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This chapter presents a historical analysis of how rural and small libraries have traditionally used nontheatrical film, including a discussion of how bookmobiles presented these materials to persons in broader service areas. After establishing the entertainment and educational benefits patrons historically received from the screening of these materials, the author transitions to discuss how recently established regional film archives and other organizations have made significant strides in recent years in preserving motion pictures that document local and regional culture. The chapter concludes with an analysis of how rural and small libraries can work with regional motion picture archives to design screenings and other programs that fulfill traditional roles of entertaining and educating patrons while also reaffirming local cultural identity.

Summative research and archival sources provide the foundations for the discussion of the role and purpose of film in rural and small libraries. Specific libraries and collections serve as case studies.

• Small-gauge motion pictures were popular with rural library and bookmobile patrons during the first three-quarters of the twentieth century, bringing entertainment and information to persons who normally had limited options in these areas due to geographic barriers.

• Regional film archives and nontheatrical film advocacy organizations have emerged during recent decades, collecting previously overlooked materials that can help reaffirm local and regional culture.

• Several regional film archives have already collaborated with rural and small libraries as well as other local institutions, providing a roadmap for libraries that wish to expand their cultural-heritage-oriented ­programming.

Small-gauge motion pictures were popular with rural library and bookmobile patrons during the first three-quarters of the twentieth century, bringing entertainment and information to persons who normally had limited options in these areas due to geographic barriers.

Regional film archives and nontheatrical film advocacy organizations have emerged during recent decades, collecting previously overlooked materials that can help reaffirm local and regional culture.

Several regional film archives have already collaborated with rural and small libraries as well as other local institutions, providing a roadmap for libraries that wish to expand their cultural-heritage-oriented ­programming.

Numerous scholars have published studies on regional and local nontheatrical film in recent decades, but relatively little has been written to connect these films with their value to rural public libraries and their constituents. By beginning with a historical analysis of how films have traditionally been of value to these audiences, the author is able to transition to presenting ideas on how nontheatrical works can continue to be of value in rural contexts. This has practical applications for rural libraries and other rural cultural organizations throughout the United States.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of the importance, assigned by audiences, of factors such as people, movie features, script, price, promotion, and distribution channels (defined as a movie marketing mix) on the audience’s buying intentions, as well as the impact of their buying intentions on word of mouth (WOM). In addition, the intention is to explore the relationship between the preference and frequency of people’s cultural event attendance with their buying intention and the relationship between people with extroverted personalities and WOM.

The data were collected from 904 valid surveys conducted in Beyoglu, one of the important centres for the culture and art life of the Istanbul.

The results show that promotion, actor or actress, and diversity of distribution channels have a positive effect on people’s purchase intention. In addition, the frequency of attendance to cultural events can be determinative of the audience and helpful for industry professionals.

Although there have been a number of studies that examine the simple relationships among some of these variables (movie marketing mix, attendance, purchase intention, WOM, extraversion), there is still a gap in the literature with regard to these variables in an integrated framework. Considering these variables in the same model and analysing the effects of each dimension individually provides a better explanation of consumer purchase intention and post-purchase behaviour in the movie industry. This study extends the previous research by incorporating the concept of movie marketing and consumption by improving the scale with data collected in Istanbul, Turkey.

The Wanda Case offers an overview of Wanda Group’s transition from a real estate firm in China to a global leader in the movie industry. Wanda Group, a Chinese conglomerate headquartered in Beijing, caused a major commotion in the US movie industry when it acquired AMC Entertainment in 2012. The AMC acquisition was the largest acquisition by a Chinese firm in the USA up to that time, costing $2.6 billion. Following that, a series of acquisitions had made Wanda Group the largest movie theater company, respectively, in the USA, Europe, and the World by the end of 2016. In order to fully comprehend the transition of the Wanda Group, the case begins by introducing the group’s origins and its original business model. It then discusses the challenges in the Chinese real estate market and factors that played a role in Wanda Group’s shift toward the movie industry. The authors further introduce the trends in movie theaters/production, recognized on a global scale in China and the USA, including key competitors in the industry. Last, the authors discuss Wanda Group’s global expansion efforts through major acquisitions in the USA and Europe, and the challenges that Wanda Group faced.

The case was written with publicly available information, such as newspaper articles, databases and corporate websites. The authors did not disguise any details.

This case can fulfill various learning goals in international business and strategy courses. First, this case offers detailed information about the diversification process of Wanda Group. It first diversified from real estate development into the movie cinema and production business in China (i.e. product diversification). More recently, Wanda Group diversified into the USA and Europe (i.e. geographical diversification). With the information provided in the case, students will be able to evaluate the costs and benefits of diversification strategies. Second, students can examine pros and cons of available entry modes for international expansions. Particularly, students will be able to evaluate the costs and benefits of acquisitions to Wanda Group’s international expansion. The authors also believe that this case can be used for introducing a relatively less-known emerging-market conglomerate, especially from China. Last, considering the rich information this case contains, the authors may use it as an exam case to evaluate students’ comprehensive knowledge gained from the course.

The case discusses corporate strategy, particularly diversification, the resource-based view, and institutional theory.

Considers why Blockbuster has a competitive advantage in video retailing. Details both Blockbuster's use of revenue sharing contracts with movie studios to coordinate the vertical chain and Blockbuster's “Go Home Happy” marketing campaign. Challenges readers to understand how revenue sharing contracts, which are imitable and sometimes used by Blockbuster's competitors, can nevertheless be a key part of Blockbuster's advantage.

Episodes of compulsive eating may lead to addiction. Changing relative prices does not always work for many food addicts turned overweight or obese individuals. This paper points to when such situations may arise and how they can be remedied.

We modify the standard neoclassical economics model assumption of indifference curves being convex to the origin. It becomes violated in situations when compulsive eaters become food addicts. As a result of that, the assumption of the concave (quasi-concave) utility function is violated too. We also introduce the possibility that compulsive eaters may have stable but nonconstant preferences.

Most important finding of our model is that a smooth dynamic path to addiction, caused by habit, disappears. Hence, the ability for smooth adjustment to relative price changes due to policies targeting obesity may not be applicable for a compulsive addict. We postulate the existence of thresholds past in which irreversible harm to addicted overeaters may occur. Reaching such states implies that no economic tools at our disposal could reverse the harm, which, in turn, deem that many policies directed at altering relative prices are ineffective in correcting overeating addiction and its consequences.

Even if we believe in consumer sovereignty, it is possible to shape consumer behavior via policy actions, including the behavior of extremum seekers turned addicts. The public policy of obesity should consider, in this case, its social cost.

No prior research has considered food addiction in light of compulsive eating caused by extremum-seeking behavior. Addiction correcting food policies always relied on either rational or myopic addiction models.

Online social networks (OSNs) offer organisations direct access to a plethora of information about their networks of connections and provide the means by which to create two‐way, business‐to‐consumer (B2C), information channels. Instead of traditional impersonal and one‐direction advertising, organisations can establish a personal and two‐way communication medium, by accepting members and having friends on these platforms. This paper aims to discuss the phenomenon of OSNs, and in particular Facebook, and examine whether they can be employed by small businesses as a resource for growth and adding value.

A case study is presented that examines how a small business in New Zealand, specialising in the distribution of products that help babies and toddlers sleep through the night, has adopted Facebook as a tool for engaging with its largely stay‐at‐home customer base. This examination of The Sleep Store is an impartial study based on findings collected over a period of several months, via a series of interviews supplemented by telephone conversations and e‐mail exchanges, with representatives from the case organisation.

The Sleep Store's adoption of Facebook was found to offer the business both direct and indirect value. That is direct value, based on the value of transactions, quantified by the increase in turnover experienced through connecting with new customers, and organisational growth; and the indirect value of word‐of‐mouth, positive recommendations and the relative influence that Facebook community members exert on each other, which enable valuable new insights to be made into their business ecosystem.

While the adoption of Facebook in this instance has been found to be an undoubted success it does not, however, suggest that such impressive results would necessarily be expected by all small businesses adopting Facebook in this way. The nature of this business, and their customer base, are an important contributing factor to the overall success of this project.

The findings of this study highlight potential opportunities for small businesses adopting Facebook as an additional sales channel or tool for leveraging new information about their market.

This is original academic research, designed to make a valuable contribution to the growing body of literature, on how small businesses are benefiting from the availability of OSNs.

This is the sixth article on social science, humanities, news and general (SSH) databases in a continuing series of articles summarising and commenting on new database products. There are two companion articles, one covering science, technology and medicine (STM) which appeared in the August 1995 issue (Online & CDROM Review, vol. 19 issue 4) and the other covering business and law (BSL) which will appear in the December issue of this journal (Online & CDROM Review, vol. 19 issue 6). The articles are based on the newly appearing database products in the Gale Directory of Databases. The Gale Directory of Databases (GDD) was created in January 1993 by merging Computer‐Readable Databases: A Directory and Data Sourcebook (CRD) together with the Directory of Online Databases (DOD) and the Directory of Portable Databases (DPD).

We examine the role of financial and nonfinancial performance measures in managing revenues derived from life cycles of a type of intellectual property products − motion pictures.

Our study focuses on the first two markets in which audiences can watch a motion picture – the upstream theatrical market and the downstream home video market. We combine data collected from numerous public and proprietary sources and form a final sample of 654 motion pictures. Then we perform regression analysis on the data.

First, three measures of a movie’s performance in the theatrical market, opening box office revenue, peak rank, and weeks at the peak rank, have positive effects on subsequent revenues in the home video market. Second, the same set of performance measures also predicts the motion picture’s life span in the theatrical market. Third, when the actual life span of a motion picture in the theatrical market deviates from its predicted value, the total return on investment in the motion picture decreases.

We do not have data on other downstream markets related to motion pictures, such as pay-per-view and online video streaming.

This study suggests that the public and proprietary data can be used to inform managerial decisions regarding intellectual property product life cycles.

This is the first accounting study that directly examines life cycle revenues of intellectual property products. We also extend literature on revenue driver and revenue management research to the product level.

For some years, it has been claimed that Building Information Modelling (BIM) will bring about major improvements to the productivity of the building industry. Yet, productivity has declined while claims for BIM have expanded. Often, BIM descriptions comprise the naïve framing and multiple fallacies of hype. The purpose of this paper is to present critical realist descriptions and explain their advantages compared to BIM hype descriptions.

A longitudinal critical realist case study of BIM causal mechanism and causal context.

Critical realist analysis reveals that hype about BIM underplays many inter-related causal requirements: all of which are needed to bring project business outcome from management action.

Many inter-related non-trivial causal factors need to be taken into account to achieve business outcome from BIM implementation action. Further, factors claimed at the outset to be adequate to achieve outcome from action may be less than adequate.

The originality of this paper is that critical realism analysis across six years is presented. This longitudinal data reveals that claims for BIM can be more future goals than current certainties. The value of this paper is that detailed analysis of hype descriptions is provided alongside critical realist descriptions.