Researching marketing problems and opportunities with focus groups

Focus group research is a popular and effective qualitative research method for generating ideas and assessing marketing programs and concepts. This article provides marketers with insights about implementing focus groups in the industrial environment. It presents a specific procedure for conducting focus groups, potential industrial applications for the research technique, guidelines for making decisions about selecting moderators, establishing objectives, recruiting study participants, and controlling costs.     

Distortions of Sino-US and Sino-EU Safeguard Agreements： Effects on World Textile Markets

The effects of Sino‐US and Sino‐EU safeguard agreements on US, Chinese and world cotton and textile sectors are investigated using a partial equilibrium model. The effects are compared to a free trade scenario under the provisions of the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing. The two safeguard agreements capping Chinese textile exports would decrease China's textile and apparel exports, production, and domestic consumption by an average 1.57, 0.63 and 0.32 percent, respectively. The safeguard agreements cause an increase in the US cotton textile price index and a slight decrease in US net textile imports and textile consumption. The agreements cause a decrease in the world cotton price and the quantity of cotton traded, but these trends reverse at safeguard expiration. The results generally support the view that the safeguard agreements forestall the effects of free trade in textiles and apparel rather than creating long lasting shifts in the textile trade.     

Women's Land Rights and Rural Social Movements in the Brazilian Agrarian Reform

This article examines the evolution of the demand for women's land rights in the Brazilian agrarian reform through the prism of the three main rural social movements: the landless movement, the rural unions and the autonomous rural women's movement. Most of the credit for raising the issue of women's land rights rests with women within the rural unions. That women's formal land rights were attained in the constitutional reform of 1988 was largely a by–product of the effort to end discrimination against women in all it dimensions. The achievement of formal equality in land rights, nonetheless, did not lead to increases in the share of female beneficiaries of the reform, which remained low in the mid–1990s. This was largely because securing women's land rights in practice was not a top priority of any of the rural social movements. Moreover, the main social movement determining the pace of the agrarian reform, the landless movement, considered class and gender issues to be incompatible. By the late 1990s, nonetheless, there was growing awareness that failure to recognize women's land rights was prejudicial to the development and consolidation of the agrarian reform settlements and thus the movement. The growing consensus among all the rural social movements of the importance of securing women's land rights, coupled with effective lobbying, encouraged the State in 2001 to adopt specific mechanisms for the inclusion of women in the agrarian reform.     

‘A Whole New World’: Mothers' Technologically Mediated Leisure

This study explored the roles of an online social networking site called Momstown.ca as a form of technologically mediated leisure in mothers' experiences of online connections. Active interviews with 22 members of Momstown.ca revealed that mothers encounter limiting ideologies of motherhood reinforced through the separation of the public and private spheres. This separation constructs mothers' experiences as less visible, less socially relevant, and confined within private spaces. Through mothers' technologically mediated leisure, the public and private spheres were blurred and ideologies of motherhood were both reinforced and resisted. Mothers demonstrated distinct social dynamics through their mediated leisure suggesting the cyberfeminist potential for transformations in public discourse and private practice that may uniquely contribute to alleviating the contemporary challenges of mothers' increased social isolation and an anxiety-inducing culture.     

Developing the evidence base of patient and public involvement in health and social care research: the case for measuring impact

While patient and public involvement (PPI) in health and social care research has progressed successfully in the last decade, a range of difficulties with the evidence base exist, including poor understanding of the concept of impact, limited theorization and an absence of quantitative impact measurement. In this paper, we argue that a paradigm change towards robust measurement of the impact of involvement in research is needed to complement qualitative explorations. We argue that service users should be collaboratively involved in the conceptualization, theorization and development of instruments to measure PPI impact. We consider the key advantages measurement would bring in strengthening the PPI evidence base through a greater understanding of what works, for whom, in what circumstances and why.     

Welfare Analysis of the Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement: The Cotton Textile and Apparel Industries

This article studies the effects of the Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement (US-CAFTA-DR) on the world fiber market using a partial equilibrium modeling approach. We find the effect of the agreement on the U.S. cotton yarn and Caribbean cotton apparel industries to be positive while the U.S. cotton apparel industry suffers significant losses. Cotton apparel producers in the Caribbean region gain approximately $80 million under US-CAFTA-DR while gains by the U.S. yarn industry average about $120 million over current trade arrangements. The U.S. cotton apparel industry loses about $40 million per year under US-CAFTA-DR.     

“There is Life after Breast Cancer”: Nine Vignettes Exploring Dragon Boat Racing for Breast Cancer Survivors

The following representations are about lived experiences with dragon boat racing (DBR) for breast cancer survivors. DBR is a leisure pursuit focused on life after medical treatment for breast cancer. Previous research focused on physiological benefits of DBR and overlooked the broader health implications of this leisure pursuit. Data were collected through active interviews with twelve participants. Using creative analytic practice, the collection of stories included in this text reveal DBR experiences from a survivor's standpoint. The stories disclose changes to a sense of self, personal identity, and health and well-being. The use of short stories contributes to the dialogue of creative analytic practice within leisure studies.