Channels, consumers and communication: online and offline communication in service consumption

This paper reports on a study that investigated consumer use of e-services in a multichannel context. To develop a deeper understanding of what makes consumers decide to use the online channel, and contrary to most HCI studies on the use of e-services that focus on the use of the online channel in relative isolation, this study examined consumer channel-choice beyond the instances of internet use. The consumption behaviour of its participants was investigated across channels in an in-depth qualitative study. The analysis of the elicited rich data focused specifically on the investigation of voluntary consumer movements between online and offline channels during the course of a consumption process. The results indicate that participants often use multiple channels in parallel and frequently switch between channels. Literature from marketing and consumer research was used as the perspective to explore the rationale for the complex and dynamic reported consumer behaviour

The role of language in engineering competence

The behaviour of engineered products is becoming less evident from their outward appearance. Thus many current engineered products have unseen properties that become evident only after protracted investigation, analysis or use. Nevertheless marketing staff, potential users, disposal experts, financiers and so on will wish to make informed decisions about products and commonly their choices will be based on more accessible descriptions, explanations, scenarios and accounts of a products use rather than their direct experience. Engineers usually work with others in enterprises that produce things or provide services. The engineer rarely provides the service or makes the goods but, as a professional, the engineer guides the rest of the enterprise and persuades others to take particular courses of action. It is clear that an engineer's central interest is the artefact. Interestingly the artefact may be in the process of design or the subject of a feasibility study and hence will have no material existence, but it will be circumscribed by a wide variety of texts including specifications, technical reports and standards. Using their specialist language and analytical techniques, the individual engineer will gain assurance about his or her view of the artefact through discussions with fellow engineers, but at some point they will have to convey that view to non-technical specialists. Within the enterprise the engineer will become either an advocate or an adversary of the artefact faced by other individuals or groups who because of their professional or cultural background will value things in different way. The role of the engineer is then as a protagonist or opponent of the artefact within, using Bruno Latour’s evocative phrase, a “Parliament of Things”. And competent engineers, as competent advocates of artifacts, need fluent linguistic and rhetorical skills as well as analytical proficiency and the knowledge that will give them the confidence to project their views. The paper examines the implications for engineering education

Welfare Polls: A Synthesis

Welfare polls are survey instruments that seek to quantify the determinants of human well-being. Currently, three welfare polling formats are dominant: contingent valuation (CV) surveys, quality-adjusted life year (QALY) surveys, and happiness surveys. Each format has generated a large, specialized, scholarly literature, but no comprehensive discussion of welfare polling as a general enterprise exists.This Article seeks to fill that gap. Part I describes the trio of existing formats. Part II discusses the current and potential uses of welfare polls in governmental decisionmaking. Part III analyzes in detail the obstacles that welfare polls must overcome to provide useful well-being information, and concludes that they can be genuinely informative. Part IV synthesizes the case for welfare polls, arguing against two types of challenges: the revealed-preference tradition in economics, which insists on using behavior rather than surveys to learn about well-being; and the civic republican tradition in political theory, which accepts surveys but insists that respondents should be asked to take a citizen rather than consumer perspective. Part V suggests new directions for welfare polls

Welfare Polls: A Synthesis

"Welfare polls" are survey instruments that seek to quantify the determinants of human well-being. Currently, three "welfare polling" formats are dominant: contingent-valuation surveys, QALY surveys, and happiness surveys. Each format has generated a large, specialized, scholarly literature, but no comprehensive discussion of welfare polling as a general enterprise exists. This Article seeks to fill that gap. Part I describes the trio of existing formats. Part II discusses the actual and potential uses of welfare polls in government decision making. Part III analyzes in detail the obstacles that welfare polls must overcome to provide useful well-being information, and concludes that they can be genuinely informative. Part IV synthesizes the case for welfare polls, arguing against two types of challenges: the revealed-preference tradition in economics, which insists on using behavior rather than surveys to learn about well-being; and the civic-republican tradition in political theory, which accepts surveys but insists that respondents should be asked to take a "citizen", rather than "consumer" perspective. Part V suggests new directions for welfare polls.

For-Profit Charter Schools and Threats to the Publicness of Public Schools

non

Liberty, Markets and Environmental Values: A Hayekian Defence of Free Market Environmentalism

Communitarian conceptions of the 'situated self' lie at the core of 'green' critiques of market approaches to environmental problems. According to this perspective resource management issues should be dealt with in the 'public sphere' of democratic politics rather than the 'private sphere' of market drien consumer choice. This paper suggests that such arguments rest on a series of non-sequiturs. Drawing on Hayek's non-rationalist liberalism it shows that a 'situated' view of the self offers a radical endorsement of the case for privatisating environmental assets, wherever it is possible to do so.free market environmentalism; property rights; deliberative democracy

Platform Advocacy and the Threat to Deliberative Democracy

Businesses have long tried to influence political outcomes, but today, there is a new and potent form of corporate political power—Platform Advocacy. Internet-based platforms, such as Facebook, Google, and Uber, mobilize their user bases through direct solicitation of support and the more troubling exploitation of irrational behavior. Platform Advocacy helps platforms push policy agendas that create favorable legal environments for themselves, thereby strengthening their own dominance in the marketplace. This new form of advocacy will have radical effects on deliberative democracy. In the age of constant digital noise and uncertainty, it is more important than ever to detect and analyze new forms of political power. This Article will contribute to our understanding of one such new form and provide a way forward to ensure the exceptional power of platforms do not improperly influence consumers and, by extension, lawmakers

Greening the WTO's Disputes Settlement Understanding: Opportunities and Risks

It is reasonable to ask whether the WTO’s rules may hamper the ability of national and sub-national governments to be genuine pacesetters in environmental law making. Environmentalists consider that the WTO’s disputes panels may encourage governments to converge to the relevant international standard for a particular risk regulation because such uniformity is likely to reduce the incidence of trade disputes. Proposals that go beyond environmental advocacy and greater transparency in the WTO’s disputes settlement process—changes such as a weakening of the sound science requirement and incorporating stronger forms of the precautionary principle into WTO agreements on biosecurity laws—reduce due process safeguards against disguised regulatory protectionism in New Zealand’s agricultural export markets.World Trade Organization, trade disputes, environment, conservation, New Zealand