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The NBA Draft policy pursues the goal to provide the weakest teams with the most talented young players to close the gap to the superior competition. But it hinges on appropriate talent evaluation skills of the respective organizations. Research suggests the policy might be valid but to date unable to produce its intended results due to the “human judgement-factor”. This paper investigates specific managerial selection-behavior-influencing information to examine why decision-makers seem to fail to constantly seize the opportunities the draft presents them with.

Athleticism data produced within the NBA Draft Combine setting is strongly considered in the player evaluations and consequently informs the draft decisions of NBA managers. Curiously, research has failed to find much predictive power within the players pre-draft combine results for their post-draft performance. This paper investigates this clear disconnect, by examining the pre- and post-draft data from 2000 to 2019 using principal component and regression analysis.

Evidence for an athletic-induced decision-quality-lowering bias within the NBA Draft process was found. The analysis proves that players with better NBA Draft Combine results tend to get drafted earlier. Controlling for position, age and pre-draft performance there seems to be no proper justification based on post-draft performance for this managerial behavior. This produces systematic errors within the structure of the NBA Draft process and leads to problematic outcomes for the entire league-policy.

The paper delivers first evidence for an athleticism-induced decision-making bias regarding the NBA Draft process. Informing future selection-behavior of managers this research could improve NBA Draft decision-making quality.

The paper aims to understand the possible determinants of knowledge of, and interest in using, blockchain, with a particular focus in the future intention to apply this technology. Blockchain technology is deemed to radically change business models and processes. Using this technology in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is still a novel idea. Moreover, not much is known about the diffusion and level of interest towards blockchain in SMEs. This research adopts a knowledge management perspective, drawing on technology acceptance model to highlight the level of blockchain technology diffusion, and to explore which factors lead SMEs’ to adopt blockchain.

This study distributed a questionnaire to a sample of 300 SMEs in Italy. This study received 96 responses (32% response rate). This study calculated descriptive statistics and undertook a reliability analysis. Finally, this study performed a logistic regression to analyse the determinants of further intention to use blockchain technology.

Results show that blockchain technology is quite well known, but the level of knowledge is limited. Moreover, the research reveals that the rate of adoption is very low. Interest in the future adoption of blockchain is associated with knowledge, perception of usefulness and ease of use of blockchain.

This paper is one of the first explorative studies showing which factors lead SMEs to adopt blockchain technologies and shedding some light on the interaction between knowledge management and blockchain adoption and diffusion in SMEs. It highlights how blockchain knowledge could determine future interest in blockchain innovation. This paper is relevant for public and private institutions that aim to promote, through knowledge management, the adoption of blockchain in SMEs.

The purpose of this paper is to present the process of building a model that identifies criteria that determine the quality of virtual postgraduate programs. In the Colombian context, there are no national criteria/standards to evaluate the quality of this type of program. This proposed model is implemented in a public university that has several virtual postgraduate courses within the framework of university autonomy.

This study implements a descriptive methodology through documental research based on the study of 414 documents and the analysis of 39 and research based on the design of the proposal of a quality model, its validation by experts and its application in the academic community of a public university that has virtual postgraduate courses.

The results are presented in a structure composed of 10 quality factors: coherence between programs, virtual methodology and institutional horizon; attention to students; characteristics of author teachers, virtual teachers and researchers; academic, curricular and learning processes; research, knowledge generation and production; the relationship with the environment; articulation and impact; need satisfaction and ability to generate innovation processes; internationalization, alliances and insertion in scientific and global networks; and technological resources and production of virtual contents, among others.

This model can be prospectively incorporated into processes that have adapted online training elements in health emergency contexts.

This model combines theoretical and practice aspects and the validation of experts, which contributes to the reflection on the quality of virtual programs, with criteria different from those proposed for face-to-face and distance programs.

Even though the model resulting from this inquiry responds to the situated context of a particular virtual academic program, the research perspective may be oriented to perform longitudinal studies of its implementation, as well as its adaptation to other situated contexts, including those that make use of virtual processes and means of remote education. On the other hand, it provides elements to be taken into account in the construction of educational policies on the quality of virtual programs and future research.

This paper is the result of a research project and its content is original.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate consumers' reactions to a new kind of green food product that is the so-called lab-grown meat (LGM). This kind of meat does not derive from animal or vegetal cultures but is produced on the basis of “tissue-engineering” technologies, by injecting muscle tissue from an animal into a cell culture, allowing cells to “grow” outside the animal's body. By considering the similar nutritional characteristics of traditional types of meat, and the potential in terms of sustainability, the authors investigate the effect of the advertising, communication focus promoting LGM-based meat, on consumers' willingness to buy (WTB) and word-of-mouth (WOM), by shedding light on the moderator role of consumers' environmentalism and status consumption orientation tendency in influencing such relationship.

Through an exploratory research design, the authors conducted a study based on a two-cell experiment that manipulated the advertising communication focus by using a hamburger made of synthetic meat related to a fictitious brand called “Gnam”, to manipulate the advertising communication focus (sustainability vs. taste), then evaluating consumers' WTB, WOM, environmentalism and status consumption orientation.

Results show that the communication focus (sustainability vs. taste) exerts a positive effect on consumers' WTB and WOM, and how such effect is magnified both by consumers' environmentalism and status consumption orientation, in the attempt to show other a green status and their green consumption tendency.

Despite the promising results, the study does not consider other consumers' individual differences, i.e. as for the role of age, or cultural differences.

Practically, this study suggests marketers and managers how to design effective marketing campaigns to incentivise LGM-based food products purchase, and promote positive WOM, on the basis of certain consumers' individual differences useful to segment their clientele in terms of environmentalism, and status consumption orientation tendency.

Socially, this study may contribute to incentivising the use of alternative forms of meat as a food product not deriving from animal or vegetal culture, coherently with recent sustainability worldwide claimed goals.

This is the first paper to investigate consumers' reactions to LGM-based food products, by shedding light on the fundamental role of consumers' individual differences.

The current research aimed to examine the prevalence of Instagram posts featuring ultra-processed products targeted at adolescents in Uruguay and hence investigate the frequency of such posts among a vulnerable consumer segment in a country that cannot be classified as WEIRD (i.e. Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic).

The study relied on a cross-sectional content analysis. A total of 2,014 Instagram posts promoting ultraprocessed products or brands commercializing such products, generated by 118 Instagram accounts between August 15th, 2020, and February 15th, 2021, were analyzed. Nine indicators of food marketing targeted at adolescents were selected to identify posts targeted at this age segment. Inductive coding was used to describe the content of the posts. Descriptive statistics and generalized linear models were used to analyze the data.

In total, 17.6% of the posts were identified as targeted at adolescents. Graphic design and adolescent language were the most prevalent indicators of marketing targeted at adolescents, followed by explicit references to adolescents or young adults and memes. Posts identified as targeted at adolescents mainly promoted snacks and discretionary foods. Differences in the content of posts identified as targeted and not targeted at adolescents were observed.

The analysis was restricted to one social media platform in one country during a limited period of time, which limits the generalizability of the findings to other media platforms, samples and settings.

Results stress the need to implement digital food marketing regulations to reduce exposure of adolescents to the deleterious effects of stemming from marketing of unhealthy foods and provide empirical evidence to inform their development.

The study breaks new ground by analyzing the prevalence and exploring the characteristics and content of Instagram posts promoting ultra-processed products to adolescents in an under-researched geographic area of the world.

Drawing on the knowledge-based theory, the purpose of this paper is to extend the current understanding of a company’s upgrading of a foreign subsidiary’s value-adding scope and its impact on growth.

This study applies a longitudinal approach and analyses the value-adding scopes of the subsidiaries of two Swedish industrial companies in the USA, resulting in a proposed model.

Greater adaptation of the corporate competitive strategy is linked to a greater likelihood of upgrading the subsidiary’s scope to include R&D and production activities. Also, market experience of the subsidiary is positively associated with this likelihood. The greater the coherence between the scope and knowledge originating from the local adaptation of the corporate competitive strategy and the subsidiary’s market experience, the greater the growth of the subsidiary.

This study contributes to the literature on international business and strategy in several ways. Future studies may turn the propositions into hypotheses for statistical tests.

An industrial company striving for the growth of a foreign subsidiary must assess subsidiary knowledge pertaining to value-adding. To achieve high growth, the subsidiary’s value-adding scope must be aligned with knowledge stemming from the corporate competitive strategy and market experience.

This is the first study explicitly explaining the crucial upgrading of a foreign subsidiary’s value-adding scope to include R&D and production. Coherence between an upgraded scope and crucial knowledge explains the subsidiary’s growth.

The goal of this qualitative study is to explore how different elements of the coach–coachee setting can affect the perceived outcome from coaching sessions by the coachee.

Using thematic analysis on 197 semi-structured interviews of bank executives, the authors suggest an evidence-based sequential model on how the perceived value of the coaching process might be contingent on four elements.

As a result of the exploratory analysis, the authors’ suggest that the coach's guidance, coach's reliableness, coachee's willingness and coachee's self-awareness can determine the coachees' perceived effectiveness or usefulness from their coaching sessions.

There is little empirical data regarding the coachee's perceived value. The current study attempts to fill the gap in the existing literature by considering the coaching outcomes with particular regard to the executive's perceived value of coaching. This research adds to the literature on how to deliver effective coaching in organizations and provides empirical evidence to practitioners on how coachees perceive value from coaching.

Focusing on gender as an aspect of diversity, the purpose of this paper is to review social studies research on technology, and suggest a new direction, with gender redefined from a gap to be eliminated to a difference to be explored.

This paper is a literature review of research on gender, technology, and social studies from 1987 to 2007.

Previously, men had more access and used more types of technology than women, but a shift to web‐based computing eliminates some gender gaps. Women dominate online communication. Although “male” technology culture interferes with girls' self‐efficacy in schools and potential computer careers, the new Web 2.0 “participatory culture” holds promise because it relies on collaboration and networking, two well documented female strengths.

The gap notion of gender is questionable because: technology culture has been constructed as male; and social studies education, where women greatly out number men, pays little attention to gender. Evidence suggests that girls and women use technology well when it serves their interests, which may not be the same as men's. Defining gender as difference helps researchers answer calls to integrate “21st century literacies” into future studies and put gender equity at the center of future technology policy.

Very little has been written about gender as a facet of multicultural social studies education in its relation to social studies.

On the educational level, this paper aims to show a practical case of dialogic web‐based learning. It has provided a consensus during a web‐based negotiation game between four different parties on poverty and inequality. On a multicultural level, this paper seeks to offer diverse cultures of argumentation on global poverty.

The methodology is a web‐based and real life negotiation game, namely “Surfing Global Change” which includes structured online review processes on literature‐based research and reflection.

The paper provides the consensus of four different parties on global development and poverty, and a new system of scaling development based on democratic decisions through a round table for all countries from the global north and the global south.

The presented dialog and consensus‐finding process concentrates on poverty and inequality from the point of view of the G‐8, NGOs, the global rich and the global poor.

This research, based on literature, is formed through a dialog and consensus finding between four different parties (G‐8, NGOs, the rich and the poor).

This paper aims to illuminate mechanisms through which memorable experiences with brands create lasting preferences. It is based on the proposition that intense positive (negative) affective consumption in the consumer’s youth creates powerful imprints, which influence brand preference (distaste) throughout life.

Autobiographical memories with Nutella are retrieved from three different user groups, i.e. heavy-, light- and non-users. The retrieved memory narratives are analysed using conditioning theory, i.e. operant, classical or no conditioning are identified and compared across groups.

The research’s central proposition is affirmed, yet the dominant form of conditioning mechanism differs per group. Operant conditioning outperforms classical conditioning in creating strong and lasting preferences. Heavy- and non-users predominantly exhibit in-tensely positive and negative operant conditioning, respectively. Light-users on the other hand recall less affectively intense consumption experiences, mainly featuring classical conditioning. The light-users’ recollections suggest a mere exposure effect to be more appropriate in describing the preference formation in this user group.

Users not having experienced affectively intense consumption, i.e. light-users, are likely to be influenced in their preference over time through other factors, which this paper does not focus on.

Memory elicitation and exploration provides valuable insights to shape both promotional as well as advertising strategies.

The study extends existing theory on conditioning in marketing by first using a novel qualitative approach to analyse conditioning procedures in real-life settings, and second, it highlights operant conditioning’s superior ability in creating lasting preferences.