Investigation of factors influencing loyalty – The role of involvement, perceived risk and knowledge

Our research aimed to reveal the effects that can be observed during the buying process of food products and can influence the decisions of customers. We focused on the role of enduring involvement in customers’ behavioural loyalty, that is, the repurchase of food brands. To understand this relationship in a more sophisticated way, we involved two mediating constructs in our conceptual model: perceived risk and perceived knowledge of food products. The data collection was carried out among undergraduate students in frame of an online survey, and we used SPSS/AMOS software to test the model. The results only partly supported our hypothesis, although the involvement effects on loyalty and the two mediating constructs were strong enough, loyalty couldn’t be explained well by perceived risk and knowledge. The roles of further mediating/moderating variables should be determined and investigated in the next section of the research series

IT Project Management from a Systems Thinking Perspective: A Position Paper

We proposes a Systems Thinking approach to the study of IT project management and show how this approach helps project managers in controlling their projects. To illustrate our proposal, we present an example model of the dynamics of IT out-sourcing projects. The example model explains these dynamics in terms of feedback loops consisting of causal relations re-ported in the literature. The model provides insight in how coordination, trust, information exchange and possibilities for op-portunistic behaviour influence each other and together influence delivery quality, which in turn influences trust. The integra-tion of these insights provided by applying the Systems Thinking perspective helps project managers to reason about how their choices influence project outcome. The Systems Thinking perspective can serve as an additional tool in the academic study of IT project management. Applying the Systems Thinking perspective also calls for additional research in which this perspective is itself the object of study

Public health reasoning: a logical view of trust

The public has a pact with the experts who deliver public health. That pact can be characterized as a relationship of trust in which the public trusts health experts to act in its best interests in return for its adherence to recommendations and other advice. This relationship clearly has emotional elements, as evidenced by strong feelings of anger and betrayal when public health recommendations are shown to be wrong. But it also has rational or logical components which are less often acknowledged by commentators. In this paper, these components are examined with special emphasis on the role of authority arguments in mediating the trust relationship between health experts and the public. It is contended that these arguments function as cognitive heuristics in that they facilitate decision-making in the absence of expert knowledge. A questionnaire study of public health reasoning was conducted in 879 members of the public. Participants were asked to consider a number of public health scenarios in which various arguments from authority were employed. Epistemic conditions, known to be associated with the rational warrant of these arguments, were systematically varied across these scenarios. Quantitative and qualitative data analyses revealed that subjects are adept at recognizing the conditions under which arguments from authority are more or less rationally warranted. The trust relationship at the heart of public health has logical components which lay people are capable of rationally evaluating during public health deliberations. This rational capacity should be exploited by experts during public health communication

Pathways from caring and engaging adults to youth vocational identity: the mediational roles of career search self-efficacy and goal capacity

This study examines the role played by access to caring and engaging adults, career search self-efficacy (CSSE), and goal capacity in the development of youth vocational identity. The study used a bootstrapping approach to analyze data, collected from a survey of 1,579 youths enrolled in 14 U.S. high schools, to test a hypothesized serial multiple mediation model. Results indicate both direct and multiple indirect pathways from adults influences to the youth vocational identity. Two specific pathways of influence were found through CSSE and goal capacity respectively. Additionally, a serial multiple mediation effect was found whereby CSSE and goal capacity collectively mediated the relationship. This indicates that greater access to caring and engaging adults contributes to higher CSSE, which accounts for a higher level of goal capacity, and eventually leads to the better vocational identity in youth. These findings establish notable implications for practices that are discussed in closing.First author draf

Research and Applications of the Processes of Performance Appraisal: A Bibliography of Recent Literature, 1981-1989

[Excerpt] There have been several recent reviews of different subtopics within the general performance appraisal literature. The reader of these reviews will find, however, that the accompanying citations may be of limited utility for one or more reasons. For example, the reference sections of these reviews are usually composed of citations which support a specific theory or practical approach to the evaluation of human performance. Consequently, the citation lists for these reviews are, as they must be, highly selective and do not include works that may have only a peripheral relationship to a given reviewer\u27s target concerns. Another problem is that the citations are out of date. That is, review articles frequently contain many citations that are fifteen or more years old. The generation of new studies and knowledge in this field occurs very rapidly. This creates a need for additional reference information solely devoted to identifying the wealth of new research, ideas, and writing that is changing the field

Theory borrowing in IT-rich contexts : lessons from IS strategy research

While indigenous theorizing in information systems has clear merits, theory borrowing will not, and should not, be eschewed given its appeal and usefulness. In this article, we aim at increasing our understanding of modifying of borrowed theories in IT-rich contexts. We present a framework in which we discuss how two recontextualization approaches of specification and distinction help with increasing the IT-richness of borrowed constructs and relationships. In doing so, we use several illustrative examples from information systems strategy. The framework can be used by researchers as a tool to explore the multitude of ways in which a theory from another discipline can yield the understanding of IT phenomena

Web Acceptance and Usage Model: A Comparison between Goal-directed and Experiential Web Users

In this paper we analyse the Web acceptance and usage between goal-directed users and experiential users, incorporating intrinsic motives to improve the particular and explanatory TAM value –traditionally related to extrinsic motives-. A field study was conducted to validate measures used to operationalize model variables and to test the hypothesised network of relationships. The data analysis method used was Partial Least Squares (PLS).The empirical results provided strong support for the hypotheses, highlighting the roles of flow, ease of use and usefulness in determining the actual use of the Web among experiential and goal-directed users. In contrast with previous research that suggests that flow would be more likely to occur during experiential activities than goal-directed activities, we found clear evidence of flow for goal-directed activities. In particular the study findings indicate that flow might play a powerfulrole in determining the attitude towards usage,intention to useand, in turn,actual Web use among experiential and goal-directed users