Advertising and older consumers: image and ageism

Despite a growing population of older people, traditional prejudices against age continue to flourish in society. The media in particular are often guilty of ageism, persistently focusing upon the 'youth market', and advertisers are particular offenders. By ignoring older people, or using them as caricatures, the advertising industry not only violates its ethical responsibilities to this group within the community, but also overlooks the commercial opportunity presented by the new generation of older consumers. The article presents research into UK print media which shows that older people tend not to be featured in advertisements in mainstream publications, but are prominent in advertisements in publications for the over-fifties. The issues this raises in terms of the duty of advertisers to respect the rights of older people are discussed, along with the commercial imperative to provide more appropriate images of older people in UK advertising.     

性别失衡与人口流动视角下的男男性行为:来自中国城市地区的证据

利用"城市地区流动大龄男性生殖健康和家庭生活调查"数据,通过与同年龄段已婚男性的对比,探究了性别失衡背景下流动大龄未婚男性的男男性行为。同性性行为发生率受到相关态度、婚姻状况等的显著影响。性别失衡所带来的"婚姻挤压"迫使流动大龄未婚男性"被动失婚",缺乏正常稳定的性伴侣,从而导致男男性行为发生率有增加的可能性;流动大龄未婚男性的男男性行为具有高风险特征,而对于艾滋病、性病知识的缺乏是高风险性行为发生的重要影响因素。     

Why bad projects are so hard to kill

Even at the prototype stage, experts were saying the technology was obsolete. Yet, in the face of tepid consumer response, the company stubbornly kept increasing production capacity and developing new models. By the time it was finally killed, the initiative had cost the company an astounding $580 million and had tied up resources for 14 years. The product was RCA's SelectaVision videodisc recorder, and its story is hardly unique. Companies make similar mistakes--if on a somewhat smaller scale--all the time. But why? No one comes to work saying, "I'm going to pursue a project that will waste my company millions of dollars." Quite the opposite. They come to work full of excitement about a project they believe in. And that, surprisingly, can be the root of all the trouble--a fervent belief in the inevitability of a project's ultimate success. Starting, naturally enough, with a project's champion, this faith can spread throughout the organization, leading everyone to believe collectively in the product's viability and to view any signs of impending doom merely as temporary setbacks. This phenomenon is documented here in two chillingly detailed case studied, one involving Essilor, the world's largest maker of corrective lenses for eyeglasses, and the other involving Lafarge, the largest producer of building materials. By counterexample, they point the way toward avoiding such morasses: assembling project teams not entirely composed of like-minded people and putting in place--and sticking to--well-defined review processes. Both cases also show that if it takes a project champion to get a project up and running, it may take a new kind of organizational player--an "exit champion"--to push an irrationally exuberant organization to admit when enough is enough.     

Towards a better understanding of mobile banking: the impact of customer experience on trust and commitment

In the current context of ubiquitous connectedness through portable mobile devices and services, it is important to comprehend more fully the nature of consumer/bank interactions and relationships. At the same time, firms in the service sector are trying to provide customers with impactful positive experiences. This article examines the impact of mobile banking experience on trust and commitment based on the customer experience dimensions defined by Schmitt and expanded to include the negative aspect of the affective dimension. A total of 396 panellists of a recognized Canadian research firm responded to a self-administered online questionnaire. Findings demonstrate that the cognitive and negative affective dimensions of mobile experience impact trust, whereas the positive affective/sensory dimension influences commitment. The behavioural and social dimensions do not have significant impacts. This study enriches the theoretical corpus of knowledge in customer experience, relationship marketing and m-banking literature, lending practical implications for mobile services managers. Financial institutions, for example, should offer sensory mobile applications designed to appeal to the eye or to the touch (positive affective/sensory dimension), provide tools and information intended to arouse user curiosity and provoke reflection (cognitive dimension), while avoiding negative experiences which can lead to damaging feelings/emotions such as disappointment and anger (negative affective dimension).     

The Formation of Fairness Perceptions in the Cooperation between Entrepreneurs and Universities

For entrepreneurs who intend to exploit university‐owned technologies, a cooperative relationship with the university is critical. This study aims to better understand this entrepreneur–university cooperation. A key factor influencing the quality of this cooperation is the fairness perception of the entrepreneur. However, little is known about how these fairness perceptions are formed in this context. Therefore, to increase insight in entrepreneur–university cooperation, this study explores the formation of fairness perceptions by entrepreneurs who cooperate with universities (in so‐called university spin‐offs). This study assesses how the rules these entrepreneurs employ to form fairness perceptions differ from fairness rules that have been established in previous studies on organizational justice. The results show that, in addition to established fairness rules, there are also fairness rules that are more specific to this entrepreneurial setting. These specific rules complement the established fairness rules to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the formation of fairness perceptions by entrepreneurs cooperating with a university. Moreover, this study explores to what extent different entrepreneurs form fairness perceptions differently and finds that both experience and relational capital of the entrepreneurs within the university are two key sources of heterogeneity. Overall, this study contributes to the literature by conceptualizing how entrepreneurs form fairness perceptions in cooperating with universities and how this extends established wisdom in organizational justice theory. Moreover, the rules identified in this study provide clues for entrepreneurs who wish to improve their collaboration with universities, and may also apply to the relationships between entrepreneurs and large corporations and between entrepreneurs and venture capitalists.