The mediating effects of perception and emotion: Digital signage in mall atmospherics

Digital signage (DS), public screens showing video, is an important, little-researched topic. The “direct” route in the elaboration likelihood model suggests that DS influences cognition, which then influences emotions whereas the “peripheral” route is emotion→cognition. We predict that these operate in parallel and report a survey of mall consumers (n=315). DS has a significant, positive, total effect on approach behaviors, mediated by positive affect and (arguably) perception of mall environment. Results extend the limited capacity model of mediated message processing from television to DS, which predicts the effectiveness of vivid moving visual images as atmospheric stimuli.     

Music to Your Brain: Background Music Changes Are Processed First,Reducing Ad Message Recall

Background music captures attention, evokes images, and creates ambience, but may interfere with processing of advertised messages, reducing recall. Brains are hardwired to process unexpected background sound changes first, automatically preempting processing of brand message elements and reducing recall. The degree of this recall reduction depends on the structural characteristics of the music, as well as the advertised brand. Backgrounds with more frequent harmonic and textural changes create more frequent distraction, reducing message recall. Faster tempos increase the frequency of those distractions. However, faster tempos also enable streaming of like distractions, improving message recall. In Experiment 1, backgrounds, varying in harmonic, textural, and temporal characteristics, were compared across ads for six brands. Message recall was higher for ads with backgrounds with less‐frequent change. Message recall from ads for new, unfamiliar brands suffered more from background music interference than from ads for established brands. In Experiment 2, background change frequency was reduced in two ads, holding all else constant, which improved message recall.     

Organisational Culture and Budgetary Control in a UK Local Government Organisation

This paper is an attempt to explore the possibilities of working within the functional paradigm to understand the relationship between organisational culture and financial control. More specifically, the research is an empirical study informed by contingency theory. The research uses canonical correlation analysis to investigate the complex contingent relationship, as suggested by Williams, Mcintosh and Moore (1990). The research was carried out within a local government organisation in the UK, and used a questionnaire to determine managers' perceptions of organisational culture and budget-related behaviour. A correlation was found between organisational culture and budget-related behaviour, particularly with respect to budgetary participation and the usefulness of budgets to support the managerial role. However, the relationship was not straightforward, and the analysis indicated some tension between culture and the financial control system in operation.     

Science,Technology and the Quest for Sustainable Development

The quest for sustainable development is seen in this article as an intrinsic part of the reconstitution of environmentally-oriented science and technology policy that has been taking place over the past 15 years in most European countries. Rather than dealing with environmental problems after they have occurred, the trend is increasingly to base environmental research and development on so-called preventive principles and to seek to integrate environmental concern into all other areas of science and technology development. There is also a widespread effort to foster new ways to involve the 'public' in the making of science and technology policy. The article is based on results from the project, Public Engagement and Science and Technology Policy Options (PESTO), for which the author served as coordinator.     

Group Structured Reasoning for Coalescing Group Decisions

In this paper we present the notion of structured reasoning through a model, called the Generic/Actual Argument Model (GAAM). The model which has been used as a computational representation for machine modelling of reasoning and for hybrid combinations of human and machine reasoning can be used as a coalescent framework for decision making. Whilst the notion of structuring reasoning is not new, structured reasoning is advanced as a technique where group consensus on reasoning structures at various levels can be used to facilitate the comprehension of complex reasoning particularly where there are multiple perspectives. For an issue, the approach provides a scaffolding structure for cognitive co-operation and a normative reasoning structure against which group participants can identify points of difference and points in common as well as the nature of the differences and similarities. Intra-group transparency characterized by the ability to recognise points in common and understand the nature of differences is important to the process of coalescing group decisions that carry maximum group support.     

Enjoyment of the Shopping Experience: Impact on Customers' Repatronage Intentions and Gender Influence

In this paper the authors investigate enjoyment of the shopping experience, its influence on consumers' intention to repatronise a regional shopping centre and the effect of gender differences on shopping enjoyment. Four dimensions of shopping enjoyment are proposed and a 16-item measure is developed to assess 536 consumer perceptions of the shopping experience across five counties in the United Kingdom. Findings indicate that shopping experience enjoyment has a significant positive influence upon customers' repatronage intentions. Furthermore, men are found to have a stronger relationship of enjoyment with repatronage than women. The implications of these results are discussed, together with managerial implications, study limitations, and future research directions.     

Does Ethnic Discrimination Vary Across Minority Groups? Evidence from a Field Experiment*

We conduct a large‐scale field experiment to measure labour market discrimination in Australia, one quarter of whose population was born overseas. To denote ethnicity, we use distinctively Anglo‐Saxon, Indigenous, Italian, Chinese and Middle Eastern names. We compare multiple ethnic groups, rather than a single minority as in most other studies. In all cases we applied for entry‐level jobs and submitted a CV indicating that the candidate attended high school in Australia. We find significant differences in callback rates: ethnic minority candidates would need to apply for more jobs in order to receive the same number of interviews. These differences vary systematically across ethnic groups.     

When did firms become more different? Time-varying firm-specific volatility in Japan

We document how firm-specific volatility in sales, earnings and employment growth evolved year by year in Japan. Our volatility measure also indicates the evolution of firm turnover. We find that patterns in firm-specific volatility have changed when macroeconomic circumstances have. Firm turnover declined during the economic stagnation of 1991–1997. The deep downturn of fiscal years 1998–2002 coincided with a substantial increase in turnover in market, profit and employment shares. Firm volatility tended to decline during the recovery after 2002. We assess whether the rise in firm turnover and deep downturn in 1998–2002 indicate that after a period of stagnation, weak firms were finally allowed to shrink or fail. Our evidence suggests that the widening in the firm growth distribution at that time did not reflect weak firms shrinking relative to healthy firms, indicating that the two recessions in 1998–2002 were not “cleansing”.     

PROJECT JUSTIFICATION IN A MULTIPRODUCT CHEMICAL PLANT∗

In addition to measurable economic consequence of an alternative investment decision, there are other important prospective consequences which cannot readily be reduced to a single common denominator stated in money terms. The extant literature of engineering economy almost entirely avoids discussion of the considerable problems which arise when attempts are made to include “irreducibles” formally in analysis, although some progress has been made in recent years in other academic disciplines. This paper, based upon some earlier work for the United States Navy, suggests a technique which can be used to include “irreducibles” along with monetary data in determining relative desirability of mutually exclusive alternative proposals. The logic of the problem and the formal structure of a desirable solution are discussed.     

Health effects on labour market exits and entries

This paper analyses the role of health on exits out of and entries into employment using data from the first twelve waves of the British Household Panel Survey (1991–2002). We use discrete-time duration models to estimate the effect of health on the hazard of becoming non-employed and on the hazard of becoming employed. The results show that general health, measured by a variable that captures health limitations and by a constructed latent health index, affects entries into and exits out of employment; the effects being higher for men than for women. The results are robust to different definitions of employment, and to the exclusion of older workers from the analysis.