Compulsive consumption behaviours: investigating relationships among binge eating,compulsive clothing buying and fashion orientation

Compulsive buying and binge eating are examples of compulsive consumption behaviours, and for individuals with these behavioural tendencies, appearance and appearance‐related products seem to be of paramount importance. The purpose of this research was to determine if bulimic behaviours, fashion interest and the importance of being well dressed had a causal relationship with compulsive clothing buying. Subjects completed a compulsive clothing buying scale, the binging/control subscale of the Bulimia Test‐Revised and a fashion orientation scale. A path analysis indicated that binging behaviours and fashion interest significantly predicted compulsive clothing buying, while binging behaviours were not significantly related to fashion interest or the importance of being well dressed. Such findings may suggest that female consumers compulsively buy clothing for different reasons and/or motivations.     

Trends, lead times and forecasting

The innovations representation for a local linear trend can adapt to long run secular and short term transitory effects in the data. This is illustrated by the theoretical power spectrum for the model which may possess considerable power at frequencies that might be associated with cycles of several years' duration. Whilst advantageous for short term forecasting, the model may be of less use when interest is in the underlying long run trend in the data. In this paper we propose a generalisation of the innovations representation for a local linear trend that is appropriate for representing short, medium and long run trends in the data.     

Influence of purchaser perceptions and intentions on price for forest land parcels: A hedonic pricing approach

A hedonic model was developed to analyze the market for undeveloped forest land in Minnesota. Variables describing in situ conditions, locational characteristics, buyer perceptions and intentions, and transactional terms were tested for their influence on sale price. The independent variables explained 67% of the per hectare sale price variation. Water frontage, road access and density, absentee ownership, future intentions, and financing arrangements had large, positive influences on price. Lack of a real-estate agent and agricultural land in the vicinity of the parcel had negative influences. A parcel's merchantable timber volume was not a significant predictor of price.     

The relationship between wage growth and wage levels

We estimate the covariance between the permanent component of wages and a random coefficient on experience in models both with potential experience and with actual experience. Actual experience is allowed to be arbitrarily correlated with both the permanent component of wages and the random component on experience. We find no evidence that workers of higher ability experience faster wage growth. Our point estimates suggest that a worker with a one standard deviation higher level of permanent ability would have a return to annual potential experience that is 0.61 of a percentage point lower. The analogous point estimate for actual experience is 0.87 of a point lower. Contrary to the popular perception, wage growth among low‐skill workers appears to be at least as high as that for a medium‐skilled worker. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Alternative cost-effective anesthesia care teams

Private and public payers are increasingly seeking an overall per-diem or global surgery rates that put hospitals at significant financial risk for anesthesia services. Other payers are demanding deep discounts in anesthesia fees and negotiating global capitation rates that put both hospitals and physicians at risk for all care including anesthesia. This study examines some of the various organizational models for using physician anesthesiologist (MDA) and nurse anesthetist (CRNA) resources most cost effectively and safely. Variations in percentages of these practitioners can be seen in that California reportedly has 47 MDAs for every 10 CRNAs while Michigan has just 6 MDAs for every 10 CRNAs practicing in that more highly managed care environment. Four various anesthesia practice models are described in detail without declaring any one a universal model. The cost per year for MDAs averages $294,000 while the cost per year for CRNAs is less than half as much.     

Global Force for Branding: A Study of Attitudes,Intentions, the Military,and the Wars Overseas

Through the years, the United States Armed Forces has advertized to the citizens of America in times of peace and war. The present study explores the attitudes and intentions regarding the military by two groups of study participants during the United States’ active engagement in Afghanistan and Iraq. One group of participants viewed a military ad and one group was asked to recall a military ad. Mediation analysis revealed partially mediated relationships among attitude toward the ad, attitude toward the military (where the military has “brand” characteristics), and the discussion of one's own intention to enlist in the armed forces as well as one's intention to recommend enlisting to friends and family. Post hoc analysis indicated that sex has a strong direct effect on enlistment discussion intentions. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

A picture tells a thousand words: Impact of an educational nutrition booklet on nutrition label gazing

Overweight and obesity are major health issues in many countries. Nutritional labels provide a means to making healthier food choices. Gazing longer at nutrition labels rather than the products' packaging may be a first step in making a healthy decision when purchasing or consuming a product. Using eye-tracker methodology, we examined the influence of an educational nutrition booklet on duration of gaze at nutrition labels. Thirty-two adults from New York City participated in a pretest–posttest study. Participants were randomly assigned to the nutrition education group (NE) or the control group for 10 min. The NE group reviewed a picture-based educational nutrition booklet. The control group worked on a word find puzzle. Participants' duration of gazing at nutrition labels was assessed. Results revealed a significant interaction of group and nutrition label gazing such that the NE group gazed significantly longer at the nutritional label in the posttest compared to the pretest. The NE group gazed significantly longer at nutrition labels during the posttest than the control group. There was no effect for the control group. The findings show that briefly reviewing an educational nutrition booklet increases duration of gaze at nutrition labels.     

Taking Terrain Literally: Grounding Local Adaptation to Corporate Social Responsibility in the Extractive Industries

Since the early 1990s, the extractive industries have increasingly valued corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the communities where they operate. More recently, these industries have begun to recognize the importance of adapting CSR efforts to unique local contexts rather than applying a one-size-fits-all model. However, firms understand local context to mean culture and treat the physical properties of the host region—topography, geology, hydrology, and climate—as the exclusive purview of mineral geologists and engineers. In this article, we examine the organization of CSR at two industrial-scale gold mines in Guatemala, owned by the same firm, which yielded starkly distinct levels of support among host community residents. We develop the idea of social terrain to convey the way in which the biophysical environment informs local social relations and imbues phenomena with particular social meanings. We argue that firms must account for social terrain in organizing for CSR. The literature struggles to provide guidelines for identifying and understanding stakeholders. Social terrain, we argue, can begin to bridge this gap between theory and practice.