Search results

Purpose: Social rejection is a negative interpersonal experience that leads to emotional, cognitive, and physiological outcomes. We develop a theoretical model arguing that social rejection in workplace settings can alter employees' personal values in either the short- or the long term. Methodology: This is a theoretical essay based on three theories: (1) human values; (2) affective events; and (3) shattered assumptions. Findings: In the proposed model, an employee's emotional reactions to social rejection in the workplace (emotional distress or emotional numbness) partially mediate the relationship between the experience of social rejection and short- or long-term development of self-protective (rather than self-expansive) personal values. Originality: The processes whereby social rejection at work leads to personal value change remain largely unexplored to date. The proposed model represents an initial attempt to understand this process, including the effects of emotional distress (long term) and emotional numbness (short term). Research Implications: The model introduces the mechanisms whereby social rejection in the workplace leads to short-term and long-term changes in individual values and has potential to serve as a launchpad for future research interest in this phenomenon. Practical Implications: The framework proposed in this chapter should help scholars to understand better the dynamics of social rejection in the workplace and how this phenomenon affects employees' values in work settings, both in the short- and long term.

This paper aims to determine, which values guide consumers decision-making on natural health products for concentration and cognition (NHPCC) and how they link to choice-relevant product attributes. The purpose is to contribute to a better understanding of NHPCC consumption choices, which can encourage more consumer-centric product development and positioning.

Based on the means-end chain approach, in-depth laddering interviews with 26 consumers of NHP were conducted in Germany from October to December 2020. Qualitative content analysis was applied and a hierarchical value map over the dominant association was built and analyzed.

Five terminal values were found to be relevant for NHPCC decision-making. The personal focused values security, self-direction and stimulation are via health mainly associated with trust and a conscious decision-making, which is linked to the product attributes of effectiveness, tolerance and declaration. Social focused values of universalism or benevolence guide attention on the attributes of sustainability and regionality.

The study contributes to close the knowledge gap concerning the linkages between abstract values and concrete product attributes of NHP through associated consequences. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that analyzed these links for NHPCC, although such products are gaining more interest among companies and consumers. Companies can benefit from the outcomes by developing more consumer-centric product concepts and marketing communication strategies for NHPCC. Due to higher attention on relevant information, consumers’ decision-making could become safer and more conscious.

This study aimed to describe the cognitive associations existing among specialty coffee consumers through the means-end chain theory and personal values.

The research follows a descriptive qualitative study that used in-depth interviews and laddering, to collect data among 40 interviews with regular consumers of specialty coffees in Brazil. The interviews were transcribed, and from the content analysis, the attributes, consequences and values that emerged in the discourse of consumers of specialty coffees were found. The categories were later classified – according to the level of abstraction – and inserted into the LadderUx® software to generate the implication matrix and the hierarchical map of values. The interpretation of results occurred in a descriptive way.

Based on a hierarchical value map, the following personal values were identified: universalism, self-directed action, accomplishment, tradition and personal security. These values can be considered guides for consumption behavior. They are also related to consumption behavior that values technical attributes, such as roast level, packaging, aroma and flavor, and the relationships between these values and personal improvement, social relationships and recognition are relevant factors involved in decision-making.

This study presents the cognitive structure of Brazilian specialty coffee consumers. The coherent use of this information enhances the development of marketing actions involving communication actions, relationships with internal and external customers, new farm management strategies, direct trade with consumers and sustainable improvements in the production chain. These are the factors that can motivate the purchase of food, thus attracting new consumers to this emerging market.

Although perceived as a wrong act, insurance fraud is a prevalent phenomenon. The purpose of this paper is to understand the psychological factors that lead to reporting an exaggerated/false insurance claim would enable insurance companies and policy makers to devise better preventive policies.

Utilizing data-driven clustering techniques on psychological and demographic measures from 985 insurance customers in Europe, this study outlines profiles of segments of customers as it relates to dishonesty in dealing with insurance companies. The segmentation criteria include attitude toward insurance fraud, perceived probability of punishment, basic human values and morals, religiosity, life satisfaction and demographic characteristics.

Results reveal the existence of four market segments. The segments include non-conservatives (sensitive to both perception of wrong behavior and the monetary payoff for a fraudulent claim), self-protectionists (sensitive to the probability of being caught), hedonists (sensitive to the personal pleasure and monetary payoffs for insurance fraud) and socially focused individuals (sensitive to social norms regarding admitting to having committed insurance fraud). Among the demographic variables, only education and among psychological variables, universalism, hedonism, security, conformity, tradition, benevolence, moral philosophy, religiosity, perceived probability of punishment and attitude toward insurance fraud were significantly different among the four identified segments.

Specific policies are proposed in order to prevent insurance fraud, tailored to the specific profile of each segment.

Using a psychological perspective and a data-driven methodology, this study identifies four heterogeneous segments of unethical insurance customers with dissimilar values, attitudes toward fraud and perception of punishment probability.

In recent years, professional service organizations have begun to successfully implement various sales promotion techniques, and potential customers are responding favorably to such promotions. This exploratory research examined the impact of sales promotions on consumer attitudes and intentions. More specifically, the influence of coupon face value on service quality expectations, perceived purchase risks, and purchase intentions was examined. The results indicate that while coupons positively impact the purchase intentions of dental services, the positive impact was negated by negative impacts on service quality expectations and perceived purchase risk. Further results and implications of the study for professional services are addressed.

To examine demographic factors and travel motivations among leisure tourists in Tanzania. Specifically by examining the influence of demographic factors on travel motivation among local and international leisure tourists in Tanzania.

Approach is quantitative and applied descriptive statistics, independent t-test and ANOVA.

The findings showed that age, gender and family size as demographic factors significantly influenced travel motivation among local and international leisure tourists.

Future studies to consider different approaches including collection of data during the peak season, use qualitative method and conduct studies in other parts of the country to explore demographic factors and travel motivations of tourists.

To assist tourism stakeholders in their design of promotional tools to market tourism products/services to different tourists as opposed to homogeneous marketing campaigns.

Examined the influence of demographic factors and travel motivation among local and international leisure tourists in the context of Tanzania.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the combined effect of eight factors – performance expectancy (PE), effort expectancy (EE), hedonic motivation (HM), system quality (SQ), information quality (IQ), service quality (SEQ), digital literacy (DL) and computer anxiety (CA) on learners’ behavioral intention (BI) toward the adoption of e-learning in higher education institutions (HEIs) in India.

The study used factors from two theoretical models, the extended Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology and the DeLone and McLean Information Systems Success model. The study also considered DL and CA as additional factors because they could affect a learner’s intention in a developing country like India. Data were collected from three HEIs in Southern India and analyzed using fuzzy qualitative and comparative analysis (fsQCA).

The results of the study emphasize the importance of considering both individual and technological factors in e-learning adoption and provide evidence for the significance of integrating multiple theories in understanding the complex relationship between factors and learners’ BI. Four different configurations of the eight factors: EE*HM*SQ*IQ*SEQ*DL*∼CA; PE*EE*HM*SQ*IQ*DL*CA; PE*EE*HM*IQ*SEQ*DL*CA; and PE*EE*SQ*IQ*SEQ*DL*CA found to be sufficient to cause learners’ BI to use e-learning.

This study explores the complex relationship between different factors and learners’ intention to adopt e-learning using the fsQCA method. These findings may need further validation in HEIs across different geographical locations.

This study provides practical insights for HEIs in India and other developing countries on how different factors combine and interact to determine e-learning adoption in multiple contexts.

Using fsQCA as a novel and rigorous method, this study uncovers the complex and nonlinear causal relationships among various factors that affect e-learning adoption. This study provides a holistic and contextualized understanding of e-learning adoption in a developing country’s scenario. This study can inform educators and policymakers on how to design and implement effective e-learning strategies that suit different learner profiles and contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to continue discussion of the merits of organizational learning as an emancipatory project, by articulating Peter Senge's concept of “personal mastery” (PM) against the radical subjectivity of Herbert Marcuse.

Conceptual comparison of extant works by both authors.

It is argued in the paper that while Senge and Marcuse share several affinities for the nature of individual, organizational and social transformation, Senge's concept of PM leaves several questions unaddressed, questions which concern the extent to which “the child's mind” may be usefully employed as a metaphor for the recovery of individuality and liberatory work. Marcuse's Marxian appropriation of Freudian psychoanalysis retains the possibility of the creative impulse, and suggests that “play” may enter work relations as the new sensibility for transformed work practices.

The paper puts forward the view that adult play, as the memory of a more unencumbered past, may be the radical subjectivity necessary for PM and individual transformation, and thus for more emancipated workplaces.

The purpose of this paper is to present an analytical review of the educational innovation field in the USA. It outlines classification of innovations, discusses the hurdles to innovation, and offers ways to increase the scale and rate of innovation-based transformations in the education system.

The paper is based on a literature survey and author research.

US education badly needs effective innovations of scale that can help produce the needed high-quality learning outcomes across the system. The primary focus of educational innovations should be on teaching and learning theory and practice, as well as on the learner, parents, community, society, and its culture. Technology applications need a solid theoretical foundation based on purposeful, systemic research, and a sound pedagogy. One of the critical areas of research and innovation can be cost and time efficiency of the learning.

Several practical recommendations stem out of this paper: how to create a base for large-scale innovations and their implementation; how to increase effectiveness of technology innovations in education, particularly online learning; how to raise time and cost efficiency of education.

Innovations in education are regarded, along with the education system, within the context of a societal supersystem demonstrating their interrelations and interdependencies at all levels. Raising the quality and scale of innovations in education will positively affect education itself and benefit the whole society.

Originality is in the systemic approach to education and educational innovations, in offering a comprehensive classification of innovations; in exposing the hurdles to innovations, in new arguments about effectiveness of technology applications, and in time efficiency of education.

Villages and communities are complex learning organizations. Since 1988, villagers in the south (third world) have been encouraged through participatory rural appraisal (PRA) techniques to take responsibility for analyzing their own issues and develop action plans. PRA represents an empowering approach whereby the villagers become the teachers, their ideas and data are collected visually by facilitators. Villagers analyze their own problems and chose the changes and change strategies they want. The developments in this field have taken place in Africa, Asia and Latin America and now consultants from these areas are visiting the so‐called “developed world” to teach us these participatory techniques, many of which are transferable to urban and organizational settings. Aims to describe observations of a “train the facilitator” course rub by Nepalese for Nepalese Government workers who will work with villagers.