The purpose of this dissertation is to demonstrate how individual consumers negotiate in the collective community in order to co-create value. By making use of the concepts of ‘resources’ from the Service Dominant Logic of Marketing and ‘cultural lens’ from Consumer Culture Theory, this dissertation considers both individual and collective interaction in order to demonstrate the roles of individual consumers in the value creation process and how the value creation process works. A comprehensive and up to date review of literature provides a guide to the theory and a path for research. This dissertation employed netnography to understand social and cultural aspects of consumption from an online football fan community. The data collection also included participant and non-participant observations, and local fans interviewings. Hermeneutical framework of interpretation was used to analyse data. The findings show that consumers can co-create value among themselves through the roles of ‘provider’ and ‘beneficiary’. It shows the dynamic movement of individual consumers within the continuous learning process of value creation. This dissertation demonstrates that brand community plays a role as a platform of value creation. Consumers can co-create value among themselves through the process of engaging, educating and enriching. The finding demonstrates active roles of consumers in value creation process. This dissertation also discusses how inequalities between resources of consumers in brand community can cause conflicts among them and how these conflicts stimulate consumers to co-create the collective resources. Within this process, consumers have collectively balanced the power through the social interaction in order to eliminate the domination and conflicts. This dissertation extends the previous researches in value creation within brand community by demonstrating how individual consumers engage and negotiated in value creation process. It contributes to respond working consumers and double exploitation through ‘sacrifice’.

In this study, John Gray&rsquo / s theory of value-pluralism is critically analyzed. Gray&rsquo / s modus vivendi, based on Isaiah Berlin&rsquo / s criticism of monism, is a theory that aims to create the conditions in which peace and diversity in late-modern societies can be protected. Gray argues that a legally pluralistic system where collectives have autonomy is more serving to peace than its liberal alternatives. This study argues that Gray fails to achieve its goal of promoting diversity. This is due to the fact that Gray&rsquo / s theory does not recognize &lsquo / personal autonomy&rsquo / and &lsquo / right of exit&rsquo / as standards for a legitimate regime. It is argued in this study that without &lsquo / personal autonomy&rsquo / and &lsquo / right of exit&rsquo / , legally pluralist systems curb the conditions that makes diversity possible and thereby work at the expense of diversity rather than for diversity.

The purpose of this study is to discuss the appropriateness of a cognitive approach to Donald Davidson&#039 / s meaning theory. Davidson makes the bold proposal that a truth theory, modified for a natural language, may be treated as a meaning theory for that language. According to Davidson, a meaning theory is an empirical theory. Radical Interpretation is at the center of such an empirical inquiry which places restrictions on the truth theory to make it suitable as a meaning theory without appeal to semantic notions. Davidson&lsquo / s aim in presenting this bold proposal and radical interpretation is to shed light on the concept of meaning, not to define the actual semantic competence of language users. But what Davidson&lsquo / s project does not aim to define is the main thing that a cognitive approach must account for. Whether a truth theory can represent the semantic competence of language users is discussed in this work. It is concluded that, although there is no a priori reason for such a representation claim, the cognitive approach&mdash / with the right assumptions to make the claim testable&mdash / can lead to an empirical research programme.

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This aim of this thesis is to contribute to the debate about the best approach to engage citizens with sustainable behaviour. It is generally agreed that „bottom-up‟ approaches, where individuals are actively involved, are more effective than „top-down‟ authority-led projects where they have a more passive role. There is, however, a dearth of evidence from comparative evaluations. This thesis examines six distinct communication activities aimed at encouraging individuals to adopt more sustainable behaviours. Each used a different approach, some participative and others more top-down informational. Two questionnaires were used to gather data. The first was conducted at the time of the activity; the second between four and five weeks later and included questions about behaviour change. Variables from Petty and Cacioppo‟s Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), such as perceptions about a message and its source, and variables which Ajzen‟s Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) proposes as being key to behaviour change, such as subjective norms and attitudes, were used to see if these identified any difference in outcome. Findings indicate support for the added value of a bottom-up approach compared to other mechanisms and identify that this may be partly explained by the extent to which such activities offer a more supportive environment for behaviour change to take place. The measures used in this study may be useful to others seeking to evaluate behaviour change communication campaigns or those comparing different communicative approaches.

Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASCs) are marked by social-communicative difficulties and unusually fixed or repetitive interests, activities, and behaviors (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). In this thesis, I review empirically and conceptually based philosophic proposals that maintain the social-communicative difficulties exhibited by persons on the autism spectrum result from a lack of capacity to understand other persons as minded. I will argue that the social-communicative difficulties that characterize ASCs may instead result from a lack of ability to access other minds, and that this lack of ability is due to a contingent lack of external resources.

The study locates Susurluk Affair into the legal-political theory, around an axis passing through two standpoints that defines the state either as a legal or as a political institution. Two words, Susurluk Affair refer to an accumulation of incidents and relationships that point to extra-legal activities of the state that are revealed by a traffic accident in Turkey. Susurluk Affair and similar cases of extra-legal activities of the state are frequent in modern political life, although the modern state is founded on the presumption of legal use of public authority. Susurluk Affair is discussed with reference to Max Weber&amp / #8217 / s and J&uuml / rgen Habermas&amp / #8217 / s theories of the rule of law, and Hans Kelsen&amp / #8217 / s legal positivism, both of which provide perspectives that define the state as a legal institution, and from the viewpoints of doctrine of raison d&amp / #8217 / etat and Carl Schmitt&amp / #8217 / s theories of the political and sovereignty that conceptualize the state as a political institution. Susurluk Affair can be interpreted in accordance with Weber&amp / #8217 / s, Habermas&amp / #8217 / s and Kelsen&amp / #8217 / s theoretical standpoints either as a deficiency in legitimacy or violations by certain persons, however it can be interpreted as activities for maintaining the state in the framework of the doctrine of raison d&amp / #8217 / etat. On the other hand, the Schmittian approach acknowledges extra-legal activities of the state, but Susurluk Affair cannot be interpreted as a case of deciding the exception in the Schmittian sense.

The present study aimed to analyze the applicability of legal theories ImprevisÃo and avoidable damage in minimizing the effects of uncertainty in the agribusiness contracts. To examine such application, first, secondary data extracted from time series database of IBGE and IPEA-DATA in the estimation of an econometric model, where methods of time series, unit root test, test were employed were worked co-integration Johansen model vector error correction and variance decomposition of forecast errors. This econometric procedure aims to demonstrate margins of errors in the prognosis of future data. The sample period covers January 2007 to December 2011. As an additional function was taken concomitantly, a research field whose basic aim was to characterize the contractual relationship of an agribusiness production chain. The supply chain was chosen the culture of cashew in the state of CearÃ. The set of results in a systemic way, demonstrates that despite all the caring of economic agents in running a successful strategic planning within their productive activity, there is always a "gray area", under the impenetrable human perspective, imbued with extraordinary facts and unpredictable that when they occur, cause imbalance in contracts. This means that the fatality not envisioned by econometric methods, the legal instruments supplementing them in order to adjust the contracts, rebalancing them again. / O presente trabalho se propÃs analisar a aplicabilidade das teorias jurÃdicas da ImprevisÃo e dos Danos evitÃveis na minimizaÃÃo dos efeitos da incerteza no contratos de agronegÃcio. Para examinar referida aplicaÃÃo, primeiramente, foram trabalhados dados secundÃrios extraÃdos de sÃries histÃricas do banco de dados do IBGE e IPEA-DATA na estimaÃÃo de um modelo economÃtrico, onde foram empregados mÃtodos de sÃries de tempo, teste de raiz unitÃria, teste de co-integraÃÃo de Johansen, modelo de vetor de correÃÃo de erros e decomposiÃÃo da variÃncia de erros de previsÃo. Tal procedimento economÃtrico tem o objetivo de demonstrar margens de erros no prognostico de dados futuros. O perÃodo analisado abrange janeiro de 2007 a dezembro de 2011. Em uma funÃÃo suplementar foi feita, concomitantemente, uma pesquisa de campo cujo intuito basilar foi caracterizar a relaÃÃo contratual de uma cadeia produtiva do agronegÃcio. A cadeia produtiva escolhida foi a cultura da castanha de caju no Estado do CearÃ. O conjunto de resultados, de forma sistÃmica, demonstra que, apesar de todo zelo dos agentes econÃmicos em executar um bom planejamento estratÃgico dentro de sua atividade produtiva, sempre hà uma âzona obscuraâ, impenetrÃvel sob a Ãtica humana, impregnada de fatos extraordinÃrios e imprevisÃveis que, quando de sua ocorrÃncia, causam desequilÃbrio nos contratos. Isso significa que, na fatalidade nÃo antevista pelos mÃtodos economÃtricos, os instrumentos jurÃdicos suplementando-os, de forma a reajustar os contratos, reequilibrando-os novamente.

The study deals with the problem of applicability of two anthropological theories, structural functionalism and interpretive anthropology of Clifford Geertz. By applicability is meant what concrete difference using of one or the other theory brings about in ethnography. Each of the theories is at first thoroughly examined with emphasis on its possible aims, assumptions, and consequences for an ethnographer. Then each theory is put to test in examination of one particular ethnography associated with the theory. Evans-Pritchard's The Nuer serves as an instance of structural functionalism. Clifford Geertz's Negara as an example of interpretative analysis. Structural functionalism is shown to provide an ethnographer with a much more definite guidance which contributes to better possibilities of verification and comparability of the results than interpretive anthropology. Apart from the main subject, the study is concerned with more general questions, especially related to non-existence of a paradigm in anthropology and some of its causes.

In today’s society, environmental concern might be at a historical peak. 2778 companies in 60 countries have now acquired the Benefit-Corporation (B-Corp) Certification in attempts to demonstrate their environmental responsibility. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of implementing the B-Corp Certification in a USA automotive dealership on employee pro-environmental behavior and life satisfaction, with consideration of the moderating role of commitment to the B-Corp Certification. A within-group quasi-experimental design was used to investigate the effects of the certification over a 5-month period through self-reported measures. Thirty-three employees participated in this study. One-way repeated-measures ANOVA was conducted to measure differences in employee pro-environmental behavior before and after the implementation of the B-Corp Certification. Through bivariate correlations the relationship between employee pro-environmental behavior and life satisfaction was analyzed. Partial correlation was used to test the moderating role of commitment in determining the strength of the implementation on employee pro-environmental behavior. There was no difference between pre- and post-measurements of employee pro-environmental behavior. Commitment to the B-Corp Certification did not moderate the effectiveness of the implementation of the B-Corp Certification on employee pro-environmental behavior. Additionally, no relationship was found between pro-environmental behavior and life satisfaction. Finally, results are discussed within the context of industrial- and organizational(IO) psychology, as are the implications for future research and interventions aimed at increasingemployee pro-environmental behaviors.