The Nature of Societal Conflict in Europe; an Archetypal Analysis of the Postmodern Cosmopolitan, Rural Traditionalist and Urban Precariat

We analyse the nature of contemporary societal conflict in Europe, conceptualizing conflict in terms of oppositional identities, represented by the archetypal extreme corner positions between which contestation takes place. By analysing key characteristics of 28,565 Europeans from seven countries in four distinct time periods, we find three archetypal corner positions. Each archetype represents an ideal-typical configuration of values, attitudes and socio-demographic characteristics which people identify more or less with. The first archetype (which we label Postmodern Cosmopolitan) represents an urban, higher-educated person with cosmopolitan values and attitudes. The other two archetypes (Rural traditionalist and Urban Precariat) present images of Europe that are more nationalistic and differ in their political-economic ideological position. Western and Eastern European countries differ markedly in the distribution of these archetypes over time. The novelty of this paper is our conceptualization and operationalization of the changing nature of societal conflict as changes in oppositional identities

Strategic orientations and digital marketing tactics in cross-border e-commerce: Comparing developed and emerging markets

In this article, the impact of strategic orientations on the use of digital marketing tactics and, subsequently, on the international business performance of small electronic retailers (e-retailers) in cross-border electronic commerce (e-commerce) is analysed. Furthermore, these relationships are compared between e-retailers originating in both developed and emerging e-commerce markets. Using a sample of 446 small business-to-consumer e-retailers from 20 European countries, we find that the deployment of digital marketing tactics has a positive effect on international business performance. Of the strategic orientations examined, foreign market orientation is most associated with the use of digital marketing tactics. Remarkably, growth orientation only has a positive effect on e-retailers from developed e-commerce markets, while customer orientation negatively affects e-retailers from emerging e-commerce markets. The differences between e-retailers from developed and emerging e-commerce markets are prominent and show that markets should not be considered as either uniform or generalisable

Identifying Unknown Response Styles: A Latent-Class Bilinear Multinomial Logit Model

Respondents can vary significantly in the way they use rating scales. Specifically, respondents can exhibit varying degrees of response style, which threatens the validity of the responses. The purpose of this article is to investigate to what extent rating scale responses show response style and substantive content of the item. The authors develop a novel model that accounts for possibly unknown kinds of response styles, content of the items, and background characteristics of respondents. By imposing a bilinear structure on the parameters of a multinomial logit model, the authors can visually distinguish the effects on the response behavior of both the characteristics of a respondent and the content of the item. This approach is combined with finite mixture modeling, so that two separate segmentations of the respondents are obtained: one for response style and one for item content. This latent-class bilinear multinomial logit (LC-BML) model is applied to a cross-national data set. The results show that item content is highly influential in explaining response behavior and reveal the presence of several response styles, including the prominent response styles acquiescence and extreme response style

Competing for the same value segments? Insight into the volatile Dutch political landscape

Values are central to public debates today. Human values convey broad goals that serve as guiding principles in a person's life and value priorities differ across people in society. Groups in society holding opposing values (e.g., universalism versus security) will make different choices when voting in an election. Whereas over time, values are relatively stable, the number and type of political parties as well as the political values they communicate and disseminate have been changing. Groups of people holding the same human values may therefore vote for another (new) party in a later election. We focus on analyzing the relationship between human values and voting in elections, introducing a new methodology to analyze how value profiles relate to political support over time. We investigate the Dutch multi-party political system over five waves of the European Social Survey, spanning 2002 until 2010. Whilst previous research has focused on individual values separately and focused on voters only, we (1) distinguish groups holding a similar set of opposing and compatible values (value profile) instead of focusing on single values in the the entire population; (2) incorporate a correction for differences in scale use in our model; (3) compare voting over time; (4) include non-voters, a growing group in Dutch society. We find evidence that specific value profiles are related to voting for a specific set of political parties. We also find that specific value profiles distinguish non-voters from voters and that voters for populist parties resemble non-voters

Occurrence of Comorbidities before and after Soft Tissue Sarcoma Diagnosis

Background. Data is limited on the burden of common comorbidities, such as cardiovascular disease (CVD), respiratory disease and diabetes, or comorbidities related to cancer and its treatment, such as anemia and depression, in patients with soft tissue sarcoma (STS). Patients and Methods. From the Dutch Pathology Registry linked to the PHARMO database (including data on drug use and hospitalizations), 533 patients with STS were selected during 2000–2007 and matched 1 : 10 to cancer-free controls. The occurrences of comorbidities were assessed in the 12 months before and after STS diagnosis. Results. STS patients were 2–4 times more likely to have comorbidities at diagnosis compared with cancer-free controls. The incidence of CVD, anemia, and depression after STS diagnosis differed significantly from cancer-free controls and decreased during followup from 40–124 per 1,000 person-years (py) during the first six months to 11–38 per 1,000 py more than 12 months after diagnosis. The incidence of respiratory disease and diabetes among STS patients remained stable during followup (5–21 per 1,000 py) and did not differ significantly from cancer-free controls. Conclusions. STS patients were more likely to have comorbidities before cancer diagnosis and to develop CVD, anemia, and depression after diagnosis compared to cancer-free controls

Hoe vergelijkbaar is de Net Promotor Score over landen heen?

Het is gebruikelijk dat managers scores van klanttevredenheidsonderzoeken vergelijken tussen vestigingen om na te gaan welke vestiging de hoogste score heeft behaald. Doordat steeds meer organisaties de klant centraal stellen binnen hun organisatie, worden Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) zoals de Net Promoter Score (NPS), steeds belangrijker. De NPS wordt vaak opgenomen in prestatiebeoordelingen van vestigingen in binnen- en buitenland. De vraag is echter of scores die zijn vergaard onder klanten in verschillende landen wel met elkaar kunnen worden vergeleken. Dit onderzoek laat zien dat dit aan strenge restricties is gebonden

Health and Culture: The Association between Healthcare Preferences for Non-Acute Conditions, Human Values and Social Norms

Preference for professional vs. non-professional or informal healthcare for non-acute medical situations influences healthcare use and varies strongly across countries. Important individual and country-level drivers of these preferences may be human values (the fundamental values that individuals hold and guide their behavior) and country-level characteristics such as social tightness (societal pressure for “acceptable” behavior). The aim of this study was to examine the relation of these individual and country-level characteristics with healthcare preferences. We examined European Social Survey data from 23,312 individuals in 16 European countries, using a multi-level, random effect approach, including individual and country-level factors. Healthcare preferences were explained by both human values (i.e., Schwartz values) and societal tightness (i.e., tightness-looseness scores by Gelfand). Stronger conservation increased, whereas self-transcendence and openness to change decreased preference for professional healthcare. In socially tight countries, we found a higher preference for professional healthcare. Furthermore, we found interactions between social tightness and human values. These results suggest that professional healthcare preference is related to both people’s values and societal tightness. This improved understanding is useful for both predicting and channeling healthcare seeking behavior across and within nations

Hoe vergelijkbaar is de Net Promotor Score over landen heen?

Het is gebruikelijk dat managers scores van klanttevredenheidsonderzoeken vergelijken tussen vestigingen om na te gaan welke vestiging de hoogste score heeft behaald. Doordat steeds meer organisaties de klant centraal stellen binnen hun organisatie, worden Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) zoals de Net Promoter Score (NPS), steeds belangrijker. De NPS wordt vaak opgenomen in prestatiebeoordelingen van vestigingen in binnen- en buitenland. De vraag is echter of scores die zijn vergaard onder klanten in verschillende landen wel met elkaar kunnen worden vergeleken. Dit onderzoek laat zien dat dit aan strenge restricties is gebonden

Multilevel Cultural Issues

Multi-level structures are omnipresent. Consumers live in geographical locations, shop in specific stores, or are members of clubs. Consumers who belong to the same group share characteristics and are expected to be more similar than consumers belonging to another group. In data analysis this sharedness needs to be taken into account to enable valid inferences. In this chapter, we describe what multilevel analysis is and introduce major methods when dealing with multiple levels of analysis (e.g., individual and country). We elaborate on the key issues in multilevel analysis being aggregation and isomorphism, and finalize with a discussion on the conventional top-down approach in which higher levels affect individuals and the recent bottom-up approach in which individuals via their attitudes and behaviours affect societal norms. Multilevel issues are expected to become more popular in the next years, also because of the available new tools for applied researcher