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This study aims to enhance the simultaneous utilization of measure in product design by mapping out the possible and potential uses of a measure for both academicians and practitioners.

To map out a way for the simultaneous utilization of measure, the authors assessed and portrayed the diverse facets of a four-factor measure for the development of mobile devices by adopting pluralistic techniques through a series of studies and three different study samples.

This study provided a solution for enhancing the usability of measure in product management, showing that a measure can be developed using a pluralistic methodology so that the results can be incorporated into the practitioners’ design activities that occur and when the gap between theory and practice is a knowledge production problem.

The main positioning of this study involves the science-design interface (Simon, 1992) to bridge the important gap between theory and practice by showcasing a measure development for product design as a strategy of intellectual arbitrage (Van De Ven and Johnson, 2006). Relying on the design scientific approach, the authors focused this study on a prescriptive procedure rather than a more rigorous methodological procedure.

The authors provided product managers with a systematic and synergistic approach to developing a measure and recommended several usages of the developed measure to enhance its simultaneous utilization between academics and practitioners.

Emphasizing pluralistic methodology in the measure development, the authors recommended the concept of intra-examination. The first-order intra-examination, utilizing Bayesian Networks, makes available the thick descriptions of the measure and supports reasoning under uncertainty. The second-order intra-examination examined nomological networks regarding the pragmatic relationships between the four factors that comprise the measure and other important constructs.

The purpose of this study is twofold. First, it aims to provide a review of the Net Promoter© Index (NPI), the evidence of its ability to predict financial performance, and the evidence of its superiority to other voice of customer metrics. Second, it seeks to investigate the nomological validity of the Net Promoter question. It aims to view the NP question as an alternative to the traditional word-of-mouth measure, which is one of the components of customer loyalty. The nomological validity of NP was evaluated in a model including customer satisfaction as an antecedent and repurchase intention as a consequence.

The data for empirically addressing a set of hypotheses related to the nomological validity were collected via self-administered questionnaire. A total of 159 participants completed questions for banking services, 153 individuals completed questions for hairdresser/barber services, and 132 completed questions for cell phone services. The hypotheses were tested using partial least square analysis.

The results provide evidence for the nomological validity of the NPI question; albeit, the traditional word-of-mouth measure seems to perform equally as well or even better.

A set of pros and cons related to NPI are developed. The paper recommends including the NPI in a portfolio of voice of customer metrics but not as a standalone diagnostic tool. Further, given the present state of evidence, it cannot be recommended to use the NPI as a predictor of growth nor financial performance.

The paper provides further insights into the validity of the Net Promoter Index as a measure of customer loyalty.

Networking behaviors assist individuals in doing their jobs better and advancing their careers. However, most research emphasizes the effects of job characteristics on networking behaviors, neglecting the effects of individual differences in goal orientations. Moreover, few studies investigate the prospective evaluation of promotability and the mediating effect of networking behavior on the relationship between goal orientation and promotability. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to clarify the nomological network and to expand the domain of networking behavior by identifying networking as career- and community-based networking behaviors and by examining the differential relationships among goal orientation, networking behaviors, and promotability.

This study surveyed and collected data from 160 financial employees and 103 supervisors working at branches of a large bank in Taiwan. Questionnaires addressing both networking behavior and goal orientation were distributed to employees, and one week later their supervisors were sent another survey about employees’ promotability evaluations.

Learning goal orientation was positively related to both career- and community-based networking behaviors. Performance goal orientation was also positively related to career-based networking behaviors, but negatively related to community-based networking behaviors. Career-based networking behaviors, particularly maintaining contacts and engaging in professional activities, were found to be positively related to promotability. Results also show that career-based networking behaviors, particularly maintaining contacts and engaging in professional activities, mediated the relationship between goal orientation and promotability.

This study addresses the importance of distinguishing between networking behaviors as career based and networking behaviors as community based and shows that these two sets of networking behaviors arise from different goal orientations and have differential effects on supervisory evaluation of promotability.

By linking networking behavior with promotability, this study helps managers understand how employees’ enactment of specific networking behaviors can facilitate both the employees’ career development and the employees’ placement in important organizational positions.

This study fulfills an identified need to understand the nomological network of networking behavior.

Taking a social network perspective, the purpose of this paper is to develop a framework for the assurance of food safety via relational networking.

The authors consider both informal and formal relational networking, and explore a firm’s learning orientation, risk aversion and consumer pressure as potential precursors to such relational networking. It is further hypothesized that relational networking generates both industry and supply chain knowledge, which is suggested to be beneficial for contamination detection. The model is tested with survey data collected among food-producing firms in India, the world’s second largest food producer.

The authors find a positive influence of consumer pressure on both a firm’s learning orientation and risk aversion, which in turn affect both informal and formal relational networking. Informal networking further generated industry knowledge and was beneficial for contamination detection. Formal relational networking influenced supply chain knowledge, which in turn enabled contamination detection.

Recent food product-related safety breaches, which have, in the worst case, led to fatalities, illustrate the importance of food safety in supply chains. This study represents the first systematic investigation of relational networking in the context of food safety from the perspective of social network theory.

The purpose of this study is to capture the strength of consumer’s perceived brand sacredness. The authors developed and validated a measurement scale composed of three related dimensions: supremacy, mesmerization and communitas.

Six empirical studies were conducted to identify the brand sacredness construct domains, develop and validate the measurement and test the nomological network between brand sacredness and it antecedent and outcome variables.

Results from a series of studies provided robust supports for the scale structure and demarcated the construct domains from other consumer–brand relationship measures. Testing of nomological validity of the scale further showed that brand sacredness is influenced by brand love, emotional brand attachment and brand loyalty and, meanwhile, provides explanatory power to predict theoretically related outcome variables, including transcendent consumer experience, defense of brand, incorporation brand in extended-self, brand ritualism and brand evangelism.

This study is based on cross-sectional survey data obtained from respondents belonging to well-established brand communities. A longitudinal study involving recent and emerging brand communities could provide an enhanced understanding of the evolution of brand sacredness with time, including brand sacralizaton process as well as possible de-sacralization process.

The study provides significant insights for brand managers to create an enduring brand and ascertain that consumers find their affiliations with the brand and make it the sacred core of their lives by fandom management through brand evangelism.

This study adds to the theory on consumer–brand relationship realm by delineating the domains of brand sacredness with its defining feature of extraordinary experience transcending an ordinary brand. It contributes to the existing body of branding and customer-based brand equity literature by incorporating the spiritual aspects of faith, passion and devotion into measuring the value of a brand.

The prevention through design (PtD) initiative places a duty on designers to originate designs that are inherently safe for construction, maintenance, occupation and demolition. In the UK, legislation has been introduced creating a new statutory role called the principal designer (PD) to ensure that PtD occurs during the design process. To realize this objective, PDs under the regulations must have appropriate skills, knowledge and experience (SKE) of occupational safety and health risks as they relate to construction products. However, there is a paucity of knowledge, in the extant literature and in practice, regarding what specifically constitutes PDs’ SKE of PtD and how to measure the same.

The study undertook a systematic review of meanings of SKE and carried out content analyses to provide robust conceptualizations of the constructs SKE. This underpinned the development of nomological networks to operationalize the constructs SKE in respect of PDs’ ability to ensure PtD.

PDs’ SKE of PtD are presented as multidimensional constructs that can be operationalized at different levels of specificity in three theoretical models.

The models indicated in this study can assist project clients to clarify the PtD SKE of prospective PDs in the procurement process. Correspondingly, PDs can look to these frameworks to identify their SKE gaps and take steps to address them.

This study contributes to the PtD literature by providing theoretical frameworks to clarify the PtD SKE of PDs. The study provides a basis for future research to empirically test the attributes of these as they relate to PDs’ competence to ensure PtD.

The present study aims to specify, estimate, and validate the composite formative model of consumer eSports engagement (CeSE) through utilizing the composite confirmatory analysis (CCA) methodological approach.

To validate the composite model of CeSE, we collected the data using the Mturk online tool from eSports gamers located in European countries. The partial least squares based structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) approach was employed using SmartPLS to conduct CCA analyses.

Using CCA, the authors first evaluated the reflective constructs (three first-order dimensions comprising cognitive, affective, and activation) and found reliable and valid reflective constructs. The authors then proceeded to assess the composite formative model of CeSE at higher-order level and resulted that CeSE is a valid composite model. Besides, the nomological network of CeSE with technology acceptance variables (e.g. behavioral intention and usage behavioral were estimated and found significant results).

This study contributes to consumer engagement literature in many directions. First, this study applies consumer engagement scale in the eSports context (i.e. eSports game brands). Second, this study notably specifies, estimates, and validates CeSE as composite model comprising cognitive, affective, and activation factors as first-order reflective constructs and CeSE as second/higher-order formative construct. Third, this study applies CCA guidelines to establish the CeSE as a composite formative measurement model and make significant methodology contribution. Fourth, this study extends the TAM model via studying CeSE as an important determinant of behavioral intention to play eSports games, which in turn impacts on eSports gaming/usage behavior.

The purpose of this study was to design and iteratively improve the quality of survey-based measures of three non-cognitive constructs for Grade 5-6 students, keeping in mind information needs of users in education reform contexts. The constructs are: Mathematics-related Self-Efficacy, Self-Concept, and Anxiety (M-SE, M-SC, and M-ANX).

The authors applied a multi-stage, iterative and user-centered approach to design and validate the measures, using several psychometric techniques and three data samples. They evaluated the utility of student-level scores and aggregated, classroom-level means.

At both student and classroom levels, replicated evidence supported theoretically-grounded validity arguments on information produced by four of five scales tapping M-SC, M-ANX and M-SE. The evidence confirmed a second order, two-factor structure for M-SC, representing positive math affect and perceived competence, and a one factor structure for M-ANX representing negative math affect. Consistent with the literature, these served as precursors to a perceived confidence factor of M-SE which, in turn, positively influenced mathematics achievement scores, off-setting negative effects of M-ANX. Research is continuing on a self-regulatory efficacy factor of M-SE, which yielded mixed results.

The survey scales are in line with current reform policies in the United States calling for schools to monitor changes in cognitive and non-cognitive domains of student development. Validated scales could be useful in serving information needs of teachers, decision-makers and researchers in similar school-based contexts.

This study demonstrates a comprehensive, user-centered methodology for designing and validating construct measures, departing from purely psychometric traditions of scale development.

The purpose of the paper is to provide a mature reflection upon the work of Hofstede by tracking various subtleties in the evolution of his thought and dispelling prevalent misconceptions.

The goal of the paper is achieved by analyzing Hofstede's output from 1970 to the present day in parallel with contemporary research and criticism.

The paper arrives at the conclusion that the recent expansion and update of Hofstede's doctrine is indebted to the original groundbreaking work of the 1970s yet a key strength of Hofstede's work has been its ability to adapt and remain progressive.

The paper offers insights into the evolution of Hofstede's doctrines.

The study reported perceived sales interaction conflict (PSIC) as a construct in need of evaluation. As a first step toward validation of a PSIC measure, the study draws perceptual data from a sample of professional industrial buyers. The researchers provide evidence as to the dimensionality of PSIC and its relationship to other variables characteristic of the buyer‐seller relationship.