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This study aims to examine peer perceptions of a parent dining in a fast-food restaurant with their child.

A vignette approach was used to explore consumer assumptions and normative data using a four-country online survey of parents, with 1,200 respondents (300 from each of Australia, Canada, the UK and the USA). The study included qualitative and quantitative thematic analyses of the responses.

Family dining in fast-food restaurants was most often associated with an opportunity for family time together (25%), a treat (25%) and an unhealthy food decision (19%). For some, this is a normal meal that should not be judged (11%), for others, this is merely a meal of easy convenience (9%). Fathers, when depicted as the parent in the vignette, were more likely to be praised for spending time with their children, while mothers were more likely to be critiqued for making poor nutritional choices. Respondents from the USA viewed fast-food family dining more favourably than respondents from Australia, Canada or the UK.

Despite rising obesity in these four countries, only 19% of respondents focused on the unhealthy element of the food choice, suggesting that perhaps this element is not on the forefront of consumer decision considerations.

This paper confirms parental peer perception differences, based on gender and country, regarding opinions on a child dining with a parent in a fast-food restaurant.

This paper aims to explore the key factors which influence whistleblowing intentions of teachers working with higher education institutions (HEIs) in India. Both internal and external whistleblowing intentions of the HEI teachers are studied by examining their relative intentions to report a potential wrongdoing to the authorities within the management of the institution and to the external statutory bodies. The reporting intentions of the HEI teachers are measured through the use of three vignettes related to academic frauds. Whistleblowing intentions are proposed to be determined by the individual, organizational and situational factors.

Survey method of descriptive research design has been used to obtain the primary data regarding the individual, organizational and situational variables deemed to influence HEI teachers’ internal and external whistleblowing intentions. A self-administered structured questionnaire is used as survey instrument for primary data collection. The respondents’ internal and external whistleblowing intentions are measured through the use of three vignettes related to academic frauds. Non-parametric tests such as Mann–Whitney U test, Kruskal–Wallis test and Spearman correlations have been used to test the research hypotheses.

The study has found that the HEI teachers are more likely to blow the whistle internally if there is a proper communication channel in their organization for reporting wrongdoings. However, they do not hesitate to blow the whistle externally in the absence of internal reporting channel, especially in those cases of wrongdoings where they perceive the cost of reporting to be high. The high status of the wrongdoer and high costs of reporting discourage the teachers to blow the whistle internally. However, if the wrongdoer holds a very powerful position in the organization, then the teachers prefer to report his wrongdoing to external agencies as they are afraid of the likely negative repercussions of reporting against him internally. In case of serious wrongdoings, the teachers intend to blow the whistle within the organization rather than going to external agencies probably because they do not want to spoil the image of their organization in the external world.

The first limitation is that because of the unavailability of pre-tested vignettes in the context of academic frauds, the study has used three vignettes which have been developed on the basis of few case studies. Second, the results showed the existence of social desirability bias across all the three vignettes. Also, the study has been conducted among teaching professionals; therefore, the findings cannot be generalized to the professionals of other sectors.

The findings of the study may bring awareness to the board of management of HEIs, regarding the importance of whistleblowing in their educational institutions. They should encourage the teachers working with their institutions to report the wrongdoings internally as external reporting may cause damage to their institute’s reputation. Proper reporting mechanisms should be designed and shared with the employees as a part of institutional culture.

The Whistle Blowers Protection Act passed by the Parliament of India in 2011 should be amended to include the private sector employees, especially the teachers working in higher education sector. This will encourage the HEI teachers to report the academic frauds fearlessly which will put a serious check on the growing number of frauds and wrongdoings in the education sector.

Previous research studies have discussed the factors influencing whistleblowing intentions in the context of various non-academic organizations. However, existing research has not adequately provided a better understanding of the influencing factors of whistleblowing intentions in higher education sector. The present paper addresses this gap by empirically examining the key factors which influence HEI teachers’ intentions of blowing the whistle and reporting the wrongdoings occurring in their institutions, in Indian context. An attempt has been made to identify the influencing factors of both internal and external whistleblowing intentions by using three different vignettes related with academic frauds.

Customers from different cultures might have different expectations and perceptions of quality, leading to different levels of satisfaction. Together with the construct and measurement equivalence issues of cross-cultural surveys, this raises the question of the comparability of customer satisfaction measurements across countries. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the survey method of anchoring vignettes as a tool for improving the comparability of customer satisfaction measurements across countries and to shed some light on cultural influences on customer satisfaction measurements.

Based on the models of American Customer Satisfaction Index and European Performance Satisfaction Index, the authors designed and conducted a survey using the method of anchoring vignettes to measure and compare customer satisfaction with mobile phone services in four countries – Costa Rica, Poland, Sweden and Thailand. The survey was carried out with young adults aged 20–30 years, who were mostly university students.

This study demonstrates how anchoring vignettes can be used to mitigate cultural bias in customer satisfaction surveys and to improve both construct and measurement equivalence of the questionnaire. The results show that different conclusions on cross-cultural benchmarking of customer satisfaction would be drawn when using a traditional survey compared to the anchoring vignettes method.

This paper evaluates the survey method of anchoring vignettes as a potential quantitative research method for studying customer satisfaction across countries. The results also contribute to customer satisfaction research as these shed some light onto how culture influences customer satisfaction measurements. The practical implication for firms and managers is that allocating resources among different countries based on traditional customer satisfaction surveys may be misleading.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a methodology based on vignettes and its application to measure the consistency of railway delay attribution, in order to report on experiences of using the methodology in this context.

A survey is used to ask personnel performing delay attribution about how they would report the delays described in the vignettes of the survey. The development, application and analysis of the survey are thoroughly described here.

The methodology proved useful for measuring the consistency of delay attribution.

The methodology also supports a further investigation of the accuracy of delay attribution systems.

A survey similar to the one presented here can be used by railways to estimate the accuracy of their delay attribution systems, as well as to continuously improve them. Changes to computer software and training will improve the delay attribution system under study.

By investigating current delay attribution practices using surveys based on vignettes, drawbacks of the current delay attribution system can be identified and remedied. The methodology is applicable to a wide class of deviation attribution applications.

This article seeks to provide a fresh perspective on the methodological approach to studying caregiving in a transnational context by analysing, local caregiver’s lifeworld, informal interpreting/translation and professional communication with foreign retirees.

This project explores the complex and multifaceted meanings of everyday objects through diffractive vignettes to illuminate the communicative entanglements that arise between caregivers and foreign retirees receiving care in Thailand. To identify intra-actions in caregiving, we collected data through informal interviews, observations and various artefacts before combining them in a group of potential communicative relationships by creating a narrative summary of situations.

Communicative relationships in the vignettes are multidimensional, with diverse logics underlying choices, rapport formation and communication effectiveness. This premise also illuminates how caregivers perceive and intra-act with their accommodation strategies, considering trust, comfort and comprehension. Our findings were also discussed with the concept of communication accommodation theory.

As an extension of the post-humanist approach to the diffractive reading of vignettes, this study sees its value in studying agent-related informal translation/interpreting and human-to-human relationships.

Older adults and their families, geriatricians and gerontological practitioners, other health care providers, and social policy makers are invested in finding ways to prevent health and safety problems so that older adults can remain in their homes safely and independently. Family life education and problem-prevention programs designed for older adults are cost-effective ways of trying to avoid or prevent problems before they occur. The purpose of this chapter is to describe the use of multiple segment factorial vignettes as an educational method to promote safety and health.

Multiple segment factorial vignettes (MSFVs) are short stories comprised of two to five separate segments. In research, MSFVs have been used to study attitudes, values, beliefs, and behaviors. MSFVs also have potential for use in interventions with individuals, couples, and families. We present an example of the use of MSFVs in an intervention project in which we taught the family members and friends of older adults who lived alone how to use MSFVs in collaborative problem-solving with older adults about maintaining their independence safely in their homes. The MSFV method was easily learned by project participants, readily individualized to fit the situations of older individuals, and the participants enjoyed using them.

MSFVs were effective in changing behaviors and cognitions of older adults.

We present issues to consider for practitioners who want to develop and utilize MSFVs in interventions. Examples of MSFVs as interventions are presented and limitations to MSFVs are discussed.

The purpose of this study was twofold: to explore the everyday experiences and interpretations of verbalised self-criticism in emergent adult males (ages 18–25) in social contexts and, secondly, to explore the utilisation of vignettes in phenomenological research exploring social processes.

Four Australian male participants participated in semi-structured interviews to share the participants' experiences and sense-making of self-criticism in social contexts. Vignettes of verbalised self-criticism were used to prompt attentive reflection. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to analyse the data.

Four superordinate themes emerged from participant responses: (1) searching for context, (2) self-improving or self-attacking, (3) self-criticism as a social tool, and (4) engaging and distancing responses.

This study provides useful insights into how verbalised self-criticism in social contexts was experienced by four emergent adult males. Furthermore, this study provides a working example of how vignettes can be used within an interpretative phenomenological analysis frame to prompt attentive reflection on sensitive, nuanced social phenomenon. Implications for future research are discussed. Further research could use this study's findings to explore female responses to verbalised self-criticism and potential causality between contextual factors and the nature of responses.

In light of the challenge to attract skilled employees in times of dwindling labour supply, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how motivational person-job fit influences the preference for a job. Using a model based on prospect theory, person-job fit is operationalised on three motivational dimensions: extrinsic, enjoyment-based intrinsic, and prosocial intrinsic motivation. Public service motivation (PSM) is theoretically integrated into the model’s dimensions and conceptualised as a fuzzy subset thereof. Within the model, job seekers evaluate their fit with various jobs by comparing their personal motives to the jobs’ motivational incentives, compiling a preference order.

The model was tested using a completely randomised vignette experiment. In all, 102 master’s students had to indicate their preference among various randomly selected job vignettes. Certain vignettes presented to experimental group (EG) subjects were individually manipulated to provide either very good or very poor person-job fit. The manipulation’s effect on vignette preference was analysed using logistic regression.

EG subjects significantly preferred both well-fitting and random vignettes over misfitting ones. No significant preference was found comparing well-fitting and random vignettes. Coherent with prospect theory, the deterring effect of misfit appears to be stronger than the attraction effect of good fit, supporting the model.

Most previous research on motivational person-job fit focused on a single factor (e.g. PSM) when predicting job preference. This study, in contrast, incorporates multiple motivational dimensions, capturing that individuals usually pursue mixed motives.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how country-of-origin (COO) perceptions of managers affect their provider selection for offshoring and offshore-outsourcing of services. In particular, it examines how economic and cultural attributes of the supplier’s host nation shape these choices and identifies whether these attributes have a substitutive, complementary, or competing relationship.

A quantitative study was performed using data collected from 235 managers in Saudi Arabia, which has relatively homogeneous managerial population with a clear significant cultural attribute and so presents an ideal setting to study the theory developed in this paper. Data were analyzed using a repeated-measures analysis of variance and a repeated-measures and doubly multivariate analysis of variance.

Building on signaling theory, it is shown that buyers from developing countries prefer suppliers from developed rather than culturally distant developing economies as stronger institutions in developed nations increase the credibility of firms. It is also shown that they prefer suppliers from developing countries that share a common cultural attribute such as religion over other developing countries, supporting social identification behavior and a substitutive relationship between cultural and economic attributes. Finally, they are indifferent between suppliers located in a developed and in a culturally similar developing country, even when the cost of obtaining the service is the same in both countries. In such cases, economic and cultural COO attributes have a competing relationship in provider selection.

It would be interesting to examine if the results of the current study extend to cultural attributes/cues other than religion that may shrink the social distance between buyers and suppliers.

Service multinationals from developing countries may struggle to establish credibility in the eyes of potential customers, who consistently evaluate them lower than firms in developed markets or firms from developing countries that share a common social trait with the potential customers. They can compensate for this by adopting policies that enhance pre-contract trust, invest in homogeneity capital that decreases the social distance between the two firms, or by focussing their sales efforts on countries with which they share a social/cultural attribute.

This paper contributes to the marketing and international business literatures by providing insights on how firms from developing countries can effectively compete in the global marketplace given COO effects. Overall, the results provide novel evidence of the importance of co-membership in transnational communities (for instance, religious groups across countries) in supplier selection and its relationship to economic attributes.