Background: Alcohol has become ubiquitous in Swedish lifestyle blogs, as alcohol can be present in one third or one fifth of blog posts in some of Sweden’s biggest lifestyle blogs. Research suggests that exposure to media and commercial communications on alcohol increases consumption and that users and user-generated content related to alcohol and drinking may intensify social norms around alcohol consumption. This means Swedish lifestyle bloggers may be exposing alcohol and creating social normative influence that can affect blog readers’ intention to consume alcohol. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis was to explore if and how the presence of alcoholic beverages on Swedish blogs may affect young females’ intention to pursue alcohol consumption. Firstly, the study looks at to what extent and how alcoholic beverages and alcohol-related activities appear on Swedish lifestyle blogs. Secondly, the study explores if the presence of alcohol in blogs is recognised by blog readers and if they perceive this to affect their own and others' intention to consume alcohol. Method: This thesis has two different data collections to fulfil the purpose of the study. First a web content analysis is conducted on eight Swedish blogs to explore the presence of alcohol. Thereafter semi-structured interviews are conducted with nine respondents. The findings are compared to previous findings and analysed from theories on behavioural change. Conclusion: Alcohol and alcohol-related activities are depicted frequently in some of Sweden’s biggest lifestyle blogs when variation between blogs and monthly variance per blog are considered. Alcohol is put in a favourable setting through a positive or a commercial context. Blog readers perceive blog posts to contain positive alcohol content, and claim others may be affected to consume alcohol by these as bloggers have influence empowered by their social status. A majority of respondents claim they themselves are not affected by blog posts with alcohol. It is suggested this is because subjective attitude towards alcohol and a belief of personal control has stronger impact on intention to pursue alcohol-related activities. Another suggestion is that more salient and ready accessible referents such as parents, family and friends are deemed more important in affecting norms around alcohol through individuals’ perceived view of these referents’ desires and actions.

Companies increasingly believe that sponsorship, and in particular sport sponsorship, can help them achieve their respective strategic objectives. Achieving sales objectives are especially important in the context of sport sponsorship, given that managers are under increasing pressure to justify their sponsorship expenditure, and that over two-thirds of all sponsorships are directed towards sports properties. However, isolating a sponsorship s contribution to a company s sales figures is difficult to accomplish, and even if this were possible, understanding the mechanisms behind consumers behavioural responses to that respective sponsorship would still constitute a challenge. Hence, understanding consumers behavioural purchase intentions, and what drives these intentions within sponsorship contexts, is of paramount importance. That said, little is known about what drives consumers purchase intentions in sponsorship settings. A greater understanding of consumers behavioural intentions within concurrent sponsorship settings is necessary. Concurrent sponsorships involve multiple brands sponsoring a property at the same time. As such, they are a more realistic and common sponsorship context than simple sponsor-sponsee dyads are. It is important to examine concurrent sponsorships because a collective is formed when multiple sponsors are involved. In turn, social psychology highlights that a collective is characterised by the degree to which its a priori members are perceived as a group. Groups are perceived qualitatively differently to dyads, and can also be perceived differently to the sum of their respective constituent parts. Moreover, the extent to which people perceive a collective as a group can impact upon their subsequent evaluations of that group and that group s actions. Consequently, consumers evaluations of a sponsee s concurrent sponsors and the sponsee itself may be affected by how concurrent sponsorships are perceived, which in turn may affect consumers behavioural intentions. Hence, it is imperative that concurrent sponsorship contexts are investigated. That said, there is scant literature investigating concurrent sponsorships, with sponsorship research historically focussing on sponsor-sponsee dyadic settings. This thesis contributes to our understanding of concurrent sponsorship settings of major sporting events by examining how people s perceptions of concurrent sponsors entitativity influence both their purchase intentions towards a focal concurrent sponsor and their sponsee equity evaluations. An online questionnaire, utilising sponsorship vignettes (scenarios) as part of a factorial survey design, was sent to respondents of a mid-sized UK-based university. Scenarios were used to manipulate respondents into perceiving two concurrent sponsorship settings: a concurrent official providers sponsorship setting and a concurrent official financers sponsorship setting. Hypotheses were tested through Lisrel 8.71 where confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM) were performed. The results in both sponsorship contexts (concurrent official providers and concurrent official financers ) appear to be very similar. Specifically, the results suggest that people s entitativity perceptions are positively related to their sponsee equity evaluations, which in turn are positively associated with people s purchase intentions. Entitativity is also positively associated with consumers intentions to purchase from a concurrent sponsor but only when consumers attribute high levels of sincerity towards that sponsor. The one significant difference between the two sponsorship types (official providers and official financers) in the study concerns how sincerity affects the entitativity-sponsee equity relationship. People s attributions of sincerity moderate the relationship between entitativity and sponsee equity in the official provider concurrent sponsorship context, such that the entitativity-sponsee equity relationship becomes stronger. However, people s attributions of sponsor sincerity do not affect the entitativity-sponsee equity relationship in the official financer concurrent sponsorship context. A post-hoc examination of repondents entitativity ratings also suggests people perceive official providers as being significantly more entitative than they do official financers. This study makes a number of contributions to both theory and management practice. For example, the study demonstrates how the entitativity concept, found within social psychology, can be applied to concurrent sponsorship settings, such that people s behavioural intentions towards a sponsee and a concurrent sponsor, are influenced by their concurrent sponsor entitativity perceptions. Following this, concurrent sponsors and sponsee rights holders should consider how sponsors can foster people s entitativity perceptions whilst at the same time communicate sincere motives for their respective sponsee sponsorships, as sincerity perceptions are important too. This would not only help the sponsee s rights holder by increasing sponsee equity but the results also suggest that people are more likely to purchase from a concurrent sponsor. That said, this may lead to further difficulties between sponsors and sponsees rights holders. For example, sponsees rights holders may be perceived as needing sponsorships as opposed to being able to command them, which in turn could lead to difficult sponsorship negotiations between rights holders and potential sponsors. Second, the business and marketing acumens of sponsees rights holders are generally regarded to be lower than that of sponsors . In fact, sponsors often act independently of sponsees rights holders when making sponsorship leveraging decisions and investments, and this is partly because sponsees rights holders are not proactive enough in working with the sponsors. Therefore, if sponsees rights holders do not have the capabilities to help sponsors foster entitative and sincere sponsorship contexts, sponsors may be unwilling to renew their sponsorship deals or even set up their own events.

Despite the significance of understanding the reasons under which talented individuals are more likely or less likely to quit, the nature of the relationship between Human Resource Management Practices (HRMPs) and turnover intentions has proven to be unclear. Prior studies suggest that talented employees’ turnover imposes significant negative impact on organisational performance, e.g. decrease in productivity, profitability, innovation, serviceability and morale of remaining employees. Likewise, a serious talented Frontline Managers (FLMs) turnover is observed in the private banks of Pakistan. The corresponding reason identified is their dissatisfaction with existing conventional HRMPs, which are typically bureaucratic in nature with no provision of training and development, and lack appreciation, seniority-based pay and promotions. Owing to these factors, FLMs are switching towards reputable government and multinational organisations. In fact, FLMs play an important role in the development and success of banks. To investigate this issue, the present study elaborates an examination of the use of synergistic HRMPs in an on-going effort to control the talented FLMs’ turnover intentions. Precisely, it examines the impact of two formative bundles, namely, skills-enhancing practices (SEPs, i.e. training and development) and motivation-enhancing practices (MEPs, i.e. pay, promotion, recognition and job security) on FLMs’ turnover intentions through organisational commitment. The research methodology employs a positivist philosophy, deductive approach and a quantitative method followed by a survey-based research design. A total of 500 questionnaires were distributed through random sampling technique; 344 questionnaires were finalised for analysis. PLS-SEM was used to test the research hypotheses. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the findings of this study indicate that both SEPs and MEPs demonstrate no significant direct impact on talented FLMs’ turnover intentions. However, organisational commitment (OC) has been found to fully mediate the relationships between both HRM bundles and FLMs’ turnover intentions. This research contributes to HRM literature particularly in the area of HRMPs—Turnover relationships. Furthermore, this study reveals that socio-economic relationships can be used to influence FLMs’ OC and turnover intentions. The findings further suggest that adoption of effective SEPs and MEPs in local banks enhance talented FLMs’ skills and motivation which eventually reduce their turnover intentions. Additionally, this study highlights the important and critical role of OC in HRMPs—turnover relationships, particularly in the Pakistani banking sector and further recommends management to review their HRMPs, which not only tend to reduce turnover but also lead to FLMs’ enhanced enthusiasm to serve.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Hospitality Management and Dietetics / Deborah Canter / Chihyung Ok / As the number of older adults increases so does the demand for housing and personal care needs. The continuing care retirement community is unique from other senior care facilities as it provides a continuum of housing and care that caters towards an individual’s need. Foodservice is often utilized to attract older adults into retirement facilities. Such service would give residents additional opportunities to socialize with service workers as well as other patrons of the restaurant. Yet, few studies have focused on the roles of food and dining service on resident’s satisfaction with foodservice and their quality of life. Study 1 examined the relationships between residents’ perception of individual customer orientation of service employee dimensions: technical skills, social skills, motivation, and decision-making authority, with relational benefits, satisfaction and subsequent behavioral outcomes: repurchase intention and word-of-mouth. Study 2 explored the moderating effects of resident’s activity involvement and food involvement on the relationships between rapport, dining-need satisfaction and resident’s quality of life. To achieve the objectives of these studies, 412 continuing care retirement community residents from five facilities completed a self-report questionnaire. Of these, 354 were used in study 1 and study 2. Findings of the structural equation modeling (Study 1) suggested that resident’s perception of foodservice employee’s technical skills, social skills and motivation were important determinants of confidence and social benefits that led to residents’ overall satisfaction with foodservice. Satisfied resident-consumer is likely to engage in word-of-mouth and repurchase intention. Results of hierarchical multiple regressions (Study 2) revealed that perceived rapport and resident’s dining-need satisfaction are positively related to resident’s quality of life. This study also found that activity involvement and food involvement moderated the relationships between rapport and dining-need satisfaction with quality of life respectively. That is, the more involved resident has an improved quality of life.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Hospitality and Dietetics / Chihyung Ok and Betsy Barrett / The meeting industry has seen significant growth over the last few decades and has now become truly global. As the number of conferences increases and attendees have so many conferences to choose from, understanding how they evaluate the conference experience is more important than ever. Previous studies have focused on site selection factors, destination perception and image, economic impact, and meeting planner issues, not on the conference experience itself. Annual association conferences are lucrative because of the large number of attendees they bring to the host destination. In marketing and managing association conferences, host destinations and meeting convention organizers are increasingly interested in how attendees evaluate the conference experience. With the first conceptual model, this study sought to reveal the effect of perceived conference quality dimensions on conference experience quality dimensions. Academic association conference was taken as the context, and data were collected to validate the proposed models. A self-reported questionnaire was distributed to faculty members from twenty randomly selected universities in the United States who attended an academic association conference at least once within the past year. The hypotheses included in the conceptual model were examined based on responses from 370 faculty members in the United States. The proposed relationships were analyzed by using PLS-SEM analysis which involves evaluation of measurement model and structural model. The results indicated significant relationships among all conference specific dimensions (i.e., professional education and professional & social networking) and all conference experience quality dimensions (i.e., learning, self-esteem, and excitement). Moreover, all destination specific dimensions (i.e., site attractiveness, travelability, and site environment) had a significant relationship with excitement, but site attractiveness did not have a significant relationship with learning. With the second conceptual model, this study sought to verify the relationships among perceived conference value dimensions, satisfaction, and behavioral intentions. This study found that utilitarian value, hedonic value, and social value had significant effects on satisfaction and behavioral intentions. Given that understanding attendee behavior is critical in the meeting industry, this study benefits meeting planners and host destinations with information that allows them to maximize the conference experience for attendees, and attracting and retaining repeat attendees. The results indicated significant relationships among all conference specific dimensions (i.e., professional education and professional & social networking) and all conference experience quality dimensions (i.e., learning, self-esteem, and excitement). Moreover, all destination specific dimensions (i.e., site attractiveness, travelability, and site environment) had a significant interrelationship with excitement, but site attractiveness did not have a significant relationship with learning. With the second conceptual model, this study sought to verify the relationships among perceived conference value dimensions, satisfaction, and behavioral intentions. This study found that utilitarian value, hedonic value, and social value had significant effects on satisfaction and behavioral intentions. Given that understanding attendee behavior is critical in the meeting industry, this study benefits meeting planners and host destinations with information that allows them to maximize the conference experience for attendees, and attracting and retaining repeat attendees.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / In recent years, the South African online shopping industry has experienced remarkable growth which has attracted multi-national online stores to operate in the South African market thus creating competitive pressure for domestic online stores. Consequently, this presence of competition from well-resourced and recognisable online store brands it is critical that domestic online stores adopt measures to protect their competitive positions and to pursue competitive advantage. An adoption of a customer-centred approach focused on increasing customer satisfaction is one strategy for online stores to consider. This study had as its primary objective to develop a theoretical model of psychographic influences on customer satisfaction with electronic service quality. The associated objectives were to develop a theoretical model to (i) assess online shopping customers’ perceptions of electronic service quality, (ii) illustrate the effect of electronic service quality on customer satisfaction, (iii) measure the effect of customer satisfaction on customer behavioural intentions, and (iv) determine how customers’ perceptions of electronic service quality differ across different customer psychographic profiles. A quantitative descriptive cross sectional study was conducted to address the research objectives. Data was collected through a questionnaire from a sample of 344 South African online store customers. Statistical descriptive and inferential analyses were performed including mean values, structural equation modelling and analysis of variance. The findings included that, i) customers have negative perceptions of electronic service quality in South African online stores, ii) the constructs of electronic service quality, efficiency and contact, have a significant positive effect on customer satisfaction, iii) customer satisfaction has a significant positive effect on customer behavioural intentions, and iv) a significant difference in the perceptions of electronic service quality was found to exist among customers with different psychological profiles. Based on the study findings it is recommended that South African online stores should improve electronic service quality and apply market segmentation on the basis of customer psychological profiles in order to gain competitive advantage.

The study sought to investigate whether the effects of an employee’s fit or misfit with the ethical climate of an organisation is mitigated or exacerbated by the quality of the leader-member exchange experienced. The outcome variables looked at includes organisational commitment, job satisfaction and turnover intentions. Data was gathered from a total sample of 125 employees from three different non profit making organisations. Pearson Product Moment Correlations and moderated regressions were used to address the main research questions of the study. Despite, the implied theoretical link between ethical climate fit and leader member exchange, partly as a function of the constructs being centred on the notion of fit, and the role organisational leaders play in the formation of ethical climates, no significant moderation effects were found. Both variables were found to relate significantly to all job outcomes, but no combined effects of these variables on job outcomes were found. The findings of the study highlight a need for further empirical research on these concepts, and for the inquiring of existing theoretical propositions linking leaders to ethical climates.

Thesis M.Com. (Human Resources Management))--University of the Witwatersrand, School of Economic and Business Sciences, 2014. / The purpose of this research is to investigate the role of implicit leadership theories (ILTs) in leader-member exchanges (LMX) and the association of these leadership variables on employee outcomes, customer service orientation and turnover intentions. The specific context for this study is call centres. The growth in the call centre industry has warranted an investigation into variables that lead to their success. With an increased focus on retaining satisfied customers, the need to understand the factors that lead to this is emphasised. The importance of leadership and its impact on the success of organisations is often accentuated in the literature This research aimed to gain a better understanding of the variables which affect the success of call centres from a leadership perspective. The effect of leadership and specifically leader- member exchange - on employee and organisational outcomes is studied. These outcomes include job satisfaction, commitment, psychological empowerment, turnover intentions and customer orientation. The effect of implicit leadership theories (ILTs) on LMX was also assessed. This research was conducted in the South African call centre context. The target population was defined as call centre agents in the Gauteng region. 192 call centre agents from various call centres formed part of the sample. Data was gathered using self-report questionnaires. The questionnaire was administered in two parts and once all the data was collected, the relationships were tested using structural equation modelling in the SAS 9.3 statistical program. Various other tests were conducted, including tests for reliability and validity. Cronbach alphas were calculated in order to confirm the reliability of the variables. A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted in order to confirm validity. Furthermore, correlation analysis iv and path analysis was conducted to ascertain the significance of the relationships identified. LMX and psychological empowerment were found to be central in this research, having the greatest impact on the outcome variables studied; turnover intentions and customer orientation. Important recommendations for further research include the assessment of a more balance mix of in-bound and out-bound call centres since differences may exist and this research was predominantly comprised of in-bound call centres. With one of the most significant paths identified being psychological empowerment to employee customer orientation, the findings suggest that call centre managers may need to consider the long term effects of psychological empowerment on employee customer orientation and turnover intentions. The cost involved with employees leaving the organisation or losing dissatisfied customers may warrant an initiative to empower call centre agents. The use of self-managed teams may be one way to achieve this. Leaders were also found to play a central role in the outcomes studied in this research. In this regard, leaders should also go on extensive training programmes on how to deal with individual employees and on establishing good relationships with them. Managers could get peer reviews of leaders to understand where and if any problems exist. The use of team building exercises may also assist in developing good, high quality LMX relationships.

Implicatura escalar é uma interpretação upper-bound (limite máximo de informatividade) de um termo escalar fraco. E.g. \'alguns\', o termo fraco da escala semântica <todos, alguns>, pode ter interpretação lower-bound/literal (\"pelo menos alguns e talvez todos\") ou upper-bound/pragmática, de implicatura escalar (\"apenas alguns mas não todos\"). Na primeira parte deste trabalho, investigamos, por vias teóricas e experimentais, a capacidade infantil de interpretação de implicaturas escalares, que entendemos, por influência da Teoria da Relevância, como a negação implicada por um termo fraco de uma pergunta explícita ou contextualmente implícita acerca do termo forte. Nossos resultados indicam domínio de implicatura escalar pelas crianças e sensibilidade capaz de flexibilizar a interpretação dos termos fracos de acordo com contextos lower-bound ou upper-bound. Assim, identificamos na já bem desenvolvida capacidade infantil de inferir intenções comunicativas alheias (mindreading) a função cognitiva central para o sucesso de sua interpretação pragmática. Dedicamos a segunda parte do texto a uma mais abrangente exploração do papel da leitura de intenções na aquisição de linguagem, ainda comprometidos com os paradigmas conceituais da Teoria da Relevância. Ultrapassando o escopo da interpretação pragmática, procuramos reunir evidências favoráveis à adoção da capacidade humana de leitura de intenções como a operação cognitiva motivadora e coesiva do processo de amadurecimento linguístico, de modo que, argumentamos, nenhuma teoria que se proponha a explicar a aquisição de linguagem deve negligenciar em seu modelo a esfera sócio-pragmática da comunicação verbal. / Scalar implicatures happen when an upper-bound interpretation (upper limit of informativeness) is given to a weak scalar term. E.g. \'some\' (the weak term of the scale <all, some>) may receive a lower-bound/literal interpretation (\"at least some and perhaps all\") or an upper-bound/pragmatic scalar implicature interpretation (\"only some but not all\"). In the first part of the work, we investigate children\'s capacity of scalar implicature interpretation through theoretical and experimental research. By influence of Relevance Theory, we assume that such interpretation must infer the negation implicated by the weak term of an explicit or contextually implicit question about the strong term. Our results indicate children\'s mastery of scalar implicature and their sensitivity to adaptation of weak term\'s interpretation according to lower-bound or upper-bound contexts. Thus, we see in the well-developed child capacity of reading other\'s communicative intentions (mindreading) the central cognitive function of their successful pragmatic interpretation. The second part is dedicated to a more embracing analysis of mindreading\'s role in language acquisition, still taking Relevance Theory\'s concepts as references. Beyond the scope of pragmatic interpretation, we sought to gather evidences that support the hypothesis of the human capacity of intentions reading as the cognitive operation that motivates language development and provides cohesion to the parts of the process. Being so, we argue that no theory that intends to explain language acquisition should neglect in its model the social-pragmatics level of verbal communication.

Ette étude s’inscrit dans le champ des recherches sur le développement sociocognitif des enfants déficients intellectuels porteurs d’une trisomie 21 (T21). Elle porte sur les liens entre les représentations d’attachement et, respectivement, le comportement social avec les pairs et l’attribution d’intentions dans les situations de provocation ambigües. Trente sujets porteurs d’une T21 âgés de 8 à 12 ans, 30 sujets contrôles au développement typique de même niveau de raisonnement (CR) et 36 de même âge chronologique (CA) ont participé à l’étude. Les représentations d’attachement ont été évaluées avec l’ASCT (Bretherthon et al., 1990), le comportement social avec le TASB (Cassidy et Asher, 1992) et l’attribution d’intentions avec une tâche expérimentale que nous avons élaborée. Les résultats ont montré des liens entre représentations d’attachement et comportement social ainsi qu’entre représentations d’attachement et attribution d’intentions chez les sujets T21 et CA mais pas chez les sujets CR. Ces résultats soulignent l’importance de la qualité de l’attachement pour le développement sociocognitif des sujets T21. Des spécificités développementales ont été observées chez les sujets T21, elles pourraient reposer sur un format de représentations implicite, impliquant une rigidité représentationnelle : plus les sujets seraient insécures plus ils intégreraient un modèle relationnel négatif s’exprimant via des automatismes procéduraux, entraînant une conduite moins prosociale avec les pairs et renforçant le biais d’attribution d’intentions hostiles qu’ils présentent dans les situations de provocation ambigües. Des implications cliniques sont discutées. / This study focuses on socio-cognitive development of children with intellectual disability due to Down Syndrome (DS). Links between attachment representations and, respectively, social behavior with peers and attributions of intentions in ambiguous social conflict situations were examined. Thirty children with DS aged 8 to 12, 30 controls matched on level of reasoning (CR) and 36 controls matched on chronological age (CA) participated in the study. Attachment representations were assessed with the Attachment Story Completion Task (Bretherthon et al., 1990), social behavior with the Teacher Assessment of Social Behavior (Cassidy et Asher, 1992) and attributions of intentions with a new experimental task we developed. Attachment representations were associated with both social behavior and attributions of intentions among DS and CA, but not among CR. These findings emphasize the importance of attachment quality for sociocognitive development of children with DS. Children with DS showed developmental specificities which are believed to lie on an implicit and inflexible representational format of information: the more insecure they are the more likely they are to internalize a negative model of relationships via procedural learning, possibly leading to lower levels of prosocial behavior and more hostile attributional biases in ambiguous social situations. Clinical implications are discussed.