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This paper discusses Frank H. Knight's thought under three major themes, namely subjectivism, interpretation and social economics. Knight's economics starts with a conscious mind construct which is able to infer under partial knowledge. Conscious human action is purposive, forward looking and extends towards other individuals. Rejecting neoclassical positivism, Knight points to the need for economics to reconceptualize itself as an interpretative study, a methodology in the Weberian tradition. Furthermore, his allure for phenomenological economics opens a methodological possibility for the Austrian School of Economics. This paper concludes that Knight's insight earns himself a place in the history of subjectivist economics.

Marx's analysis of alienated labor still explains much about how the capitalist labor process shapes the thoughts and feelings of direct producers. But Marx's analysis fares less well in explaining how the work people actually do with their hands and minds leads to specific psychological consequences. This weakness stems from an inadequate social psychology. The purpose of this article is to provide Marx with this needed social psychology by drawing on the work of G.H. Mead. Specifically, Mead's philosophy of the act and his concept of aesthetic experience will be used to show how alienated labor leads to a reified mode of consciousness and a dislike of work itself. This synthesis of Marx and Mead makes good theoretical sense when we consider, first, the remarkable similarity of their respective philosophical anthropologies.

The assumption of ecological thinking as a main ideology for social systems implies many relevant changes concerning the relation between social and ecological systems. Changes meaning a deep redefinition of goals and strategies pursued for centuries by human communities, like the uncertainty reduction in relation to resources' availability and management, defence respect to variance in ecological system's as well as its constraint within social systems themselves. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

An analysis of literature and critic perspectives allows to highlight different aspects of the imagined transition toward an ecologically informed social organisation. Some considerations will be presented about obstacles to change in social systems as well as about the different levels of response to solicitations coming from ecological thinking and ecological issues.

Many of the considered theoretical proposals lead to assume that those solicitations and the subsequent responses would impact directly on fundamental sets of rights and freedoms, today considered as untouchable.

The establishment of an ecological state – at least as described here – even if it appears as a desirable perspective, it would pass through a re-design of the concept of citizenship as well as of the relation between individuals and social institutions.

The paper tries a definition of the main theoretical topics to be assessed, hoping they may be a useful base for future search.

What is systemicity and what is its relationship to third-generation cybernetics, will be explored here. I begin where my published work in social complexity theory let off: What is the benefit of studying experienced emergence versus attributed emergence? And how do we account for researcher reflexivity in the study of emergence? Is systemicity really an ontological given; that is, an inevitability of any rigorous relational position? Or, is it more an accompaniment to a layered (physical, life, social) epistemology? Or, is systemicity an invitation to acknowledge the ontological limits of perception, cognition, and truth? And finally, assuming that systemicity represents third-generation cybernetics, where and how in organizational studies do we recognize our own reflexivity and relation to what we study, to whom we address our ideas, and how we communicate?

The purpose of the paper is to report on the results of an inquiry into the possible reasons why many public service managers and leaders across six European countries report a loss of personal agency and suggests a possible pedagogic response to this.

The nature of agency is explored with reference to theory, and the methodology for the study – heuristic action inquiry – is outlined. The paper argues that spaces within postgraduate education are needed to facilitate managers' critical reflection and working with anxiety, and the article goes on to outline how public services leadership programmes can seek to achieve this.

The paper suggests that programmes need to work both with the cognitive and affective domains, and to find ways of exploring within the curriculum how managers may begin more to see their roles as potentially key actors in the policy‐making process rather than as passive recipients of policy imperatives received from above. The loss of agency experienced by public servants in several European countries suggests that MPA programmes and the like need to work with students' anxieties in a contained way.

Some trends within contemporary public services that lie behind anxiety and loss of agency are identified, including high emphasis on performance targets, centrally driven change, financial stringency, loss of professional and organisation identities, a perpetuation of a “private is best” governmental ideology, and contradictory accountability structures.

This paper is a response to Riffel's “The Theory Problem in Educational Administration” published in the October 1978 issue of the Journal. The article seeks to establish that perhaps we really do not have to make “illumined choices” as Riffel insists, because neither the phenomenological style of inquiry nor theory generation nor hermeneutic and critical science exists well without the others. To pose their contradiction stylistically should not be construed as an imperative to choose among them, but rather to recognize and strengthen their dialectic.

This research aims (i) to assess the level of customer satisfaction and loyalty to self-service technologies and Auchan Retail Portugal, (ii) to identify the determinants of customer satisfaction and loyalty to these technologies and also, (iii) to identify their influence on customer loyalty to this modern distribution retailer operating in Portugal.

A conceptual model was defined to meet the research objectives and to carry out the quantitative analysis applied to the random sample (n = 483) of customers. The data used where gathered via an online questionnaire survey, which covered all dimensions of the conceptual model, applied in 2021 in Portugal. To validate the hypotheses, Cronbach’s alpha and multiple linear regression models were used.

The results reveal that customer satisfaction with self-service technologies has a direct and positive effect on customer loyalty to Auchan Retail Portugal. Furthermore, results reveal that the technology utility factors significantly influence the customer technology experience which has an impact on perceived service quality and perceived risk. The findings of this research provide data on how to improve customer adoption and satisfaction with self-service technology and highlight that these technologies should be part of firm’s competitive strategy.

This study presents itself as a novelty for science, while granting important contributions to the retailer. It presents an innovative conceptual model that delivers to Auchan the basis for it to move toward smart retail technologies, aiming at the market trend of personalization. For future research, this study can be used as an instrument to evaluate the customer experience with self-service technology and to examine the determinants and effects of self-service technology separately.

A PUBLICATION which is an event of much importance is the list of books suitable for British Public Libraries which, under the title Interpreting the United States, has just been issued from the National Central Library. Our readers will no doubt have received copies of it by this time, because the obvious intention of the Ministry of Information, which fathers it and the Carnegie Trustees who paid for it, is that it should have definite beneficial influence in all parts of these islands. The actual choice of books has been made for “the light their authors cast on the history, institutions and foibles that seem peculiarly American,” by the A.L.A. using a group of representative librarians whose choice has been submitted to some twenty literary critics and professors and to the comment of some European refugees now in the United States. A feature of the list is that arrangements have been made to overcome the great difficulty the shipping position imposes on the importing of American books. The books can actually be obtained, some from the National Central Library and the others from English booksellers. It therefore becomes possible for any library to acquire the reasonably authentic collection, long desired, of books that are really representative of the great other half of the English‐speaking family. Among the six hundred books are, fortunately, many which are already on the shelves of any well‐selected library. Books of all prices are included, among them some rather expensive ones, but the average cost per volume is about twelve shillings. Of the importance of bringing the truth about America to our people no librarian needs to be persuaded and we are sure that the welcome we extend to this list will be echoed everywhere.

Building on Stimulus-Organism-Response theory, the current study examines the influence of pickup service quality in buy-online pickup in-store service (BOPIS) on users' perceived relationship investment with the mediating role of users' perceived experience quality and relationship proneness. This research also demonstrates the subsequent impact of BOPIS users' perceived relationship investment on their relationship performance indicators, like their cross-buying behaviors (breadth), frequency of their purchase (depth) and longevity of their relationship (length) with the store. The moderating role of BOPIS users' service experience consciousness in a few proposed relationships was tested.

The research is descriptive, quantitative and cross-sectional investigation. The study employed a purposive sampling technique. It was conducted using data collected using a validated self-administered questionnaire from 786 Indian omnichannel shoppers who have used BOPIS services in the past. The proposed conceptual model was tested using Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling.

The results indicate that BOPIS users' perceived experience quality and relationship proneness positively mediate pickup service quality and perceived relationship investment. The users' perceived relationship investment subsequently significantly positively impacts different dimensions of their relationship performance with the store (breadth, depth and length). Additionally, BOPIS users' service experience consciousness has a significant negative moderating effect on the direct relationship between pickup service quality and different dimensions of relationship performance.

The study is conducted in the Indian population, where omnichannel retailing is still nascent.

This study addresses the need to investigate the relationship performance indicators of BOPIS users, like their cross-buying behaviors(breadth), frequency of their purchase(depth) and longevity of their relationship(length) with the store. This study is the first to show that pickup service quality might explain the relationship performance of BOPIS users through their perceived experience quality, relationship proneness and relationship investments. The moderating role of BOPIS users' service experience consciousness in a few proposed relationships was also tested for the first time.

This study aims to bridge the gap in the literature on consumer behaviours such as image consciousness, materialism and consumer spending on credit card usage intentions among Malaysian college students.

A purposive sampling design was employed using a sample of 191 business and management students at a private higher education institution in Subang Jaya, Malaysia. An anonymous survey questionnaire was administered to the students. Structural equation modeling was then used to determine the validity of the path diagram and model fit.

The findings of the study revealed that materialism is a partial mediator in the relationship between image consciousness and compulsive spending. The study also found that compulsive spending is not a mediator in the relationship between materialism and credit card usage intentions. However, compulsive spending does exert a sizable influence.

Future research is required to investigate whether family background has an impact on youth abilities to be more responsible and rational when undertaking more lavish lifestyles and credit.

The implication of this study is that there needs to be more concerted efforts made in instilling credit card awareness and financial discipline among youth to avoid them falling into the debt trap at an early age.

This study highlighted the existence of the credit card debt problem which can inhibit Malaysia's vision to achieve a developed nation status in 2020.