Alternative food consumption (AFC): idiocentric and allocentric factors of influence among low socio-economic status (SES) consumers

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the factors that drive consumer demands for alternative food consumption (AFC) options in western society (i.e. plant-based, organic and local diets) as means to achieve sustainability and a state of food well-being. Specifically, we propose a holistic framework in order to identify factors that influence its adoption: idiocentric (functional, ideological and experiential) and allocentric (situational, sociocultural and institutional). The proposed framework provides a basis for discussion on how marketing can contribute to the establishment of AFC in western society and contribute to sustainability and food-well-being among low socio-economic status (SES) consumers. Marketing and public policy implications of this framework are discussed in light of food consumption by low SES consumers, a target particularly vulnerable to flawed states of food well-being.     

Taxpayers' Perceptions of Practitioners: Finding One Who is Effective and Does the Right Thing?

This paper examines Australian taxpayers' perceptions of their idealized tax practitioner as well as their perceptions of their current tax preparer. The analysis was based on survey responses from 2,040 randomly selected Australian taxpayers who completed the "Community Hopes, Fears and Actions Survey" (author, 2000). Three dimensions were identified as underlying taxpayer judgements of their idealized practitioner. A minority of the sample indicated that their ideal was a creative, aggressive tax planning type, a person who was well networked and familiar with tax office intelligence and enforcement priorities. A second type of idealized practitioner engaged in the cautious minimisation of tax. Unlike creative accountants, practitioners of this type avoided conflict, while being sophisticated about identifying opportunities to minimise tax. The most popular idealized type was the low risk, no fuss practitioner who was honest and risk averse. The data revealed that taxpayers are likely to find tax practitioners who have the attributes that they value most highly, but that when taxpayers' perceptions of their tax practitioner are combined with their ideals, only two substantive dimensions emerge, tax avoidance and doing the right thing. Our inability to distinguish tax practitioners who are seen to provide cautious and aggressive advice in practice has important implications for the growth of aggressive tax planning markets in the community.     

Seeking for Solutions within a Project Setting

There has been increasing attention focused on the importance of ‘solution selling’ in the often very close relationships that characterize business-to-business marketing. While an extant predominantly product-centric view of solutions prevails in the literature, this has recently been juxtaposed with a more process-oriented view. We review such a process-oriented solution model briefly, and focus on the managerial challenge of how firms make this process-oriented approach work in practice. We argue that, in parallel to adopting a process-oriented approach, companies also have to focus their attention specifically on how to mobilize the different parties in order to amalgamate the perspectives and orientations between the interacting counterparts. We propose an interaction process model of how this ‘collective mind’ is achieved, using as an example a study of the United Kingdom’s Lean Aerospace Initiative (UK LAI), a large project with a specific solution in mind – improving the global competitiveness of the UK’s Aerospace industry. We use our model to show how the three main groups of actors (Government bodies, four Universities, and the aerospace companies themselves) interact in their pursuit of co-creating their collective solutions.     

Unpacking a crop diversity hotspot: farmer practice and preferences in Northern Malawi

Crop diversity is a key principle of sustainable food production systems. Yet, inter and intra specific diversification is declining in many regions of the world. In Northern Malawi, a participatory action research project (Soils Food and Healthy Communities) has conducted agroecological co-learning with farmers for over a decade, providing an opportunity to explore farmer management, crop choice and variety selection practices. Farmers who participate receive seed for 0.10 ha of on-farm testing for one growing season and then decide whether to continue to grow the crop. Cropping system diversity, management practices and traits associated with crops grown and lost were assessed through interviews with 198 farm households (757 fields). We found an average of 1.3 species per field and 4.0 crops per farm. This is almost twice the level of diversity in other reports from Malawi smallholder farms. Farmers cited a wide range of preferred groundnut variety traits, as well as concerns (namely, high labour requirements). Both modern and local maize varieties are being grown and those retained were often associated with early maturity or preferred grain quality traits such as storability. Overall, farmers at this Northern Malawi agroecology education site are growing diverse crop mixtures that include traditional as well as modern varieties of maize and groundnut.     

纸幕与纸老虎:区域研究和比较研究

关于威权政体的转型研究,各种跨区域的比较有一定的价值,但是区域内的比较更加有用.区域研究和比较研究之间并不存在严格的分界线.那种认为有关转型国家的区域研究孤立于比较政治学之外的观点,是没有多少根据的.转型学的方法并不一定具有非常重要的价值.     

Exploring Impacts of Community-Based Legal Aid on Intrahousehold Gender Relations in Tanzania

Community-based legal aid (CBLA) has been promoted as a promising intervention to reach rural marginalized populations who face barriers to accessing formal legal services and is increasingly implemented with the specific goal of protecting women's rights. This study evaluates the impact of a twelve-month CBLA program in northwestern Tanzania on intrahousehold gender relations using a clustered-randomized control trial across 139 villages. Among 1,219 women, the study finds those in treatment villages are more likely to refer others to paralegals for a variety of domestic issues; however, there are no measureable impacts on aggregate knowledge of marital law, intrahousehold decision making, or reported experience of twelve-month intimate partner violence. These overall results are robust to a number of other sensitivity analyses, including accounting for spillovers, attrition bounds, and modeling choices. While these results indicate limited potential for intrahousehold and gender-progressive change, program duration and intensity likely affected measurable positive impacts.     

Temporary and permanent migrant selection: Theory and evidence of ability‐search cost dynamics

We integrate two workhorses of the labor literature, the Roy and search models, to illustrate the implications of migration duration—specifically, whether it is temporary or permanent—for patterns of selection. Consistent with our stylized model, we show that temporary migrants are intermediately selected on education, with weaker selection on cognitive ability. In contrast, permanent migration is associated with strong positive selection on both education and ability, as it involves finer employee–employer matching and offers greater returns to experience. Networks are also more valuable for permanent migration, where search costs are higher. Labor market frictions explain observed network–skill interactions.     

A women’s boom in the boardroom: effects on performance?

This article analyses whether improving gender diversity in boardrooms improves firms’ economic performance. In the context of French CAC40-listed companies between 2008 and 2012, this research uses instrumental variable panel regressions, including production frontier estimates, to arrive at two key results. First, gender diversity in boards depends on firms’ attributes including their previous gender promotion strategies. Second, promoting women in boardrooms has a significant and positive effect on economic performance while accounting for the endogeneity boards’ gender diversity. Gender diversity even reduces corporate inefficiencies and enables firms to come closer to their optimal performance.     

Perspectives on Disability Disclosure: The Importance of Employer Practices and Workplace Climate

Disclosing a disability to a potential or current employer is a very personal decision, with potentially far-reaching consequences for both the employer and employee. Disability disclosure can assure that employees receive appropriate workplace accommodations, and can help employers respond more effectively to diversity and inclusion initiatives aimed at increasing the hiring and retention of individuals with disabilities. However, disclosure may also result in negative employment consequences for employees, such as lowered supervisor expectations, isolation from co-workers, and increased likelihood of termination. Given demographic trends related to disability in the labor force and recent initiatives to increase the employment of individuals with disabilities, it is increasingly important that employers create an environment that encourages disclosure and reduces the likelihood of negative consequences for employees and applicants who disclose their disabilities. This paper presents the findings of a survey of individuals with disabilities focused on identifying and better understanding the factors that influence the disclosure decision. Results highlight the barriers and facilitators that influence individuals’ decision to disclose and the important role that employers, managers, and workplace climate play in the decision. Implications for employer policy and practice are also discussed.