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This paper explores the symbolic meanings that children of elementary school age attach to souvenirs from different types of vacation destinations. Data from interviews and pictorial projectives illustrate the meaning of souvenirs for children, including how children skillfully use souvenirs in their everyday lives and how they interpret souvenirs as symbols of people, places, and experiences. More specifically, the interview data reveal the meanings attached to souvenirs which are possessed, including how souvenirs are clearly distinguished from other objects which are possessed and how they are used for their contemplation and action value, for their communicative properties, and to provide continuity across time and place. In addition, the data from pictorial projectives reveal the latent motives of souvenir acquisition as well as how different types of places lead to different types of souvenir choices. Thus, the paper demonstrates the many layers of meaning associated with souvenirs in both acquisition and consumption processes and provides evidence that the meanings between children, places, and objects are inextricably linked.

This paper addressed an object‐oriented modeling of the quality control information system (QCIS) and its implementation for small‐medium sized enterprises (SMEs). The major idea is to convert the data structure, system behavior and computational aspect of the QCIS into models: object, dynamic and functional models using the object‐oriented modeling technique in a user‐friendly and economical way. Then, based on an SME environment, the paper expounds the methodology by implementing the models into a computerized QCIS. The system is expected to be affordable and self‐developed by most SMEs. The system can manipulate quality data dynamically to keep the quality control information up to date. It can guarantee different types of charts, lists and reports in the support of quick quality decision making with minimal human efforts.

In this paper, we develop a framework to analyze and compare the way in which two technology intensive design projects internally coordinate to maintain the internal consistency of their product. We compare the projects to one another and to the technology management literature. Design projects begin with conceptual notions of a customer need and develop products or functioning systems to meet those needs. Distributed knowledge and resources must be combined. The division of labor and coordination of the actors to ensure that the product development remains internally consistent is critical. How this process is managed affects productivity, quality, and development time.

Traditionally, it has been held that strong attitudes are a result of the conscious cognitive process of elaboration where one engages in effortful issue-relevant thinking. The purpose of this work is to show that attitude strength can follow from processes not just limited to elaboration – as a function of certain embodied states. This work examines bodily manipulations that could alter perceptions about the quality of the information describing a target (e.g. notion of “hard/soft” evidence), and, finds that such an embodiment leads one to have strong attitudes toward the target object. This work proposes an attitude-rehearsal-based mechanism to explain the phenomenon.

This work has relied on lab experiments as a methodology – undergraduate students and American residents served as participants. There is a pre-registered study included as well.

This work shows that strong attitudes can result from processes not just limited to elaboration, as a function of certain embodied states. This paper examines bodily manipulations that could alter perceptions about the quality of information describing the target (e.g. notion of “hard vs soft”; “converging vs diverging” information), and, find that such an embodiment leads one to have strong attitudes toward the target. This paper consistently observed that the bodily manipulations influence attitude accessibility, a direct and operational indicator of attitude strength. This paper further validates an attitude-rehearsal-based mechanism to explain the observed phenomenon.

While much work has investigated the impact of embodiment on attitudes, little attention has been paid to whether, and, how embodied states can impact the “strength” of the attitude without impacting the attitude itself – to the knowledge, this paper is the first to document this. Moreover, traditionally, it has been held that strong attitudes are a result of the conscious cognitive process of elaboration where one engages in effortful issue-relevant thinking. This work however shows that attitude strength can follow from processes not just limited to elaboration – as a function of certain embodied states.

This paper outlines how sponsorships can be beneficial or harmful to events. Using an experimental design and focusing on association transfers surrounding a snowboarding event, we illustrate that the sponsoring brand associations have a significant effect on the associations of the event. Our results indicate that in this instance some associations are transferred; others are not significant. Event managers must track which of these association transfers are occurring in order to understand and maintain their desired positioning.

The purpose of this paper is to address the challenging issue of developing a quantitative approach for the representation of cultural significance data in heritage information systems (HIS). The authors propose to provide experts in the field with a dedicated framework to structure and integrate targeted data about historical objects' significance in such environments.

This research seeks the identification of key indicators which allow to better inform decision-makers about cultural significance. Identified concepts are formalized in a data structure through conceptual data modeling, taking advantage on unified modeling language (HIS). The design science research (DSR) method is implemented to facilitate the development of the data model.

This paper proposes a practical solution for the formalization of data related to the significance of objects in HIS. The authors end up with a data model which enables multiple knowledge representations through data analysis and information retrieval.

The framework proposed in this article supports a more sustainable vision of heritage preservation as the framework enhances the involvement of all stakeholders in the conservation and management of historical sites. The data model supports explicit communications of the significance of historical objects and strengthens the synergy between the stakeholders involved in different phases of the conservation process.

In the public debate, companies are confronted with conflicting expectations regarding their responsibility. An inconsistent understanding of the responsibility of corporations may affect the acceptance of corporate actions. The purpose of this study is to take this observation as a starting point and to analyze corporate responsibility assessments of different actors.

In the course of two online surveys conducted by a polling institute at the end of January 2017, 1,003 German citizens were asked about their expectations concerning the responsibility of corporations. One survey was mainly focused on clothing manufacturers, the other one on banks. Moreover, a content analysis of nationwide German quality newspapers aims at showing the media perspective. By using an extensive combination of keywords, 1069 articles were analyzed for the period from 1 January to 31 December 2016. The coding revealed 345 relevant articles containing 717 responsibility-related judgments.

Overall, the systematic comparison of both perspectives show differences between societal perspectives and therefore presents an explanation for conflicting expectations concerning the responsibility of corporations.

The measurement of judgments on responsibility is a complex endeavor. Findings may be limited due to an extensive coding process and a restricted comparability of the two surveys and the content analysis. Moreover, findings are focused on clothing manufacturers and banks only.

A focus on responsibility assessments delivers a deeper understanding of different perspectives concerning the responsibility of corporations in the public debate.

Electronic commerce enables organizations to form virtual organizations. Shifting between different linkages of the partners for satisfying a need is the major characteristic of the virtual organization, and meta‐management beyond the individual organizational level must be applied in order to optimize the benefit for the entire organizational network. This paper proposes a meta‐management support system to support the meta‐management in virtual organizations. Object‐oriented organization modeling and virtual value chain analysis are used to implement the proposed meta‐management support system.

Investigates the attitude transfer that can occur when a product receives rave reviews. As expected, incorporating rave reviews into an advertisement positively influences the evaluation of the advertised product and the parent company. In addition, our findings indicate that the positive evaluation from the rave reviews transfers to other products. Further, the results show that attitude transfer occurred not only to related products within the brand, but also had a small effect on related products outside the brand family. These findings are discussed in terms of a model of memory as an associational network. The results suggest several advertising strategies that will allow a firm to accrue benefits from a product that has received some form of rave reviews.

One of the major concerns in the emerging phenomenon of collaborative consumption (CC) is the issue of contamination (i.e. feeling “grossed out” when sharing items with others). Guided by the law of contagion and the consumer contamination effect theory, this research investigated the ways in which companies can manipulate in order to reduce the negative contamination when renting or purchasing used fashion items from others. Specifically, this research examines this issue of contamination through the ownership type of the shared goods (e.g. corporate-ownership or B2C exchange, and consumer-ownership or C2C exchange) and its effect on consumers' CC intentions in two distinct sharing contexts (i.e. rental and secondhand purchase).

A total of 181 American female consumers were assigned to an experimental CC scenario, and their rental/secondhand purchase intentions were compared through ANCOVA analysis.

In both rental and secondhand purchase contexts, consumers displayed greater intentions to shop in B2C setting (i.e. corporate-ownership) with no direct contact with the previous owner, than in C2C setting (i.e. consumer-ownership) with a greater association with the previous owner and the shared items. Such inclination was more prevalent when purchasing a shirt than a handbag, suggesting that consumers feel more grossed out when there is greater physical contact with the shared item.

The findings of the study suggest a possible solution to alleviate the contamination effect, and the discovery of the degree of contact as a moderator provides new insight into contamination research.