Constructing the culinary consumer: transformative and reflective processes in Italian cookbooks

This paper explores how culinary texts operate in both performative and transformative senses in relation to wider societal norms of gender and cultural capital. As such, the paper explores changes to the way in which the culinary consumer is presented in British Italian cookbooks from 1954 to 2005. Across the period, we see a shift in the gendered representation of the culinary subject, from a housewife in the period 1954–1974, to a working mother from 1975 to 1986, and most recently as male or female cook from 1987 to 2005. We also see shifts in representation of cultural capital in these same periods from learning new cooking skills, to adapting existing cooking skills to displaying skills in shopping and product selection. In charting these changing discourses, we find that whilst reflecting wider culinary culture, these cookbooks also act in a transformative sense to promote (and indeed require) specific enactments of gender and cultural capital.     

Re-Thinking the Anthropological and Ethical Foundation of Economics and Business: Human Richness and Capabilities Enhancement

This article aims at showing the need for a sound ethical and anthropological foundation of economics and business, and argues the importance of a correct understanding of human values and human nature for the sake of economics and of businesses themselves. It is suggested that the ethical-anthropological side of economics and business can be grasped by taking Aristotle’s virtue ethics and Amartya Sen’s capability approach (CA) as major reference points. We hold that an “Aristotelian economics of virtues”, connected with the CA’s notion of human richness, can promote the shift to the concept of personhood, and can lead to a more “humanized” business, by fostering human flourishing, the enhancement of human capabilities, and the pursuit of a more humane development for each and every person.     

“Just Look the Other Way”: Job Seekers’ Reactions to the Irresponsibility of Market-Dominant Employers

Journal of Business Ethics - Past research on recruitment has shown that employer image predicts job seekers’ perceptions of organizational attractiveness. We contribute to this body of work...     

Quantitative methods for the economic valuation of a cultural tourism destination: case study of the Pisa Charterhouse

Quality & Quantity - This paper aims to provide an economic valuation of the Pisa Charterhouse, a renowned monastic complex built in the fourteenth century, located in the Tuscany region of...     

Does it really hurt? Making sense of varieties of anger

While research has shown that consumer anger causes a range of negative consequences, the conceptualization and measurement of this emotion remain inconsistent. Some studies link anger to consumer revenge motivated by a desire to hurt the company, while others associate anger with a desire to cooperate with the company. This inconsistency is caused by the fact that anger is a broad label used to refer to almost any brand failure. We argue that, rather than considering anger as a single construct, scholars should distinguish between a supportive facet of anger, which comprises feelings of annoyance, frustration and other mild negative feelings, and a vindictive facet of anger, which comprises feelings of intense anger, rage, and outrage. These two facets of anger reconcile divergent arguments presented in past research. Research benefits from moving beyond the generic label of anger to consider supportive and vindictive facets of anger that influence consumers' reactions under different circumstances. Only vindictive anger prompts consumers to take revenge and punish the company for unfair treatment. Supportive anger triggers instead a desire to solve the problem by cooperating with the company. This study presents important managerial implications for assessing and managing feelings of anger following brand failures.     

Personhood and Human Richness: Good and Well-Being in the Capability Approach and Beyond

This paper aims at developing the Capability Approach's (CA) underlying philosophical anthropology and ethics by focusing on the work of its major exponents, Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. I first discuss CA's critique of happiness as subjective well-being and defend the idea of ‘flourishing’ which ultimately refers to the Aristotelian concept of eudaimonia. I then focus on the notions of ‘good’ and ‘well-being’ and address the problem of the compatibility between a substantive notion of the Good (expressed through universal moral values) and individual preferences. I thus tackle the issue of adaptive preferences (which is investigated both from a methodological and an ethical perspective) and suggest that the process of adaptation should be thought in the dynamic frame of the constitution of the self. Therefore, in the second half of the paper I investigate the CA's idea of personhood and focus on some important assumptions behind its underlying anthropological model – above all the notion of ‘human richness’. As a result, I first point out the dynamic dimension of personhood, according to which individuals are ‘becoming themselves’ in search of self-realisation and construction of their identities. Second, I highlight its relational dimension, according to which every one is the expression of the anthropological richness and at the same time represents the highest possibility of richness for every other one.     

Estimation and validation of hybrid choice models to identify the role of perception in the choice to cycle

Cycling is one of the most sustainable and ecofriendly modes of travel and a good form of exercise. Many government and public health authorities recommend cycling to stay fit as well as to reduce air and noise pollution, CO₂ emissions, traffic congestion, and other negative consequences of car use. In light of these benefits, a major challenge for researchers today is how to promote cycling. However, in countries where cycling is not common, apart from the need for proper cycling facilities, one major issue concerns people’s perception of cycling for sport or recreational activities rather than as a mode of transport. The aim of this paper is to explore the role of perception in the likelihood of the bike being used for utilitarian purposes. We focus on the perception of: the bicycle as a means of transport; bikeability (in terms of usefulness and safety) and of bike infrastructure. Hybrid Choice Models (HCMs) have been used to estimate the effect of people’s perception on the propensity to bike. The HCM also accounts for the serial correlation between error terms in the discrete and latent perceptions, to allow for agent-common unknown factors. Furthermore, we also validate the model results using a hold-out sample and discuss some policy measures aimed at changing travel behavior. The results suggest that, besides individual characteristics, latent aspects related to the perception of the context and of the bicycle as a means of transport strongly affect the propensity to cycle.     

A space of one’s own: spatial and identity liminality in an online community of mothers

This paper investigates the role of an online community in the life of 11 Taiwanese women living in the UK and considers the implications this empirical case has for theorising about motherhood and the spatial dimensions of online/on-site space. Findings from a nethnographic and ethnographic fieldwork show how online discussions reflect and amplify the liminal identities of the community’s members. In looking at doing mothering at a collective rather than at the individual level, this study highlights how collective practices of consumption perpetuate liminal identities, exacerbating consumers’ sense of being out of place. It shows how online space is at the same time the product of online and on-site liminal identities and liminal social interactions and the re-producer of such interactions.     

Sovereign Risk Premia and the International Balance Sheet: Lessons from the European Crisis

The external dimension has emerged as an important factor in the euro debt crisis. The crisis has also shown that fluctuations in risk premia can be dramatic. We investigate the relevance of the net international investment position for sovereign risk perception and the role of market uncertainty in this relation. Furthermore, we ask whether the composition of net external assets, in terms of debt and equity instruments, is relevant in explaining sovereign risk premia and their fluctuations in time. We find that both public debt and NIIP are subject to fluctuations in risk premia; the external variable is more sensitive to the uncertainty of future expectations, and net external debt is what drives this result. Net foreign debt liabilities are associated with a lower government bond yield spread when market optimism justifies their presence with high future growth patterns; however, it becomes an important risk factor for sovereigns when global uncertainty increases and the capacity to repay foreign debt becomes a concern. Portfolio equity and FDI are related to sovereign risk in a stable manner, while a given amount of net external debt can be associated with government yield spread spikes as high as 4 %.     

The management of international development projects: Moving toward a standard approach or differentiation?

International cooperation supplies international aid to developing countries and emerging economies, typically through projects; to manage these projects, a specific approach based on the “project cycle” was introduced in 1970. In recent decades, many development agencies have adopted the project cycle, but they have also changed it over time, and today agencies work with different standards. In this article, the history of project management systems in international cooperation is reported, and the approaches adopted by five of the main worldwide governmental development agencies are compared. The analysis shows both the common aspects and differences in order to highlight limits and propose further research.