bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Consumer xenocentrism in China: an exploratory study
Authors: Mueller Rene Dentiste , Wang George Xun , Liu Guoli , Cui Charles Chi 
Published: December 2015

Purpose– Marketing research has focussed more on in-group favoritism and out-group derogation (i.e. ethnocentrism) than out-group favoritism and in-group derogation (i.e. xenocentrism). The purpose of this paper is to explore the xenocentric behavior in the consumer sphere to explain why some consumers have a bias for foreign products even when domestic ones are qualitatively similar or better. As the Chinese economy has experienced more than three decades of near double-digit growth and increased openness to foreign products, it is important to examine phenomena related to the formation of Chinese attitudes toward foreign products with the rising tensions between the seemingly irreversible globalization and Chinese re-awakening nationalism.Design/methodology/approach– This study is based on a review of the extant literature and focus groups in three cities in China.Findings– This study has found that consumer xenocentrism (CX) is prevalent in China, especially among the new emerging wealthy classes, younger consumers, and the local elite. It appears that Chinese consumers are psychologically or sociologically orientated or predisposed toward foreign (Western) goods. The findings from this study suggest that both consumer ethnocentrism and CX are possible or even expected. The short review of Chinese history presented here has shown that these phenomena can be explained by traditional in-group/out-group theories. Specifically, when there are too many xenocentrics, national esteem is threatened and this prompts many individuals to become more ethnocentric.Research limitations/implications– This study is based on the literature and focus groups data, hence, the findings are not intended to be generalizable.Practical implications– The findings from this study should be of interest to business practitioners and policy makers.Social implications– The historical and cultural perspectives taken in this study indicate that understanding consumers’ xenocentric behavior entails knowledge and deep understanding of how cultural values and contemporary social-political forces interplay within consumers’ formation and change of attitudes toward the choice of domestic and foreign products.Originality/value– This study shows that the ability of foreign products to meet the individual’s need or enhance his/her self-esteem more so than domestic products is indicative of something more than simply an international, cosmopolitan, or modern orientation. The fact that consumer foreign bias is found with both mundane and widely available products, expensive and inexpensive products, and conspicuous and non-conspicuous goods challenges the assumption that this phenomenon is simply traditional prestige-consumption behavior. Future research needs to be directed at measuring the CX construct and examine potential antecedents of such a behavior.
Impact of culture on religiosity, cosmopolitanism and ethnocentrism
Authors: Deb Madhurima , Sinha Gautam 
Published: December 2015

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of culture on religiosity, cosmopolitanism, and ethnocentrism on attitudes towards foreign products, among two religious classes in India.

Design/methodology/approach
– Quantitative data analysis was employed to attain the above objective. In order to explore the existence of difference between clothing preferences between two religious classes analysis of variance (ANOVA) was employed. It was employed to analyse the difference between group means. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was employed to test the hypothesized paths. SEM was used separately for both the religious classes to explore the possibility of difference between both of them. Before testing the measurement model confirmatory factor analysis was run to test the cleanliness of the measurement items. Data were analysed in two parts A and B. In part A SEM was employed to test the hypotheses developed and in part B ANOVA was used to test the difference between group means.

Findings
– It was found that both the religious classes were significantly different from each other in their apparel preference. It was also found that the Indians were not collectivist as often labelled in a stereotypical way.

Practical implications
– The findings of this study would provide useful in-depth knowledge on Indian religious groups for both international and national marketers. The study confirmed that ignoring the diversity of an emerging market and adopting a standardized marketing strategy could prove fatal. It provides better understanding about the cultural diversity and its impact on buying imported products. Such insight should enable marketers, policy makers, and social planners to act more effectively by designing their positioning strategies accordingly.

Originality/value
– Some unexpected differences was found in individualism and collectivism dimensions and it was also found that the inter-cultural differences between Hindus and Muslims have changed since the original Hofstede data were collected on Hindu and Muslim dominating countries.
Learning and teaching research methods in management education
Authors: Hoidn Sabine , Olbert-Bock Sibylle 
Published: December 2015

Purpose– In the context of the creation of a two-year Master of Science in Business Administration programme to offer a scientifically sound and practice-related management education in Switzerland, a curriculum for learning and teaching research methods had to be designed. Major pedagogic challenges were identified and addressed by curricular responses in terms of pluralism in knowledge production forms, a holistic approach to competence development and a learner-centred course design. The resulting design of the part of the curriculum on research methods is presented. The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approach– To assess the outcomes and its response to the given challenges, the feedback from existing regular evaluations was used and additional surveys were conducted. Students’ perceptions and those of their teachers were combined to form a balanced view.Findings– The results indicate that the new curriculum is an appropriate approach- it led to gains in research methods knowledge and skills and improvements in research-related social and reflexive competencies. The assessment of the outcomes of learning research methods in management education reveals an interesting research gap.Originality/value– This paper assesses a newly developed research curriculum for management students implemented in a new master’s programme in Business Administration at a mid-size university of applied sciences in Switzerland. Three pedagogical challenges in teaching research methods were addressed to target the theory-practice gap in management education. The authors opted for a research methods curriculum that links management research and practice by encouraging pluralism in knowledge-production forms, a more holistic view of competence development in management education and a learning-centred course design.
Financial integration, global liquidity and global macroeconomic linkages
Authors: Belke Ansgar , Keil Jonas 
Published: December 2015

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to analyse the effect of financial integration on several macroeconomic variables from a global perspective.Design/methodology/approach– The authors apply a cointegrated vector autoregression model using quarterly data for 1980-2009. Analysing the interactions of globally aggregated measures capturing cross-border financial transactions, monetary liquidity, output, consumer and commodity prices, the authors focus on the dissection of short-run and long-run dynamics.Findings– The authors find that increasing financial integration has a positive impact driving GDP. The authors also find evidence of two-way causality between commodity prices and financial flows. The results suggest that commodity prices are driven by financial integration and the gap between the dynamics of commodity prices and financial flows is closed by global liquidity injected by central banks.Originality/value– The paper contributes to the empirical literature by analysing the overall impact of global financial integration and of global liquidity on global macroeconomic variables in a unified framework.
The role of lifelong learning on political stability and non violence: evidence from Africa
Authors: Asongu Simplice A. , Nwachukwu Jacinta C. 
Published: December 2015

Purpose– Education as a weapon in the fight against conflict and violence remains widely debated in policy and academic circles. Against the background of growing political instability in Africa and the central role of the knowledge economy in twenty-first century development, this paper provides three contributions to existing literature. The purpose of this paper is to assess how political stability/non-violence is linked to the incremental, synergy and lifelong learning effects of education.Design/methodology/approach– The authors define lifelong learning as the combined knowledge acquired during primary, secondary and tertiary education. Principal component analysis is used to reduce the dimensions of educational and political indicators. An endogeneity robust dynamic system Generalized Methods of Moments is used for the estimations.Findings– The authors establish three main findings. First, education is a useful weapon in the fight against political instability. Second, there is an incremental effect of education in the transition from secondary to tertiary schools. Third, lifelong learning also has positive and synergy effects. This means that the impact of lifelong learning is higher than the combined independent effects of various educational levels. The empirical evidence is based on 53 African countries for the period 1996-2010.Practical implications– A plethora of policy implications are discussed, inter alia: how the drive towards increasing the knowledge economy through lifelong learning can be an effective tool in the fight against violence and political insurgency in Africa.Originality/value– As the continent is nursing knowledge economy ambitions, the paper is original in investigating the determinants of political stability/non-violence from three dimensions of education attainment: the incremental, the lifelong learning and a synergy effect.
Internal and external determinants of banks’ profitability
Authors: Garcia Maria Teresa Medeiros , Guerreiro João Pedro Silva Martins 
Published: December 2015

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to analyze the profitability of 27 universal banks in Portugal over the period from 2002 to 2011.Design/methodology/approach– The paper conducts ordinary least squares estimations with fixed effects using three measures of profitability: the return on average assets, the return on average equity and the net interest margin. Several independent variables were included concerning both bank-specific and macroeconomic and industry-specific characteristics which have not been considered in previous studies. In addition, the sub-sample between 2008 and 2011 was considered for comparative analysis.Findings– The authors concluded that the independent variables selected, with few exceptions, behaved accordingly to what was expected.Originality/value– To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first attempt to examine determinants of banks’ profitability in Portugal, both internal and external, using time series data, which have not been considered in previous studies.
Back‐projection stacking of P‐ and S‐waves to determine location and focal mechanism of microseismic events recorded by a surface array
Authors: Vlček J. , Fischer T. , Vilhelm J. 
Published: December 2015

ABSTRACTWe present an automatic method of processing microseismic data acquired at the surface by a star‐like array. The back‐projection approach allows successive determination of the hypocenter position of each event and of its focal mechanisms. One‐component vertical geophone groups and three‐component accelerometers are employed to monitor both P‐ and S‐waves. Hypocenter coordinates are determined in a grid by back‐projection stacking of the short‐time‐average‐to‐long‐time‐average ratio of absolute amplitudes at vertical components and polarization norm derived from horizontal components of the P‐ and S‐waves, respectively. To make the location process more efficient, calculation is started with a coarse grid and zoomed to the optimum hypocenter using an oct‐tree algorithm. The focal mechanism is then determined by stacking the vertical component seismograms corrected for the theoretical P‐wave polarity of the focal mechanism. The mechanism is resolved in the coordinate space of strike, dip, and rake angles. The method is tested on 34 selected events of a dataset of hydraulic fracture monitoring of a shale gas play in North America. It was found that, by including S‐waves, the vertical accuracy of locations improved by a factor of two and is equal to approximately the horizontal location error. A twofold enhancement of horizontal location accuracy is achieved if a denser array of geophone groups is used instead of the sparse array of three‐component seismometers. The determined focal mechanisms are similar to those obtained by other methods applied to the same dataset.
Does the biogeographic origin of species matter? Ecological effects of native and non‐native species and the use of origin to guide management
Authors: Buckley Yvonne M. , Catford Jane 
Published: December 2015

Summary

The introduction and success of non‐native species are both a consequence and a cause of rapid global change. Humans have created novel ecosystems through environmental modification and mass movements of organisms around the planet.

It has been argued that species biogeographic origin cannot explain or predict ecological impacts and the origin of a species should not influence ecosystem management. This rejection of ‘origin’ is overly simplistic. Origin effects can arise through biased sampling of the types of species transported, the environmental and evolutionary context of their source environments and the communities and environments to which they are introduced. Differences in co‐evolutionary histories between source and recipient environments, and adaptation of introduced species to modified environmental conditions, can also shape origin effects.

The high rates and long distances of human‐mediated dispersal have increased the sizes of regional species pools. In addition, human transported, non‐native species can change the function of recipient ecosystems through changes to community composition. We outline how origin effects can cascade through to ecological impact at population, community and ecosystem levels.

Synthesis. Non‐native species can have predictable and preventable effects on recipient communities. We identify multiple sources of origin effects and describe the ecological and evolutionary pathways through which origin effects lead to impacts. This functional understanding of origin effects must include human actions. However, species origin should not, on its own, be used as a shortcut for management decisions; origin effects should instead feed into a process whereby ecologists work together with managers, policymakers and broader society to guide decisions on how to respond to the effects of non‐native species.
Facilitating native land reacquisition in the rural USA through collaborative research and Geographic Information Systems
Authors: Barcus Holly R. , Smith Laura J. 
Published: December 2015

AbstractA large proportion of American Indian reservation lands are owned by non‐Indian entities. A Geographic Information System (GIS) is a powerful tool for visualising land tenure changes, and public participation GIS (PPGIS) is one approach for using spatial technologies to facilitate the identification and reacquisition of reservation lands by tribes. While some tribes have successfully harnessed GIS for land management and for systematically identifying lands for reacquisition, others struggle to implement land management systems such as GIS for these purposes. This paper situates PPGIS in relation to other forms of participatory action research and outlines our use of a PPGIS framework to engage undergraduate geography students in the mapping of land tenure status on ten rural Minnesota Indian reservations as part of a collaborative partnership with the Indian Land Tenure Foundation (ILTF). A PPGIS framework allowed us to collaboratively define research goals in response to tribal community needs and provided structure for student work with partner reservations to develop and implement tailored mapping and analysis techniques. Two sets of findings are significant. First, the assembly of a standardised set of maps for American Indian reservations in Minnesota provides a tremendous visual and analytical resource for ILTF and individual tribes to pursue land reacquisition within reservation boundaries. Second, from a PPGIS perspective, we found that working with a coordinating or ‘bridging’ organisation provided key benefits by enabling education of both the student–faculty partners and the individual tribes. The PPGIS model empowered both partners by allowing tribes to harness a powerful technology to assist in visualising land‐based assets and allowing students to contribute to native land reacquisition efforts through application of their GIS skills. This mapping helps facilitate economic and cultural viability in tribal communities by providing an important visual catalogue of existing land‐based assets, in support of future land acquisition and economic development planning.
Shooting up illicit drugs with God and the State: the legal–spatial constitution of Sydney's Medically Supervised Injecting Centre as a sanctuary
Authors: Prior Jason , Crofts Penny 
Published: December 2015

AbstractIn 1999, the Uniting Church opened a Medically Supervised Injecting Centre (MSIC) at the Wayside Chapel in the inner Sydney suburb of Kings Cross. The Uniting Church justified this overt act of civil disobedience against the State's prohibitionist model of drug usage by invoking the ancient right of sanctuary. This invocation sought to produce a specific sort of spatialisation wherein the meaning of the line constituting sanctuary effects a protected ‘inside’ governed by God's word – civitas dei – ‘outside’ the jurisdiction of state power in civitas terrena. Sanctuary claims a territory exempt from other jurisdictions. The modern assertion of sanctuary enacts in physical space the relationship between state and religious authorities and the integration and intersections of civitas terrena and civitas dei. This article draws upon conceptions of sanctuary at the intersection of the Catholic Christianity tradition and the State since medieval times to analyse the contemporary space of sanctuary in the MSIC, exploring the shifting and ambiguous boundaries in material, legislative, and symbolic spaces. We argue that even though the MSIC has now been incorporated into civitas terrena, it remains and enacts a space of sanctuary.
Lactic acid bacteria as a cell factory for riboflavin production
Authors: Thakur Kiran , Tomar Sudhir Kumar , De Sachinandan 
Published: December 2015

SummaryConsumers are increasingly becoming aware of their health and nutritional requirements, and in this context, vitamins produced in situ by microbes may suit their needs and expectations. B groups vitamins are essential components of cellular metabolism and among them riboflavin is one of the vital vitamins required by bacteria, plants, animals and humans. Here, we focus on the importance of microbial production of riboflavin over chemical synthesis. In addition, genetic abilities for riboflavin biosynthesis by lactic acid bacteria are discussed. Genetically modified strains by employing genetic engineering and chemical analogues have been developed to enhance riboflavin production. The present review attempts to collect the currently available information on riboflavin production by microbes in general, while placing greater emphasis on food grade lactic acid bacteria and human gut commensals. For designing riboflavin‐enriched functional foods, proper selection and exploitation of riboflavin‐producing lactic acid bacteria is essential. Moreover, eliminating the in situ vitamin fortification step will decrease the cost of food production.
Recent developments in the behavioural and pharmacological enhancement of extinction of drug seeking
Authors: Chesworth Rose , Corbit Laura H. 
Published: December 2015

AbstractOne of the principal barriers to overcoming addiction is the propensity to relapse, even after months or years of abstinence. Relapse can be precipitated by cues and contexts associated with drug use; thus, decreasing the conditioned properties of these cues and contexts may assist in preventing relapse. The predictive power of drug cues and contexts can be reduced by repeatedly presenting them in the absence of the drug reinforcer, a process known as extinction. The potential of extinction to limit relapse has generated considerable interest and research over the past few decades. While pre‐clinical animal models suggest extinction learning assists relapse prevention, treatment efficacy is often lacking when extinction learning principles are translated into clinical trials. Conklin and Tiffany (Addiction, 2002) suggest the lack of efficacy in clinical practice may be due to limited translation of procedures demonstrated through animal research and propose several methodological improvements to enhance extinction learning for drug addiction. This review will examine recent advances in the behavioural and pharmacological manipulation of extinction learning, based on research from pre‐clinical models. In addition, the translation of pre‐clinical findings—both those suggested by Conklin and Tiffany () and novel demonstrations from the past 13 years—into clinical trials and the efficacy of these methods in reducing craving and relapse, where available, will be discussed. Finally, we highlight areas where promising pre‐clinical models have not yet been integrated into current clinical practice but, if applied, could improve upon existing behavioural and pharmacological methods.