bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Do perceived CSR initiatives enhance customer preference and loyalty in casinos?
Authors: Tingchi Liu Matthew , Anthony Wong Ipkin , Rongwei Chu , Tseng Ting-Hsiang 
Published: October 2014

Purpose
– This study aims to investigate how perceptions associated with corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives influence customers’ preference and loyalty in a controversial consumer market. The mediating effect of brand preference between perceived CSR initiatives and customer loyalty is also examined.

Design/methodology/approach
– The methodology in the current study involves the use of questionnaire surveys delivered to a convenience sample in the city of Macau in 2012. A total of 616 valid samples were collected among casino players in a high bet limit area in six major casinos. Regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses formulated for carrying the study forward.

Findings
– The findings indicated that customers’ brand preference can be enhanced by their perceptions on CSR. Two CSR initiatives (stakeholders and society) significantly increase loyalty intention, although to varying degrees. The impact of CSR on stakeholders has a stronger influence on customers’ brand preference. Another important finding of the current study is the fact that brand preference is a partial mediator of perceived CSR initiatives and customer loyalty.

Research limitations/implications
– This study verified the relationship among CSR initiatives perception, brand preference and loyalty intention in the context of the Macau gaming industry. Perceived CSR initiatives enhance customer loyalty. Additionally, this study found a partial mediating effect of brand preference between CSR perception and customer loyalty.

Practical implications
– Customer loyalty can be enhanced with companies’ appropriate investments in social responsibilities. Although a socially responsible brand image of a company is not guaranteed to be a competitive advantage that attracts more premium customers, there is a general consensus that it may result in the latter with appropriate CSR strategies involving the greatest attention directed toward improving stakeholders’ interests. From the marketing perspective, retaining premium customers with a higher brand preference level is a key to both long-term competitiveness and profitability.

Originality/value
– This study investigates how premium customers’ perceived CSR initiatives of a casino influence their loyalty intention, and also examines how brand preference, as a mediator, influences the relationship between perceived CSR and loyalty intention. Extending the realm of CSR study to understand the linkage between CSR and customer behaviors is also important because multiple theories predict different benefits, and assessing the value of CSR, therefore, requires multiple approaches. Finally, evidence from the research is significant for researchers and practitioners, especially when working on conflicting issues.
Attractor landscapes and reaction functions in escalation and de-escalation
Authors: G. Pruitt Dean , Nowak Andrzej 
Published: October 2014

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast two formal models of escalation and de-escalation: the attractor landscape model and the S-shaped reaction function model. Also, the paper aims to enumerate conditions that affect the shape and location of reaction functions and, hence, the stability of less and more escalated states.

Design/methodology/approach
– Both models are presented together with geometric proofs of the main assertions of the second model. Overlap and comparative strengths of the models are reviewed. Parts of the social science literature are synthesized in a discussion of the antecedents of stability.

Findings
– Though derived from totally different traditions, these models are similar in their basic assumptions and predictions. Each model has value. The attractor landscape model is easier to grasp and contains a concept of resistance to escalation that is not found in the S-shaped reaction function model. The latter model looks at individual parties rather than the dyad as a whole and, thus, offers an explanation for most of the phenomena described by the former model. It also allows identification of many variables that affect the shape and location of reaction functions and, hence, can be viewed as antecedents of escalation and de-escalation.

Research limitations/implications
– Seven testable hypotheses are presented in the Conclusions section. Laboratory tasks for testing such hypotheses have yet to be developed and there is only one study employing real-life measures. However, it is clear that once research on these phenomena really begins, new variables will be found that moderate the strength of the effects hypothesized.

Practical implications
– The models provide concepts for thinking about how to avoid runaway escalation and promote runaway de-escalation. The variables mentioned in the hypotheses suggest ways to diminish the likelihood of runaway escalation and can also be used for constructing measures of the likelihood of that phenomenon. The theories also imply that when the likelihood of runaway escalation increases, disputants should be doubly careful to avoid initiating escalative behavior.

Originality/value
– The article is original in that the S-shaped reaction function model is refined and further developed and the proofs are new. The comparison between the models is also new, as is most of the enumeration of conditions affecting the stability of low and high escalation. The value of the article is to provide concepts and theory for thinking about escalation and de-escalation, and testable hypotheses for studying these phenomena.
Employee loyalty and organizational performance: a critical survey
Authors: Guillon Olivia , Cezanne Cécile 
Published: October 2014

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to clarify the relationship between employee loyalty and organizational performance. It starts with the idea that the employee loyalty creates value for the organization. This statement is widely endorsed in the literature although there is little consensus on the definition of loyalty. The paper proposes a refined synthesis of the literature on the link between employee loyalty and organizational performance.Design/methodology/approach– The paper addresses the question of whether there is a robust positive link between employee loyalty and organizational performance. The paper starts by reviewing the various, sometimes divergent, approaches to employee loyalty in the literature and then compare the different indicators of loyalty in relation to their relevance to different indicators of performance.Findings– The paper provides a critical overview of the different existing conceptions of employee loyalty. It points out ambiguity about both the theoretical contours of the concept, and practical means of making it a source of value for the organization. The paper shows that the link between employee loyalty and performance varies according to the type of indicators used.Research limitations/implications– The paper highlights a variety of indicators for employee loyalty to their firm and for organizational performance. But much research remains to be conducted, notably on the managerial levers that might consolidate or improve organizational performance.Originality/value– This paper fulfills an identified need to survey a fragmented theoretical field of analysis.
Beyond statistics: a new rhetoric for investment theory
Authors: Pistorius Thomas 
Published: October 2014

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to analyse the current rhetoric of predictability in investment theory. After making the case for unpredictability, a new rhetoric for investment theory is proposed.

Design/methodology/approach
– McCloskey's project of the rhetoric of economics provides the background and approach for the author's investigation. In particular the author will use the notions of metaphor, prediction, discourse analysis, and virtue ethics.

Findings
– The current rhetoric equals the original rhetoric in the seminal work of Markowitz. The current rhetoric is based on predictability and rational behaviour. The proposed new rhetoric for investment theory denies predictability. The new rhetoric aims to cope with statistics by stressing that statistics is supportive but not decisive: handling investment theory is about judgements, combining virtues with historical and theoretical insights.

Practical implications
– The investigation of the rhetoric of investment theory has practical relevance because the theory constitutes investment practice, and can put financial wealth at risk. The new rhetoric for investment theory invites practitioners and researchers to reflect on the epistemology of investment theory, and its consequences for the field.

Originality/value
– The rhetoric of investment theory is to the author's knowledge not yet analysed in the literature. The rhetorical analysis of the current rhetoric and the proposal of a new rhetoric aim to contribute to the literature on the rhetoric of investment theory.
Framing financial culture – rhetorical struggles over the meaning of “Liborgate”
Authors: Just Sine Nørholm , Mouton Nico 
Published: October 2014

Purpose
– The meaning of scandals like “Liborgate” is not given beforehand; it is constructed in the course of framing contests. The purpose of this paper is to provide a nuanced framework for understanding such framing contests by re-conceptualizing them as rhetorical struggles.

Design/methodology/approach
– A conceptual framework that combines modern framing theory, and classical stasis theory is applied to the rhetorical struggles over the meaning of “Liborgate.”

Findings
– While rhetorical struggles over “Liborgate” overtly center on the issue of who is to blame, an analysis of the argumentative relations between competing frames leads to the conclusion that this political “blame game” is related to struggles over how to define the scandal, how to conceptualize its causes, and policy recommendations. Banks may have lost the battle of “Liborgate,” but the war over the meaning of financial culture is far from over.

Originality/value
– The paper is theoretically and methodologically original in its combination of the theories of framing and stasis, and it provides analytical insights into how sense is made of financial culture in the wake of the financial crisis.
Discourse phronesis in organizational change: a narrative analysis
Authors: Jansson Noora 
Published: October 2014

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to examine how discursive practices are involved in organizational change.

Design/methodology/approach
– This research scrutinizes organizational change by combining discourse and practice approaches. A case study at a public university hospital is conducted with a narrative analysis method.

Findings
– The key finding of this research is that discursive practices are involved in organizational change through discourse phronesis. Discourse phronesis is a socially and contextually developed phenomenon, and hence discursive practices are particular within context. The case study revealed four particular discursive practices as examples of discourse phronesis: field practices, mandate practices, priority practices and word practices.

Practical implications
– The results of this research advance awareness of the concealed power within discursive practices and, more importantly, invite practitioners to pursue the intellectual virtue of discourse phronesis while implementing organizational change. Discourse phronesis may be utilized as a gateway to advance change goals and to translate various discourses and actions that otherwise might remain unexplained.

Originality/value
– Although extensively studied, organizational change has not previously been directly approached through discourse phronesis, and by doing so this empirical research provides novelty value to both organizational change research and discourse analysis. By introducing the concept of discourse phronesis, this research offers scholars an alternative lens, the intellectual practicality lens, through which to approach organizational change and perhaps to develop new understandings of the great challenges that organizational change complexities usually generate.
Project specification: creativity and rhetoric in scientific research
Authors: Nadal-Burgues Nuria 
Published: October 2014

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to identify different types of project in relation to their degree of specification and the creative possibilities that more highly specified projects offer researchers.

Design/methodology/approach
– This paper presents the limitations of project management methods when managing research in relation to creativity. If projects are rigorously formulated and fulfill the requirements of project management, they may be compared to a mechanical task in which active decision making no longer applies. The conceptual framework develops the study of the spaces of creativity that research projects offer based on intentional action in which the notion of project is considered to be more flexible than that of more traditional approaches, and the notion of judgment is seen as a source of creativity. The empirical research presents the study of two scientific projects and compares their degree of the goal and task specification, the time required to specify them and how creativity emerges from routinized activities.

Findings
– The spaces of creative possibilities in projects are related in two ways: first, these spaces are related to a critical view of the concepts of repeated action and routines, and second, they are related to the ways researchers use projects and the methods of project management not only as a method but also as a form of rhetoric.

Originality/value
– Constituting a contribution to organizational change and innovation theory that enlarges the concept of project and brings understanding of how researchers define their projects, confront project specifications and are creative in a constrained framework.
Athletic identity – or an autoethnography of almost losing a leg
Authors: Zavattaro Staci 
Published: October 2014

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to use autoethnography to explore notions of self-identity formation and projection. The author uses the stages of grief as an analytical tool to explain athletic identity formation and personal effects when an injury removed that part of her self.Design/methodology/approach– The paper uses autoethnography, a self-reflective, qualitative methodology meant to engage the researcher's personal experience, which then is potentially adapted and understood by others in similar situations. Autoethnography might pair personal research with existing analytical frameworks and theories, as this story does.Findings–The author realized that losing, even temporarily, self-identifying characteristics (here, athletic identity) affects self-esteem, social interactions, and future motion-based endeavors, for fear of starting the cycle of grief again.Originality/value– The paper is valuable, as many people are “weekend warrior” athletes that identity as a runner, cyclist, triathlete, weight lifter, or general gymgoer. Someone might sustain an injury that leaves him or her feeling similar to the author – and can help them understand the importance of athletic identity. The paper also shows how a well-known framework, stages of grief, can be used not solely as an explanatory tool but an analytical one as well.
Political reflexivity in post-bushfire research
Authors: Gibbs Lisa , MacDougall Colin , Block Karen 
Published: October 2014

Purpose– Post-disaster research presents particular challenges for the qualitative researcher due to the wider contextual demands of media attention, public debates and intense scrutiny of policy and service delivery. It highlights the importance of reflexive practice to identify and address any unintended influences on the research processes and outcomes. The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approach– In this paper the authors present three case studies of post-bushfire research to demonstrate how the authors adopted a reflexive approach to address external pressures on the conduct and presentation of the research.Findings– There are various types of reflexivity identified in the literature to identify influences on the research participant and the research findings arising, for example, from the way the researcher shapes the research findings (personal reflexivity), and the influence of the research process (epistemological reflexivity). In this paper the authors argue for a different reflexivity: one that is political and has a direct influence on the researcher.Practical implications– Adoption of political reflexivity is an important tool in post-disaster research to ensure that external influences do not undermine the integrity of the research processes, findings and dissemination.Originality/value– The importance of reflexivity in research is well recognized as a means of addressing power and unintended influences on research participants and research processes. The authors introduce the notion of political reflexivity to this debate in recognition of the need to address the potential for research findings and reports to be compromised by political agendas.
Support for the Far Right in the 2014 European Parliament Elections: A Comparative Perspective
Authors: HALIKIOPOULOU DAPHNE , VASILOPOULOU SOFIA 
Published: October 2014

AbstractThe May 2014 European Parliament (EP) elections were characterised by the success of far‐right Eurosceptic parties, including the French Front National, UKIP, the Danish People's Party, the Hungarian Jobbik, the Austrian FPÖ, the True Finns and the Greek Golden Dawn. However, a closer look at the results across Europe indicates that the success of far‐right parties in the EP elections is neither a linear nor a clear‐cut phenomenon: (1) the far right actually declined in many European countries compared to the 2009 results; (2) some of the countries that have experienced the worst of the economic crisis, including Spain, Portugal and Ireland, did not experience a significant rise in far‐right party support; and (3) ‘far right’ is too broad an umbrella term, covering parties that are too different from each other to be grouped in one single party family.
Britain First: The ‘Frontline Resistance’ to the Islamification of Britain
Authors: ALLEN CHRIS 
Published: October 2014

AbstractThe British National Party and English Defence League forged new frontiers in British political spaces in relation to anti‐Islam, anti‐Muslim ideologies. Whereas the former sought to do so in formal political arenas, the latter did so as a street‐level movement. With the subsequent waning of both, Britain First has emerged seemingly to fill the political void they left. In many ways, Britain First combines the strategies and actions of the parties that preceded it, at both the formal and street levels. This article considers what is known about Britain First, about its history, development and its ideology, and how this is manifested in terms of its political strategies and actions. This includes such activities as standing for European elections and also undertaking ‘Christian patrols’ and mosque ‘invasions’. The article considers how Britain First, while having some similarities with the BNP and EDL, is more confrontational and militaristic and is informed by apocalyptic Christianity.
Production of a transglutaminase from Zea mays in Escherichia coli and its impact on yoghurt properties
Authors: Li Hongbo , Cui Yanhua , Zhang Lanwei , Luo Xue , Fan Rongbo , Xue Chaohui , Wang Shumei , Liu Wenli , Zhang Shuang , Jiao Yuehua , Du Ming , Yi Huaxi , Han Xue 
Published: October 2014

A gene from Zea mays coding a TGase was expressed in E. coli and identified by Western blotting. Under optimal expression conditions, the production and specific activity of refolded TGZ were 1.41 mg/L and 0.34 U/mg. The activated TGZ was employed to cross‐link milk proteins. The yoghurt treated with TGZ showed a lower syneresis, higher apparent viscosity and texture than untreated yoghurt. The properties of TGZ‐treated sample were better than those of MTG‐treated samples, so TGZ may have potential as an additive in yoghurt manufacture.
Brief sexuality communication—a behavioural intervention to advance sexually transmitted infection/HIVprevention: a systematic review
Authors: Cooper B , Toskin I , Kulier R , Allen T , Hawkes S 
Published: October 2014

BackgroundThroughout the last decade substantial research has been undertaken to develop evidence‐based behaviour change interventions for sexual health promotion. Primary care could provide an opportunistic entry for brief sexual health communication.ObjectivesWe conducted a systematic review to explore opportunistic sexual and reproductive health services for sexual health communication delivered at primary health care level.Search strategyWe searched for studies on PubMed, ProQuest,CINAHL, Jstor, Scopus/Science Direct, Cochrane database of systematic reviews,EBSCO,CINAHL, PsychoInfo, and Web of Knowledge. Both published and unpublished articles were reviewed.Selection criteriaAll randomised controlled trials and controlled clinical trials were included. Participants of all ages, from adolescence onwards were included. Brief (10–60 minutes) interventions including some aspect of communication on sexual health issues were included.Data collection and analysisData were extracted by two reviewers independently using a standardised form. Interventions differed from each other, hence meta‐analysis was not performed, and results are presented individually.Main resultsA total of 247 articles were selected for full‐text evaluation, 31 of which were included. Sexually transmitted infections (STIs)/HIVwere less often reported in the intervention group compared with the control group. Condom use was higher in most studies in the intervention group. Numbers of sexual partners and unprotected sexual intercourse were lower in the intervention groups.ConclusionsThere is evidence that brief counselling interventions have some effect in the reduction and prevention ofSTIs/HIV. Some questions could not be answered, such as the effect over time and in different settings and population groups.
The increase of sexually transmitted infections calls for simultaneous preventive intervention for more effectively containing HIV epidemics in China
Authors: Zheng N , Guo Y , Padmadas S , Wang B , Wu Z 
Published: October 2014

ObjectiveTo identify the priority public health challenges with respect to the development of multipurpose prevention technologies in China.DesignReview of published literature, databases of state and local disease control agencies and unpublished data relating to HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs).SettingChina.PopulationGeneral and migrant populations.MethodsReview of published data, government reports and databases of China Disease Control agencies, and our unpublished studies.Main outcome measuresReported STI incidence, particularly HIV, syphilis, chlamydia and genital herpes, and the migrant population with respect to disease transmission.ResultsWe found that the reported STI incidence increases along with that of HIV and showed significant geographic overlap with HIV. Economic migrant workers may facilitate the spread of STIs, including HIV.ConclusionsTo more effectively contain the HIV epidemic, it is imperative to develop preventive measures to simultaneously target HIV and other STIs. We recommend that the development of multipurpose prevention technologies in China should target HIV and STIs.