Trust in Risk Regulation: Cause or Consequence of the Acceptability of GM Food?

Although there is ample empirical evidence that trust in risk regulation is strongly related to the perception and acceptability of risk, it is less clear what the direction of this relationship is. This article explores the nature of the relationship, using three separate data sets on perceptions of genetically modified (GM) food among the British public. The article has two discrete but closely interrelated objectives. First, it compares two models of trust. More specifically, it investigates whether trust is the cause (causal chain account) or the consequence (associationist view) of the acceptability of GM food. Second, this study explores whether the affect heuristic can be applied to a wider number of risk-relevant concepts than just perceived risk and benefit. The results suggest that, rather than a determinant, trust is an expression or indicator of the acceptability of GM food. In addition, and as predicted, \"affect\" accounts for a large portion of the variance between perceived risk, perceived benefit, trust in risk regulation, and acceptability. Overall, the results support the associationist view that specific risk judgments are driven by more general evaluative judgments The implications of these results for risk communication and policy are discussed.     

Combining Quantitative Risk Assessment of Human Health,Food Waste,and Energy Consumption: The Next Step in the Development of the Food Cold Chain?

The preservation of perishable food via refrigeration in the supply chain is essential to extend shelf life and provide consumers with safe food. However, electricity consumed in refrigeration processes has an economical and an environmental impact. This study focuses on the cold chain of cooked ham, including transport, cold room in supermarket, display cabinet, transport by consumer, and domestic refrigerator, and aims to predict the risk for human health associated with Listeria monocytogenes, the amount of food wasted due to the growth of spoilage bacteria, and the electrical consumption to maintain product temperature through the cold chain. A set of eight intervention actions were tested to evaluate their impact on the three criteria. Results show that the modification of the thermostat of the domestic refrigerator has a high impact on food safety and food waste and a limited impact on the electrical consumption. Inversely, the modification of the airflow rate in the display cabinet has a high impact on electrical consumption and a limited impact on food safety and food waste. A cost–benefit analysis approach and two multicriteria decision analysis methods were used to rank the intervention actions. These three methodologies show that setting the thermostat of the domestic refrigerator to 4 °C presents the best compromise between the three criteria. The impact of decisionmaker preferences (criteria weight) and limitations of these three approaches are discussed. The approaches proposed by this study may be useful in decision making to evaluate global impact of intervention actions in issues involving conflicting outputs.     

Risk Perception in the U.K. Oil and Gas Production Industry: Are Expert Loss‐Prevention Managers' Perceptions Different From Those of Members of the Public?

This article investigates potential differences in risk perception between experts (loss-prevention managers in the U.K. oil and gas production industry) and nonexperts (managers and students). Extant research on expert versus nonexpert perceptions of risk is reviewed, followed by the present study concerning risk perceptions of seven pen-picture scenarios involving the occurrence of hazardous events in the U.K. oil and gas production industry. In contrast to many of the earlier studies of expert versus nonexpert perceptions of risk, the present analysis concludes that experts did not judge the overall riskiness of the portrayed hazardous events as less risky than the nonexperts. Nevertheless, the experts believe more strongly than our nonexperts that the risks portrayed in the scenarios pose little threat to future generations, are more precisely known, and are relatively controllable. Use of multiple regression analysis to help uncover the basis of overall riskiness assessments for expert and lay respondents was inconclusive, however. Finally, little evidence was found that nonexperts were any more heterogeneous in their risk perceptions than experts. It may be that the nature of the risks assessed in the present study may account for the general lack of clear expert versus nonexpert differences in overall perceptions of the riskiness of hazardous events in the North Sea. Earlier findings of strong expert versus nonexpert differences in risk perception assessed hazards of major public concern. It is inferred that using such extreme hazards may have resulted in an exaggerated view of differences in expert versus public (nonexpert) perception of risk.     

Social media led co-creation of knowledge in developing societies: SME’s roles in the adoption,use and appropriation of smartphones in South Asia

Abstract

Social media supports the creative economy through its involvement in the adoption and appropriation of new innovation and accelerates economic growth. The current paper expands on this notion by identifying and analyzing the interaction between social media-based communities and small and medium enterprises (SMEs), as it examines how social media contributes to the knowledge co-creation and supports the adoption, use and appropriation of smartphones in South Asian countries, which are inhabited by approximately 1.6 billion people. The findings obtained through virtual ethnography (VE) provide insights into the dynamics and kinetics of knowledge co-creation and how that benefits large multinationals, small local businesses and consumers in developing societies. As such, we advance the knowledge management scholarship by presenting a holistic model of co-creation of knowledge involving multiple stakeholders.     

The Contrast Between Risk Assessment and Rules of Evidence in the Context of International Trade Disputes: Can the U.S. Experience Inform the Process?

Risk assessment provides a formalized process to evaluate human, animal, and ecological responses associated with exposure to environmental agents. The purpose of risk assessment is to answer two related questions.

• ? How likely is an (adverse) event to occur?
• ? If it does, how severe will the impact be?

In the United States, the science of risk assessment has evolved out of the necessity to make public health decisions in the face of scientific uncertainty. Its basic propositions have been established over the past three decades and its applications have impacted virtually every aspect of public health and environmental protection in many countries, including the United States. More recently, the World Trade Organization's (WTO) dispute‐settlement process has provided additional incentive for the reliance on risk assessments internationally through the requirement that member countries be able to provide scientific justification, based on a risk assessment, for public health and environmental regulatory measures that are challenged. The purpose of this article is to review the history of risk assessment in the United States, emphasizing the development of both its scientific and policy aspects, as one example of the development of institutional capacity for risk assessment. This article discusses the importance of the social, political, and economic contexts of risk assessment and risk management in shaping the approaches taken while highlighting the reality that the analytic or risk assessment part of the decision‐making process, in the absence of scientific data, can be completed only by inserting inferences, or policy judgments, which may differ among countries. This article recognizes these differences, and the consequent difference between risk assessment that incorporates public health protective assumptions and the rules of evidence that seek to answer questions of causality, and discusses implications for the WTO dispute‐settlement process. It further explores the value of country‐specific risk assessment guidelines to facilitate consistency within a country along with the appropriateness and feasibility of international risk assessment guidelines.     

Becoming the best: by beating or ignoring the best? Toward an expanded view of the role of managerial selection in complex and turbulent environments

This paper explores how the rules that guide search affect organizational adaptation in complex and turbulent environments. Our consideration of such rules extends beyond search scope—i.e., exploitation of current technologies vs. exploration of new technologies—to include focus on competition. We consider two types of competitive focus—i.e., external, where the choice of focal technology to be improved is influenced by information about other organizations and internal, where it is not influenced by others. We refer to this expanded set of rules as managerial selection and vary it to explore how it affects organizational adaptation. Employing an agent based simulation model, built on the framework of NKC fitness landscapes, we consider multiple types of interdependencies within and between technologies and across competitors. We show that in the presence of these multiple interdependencies, the ability of organizations to adapt is conditioned as much or more by the focus of search than by its scope. In particular, we observe that in simple and stable environments, organizational adaptation is enhanced by an external focus but in complex and turbulent environments, such external focus is counterproductive.     

Trust in the Safety of Tourist Destinations: Hard to Gain,Easy to Lose? New Insights on the Asymmetry Principle

According to the asymmetry principle of trust, negative events decrease trust to a much higher extent than positive events increase trust. The study at hand intended to verify whether this notion of asymmetry holds true with respect to trust in the safety of tourist destinations. Thus, in contrast to previous research that analyzed trust asymmetry in the context of involuntary technological risks, the present study evaluates the validity of the asymmetry principle of trust in the context of voluntary tourism risks. The hypothesis that negative or risky information on destination safety (absence of proper safety measures and conditions) has a higher impact on distrust than, conversely, positive or nonrisk information on destination safety (provision of proper safety measures and conditions) has on trust was tested in an online survey ( N = 640). In contrast to the asymmetry pattern found by Slovic (1993) , results of the current work suggest symmetry rather than asymmetry of trust. The presence of proper safety measures and conditions (positive or nonrisk information) was found to have at least the same—and in some cases an even higher—impact on trust than the absence of such measures and conditions (negative or risky information) had on distrust. Findings provide empirical evidence for the thesis that the prevalence of trust asymmetry is dependent on the risk source and demonstrate that trust is symmetric rather than asymmetric in the context of voluntary tourism risks. Furthermore, results imply an influence of positive versus negative expectations as well as of prior trusting relationships on the occurrence of the asymmetry principle.     

Do Temporary Workers Receive Risk Premiums? Assessing the Wage Effects of Fixed–term Contracts in West Germany by a Matching Estimator Compared with Parametric Approaches

The wage effects of fixed–term contracts (FTCs) are analysed with the German Socio–Economic Panel (GSOEP) for West Germany. Taking selection on observables into account results in an estimated wage effect of −6 percent up to −10 percent. Controlling additionally for selection on unobservables leads to wage effects of −23 percent, which may be explained by self–selection of workers. The results also highlight the importance of asymmetric information as an explanation for the incentive for employers as well as workers to enter FTCs.     

Encounter Satisfaction in E‐tailing: Are the Relationships of Order Fulfillment Service Quality with its Antecedents and Consequences Moderated by Historical Satisfaction?

This study focuses on whether historical satisfaction with an e‐tailer (HSat) moderates baseline relationships in order fulfillment service quality models. HSat is defined as satisfaction with the e‐tailer spanning all transactions except the current encounter. Encounter satisfaction (ESat) is defined as the consumer's satisfaction with the current transaction. In the baseline model, four order fulfillment service quality (OFSQ) dimensions managerially relevant to consumer e‐tailing are examined: timeliness, availability, condition, and billing accuracy. The baseline structural model results support that OFSQ dimensions impact ESat, which in turn predicts two key consequences—repurchase intention and word‐of‐mouth. Adaptation theory is used to model the role of HSat, while controlling for transaction recency, vendor familiarity, and competitive pricing. HSat is shown to have pervasive main and interaction effects upon all baseline model relationships. These moderation effects have great managerial relevance. For example, the results illustrate a phenomenon similar to the service recovery paradox, wherein when a negative service encounter is followed by a highly positive service recovery event, previously dissatisfied consumers, as compared to previously satisfied consumers, respond with higher levels of current satisfaction. For managers, this finding is encouraging because policies that create highly positive events for consumers can thus supersede past negative experiences. Our results show however that HSat cannot be completely superseded by current OFSQ or current ESat.