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With the globalisation of markets, firms are continuously searching for ways to remain competitive. In such an environment the purchasing and management of raw materials, supplies, parts, etc., has emerged as a critical area for a firm to achieve its strategic goals. Purchasing controls typically one‐quarter to one‐third of the expenses incurred by the firm in manufacturing its products. The objective of the article is to identify and illustrate how different computer‐based decision support tools/techniques could be applied to various purchasing decisions. Through in‐depth applications the potential improvements in managerial effectiveness, increased user involvement, and ease in problem solving are highlighted.

This paper was presented to the 6th European Congress on Research in Rehabilitation, 31 May‐4 June 1998 in Berlin. It reflects the fact that, in Germany, there is a more structured and research‐based approach to moving people into employment than we are used to in the UK ‐ one of the many cultural differences which we can learn from in our partnerships with European colleagues. It should also be remembered that the Germans regard Douglas Bennett as the source of many of their ideas and that there are nearly 2000 people with mental health problems working in German social firms as a result of their systematic approach.

This paper aims to examine coping approaches used by receivers to deal with failed gift experiences, thereby dealing with misperceptions between givers and receivers that could affect their relationship.

This study uses a sequential, multimethod methodology using background questionnaires, online diary method and 27 semi-structured interviews.

Receivers cope with failed gift experiences through concealing, disclosing or re-evaluating the gift experience. These approaches encompass several coping strategies, allowing receivers to deal with their experiences in ways that help them manage their relationships with givers.

Informants described gift experiences in their own terms without being prompted to talk about coping, thus some insights of coping with failed gifts may have been missed. Multiple data collection methods were used to minimise this limitation, and the research findings suggest new avenues for future research.

The present research helps retailers and brands to minimise gift failure by promoting gifts that emphasise aspects of the giver–receiver relationship, assists givers in their learning from gift failure by making them aware of the receiver’s preferences and reduces the cost of gift failure by offering further opportunities to dispose of unwanted gifts.

This paper contributes to the emerging topic of consumer coping by providing a novel and rounded understanding of coping in the context of failed gift events, identifying new reasons for gift failure, highlighting receivers’ ethical considerations when responding to failed gifts and proposing new insights for the coping literature.

Drawing upon the evolutionary psychology perspective, the current research aims to investigate the conditions under which power (high vs low) and emotion (pride vs gratitude) can influence consumers to purchase products for others via two fundamental motives (the signaling and affiliative motives).

Three experiments are conducted. Study 1 demonstrates that consumers with high (low) power are more likely to choose a wine promoted with pride (gratitude) appeals. Study 2 shows that consumers in the high- (low-) power condition report a higher willingness to pay for a wine promoted with pride (gratitude) appeals. Study 3 replicates the findings of Study 2 using a different product advertisement (chocolate bars).

This study provides concrete empirical evidence that powerful consumers experiencing pride will engage in gift giving because of an increased signaling motive. In contrast, powerless consumers experiencing gratitude will engage in gift giving because of an increased affiliative motive.

This study explores the context of gift giving using wine and chocolate bars as the products. It would thus be of interest to examine and extend the effects in motivating other prosocial behaviors such as donating and volunteering.

The findings suggest how different states of power can be temporarily and purposively triggered and matched with the desired emotional appeals within adverting messages to increase persuasion.

This study illustrates a novel mechanism for gift giving from the evolutionary psychology perspective by showing that gift giving can be motivated by two distinct pathways – affiliative and signaling motives. Further, it tests how the interactive effects of power (high vs low) and emotion (pride vs gratitude) can activate such motives.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Term. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

This study aims to explore the dual identity role of joint gift-giving among adolescents. Studying this phenomenon through the lens of impression management theory enabled us to analyze private and group motives, drivers of these motives (givers’ public self-consciousness and self-monitoring and group cohesiveness) and the influence of group motives on the joint process. The characteristics of the joint process reflect a mutual social activity that enables adolescents to strengthen social group ties and define and nurture group identity. This research showed how a mutual consumer process, specifically, joint gift-giving, enhances the outcomes of social resources by defining groups’ mutual extended selves.

In this study, quantitative tools were used. Selection of constructs for the study was based on a literature review and existing qualitative research. To test the validity and the reliability of the scales, a convenience sample of 103 adolescents (13 to 16 years old) was used in a pre-test survey. In the main study, a convenience sample of 129 adolescences was used. Self-report questionnaires were distributed to adolescents (aged 13-16 years). The survey included scales covering private and group motives for joint gift-giving, givers’ personality, group cohesiveness and the characteristics of the joint process.

Givers’ public self-consciousness and self-monitoring were positively related to the motivation to engage in joint gift-giving to facilitate the development of desired private identities. High public self-consciousness and self-monitoring givers were motivated to enhance their private role in the group task and managed their impression among multiple audiences. We found that high-cohesiveness groups were motivated to nurture and strengthen social resources through joint gift-giving. Engaging in joint gift-giving is motivated not only by functional motives (e.g. saving money) but also by social motives that strengthen a group’s extended-self and social resources that all members enjoy.

Although gift-giving is a three-stage process per gestation presentation and reformulation stage, the current study explored joint gift-giving behavior only in the gestation stage. Future research should include the other two stages. Also the current research concentrated on adolescents. Exploring joint gift-giving among adults is recommended as well. Comparing the two age groups should allow a better understanding of the special characteristics of adolescents and adults. Additionally, other personality characteristics could affect givers private identity in the group task and other group characteristics such as group size gender of members and group context in the workplace could affect identity.

This research can provide marketers with a deeper understanding of the joint gift-giving process. For example, marketers should recognize that joint gift-giving involves adolescent groups’ time-consuming activities in the joint process, i.e. gift selection effort, making handmade gifts and putting special efforts in gift appearance that enable them to define and nurture their group identity.

Parents and educators should recognize the importance of social identity dual role in participating in joint gift-giving. Hence, we recommend them to encourage adolescents to participate in this joint consuming process to enable them to protect and define their identity.

Adolescents are an important market segment with unique cognitive, social and personality processes. While these processes have been explored in several consumer behavior studies, adolescents’ gift-giving has been largely ignored in the literature. This study contributes to an understanding of the drivers of private and group joint gift-giving motives, how sense of belonging and group identity are reflected in the social dynamics of joint gift-giving and how adolescents manage group and private impressions in the eyes of a single receiver and in the eyes of multiple peers participating in the group task.

Men make war; women make peace. Men make war; women make children. Men make war because women make children. Because men make war, women make children. Women make peace because they make children.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

In this chapter, the authors offer a critical appraisal of predictions of a jobless future due do rapid technological change, as well as provide evidence on whether the rate of occupational change has been increasing. The authors critique the “task replacement” methodology that underlies the most powerful and specific predictions about the impact of technology on employment in particular occupations. There are a number of reasons why assuming a correspondence between task replacement and employment declines is not warranted. The authors also raise questions about how rapidly the development, acceptance, and diffiusion of labor-displacing technologies is likely to occur. In the empirical portion of the chapter, the authors compare the current rate of employment disruption with those observed in earlier periods. This analysis is based on an analysis of occupation data in the US covering the period 1870–2015. Using an index of dissimilarity as the metric, the authors find that the rate of occupational change from 1870 to 2015 does not provide evidence of a sharp uptick in the rate of occupational shifts in the information age. Instead, the rate of occupation shifts has been declining slowly throughout the second half of the twentieth century. Thus, the issues and results discussed here suggest that imminent massive employment displacement is not a foregone conclusion.