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The purpose of this paper is to present an analysis of common parameters in existing tools that provide guidance to carry out Whole Building Life Cycle Assessment (WBLCA) and proposes a new taxonomy, a catalogue of parameters, for the definition of the goal and scope (G&S) in WBLCA.

A content analysis approach is used to identify, code and analyze parameters in existing WBLCA tools. Finally, a catalogue of parameters is organized into a new taxonomy.

In total, 650 distinct parameter names related to the definition of G&S from 16 WBLCAs tools available in North America, Europe and Australia are identified. Building on the analysis of existing taxonomies, a new taxonomy of 54 parameters is proposed in order to describe the G&S of WBLCA.

The analysis of parameters in WBLCA tools does not include Green Building Rating Systems and is only limited to tools available in English.

This research is crucial in life cycle assessment (LCA) method harmonization and to serve as a stepping stone to the identification and categorization of parameters that could contribute to WBLCA comparison necessary to meet current global carbon goals.

The proposed taxonomy enables architecture, engineering and construction practitioners to contribute to current WBLCA practice.

A study of common parameters in existing tools contributes to identifying the type of data that is required to describe buildings and contribute to build a standardized framework for LCA reporting, which would facilitate consistency across future studies and can serve as a checklist for practitioners when conducting the G&S stage of WBLCA.

Cornell University's Albert R. Mann Library was featured in a 1994 Library Hi Tech issue as a prototype of the electronic library. Mann Library, the winner of the American Library Association's first Library of the Future award, presented its systematic approach to creating a new digital research library, an approach that employs modern methods rooted in classic principles to form a vibrant, organic whole by integrating the print and the digital library. Mann's approach is based on having a clear understanding of what our mission is and constantly rethinking what we are doing to achieve it. Consequently, a lot has happened at Mann since 1994. This article describes the library's new program of instructional technology support, while a series of short reports focus on some of the other Mann Library projects.

The purpose of this paper is to create a managerial framework for selecting the most effective bank advertisement appeal for different financial services. Financial services were classified based on the FCB grid: high/low involvement and think/feel decision.

The data were collected from 62 banks with content analysis based on 1,514 unique print advertisements, published between 2006 and 2014 in national newspapers in Romania and Hungary. The ads were coded, based on Pollay’s appeals, and then a cluster analysis was performed to identify appeal and financial service clusters.

The results revealed ten bank-specific appeals which can be used for advertising four different banking services categories. All type of savings and loans for B2B are advertised with quality appeals (safety, productivity); current account and card, personal/home loans are advertised with financial value appeals (convenient, cheap); corporate branding with emotional appeals (affiliation, distinctive, enjoyment); and services with mixed appeals.

The study could be extended for different target market, creative strategy, other media and more countries.

The paper provides guidelines on how the FCB grid could be extended for bank services to recommend specific appeals for each category.

The financial service literature proposes guidelines regarding bank advertisements. However, the recommended advertisement appeals were not linked to different bank services. This paper creates a comprehensive managerial framework in order to match the bank’s specific appeals with different bank services.

The purpose of the paper is to discover how very young (three- to six-year-old) children describe their “actual” shopping process and how they characterise an “ideal” shopping. The perceived role of new technological devices in such an ideal shopping process is also analysed.

A review of literature is followed by the description and findings of an exploratory study done in two European countries. Data collection was performed in three distinct phases. First, focus group discussions were conducted with 176 children. Second, interviews were organised with 30 children and one of their parents individually. Third, children were asked to prepare drawings about their actual and their ideal shopping.

The results show that very young children would like to actively participate in the shopping process no matter where they live. When describing their shopping experiences French kids focus on the products they buy, while Hungarian children talk about how they take part in the purchase process. The findings demonstrate that children have a great knowledge about technical devices and while French kids would be happy to replace offline shopping by online shopping, Hungarian kids find it as a bad idea. Interestingly, both French and Hungarian kids explain their opinion with their desire to spend more time with their parents.

The value of the paper lies in the focus of the research (opinion and feelings of very young children about the shopping process) as well as in the methodology used.

Digital technology is revolutionizing insurance distribution allowing the insurer companies to reach customers via multichannel. The aim of this study is to segment potential customers of life insurance based on their information search, purchasing channels and personal characteristics in the digital environment.

The study uses cross-sectional research survey. In total, 422 questionnaires were collected through a convenience sample of the Romanian population. The data was segmented based on consumer information touchpoints (online vs offline), purchase channel preference (offline by a professional vs online by a standardized platform) and personal characteristics (age, marital status and children).

The channel segmentation analysis revealed that information channel preferences are the most important clustering variables, followed by purchase channel preferences, marital status, having children and age. Four distinct segments were identified: young fully offliners (23.7%), mature fully offliners (31.5%), committed online searchers (23.2%) and cross-channel onliners (21.6%).

Insurance companies should adapt their communication and distribution strategy based on multichannel segmentation and should focus on digital touchpoints with costumers.

Firstly, the paper reveals multichannel and hybrid segmentation for life insurance. Secondly, it extends the already studied retail channels with search engines and companies' websites. Thirdly, it extends the behavioural variables for channel segmentation with technology acceptance behaviour, attitude towards life insurance, knowledge about life insurance, attitude towards personal selling and quality appraisal of online information sources.

Surrogacy is a practice that requires the participation of multiple social actors: sperm and/or egg donors, intended parents (IPs) and gestational carriers (GCs). The data were collected during a research on US surrogacy conducted in Southern California between September 2017 and January 2020. The study involved IPs, GCs and the clinical and hospital staffs of a fertility clinic and six hospitals. In this contribution, I will read surrogacy as a sophisticated interweaving of relationships (Berend, 2016a) that is activated thanks to the support of artificial reproductive technologies (ARTs). I will analyze the surrogacy pregnancy not exclusively as an organic process, but, following Elly Teman (2009) and Zsuzsa Berend (2016a) insights, I will read it as a choral project shaped by all the actors directly or indirectly involved in it. I will show which rituals are practiced during the surrogacy pathway, and in particular, I will pay attention to some specific aspects that are invested by particular meaning such as ultrasounds, rooming-in, breastfeeding and the ‘skin-to-skin’ practice.

This study seeks to explore the presence and the relative strength of market efficiency in the onshore and offshore Renminbi (RMB) forward markets.

In the onshore and offshore foreign exchange markets, the RMB forward contracts are designed in similar ways. However, the underlying economic forces and regulatory frameworks are very different in these two markets. We first analyze the functioning of each market, by examining the covered interest rate parity (CIRP) conditions. Second, we explore the CIRP deviations in the two markets and quantify the role of market frictions and government interventions.

We find that the CIRP condition does not hold in either the onshore or the offshore RMB forward markets. We also find that the offshore market is more efficient than the onshore market in conveying private information about investors’ expectation.

Our results reveal that the onshore RMB forward market provides an imperfect platform for investors to manage their currency exposures. We suggest that by opening the offshore market to domestic participants and the onshore market to more foreigners, the forward rates may become more informative with a greater investor mix. These liberalization efforts are important steps in the right directions to improve market efficiency in the Chinese FOREX market.

The purpose of this chapter is to examine the relationship between multi-national firms (MNEs), institutions and innovation.

We empirically examine the link between corruption and innovation within the environment of Russia. The use of data on foreign direct investment (FDI) from both emerging and developed markets provides us an opportunity to test whether the impact on innovation of different types of MNEs varies.

We find that, in the environments with high political risk, corruption may act as a hedge against such risks, boosting the scope and scale of innovation. We, however, find no support for the assumption that the experience at home of emerging country MNEs would offer them the advantage over the developed country MNEs in environments with weak institutions.

One of the major implications of this study is that, in as geographically large country as Russia, it is critical to consider the factors affecting innovation output at sub-national level.

The study is novel as it is the first to examine how innovation is affected by institutions in general and corruption in particular. But in our approach, we use the measure of the actual rather than perceived corruption. Previous studies have largely focused on developed country MNEs; in this study, we examine the impact on innovation of investors from developed as well as emerging economies.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the theoretical background of the involvement and the entertainment of children of four to seven years of age in the purchase process at Hungarian retail stores. It also examines the practice of local and foreign retailers in Hungary.

A review of literature is followed by the description of an exploratory study as well as its findings. The study contained two distinct phases: first 160 retail stores which were selling goods to children (exclusively or together with products for adults) were randomly selected and observed, and then 120 face-to-face or mini group interviews were made with Hungarian children.

At the moment retail store managers in Hungary do not recognise that children can, and often do affect the length of time their parents spend in retail stores and that children also exert influence on their parents’ purchase decisions and behaviour. Retail store managers rarely provide any entertainment for children and involve them in the shopping experience and even when they do, they fail to do it in the right way. Also, store personnel do not have the right mentality towards children. The study also reveals that children do not wish to have sophisticated or expensive games during the purchase process, but instead would like to be actively involved in the shopping experience by completing little “missions” or “challenges”.

On the basis of the research results it becomes clear that creatively designed involvement and entertainment of children in retail stores would encourage families to spend more time spent in retail stores and may serve to increased sales. It would however presume collaboration between retail stores and the producers of toys and creative accessories.

The paper aims to address the rarely and sporadically analysed question of how retail managers should entertain and involve young children in the process of shopping. The exploratory study sheds light on the big gap between what is offered by the retail management and what is expected by the young children during shopping in Hungary. It also points to the apparent lack of attention and awareness amongst retailers concerning the influence that children have on parents during the shopping process.

This chapter provides a Foucauldian genealogical analysis of the concept of “community” in three curriculum documents signposting major changes in the conceptualization of kindergarten education in Hungary. Our approach is to closely examine the discourses of the core curriculum documents and their sociopolitical contexts in order to explore the shifts in the ideas of “community” and “communitarianism” contained within the texts, focusing particularly on the period of “transition” in Hungary. This chapter interrogates the shifting ideas of “community” and finds that the meaning of “transition” in the context of post-World War II (WWII) Hungary needs to be radically reassessed. Furthermore, the study suggests that the “transition” in Hungary has been in fact a drawn out process, one beginning well before the early 1990s and involving major reforms throughout the post-WWII period. By outlining the shifts in the conceptualizations of “community” embedded in kindergarten curriculum, the chapter explores what political problems were attempted to be solved through the changing conception of this early education. Furthermore, the study examines whether these reconceptualizations can be considered to be directly linked to the transition of particular political ideologies – from socialism to neoliberal capitalism – or rather, do they represent much smoother transitions to a new era after the fall of the Berlin Wall.