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This study extends prior accounting research on decision aids (DAs) relating to face validity. Specifically, this study aims to examine the effects of face validity through the presence of two levels of bias in DA output. The presence of bias in a DA will not affect how statistically informative an aid is but will decrease the face validity. The findings suggest that non-expert DA users recognize the bias in the DA’s suggestions as evidenced by users’ low agreement with the aid; however, they do not adjust for the bias in their performance, suggesting that non-expert users do not learn from the DA.

This repeated-measures experimental design allows us to examine performance effects over time in response to different levels of bias in the DA output. The participants in the study are provided with outcome feedback to examine learning effects.

The findings suggest that non-expert DA users recognize the bias in the DA’s suggestions as evidenced by users’ low agreement with the aid; however, they do not adjust for the bias in their performance, suggesting that non-expert users do not learn from the DA. Although users of an unbiased DA strongly agree with the DA’s output, individual performance deteriorates over time. Initially, the users of an unbiased DA perform better than those who use a biased DA; however, over time, the performance of users of an unbiased aid deteriorates and the performance of users of the biased aid does not improve.

Companies developing DAs may need to consider the effects of using a DA under circumstances different from those under which the aid was developed and that may lead to the biased DA output. This study has implications for firms that design, develop and use DAs.

This study considers a yet unexamined face validity issue – observable bias in DA output. This study examines deterministic DAs designed to assist the decision-maker through their ability to combine multiple cues in a systematic and consistent manner. This study has implications for firms that design, develop and use DAs. Firms need to consider the effects of using a DA under circumstances different from those under which the aid is developed, thereby, potentially leading to biased DA output. Each additional variable added to the DA will be associated with an incremental cost in a DA’s development, use and modification. The results of this study provide insights contributing to the information available for cost–benefit analyses conducted when developing a DA or when considering the modification of existing aid. Failure to change a DA because of face validity issues alone may result in a decline in user performance. Thus, the cost of modifying a DA must be weighed against the benefits resulting from improved performance. This study contributes insights into how users’ responses to DA bias could affect the assessments of the benefits of including an omitted variable in a DA.

Photos are powerful tools to attract individuals’ attention and convey service experiences. Yet exactly how visual cues in a photo contribute to the perceptions of the staged servicescape, and how these perceptions inspire online booking/reservation behaviors, remains underexplored. Addressing the gap, this study aims to uncover (1) how perceptual information mediated by an online photo contributes to the formation of consumers' holistic perceptions of the service environment and (2) how such consumers' holistic perceptions further influence customers' online purchasing behaviors.

This research adopts an innovative crowdsourcing approach and refers to field data on consumers' online hotel booking behaviors to examine relationships among inferred servicescape dimensions, consumers' holistic perceptions of the mediated servicescape and their actual online booking/reservation behaviors (e.g. page-view and meta-click behaviors).

Confirmatory factor analysis and path analysis indicated that five mediated servicescape dimensions (i.e. color, lighting, furnishings, layout and style) contribute significantly to consumers' perceptions of the mediated servicescape (CPMS) and exert different impacts on CPMS. Connecting the crowdsourced rating and consumer behavioral data, CPMS is found to influence consumers' aggregated page-view and meta-click behavior, especially in the US market.

Building upon servicescape theory, the medium theory and the online booking literature, this research proposes a novel conceptual framework of CPMS to theorize the process by which visual cues in online photos contribute to CPMS and subsequent online purchase behaviors. Findings from this research extend Bitner's servicescape framework to mediated service contexts and provide practical implications for promoting service businesses.

Depression imposes substantial individual and societal economic costs, including lower productivity and higher healthcare use. However, while the relationship between employment and mental health has been explored, less is known about the potentially countervailing effects of different types of economic inactivity on depression among older individuals. The authors employ a series of models, including fixed effects panel data models and matching on rich data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) to investigate whether different types of inactivity might have heterogenous effects on depression. The authors find that whereas transitions to involuntary inactivity (unemployment) do not appear to have a perceivable effect on depression, transitions to voluntary inactivity (retirement) seem to decrease it.

This paper aims to explore professional product designers’ views on creative design and to compare their viewpoints with the related academic literature on product marketing.

To find the designers’ views on creative design, face-to-face in-depth interviews based on repertory grid analysis and semi-structured questions were conducted with 32 professional and award-wining product designers who mostly design for international producers.

Although marketing scholars often approach design as a noun – something that can be viewed and analysed as a bundle of attributes, dimensions or characteristics – professional designers view design differently. To them, design is a verb, a problem-solving process through which they meet the challenges consumers have with products. Comparing professional product designers’ views on design creativity with the main topics in the product marketing literature places scholars’ dispositionalism against designers’ situationalism; it also enables marketing scholars to improve their viewpoints on product design and to bring practical problem-solving and design thinking into their research. This also increases mutual understanding between marketers and designers.

This research enhances the knowledge of marketing scholars, marketers and designers about each other’s perspectives on product design creativity, which will improve their mutual understanding and the business-to-business relationship between marketers and designers.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first study that has attempted to discover product designers’ opinions on the main topics in the related academic literature.

Many current video games feature virtual worlds inhabited by autonomous 3D animated characters. These characters often fall short in their ability to participate in social interactions with each other or with people. Increasing the social capabilities of game characters could increase the potential of games as a platform for social learning. This article presents advances in the area of social autonomous character design. Specifically, a computational model of social relationship formation is described. This model formed the basis for a game entitled “AlphaWolf” that allows people to play the role of newborn pups in a pack of virtual wolves, helping the pups to find their place in the social order of the pack. This article offers the results from a 32‐subject user study that assessed the social relationship model, showing that it effectively represents the core elements of social relationships in a way that is perceivable by people. Additionally, this article proposes a game that will allow parents, teachers and children to experiment with computational social behavior through social virtual characters. This research contributes to the development of games for social learning by offering a set of viable algorithms for computational characters to form social relationships, and describing a project that could utilize this model to enable children to learn social skills by interacting with game characters.

Preliminary study into the changing task roles of administrative support staff suggests that their training and development may be unduly and unhelpfully influenced both by management whim and by the flaws inherent in the application of conventional performance appraisal techniques. Drawing from a review of the literature, questions the reasons for undertaking performance appraisals and develops the argument that conventional appraisal methodology typically concentrates on the “summary” (or comparative) effectiveness of employees at the expense of meaningful diagnostic evaluation. Further suggests that in order to determine training and developmental needs effectively, techniques need to be devised which combine analysis at a number of different levels. Presents a conceptual model, and proposes behavioural expectation scales as tenable mechanisms for facilitating gainful diagnosis and constructive needs analysis.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the implementation of short‐run (i.e., small lot‐size) statistical process control (SPC) techniques for manufacturing between the U.S. and Japan. Using U.S. and Japanese questionnaires, this research focuses on the use of several manufacturing management elements such as setup time, stability of process, and quality improvement. These elements are compared in terms of their respective countries’ short‐run SPC techniques implementation. Barriers to the implementation of short‐run SPC techniques are also examined. In addition, this research identifies current process control techniques used to support short‐run SPC in both countries. Results show how the significantly different short‐run SPC techniques are utilized in the U.S. and Japan.

Because of the renewed interest in public purchasing and the strategic use of public funds under the requirements of sustainable development, the question arose once again as to how to curb the fall of institutional quality once criteria other than price are inserted into the decision-making in public purchasing. E-procurement has been repeatedly named as one of the most efficient tools to that effect and the present paper sets out to discover whether the implementation of e-procurement in a particular country per se entails also higher institutional quality, allowing for a wider implementation of green and sustainable procurement at the national, regional and municipal level without the fear of worsening the country’s institutional quality. By analyzing the implementation of e-procurement in Denmark, the Netherlands and in Portugal, this paper aims to verify the hypothesis that the implementation of e-procurement implies better institutions in terms of public purchasing. As such, the conclusions will be used in further research on the prerequisites for a successful implementation of green public procurement across the European Union.

Gathering data on institutional quality of three early e-procurement adopters (Denmark, the Netherlands and Portugal) allows for comparison of institutional quality pre- and post-e-procurement implementation. By using difference-in-differences comparison the paper seeks to answer the question how doesmandatory e-procurement influence institutional quality on the national level.

The paper finds that the reform is generally associated with a relatively stronger control of corruption in the Netherlands and Denmark, while a similar reform in Portugal failed to translate into a stronger control of corruption. Furthermore, while using the quality of regulation as a dependent variable, a positive and robust effect on the quality of regulation in Denmark was shown, while the quality of reputation in the Netherlands and Portugal declined in the post-reform period, with the drop in the quality of regulation in Portugal being considerably greater, a two-fold higher amount than the estimated drop in the Netherlands. The paper suggests that in spite of the same aims, the reform yielded substantially different or even opposing effects compared to Denmark.

By examining three examples of early adopters, further research with broader impact is needed to deduce general implications for e-procurement implementation. Furthermore, implementation of e-procurement at the regional or local level can also yield distinct results.

Understanding the actual impact of e-procurement on institutional quality is indispensable for further study on the matter. The present study argues that e-procurement needs to be accompanied by additional measures or variables to yield a positive impact on institutional quality in public procurement.

As to originality, the present paper uses a law and economics approach, originating or better said drawing motivation from green public procurement concerns, trying to provide an insight in terms of tools that can be used to eliminate concerns regarding institutional quality when implementing green public procurement practices.

The employees’ perspective is often disregarded in research regarding workplace health promotion (WHP). Experts’ opinions are prominent, stating employees’ benefits of WHP on the physical, mental, and social level. The purpose of this paper is to investigate which benefits and effects employees expect from WHP.

As a current qualitative study indicates that employees also highlight cognitive aspects and prevention issues, a quantitative verification of this extended model was conducted. A questionnaire consisting of items derived from a qualitative study was developed and distributed in Austria in two government agencies, one bank, and one NGO. The sample consists of 237 employees rating the appreciability of potential WHP effects.

Based on a principal component analysis, employee‐perceived effects of WHP were grouped into four components. Within the first, cognitive one, the most frequently perceived effect (40.1 per cent) was giving WHP a try. Regarding the second, emotional component, feeling appreciated (57.4 per cent) was emphasized. Improved affordability of prevention (57.0 per cent) belongs to the third, convenience/pleasure component. Effects in the fourth, social realm, such as better contact with colleagues, were perceived by only 17.4 per cent.

The results enlarge the theoretical grouping of WHP effects but require further testing regarding blue‐collar employees, and physical benefits.

Strengthening factors referring to perceived benefits in practical WHP design plus related communication seems advisable to increase participation rates and benefits derived.

Providing an enlargement to current models of employee perceived benefits regarding WHP, this paper gives suggestions for a benefit oriented WHP program and communication design and opens up new paths for research.