Search results

Introduction Understanding the patterns of wine consumption plays a critical role in the wine marketing process and allows wineries and other wine business to effectively target their market. However, as recently as 2000, Mitchell et al. (2000: 124) lamented the fragmentary picture of wine lifestyles, purchasing behaviours and wine interests of wine tourists, suggesting that “Establishing the level of interest in wine of winery visitors is extremely important in terms of educating the consumer.” This research note explores wine lifestyles in New Zealand from a number of indicators of wine interest including wine club participation, wine cellaring behaviour, place of purchase and wine knowledge.

The purpose of this paper is to prepare for a campus sustainability audit at the main campus of Brock University, St Catharines, Ontario, Canada.

An inductive, qualitative approach was undertaken with data comprised of analyses of key stakeholder interviews, a review of literature, and a systematic collation of campus‐based sustainability initiatives taking place in 2008‐2009.

The study offers qualitatively analyzed evidence that even smaller and mid‐size Canadian campuses with limited budgets can successfully move forward with sustainability initiatives in multi‐systemic, synergistic partnerships that cross‐professional and disciplinary boundaries. Furthermore, inductive methodologies should not be overlooked in this process. While most of the sample of interviewees in this exploratory study agreed to be involved in current and future sustainability initiatives, interestingly, there were also concerns that discovery of any negative findings could cast a shadow on “green” efforts already underway. The findings also indicate a number of leading edge initiatives taking place at Brock University including a co‐generation power plant, and “green” construction of new buildings as well as those in the planning stages. Without a formal governance structure or a common theoretical framework in place, a broad spectrum of definitions on “sustainability” from key stakeholders was found ranging from an environmental focus to those based solely upon economics, and a combination of the two were prevalent. The absence of any systemic, coordinated and comprehensive approach on the university's main campus was the main negative finding – one that previously hampered growth of synergistic partnerships.

Owing to its geographical location in the Canada's Niagara Escarpment as one of UNESCO's World Heritage Biospheres and its recent emergence as a comprehensive university, it is apparent that Brock University is well placed with potential for a leadership role in promoting ethical and green consumption practices on its campuses and within the region. This qualitative study provides a contemporary, interdisciplinary conceptual framework for understanding how important synergies may be brought to bear in this new policy arena within and beyond academia.

The aim of this paper is to explore the meaning of the term “retail brand” to small‐ to medium‐sized enterprise (SME) owner managers and how this impacts upon brand management practice.

This research utilises a case study approach, which involved 12 SME retailers located in two regions of the UK, combining qualitative interview data with desktop research and documentary evidence.

The findings of this paper confirm that the owner manager is central to the brand management function in SME retail firms. Furthermore, it was found that the retail brand encompasses both symbolic and functional meaning to the owner manager.

This research contributes to the retail and SME literature by offering a conceptual framework, which presents the interpretation of the retail brand from abstractive, service and environmental perspectives.

It is recommended that SME owner managers set an overall direction for branding across all aspects of the retail business. In doing so, existing retail brand models may be utilised as a tool kit for SME brand managers.

The research begins to address a significant empirical lacuna in branding at the SME retail marketing interface. This paper also adds to wider marketing discourse, through the presentation of terminological adaptation within a small retailing situ.

Argues that Humphrey’s tearoom trade study, misinforms readers as much as it informs, regarding moral and ethical foundations for research with human subjects. States that Humphrey’s tearoom study made significant positive contributions to the population he studied. Concludes that few studies in sociology have accomplished as much in a single work.

This paper describes an experiment making use of a Usenet Newsgroup to accelerate the evolution of a learning resource artificially within a group of level one students of computing and information systems at the University of Brighton. The author discusses how evolutionary processes may be perceived in most learning environments, and how Internet‐based learning (IBL) systems can provide an effective “jungle” to encourage rapid evolution so that resources adapt to the needs of learners. The experiment draws on the students’ own comments and reflections on the process. The conclusion drawn is that the newsgroup is an effective aid to learning and a useful but imperfect tool for accelerating evolution.

This paper describes the novel use of agent and cellular neural Hopfield network techniques in the design of a self‐contained, object detecting retina. The agents, which are used to detect features within an image, are trained using the Hebbian method which has been modified for the cellular architecture. The success of each agent is communicated with adjacent agents in order to verify the detection of an object. Initial work used the method to process bipolar images. This has now been extended to handle grey scale images. Simulations have demonstrated the success of the method and further work is planned in which the device is to be implemented in hardware.

This study investigated a series of hypotheses stemming from Ibarra's (1993) proposed conceptual framework for understanding differences between women's and men's interpersonal networks. Using a sample of 112 managers, we examined differences between women's and men's network structural characteristics, and the relationships between these characteristics and support benefits obtained. Consistent with Ibarra, we found that certain network characteristics varied considerably between women and men managers. Women and men tended to belong to different networks in their organizations. Although both groups obtained similar amounts of support from their networks, women managers received their support from substantially different networks, characterized by lower levels of status and power in their organizations. Results are interpreted with respect to Ibarra's theoretical propositions concerning differences between women's and men's networks in organizations.

Library management is struggling to improve productivity without reducing the quality of service to its users. With downsizing continuing to be a trend, the implementation of self‐checkout circulation systems may be an important technological investment for libraries to consider. In most large academic institutions, such circulation functions as checking out and renewing library materials have traditionally been performed by staff members. The climate may, however, be right to rethink the mode of service delivery systems and shift from providing full‐service to self‐service models, whereby the patron takes responsibility for checking out his or her own library materials.