The loyalty process of residents and tourists in the festival context

Few attempts have been made to find out if the loyalty process for residents and tourists in the context of cultural festivals is the same. This study investigated the influence of involvement on satisfaction as factors contributing to the likelihood of returning to an annual festival for residents and tourists. A sample of 412 attendees of a cultural and historic festival in the Midwest region of the USA was surveyed. The results showed that both residents and tourists who were more involved with the festival had higher satisfaction levels. However, only residents who were highly satisfied with the festival were more likely to attend again, whereas tourists' satisfaction level did not significantly influence their likelihood of returning. For tourists, it is likely that their quest for novelty is influential in shaping their future intentions. Implications of this result for the sustainability of cultural festivals are discussed.     

The intercultural communication cultural immersion experience: Preparing leaders for a global future

The dynamics of globalization mean we face a reality wherein leaders are called upon to communicate effectively in cultural situations unfamiliar to them. This situation brings new challenges for communication and leadership educators. Our article describes a cultural immersion experience called The Cagli Project, where communication and leadership students learn effective intercultural communication skills for leadership formation while studying in Italy. The philosophical and experiential aspects of the program are described along with leadership outcomes. The article ends with a discussion of the transferability of this model to alternative programs. Perhaps nothing has had a more profound effect on human communication and hence leadership in the past half century than the movement of people around the globe and the growing diversity of world society. Globalization is the mantra that seems to be driving much that is new in higher education today. It has its roots in the “global economy” and seems most relevant to the business disciplines, but there is a sub‐text to globalization that resonates throughout all our institutions, and that is diversity (Caputo, 2011).     

Minimum Death Rates and Maximum Life Expectancy: The Role of Concordant Ages

Only five populations have achieved maximum life expectancy (or best practice population) more than occasionally since 1900. The aim of this article is to understand how maximum life expectancy is achieved in the context of mortality transition. We explore this aim using the concepts of potential life expectancy, based on minimum rates at each age among all high longevity populations, and concordant ages. Concordant ages are defined as ages at which the minimum death rate occurs in the population with the maximum life expectancy. The results show the extent to which maximum life expectancy could increase through the realization of demonstrably achievable minimum rates. Concordant ages are concentrated at increasingly older ages over time, but they have produced more than half of the change in maximum life expectancy in almost all periods since 1900. This finding is attributed to their quantity and position whereby concordant ages are concentrated at the ages that have the greatest impact on mortality decline in a particular period. Based on mortality forecasts, we expect that concordant ages will continue to lead increases in female maximum life expectancy, but that they will play a weaker role in male maximum life expectancy.     

The power of plain: Intensifying product experience with neutral aesthetic context

Product packaging aesthetics can be the first observable signal of a product??s underlying traits. Two experimental studies examine the impact of package aesthetics on consumers?? evaluations of sensory hedonic products. The studies show that when paired with inferior or superior product quality, neutral package aesthetics can serve to intensify the negativity or positivity of product experience. Results indicate that surprise and disappointment mediate the relationship between package aesthetics and product evaluation. These findings provide evidence that an aesthetic, which serves to neutralize expectation states and in turn intensifies experience through contrast, may be as important of a contextual factor to consider as aesthetics that bias perceptions via a halo effect.     

Are consumers with disabilities receiving the services they need?

People with disabilities in the U.S. command a buying power of $220 billion. This study combines service quality theory and disability orientation theory to focus on perceived service quality for this segment, with attribution theory providing a connecting framework. The results show that there is much room for improvement. A survey among people with disabilities reveals that retailers are rated lower on accessibility than on traditional service quality dimensions. Furthermore, feelings of disability pride and social activism (mediated by a sense of exclusion) significantly affect ratings of accessibility. Service “intangibles” such as assurance and empathy have the greatest positive effect on service quality ratings, which in turn significantly affect purchase intention (mediated by customer satisfaction). Implications and research issues are discussed.     

Nudging using the ‘dish of the day’ strategy does not work for plant‐based meals in a Danish sample of adolescent and older people

Adequate nutrition is an important factor for health and well‐being in adolescents and later years. Fruits and vegetables are part of a healthy diet as important source of nutrients, but their intakes are lower than the recommendations in European countries. This study aimed to compare the choices made by adolescents and older people between three similar dishes, one based on meat, one on fish and one on vegetables, in two different conditions: a neutral (control) situation and an intervention situation in which the vegetable‐based meal was designated ‘dish of the day’. The comparisons of choices will be made within the same age group (adolescents in the control group vs. adolescents in the intervention group; older people in the control group vs. older people in the intervention group). A quasi‐randomised field trial design was used with a sample of 94 adolescents (aged 10–19 years) and 97 older people (aged ≥65 years), who were randomly allocated to intervention or control groups. In the control situation participants were asked to choose between three similar meals, one meat, one fish and one the VeggiEat dish. In the intervention, the VeggiEat dish was labelled the ‘Dish of the day’. All dishes were provided free of charge, displayed side by side in the same order and served in same portions. The dish choices showed no differences between the control and intervention groups in both age groups, and no differences were found among the other variables analysed. This nudging strategy, ‘dish of the day’, seems not to work for the Danish sample of adolescents and older people. Future nudging studies with these populations are needed in order to find the best strategy to move adolescents' and older people's food habits toward a healthier pattern.     

Financial conditions and economic activity: the potential impact of the targeted long-term refinancing operations (TLTROs)

This article explores the relationship between financial conditions and real economic activity in the euro area as a whole and for Greece in particular. We use a financial conditions index (see Angelopoulou et al. 2014) which is constructed using a wide range of prices, quantities, spreads and survey data in line with theory. We update the indices and use them within a VAR framework to estimate the potential impact of the targeted long-term refinancing operations (TLTROs) on aspects of economic activity. Our results suggest that financial conditions do have a significant effect on economic activity, and thus the TLTROs, to the extent that they are designed to improve financial conditions, will provide a boost to the real economy.