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Current classification of fluxes is typically on the basis of a qualitative process with parameters like residue activity in a water extract or the ability to dissolve copper in a thin mirror film. The capability of quantitatively ranking fluxes by their total reaction capacity and reaction rate with copper oxide would provide valuable data for process design. Results are reported of experiments to establish a standard procedure to measure a flux activity number using a controlled reaction of a measured amount of flux reacted with an excess of a standard metal oxide.

The purpose of this study is to examine Latino adolescents’ perceptions of the effects of religion on family relationships in the context of intersecting variables of influence such as assimilation, family structure, and migration.

Consistent with the ecological and acculturation frameworks, this qualitative, exploratory study uses directed content analysis to analyze responses from 37 religiously diverse Latino adolescents to open-ended, semi-structured questions from the National Study of Youth and Religion to explore religious influence.

Results suggest that Latino adolescents feel that religion impacts family relationships, with higher degrees of positive religious influence expressed by Baptists and Latino males. Christians (various denominations) were more likely to report that religion affected family relationships than Catholics. All participants who stated that religion exerted a negative influence came from nontraditional families. Youths of Central/South American and Puerto Rican descent were more likely to report that religion affected family relationships positively than were Mexican adolescents. Overall, Latinas girls were more likely to have strong opinions about religion and family relationships than Latino males. Results also suggest an intersection between the Latino cultural values of respeto and marianismo with religion.

Although this study is exploratory and the sample was diverse, the results are not generalizable.

This study provides a sociological lens to the experiences of a rapidly changing and growing demographic in the United States – Latinos. These findings would be of importance to those who are interested in supporting Latino families and facilitating positive adolescent outcomes.

This study explores the awareness (AWN) levels of good governance amongst Thai credit union cooperatives' (CUCs) members and the factors hindering good governance practice in Thai CUCs.

This study used a survey questionnaire from 629 members of 36 selected CUCs in Thailand. This study analysed the determinants of governance AWN levels of Thai CUCs' members using the ordered probit model. The study also employs OLS estimation to investigate the factors hindering good governance practices.

The study shows that members of different CUC types and sizes have different levels of governance AWN. Members' characteristics, experiences, and perceptions significantly influence CUC members' AWN of governance issues. The findings also suggest that a lack of morality, transparency, participation, responsibility and accountability are key obstacles that hinder good governance practices of Thai CUCs.

This is the first study that attempts to assess the level of AWN amongst Thai CUCs' members in different CUC sizes and types. This is also the first research that identifies the factors that hinder good governance practice in Thai CUCs based on members' evaluations. The study's findings provide important reference and implications for Thai policy makers and CUCs' board of managers to enhance members' AWN and CUCs' governance performance, and thus increase income and living standard of CUCs' members in the long term.

The purpose of this chapter is to systematically review and explore the nature of marketing in higher education (HE) and consider the creation of value through the cocreation process. The objectives of the review were: to collect, document, scrutinize, and critically analyze the current research literature on value elements in marketing and how cocreation between the sender (school) and receiver (student) happens; to establish the scope of education marketing; to identify gaps in the research literature; and to make recommendations for further research in this field.

The approach for this study entailed extensive searches of relevant business management and education databases on value-based marketing and cocreation. The intention was to ensure that, as far as possible, all literature in the field was identified – while keeping the focus on literature of greatest importance to the research question.

The potential benefits of applying marketing theories and concepts which have been effective in the commercial world are being adopted by researchers and managers in the field of not-for-profit education marketing. However, the literature on educational marketing is inconsistent, even contradictory, and lacks theoretical models that reflect upon the particular context of educational marketing and the use of value in the marketing of school services.

The research field of educational marketing, value, and cocreation is still at a relatively pioneer stage with much research still to be carried out both from a problem-identification and also from a strategic perspective. Despite the literature on the marketization of schools and higher education and student behavior, research does not provide evidence of the marketing strategies that have been implemented and marketing of schools remains limited, and this is relatively uncharted territory.

This chapter reviews the literature in the field, focusing on marketing strategies of value and cocreation in the competitive school market for students.

The theoretical findings suggest there is a place for value development and the use of cocreation in the marketing of schools by engaging the student in the process and providing complete transparency and a proper feedback loop. From a managerial position, the findings present changes in how schools should be marketed with more focus on objectives, strategies, marketing tools, staff and student engagement, and performance measures.

The overall conclusion drawn is that marketing of schools has relevance; however, the relevance is only useful if value is developed over time, and supports the school brand and the values that are associated with it in a competitive market.

Service quality and customer satisfaction influence the financial performance of service organizations. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the path relationship of service quality to customer satisfaction to financial sustainability in the water service sector, which is vital to the sustainable future of mankind. Further, these three interrelated constructs and their dimensions are clearly articulated.

SERVQUAL questionnaire responses were collected from 635 household families, and the financial sustainability indicators of 56 water providers were gathered as well. Cronbach's alpha and factor analysis were conducted to measure the internal consistency and convergent validity. Path analysis was utilized to evaluate the causal diagram by examining the relationships among service quality, customer satisfaction and financial sustainability using the AMOS software package.

The results showed that the five dimensions of service quality explain 58% of the customer satisfaction variation. The responsiveness, empathy, assurance and reliability have significant impact on the customer satisfaction where p < 0.05, while the tangible dimension has an insignificant effect. The results also revealed that customer satisfaction has a significant impact on the financial sustainability indicators of the water providers, where p = 0.000 for the debt collection ratio indicator, and p = 0.003 for the financial efficiency ratio indicator.

This research on financial sustainability is based on evidence about service quality and customer satisfaction in the Palestinian water sector. Future research on financial sustainability of the water sector may focus on the pricing mechanism and debt collection of water service.

The findings suggest that water providers should recognize the importance of service quality dimensions, which strengthen the customer satisfaction, which, in turn, is a significant driver for their financial sustainability. It is, therefore, sound to draw action-oriented managerial implications from these results.

The study adds to the literature of water service sector and is based on empirical evidence from primary data of household families and secondary data of water service providers from developing countries. This paper also contributes toward the strengthening of sustainability of the water service sector in Palestine – a worthy humanitarian cause. The study provides evidence useful for policy makers toward carving out policies aimed at strengthening the financial sustainability of the water service sector.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to identify motivations that drive communication of IC (CIC); and second, to investigate content and format used in CIC from three perspectives, namely, human capital information, relational capital information and structural capital information.

A global survey was conducted with 200 banks’ senior executives responsible for annual report (AR), followed by content analysis of each bank’s AR.

The study found four motivations of CIC, namely, management responsibility to stakeholders, collective behavior, corporate responsibility and compliance. Content analysis of banks’ AR found structural capital information most prevalent, followed by human capital and relational capital. Five types of formats were analyzed to show the different presentation used in the CIC.

Current data source was limited to banking and focussed on English language publications.

The study provides regulators insights to forces that either compel or hinder CIC, and updates literature on management’s thinking and priorities in CIC.

This study is possibly the first paper that investigates the motivation of CIC for reporting, where IC is an important asset to organizations. The findings on the content and format used in CIC extend existing studies to a wider, global scale.

The primary purpose of this study is to investigate whether welfare issues are important to consumers also relating to fish. Second, it aims to identify segments based on animal and fish welfare issues, environmental concerns and ambivalence about farmed fish.

A questionnaire was designed to investigate consumers' concern for environmental and animal and fish welfare issues together with variables used in profiling segments in the study. The measurement scales used here are adapted from validated scales in previous studies. The survey was conducted in Valencia, Spain, among 450 randomly‐chosen respondents.

Animal welfare issues related to farmed fish do not seem to be important for the consumers in Valencia. There are, however, differences among the consumers relating to general environmental and animal welfare concern, and ambivalence. Three segments were identified: the unconcerned (27 per cent), the wild fish concerned (34.5 per cent) and the ambivalent (38.5 per cent). Attitudes toward farmed fish, the importance of natural food and social class were most important in profiling differences between clusters.

The findings indicate that the animal welfare issue has not yet become a barrier for farmed fish in Valencia. The results may help fish‐farming companies to find their target group among the consumers, based on environmental and animal welfare issues. The results also indicate that there are consumers who are somewhat ambivalent about farmed fish. For this group, more information and knowledge can change their attitudes so they become more positive toward farmed fish in the future.

The paper provides useful information for fish‐farming companies or the authorities planning healthy‐eating campaigns targeting fish.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the major factors of client satisfaction (CS) that are critical for web development projects in freelance marketplaces. This quantitative study is done from the point of view of the web development services clients. Five major dimensions were proposed as determinants of CS from the literature review: ease of use, user interface, information, security and privacy.

A web-based survey methodology is used as the main data collection instrument. Statistical techniques such as confirmatory factor analysis and multiple linear regressions are used to analyze 162 responses of questionnaires.

The findings suggest that all factors do influence CS. In terms of strength, security had the highest level of impact on CS, so it is the strongest determinant among all factors. After security, ease of use and information are considered as strong determinants. So, this study concludes that the five major determinates do affect CS in web development projects from freelance marketplaces.

This research is limited only to the top freelance marketplaces, such as Upwork, Freelancer, Fiverr, Guru, Envato Studio, etc. The sample size is relatively small and this study is focused on web development projects only. Moreover, this research is focused only on the characteristics or attributes of the projects final outcome, i.e. website.

This study attempts to identify the important factors that have a relation with CS, thus giving freelancers an indication of what to look for when working on any web development project posted by any client in a freelance marketplace. Understanding the determinants of CS will also help Pakistani information technology freelancers involved in web development projects and services to increase their project performance, improve their CS rate and increment client following.

This presents the first study on the determinants of CS in web development projects from freelance marketplaces.