Americans, Marketers, and the Internet: 1999-2012

This is a collection of the reports on the Annenberg national surveys that explored Americans\u27 knowledge and opinions about the new digital-marketing world that was becoming part of their lives. So far we’ve released seven reports on the subject, in 1999, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2009, 2010, and 2012. The reports raised or deepened a range of provocative topics that have become part of public, policy, and industry discourse. In addition to these reports, I’ve included three journal articles — from I/S, New Media & Society and the Journal of Consumer Affairs — that synthesize some of the findings and place them into policy frameworks. The journals have kindly allowed reproduction for this purpose

Swampy territory: The role of the palliative care social worker in safeguarding children of adults who are receiving specialist palliative care

There is minimal research into families where a person who is receiving palliative care has dependent children. In particular, there is a lack of information about the work that palliative care social workers undertake with such families. This study examines the role of the palliative care social worker in safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children of adults receiving specialist palliative care. This is a qualitative study involving the collection of information from a total of 57 palliative care social workers in three ways: focus groups, survey and semi-structured interviews. The analysis demonstrates that palliative care social workers understand the term 'safeguarding children' to mean more than child protection alone. The analysis also focuses on the process of referral, institutional barriers, supports for their work with children, and inter-agency collaboration. An equally important aspect of the analysis, and one generally neglected in psycho-social studies, relates to the socio-economic context of the palliative care social workers' work, including the effects of the immigration status of families on children. In the main, concerns about the present and future care of children come to the attention of palliative care social workers via members of the multidisciplinary team in which they are based. The numbers are reported to be relatively small in contrast to the total number of referrals received. The extent to which support to children is provided varies considerably; some palliative care agencies do not encourage palliative care social workers to work directly with children prior to bereavement and others restrict direct work with children post-bereavement. The main emphasis for all workers, however, is on support to the parents to help them understand their children's needs during the terminal phase of the illness. The well-being of children at this time of emotional stress is included in the palliative care social workers' definition of 'safeguarding children'. In addition, the wide-ranging examination of the palliative care social workers' involvement with the families illustrates the extent of the dedication involved in an under-resourced and little understood area of their work. Whilst palliative care social workers reported receiving basic training on child protection within their agency, with some themselves providing this training, further training on safeguarding children is not always available or known about. The amount and type of professional supervision and support is also varied, particularly in relation to child-care matters; not all have access to supervision from another social work professional. There are a small number of examples given in the study where children are considered to be at risk in some way. Children cared for by lone parents are recognised as being especially vulnerable, particularly if future care plans are not in place before the death of the parent. Also identified as vulnerable are children of parents whose immigration status is in question as their future location may be in doubt, placing children and the surviving parent under additional stress. One of the major difficulties for palliative care social workers is securing support services from local authority children's services. Whilst there are examples of collaboration and co-operation, the findings in this study echo those of others which examine the relationship between adult and children's services. In this study, palliative care social workers speak of frustration and disappointment in the responses they receive, and they are concerned that the needs of children of dying parents are not understood. This study contributes to the debate about the focus of children in care services for adults and how staff may be supported in their task of safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. This study also adds to the limited existing knowledge about palliative care social work practice

Institutional Distance and Entry Mode: How do Emerging-Market Multinational Companies Overcome Competitive Disadvantages in a Developed Market?

As latecomers to global business competition, emerging-market multinational companies (EMNCs) utilize cross-border merger and acquisitions to swiftly acquire strategic assets, such as brands and distribution channels, compensating for their competency deficiency. Developed markets with well-established firms and well-developed market-supporting institutions become important destinations for EMNCs\u27 strategic asset-seeking investments. Institutional distance, national differences in the institutional environment, constitutes a major source of competitive disadvantage for foreign firms competing with indigenous firms. Foreign firms need to overcome the challenges of unfamiliarity, relational, and discriminatory hazards to establish legitimacy in the host market. Compared to established multinationals that originate from other advanced markets (AMNCs), EMNCs potentially face additional legitimacy threats derived from their countries of origin. Facing large institutional distance, AMNCs are likely to take less ownership to rely on a local firm\u27s legitimacy, but EMNCs may lack the opportunity to find a willing local partner. The findings of the current study generally support that the negative association between institutional distance and ownership position is less apparent for EMNCs than for AMNCs. Furthermore, not all emerging markets are homogeneous in their country development. EMNCs, originating from countries with higher levels of human capital development and global connectedness are less impacted by institutional distance in their ownership strategy. The findings of the current study also suggest EMNCs\u27 firm level characteristics have minimal effects in alleviating the influence of institutional distance on their ownership decisions. Additionally, controlling for institutional distance, I find that EMNCs with a higher level of ownership position experience better sales growth in subsequent years

Factors Influencing Customer Satisfaction towards E-shopping in Malaysia

Online shopping or e-shopping has changed the world of business and quite a few people have decided to work with these features. What their primary concerns precisely and the responses from the globalisation are the competency of incorporation while doing their businesses. E-shopping has also increased substantially in Malaysia in recent years. The rapid increase in the e-commerce industry in Malaysia has created the demand to emphasize on how to increase customer satisfaction while operating in the e-retailing environment. It is very important that customers are satisfied with the website, or else, they would not return. Therefore, a crucial fact to look into is that companies must ensure that their customers are satisfied with their purchases that are really essential from the ecommerce’s point of view. With is in mind, this study aimed at investigating customer satisfaction towards e-shopping in Malaysia. A total of 400 questionnaires were distributed among students randomly selected from various public and private universities located within Klang valley area. Total 369 questionnaires were returned, out of which 341 questionnaires were found usable for further analysis. Finally, SEM was employed to test the hypotheses. This study found that customer satisfaction towards e-shopping in Malaysia is to a great extent influenced by ease of use, trust, design of the website, online security and e-service quality. Finally, recommendations and future study direction is provided. Keywords: E-shopping, Customer satisfaction, Trust, Online security, E-service quality, Malaysia

Unmet goals of tracking: within-track heterogeneity of students' expectations for

Educational systems are often characterized by some form(s) of ability grouping, like tracking. Although substantial variation in the implementation of these practices exists, it is always the aim to improve teaching efficiency by creating homogeneous groups of students in terms of capabilities and performances as well as expected pathways. If students’ expected pathways (university, graduate school, or working) are in line with the goals of tracking, one might presume that these expectations are rather homogeneous within tracks and heterogeneous between tracks. In Flanders (the northern region of Belgium), the educational system consists of four tracks. Many students start out in the most prestigious, academic track. If they fail to gain the necessary credentials, they move to the less esteemed technical and vocational tracks. Therefore, the educational system has been called a 'cascade system'. We presume that this cascade system creates homogeneous expectations in the academic track, though heterogeneous expectations in the technical and vocational tracks. We use data from the International Study of City Youth (ISCY), gathered during the 2013-2014 school year from 2354 pupils of the tenth grade across 30 secondary schools in the city of Ghent, Flanders. Preliminary results suggest that the technical and vocational tracks show more heterogeneity in student’s expectations than the academic track. If tracking does not fulfill the desired goals in some tracks, tracking practices should be questioned as tracking occurs along social and ethnic lines, causing social inequality

Human experience in the natural and built environment : implications for research policy and practice

22nd IAPS conference. Edited book of abstracts. 427 pp. University of Strathclyde, Sheffield and West of Scotland Publication. ISBN: 978-0-94-764988-3

HIV/AIDS education in Kenya: an evaluation of policy, provision and practice in secondary schools

One of the key responses to the HIV/AIDS crisis has been the provision of School- based HIV/AIDS education, to try and improve teenagers’ ability to make wise and sensible decisions regarding their behaviours. The interventions have been premised on links between education and behaviour, the underlying assumption being that teaching young people how to protect themselves from HIV can lead to a reduction in risk behaviour and hence a reduction in HIV incidence (UNAIDS, 1997). An important part of this process has been the development of an education sector policy on HIV and AIDS, aimed at implementing and effecting, among others, the policy goal of Prevention. This study, with the use of a systems theory as a theoretical framework, examines the policy, provision and practice of HIV/AIDS education in secondary schools in Kenya with the view to informing policy and providing options for re-designing and scaling up (if necessary) the HIV/AIDS program. A methodology combining literature review, semi- structured interviews and a school survey was adopted. The school survey covered students, teachers and Head teachers; while the semi structured interviews covered policy makers. Results revealed that there are discordances between national HIV/AIDS policy rhetoric and school realities. There is a general failure of schools to implement the type of detailed HIV/AIDS policy described despite the fact that the demand is high. Although there are merits that the study did not cover a wide enough population to warrant the generalizations it makes, the research findings and recommendations that do exist from previous investigations largely confirm rather than refute these results