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Scientific knowledge is usually regarded as the basis for the management of natural environment and wildlife in ecotourism. However, recently, social construction approaches challenge the domination of natural science. This study aims to examine the effectiveness of the social construction paradigm in ecotourism management, through conducting a content analysis of social media comments on an accident caused by a monkey in a Chinese ecotourism area. The results show that people commented on the accident from five aspects. First, the public expressed their compassion and mourning for the deceased. Second, people thought that the death was casual and absurd, yet life is full of uncertainty and people should cherish the present. Third, people commented much on the deceased tourist’s company, which is a famous sugar brand well entrenched in many Chinese people’s childhood memories. Fourth, people constructed the monkey as Monkey King, Golden Monkey (another famous sugar brand in China) and as a criminal. Fifth, people also gave their opinions about possible causes of the accident, namely, it was caused by “the mandate of heaven,” company competition, conspiracies or poor management. This study only seriously considers the comments about the mandate of heaven. This explanation is consistent with the Chinese traditional construction of nature as “heaven,” which is believed to dominate the natural and human worlds. Most people, including the managers, accepted the accident and did not explore further about the reasons for the accident. In this case, such a social construction of nature does not aid effective ecotourism management.

Purpose – Responding negatively to inequity is not a uniquely human trait. Some of our closest evolutionary ancestors respond negatively when treated less well than a conspecific. Comparative work between humans and other primates can help elucidate the evolutionary underpinnings of humans’ social preferences.

Methodology/approach – Results from studies of nonhuman primates, in particular chimpanzees and capuchin monkeys, are presented in comparison to human results that have been collected during economic game studies in humans, such as in the Ultimatum Game or Impunity Game.

Findings – Among nonhuman primates, a frequent behavioral reaction to inequity is to refuse to continue the interaction. While in some cases this response appears to be caused by the inequitable distribution, in others, it seems to be caused by another individual's inequitable behavior. While these reactions are similar to those of humans, this reaction does not appear to be a sense of fairness in the way that we think of it in humans. Neither nonhuman primate species alters their behavior when they are the benefited individual, and in an experimental situation, chimpanzees do not alter their behavior to obtain food for their partner as well as for themselves.

Originality/value of the chapter – Although there are differences between human and nonhuman primate responses, such studies allow us to better understand the evolution of our own responses to inequity. Given the strong behavioral reactions that even monkeys show to inequitable treatment, it is not surprising that humans are concerned with equity. Such comparisons increase understanding of issues such as healthcare disparities in humans.

The litmus test for evaluating a true outsourcing offer as opposed to a reengineering project is called the monkey test. Consider any particular set of context responsibilities [those that do not affect share price] as the monkey. The question is, at the end of the day, Who has the monkey on their back? The fundamental value of any outsourcing offer is to move the monkey from you back to theirs. If the monkey stays on yours, you have not won back any of the scarce resources needed in the age of the Internet—you still are allocating time, talent, and management attention to managing the monkey. That's a bad deal. But conversely, if you can truly free yourself from the monkey, then regardless of whether there is an immediate cost reduction to take to the bottom lie, you have won the key battle of capturing scarce resources to refocus on core activity.

In this chapter, I use the term “biopolitics” to mean evolutionarily informed political science. Politics has been characterized as “Who gets what, when, and how” (Lasswell, 1936), but rather than about material possessions, politics is understood to be about power, more specifically about collective power, especially differential group power competition, hierarchy and stratification in power distribution, and the universal struggle to enhance power, and to maintain or challenge/destroy this status quo. Politics “should be found in any system of nature in which conflicts of interest exist among cooperating organic units” (Johnson, 1995, p. 279). My main focus will be competitive intergroup relations in monkeys and apes, or as I (van der Dennen, 1995) called it “intergroup agonistic behavior” (IAB). I also briefly treat interindividual and intercoalitionary agonistic behavior when relevant.

Information about Volkswagen’s human and animal testing was obtained from the secondary sources cited.

In 2014, Volkswagen (VW), BMW and Daimler funded an institute to conduct research to support their position that diesel engines are cleaner and safer than other fuel alternatives. One of the research studies conducted by the institute examined the effects of diesel fumes on humans and monkeys. Researchers put ten macaque monkeys in sealed rooms and pumped in exhaust fumes from a Volkswagen Beetle for four hours. For comparison, another group of monkeys was exposed to fumes from an older Ford pickup. The monkeys were later anesthetized and examined to see what the fumes did to their bodies. Other tests involved willing human subjects who were exposed to similar conditions.

This case is applicable to upper-level management or business ethics class.

The purpose of this paper is to summarize the current research in disciplines outside marketing that applies to price fairness: research by behavioral economists, primate behavior researchers and social neuroscientists.

The approach is descriptive, summarizing the extensive research into fairness being done in disciplines other than marketing.

Research outside marketing indicates that a fair price is a preference. It has social utility that is independent of the economic utility of a low price. Consumers can actually harm themselves to punish what they perceive to be an unfair price. Conversely, a fair price triggers the reward center of the mind, stimulating happiness. The research also indicates that the response to a fair or unfair price is emotional: fast and automatic. The strength of that emotional response to unfairness varies across people. However, despite the variation in reactions, to ignore the concern for fairness is to miss a major motivation in economic decision making.

The fairness research in other disciplines both supports and informs the marketing research into what constitutes a fair price and how people respond to price (un)fairness.

The Scopes Monkey Trial is a landmark court case in American history and has often been referred to as “The Trial of the Century.” It provides a curricular platform for understanding changes in American society, populace tensions with shifting social and moral views, gaps in economic prosperity, and the outcomes of urbanization. Studying this pivotal and historical trial – along with the context surrounding it – offers readers a dynamic lens to view powerful social and cultural insights at the beginning of the twentieth century. Additionally, academic freedom issues, which have a history in our nation's courts, (Patterson & Chandler, 2008) as well as current dialogue among educators (see the November/December issue of Social Education), and are at the very center of the Scopes Trial, require critical examination. Most importantly, it exemplifies the type of interdisciplinary content social studies educators should be promoting, a goal of 21^st Century Teaching and Learning and Common Core Standards. In this article, we provide a brief historical context setting the stage for the Scopes Monkey Trial, a daily synopsis of significant points in the trial, a rationale for teaching the Scopes Trial, and instructional teaching resources with particular emphasis on books, DVD/media, and web-based materials.

This narrative inquiry centers on teachers' longitudinal experiences of policy-related reforms systematically introduced to T. P. Yaeger Middle School, a campus located in the fourth largest, second most diverse city in America. The embedded research study, with roots tracing back to 1997, uses five interpretive tools to capture six mandated changes in the form of a story serial. Special research attention is afforded pay-for-performance, the sixth reform in the series. The deeply lived consequence of receiving bonuses for his teaching performance prompted Daryl Wilson, Yaeger's long-term literacy department chair, to proclaim “data is [G]od.” Wilson's emergent, inventive metaphor aptly portrays the perplexing conditions under which his career ended, and how my long-term research project likewise concluded.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to bring data to suggest that group processes have a biological base, lodged in human neurology as it evolved over the last 7 million years.

Design/methodology/approach – The method for discovering the neurological basis of group processes is labelled evolutionary sociology, and this method revolves around: (1) cladistic analysis of traits of distant ancestors to humans and the great apes, with whom humans share a very high proportion of genes, (2) comparative neurology between the great apes and humans that can inform us about how the brains of humans were rewired from the structures shared by the last common ancestor to humans and apes, and (3) ecological analysis of the habitats and niches that generated selection pressures on the neurology of apes and hominins.

Findings – A key finding is that most of the interpersonal processes that drive group processes are neurologically based and evolved before the brain among hominins was sufficiently large to generate systems of symbols organized in cultural texts remotely near the human measure. There is, then, good reason to study the neurological basis of behavior because neurology explains more about the dynamics of interpersonal behavior than does culture, which was a very late arrival to the hominin line.

Research implications – One implication of these findings is that social scientific analysis of interpersonal processes and group dynamics can no longer assume that groups are solely a constructed process, mediated by culture and social structure. There were powerful selection pressures during the course of hominin evolution to increase hominin sociality and especially group formation, which required considerable rewiring of the basic ape brain. Since groups are not “natural” to apes in general and even to an evolved ape-like humans, it is important to discover how humans ever became group-organizing animals. The answer resides in the dramatic enhancing of emotions in hominins and humans, which shifts attention away from the neocortex to the older subcortical areas of the brain. Once this shift is made, theorizing and research, as well as public views on human sociality, need to be recast as, first, an evolved biological trait and, only second, as a most tenuous and fragile of a big-brained animal using language and culture to construct its social world.

Originality/value – The value of this kind of analysis is to liberate sociology and the social sciences in general from simplistic views that, because humans have language and can use language to construct culture and social structures, the underlying biology and neurology of human action is not relevant to understanding the social world. Indeed, just the opposite is the case: to the extent that social scientists insist upon a social constructionists research agenda, they will fail to conceptualize and perform research on more fundamental forces in the social world, including group dynamics.

Reviews the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints practical implications from cutting‐edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

A comprehensive needs analysis supported the development, implementation and auditing of an effective and interactive training package. Employees responded positively to the activities, and subsequent changes in working practices produced an overall rise in their firm's productivity. JaywingDMG provided training materials that were retained by Moorhouse Group Ltd. Employees kept individual training materials such as workbooks for future reference. Other parts of the training were later adapted for use in the induction process for new starters. This case study illustrates an holistic approach to training which is far removed from the “monkey see monkey do” techniques with which the term “training” is sometimes unfairly associated. Modern training techniques promote a long‐term view of training as an on‐going activity that assists all levels of employees to appreciate the value of their work in terms of personal and organizational success. Employees who feel valued in this way are likely to work more effectively, maintain a loyalty to the organization and to be happier in their jobs.

Provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.

Provides an easily accessible summary of relevant business concepts and presents them in a fresh way.