Athletes’ Expectations,Experiences, and Legacies of the Winter Youth Olympic Games Innsbruck 2012

The first Winter Youth Olympic Games held in Innsbruck in January 2012 attracted about 1,000 adolescent athletes aged between 14 and 18. At large-scale events such as the Youth Olympic Games, coaches, chefs de mission, and others accompany athletes and, therefore, gain a deeper insight into their behavior. This study aims at assessing young elite athletes’ perceptions of the Youth Olympic Games experience from the point-of-view of different stakeholder groups. Qualitative data was retrieved during the games from 12 athlete and 4 other stakeholder focus groups. The data analyzes sports and educational legacies and indicates that social leveraging is another central benefit for the young athletes.     

Income and occupation as explanatory variables: Their power combined vs. separate

This study put a new explanatory variable, relative occupational class income (Y/O), through multivariate analysis in order to test the variable's predictive and marketing segmentation powers. Y/O was tested against income and occupation used separately as explanatory variables. The mid-1960s new-car market was used for the analysis.With respect to the power to predict individual buyer behavior, the new variable did not prove itself to be superior to income and occupation used separately. With respect to market segmentation, however, Y/O often identified more meaningful market segments, where the probability of buyers choosing the new car class involved was obviously much higher (or lower) than was true for the entire market. Whether it would be worthwhile to use the combination variable, Y/O, instead of occupation and income separately as segmentation variables is, nevertheless, a matter of marketing judgment and not of statistical power. It obviously takes time, money, and effort to build a combination variable such as Y/O, and it is often a complex procedure to use and interpret the results from such a variable. In a statistical sense, the difference in power in using Y/O as compared to using occupation and income separately in a multiple regression procedure is trivial. Y/O now needs to be tested as a market segmentation variable on other types of products. Yet, on the basis of the results from this study (and the previous studies involving income versus social class), one wonders if it is not better to use such demographic variables separately as explanatory variables.     

Changes in recreation participation in natural environments after immigration among immigrants in the U.S., Netherlands,Germany and Poland1

This study examines the use of natural environments for recreation among immigrants and factors that led to changes in their use of natural environments between home and host countries. The data were collected through individual interviews with 13 Latino and 13 Chinese immigrants in the U.S., 15 Ukrainian and 11 Vietnamese immigrants in Poland, 9 Moroccan immigrants in the Netherlands and 9 Turkish immigrants in Germany. The findings show that changes in the use of natural environments for recreation are related to different types of nature in home and host countries, access-related issues, quality of natural environments, work focus among immigrants, transportation problems, cultural differences, lack of knowledge of opportunities, life stage and ageing. Based on the findings, we develop a model that outlines different types of interaction with natural environments among immigrants following their settlement in the host countries.     

高职院校中外合作办学教材选用研究——以江苏经贸职业技术学院为例

近年来,中外合作办学已成为许多高校的办学新模式。通过分析江苏经贸职业技术学院合作办学教材选用的现状和存在的问题,就中外合作办学教材建设工作提出了几点建议。     

Schooling,numeracy, and wealth accumulation: A study involving an agrarian population

Accumulating wealth is one of the main concerns for consumers. Higher education is widely associated with higher wealth, but the underlying reasons for this association remain unclear. Using data from a field study conducted with 218 adults in agrarian communities in Peru's Andean highlands, we explored the extent to which education, non-numeric fluid intelligence, crystallized intelligence, and numeracy skills were related to wealth. Wealth was measured using data on asset ownership (e.g., owning a fridge) and housing characteristics (e.g., toilet facilities). Structural equation modeling revealed that the level of schooling was associated with greater numeracy as well as greater non-numeric fluid and crystallized intelligence; only greater numeracy was associated with greater wealth. Our findings are consistent with the idea that education is linked with financial outcomes, at least in part, through the enhancement of cognitive skills, particularly numeracy that then leads to greater wealth accumulation.     

Get in the Game: The Effects of Game-Product Congruity and Product Placement Proximity on Game Players’ Processing of Brands Embedded in Advergames

This study focused on the effects of game-product congruity and product placement proximity on advergame players’ brand memory, brand attitude, game enjoyment, and future intention to play. A 2 (congruity) × 2 (proximity) repeated-measures experiment was used. Results revealed that players’ implicit memory improved for congruent games only. Explicit memory measures also showed signs of improvement for brands in the congruent/central game condition. Surprisingly, it appears that the incongruent/peripheral game condition produced the best results overall with the smallest negative attitude change, the most game enjoyment, and the highest intention to play again in the future. These contradictory findings suggest to brand marketers who design advergames to be careful when combining multiple game featurescongruity and proximity) within a single advergame because this strategic move may provide optimal brand memory while also producing the opposite desired effect for attitude toward the brand, game enjoyment, and intention to play.     

Impact of ownership and location factors on service multinationals' internalisation

Foreign direct investment in the service sector has been gaining importance in the past decade as more countries transform themselves into post-industrialised economies. The transition from a centrally planned economy to market-based economy has generated a surge of foreign direct investment from industrialised countries to Central and Eastern European Countries. This paper examines the impact of ownership and location factors on the extent of internalisation for service multinationals seeking to enter into the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland, as these countries launch their economies towards increased privatisation, deregulation, and liberalisation. Using foreign direct investment data of 76 firms during 1990–2000, we find significant support for our main hypotheses.     

Beyond nudges: Tools of a choice architecture

The way a choice is presented influences what a decision-maker chooses. This paper outlines the tools available to choice architects, that is anyone who present people with choices. We divide these tools into two categories: those used in structuring the choice task and those used in describing the choice options. Tools for structuring the choice task address the idea of what to present to decision-makers, and tools for describing the choice options address the idea of how to present it. We discuss implementation issues in using choice architecture tools, including individual differences and errors in evaluation of choice outcomes. Finally, this paper presents a few applications that illustrate the positive effect choice architecture can have on real-world decisions.