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The purpose of this paper is to identify and examine key areas of the wine consumer's interaction with region of origin, specifically through access to wine information, wine knowledge, the auxiliary relationship with wine tourism involvement and the impact this has on the wine buying decision‐making process.

A conceptual research “model” was developed to set the direction for the development of the research hypotheses and questions. A highly structured questionnaire was administered at a high‐end independent wine retail shop in Sydney, Australia using a convenience sample of 100 randomly selected respondents, all of whom were in the basic wine drinker category or higher. A series of quantitative and qualitative datasets were collected during timeslots spanning 8‐15 minutes per questionnaire.

The results confirm that as wine knowledge increases together with wine involvement, it develops into a greater understanding of a wine's region of origin, impacting positively on the consumer's wine decision‐making process. A consumer's willingness to interact with wine‐related motivations through wine tourism visitation has a profound effect on the importance of a wine's region of origin, therefore attributing to greater recall of wine region in the wine buying decision‐making process.

Wine education and access to wine information have a strong relationship with increasing a consumer's awareness of wines' region of origin and offer scope to further investigate the importance of in‐store assistance and cellar door staff interaction with consumers. Although both these aspects are considered positively by a statistically significant percentage of the sample study, a relationship does not coexist with the importance of wine region as an aid or attribute for consumers when purchasing wine.

Wine marketing strategies in Australia are beginning to incorporate a complementary product brand relationship with region of origin and the use of regional branding, not only as a point of difference, but as an extension of a wine product's attributes. This study aids in further identifying information regarding regional branding and its relative importance, which could lead to subsequent comprehensive research studies. The research findings may be utilized to provide small‐ to medium‐sized wineries an overview of how they may consider closer interaction between their individual brand and regional branding.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of personal and inter-firm networks and the elements that contribute to the formation and management of these networks for regional small businesses.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 small business owners located in regional areas.

The findings highlight key characteristics of regional small business owners’ networks. Findings indicated that participants relied strongly on their personal networks for business purposes. This study shows that while personal networks adapted and changed into informal inter-firm networks, weak-tie relations within inter-firm networks were unlikely to develop into close personal networks. Novel findings also include a preference for “regional interactions” and included regular collaboration with local business competitors. Although the participants used social media to manage their business through personal networks, results confirmed there was a lack of awareness of the benefits of inter-firm networks with businesses outside the local region.

While it is acknowledged small business owners use personal and inter-firm connections to maintain and grow their business, there is a lack of research examining both of these networks in the same study. This research addresses this gap and presents five propositions as a useful direction for future research. This paper adds to the evolution of existing knowledge by expanding understanding of the formation of business networks and conditions of business trust relations within a regional context.

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.

Attempts to diversify and regenerate the rural economy often embrace a particular representation of the local culture and society. The quality food product industry in particular has secured its status as a key player in the future of rural Scotland, Analysed here is the development of the cluster and enterprise strategies which seek to add value to advance competitive advantage in both domestic and global markets. Based in a consideration of the policy frameworks for rural Scotland, and of the food and tourism sectors especially (both prioritised by Scottish Enterprise and Highlands & Islands Enterprise as key sectors), this paper presents a critical evaluation of how value is construed through an examination of current case studies of Scottish quality food production and promotion. The paper considers how the promotion of particular signifiers of “added value” has implications for how regionality, rurality, quality and Scottishness are all defined.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept of regional responsibility and to provide a deeper understanding of customer‐owned co‐operatives and their social embeddedness.

First, extant conceptions of corporate social responsibility are discussed, concentrating on two approaches; the one employing stakeholder theory and the one employing resource‐based view of the firm. Second, co‐operatives as a form of economic organization that have a natural interest in engaging in regionally‐oriented corporate social responsibility practices are studied, including active participation in regional strategy processes and local and regional development. Finally, the concept of regional responsibility is illustrated by analysing qualitative data.

Regional responsibility is in the core of customer‐owned co‐operatives' CSR. Co‐operatives are tentative to their customer‐owners, employees and other regional stakeholders. Regional responsibility also means the utilization of the region's resources and advocacy of local interests. In fact, co‐operatives may be considered as ‘flagship enterprises’ in their regions, promoting the businesses of the whole network of economic actors linked to them. Co‐operatives engage also in non‐business related activities to support the surrounding community.

While this study helps to understand regional responsibility of customer‐owned firms, as such the findings are limited to the context of this study.

The paper analyzes co‐operatives' social responsibility from a regional perspective and introduces the concept of “regional responsibility”.

The consumption of wine is influenced by seemingly contradictory antecedents such as perceived authenticity and novelty. This paper aims to explore the influence novelty and authenticity have on wine consumption, in the context of the moderating variables of regionality (i.e. single and multi-region wines) and price (low and high). The research attempts to further understand wine consumption by establishing a conceptual model built on existing wine literature.

To address the hypotheses and research questions, a panel of 658 consumers who regularly purchased wines produced by the Australian wine industry were recruited. These participants completed a self-administered questionnaire containing stimuli to measure perceived authenticity, perceived novelty, perceived quality, attitudes and purchase intent towards a wine manipulated to have a low vs high price level, as well as single vs multi-regional label. To examine these variables, the study conducted a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to confirm the dimensionality of the constructs and structural equation modeling with both path and multi-group analyses to investigate the hypothesised relationships.

The findings revealed that both authenticity and novelty simultaneously influence perceived quality. Additionally, it was acknowledged that there is no significant difference in wine consumption between single and multi-regional wines; reinforcing current trends of collaboration within the wine industry. Finally, the results also showed that price does moderate wine consumption; revealing ideal prices for wine with particular regional branding strategies.

The current research is the first to show that authenticity and novelty simultaneously and positively influence consumer’s perceived quality of Australian wine. The findings are also the first to show that consumer evaluation of single and multi-origin wines was positive and yielded no significant difference, suggesting that branding wines with multi-origins or multi-region do not change consumers’ perception.

Total factor productivity (TFP) change is an important driver of long-run economic growth in the construction sector. However, examining TFP alone is insufficient to identify the cause of TFP changes. Therefore, this paper employs the infrequently used Geometric Young Index (GYI) and stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) to measure and decompose the TFP Index (TFPI) at the firm-level from 2009 to 2018 based on Malaysian construction firms' data.

To improve the TFPI estimation, normally unobserved environmental variables were included in the GYI-TFPI model. These are the physical operation of the firm (inland versus marine operation) and regional locality (West Malaysia versus East Malaysia). Consequently, the complete components of TFPI (i.e. technological, environmental, managerial, and statistical noise) can be accurately decomposed.

The results reveal that TFP change is affected by technological stagnation and improvements in technical efficiency but a decline in scale-mix efficiency. Moreover, the effect of environmental efficiency on TFP is most profound. In this case, being a marine construction firm and operating in East Malaysia can reduce TFPI by up to 38%. The result, therefore, indicates the need for progressive policies to improve long-term productivity.

Monitoring and evaluating productivity change allows an informed decision to be made by managers/policy makers to improve firms' competitiveness. Incentives and policies to improve innovation, competition, training, removing unnecessary taxes and regulation on outputs (inputs) could enhance the technological, technical and scale-mix of resources. Furthermore, improving public infrastructure, particularly in East Malaysia could improve regionality locality in relation to the environmental index.

This study contributes to knowledge by demonstrating how TFP components can be completely modelled using an aggregator index with good axiomatic properties and SFA. In addition, this paper is the first to apply and include the GYI and environmental variables in modelling construction productivity, which is of crucial importance in formulating appropriate policies.

The purpose of this paper is to test the effects of the financial performance of local governments to the level of welfare in 25 city/regency in South Sulawesi during 2009–2014.

The financial performance is measured by the rate of local autonomy, the effectiveness of local own-source revenue, budget harmony and budget absorption, while the welfare society measured by the Human Development Index (HDI), unemployment and poverty level.

The regression analysis showed that the performance of region autonomy proved to increase the HDI over the next year and to reduce the poverty rate in two and three years ahead, however, has no correlation with the unemployment. The effectiveness of local own-source revenue can lower unemployment at two and three years ahead but failed to increase the HDI and to reduce poverty. Harmony of spending also neglected to raise the HDI and to reduce the level of unemployment although it can alleviate poverty. The level of budget absorption can improve HDI and reduce the unemployment at two and three years ahead, but failed to lower poverty. Expenditure harmony and budget absorption failed to moderate the relationship between local autonomy, the effectiveness of local own-source revenue and all measurement of welfare, while the expenditure harmony able to moderate the relationship between the effectiveness of local own-source revenue and HDI.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, no previous study has comprehensively studied the effects of level of regionality autonomy and effectivity of local own-source revenue to public welfare, and the moderation effect of Expenditure harmony, budget absorption in relationship between financial performance of local government to public welfare, especially in Indonesia.

The purpose of this paper is to characterize sustainable development and sustainability as study objects for comparative management theory.

The primary objective of this paper is to characterize sustainable development and sustainability as study objects for comparative management theory.

Analytical dimensions were related to establishing three proposals, which represent possible theoretical routes for characterizing sustainable development and sustainability as study objects for comparative management theory. A framework which illustrates the theoretical route taken to develop these proposals is presented at the end of the theoretical-analytical discussions.

This paper considers that discussion about sustainable development, sustainability and comparative management theory, as interesting themes for organizational studies, lack epistemological clarity and theoretical depth. Such shortcomings are identified based upon the difficulty in identifying ontological postures, epistemological perspectives, dominant paradigms and conceptual approaches that enable greater coherence to analysis of these themes, and also support the undertaking of research that can contribute to enriching proposals related to comparative management theory.

This is an innovative paper as it relates comparative management theory approaches with structural concepts from sustainable development and sustainability developed using contributions from organizational theories, sociological reflections, and political science. The proposed characterization is intended to blaze new and alternative epistemological paths for adding greater rigor to empirical research focussed on the relationship investigated here in a theoretical context.

Risk factors related delay hinder the schedule performance of most construction projects in the world. It is a critical challenge to realize the advantages of prefabricated construction projects (PCPs) under the negative effect of schedule delay. This paper aims to propose an exhaustive list of risk factors impeding the progress of PCPs and evaluate the collected risk factors based on the cause–effect relations. The ultimate goal is to improve the understanding of the complex relations among various risk factors related delay in PCPs, and also offer managers a reference on aspect of schedule risk management.

This paper proposes a hybrid method of GT–DEMATEL–ISM, that is combing grounded theory, DEMATEL (decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory) and ISM (Interpretative Structural Modeling), to collect, evaluate and structure risk factors related delay for PCPs. The research procedure of this methodology is divided into three stages systematically involving qualitative and quantitative analysis. In the first stage, GT is utilized to implement qualitative analysis to collect the risk factors leading to schedule delay in PCPs. While, the quantitative analysis is to analyze and evaluate the collected risk factors based on the cause–effect relations in the next two stages evaluation by the DEMATEL focuses on quantifying the priority and intensity of the relations between factors. Additionally, ISM is employed to construct the hierarchical structure and graphically represent the pairwise relations between factors.

The outcome of qualitative investigation by grounded theory proposes a theoretical framework of risk factors related delay for PCPs. The framework contains three levels of category, namely, core category, main category and initial category and provides a list of risk factors related delay. Following this finding, evaluation results by the DEMATEL classify factors into cause and effect groups and determine 11 critical delay risk factors. Meanwhile, the findings show that risks referring to organizational management issue foremost impact the progress of PCPs. Furthermore, a systemic multilevel hierarchical structure model is visually constructed by ISM to present the pairwise linkages of critical factors. The model provides the risk transmission chains to map the spread path of delay impact in the system.

The contribution of the study involves twofold issues. Methodologically, this research proposes a hybrid method GT–DEMATEL–ISM used to identify and analyze factors for a complex system. It is also applicable to other fields facing similar problems that require collecting, evaluating and structuring certain elements as a whole in a comprehensive perspective. The theoretical contribution is to fill the relevant research gap of the existing body of knowledge. To the best knowledge of the authors, this paper is the first attempt to integrate qualitative and quantitative research for risk analysis related delay and take the insight into the whole process of PCPs covering off-site manufacture and on-site construction. Furthermore, the analysis of findings provided both a micro view focusing on individual risk factor and a managerial view from a systematic level. The findings also contribute the effective information to improve the risk management related schedule delay in PCPs.