This paper takes a fresh look at the teenage population in the U.S. In addition to reviewing a series of recent empirical studies on teenagers, the paper presents a straightforward model whereby research findings pertaining to teenagers might be conceptualized and organized. Ultimately, the model may be utilized not only to develop a better understanding of teens, but also to predict their behavior and derive sound economic strategy on behalf of the various organizations and institutions entrusted to serve and support this important segment of the population. The paper considers current cognitions and affect of U.S. teenagers and their parents, as well as current and future teen behavior. As a unique and ever-changing segment of the population, teenagers are socially as well as economically significant, and warrant continued study and contemplation by a variety of public, private, forprofit, and not-for-profit firms, organizations, and/or institutions.
Individual differences in ethical reasoning were examined among first-year law school students to determine, among other things, whether gender moderates the process of ethical reasoning. Individuals bring a variety of psychological, philosophical, and ethical orientations to professional life, potentially challenging traditional assumptions concerning appropriate responses to ethical dilemmas. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods, this research demonstrates that the individual differences of gender, learning style, and world view are significantly more influential in the use of an ethic of care and justice (i.e., ethical reasoning), compared with personality and moral orientation factors.
Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine change requests in buyer-supplier relationships. Change requests arise when a channel partner wants an addition or alteration to the agreed-upon deliverable. Although these requests are intended to enhance consumer satisfaction and supply chain performance, they complicate development and production processes and may delay time to market. Responses to change requests may embody compliance or malice, yet research to date has not examined these requests in interfirm relationships. To this end, the authors examine supplier reactions (compliance and opportunism) to change requests made by the buying firm.
Design/methodology/approach – Survey data gathered from 118 third-party developers (i.e. suppliers) reporting on their relationship with the software buyer provide an initial test for the authors' proposed model.
Findings – The results of a path analysis indicate that change requests are related positively to supplier compliance with those requests and supplier opportunism. Outcome-based control decreases supplier compliance when there are extensive change requests. Behavioral control, in contrast, increases supplier compliance particularly when the buyer provides support for the requested changes.
Research limitations/implications – Future research should examine relational governance and ex ante control mechanisms as alternatives to outcome-based and behavioral control.
Practical implications – The authors' results suggest that buyers requesting extensive changes should use behavioral control mechanisms and provide support to the supplier implementing the changes.
Originality/value – The authors provide a preliminary examination of suppliers' reactions to change requests made by buying firms. The authors argue that these requests may limit the autonomy of the supplying firms, creating reactance effects. The authors investigate outcome-based control, behavioral control and buyer support as factors that influence supplier reactions to change requests.
The study employs two experiments to examine the effectiveness of various strategies used to dissuade consumers from downloading music illegally. The research investigates two specific strategies that the recording industry has used: (1) fear or threat appeals (e.g., the threat of punishment, such as fines and/or jail time), and (2) attribution of harm (informing consumers of the harm caused by the illegal downloading of music, such as financial loss to either the artist or the recording company). The study also considers whether past illegal downloading behavior reduces the effectiveness of these disincentive strategies. Finally, the impact of subjective norms (i.e., whether subjects think their friends would approve of downloading music) was also investigated.
A 3 (level of threat: low, moderate, or high) X 2 (who is harmed by illegal downloading: artist or recording company) experimental design was employed for study one. Undergraduate students (n = 388) participated in the study. Study two expanded on the design of the first study by adding a variable of subjective norms and by including previous downloading behavior in the model. Undergraduate students (n = 211) also participated in the second experiment.
Findings indicate a significant effect of threat appeal such that stronger threat appeals were found to be more effective than weaker threat appeals in reducing illegal downloading. The first study also showed that prior illegal downloading behavior does not curtail the effects of threat appeals aimed at reducing illegal downloading. In addition, results reveal no differences in downloading behavior in terms of attribution of harm deterrent strategy (harm to either the recording artist or company). The most interesting finding from the second study is that subjective norms appear to equalize low versus high past downloaders, but only under conditions of weak fear.
The current manuscript is the first to examine the impact of four different variables (threat appeals, attribution of harm, subjective norms, and previous downloading behavior) on subjects' likelihood to illegally download music in the future. In particular, this research illuminates the potential importance of social norms in discouraging a type of undesirable consumer behavior but shows that this occurs only under a restricted set of conditions: when threat is low and the consumer is not a habitually high downloader. It should be of interest to those in fields where intellectual property can be pirated on the Internet.
This analysis aims to highlight the impact of both 'partial employees' and 'partial consumers' on the service delivery process. Effective service delivery often requires the participation of the customer. Accordingly, the customer may be conceptualized as a partial employee. Further, service employees may 'consume' their roles and duties as providers of service. Although the services literature has developed the notion of the partial employee to some extent, the concept is not developed within a comprehensive, theoretical framework. And, the portrayal of service employees as consumers (i.e. partial consumers) is largely undeveloped. As an emergent cultural philosophy, postmodernism offers a basis for developing a framework incorporating the notion of the partial employee, as well as an understanding of the effects and contributions of other service participants (i.e. service providers) as partial consumers. The implications of treating the consumer as partial employee and the employee as partial consumer in the delivery of the service experience are many. For instance, this notion inspires an expanded view of service exchange as a productive (consumptive) moment, which, in turn, requires a shift in orientation from an emphasis that considers only managing the functional benefits that the service provides to managing both employees and consumer alike.
