Journal articles on the topic 'Cue utilization theory'

Three competing theories of stress and judgment performance, namely, working memory capacity theory (Eysenck [1979]), cue utilization theory (Easterbrook [1959]), and coping behavior theory (Folkman [1984]) were compared for their efficacy in explaining the form of stress-induced performance changes in auditors' judgment. Two studies were conducted to test the goodness of fit of the three predicted stress-judgment relationships. The first study was a five-phase field research that included the development of an Audit Mental Stress Scale and the usage of a complex audit judgment case. The results indicated that the cue utilization theory had a higher explanatory power than the other two competing theories. In accordance with this theory, auditors' judgment performance improved as stress increased from a low to moderate level with optimal performance efficiency occurring at a moderate level of stress, and thereafter a decrement in judgment performance at an excessive level of stress. In other words, there was an inverted U-shaped relationship between stress and judgment performance. The second study reinforced the findings with a laboratory experiment. Forty-eight auditors were randomly assigned to four groups of 12 subjects each and the four groups assigned to one of four time pressure conditions. The auditors performed the same audit judgment case as in study one. An ANOVA that used orthogonal polynomial coefficients to test for the presence of trend was applied to identify which of the three models best fit the data. The results indicated that an inverted U-shaped curve contributed most to the data trend. The goodness of fit test once again supported the predicted relationship in Easterbrook's cue utilization theory.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the consumer-side effects of “under new management” (UNM) signs. The authors integrate cue-utilization theory and relevance theory to guide hypotheses about the conditions under which these signs are and are not beneficial. Design/methodology/approach Two consumer-based experiments were used to examine the quality and reputation effects of restaurants signaling a management change on potential and existing customers. Findings The results suggest that positive and negative effects are possible. The direction of these effects is contingent upon consumers’ prior experience, type of service (i.e. search/experience) and the relevance of the signal. Research limitations/implications The study is limited to one industry (i.e. restaurants) and examines the effects of market signals on perceived quality and reputation. In addition, this research brought forth the notion of “signal relevance” and suggested that it may be explicitly tied to attributions. However, this assertion must examine multiple signals (relevant/irrelevant) and their contingent effects on consumer perceptions. Practical implications The findings advise businesses to use caution when using signals such as an “UNM” sign, as they appear to have different effects depending on the experience of the consumer with the service and the relevance of the signal. Originality/value This research contributes to the literature on cue utilization theory to understand the effects of marketplace cues on consumer perceptions. It contributes to marketing theory and practice by proposing a model of cue effects based on prior customer experience, type of service and cue relevance.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of product information on impulse purchases in a cross-border electronic commerce (CBEC) setting from the perspective of cue stimulation.Design/methodology/approachThis study proposes a research model of impulse purchases in CBEC based on the cue utilization theory and Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) model. The research model was tested using covariance-based structural equation modelling. Data were collected from the consumers of a popular CBEC platform in China.FindingsA high-quality product description has a significant positive effect on concentration but not on curiosity and autotelic experience. A high-quality product display has a significant positive effect on concentration, curiosity and autotelic experience. High-quality product content has a significant positive effect on curiosity and autotelic experience but not on concentration. Curiosity and autotelic experience both have a significant positive effect on impulse purchases; however, concentration has no such effect on an impulse purchase. Curiosity and autotelic experience have a full mediation effect between product display and impulse purchases and between product content and impulse purchases, respectively.Originality/valueThis study integrates the S-O-R model and cue utilization theory to construct a theoretical model of product information-flow experience-impulse purchases. According to the model, we can understand how product information influences consumers' impulse purchases in CBEC.

With the advancement of technology, the utilization of information technology/information systems (IT/IS) is increasingly important in enhancing productivity. Thus, IT/IS outsourcing has become a crucial issue for companies. When faced with an unfamiliar outsourcing service market, and particularly when initially outsourcing, client companies experience uncertainty. Employing the signaling theory, the study proposes one intrinsic cue (competence) and one extrinsic cue (reputation) for outsourcing service providers to evaluate service quality, value, and the subsequent outsourcing intentions of clients. The results demonstrate that suppliers' competence and reputation are influential signals for perceived service quality, which in turn affects perceived value and outsourcing intentions. Moreover, suppliers' reputations are found to have a greater impact on perceived service quality than suppliers' competence; the latter has a direct effect on perceived value, while the former does not. The implications for theory and practice are also discussed, as are suggestions for future research.

Abstract This study aims to examine the interaction effect of country of manufacture and brand awareness, packaging and price impact on the purchase intention of toothpaste among young adults in Malaysia. As previous studies show, the country of origin should not be taken as a single clue, as it exaggerates the country of origin effect. This study evaluates the effect of the country of origin effect on the low-involvement good (toothpaste). The Cue Utilization Theory was used to explain how the consumer uses product cues to rate a product before making a purchase decision. Study data are analysed using SmartPLS. The results of this study showed that all variables influence consumer purchase intention for toothpaste. IPMA analysis showed that the interaction effect of the country of manufacture and brand awareness are important factors.

Purpose Based on the cue utilization theory and congruity theory, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the mediating effects of perceived quality on the relationships between category characteristics and purchase intention for private labels. Design/methodology/approach To examine the research hypotheses, the authors conducted a questionnaire survey on 703 adult consumers in China. Findings The results show that perceived quality fully mediates the relationships between category complexity, risk importance, category quality variation, product signatureness and purchase intention. In addition, consumers’ knowledge moderates the relationship between perceived quality and purchase intention. The implications and future research directions are discussed in this study. Originality/value The results show that the category complexity is positively related to consumers’ perceived quality. Although opposite to the conclusions in prior research, the findings are consistent with the unique phenomenon in China, that is, to label the name and location of the contract manufacturers. The authors investigate the moderating role of consumer knowledge, which will provide meaningful guidance for the Chinese retailing market.

Purpose – Luxury brands’ marketing efforts have traditionally focussed on developed nations since that has comprised the majority of consumer demand. However, double-digit growth in developing nations such as India and China, have attracted the attention of most luxury brand managers. Using cue utilization theory, the authors conducted a qualitative study in two phases comprised of first, focus group discussions (FGD), structured observations (SO) and second, In-Depth Interviews (IDI) to understand the effects of country of origin (COO) on Indian consumers’ current day purchasing behaviors with luxury products. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – Using cue utilization theory, the authors conducted a qualitative study in two phases comprised of first, FGD, SO and second, IDI to understand the effects of COO on Indian consumers’ current day purchasing behaviors with luxury products. A conceptual framework has been developed that should help luxury brands formulate marketing strategies for this booming market. Findings – Further, this study found that COO affects the exploration of luxury brands and this process is carried out digitally and primarily with friends. Luxury brand managers can insert detailed information about COO on web sites and can understand the keywords used in the search engines to facilitate consumers using appropriate consideration data. This research also found that COO is compared on the basis of quality, features and innovation. Research limitations/implications – The results of this study are only from one emerging country, i.e., India. Similar studies should be carried out in other emerging nations. Additionally, developed countries can also carry out comprehensive research in this domain as their behavior is also changing for COO and luxury brands. Originality/value – This insight can be used by the brand managers and they can develop apps and web sites that would help the consumers to compare the COO for their products. Additionally, this research found that COO helps the luxury consumers to evaluate the brands and how they associate it with consumer images. Luxury brand managers need to be conscious when their countries products/ brands have been rated low by the consumers as it could result in consumers simply discarding them from their consideration set.

Previous studies consider confidence in the Internet as a means of payment and existence of a legal framework that protect consumers in their activities on the Internet are the critical issues of B2C success. To respond, this study extends the IS Continuance Model with Cue Utilization Theory to examine the impact of offering e-payments to online users, specifically, the relationship between their perceived benefits, legal protection, risk avoidance, and satisfaction with prior experiences. The analytical results presented in this study indicate that perceived cues (benefits, legal protection and risk allocation) differentially affect consumer behavior. Notably, perceived cues and confirmation associated with satisfaction have influences on e-payment continuance intention. That is, if consumers’ perception of online security cues increases, their intentions to continue use of e-payment increase even if the systems or services are perceived low reliability. Finally the practical and theoretical implications of this study are discussed.

This study examines how 527 patients across different health states assessed the influence of hotel-like attributes on their well-being. Using theoretical mechanisms of attention restoration underlying restorative servicescapes, we postulated that hotel-like products and services will enhance patients’ perceived well-being, which, in turn, will favorably affect their behavioral intentions. We also tested an alternative model that included additional direct relationships between hotel-like products and services and behavioral intentions, based on the tenets of cue utilization theory. After conducting a series of nested model comparison procedures, we confirmed that the alternative model provided a theoretically and empirically stronger explanation for the dynamics of hotel-like restorative servicescapes. Although the differences between less healthy and more healthy patients were not statistically significant, the less healthy group demonstrated the same pattern of relationships as in the overall model, indicating that such patients may be more likely to derive greater restorative benefits from hotel-like hospital rooms, which may also make them more likely to pay higher out-of-pocket expenses for such rooms. The study furthers the empirical research agenda on evidence-based design (EBD) and the role of hospitality in health care.

AbstractIn a virtual community, the behavior of strengthening the emotion of a post title to draw attention of users is not uncommon, which can affect the overall performance of the information environment. This study focuses on exploring the influence of the emotional information of a post title on the users’ community perceived value in a virtual community. Based on the cue utilization theory, we propose a framework with several hypotheses. Data are collected using the experimental method from the college student sample in our study, and numerous tests are performed to analyze the data and verify the hypotheses. At the end of the study, it is found that the emotional information of the post title reduces the user community perceived financial value and it improves the user community perceived recreational value. The analysis of the mediating role reveals that emotional involvement facilitates the relationship between emotional information of post titles and user community perceived recreational value. This study adds a new dimension by discussing the user community value perception on post title expression and it reveals the conflict of interest between the manager of the virtual community and the producers of the post. Our findings may also provide guidelines and references for virtual community managers. Specifically, they should view the behavior of making post titles more emotional critically, and choose specific information management strategies based on the different value pursuit of community users.

China is currently the world’s largest cross-border e-commerce purchaser and destination country. Therefore, how to promote consumer online shopping is the most important goal for cross-border e-commerce sustainability. Meanwhile, the previous research has not empirically verified the precise effect of online shopping context and perceived value on consumers’ cross-border online purchase intention. To address this gap, this study analyzes the online shopping context that determines consumers’ purchase intention and innovatively identifies four cues that promote this consumption behavior in cross-border e-commerce, such as online promotion cues, content marketing cues, personalized recommendation cues, and social review cues. It proposes a theoretical model based on cue utilization theory and stimulus-organism-response model, which introduces this four cues and brand familiarity in analyzing the effects on consumers’ purchase intention in cross-border online shopping (CBOS). In addition, the paper examines the mediating role of perceived functional value and perceived emotional value. Survey data collected 372 cross-border online consumers from China and the PLS-SEM method was used to empirically test the proposed model. The results show that these four cross-border online shopping context cues have a significantly positive impact on consumers’ purchase intention. Brand familiarity has significantly negative moderating effects between the four cues and the perceived functional value, while brand familiarity also negatively moderates the relationship between online promotion cues, social review cues, and perceived emotional value, respectively.

Abstract A central factor in research guided by the Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) is the mental effort people invest in performing a task. Mental effort is commonly assessed by asking people to report their effort throughout performing, learning, or problem-solving tasks. Although this measurement is considered reliable and valid in CLT research, metacognitive research provides robust evidence that self-appraisals of performance are often biased. In this review, we consider the possibility that mental effort appraisals may also be biased. In particular, we review signs for covariations and mismatches between subjective and objective measures of effort. Our review suggests that subjective and most objective effort measures appear reliable and valid when evaluated in isolation, because they discriminate among tasks of varying complexity. However, not much is known about their mutual correspondence—that is, whether subjective measures covariate with objective measures. Moreover, there is evidence that people utilize heuristic cues when appraising their effort, similar to utilization of heuristic cues underlying metacognitive appraisals of performance. These cues are identified by exposing biases—mismatch in effects of cue variations on appraisals and performance. The review concludes with a research agenda in which we suggest applying the well-established methodologies for studying biases in self-appraisals of performance in metacognitive research to investigating effort appraisals. One promising method could be to determine the covariation of effort appraisals and objective effort measures as an indicator of the resolution of effort appraisals.

Present challenges experienced by a globalized and changing world with new forms of doing business has forced entrepreneurs to change their approach to customers especially given the prior traditional marketing theory. Current markets have a customer base with increasing in demand for more marginal products or services. Henceforth, they have created individual preferences. The general objective of this study was to establish the effect of customer development strategies on performance of start-up carbon projects; a case of study of sustainable agriculture Tanzania (SAT) Specifically, aimed at examining the effect of business model on Performance of forest carbon projects, examine the effect of customer service systems on Performance of forest carbon projects, the effect of communication process on Performance of forest carbon projects, including effect of competitive pricing on Performance of forest carbon projects. It is anchored on theory of product market fit, start-up marketing pyramid and cue utilization theory. The study is further supported by the following models; business model canvas, value proposition canvas and customer development model. The study used a survey design. The survey collected data and information aimed at identifying customer development strategies for performance of carbon projects in the start-up carbon market. The selected population were customers of Sustainable Agriculture Tanzania. They consisted of companies, partners and individuals who were involved with the carbon offsetting project or potential clients. Ten companies and fifty individual customers were selected for the survey. Individual customers were drawn from the current connections developed by Sustainable Agriculture Tanzania. Primary and secondary data was utilized from various secondary sources linked to the topic of study and gathered facts and figures from the questionnaires. The questionnaire comprised of questions relating to the carbon markets for organizations in the start-up carbon projects. The quantitative data retrieved from the study was analysed by use of descriptive statistics that included variability, frequency and central tendency measures. These help provide information regarding the distribution. Measures of frequency distribution on the other hand document the frequency of scores or records. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) program was used to analyse the data and output presented in form of tables, pie charts and bar graphs. The study found out that customer development strategies in start-up forest carbon projects are central to performance of forest carbon projects. Playing a part to this performance are particularly the company’s prices, enhanced innovation and creativity, business management system, reduction of the time required for decision-making, and improved planning of activities. At the same time, use of IT data management systems has to a large extent made the decision-making process faster. These aspects generally lead to better management of budgets efficiency in service provision; consistent increase in revenue and number of customers has increased. Moreover, customer development strategies lead to customer satisfaction improvement. In conclusion to the presented findings, communication process and customer service systems have shown to influence the performance of forest carbon projects. Setting up a tailored business model that works well with the cost structure of the business and suits project goals has also been visibly altering the functioning of projects. The strategy implemented on pricing is also seen to promote customer growth. It is recommended that start-up projects develop relevant pricing strategies for their products; especially during their early stages of development in order to differentiate and grow a viable customer base. Managers should also encourage proper training and practices when it comes to inter-organizational communication and strategy implementation. This will ensure every employee works in cohesion towards achieving the projected goals thus improving performance.

AbstractTwo experiments were conducted to corroborate or refute the theory that animals will choose a food that will allow them to use it with maximum efficiency. Pigs have been shown to utilize foods of high nutrient density more efficiently than those of low density, so the choices made by pigs when offered such foods could be used to test the above optimization theory. In experiment 1, 48 Large White × Landrace gilts were used, for an 8-week period starting at 22 kg live weight, while in experiment 2, 48 boars of the same cross but of a genetically improved strain were used from 24 to 60 kg live weight. In both experiments use was made of high nutrient density summit foods which were used alone, or diluted in the ratio 80 summit: 20 milled sunflower husk to provide the low density foods. In experiment 1, the high density diet (HI) contained 7·5 g lysine per kg and 13·20 MJ digestible energy (DE) per kg, whereas in experiment 2 two summit foods were formulated, the first diet (H2) was offered for 3 weeks from 24 kg live weight and the second (H3) followed until 60 kg live weight. Foods H2 and H3 contained 11·0 and 8·40 g lysine per kg respectively and 15·0 and 14·0 MJ DE per kg, respectively. Both experiments made use of a high (H1 and H2, respectively) and a low nutrient density (L1 and L2, respectively) control treatment in which pigs were given ad libitum access to H1 and H2/H3, and L1 and L2/L3 in experiments 1 and 2 respectively (no. =4). In addition, a medium density treatment (Ml) consisting of a 50: 50 mixture of H1 and L1 (no. = 4) was given in experiment 1. Two choice-feeding treatments where used in both experiments, the first in which H1 and H2IH3 were placed in the left bin (CL1 (no. =18) and CL2 (no. = 20), respectively) and the appropriate dilution diet in the right bin, and the second in which H1 and H2/H3 were placed in the right bin (CR1 (no. = 18) and CR2 (no = 20)). There were no differences in average daily growth rates between treatments within experiments but there were significant differences (P < 0·05) in food intakes and efficiency of food utilization (FCE) between treatments. The highest intakes and lowest FCE were obtained on the L1 and L2 treatments while the lowest intakes were recorded on the choice-feeding treatments. There were no significant differences in FCE neither between H1, CL1 and CR1 nor between H2, CL2 and CR2. Only in experiment 1 were there significant differences (P < 0·05) between choice-feeding treatments on the basis of the position of the food bin but there was no preference for a particular position. The results indicated that pigs were able to differentiate successfully between two foods on the basis of their nutrient density, that bin position was not used as a cue in the choice made, that a small amount of the ‘unwanted’ food was consumed throughout the experiment and that the diet selected maximized FCE.

The paper analyzes the premises and impacts of dependent capitalism model formation in Central-East European (CEE) countries, new EU members; the model is based on large-scale inflow of foreign investments and coordination of economic ties by hierarchies of transnational corporations. It is stated that CEE countries’ leaderships run into a neoliberal democracy paradox, i. e. the need to meet citizens’ social demands while exercising ever less control over national economies. The prospects of dependent capitalism model continuance in the region are assessed under new post-crisis trends in world economy, in particular, in view of reduction of transborder capital flows and decelerating international trade growth.The sources of economic growth operationalized in CEE countries in order to evolve from long-running stagnation they found themselves in after the world financial crisis, are researched. It is proved that reliance on growing domestic consumption accompanied by weaker export orientation of the economy leads to CEE countries losing their important comparative advantages. The higher-than-anticipated growth of wages compared to labour productivity growth, depletion of reserves in utilization of labour resources cause deterioration of regional economy competitiveness.Special attention is paid to analyze the premises of spreading of economic nationalism ideology in the region. Exemplified by Hungary, years long leader among CEE countries in foreign capital inflow, tools are demonstrated which are applied in the framework of economic policy aimed to restore state control over market economy; an attempt is made to evaluate the effectiveness of this policy. The conclusion is drawn that – contrary to liberal dogmata dominating in economic theory – making use of tools of economic nationalism can be rather efficient even under conditions of small size post-socialist countries of Europe.

The dehydrogenation of 1,2-cyclohexanediol (CHD) helps in the effective utilization of not only fossil derivatives but also vicinal diols and polyols from sustainable biomass-derived resources. A thermodynamic analysis of CHD dehydrogenation was computed with density functional theory (DFT) calculation using Gaussian 09. The result indicates that CHD can be converted to 2-hydroxy cyclohexanone (HCO), 2-hydroxy-2-cyclohexen-1-one (HCEO) and pyrocatechol depending on the degree of dehydrogenation. HCO and HCEO are the stable products of the primary and secondary dehydrogenation. Experimentally, Cu/MgO catalysts were prepared using glucose as a reductant, and were characterized by SEM, TEM, XRD, XPS, TPR, BET and ICP. Furthermore, their catalytic performance regarding the oxygen-free dehydrogenation of CHD was investigated. The results indicate that the primary active crystalline phase of Cu/MgO was Cu2+1O, and that the dehydrogenation products were mainly HCO and HCEO, in accordance with thermodynamic predictions. Upon optimizing the reaction conditions, the total selectivity of HCO and HCEO exceeded 90% and the conversion of CHD was approximately 95%.

Research-oriented hospitals are responsible for medical services tasks, medical education, and scientific research, playing an important role in medical research and application. The research efficiency of a clinical specialty is influenced by factors such as the characteristics of the specialty, the organizational atmosphere, and the clinical director’s leadership. The present study aimed to describe the research efficiency of clinical specialties, explore the factors influencing it, and clarify the argument of co-evolution theory regarding the collaborative development of medical services, education, and research. Logistic regression and multiple linear regression were adopted to estimate the correlation between influencing factors and scientific research efficiency. Hospital H, which is representative of research hospitals in China, was taken as an example. Taking three efficiency values—comprehensive technical efficiency (CTE), pure technical efficiency (PTE), and scale efficiency (SE)—as dependent variables, the independent variables affecting research productivity were statistically analyzed. This study also examined the scientific research efficiency of 41 specialties between 2013 and 2017, and found that the independent variables affected CTE, PTE, and SE to various degrees. Collaborative innovation in medical education and research must be based on clinical research; how to balance medical and teaching quality, and research efficiency requires further discussion. While young people play a major role on the research team because of their creativity and initiatives, which improve CTE and PTE, high-level researchers with better research and leadership abilities lead to the rational allocation and effective utilization of resources, thus improving SE. In 2013–2017, discipline construction focused on scale expansion, resulting in the decline of SE in China. Therefore, this study suggests further improvements for the efficiency of clinical specialties in research hospitals.

Background Breast cancer burden is increasing in low-income countries (LICs). Increasing incidence and delayed presentation of breast cancer are mainly responsible for this burden. Many women do not participate in breast cancer screening despite its effectiveness. Moreover, studies are limited on the barriers associated with low utilization of breast cancer screening in LICs. This study identified breast cancer screening behavior and factors associated with breast cancer screening intention among women in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted among 500 women living in five municipalities of Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. Data were collected from July to September 2018, using a structured questionnaire. Interviews were conducted among women selected through proportionate random household sampling. This study was conceptualized using the theory of planned behavior, fatalism, perceived susceptibility, and perceived severity. The outcome variables included: the intention to have mammography (MMG) biennially, the intention to have clinical breast examination (CBE) annually, and the intention to perform breast self-examination (BSE) monthly. Analysis was conducted separately for each outcome variable using partial proportional odds model. Results Out of 500 women, 3.4% had undergone MMG biennially, 7.2% CBE annually, and 14.4% BSE monthly. Women with a positive attitude, high subjective norms, and high perceived behavioral control were more likely to have the intention to undergo all three screening methods. Similarly, women were more likely to have intention to undergo CBE and MMG when they perceived themselves susceptible to breast cancer. Conversely, women were less likely to have intention to undergo CBE when they had high fatalistic beliefs towards breast cancer. Conclusion Women in this study had poor screening behavior. The practice of breast self-examination was comparatively higher than clinical breast examination and mammography. Multidimensional culturally sensitive interventions are needed to enhance screening intentions. Efforts should be directed to improve attitude, family support, and fatalistic belief towards cancer. Furthermore, the proper availability of screening methods should be ensured while encouraging women to screen before the appearance of symptoms.

The improvement of a country’s technological innovation level is influenced by the technology spillover of inward foreign direct investment (IFDI) and outward foreign direct investment (OFDI). Based on the Coe and Helpmen’s theory of international capital flow model and one-way causality measure model, this study examines the similarities and dissimilarities between the dynamic effects of IDFI and OFDI on technological innovation in China and Japan to enumerate the differences in the utilization effect of FDI between developed and developing countries. The empirical results show that the one-way causality intensity of IFDI to technological innovation in China is weaker than that in Japan, but the FDI volatility in China is stronger than that in Japan. The one-way causality intensity of OFDI to technological innovation are low both in China and Japan, and the patterns of long-term and short-term effects are not identical. According to the results of our empirical research, we draw the conclusions and proposed suggestions for using IFDI and OFDI in China and Japan.

In this article the authors examine the development of modern international law in terms of the discourse on fragmentation, and set the following goals: 1) determine the phenomenon of &ldquo;fragmentation&rdquo; and systematize the reasons for the emergence of discourse on fragmentation; 2) trace the evolution of scientific views upon fragmentation as a phenomenon; 3) considering the currently prevalent views upon the mechanism of development of international law, as well as prevention and settlement of conflicts of norms within international law, repeatedly assess some traditional examples of &ldquo;fragmentation&rdquo; as the logical processes or processes posing a threat to the integrity of international law. As the examples, the article analyzes such classical disputes as the Decision of the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the. Former Yugoslavia in the case of Dusko Tadic, as well as decision of the UN International Court on Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro), series of cases regarding MOX plant, CME and Lauder v. Czech Republic, and others. It took almost a quarter of century for the science of international law &ndash; since the beginning of discussion of fragmentation until the &ldquo;farewell&rdquo; with fragmentation &ndash; to accept itself as an integral, but flexible legal system over again. The conclusion is made that the discourse on fragmentation and utilization of the term &ldquo;fragmentation&rdquo; had a so-called therapeutic effect for the theory of international law, allowing it to shift the focus, reassess and reconsider itself as a system that existed in all diversity and multiplicity of actors engaged in the process of its creation and application.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to determine which design and operational attributes of e-commerce websites consumers use to assess website quality. Cue utilization theory is used to examine the explanatory power, robustness and relevance of the WebQual model. Results indicate which WebQual dimensions are the most relevant and salient to website users. These dimensions are categorized by their perceived and confidence values. A second study is conducted about how website users evaluate and utilize the WebQual dimensions.Design/methodology/approachSurvey methodology was utilized to provide insight into the nomological validity of the WebQual model by examining it through a cue utilization lens.FindingsThe first study categorizes the WebQual dimensions on their ability to provide a diagnostic measure of website quality, and consumer confidence in their ability to use these cues when judging the website's overall quality. The second study presents results of each dimension in relation to the quality evaluation of an actual e-commerce website. Additional analysis also revealed gender differences in cue utilization.Originality/valueThis study provided insight into WebQual-based research and identified original differences in cue utilization across genders. Results suggest that it may be beneficial for brand managers to focus on a subset of quality dimensions, rather than assume that consumers are comfortable using all website attributes to formulate quality judgments. These, results contribute to multiple literatures by providing a model that developers can utilize to focus on the deterministic characteristics of overall website quality. Further, the cue utilization perspective provides additional avenues for fruitful further research into consumer decision-making in the e-commerce context.

Synthesizing several streams of theoretical reasoning such as attribution theory, cue-utilization theory, and place attachment, the purposes of this study were to (1) develop a new theoretical model integrating key atmospheric stimuli and the two dimensions of stadium attachment (stadium identity and stadium dependence) into stadium atmosphere research and (2) examine the hypothesized relationships. Data were collected from spectators attending professional baseball games at theme park-like (n = 242) and traditional (n = 300) stadiums. Based on the results, the dimensions of game-, spectator-, facility-, and organizer-induced stimuli were found to have positive effects on overall stadium atmosphere in both settings. Furthermore, the impact of overall stadium atmosphere on spectators’ conative loyalty was mediated by stadium identity. The theoretical model and results highlight the importance of stadium identity that is enhanced by stadium atmosphere and consumer satisfaction and leads to greater conative loyalty toward sport teams.

This paper focuses on the barriers that new immigrants face, in spite of their utilization of the services provided, to their participation and integration into society and the economy in order to better understand the events, factors, and difficulties that have an impact on their economic outcomes. Qualitative methodology and a grounded theory perspective were used to develop themes and patterns from their stories. An inclusive, multidimensional framework, including institutional, structural, situational, dispositional, informational, and self-determination factors for thinking about their participation and integration into society and the knowledge economy related to employment and education has emerged from this study. These components are different in substance and manifestation, inhibit and/or enhance their integration, and operate independently, and/or complementarily with one another for maximum positive and/or negative impact. However, structural factors for employment and education appear to have a mediating influence on all the other factors. Cet article, portant sur les barrieres que les immigrants doivent sumlOnter dans leur participation et integration sociale et economique, malgre les services mis a leur disposition, cherche a mieux comprendre les evenements, les facteurs, et les difficultes qui ont un effet sur leurs consequences economiques. On se sert de la methodologie qualitative et de la perspective de la theorie fondee pour developper les themes et les motifs de leurs histoires. De cette recherche, surgit un cadre global et a dimensions multiples, comprenant les facteurs institutionnels, structurels, situationnels, informationnels, et d' autodetermination fonnant la base de leur participation et integration dans la societe et de leurs connaissances en economie ayant trait a leurs experiences pratiques et a leur formation. Ces composants sont differents en substance comme en manifestation. lIs peuvent entraver ou ameliorer leur integration et s'operent soit independamment ou de conserve avec les autres pour creer des effets positifs ou negatifs. Toutefois, les facteurs structurels a l'emploi et a la forrnation semblent avoir une influence mediatrice sur tous les autres facteurs.

Introduction This article presents the trans-disciplinary encounters with and perspectives on embodiment of three creative-arts practitioners within the Deakin University research project Flows & Catchments. The project explores how creative arts participate in community and the possibility of well-being. We discuss our preparations for creative work exhibited at the 2012 Lake Bolac Eel Festival in regional Western Victoria, Australia. This festival provided a fertile time-place-space context through which to meet with one regional community and engage with scales of geological and historical time (volcanoes, water flows, first contact), human and animal roots and routes (settlement, eel migrations, hunting and gathering), and cultural heritage (the eel stone traps used by indigenous people, settler stonewalling, indigenous language recovery). It also allowed us to learn from how a festival brings to the surface these scales of time, place and space. All these scales also require an embodied response—a physical relation to the land and to the people of a community—which involves how specific interests and ways of engaging coordinate experience and accentuate particular connections of material to cultural patterns of activity. The focus of our interest in “embody” and embodiment relates to the way in which the term constantly slides from metaphor (figural connection) to description (literal process). Our research question, therefore, addresses the specific interaction of these two tendencies. Rather than eliminate one in preference to the other, it is the interaction and movement from one to the other that an approach through creative-arts practices makes visible. The visibility of these tendencies and the mechanisms to which they are linked (media, organising principle or relational aesthetic) are highlighted by the particular time-place-space modalities that each of the creative arts deploys. When looking across different creative practices, the attachments and elisions become more fine-grained and clearer. A key aim of practice-led research is to observe, study and learn, but also to transform the production of meaning and its relationship to the community of users (Barrett and Bolt). The opportunity to work collaboratively with a community like the one at Lake Bolac provided an occasion to gauge our discerning and initiating skills within creative-arts research and to test the argument that the combination of our different approaches adds to community and individual well-being. Our approach is informed by Gilles Deleuze’s ethical proposition that the health of a community is directly influenced by the richness of the composition of its parts. With this in mind, each creative-arts practitioner will emphasize their encounter with an element of community. Zones of Practice–Drawing Together (Jondi Keane) Galleries are strange in-between places, both destinations and non-sites momentarily outside of history and place. The Lake Bolac Memorial Hall, however, retains its character of place, participating in the history of memorial halls through events such as the Eel Festival. The drawing project “Stone Soup” emphasizes the idea of encounter (O’Sullivan), particularly the interactions of sensibilities shaped by a land, a history and an orientation that comprise an affective field. The artist’s brief in this situation—the encounter as the rupture of habitual modes of being (O’Sullivan 1)—provides a platform of relations to be filled with embodied experience that connects the interests, actions and observations produced outside the gallery to the amplified and dilated experience presented within the gallery. My work suggests that person-to person in-situ encounters intensify the movement across embodied ways of knowing. “Stone Soup”. Photograph by Daniel Armstrong.Arts practice and practice-led research makes available the spectrum of embodied engagements that are mixed to varying degrees with the conceptual positioning of material, both social and cultural. The exhibition and workshop I engaged with at the Eel Festival focused on three level of attention: memory (highly personal), affection (intra-personal) and exchange (communal, non-individual). Attention, the cognitive activity of directing and guiding perception, observation and interpretation, is the thread that binds body to environment, body to history, and body to the constructs of person, family and community. Jean-Jacques Lecercle observes that, for Deleuze, “not only is the philosopher in possession of a specific techne, essential to the well-being of the community, a techne the practice of which demands the use of specialized tools, but he makes his own tools: a system of concepts is a box of tools” (Lecercle 100). This notion is further enhanced when informed by enactive theories of cognition in which, “bodily practices including gesture are part of the activity in which concepts are formed” (Hutchins 429) Creative practices highlight the role of the body in the delicate interaction between a conceptually shaped gallery “space” and the communally constructed meeting “place.” My part of the exhibition consisted of a series of drawings/diagrams characterized under the umbrella of “making stone soup.” The notion of making stone soup is taken from folk tales about travelers in search of food who invent the idea of a magical stone soup to induce cooperation by asking local residents to garnish the “magical” stone soup with local produce. Other forms of the folk tale from around the world include nail soup, button soup and axe soup. Participants were able to choose from three different types of soup (communal drawing) that they would like to help produce. When a drawing was completed another one could be started. The mix of ideas and images constituted the soup. Three types of soup were on offer and required assistance to make: Stone soup–communal drawing of what people like to eat, particularly earth-grown produce; what they would bring to a community event and how they associate these foods with the local identity. Axe soup–communal drawing of places and spaces important to the participants because of connection to the land, to events and/or people. These might include floor plans, scenes of rooms or views, or memories of places that mix with the felt importance of spaces.Heirloom soup–communal drawing of important objects associated with particular persons. The drawings were given to the festival organizer to exhibit at the following year’s festival. "Story Telling”. Photograph by Daniel Armstrong.Drawing in: Like taking a breath, the act of drawing and putting one’s thought and affections into words or pictures is focused through the sensation of the drawing materials, the size of the paper, and the way one orients oneself to the paper and the activity. These pre-drawing dispositions set up the way a conversation might occur and what the tenor of that exchange may bring. By asking participants to focus on three types of attachments or attentions and contributing to a collective drawing, the onus on art skills or poignancy is diminished, and the feeling of turning inward to access feeling and memory turns outward towards inscription and cooperation. Drawing out: Like exhaling around vowels and consonants, the movement of the hand with brush and ink or pen and ink across a piece of paper follows our patterns of engagement, the embodied experience consistent with all our other daily activities. We each have a way of orchestrating the sequence of movements that constitute an image-story. The maker of stone soup must provide a new encounter, a platform for cooperation. I found that drawing alongside the participants, talking to them, inscribing and witnessing their stories in this way, heightened the collective activity and produced a new affective field of common experience. In this instance the stone soup became the medium for an emergent composition of relations. Zones of Practice–Embodying Photographic Space (Rozalind Drummond) Photography inevitably entails a certain characterization of reality. From being “out there” the world comes to be “inside” photographs—a visual sliver, a grab, and an upload, a perpetual tumble cycle of extruded images existing everywhere yet nowhere. While the outside, the “out there” is brought within the frame of the photograph, I am interested rather in looking, through the viewfinder, to spaces that work the other way, which suggest the potential to locate a “non-space”—where the inside suggests an outside or empty space. Thus, the photograph becomes disembodied to reveal space. I consider embodiment as the trace of other embodiments that frame the subject. Mark Auge’s conception of “non-places” seems apt here. He writes about non-places as those that are lived or passed through on the way to some place else, an accumulation of spaces that can be understood and named (94). These are spaces that can be defined in everyday terms as places with which we are familiar, places in which the real erupts: a borderline separating the outside from the inside, temporary spaces that can exist for the camera. The viewer may well peer in and look for everything that appears to have been left out. Thus, the photograph becomes a recollection of what Roland Barthes calls “a disruption in the topography”—we imagine a “beyond” that evokes a sense of melancholy or of irrevocably sliding toward it (238). How then could the individual embody such a space? The groups of photographs of Lake Bolac are spread out on a table. I play some music awhile, Glenn Gould, whose performing embodies what, to me, represents such humanity. Hear him breathing? It is Prelude and Fugue No. 16 in G Minor by Bach, on vinyl; music becomes a tangible and physical presence. When we close our eyes, our ears determine a sound’s location in a room; we map out a space, by listening, and can create a measureable dimension to sound. Walking about the territory of a living room, in suburban Melbourne, I consider too a small but vital clue: that while scrutinizing these details of a photographic image on paper, simultaneously I am returning to a small town in the Western District of Victoria. In the fluid act of looking at images in a house in Melbourne, I am now also walking down a road to Lake Bolac and can hear the incidental sounds of the environment—birdcalls and human voices—elements that inhabit and embody space: a borderline, alongside the photographs. What is imprinted in actual time, what is fundamental, is that the space of a photograph is actually devoid of sound and that I am still standing in a living room in Melbourne. In Against Architecture, Denis Hollier states of Bataille, “he wrote of the psychological power of space as a fluid, boundary effacing, always displaced and displacing medium. The non-spaces of cities and towns are locations where it is possible to be lost in a collective space, a progression of thoroughfares that are transitional, delivering the individual from one point and place to another—stairwells, laneways and roadsides—a constellation of streets….” (Hollier 79). Though photographs are sound-less, sound gives access to the outside of the image. “Untitled”. Photograph by Rozalind Drummond from “Stay with me here.” 2012 Type C Digital Print. Is there an outline of an image here? The enlargement of a snapshot of a photograph does not simply render what in any case was visible, though unclear. What is the viewer to look for in this photograph? Upon closer inspection a young woman stands to the right within the frame—she wears a school uniform; the pattern of the garment can be seen and read distinctly. In the detail it is finely striped, with a dark hue of blue, on a paler background, and the wearer’s body is imprinted upon the clothing, which receives the body’s details and impressions. The dress has a fold or pleat at the back; the distinct lines and patterns are reminiscent of a map, or an incidental grid. Here, the leitmotif of worn clothing is a poetic one. The young woman wears her hair piled, vertiginous, in a loosely constructed yet considered fashion; she stands assured, looking away and looking forward, within the compositional frame. The camera offers a momentary pause. This is our view. Our eye is directed to look further away past the figure, and the map of her clothing, to a long hallway in the school, before drifting to the left and right of the frame, where the outside world of Lake Bolac is clear and visible through the interior space of the hallway—the natural environment of daylight, luminescent and vivid. The time frame is late summer, the light reflecting and reverberating through glass doors, and gleaming painted surfaces, in a continuous rectangular pattern of grid lines. In the near distance, the viewer can see an open door, a pictorial breathing space, beyond the spatial line and coolness of the photograph, beyond the frame of the photograph and our knowing. The photograph becomes a signpost. What is outside, beyond the school corridors, recalled through the medium of photography, are other scenes, yet to be constructed from the spaces, streets and roads of Lake Bolac. Zones of Practice–Time as the “Skin” of Writing, Embodiment and Place (Patrick West) There is no writing without a body to write. Yet sometimes it feels that my creative writing, resisting its necessary embodiment, has by some trick of metaphor retreated into what Jondi Keane refers to as a purely conceptual mode of thought. This slippage between figural connection and literal process alerted me, in the process of my attempt to foster place-based well-being at Lake Bolac, to the importance of time to writerly embodiment. My contribution to the Lake Bolac Eel Festival art exhibition was a written text, “Stay with me here”, conceived as my response to the themes of Rozalind Drummond’s photographs. To prepare this joint production, we mixed with staff and students at the Lake Bolac Secondary College. But this mode of embodiment made me feel curiously dis-embodied as a place-based writer. My embodiment was apparently superficial, only skin deep. Still this experience started me thinking about how the skin is actually thickly embodied as both body and where the body encounters, not only other bodies, but place itself—conceivably across many times. Skin is also the embodiment of writing to the degree that writing suggests an uncertain and queered form of embodiment. Skin, where the body reaches its limit, expires, touches other bodies or not, is inevitably implicated with writing as a fragile and always provisional, indexical embodiment. Nothing can be more easily either here or somewhere else than writing. Writing is an exhibition or gallery of anywhere, like skin in that both are un-placed in place. The one-pager “Stay with me here” explores how the instantaneous time and present-ness of Drummond’s photographs relate to the profusion of times and relations to other places immanent in Lake Bolac’s landscape and community (as evidenced, for example, in the image of a prep student yawning at the end of a long day in the midst of an ancient volcanic landscape, dreaming, perhaps, of somewhere else). To get to such issues of time and relationality of place, however, involves detouring via the notion of skin as suggested to me by my initial sense of dis-embodiment in Lake Bolac. “Stay with me here” works with an idea of skin as answer to the implied question, Where is here? It creates the (symbolic) embodiment of place precisely as a matter of skin, making skin-like writing an issue of transitory topography. The only permanent “here” is the skin. Emphasizing something valid for all writing, “here” (grammatically a context-dependent deictic) is the skin, where embodiment is defined by the constant possibility of re-embodiment, somewhere else, some time else. Reminding us that it is eminently possible to be elsewhere (from this place, from here), skin also suggests that you cannot be in two places at the one time (at least, not with the same embodiment). My skin is a sign that, because my embodiment in any particular place (any “here”) is only ever temporary, it is time that necessarily sustains my embodiment in any place whatsoever into the future. According to Henri Bergson, time must be creative, as the future hasn’t happened yet! “Time is invention or it is nothing at all” (341). The future of place, as much as of writing and of embodiment itself, is thus creatively sheathed in time as if within a skin. On Bergson’s view, time might be said to be least and greatest embodiment, for it is (dis-embodied) time that enables all future and currently un-created modes of embodiment. All of these time-inspired modes will involve a relationship to place (time can only “happen” in some version of place). And all of them will involve writing too, because time is the ultimate (dis-)embodiment of writing. As writing is like a skin, a minimal embodiment shared actually or potentially with more than one body, so time is the very possibility of writing (embodiment) into the future. “Stay with me here” explores how place is always already embodied in a relationship to other places, through the skin, and to the future of (a) place through the creativity of time as the skin of embodiment. By enriching descriptive and metaphoric practices of time, instability of place and awarenesses of the (dis-)embodied nature of writing—as a practice of skin—my text is useful to well-being as an analogue to the lived experience, in time and place, of the people of Lake Bolac. Theoretically, it weaves Bergson’s philosophy of time (time richly composed) into the fabric of Deleuze’s proposition that the health of a community is linked to the richness of the composition of its parts. Creatively, it celebrates the identity that the notion of “here” might enable, especially when read alongside and in dialogue with Drummond’s photographs in exhibition. Here is an abridged text of “Stay with me here:” “Stay with me here” There is salt in these lakes, anciently—rectilinear lakes never to be without ripple or stir. Pooling waters the islands of otherwise oceans, which people make out from hereabouts, make for, dream of. Stay with me here. Trusting to lessons delivered at the shore of a lake moves one closer to a deepness of instruction, where the water also learns. From our not being where we are, there. Stay with me here. What is perfection to water if not water? A time when photographs were born out of its swill and slosh. The image swimming knowingly to the surface—its first breaths of the perceiving air, its glimpsing itself once. The portraits of ourselves we do not dare. Such magical chemical reactions, as in, I react badly to you. Such salts! Stay with me here, elsewhere. As if one had simply washed up by chance, onto this desert island or any other place of sand and water trickling. Daring to imagine we’ll be there together. This is what I mean by… stay with me here. Notice these things—how music sounds different as one walks away; the emotional gymnastics with which you plan to impress; the skin of the eye that watches over you. Stay with me here—in your spectacular, careless brilliance. The edge of whatever it is one wants to say. The moment never to be photographed. Conclusion It is not for the artists to presume that they can empower a community. As Tasmin Lorraine notes, community is not a single person’s empowerment but “the empowerment of many assemblages of which one is part” (128). All communities, regional communities on the scale of Lake Bolac or communities of interest, are held in place by enthusiasm and common histories. We have focused on the embodiment of these common histories, which vary in an infinite number of degrees from the most literal to the most figurative, pulling from the filigree of experiences a web of interpersonal connections. Oscillating between metaphor and description, embodiment as variously presented in this article helps promote community and, by extension, individual well-being. The drawing out of sensations into forms that produce new experiences—like the drawing of breath, the drawing of a hot bath, or the drawing out of a story—enhances the permeability of boundaries opened to what touches upon them. It is not just that we can embody our values, but that we are able to craft, manifest, enact, sense and evoke the connections that take shape as our richly composed world, in which, as Deleuze notes, “it is no longer a matter of utilizations or captures, but of sociabilities and communities” (126). ReferencesAuge, Mark. Non-Places: An Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity. London: Verso, 1995. Barrett, Estelle, and Barbara Bolt. Eds. Practice as Research: Approaches to Creative Arts Enquiry. London: I. B. Tauris, 2007. Barthes, Roland. The Responsibility of Forms. New York: Hill and Wang, 1985. Bergson, Henri. Creative Evolution. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, 1998. Deleuze, Gilles. Spinoza: Practical Philosophy. 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