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The purpose of this paper is to identify how reality television (RTV) influences the socialization of teenage consumers in a developing country. While the influence of television on consumer behaviour has been researched extensively in developed countries, the effect of RTV on consumer socialization has not, particularly in the context of developing countries.

A combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods was used to develop the theoretical model, constructs and measurement variables. The data were then analysed, and the hypotheses tested and confirmed using structural equation modelling.

RTV has a positive influence on the socialization of teenage consumers in a developing country. Teenagers’ consumption-related cognition, attitude and values are strongly affected by RTV. Furthermore, their consumption-related attitude is affected by consumption-related cognition and values. Social structural variables (parental control, peer-group influences, gender differences and social class differences) have an effect on teenagers’ RTV involvement and consumer-socialization process.

Current consumer-socialization literature identifies the role of TV in consumer socialization. However, there is very little extant literature about the role of RTV in consumer socialization, particularly from a developing-country perspective. Furthermore, in the present literature, consumption-related cognition, attitudes and values are considered outcomes of consumer socialization; however, this has not been empirically tested regarding teenagers’ involvement in RTV and its consumer-socialization outcomes. This research considers the involvement of teenagers with RTV, and the influences of various social structural variables from a developing-country perspective.

This study investigates the ex-dividend day stock prices of the firms listed on the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) where the tax rate is higher on dividends than on capital gains. The results help to explain what impact taxes have on the ex-day stock prices behavior in an emerging market.

To examine the tax effect on the ex-day stock prices behavior, this study considers after-tax dividends and computes the raw price ratio, market-adjusted price ratio, raw price drop, market-adjusted price drop. The market-adjusted ex-dividend day abnormal returns and relative trading volume are also examined to determine the direction of investor trading around the ex-day.

The main hypotheses examine whether the mean (median) differs from its theoretical value by using a t-test and nonparametric sign-rank test. The findings suggest that the drop of stock prices on the ex-day on the DSE is not due to taxes or transaction costs but to valuation assumptions made by investors in determining the equilibrium stock price.

Findings of this study will be useful for investors and traders in their valuation assumption to trade around the ex-dividend day.

Market participant’s preference of dividends, and exempted tax and its ultimate contribution to the equity value explain the ex-day stock prices behavior in the Dhaka Stock Exchange.

The paper reflects on the development of a medical product using rapid prototyping technologies and customer interaction through a quality function deployment (QFD) approach to speed up the process, and to result in customer satisfaction. The purpose of the specific medical product was to develop a device for fixing an Endo‐tracheal (ET) tube in a patient during anaesthesia, as it is common for an ET tube to move and/or become dislodged due to various extraneous reasons. If the tube deviates from the correct position it can cause one or both lungs to collapse, which can be fatal. The paper reviews how the anaesthetist's idea, which was to develop a product that could hold an ET tube in place in a more secure manner than is possible with current technologies, was brought to fruition through customer interaction.

Using an action‐research approach, the design evolved through series of design concepts, which through customer interaction contributed to a total optimized design. Virtual and physical prototypes, together with silicone mouldings were used as part of the customer interaction.

As with any new product, some functional parts were needed to conduct tests, which in turn would help to prove the product, and hence, the design. Traditionally this meant the manufacturing of a hard tool and proving of the design through trial and error. Hard tooling allows for some small changes to be made, but if the changes are radical a new tool will have to be designed and manufactured.

Following a developmental approach through the application of various types/stages of prototyping (such as virtual prototypes), revolutionised this process by simplifying and accelerating the development iteration process – it also developed a new version/paradigm of QFD.

Opposed to traditional forms of QFD where customer inputs are gathered through questionnaires, this case study proved that functional models provide an efficient client‐feedback, through constant involvement in the development process, as well as evaluation of the systematic progress.

The case study shows that experts in other disciplines can become involved in the product development process through the availability of functional prototypes, and builds on previous work to introduce a concept of customer interaction with functional prototypes.

The purpose of this paper is to employ lessons learned from the industrial accidents in Skikda refinery during the period from 2005 to 2016 as input data for the numerical simulation of risk consequences to identify the exposed areas to the various effects of industrial accidents.

In order to assess how the lessons learned can contribute to modeling the accidents effects in the refining activities, this paper presents a combined statistical/dynamic approach that combines two main tools, namely, lessons learned from petroleum refining in Algeria and Areal Locations of Hazardous Atmospheres software.

The results showed that fire is the most frequent accident at Skikda refinery that is mainly caused by equipment failures with a frequent involvement of crude oil and LNG. The NO₂ toxic effects are unacceptable. This means that in the case of a similar accident, the entire population will be exposed to an intolerable concentration of NO₂. Therefore, people must be relocated to a safer place. The results indicate that the concentration threshold can be met beyond the distance of 1 km.

Due to the economic importance of Skikda refinery and the absence of data related to the accidents in the refineries of Algiers, Arzew and Hassi Messaoud, this study is limited to the statistical analysis of accidents related to Skikda refinery.

This approach makes the risk assessment more practical and effective for the appropriate utilization of safety barriers and for the whole decision-making process.

This work presents a review paper of accidents that occurred in the oil-refining sector in Algeria, whose objective is learning lessons from past accidents history, by identifying their immediate causes and effects on personnel, equipment and environment in order to propose prevention measures. The novelty of this work is highlighted by the fact that this statistical analysis of oil and gas refining accident is realized for the first time in Algeria. This is due to the difficulty of obtaining data on accidents in the Algerian refining sector; for this reason, the authors have limited the study to the Skikda refinery.

This paper seeks to review the industrial applications of state‐of‐the‐art additive manufacturing (AM) techniques in metal casting technology. An extensive survey of concepts, techniques, approaches and suitability of various commercialised rapid casting (RC) solutions with traditional casting methods is presented.

The tooling required for producing metal casting such as fabrication of patterns, cores and moulds with RC directly by using different approaches are presented and evaluated. Relevant case studies and examples explaining the suitability and problems of using RC solutions by various manufacturers and researchers are also presented.

Latest research to optimize the current RC solutions, and new inventions in processing techniques and materials in RC performed by researchers worldwide are also discussed. The discussion regarding the benefits of RC solutions to foundrymen, and challenges to produce accurate and cost‐effective RC amongst AM manufacturers concludes this paper.

The research related to this survey is limited to the applicability of RC solutions to sand casting and investment casting processes. There is practically no implication in industrial application of RC technology.

This review presents the information regarding potential AM application – RC, which facilitates the fabrication of patterns, cores and moulds directly using the computer‐aided design data. The information available in this paper serves the purpose of researchers and academicians to explore the new options in the field of RC and especially users, manufacturers and service industries to produce casting in relatively much shorter time and at low cost and even to cast complex design components which otherwise was impossible by using traditional casting processes and CNC technology.

The international #metoo campaigns are influenced by local social norms, institutional responses to gender-based sexual violence, and neo-patriarchy. Therefore, some characteristics are highly locally specific. The chapter describes the local characteristics of the #jaztudi campaign in Slovenia by analysing women's testimonies, and media and social reactions. The #jaztudi started in 2018 initiated by four women public intellectuals one of whom is the author of this chapter. The chapter takes as its starting point an overview of gender-based inequalities that women in post-socialist Slovenia are facing. Women's testimonies reveal that sexual violence happens at home, in educational, healthcare, religious, public and private institutions as well as at work and in leisure time, and has great impact on the women's lives. In a short period of time, by compiling and publishing the testimonies, the #jaztudi campaign created a snowball effect and contributed to the launching of new on-line and media-supported discussions about sexual violence, notably by Catholic priests, and the painful and demeaning treatment that women encounter in different health institutions. The campaign facilitated the emergence of alliances among new cases of sexual violence in a relatively short period of time, and contributed to some degree to awareness raising. The campaign encouraged the emergence of a new sensitivity much needed in order to reach new political agreements. Taking into account that sexual violence is historically a patriarchal strategy used to control women, it is urgent to implement the ‘yes means yes’ model of consent of the Istanbul convention in Slovenia, and to create the political and social conditions in which sexual harassment and violence against women are unacceptable.

The era of the passive, rubber‐stamping, old‐boy‐network corporate board is over.

The aim of the article is identifying the hierarchy of products that final purchasers are ready to co-create with offerors and defining the place that food products occupy in this hierarchy in the context of the preferred environment for cooperation.

Striving to fill the cognitive and research gap identified during the analysis of the world literature was the basis for the survey, which included 1,196 representatives of adult final purchasers in Poland. The primary data collected were subjected to statistical analysis using the following methods: average grade analysis, comparative analysis, exploratory factor analysis and the Kruskal–Wallis (KW) test.

This study found that the respondents would like to co-create food products which ranked third among the analyzed groups of products with offerors. Most respondents preferred the parallel use of the online and offline environments as places of cooperation with offerors. Among the total of respondents and the respondents who preferred the internet as an environment for cooperation, a group of people willing to participate in the creation of food products was identified. In both cases, these groups were characterized by the fact that their members were not ready to co-create other groups of products at the same time. Food products were one of the two groups of products for which the preferred environment for cooperation turned out to be a statistically significant feature differentiating the responses regarding what products the respondents would like to co-create with offerors.

The scope and the approach proposed in this article testify to its originality. So far, the preferences of final purchasers regarding (1) product groups, including food, that they would like to co-create with offerors and (2) the environment for cooperation with offerors have not been studied. Ipso facto, the significance of this environment for preferences related to products that purchasers would be ready to co-create has not been investigated. Conclusions drawn on the basis of the results of the research constitute a valuable contribution to the theory of marketing and the theory of behavior, related especially to the joint creation of food products. The results are characterized by high application value, making it easier for offerors to take actions better suited to the preferences of active final purchasers.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and profile clusters of retailers operating in emerging markets, in terms of positioning strategies of their own brands (based on the example of the Polish market).

The study is based on a random sample of 143 medium and large retailers operating in Poland. The data were collected using a CATI method at the end of 2014 and then analyzed with the use of hierarchical and non-hierarchical methods.

With the use of cluster analysis, six clusters of retailers were identified. Members of each cluster refer to different predominant factors when positioning their own brands. Members of each cluster do not differ significantly in terms of descriptive variables (exogenous to the cluster analysis) being used for profiling clusters.

In this study, only retailers operating in Poland were surveyed. This study does not refer to the targeting strategies, which may be analyzed jointly with the positioning strategies of retailers’ brands.

The paper has implications in understanding the approaches to the retailer brand positioning representing by the identified clusters of retailers that might be a basis for the creation of the retailers’ competitive advantages.

The main contribution of this research lies in the clustering approach to segmenting retailers in terms of their own brands’ positioning strategies and identifying clusters of retailers in the Polish market due to the retailer brands’ positioning.

This paper seeks to make an assessment of the progress towards a fully fledged internal market for e‐communications in the European Union. The assessment is placed in the context of a quarter century of telecommunications reform in Europe.

A combination of qualitative and quantitative assessments is applied with a focus on fixed and mobile communications. The qualitative assessment includes interviews and a questionnaire. The quantitative assessment is based on econometric analysis of panel data.

Removing the remaining barriers in the internal market may in the long run provide benefits of €27‐55bn or the equivalent of 0.2‐0.4 percent of GDP at the European level. Major barriers identified are related to the degree of openness of national markets and the ability of telecom firms to exploit EU‐level economies of scale.

In the econometric benefit analysis no secondary effects are included. Further research is recommended to assess the effects, costs and benefits of enforcing a higher degree of harmonisation.

The paper provides insights and recommendations that are valuable for policy makers.

The paper places the research executed in support of a study for the European Commission in the historical context of the telecommunications reform.