the means by which information may be collected and disseminated to the greatest advantage. Lists of its members have, therefore, a more than ordinary value since they present, in miniature, a cross‐section of institutions and individuals who share this special interest.