Consumer values among restaurant customers

The research presented in this article focuses on consumer values in restaurant meal experiences from the restaurant customers’ points of view. Based on a set of data, the purpose is to evaluate the customers’ perceived consumer values in restaurant meal experiences and to compare the results with other studies on consumer values and service quality and with studies of meal experiences. A modified grounded theory approach has been followed. The empirical data are based on seven semi-structured interviews of experienced restaurant customers in two cities in Norway. A conceptual model illustrates the coding process that shows the connection between the different categories. The data analysis produces different categories of consumer-specific values on three levels of integration. The lowest level includes 29 consumer values that are integrated into 13 specified values. On the highest level, five value categories of consumer-oriented values are specified. These are excellence, harmony, emotional stimulation, acknowledgement, and circumstance value, of which harmony is the most emphasised value among the restaurant customers.     

Editorial

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Editorial

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Analyzing a quantitative coordination relationship

Coordination is a crucial behavior in cooperative distributed problem solving (CDPS). Analyzing coordination requires an understanding of the interplay between the agents, their problem, and their environment. The core behaviors ofdistributed coordination in CDPS systems are the coherent specification and scheduling of tasks over the set of distributed agents working on sets of interrelated problems. The complexity of, and uncertainty about, the problem interrelationships make distributed task coordination difficult. This article describes a causal model of this process that links the interrelationships, calledcoordination relationships, to the local scheduling constraints of distributed agents. Besides coordination relationships, environmental uncertainty and the lack of infinite computational resources also make distributed coordination difficult.It is not only the presence or absence of a coordination relationship that is important, but its quantitative properties: how likely is it to appear, how significant is its effect, and so on. These aspects determine the usefulness of a particular coordination relationship in the context defined by an environment, a problem to be solved, and an agent architecture. This article discusses the analysis of coordination relationships, using as an example our abstract model for thefacilitates relationship. We detail the derivation and assumptions of this model and apply it to the design of a generalized coordination module that is separate from, and interfaces cleanly with, the local scheduler of a CDPS agent. A set of simulation experiments is described that test our assumptions and design process in the coordination of a group of real-time problem-solving agents.     

Macroeconomic News, Business Cycles and Australian Financial Markets

This paper examines the effects of news surprises of macroeconomic announcements on Australian financial markets across different business cycles. We find that overall, the news arrivals are influential in both stock and debt markets but in an interesting array of responses across asset classes. Debt markets are more responsive to macroeconomic news surprises compared to the stock market, hence supporting the notion that information revealed from the macroeconomic news is related to interest rates. Specifically, news about CPI is important over the full sample period and especially during expansions for both stock and bond returns while the unemployment rate news is influential to the money market rates. Furthermore, these effects are seemingly asymmetric in nature, with their directions and magnitudes conditional on the state of economy.     

Analyse de la consommation des biens culturels au Togo

This paper analyses the determinants of consumption decision and household expenditure on cultural goods in Togo, based on survey data from the 2015 QUIBB Basic Well‐being Indicators. The determinants of consumption decision are empirically estimated from a probit model while the determinants of consumption expenditure on cultural goods are estimated from a Tobit model and the CLAD (Censored Lead Absolute Deviation) method. The results show that the decision to consume cultural goods is positively affected by the higher level of education and the place of residence but negatively affected by the size of the household. Likewise, households' consumption expenditure is significantly influenced by income, education level, place of residence, household size, and religion. However, estimation by the CLAD method shows that the magnitude of the effect of these factors differs from one quantile to another. Furthermore, our results highlight a U‐shaped relationship between cultural spending and income. Taking these factors into account can help revive the cultural sector in Togo.     

Understanding novelty creation in exploration networks—Structural and relational embeddedness jointly considered

In exploration networks the key-organisational question is not how to organise a division of labour but instead how to create novelty. The aim of this paper is to develop an understanding of how such novelty in exploration networks is created. Based on an empirical analysis of the multimedia and biotechnology industries in the Netherlands, this paper shows that exploration networks face a trade-off between diversity and selection. Moreover, the findings indicate that depending on the type of exploration task, exploration networks need to make a combination of density and tie strength in such a way that diversity and selection are aligned. The paper concludes, among others, that the views of Burt, Coleman and Granovetter should not be seen as contradictory, but rather as proponents of complementary views.     

The Continuing Controversy over Right-to-Work Laws in the Early Twenty-First Century

This article provides a brief introduction to the ongoing controversy concerning right-to-work (RTW) legislation in the United States. The paper proceeds with the outlining of the major ideological arguments in favor of and in opposition to RTW laws before presenting the taste, free rider and bargaining power hypotheses which has motivated research concerning the economic effects of RTW laws. After reporting the findings of some of the basic empirical research designed to test these hypotheses as well as other recent studies, the article concludes that RTW laws have, at a minimum, moderately reduced the scope of unionization as well as the number of union members over the long-run. This indicates that the presence or absence of RTW legislation is not merely a symbolic fight as some have maintained but is something that has real consequences for the trade union movement’s future in the United States in the early 21^st century.