Reusing process fragments for fast service composition: a clustering-based approach

With the proliferation of Web services over the Internet and due to the increasing complexity of users’ needs, Web service composition has emerged as a powerful method of software reuse, allowing to deliver complete business processes as a set of interacting services. To guarantee a rapid and secure service composition, fragments of available business processes at different granularities may be considered as a composition unit and recombined to deliver effective compositions. Despite the benefits of this method, most of the existing works do not take into consideration the reuse of service process fragments (SPF). Reusing SPFs allows, not only to minimize the composition time, but also to improve the reliability of the composition process. In this paper, we propose a Web service composition approach that aims to combine service process fragments rather that atomic services. We adopt a powerful mathematical model called Formal Concept Analysis (FCA) to define the relationships between services and fragments. Moreover, we exploit the regrouping capabilities of FCA by proposing algorithms for the extraction of candidate fragments’ combinations. A scoring function is also defined to determine the quality level of each SPF and its ability to participate in a composition. The experimental studies proved the effectiveness of our FCA-based approach compared to existing state-of-the-art solutions.     

Consumers’ motivations and roles in rooting for or against underdog consumer

When wronged customers feel powerless they could bring publicly their fight against offending firms. Doing so could help to put the perpetrator firms under pressure and urge them to restore fairness. While some consumers could express their commitment to wronged consumers, others may disagree and disapprove their fight. This paper investigates consumers’ motivations and roles in supporting and rooting against powerless customers‐ referred here as underdogs. Using a netnography approach to analyse online participants’ postings, we identified two types of roles: supportive and unsupportive roles. The former consist of five consumers’ roles that are endorsed when rooting for underdogs, namely the Admirer, the Rebel, the Learner, the Opportunist and the Lawyer. The latter consists of four roles adopted by opponent consumers when rooting against underdogs, namely the Sarcastic, the Elitist, the Conformist and the Schadenfreudist. Understanding consumers’ roles and motivations in rooting for the underdogs, is helpful for firms in managing their defensive marketing efforts and reduce the anti‐corporate attitudes. Likewise, knowing what motivates consumers to root against an underdog may help in capitalizing on supportive attitudes and to reinforce the commitment toward the firm.     

Consumption coping strategies and well-being among refugee consumers

This paper aims to provide new insight into refugee consumers' adaptation to stress with a particular emphasis on consumption coping strategies and well-being. Drawing on the appraisal-coping theory, this paper proposes a theoretical framework relating stress to coping responses and refugee well-being. Social support is also introduced in the framework as a moderator. Examining the interplays between these concepts provides a comprehensive view of how changes in consumption patterns occur and how they affect refugee well-being. Insights from this paper suggest that consumption activities could be viewed as responses of adaptation to chronic and acute stress. To adapt to new circumstances and reduce their stress, refugee consumers could engage in adaptive consumption coping or maladaptive consumption coping (i.e., compulsive and impulsive consumption), which in turn affect their psychological and physical, family, and economic well-being. The paper contends that service support moderates the relationships between stress, coping responses, and refugee well-being.