Switching determinants in subscription service markets : banking and electricity in New Zealand : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree Master of Business Studies at Massey University, New Zealand

This study examines the important role switching costs play in consumer loyalty to service providers. Banking and residential electricity consumers were studied in New Zealand using the framework developed by Burnham, Frels & Mahajan (2003). An attempt was made to replicate their measurement model using Burnham et al.'s eight first order constructs. An acceptable fit to the data was achieved, however, their instrument's scale items did not load as predicted indicating limited convergent and discriminant validity. In replicating Burnham et al.'s three factor second order model, of their three factors - procedural, financial and relational - only relational costs proved significant in influencing a consumer's intention to stay with their current service provider. A relationship between satisfaction with a service and a greater intention to stay with that service was confirmed. Possible explanations for the poor performance of the Burnham et al. structural model might be that their measurement model violates some basic rules for scale development. The lack of validity of some scales leads to speculation that the significant results reported by Burnham et al. were the result of fortuitous fit to their USA data. The value of a theory is in its general applicability to situations outside its original context. While the Burnham et al. (2003) theory may have been intuitively sound, this attempt to operationalise their model was hindered by a measurement instrument which lacked convergence, discriminance and reliability. The Burnham et al. model demonstrated in this replication an adequate fit to the data, but goodness-of-fit alone does not indicate a structurally sound model. It also requires validity. The findings of this thesis are that their model may require modification to some scales before it will be universally useful. Keywords: Customer retention, confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modelling, switching costs, loyalty, satisfaction, switching, defection, subscription markets, services

Canadian Participation and National Representation at the 1851 London Great Exhibition and the 1855 Paris Exposition Universelle

Canada’s participation at the first two great international exhibitions of the nineteenth century, the Great Exhibition at London’s Crystal Palace in 1851 and the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1855, brought together issues and concerns that spanned the full range of the colony’s developing modernity. Both exhibitions, but especially that in London, fostered a focus on objects, whether raw materials taken straight from the ground or manufactured articles, as representing all that was positive about human and cultural endeavour. The exhibitions and the steps that led up to Canada’s participation — the governmental discussion, the method of selecting exhibits, the very idea of representation — highlighted key moments at a point in Canadian history when the natural logic of the imperial tie was being rethought in light of a growing awareness of a sense of national community. While this process can be found across the range of political, social, and cultural activities in the 1850s and 1860s, the exhibits and the manner in which they were chosen and displayed offer a particular vision on the transformation of Canada from colony to nation.La participation du Canada aux deux premières grandes expositions universelles du XIXe siècle, la Great Exhibition tenue au Crystal Palace de Londres en 1851 et l’Exposition universelle de Paris de 1855, s’est déroulée à l’enseigne de questions et préoccupations couvrant le canevas tout entier de la modernité naissante de la colonie. Les deux expositions, mais surtout celle de Londres, mettaient l’accent sur les objets — tout autant les matières brutes tirées directement du sol que les articles manufacturés — incarnant tout ce qu’il y avait de positif de l’entreprise humaine et culturelle. Les objets exposés et les étapes qui menèrent à la participation du Ca- nada — la discussion gouvernementale, la méthode de sélection des objets exposés, l’idée même de la représentation — mirent en relief des moments clés de l’histoire canadienne à une époque où l’on repensait la logique naturelle du lien impérial à la lumière d’une prise de conscience croissante d’un sentiment d’appartenance nationale. Si ce processus anime en filigrane l’éventail des activités politiques, sociales et culturelles des années 1850 et 1860, les objets exposés et leur mode de sélection et de mise en montre offrent une vision particulière du passage du Canada de l’état de colonie à celui de nation

Zinc containing dental fixative causing copper deficiency myelopathy

A 62-year-old male, previously well, was referred to neurology clinic following 6 months history of worsening lower limbs instability, paraesthesia, pain and weakness rendering him housebound. Examination revealed upper motor neuron pattern of weakness of the lower limbs and loss of proprioception. Serum analysis revealed reduced caeruloplasmin and copper levels with raised zinc. Spinal imaging revealed subtle dorsal column intensity changes in C2-C7, confirmed with 3T MRI. A copper deficiency myeloneuropathy was diagnosed secondary to chronic use of a zinc-containing dental fixative paste. The paste was discontinued and a copper supplementation was started. Resolution of symptoms was not achieved with intensive physiotherapy. The patient remains a wheelchair user though progression of symptoms has halted. Prompt recognition and treatment of hyperzincaemia-induced hypocupraemia earlier in the disease course may have prevented any irreversible neurological deficit

Care and the self: biotechnology, reproduction, and the good life

This paper explores a novel philosophy of ethical care in the face of burgeoning biomedical technologies. I respond to a serious challenge facing traditional bioethics with its roots in analytic philosophy. The hallmarks of these traditional approaches are reason and autonomy, founded on a belief in the liberal humanist subject. In recent years, however, there have been mounting challenges to this view of human subjectivity, emerging from poststructuralist critiques, such as Michel Foucault's, but increasingly also as a result of advances in biotechnology itself. In the face of these developments, I argue that the theoretical relevance and practical application of mainstream bioethics is increasingly under strain. Traditionalists will undoubtedly resist. Together, professional philosopher-bioethicists, public health policymakers, and the global commercial healthcare industry tend to respond conservatively by shoring up the liberal humanist subject as the foundation for medical ethics and consumer decision-making, appealing to the familiar tropes of reason, autonomy, and freedom

Expert Evidence and the Problem of Privilege

The giving of admissible evidence of opinion by experts and the concept of ‘litigation privilege’ each occupies an anomalous position within our legal system. Expert evidence is evidence provided to a court to assist in the determination of questions of science or professional skill. It is an exception to the rule that prohibits the adducing of opinion evidence and, in the case of the party-engaged expert, requires that the expert owe a paramount duty to the court. Litigation privilege is a species of legal professional privilege and a principle of public policy that operates to restrict the obligation of a party to disclose documents evidencing certain protected communications ¬in response to applications for disclosure. It is an exception to the principle that evidence that is relevant to a fact in issue is admissible. But should, for example, communications between a solicitor and an expert also be subject to litigation privilege in light of the expert’s paramount duty to the court? The issue raises questions about the role of the expert as an independent authority upon whom the courts can rely in circumstances in which a party is deploying that expert to adduce evidence in an adversarial context. The current orthodoxy, by largely maintaining the cloak of legal professional privilege in relation to draft reports and communications with experts, does little to alleviate the inherent tension between these principles. This thesis seeks to explore these issues. It also considers reforms that may ameliorate the problems that the current orthodoxy has engendered within the federal and New South Wales civil jurisdictions with respect to the party-engaged expert and the application of legal professional privilege

The Living from the Dead

In a society that aims above all to safeguard life, how might we reckon with ethical responsibility when we are complicit in sacrificial economies that produce and tolerate death as a necessity of life?Arguing that biopower can be fully exposed only through an analysis of those whom society has “let die,” Stuart J. Murray employs a series of transdisciplinary case studies to uncover the structural and rhetorical conditions through which biopower works. These case studies include the concept of “sacrifice” in the “war” against COVID-19, where emergent cultures of pandemic “resistance” are explored alongside suicide bombings and military suicides; the California mass hunger strikes of 2013; legal cases involving “preventable” and “untimely” childhood deaths, exposing the irreconcilable claims of anti-vaxxers and Indigenous peoples; and the videorecording of the death of a disabled Black man. Murray demonstrates that active resistance to biopower inevitably reproduces tropes of “making live” and “letting die.” His counter to this fact is a critical stance of disaffirmation, one in which death disrupts the politics of life itself.A philosophically nuanced critique of biopower, The Living from the Dead is a meditation on life, death, power, language, and control in the twenty-first century. It will appeal to students and scholars of rhetoric, philosophy, and critical theory