Determinants of customer satisfaction with socially responsible investments: Do ethical and environmental factors impact customer satisfaction with SRI profiled mutual funds?

Although much research has been published on green/ethical consumer behaviour, the question of how consumers evaluate pro-socially positioned products in the post-purchase stage is still virtually unexplored. This is troubling given the significance of post-purchase evaluations within general marketing theory. To address this gap in the literature, this study examines how a set of technical and functional quality attributes contribute to customer satisfaction in a socially responsible investment (SRI) setting. The results of the study show that perceived financial quality of the SRI mutual fund is the most important predictor of customer satisfaction. However, perceived social, ethical, and environmental (SEE) quality is also positively related to satisfaction for the SRI mutual fund. Based on these results, it is argued that although SEE quality is important to customers, marketers of pro-socially profiled products should primarily focus on conventional quality attributes, as a good SEE record unlikely to generate customer satisfaction alone.Customer satisfaction; ethics; perceived quality; socially responsible investment; mutual funds

Behaviour, physiology and carotenoid pigmentation in Arctic charr Salvelinus alpinus

The behaviour during an exploration task and the response to a confinement stress of Arctic charr Salvelinus alpinus were evaluated. Behaviour of individuals during 90 min of exploration was classified into high and low activity. High-activity individuals had higher plasma cortisol levels following stress compared to low-activity individuals. This indicates that high- and low-activity individuals correspond to reactive and proactive stress-coping styles. Further, a pigmentation analysis showed that high-activity individuals had a higher number of carotenoid spots cm(-2) than low-activity individuals. Thus, carotenoid pigmentation, as melanin pigmentation in other salmonids, could be linked to stress-coping style in S. alpinus. (C) 2013 The Fisheries Society of the British Isle

Moving beyond traditional measures – lessons from evaluating collaborative initiatives at Lund University

Over the last decade, universities and other institutions of higher education (HEIs) worldwide have witnessed an evolution to their role relative to society – with increasing attention to external engagement and expectations on societal impact. This has fostered an upswing in activity as research and innovation funding bodies and universities alike explore new approaches to working with external engagement, and led to questions regarding how to evaluate the societal impact of these efforts. Although there are examples of national frameworks to evaluate research impact, the large majority of countries and HEIs around theworld are still experimenting with approaches to evidence and assess their pathway to societal impact. This paper aims to contribute to evolving practice in this field by presenting lessons from the evaluation of a new strategic instrument (thematic collaboration initiatives) at Lund University (LU), Sweden.The evaluation of the strategic instrument “thematic collaboration initiatives” encompassed both initiative/operational and LU leadership/strategic levels. The approach to the evaluation combined traditional measures and processes, together with new indicators and evaluation approaches. The evaluation hasresulted in a better understanding of the range of activities and outputs that one can expect from such collaborative initiatives – informing the selection of measures to include in evaluation efforts. The evaluation also provided new insights on how universities can work with and use evaluation to guide thefurther development of the university’s approach to fostering external engagement. Participatory processes and facilitated reflection were very beneficial to draw out multiple perspectives and possible implicationsfor future development of the instrument

The effect of anesthetics on carotenoid pigmentation and behavior in Arctic char (Salvelinus alpinus)

Status of individual animals is often shown in pigmentation. For instance, stress responsiveness is associated with melanin-based pigmentation in vertebrates in general. This pattern is evident in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) and rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), with melanin-based spots indicating stress coping style. Arctic char (Salvelinus alpinus) differ from other salmonids in pigmentation but have an association between carotenoid-based pigmentation and stress coping style. These pigmentation differences could be used as a fast and simple tool for improving breeding programs. However, the procedure for photographing individuals is stressful. Therefore, we wanted to investigate if 3 common inhalation anesthetics could be used to reduce the stress involved in the procedure compared to a no-anesthetics group. Behavior was also monitored during the anesthetization. All 3 anesthetics (Aquacalm, Benzocaine, and MS-222) differed in pigmentation compared to the no-anesthetics group by having a higher number of spots. In the anesthetic treatments as well as the no-anesthetics group, the fish had elevated plasma cortisol levels. In fact, the no-anesthetics group had higher cortisol than treated fish. This was probably because of procedural differences such as time affecting the stress response. Furthermore, in a long-term experiment, all fish survived and had similar condition factors 1 week after photographing as before. Therefore, the method for photographing Arctic char is deemed safe and could be used as a tool for estimating stress coping style, but careful planning is needed for experiments using i

Dominance and stress signalling of carotenoid pigmentation in Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus): Lateralization effects?

Social conflicts are usually solved by agonistic interactions where animals use cues to signal dominance or subordinance. Pigmentation change is a common cue used for signalling. In our study, the involvement of carotenoid-based pigmentation in signalling was investigated in juvenile Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus). Size-matched pairs were analysed for pigmentation both before and after being tested for competitive ability. We found that dominant individuals had fewer carotenoid-based spots on the right and left sides as well as lower plasma cortisol levels compared to subordinate individuals. Further, the number of spots on both sides was positively associated with plasma cortisol levels. These results indicate that carotenoid-based pigmentation in Arctic charr signals dominance and stress coping style. Further, it also appears as if carotenoid-based pigmentation is lateralized in Arctic charr, and that the right side signals aggression and dominance whereas the left side signals stress responsiveness

Tematiska samverkansinitiativ vid Lunds universitet - Resultat och reflektioner

Rapport som sammanfattar utvärderingen av den första generationen av tematiska samverkansinitiativ vid Lunds universitet 2017-2019

Healthy workplaces for women and men of all ages

The aim of this knowledge compilation is to contribute with know-ledge about the work environment in relation to the ever-older workforce. How do employee needs and possibilities change from a course of life perspective? What should the employer and other work environment actors think about in order for the workforce to be able to and want to work to a high age? The Swedish Work Environment Authority wishes to give an overar-ching knowledge profile of different aspects of the work environment and the ageing workforce, and we therefore asked seven researchers to summarise the research-based knowledge within each of their are-as, from a course of life and gender perspective. An eighth researcher acted as an editor for the anthology, and has also written the preface. In summary, the report shows that we are becoming even healthier, living ever longer and working to an ever higher age. Older people in the workforce are positive for the economy because productivity increases, and the business sector can make use of competent and experienced staff for a longer time. But for the older labour force to be healthy and want to work at higher ages, one needs to take into consideration how ageing influences health and the capacity to work. With age, all people are affected to different degrees by reduced vision, hearing and physical capacity, as well as longer reaction times. Even their cognitive capacity changes. Certain cognitive abilities are strengthened with rising age, while others deteriorate. With an ageing workforce, more employees have chronic illnesses, which, however, seldom affect the actual working ability. Changes in working life also affect health and wellbeing, for example deregulated work and the technical development. Age and previous experiences impact upon our ability to adapt to these changes. One factor that promotes adap-tation is partly resilience (that is to say, resistance and the ability to adapt to the new), partly compensation strategies when the mental and physical resources change. There are no great differences bet-ween gender when it comes to the consequences of ageing on health and wellbeing in the work. On the other hand, the public health trend shows increasing differences in health between the lower educated and the higher educated - a difference increasing more quickly among women than among men. The gender-segregated labour market also means that more women than men work in physical and mentally burdensome work. Attitudes at the workplace also affect wellbeing and the will to continue working at higher ages. Men tend to be more sensitive to age discrimination while women run the risk of double discrimination, that is to say based upon both gender and age. Work 10 environment and the attitude to an older workforce are central to the considerations that an employee makes in the choice between continuing to work and retiring. Other prerequisites that influence the decision are one’s own health, private finances and self-fulfilling activities. The employer can do a great deal to lengthen and improve their employees’ working life. Systematic work environment management benefits everyone, and it can contribute to everyone keeping their working ability and to older people wanting to and being able to work for longer. Occupational health services of good quality also play an important role. Technical aids and adaptation of the working pace and working tasks are other measures that improve the work environment for the older workforce. The employer can also contri-bute to stimulating work arrangements and organisational support for the employees in order to strengthen their resilience and promote the development of compensation strategies

Anaesthesia and handling stress effects on pigmentation and monoamines in Arctic charr

Stress responsiveness differs between individuals and is often categorized into different stress coping styles. Using these stress coping styles for selection in fish farming could be beneficial, since stress is one main factor affecting welfare. In Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus) carotenoid pigmentation is associated with stress responsiveness and stress coping styles. Thus this could be an important tool to use for selection of stress resilient charr. However, anaesthetics seem to affect carotenoid pigmentation, and it would be better if the method for selection could be implemented during normal maintenance, which usually includes anaesthetics. Therefore, this study investigated how the use of anaesthetics affected carotenoid pigmentation, i.e. number of spots, over time compared to no-anaesthetic treatment. Additionally, the stress indicators monoamines and glucocorticoids were investigated. The results indicate that the anaesthetic MS-222 affects number of spots on the right side. This anaesthetic also increased dopaminergic activity in the telencephalon. Both brain dopaminergic and serotonergic activity was associated with spottiness. Further, behaviour during anaesthetization was associated with spots on the left side, but not the right side. Repetition of the same treatment seemed to affect spot numbers on the right side. In conclusion, this study shows that inducing stress in charr affects the carotenoid spots. Thus, it is possible to use anaesthetics when evaluating spottiness although careful planning is needed

Samverkansmeritering - förutsättningar, behov och möjligheter : Rapport: MERSAM-Meritvärde av samverkansskicklighet

Samverkansuppgiften har gradvis fått en tydligare roll sedan mitten av 1990-talet och är idag en nödvändig och central uppgift för högskolor och universitet i Sverige, inte minst för att hantera vår tids samhällsutmaningar. Det finns få tecken på att denna utveckling kommer att vända och det är därför viktigt att vi inom sektorn för en dialog kring hur vi tar oss an och värderar det arbete som sker inom ramen för samverkansuppgiften. Det är troligt att vi i sektorn även en tid framöver kommer att diskutera hur samverkansuppgiften bör tolkas och samverkansmeriter värderas, men det hindrar oss inte att på allvar försöka stödja och strukturera det arbete som redan sker dagligen vid landets lärosäten.Projektets bidrag är att belysa ett antal observationer kring utmaningar inom sektorn, för våra lärosäten och individer men också visa på möjligheter för våra lärosäten genom att ta upp några tänkbara verktyg, arbetssätt och rekommendationer för utveckling av samverkansmeritering.Huvudbudskapen i denna rapport är att sektorn behöver skapa en tydligare och mer preciserad begreppsbildning relaterat till ”samverkan” och samverkansmeriter. Lärosätena behöver utveckla ett mer integrerat och strukturerat sätt att arbeta med samverkansmeriter genom hela rekrytering- och befordringsprocessen, då förståelse av samverkansmeriter och praxis fortfarande är underutvecklat. Lärosätena behöver vidare utveckla stöd för forskare och lärare i att kunna sammanställa och dokumentera samverkansmeriter, separat eller integrerat med övriga meriter. En verkningsfull, flerspråkig begreppsapparat och förståelse men även efterfrågan på samverkansmeriter behöver utvecklas gemensamt av sektorns alla aktörer och vid varje lärosäte.Rapporten riktar sig i första hand till två målgrupper:1.Personer och funktioner vid lärosäten som har ansvar för eller leder utvecklingsarbete kopplat till meritering och kompetensförsörjning på olika nivåer (dekaner, utvecklingsledare, HR specialister, ordförande i rekryteringskommittéer eller motsvarande samt olika former av samverkansstöd). För dessa innehåller rapporten resonemang, rekommendationer och konkreta verktyg som kan användas som utgångspunkt för dialog och utveckling av samverkansmeritering vid lärosäten.2.Ledningsfunktioner vid lärosäten, myndigheter samt sektorsintressenter. För dessa kan rapporten ge ökad kunskap om tillståndet för samverkansmeritering vid svenska lärosäten och insikter om möjligheter för utveckling.Projektet har tagit fram ett utbildningsmaterial för att stödja fortsatt utvecklingsarbete på olika nivåer vid lärosäten samt en vägledning för att dokumentera och beskriva samverkansmeriter. Vägledningen kan användas för inspiration till lärare och forskare som vill sammanställa sina samverkansmeriter. De verktyg som presenteras i vägledningen kan också användas vid kompetensplanering, bedömningssituationer och medarbetarsamtal.Förhoppningen är att MerSam-projektet och denna rapport, dialog inom och mellan lärosäten samt mellan lärosäten och sektorsintressenter, bidrar till fortsatt utveckling av samverkansmeritering samt till att skapa en gemensam uppfattning om vad det betyder att meritera sig inom ramen för samverkansuppgiften