“It's practical, but no more controllable”: Social representations of the electronic purse in Austria

The electronic purse (chip-card) is promoted as an option offering consumers an easy means of payment. It also offers advantages to traders and banks by reducing transaction costs. However, successful launching of the electronic purse depends mainly on consumers' acceptance, which in the past was very low in Austria. We study consumers' acceptance of the electronic purse, cash and established non-cash payment systems by analysing social representations of payment facilities. Semantic contents of associations raised in response to the stimulus words “means of payment in general”, “cash”, “cheque”, “ATM-card”, “credit-card” and “electronic purse” have been analysed. Overall, 264 people were studied applying two techniques: the “associative network” and the “conceptual network”. It is shown that means of payment are categorised on two dimensions: cash and non-cash. Non-cash payment facilities are characterised by high abstraction levels, and loss of subjective control over expenditures. The electronic purse is perceived as highly dissimilar to other means of payments.     

Is a good deal always fair? Examining the concepts of transaction value and price fairness

Previous research has shown that if consumers are aware that they are paying more than another customer for a similar transaction, then they may perceive the price to be unfair. A concept closely related to fairness is transaction value, defined as consumers’ perceptions of the psychological satisfaction or pleasure from taking advantage of a price deal. In this research, we conceptualize that although consumers’ perceptions of price fairness and transaction value share many similarities, nevertheless there are also important differences. Using three studies, we empirically examine these differences. We show that although a “bad deal” is typically perceived to be an unfair price, a “good deal” is not necessarily perceived to be the fairest price.     

The economic importance of air travel in high-amenity rural areas

The western United States offers a case study on the importance of access to large population centers and their markets, via road and air travel, for economic development. The vast distances between towns and cities in the American West can be a detriment to business, yet they also serve to attract technology and knowledge-based workers seeking to live in a picturesque setting. In spite of the increasing importance of amenities to migration and business location, also needed is access to markets, particularly via commercial air service. We test a new county classification system for the western United States to reflect differing degrees of access to population centers and account for the increasing importance of airports. Past classifications are based on population size and cross-county commuting. We examine the validity of this new classification and test for differences in economic performance among the three county types. Our findings show that there are three distinct Wests that can be classified using economic performance measures and socioeconomic characteristics. The results show that “metro” and “isolated” counties are clearly distinct, but “connected” counties, those that are rural in nature but have ready access to metropolitan areas via air travel, can be difficult to distinguish from “metro” and “isolated” counties. Much of the variation is explained by travel distance to airports. The findings illustrate the importance of airports in rural development, and the limitations facing those communities that are isolated from markets and population centers. The results apply to other parts of the world with similar characteristics that include large expanses of open space, natural amenities that attract migrants and stimulate new business, and different degrees of access to large population centers via road or air travel, and therefore different rates of economic growth.     

Lottomania and other anomalies in the market for lotto

This research is concerned with the determination of the demand for “lotto” in Israel. While an important focus of our research is upon the effects on the demand for lotto of ticket pricing and jackpot announcements, we also investigate several empirical phenomena that are apparently inconsistent with expected utility theory. These include an effect we call “lottomania” which is induced by rollover, and “prize fatigue” when the jackpot does not increase. Another aberration from expected utility theory is that the underlying odds of winning have no measurable effect on sales.     

Attachements indésirables, attachements acceptables : autour d’un échange de seringues en prison

To inquire into innovation in public policy, attention is focused on the work done by a group that proposed an innovative project for “preventing” drug-use in a prison in Luxembourg. After several events and reversals, the final arrangements, which brought together disparate interests, was grounded in the contingent attachment of various persons to the leading role played by a general practitioner and the “permanent attachment” of authorized needles distributed in a case. In a situation where attempts to work out a theory in terms of “positions”, “power” and “control” would have difficulty coming up with a convincing explanation of this surprising process, preference is given to describing this innovation in terms of “passages” and “attachments”.     

Europe and Security in the Caucasus

The Caucasus has become, as a long-lasting seismic wave, a framework of enormous and underestimated relevance and uncertainty. But even so, we have not to become prisoner of a short-term “cage”. There is neither strategy nor policy, diplomacy, or war that can exist without four fundamental intellectual preconditions: historical knowledge, security knowledge, ethnic-cultural-religious knowledge, and knowledge of the geopolitical, economic, and international order. These have been recalled by some crucial comments taken from a revisited version of Homer’s Iliad, recently published by the Italian writer Alessandro Baricco, to better focus the concepts. “Men have always flung themselves headlong into battle, like moths attracted towards a fatal flame. There is no fear or self-disgust which has managed to keep them away from that flame” – he wrote – “because it is within that flame that they have always found the only way of emerging from the shadows of life. For this reason, I believe that no one will stop searching for an alternative beauty to that represented by the war path or stop looking for a reason to about face. Sooner or later we will succeed in calling Achilles away from this fateful war. Neither fear nor horror will bring him home. It will be some other completely different beauty, more dazzling than his own and infinitely more humble”. We are, in fact, aware of examples of very poor governance skills at a global level as regards the management of medium-and long-term international order options. And the Caucasus is really a case study. For these many reasons Europe cannot avoid an effective “neighbourhood policy” with the Caucasian countries. In 2003, the European Union appointed a Special Representative for the region. Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia all have Partnership and Cooperation Agreements in force with the EU. Actions plans will be soon implemented and Europe represents by and large the preferred and more reliable interlocutor for the Caucasian region.     

Systems thinking

Evaluation is one of many fields where “systems thinking” is popular and is said to hold great promise. However, there is disagreement about what constitutes systems thinking. Its meaning is ambiguous, and systems scholars have made diverse and divergent attempts to describe it. Alternative origins include: von Bertalanffy, Aristotle, Lao Tsu or multiple aperiodic “waves.” Some scholars describe it as synonymous with systems sciences (i.e., nonlinear dynamics, complexity, chaos). Others view it as taxonomy—a laundry list of systems approaches. Within so much noise, it is often difficult for evaluators to find the systems thinking signal. Recent work in systems thinking describes it as an emergent property of four simple conceptual patterns (rules). For an evaluator to become a “systems thinker”, he or she need not spend years learning many methods or nonlinear sciences. Instead, with some practice, one can learn to apply these four simple rules to existing evaluation knowledge with transformative results.     

Gender violence, fan activism and public relations in sport: The case of “Footy Fans Against Sexual Assault”

This paper is based on the belief that online activism is essential for understanding the role and potential of public relations in modern campaigns. In relation to the issue of gender violence against women in football, analyzed and compared are the responses of two official, resource-rich organisations – the National Rugby League (NRL) and Australian Football League (AFL) – and an unofficial, resource-poor fan advocacy group, called Football Fans against Sexual Assault (FFASA). In cooperation and conflict with the leagues, FFASA positioned itself in the market place, taking the widely unoccupied niche of “fan advocacy”—different from “expert advocacy” or “player advocacy”.The article discusses in more detail the major strategy of the group, the Purple Armband Games, which carries many elements of cutting-edge public relations such as advocacy as third-party endorsement; “fan activism” as empowering of “expert advocacy”; “symbolic outsourcing” of participants by facilitating their mode of engagement, the “emblematic richness” of the purple armband symbol, the “oneness” of which overcomes any confrontational dualism.     

Functional specificity in discussion networks: The influence of general and problem-specific networks on health outcomes

Though commonly used in social science research to measure the influence of social networks, the link between discussing “important matters” within networks and the achievement of instrumental ends is frequently unspecified or untested. To address this gap, we explore the consequences of using the general “important matters” approach versus one in which the substance of discussions is directly linked to the outcomes of interest. The egocentric social networks of people experiencing an acute health crisis are examined. We identify the characteristics of and the degree of membership overlap between “important matters” and “health matters” discussants, and explore their relative power in explaining a wide range of health and health services-related outcomes. We find no evidence for the influence of “important matters” networks, while characteristics of “health matters” networks demonstrate a significant effect across all models.     

Assessing outcomes for sufferers of severe mental disorder: A conceptual framework and review

A conceptual framework is presented for classifying the outcomes of services for sufferers of severe mental disorders. The proposed classification framework contains three dimensions: (a) the respondent type; (b) the social context; and (c) the domain of treatment outcomes. Respondent types include the client, the family, the extended social network, the clinician and the scientist. Social contexts include the individual, the family, work/school and the broader community. Domains of treatment outcome include “clinical status,” “functional status,” “life satisfaction and fulfillment,” and “safety and welfare.” This multidimensional framework is used to organize an illustrative review of existing outcome measures. It is concluded that: (a) measures of safety and welfare raise important social and policy questions and these measures require considerable development in order for utility to be realized; (b) although a good beginning has been made, more attention needs to be focused on defining and measuring “life satisfaction and fulfillment” and combining this domain with others to produce “well being” or “quality of life” scales; (c) the functional status area requires additional research and development especially when measurement is conducted in contexts other than work/school; and (d) although measures of clinical status are relatively well developed, the family perspective and context must be integrated into these measures.     

What inhibits the mere-exposure effect: Recollection or familiarity?

The mere-exposure effect is the formation of a positive affective reaction (PAR) to repeated or single exposure to a stimulus, even in the absence of awareness. The mere-exposure effect indicates that communication effects go beyond “explicit memory”, measured with the traditional measures of (aided) recall and recognition. “Implicit memory” indicates latent communication effects, e.g., liking, for persons exposed to particular stimuli. The mere-exposure effect in the absence of awareness represents implicit memory. In this study, the mere-exposure effect is observed by using a new type of divided-attention method with Chinese participants responding to Chinese characters. The prediction by the two-factor model of mere-exposure effect is confirmed. Recognition (“explicit memory”) may inhibit the mere-exposure effect. Recognition memory is a dual process with two aspects: recollection and familiarity. Employing the process dissociation procedure (PDP) (Jacoby, L.L., 1991. Journal of Memory and Language 30, 513–541), it is found that familiarity of above-chance recognition is greater than that of chance recognition. It is the high level of familiarity and not recollection of abovechance recognition that inhibits the mere-exposure effect. The implications of these findings are that a high level of familiarity inhibits the primary affective reaction and “replaces” this reaction with a more conscious and cognitive evaluation. With the two-factor model, with wear-in (habituation) and wear-out (satiation) factors, the optimal level of exposure may be determined in order to increase the affective reaction. The study shows the robustness of the mere-exposure effect, also for familiar stimuli.     

Opportunity in paid vs. unpaid public relations internships: A semantic network analysis

Semantic network analysis was used to compare differences in benefit appeal in two sets of letters written by the business community to the internship director. In the Unpaid set (N=72) the promise of “opportunity” co-occurred more often with appeals such as “for credit,” “flexible schedule” and “supervision.” In the Paid set (N=73) emphasis was placed on writing skills and work related tasks. This study reveals the business community's understanding of student expectations from the internship experience.     

Learning from tradition: the planning of residential neighborhoods in a changing world

This paper analyses the community values of residential neighborhoods in the southwestern region of Saudi Arabia as an approach to a new theory in urbanism. The indigenous masterbuilders and tribemen incorporated planning decisions pertinent to climatic, cultural, social, economic and religious factors when designing physical elements in their built environment. This is what makes every traditional settlement in the southwest region of Saudi Arabia unique in terms of urban form and social structure. As a step to examining and evaluating the process of residential neighborhood development, three stages of practiced urbanism are discussed. These stages are labelled “vernacular”, “transitional” and “new vernacularism”. These are planning concepts used worldwide in the development of residential neighborhoods throughout history until the present. “New Vernacularism” is envisioned in this investigation as a design/planning objective implemented in most recently planned neighborhoods in Al-Horaidhah, Southwest Saudi Arabia. The achievement of successful urbanism underlies the political goals of urban planning practice. The Al-Horaidhah planning concept is conceived in the light of preservation of community values in neighborhood design/planning as a critical issue.The paper aims to investigate and reconcile the conflicts in the planning of residential neighborhoods in a changing world. The conflicts are restricted between retaining traditions of architecture, urban design and planning with the necessary social, economic, and technological changes in urban formation, mainly, the vernacular and modern. The paper illustrates the concept “New Vernacularism” by presenting Al-Horaidhah scheme as a model for community development in three administrative regions along the Red Sea coastline. “New Vernacularism” as a planning concept looks at the community development in Al-Horaidhah in the light of Sharicah, the Islamic Law and Customary norms by emphasizing the importance of the involvement of local residents in the planning process and gives suggestions of how this might best be achieved and later implemented into new communities.     

The issue is human quality: In praise of children

This essay is based on the premise that quality in human life is inseparably linked to the well-being of children. In this view, the well-being of children is both the principal challenge faced by a modern society and the principal focal point tor a society “bound to move away from ‘growth’ defined as quantitative product irrespective of what and whom it is for.” Children and their needs provide an anchoring point for adult relationships that is “labor intensive” and intrinsically satisfying when set within a social context rich in enduring, reciprocal interpersonal relationships. The principal threats to the quality of social life are trends toward universalistic rather than particularistic systems for evaluating individuals, and materialistic rather than social criteria for evaluating productivity. Both these trends threaten childrearing as a valued activity. Both emphasize the “hurdensomeness” of children. Large schools and socially isolated families are the contexts in which these two trends find their most dangerous expression. A sustainable society requires a pro-family orientation if it is to meet the needs of children and thus provide for the fundamental psychic needs of adults. A variety of implications for individual action and social planning are derived from this discussion. These implications include the need to preserve and restore socially strong neighborhoods, reduce school size, and conduct “family impact analysis” as a basis for guiding decisions in the public and private sectors.     

A tale of two regions: Novgorod and Pskov as models of symbolic development

Russian regions display remarkably different patterns of economic and political development. These differences come into sharp focus when comparing two nearly identical northwestern regions, Novgorod and Pskov. Novgorod's success and Pskov's failure are attributed to the local elite's creative use of key cultural symbols and myths to support regional development. Contrasting two popular approaches to culture and development—“cultural adjustment” and “cultural congruence”—the author argues that the cultural congruence model, adopted by Novgorod, dramatically improves the chances for rapid social and economic transformation.     

Beyond the Career Mystique: “Time In,” “Time Out,” and “Second Acts”

The career mystique is the belief that working hard and putting in long hours continuously throughout adulthood is the path to occupational success, personal fulfillment, and a secure retirement. This is a false myth, increasingly irrelevant for most contemporary Americans, given that (1) few employees today have the back up of full-time homemakers, and (2) a competitive, information economy has fostered a global labor market, destroying the implicit contract linking seniority with security. America’s 21st century workforce requires a reconfiguration of “time in” paid work, including opportunities for “time outs,” as well as for “second acts.”President’s Address, Annual Meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society, February 2004; also presented at the parallel research and policy forum “Sustainable Careers for a Changing Workforce.”     

Chinese Construction of Adolescent Development Outcome: Themes Discerned in a Qualitative Study

Although there are well-known theories of adolescent development in the West, there is a notable lack of theory and empirical support for understanding the outcome of Chinese adolescent development. This paper examines the cultural themes that account for Chinese–Canadian parents’ and adolescent’s construction of adolescent development outcome. A qualitative study approach was used to explore the experiences and views of 19 adolescents and 10 of their parents. Four major themes identified reflect deep-rooted cultural effects. These themes include: be a good person (self-cultivation), be a good child (filial piety), be a self-reliance person to honor family (Chinese familism), and be a mature person (the quest for harmony and other-related attributes). A concept of “self in relational networks” is therefore proposed for understanding the unique outcome of Chinese adolescent development in the Chinese–Canadian context. “Self in relational network,” in this context, refers to the development of a web of good fitting, harmonious, appropriately positioned, and socially acceptable interpersonal relationships in the adult world. The view reflects the indigenous concept of “guanxi” in Chinese culture.     

Market overreach: The student as customer

This paper explores the market model's influence in redefining the relationship between teachers and students within the college and university. Viewing the student as a customer rather than as a “worker” or “apprentice” is argued to have created several problems. The case is made that with market forces leading to the substitution of purchased commodities for “production for self,” the role of the student in actively participating in the learning process is threatened. Several trends, including grade inflation, shortened contact hours, and the redefinition of study time are offered as evidence that the non-salable components of higher education are declining in importance.