Which food safety information sources do Italian consumers prefer? Suggestions for the development of effective food risk communication

This study investigated which information sources Italian consumers use most frequently when they have a question about food safety in order to obtain useful insights to inform food risk communication. In 2011, a national survey was conducted targeting Italian people responsible for purchasing and preparing food for their households. Respondents’ choices of information sources on food safety were correlated with their socio-demographic and behavioural characteristics, their levels of objective knowledge, their levels of trust towards some authorities and their levels of self-perception regarding risk exposure. Our data analysis identified those information channels that are most likely to reach Italians actively seeking information. Mass media (radio/television/newspapers) were the most frequently used information source, followed by the Internet. Age, educational qualification, employment status, geographical area, family status and objective knowledge were the variables that influenced the choice for information sources used by the Italian population. The frequency of buying food products, the frequency of eating put and the frequency of cooking also showed a dependency relation. The profiles of those who actively seek information were also outlined. Among these, the Mass media users’ and the Internet users’ profiles were further analysed. Results show that Italian consumers do actively seek information about food safety, revealing that food safety continues to be a concern for the Italian consumers. Their interest in this topic represents an opportunity for public health authorities to address an audience of receptive consumers. Such information will be valuable in the design of targeted communication campaigns to increase consumers’ knowledge and awareness of food safety issues and will help authorities to choose the most effective channels through which to deliver key messages.     

Job security as a threatened resource: reactions to job insecurity in culturally distinct regions

As downsizing and restructuring have become global phenomena, the impact of job insecurity on employee attitudes has received significant attention. However, research examining the role of cultural dimensions has been largely unexplored. Drawing on the conservation of resources theory, we investigated whether the relationships between both quantitative job insecurity (i.e. the perceived threat of job loss) and qualitative job insecurity (i.e. the perceived threat of losing valued job features) and employee attitudes (job satisfaction and turnover intention) differ in culturally distinct regions. This was examined using representative employee samples from two regions of Switzerland which differ in societal practices uncertainty avoidance and performance orientation: the German-speaking (n = 966) and the French-speaking (n = 307) regions. Our research indicates that whereas the relationship between quantitative job insecurity and turnover intention is stronger in the French-speaking region where there is higher societal practice uncertainty avoidance, the relationship between qualitative job insecurity and job satisfaction is stronger in the German-speaking region where there is higher societal practice performance orientation.     

Outcome,process and support: analysing aspects of innovation in public sector organizations

ABSTRACT

The authors present an analytical model to distinguish between different aspects and modes of innovation. By showing how innovation in the public sector differs from the private sector, this paper is an important stepping-stone to understanding and supporting innovation in the public sector.     

Impact of East Asia's Growth Interruption and Policy Responses: The Case of Indonesia

Assessments to date of the consequences of implementing the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations have assumed medium-term rates of economic growth in East Asia that now seem unsustainable. This paper compares an earlier assessment with a new set of estimates involving an interruption to East Asian economic growth in the late 1990s, using the global, economy-wide GTAP model. Attention focuses on results for Indonesia, the worst-affected country in the region. An important consequence of the crisis is that Indonesia is likely to become more agrarian for a time than it otherwise would have been. The estimated benefits to Indonesia from embracing further unilateral reform, as a way of catching up, are contrasted with the alternative strategy of reneging on Uruguay Round commitments to liberalize trade.     

酒店市场营销:花得越多越好?

本文使用史密斯旅游研究(Smith Travel Research,STR)提供的酒店数据来探寻市场营销开支对酒店将来财务效益的影响.根据荻取的结论,我们有3大发现:1)市场营销支出对酒店一年后财务影响的边际效应呈递减分布;2)在个体酒店这个层次,总经营利润(gross operating profit)、纯经营利润(net operating income)以及总销售(revenue)有很强的自我预测性;3)对总经营利润、纯经营利润以及总销售的构成作进一步分析可以获得更好的预测效果.     

An examination of electronic video clips in the context of hotel Websites

The Internet has become a major channel for selling a myriad of products and services. To make the on-line shopping experience more vivid, retailers and service providers frequently portray product images and video clips on their Websites. Although the dimensions of e-Service Quality have been studied in various on-line contexts, research focusing on video clips in the context of hotel Websites is limited. The purpose of this exploratory study is to examine how consumers evaluate video clips portraying experiential services such as hotels. Our results indicate that consumers evaluate video clips based on six distinct dimensions: user interface, aesthetics, customization/personalization, assurance/trust, flexibility and virtual human interaction.     

The Great War heritage site management in Trentino,northern Italy

The preparations for the 100th anniversary of the Great War outbreak turn the lights on war heritage. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the war heritage site management in northern Italy considering the role of stakeholders and the marketing efforts to promote the renovated heritage sites. Trentino-Alto Adige, an Italian Alpine region, constitutes the area of this study. In the Great War, the region, one of the historical border areas of Italy under the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, witnessed heavy fighting in extreme environmental conditions. The tangible heritage of the frontline in the high Alps has recently been renovated and marketed in tourism. The conservation efforts to revalue the sites and to promote thematic routes linking war heritage in the region have gained interest from stakeholders. However, the institutions, museums, voluntary associations and tourism organizations involved in site management have different priorities. The findings show that significant effort has been invested to conserve and to exploit war heritage, however, regarding site management and visitor interpretation for international tourists’ needs seem to be neglected.     

The effect of CEO reputation and explanations for poor performance on investors’ judgments about the company’s future performance and management

Two experiments are conducted in which MBA students make judgments about a company’s future performance and management’s reputation after the company reports poor financial results. Information about the CEO’s pre-existing reputation is manipulated at three levels (favorable, unfavorable, or none) and the plausibility of management’s explanation is manipulated at two levels (plausible or implausible). Generally, the results indicate that management’s explanations influence investors’ judgments of the company’s future performance and that judgments about management were jointly influenced by both manipulated factors. Specifically, our results indicate that a pre-existing favorable management reputation is an enduring trait that is not damaged even when management offers an implausible explanation. Our results are consistent with Mercer (2004) but inconsistent with other research (40 and 53) suggesting that a good reputation is easily lost. Our results also indicate that offering a plausible explanation improves the reputation of managers with an unfavorable reputation. We also find that judgments about management’s intentions for explaining poor performance represent a partial mediator for judgments about management’s reputation. Finally, we provide evidence that judgments about the company’s future performance and management’s reputation are consequential in that they are associated with investors’ equity judgments.     

HRM implementation by multiple HRM actors: a social exchange perspective

Abstract

In this study, we understand HRM implementation as a social process that depends on the social exchange relationships between line managers and both HRM professionals and employees. As such, we offer a fresh approach to understanding HRM implementation by concentrating on the social exchange among HRM actors. We do so by investigating to what extent these exchange relationships influence HRM implementation, as reflected in employees’ perceptions of the presence of HRM practices and their affective commitment. We collected multilevel data from two sources (line managers and employees) and in two phases in a Dutch engineering firm, and obtained fully matched manager – employee information from 75 employees and 20 line managers. Our results show that employees perceive a larger number of HRM practices when they have a good relationship with their line managers and when their line managers are motivated to implement HRM practices. Line managers, in turn, reciprocate perceived support from the HRM department with greater motivation to implement these practices. We conclude that because HRM actors engage in social interactions, HRM practices will be implemented at the organizational level because employees perceive the presence of HRM practices and then reciprocate this with affective commitment.