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The UK private housebuilding sector is the key supplier of new-build homes for customers, constituting a fifth of the entire UK construction industry. Yet, despite the high average cost of houses, and official reports advocating improvement, the sector remains blighted by criticism and a negative image of its quality. However, social media now offers customers new sources of advice and information. In this context, the purpose of this paper is to analyse social media forum posts from new-build homebuyers to reveal perceptions of the industry and illustrate the value of such data for others.

This paper presents and thematically analyses 147 comment posts from nine online Facebook forums under the themes of safety; standards; quality; workmanship; customer service; finance and money; advice; National House Building Council; ombudsman; and page closures.

Customers express frustration, anger, feelings of neglect and of an abdication of responsibility by the sector. Fundamentally, change is suggested at a systemic level, and it is urged this occurs through powerful and independent bodies.

To date, social media data has not been analysed in the context of the housebuilding sector. Yet, such data is key not only for its open and wide-reaching nature but also because it can be incorporated into government reports. It is hoped such data will be used by the new home ombudsman the UK Government hopes to establish in 2020 and help rectify many of the performance issues experienced and protect homebuyers.

Refers to previous research on the reasons for takeovers, the characteristics of bidders/targets and methods of payment. Uses 1987‐1998 New Zealand data on a sample of 28 successful bidder/target pairs to analyse their growth/value relationships and methods of payment. Shows that target firms have significantly higher book‐to‐market ratios and lower price‐earnings and price to cash flow ratios than bidders, who appeared to overpay for targets’ shares. Finds bidders with the highest growth and market value tend to use shares or mixed payments while those with lower growth use cash. Describes some less conclusive results and considers consistency with other research and theories.

I RECALL a seminar on the problems of teaching history where one speaker began by saying that until he was asked to prepare a paper, he had been cheerfully unaware any problems existed.

DURING THE twelve days of Christmas, between the King's speech and Twelfth Night, after the chocolate smoking set had been consumed, though not in flames and smoke, and before the Christmas decorations had sagged to waist level, I used to read my annuals.

EDINBURGH'S prestige as a literary centre steadily declined after the death of Scott, and for a succeeding generation was lost in undistinguished shallows. Even Peveril became enmeshed in the nets of London, and Stevenson, his might and native impulse notwithstanding, could not escape them any more than Hugh Walpole and Rebecca West in our generation. Edinburgh has, indeed, come to be more of a nursery for authors, editors and publishers than the nucleus of literary activity she was formerly but there are not wanting signs that she may presently reassume a measure of her vanished importance in the world of letters. A new and active generation is arising which is alive to the possibilities of cultivating its own vineyard, and to the occlusions and heartbreaking disappointments which so frequently accompany migration southward, and probably only adequate leadership is required to bring about a renascence of literary production of a much higher level than that now apparent.

The continued evolution of influencer marketing has created a need to better understand influencer marketing effectiveness. With brands increasingly partnering with influencers, research is yet to provide an integrated perspective examining the critical role of both parties. This study aims to draw on the source credibility model and signaling theory to explain the mechanisms that matter in influencer marketing effectiveness.

The proposed model of influencer marketing effectiveness is analyzed using partial least squares with data from 281 followers of social media influencers.

The authors establish influencer characteristics of popularity and attractiveness as heuristic cues that inform judgments of influencer efficacy. Further, category involvement and altruistic motives for collaboration are shown to moderate followers’ reliance on these heuristic cues. Then, a sequential mediating effect demonstrates the critical roles of the influencer and partner brand in three desired outcomes: enhanced perception of brand authenticity, enhanced brand engagement and positive attitudes toward influencer posts.

Future research should consider other heuristic cues that could inform influencer efficacy judgments and switch the focus toward the partner brand’s impact on such judgments.

A step-by-step visual framework is presented to help marketers and influencers translate these findings into key responsibilities for developing more effective and collaborative partnerships.

Besides presenting an integrated perspective, signaling theory provides an original lens for explaining influencer marketing effectiveness, addressing the need to expand the theoretical boundaries of influencer marketing research. 

This Introduction gives a historical and theoretical overview of this volume on Fields of Knowledge: Science, Politics and Publics in the Neoliberal Age, which showcases original research in political sociology of science targeting the changes in scientific and technological policy and practice associated with the rise of neoliberal thought and policies since the 1970s. We argue that an existing family of field theoretic frameworks and empirical field analyses provides a particularly useful set of ideas and approaches for the meso-level understanding of these historical changes in ways that complement as well as challenge other theory traditions in sociology of science, broadly defined. The collected papers exhibit a dual focus on sciences’ interfield relations, connecting science and science policy to political, economic, educational, and other fields and on the institutional logics of scientific fields that pattern expert discourses, practices, and knowledge and shape relations of the scientific field to the rest of the world. By reconceptualizing the central problem for political sociology of science as a problem of field- and inter-field dynamics, and by critically engaging other theory traditions whose assumptions are in some ways undermined by the contemporary history of neoliberalism, we believe these papers collectively chart an important theoretical agenda for future research in the sociology of science.

The current management literature suggests that when employees engage in wrongdoing, managers typically respond with punishment. The emerging moral repair literature suggests an alternative to punishment: a reparative response that focuses on repairing harm and restoring damaged relationships. However, little is currently known about restorative managerial responses, including why managers respond to employee wrongdoing in a reparative versus punitive manner. The purpose of this paper is to examine a variety of cognitive and emotional influences on this managerial decision.

This study used a scenario-based survey methodology. The authors gathered data from 894 managers in sales and financial services contexts to test a set of hypotheses regarding individual-level influences on managers’ punitive versus restorative responses.

This study found that managers’ restorative justice orientation, retributive justice orientation, social considerations (e.g. when employees are relatively interdependent versus independent), instrumental considerations (e.g. when the offender is highly valuable to the organization) and feelings of anger influenced their reparative versus punitive responses.

Data are cross-sectional, so causality inferences should be approached with caution. Another potential limitation is common method bias due to single-source and single-wave data.

The findings of this study show that managers often opt for a restorative response to workplace transgressions, and this study surfaces a variety of reasons why managers choose a restorative response instead of a punitive response.

This study focuses on social order and expectations within the workplace. This is important to victims, offenders, observers, managers and other stakeholders. This study seeks to emphasize the importance of social factors, a shared social identity, social bonds and other relationships within this manuscript. This is an important component of organizational-focused restorative justice research.

This is the first study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to explicitly test individual-level influences on managers’ reparative versus punitive responses to employee wrongdoing.

Recruitment for pediatric non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) studies is often challenged by low enrollment. Understanding parental perceptions regarding NIBS is crucial to develop new communication strategies to increase enrollment.

Integrating a crossed-disciplinary approach, the authors conducted a survey at the 2018 Minnesota State Fair querying the perception of risk and preferences of current and future parents associated with pediatric NIBS research. The survey consisted of 28 closed-text questions including demographics, photographs portraying NIBS, terminologies and factors related to NIBS studies.

Complete surveys were analyzed from 622 parent participants. A significant number of participants (42.8%) perceived the photographs of NIBS as “risky.” Additionally, 65.43% perceived the term “Non-invasive brain therapy” as not risky, a word combination not currently being used when recruiting potential participants. Over 90% (561/622) of participants chose the photograph of child-friendly MRI suite.

Although this survey identified aspects crucial in recruitment for pediatric NIBS research, there were limitations. For example, the authors did not record the sex or demographic distribution (e.g. rural versus urban setting) of the participants. These factors may also influence recruitment messaging.

For important medical research to impact and improve the lives of the potential remedies, participation by the public in clinical trials is necessary. Often the general public perceives the trials as risky as a result of poor marketing communication recruitment material. This study sought to be understood if how the message is encoded has an impact on the decoding by the receiver.