The behaviour towards malaria care—a multinomial logit approach

This paper attempts to estimate a disease specific demand function to study the determinants of utilisation of the services of a health care provider or a treatment regiment for malaria. The study adapts a multinomial logit framework to look at both facility characteristics and individual patient features on demand for malaria care in Ghana. The individual patient characteristics form a set of social indicators which can be used to discriminate or put into groups patients with respect to their choice of provider.The study confirms the popular use of self-medication as a first choice of action in treating malaria. The choice of malaria care providers is found to be influenced by facility price, travel time, waiting time for treatment, education, age, sex and quality of care measured in terms of drugs availability. We further find that as income increases, the odds are in favour of self-medication when people get malaria.     

The contribution of neuroscience to consumer research: A conceptual framework and empirical review

Following the development of advanced neuroimaging techniques, the growing interest in studying the brain’s response to marketing stimuli resulted in the birth of consumer neuroscience within the field of neuroeconomics. However, marketing scholars have remained reluctant to adopt the techniques of neuroscience and there is still uncertainty about the capacity of neuroimaging data to provide useful findings about consumer psychology and behaviour. In order to clarify the current scope and contribution of consumer neuroscience, we first develop a semantic cluster analysis of the boundaries of the field, followed by a comprehensive empirical review from 34 selected studies. We propose a novel approach to classify findings and facilitate the assessment of evidence around the topics of decision-making, rewards, memory and emotions. Finally, we discuss the possible role of several brain mechanisms in the processing of marketing stimuli as well as obstacles to the integration of these findings with classical consumer behaviour theories. We conclude that the contribution of neuroimaging remains too limited to replace existing consumer research techniques and provide recommendations for future research.     

Transitions to Adulthood of ‘At Risk’ Young Men: New Analysis from Two Norwegian Qualitative Longitudinal Studies

This paper focuses on two cohorts of Norwegian young men whose behaviour in childhood and adolescence caused serious concern to their parents, teachers, social workers and, in some cases, the police, Despite having been identified as ‘at risk’, they made transitions to positive adult masculine identities in two different historical contexts; the 1980s and 2000s. The paper analyses the difference that historical context makes to these young men’s lives, their gendered identity work and their perspectives on their past, present and future. In particular, it identifies the ways in which supportive intergenerational relationships and significant others serve to produce positive turning points and, over time, help the young men to develop resilience and potentially happy and successful futures.     

To shame or not to shame—that is the sanitation question

The Community‐Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) programme aims to end open defecation through facilitating activities that evoke a sense of shame, shock and disgust. The programme's initial success and low‐cost design has seen it become hegemonic in donor‐supported rural sanitation. However, the theoretical basis of the use of shame has not been critically evaluated. Supporters claim that shame helps form and maintain social relationships, yet contemporary psychosocial literature highlights that it is a volatile and often harmful emotion, particularly in conditions of poverty. Using a case study of Cambodia, which rejected the coercive elements of shame in CLTS, we explore the problems of shame and limits of local ownership of development.     

Balancing employees’ extrinsic requirements and intrinsic motivation: A paradoxical leader behaviour perspective

In this paper, we use self-determination theory to examine the benefits of the use of paradoxical leader behaviour (PLB) by supervisors. We posit that PLB can initiate two complementary mechanisms: a top-down mechanism (perception of leaders' legitimate power) that may encourage employees to satisfy and exceed standard performance criteria, and a bottom-up mechanism (employee intrinsic motivation) that stimulates employees to be proactive. We argue that implementing these mechanisms simultaneously may interactively enhance employee creativity. Our study is based on field data collected from a sample of 392 employees and their supervisors. We find that PLB is positively related to employees’ perception of legitimate power and intrinsic motivation. Furthermore, power perception and intrinsic motivation are associated with standard performance and proactive behaviour, respectively, and these mechanisms jointly influence employee creativity. In demonstrating the efficacy of balancing extrinsic requirements and intrinsic motivation, our findings have significant theoretical and empirical implications for employee motivation.     

After a Long‐Term Placement: Investigating Educational Achievement,Behaviour, and Transition to Independent Living

This study describes the transition towards independent living of 123 former fostered young people reared for long periods in a private French organisation, SOS Children’s Villages. Three generations of care leavers were analysed through a postal survey and interviews. Their narratives show typical pathways after leaving care. Two‐thirds became independent without major problems by the age of 24–25. Analyses have shown that the absence of severe emotional and behavioural disorders, and diplomas obtained, improved their odds of becoming independent. Results suggest a vital need to implement appropriate therapeutic care during placement and to develop care leaver support well beyond the age of 18, in order to help them personally and academically and to ensure their successful transition to adulthood.     

Optimal stimulation level theory, exploratory consumer behaviour and product adoption: an analysis of underlying structures across product categories

Research of the last decades focused on answering several questions in view of optimum stimulation theory. Which variables do influence general explorative tendencies such as risk taking, variety seeking, or curiosity-motivated behaviour and how do the general explorative tendencies effect the willingness to choose new or familiar products on a repurchase occasion? The approach of this research is the attempt to analyse a wide range of variables, which have successfully been tested to influence innovative behaviour, within one simultaneous model. This research is applied across different product-categories. It is confirming the nomological validity of OSL-theory including some contextual variables by attesting a principal consistency between all (six) models that have been established throughout the range of several examined product categories. The parameters between inherent factors do not contradict when comparing the single models with each other, parameter values do only differ slightly according to category-specific peculiarities. As a consequence of these results, an overall fairly good picture is drawn of what is behind the keenness for innovations of early adopters in general (regardless of the product category).     

A quantitative field study of the decision behaviour of four shopfloor schedulers

In this article the decision behaviour of four production schedulers in a truck manufacturing company is investigated by means of a quantitative model. The model consists of there parts: performance variables, action variables and disturbance variables. The outcomes show that there is a large difference between schedulers that apparently have the same type of decision problem. Another interesting finding is that some scheduling actions work positively in the short term, but negatively over a longer term. Other results, along with methodological issues of quantitative research, are discussed.     

Extreme behaviour for bivariate elliptical distributions

The authors examine the asymptotic behaviour of conditional threshold exceedance probabilities for an elliptically distributed pair (X, Y) of random variables. More precisely, they investigate the limiting behaviour of the conditional distribution of Y given that X becomes extreme. They show that this behaviour differs between regularly and rapidly varying tails.     

Designed for Patience: The Significance of Internal Factors in the Ukrainian and Belarusian Transitions

This paper focuses on Belarus in order to find explanation as to why Alexander Lukashenko was able remain the authoritarian leader of Belarus, while in Ukraine the position of the political elite had proved less stable and collapsed in 2004. We seek to determine whether the internal factors (macroeconomic conditions, standard of living, the oppressive nature of the political system) play a significant role in the operation of the domino effect. This article emphasises the determining role of immanent internal factors, thus the political stability in Belarus can be explained by the role of the suppressing political regime, the hindrance of democratic rights and the relatively good living conditions that followed the transformational recession. Whilst in Ukraine, the markedly different circumstances brought forth the success of the Orange Revolution.