Search results

This study describes a multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) detection system combined with enrichment growth conditions for simultaneous detection and identification of C. jejuni, C. coli and thermotolerant Campylobacter in poultry pack rinses. The PCR primers were tested against a range of Campylobacter and non‐Campylobacter species, and PCR products were only amplified from target organisms. The sensitivity of the method was similar to that obtained by conventional plating procedures, but when used in combination with the MPN method of enumeration could detect levels down to 6 MPN/100 ml of rinse. The validation of 50 samples of chicken pack rinses demonstrated the versatility of this approach in microbiological surveys to yield data for risk assessments.

The individual perspective of dynamic capabilities and family firms could be useful to shed light on the relationship between these topics, considering not only the heterogeneity of family businesses but above all the diversity of their collaborators, highlighting the underlying elements through which these firms are sustained.

This paper is based on systematic research, considering the most relevant literature about dynamic capabilities and family firms.

Findings highlight the individual perspective of dynamic capabilities and family firms, where we identify the main elements that family businesses must be aware of to be more innovative: high knowledge management/social capital, high entrepreneurial mindset/orientation, high tradition (retrospective and prospective), high empowering leadership, high next generation involvement, extended SEW (long-term perspective), risk-neutral, low conservative/inertia/paternalism and low emotionally attached.

The paper analyzes relevant studies on dynamic capabilities and family firms, proposing a research agenda with questions for further inquiries that cover inertia, paternalism, digital transformation and the individual perspective of dynamic capabilities and family firms. In addition, the authors provide practical implications for these topics.

This chapter advances understanding of how professional expertise is enacted and created to accomplish routines in the context of technology-mediated work. Information and communication technologies broaden the participation of professionals with various specialist skills and expertise to accomplish work together, which is particularly salient in health care. Broadening participation, however, creates jurisdictional conflict among professionals. Thus, a key challenge of interprofessional work is the need to mutually adapt established professional routines and overcome jurisdictional conflict to perform interdependent routine tasks. The authors examine how professionals adapt established routines by analyzing the new interactions and interdependent actions required to accomplish technology-mediated geriatric consultation routines. The findings of this study show that professionals create new patterns of actions that are shaped by relational forms of professional expertise, namely selective and blending expertise. The findings and theoretical insights contribute to the literature on routine dynamics by highlighting the importance of relational expertise, and showing how it can transform and destabilize otherwise established professional routines.

This study aims, first, to understand consumers’ perception of chefs as human brands (i.e. study one). Second, tests were run to assess the validity of a new conceptual model of the relationships between the factors of chef image, luxury restaurant image, both images’ congruity and consumers’ hedonic and novelty experiences and happiness and well-being (i.e. study two).

The first qualitative study involved using Leximancer software to analyse the data drawn from 43 interviews with luxury restaurant clients. In the second quantitative study, 993 valid survey questionnaires were collected, and the proposed model was tested using structural equation modelling.

The results reveal that consumers perceive chefs as human brands and the associated narratives include both performance- and popularity-based characteristics. The findings support the conclusion that individuals give great importance to chefs’ image and the congruence between chefs and their restaurant’s image. In addition, luxury restaurant image only affects novelty experiences, and both hedonic and novelty experiences have a positive effect on customers’ happiness and well-being.

This research focused on Portuguese luxury restaurants. The consumers’ happiness and well-being needs to be replaced by other outcomes to confirm if the model produces consistent results.

The results should help luxury restaurant managers understand more fully which pull factors are valued by their clients and which aspects contribute the most to their pleasure and welfare.

This study adds to the extant literature by exploring consumers’ perceptions of chefs as human brands and the role these chefs’ image play in customers’ luxury restaurant experiences and perceived happiness and well-being.

This study aims to examine the unexpected portion of the pension discount rate to determine if the pension discount rate is being used to manage earnings for both financially healthy and financially unhealthy firms as categorized based upon their Altman z-score for bankruptcy.

Regression analysis is conducted with the unexpected portion of the pension discount rate as the dependent variable and various metrics indicating potential firm strengths and weaknesses as the independent variables.

This study finds evidence that suggests managers for both groups of firms are using their choice of discount rate to manage bottom-line earnings. These findings highlight the patterns of various firm choice differences found between the two groups and the magnitude of the differences between the groups.

Three streams of literature are considered in this research: earnings management, defined pension plans and z-score bankruptcy. This study extends prior research by examining the unexpected portion of the pension discount rate based on the z-score determination of whether a firm is considered financially healthy or financially unhealthy. Our findings highlight the impact of various firm choice differences found between the two groups of firms.

This paper aims to explore the nature of the celebrity chef phenomenon and its impact on the contemporary hospitality industry, to both enrich current knowledge on the topic, as well as inform future research endeavors.

The study was based on a narrative literature review of secondary data sources, namely, academic literature and industry-related articles, and video data collected from popular video-hosting websites.

Despite the vast popularity of celebrity chefs, the phenomenon remains underexplored, with limited coverage given to it by hospitality-related literature. Prior investigations primarily focused on celebrity chefs’ commercial influence and power of advocacy, with little reference to their impact on the next generation of culinary professionals and on the sustainability of the profession.

This commentary has numerous theoretical and practical implications for industry stakeholders who wish to explore this phenomenon beyond the limited confinements of its commercial impact. In particular, the study explores the nature of the phenomenon, where television, social media and the celebrity status of chefs influence both the values and norms surrounding the profession, and individuals’ vocational choices. That said, findings suggest that additional research is required on this topic.

The exploration of celebrity chefs as a topic has so far been limited and has leaned toward one dimension in hospitality literature, despite its interesting scope. This critical overview provides conceptual clarity on issues such as the phenomenon’s commercial and vocational impact and highlights areas of concern and opportunity. Moreover, the study sets a clear pathway for further research.

The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the learning experienced by second-year undergraduate students serving as peer mentors to first-year students within a leadership-themed living-learning community. A basic qualitative approach was used, with data collected from semi-structured interviews conducted with participants at the beginning and end of their year-term as peer mentors. The interview transcripts were coded using Fink’s (2003) taxonomy of significant learning, where lasting change is a consequence of the learning. Five of the six categories of significant learning were evident, suggesting that the experience of being a peer mentor within a leadership-themed living-learning community creates lasting change within the peer mentors. Additionally, this study reinforces Fink’s (2003) claim of the interactive rather than hierarchical nature of learning.

The management of children′s literature is a search for value and suitability. Effective policies in library and educational work are based firmly on knowledge of materials, and on the bibliographical and critical frame within which the materials appear and might best be selected. Boundaries, like those between quality and popular books, and between children′s and adult materials, present important challenges for selection, and implicit in this process are professional acumen and judgement. Yet also there are attitudes and systems of values, which can powerfully influence selection on grounds of morality and good taste. To guard against undue subjectivity, the knowledge frame should acknowledge the relevance of social and experiential context for all reading materials, how readers think as well as how they read, and what explicit and implicit agendas the authors have. The good professional takes all these factors on board.

Psychological elder abuse (PEA) assessment is described with different thresholds. The purpose of this paper is to examine how the prevalence of PEA and the phenomenon’s characterisation varied using two different thresholds.

Participants from the cross-sectional population-based study, Aging and Violence (n=1,123), answered three questions regarding PEA. The less strict measure considered PEA as a positive response to any of the three evaluated behaviours. The stricter measure comprised the occurrence, for more than ten times, of one or more behaviours. A multinomial regression compared cases from the two measures with non-victims.

Results show different prevalence rates and identified perpetrators. The two most prevalent behaviours (ignoring/refusing to speak and verbal aggression) occurred more frequently (>10 times). Prevalence nearly tripled for “threatening” from the stricter measure (>10 times) to the less strict (one to ten times). More similarities, rather than differences, were found between cases of the two measures. The cohabiting variable differentiated the PEA cases from the two measures; victims reporting abuse >10 times were more likely to be living with a spouse or with a spouse and children.

Development of a valid and reliable measure for PEA that includes different ranges is needed.

The study exemplifies how operational definitions can impact empirical evidence and the need for researchers to analyse the effect of the definitional criteria on their outcomes, since dichotomization between victim and non-victim affects the phenomenon characterisation.