Search results

This paper aims to discuss the experiences of a group of eight user and carer researchers from learning disability and mental health services who worked together in a research project. The research was to find out about the changes that took place as over 300 people moved from hostel accommodation into independent tenancies. These moves were part of a three year project involving a partnership between a local authority and a housing association.

The evaluation was based on a model of user participation.

User involvement in research can mean different things with different levels of involvement, from consultation through to user‐controlled research. In this paper the authors discuss some of the challenges in doing this kind of evaluation study, as well as the opportunities that came from involving users and carers in the research. This includes how the researchers got involved and some of the activities they did.

The authors also describe some of the difficulties that were faced, including payments and criminal record checks. The ways in which people were trained and supported to take part and stay involved are outlined as well as how the group feel that they have learnt new skills and increased their confidence.

This paper adds the voices of the co‐researchers to the literature and provides “lessons learned” for other researchers in this area.

Managing the corporate reputation of hybrid firms (organizations that act commercially to pursue social agendas) involves particular challenges because of competing stakeholder interests. With reference to the Trappist beer market, the paper seeks to identify the value of message ambiguity in reducing stakeholder tension, while simultaneously achieving a clear market positioning.

In total, 25 in‐depth interviews were conducted with brand marketers, owners, channel buyers, industry representatives and consumers.

The findings demonstrate how ambiguous communications minimize tension between stakeholders. One form of ambiguous message strategy is identified – i.e. the deliberate use of “authenticity” as a positioning device. This positioning allows stakeholders to ascribe conflicting meanings to the Trappist brand, resulting in increased reputation and decreased stakeholder tension.

The use of authenticity and message ambiguity represents one means of balancing stakeholder interests, while achieving a clear market position. The paper believes the findings are particularly relevant for social marketers and managers of highly symbolic brands.

Marketers can reduce stakeholder conflict through the use of brand images that emphasize normative as opposed to performance‐based commitments. Such commitments need to be broad enough to allow different stakeholders to ascribe their own meaning to the brand without diminishing the strength of the firm's market position.

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of knowledge management (KM) infrastructure and KM processes on the performance of KM practices.

The paper is based on personal interviews, data were collected from 83 managers from a single case study of a Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) operator in Turkey.

The paper finds that hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling. Test of hypotheses revealed that both KM processes and KM infrastructure positively and significantly influenced the performance of KM practices. These findings tend to corroborate our conceptual model and are also in line with the existing literature. KM infrastructure was found to be more significantly affecting KM performance than KM processes, indicating that the context and background of KM is more important than the application aspects of KM.

The findings in this paper cannot be generalized due to the case study approach. It may not be claimed that both KM processes and KM infrastructure solely determine the performance of KM practices. Instead, there are many other factors that may influence KM performance, which are somewhat beyond the scope of this research.

The paper shows that the evaluation of KM performance is expected to increase the effectiveness, efficiency and adaptability of KM efforts so as to add more value to the overall performance of the organization.

In this paper there is little or no empirical evidence investigating the influence of KM infrastructure and KM processes on KM performance. This paper rectifies this imbalance by clarifying the link between KM infrastructure, processes and performance.

The rising number of food safety scandals during recent years has led to increased uncertainty about food consumption choices. Additionally, new production process technologies, increased attention toward product ingredients, and obesity concerns have affected general levels of trust in food. Consequently, trust is an ever more decisive factor for success in food industry buyer‐seller relationships and, hence, in the retail food market. Although considerable research has investigated trust in organizations, research in the food retailing industry needs further investigation. The aim of this paper is to identify variables related to consumer trust in food retailers. Only when consumer trust in food retailers is understood can retailers effectively apply corresponding strategies to secure long‐term success.

Based on an established model of trust in organizations, the authors developed a questionnaire to test drivers (ability, benevolence, integrity), outcomes (risk taking, loyalty) of specific trust in food retailers, as well as moderators (propensity to trust, perceived risk).

Study results support the hypothesized model, showing that specific trust in a food retailer strongly predicts risk taking and, in turn, loyalty. The food retailer's ability and integrity were identified as relevant to specific trust, while the customer's propensity to trust was shown to moderate the relationship between benevolence and specific trust. The results further indicate that the perceived risk affects the relationship between specific trust and risk taking.

This paper is the first to apply and test an established model of trust in the food‐retailing market.

Due to the rising number of product, service, and shopping possibilities available to consumers, food shopping has become increasingly more complex. As a result, consumers can become confused, and this state of confusion may influence their purchase behaviour (e.g. may cause them to not buy a product) and the personal needs they have in a shopping environment (e.g. certification to signal product quality, salesperson consultation for assistance in decision making, or governmental regulation). However, trust can reduce complexity, and may thereby moderate the influence of consumer confusion for negative outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to identify outcomes of consumer confusion and to investigate the moderating role of broader-scope trust on the negative outcomes of this confusion.

A conceptual model was developed to study potential negative outcomes of consumer confusion. In order to assess consumer confusion and the degree of negative outcomes, a telephone survey method for the questionnaire was applied, querying 516 participants who regularly bought food products.

The results clearly suggest that consumer confusion evokes various negative outcomes that are of relevance for food retailing. The intensity of the influence of consumer confusion on several of those negative outcomes could be decreased by broader-scope trust. Further, an interaction effect linked to gender was observed.

To the best of the knowledge, this is the first international journal publication on the moderating role of trust on the outcomes of consumer confusion.

Capital budgeting (CB) is a resource allocation problem encountered by top management faced with deciding which capital projects should be selected for implementation. The conception and details of these projects normally originate in lower echelons of the company, but it remains for top management to select which set of projects best contributes to the overall objectives of the firm.