Entscheidungsverhalten von Kunden in Mass Customization-Systemen

Sequential choice processes are ubiquitous in consumer decision making. In each attribute decision, consumers are often faced with different numbers of options which they must trade off in order to make the best possible choice. Thereby, complicated high variety choices at the beginning of a choice process produce a larger trade-off conflict and, thus, initially a greater mental depletion than more simple low variety choices. We examine the strength of mental depletion in sequential choices on individuals’ perceived attractiveness of the firm’s recommended default option at a target choice. We show that consumers who are confronted with difficult high variety choices early in the decision sequence followed by low variety choices initially deplete more than consumers who encounter exactly the same attribute decisions in reverse. As a result, depleted consumers are more likely to fall prey to the recommended default or some perceptually focal options close to the default anchor at target choice succeeding a sequence of decisions.     

Family Dilemmas and Secrets: parents' disclosure of information to their adult offspring with learning disabilities

This paper describes the role parents play in providing knowledge of learning disability to their adult offspring with learning disabilities. Data were derived from an in-depth qualitative study of the nature of parent-adult-offspring co-residence. The findings reveal that while parents recognised and had to deal with the stigma learning disability exerted in their own lives, they had taken steps to prevent their adult offspring from having to deal with similar difficulties. It is argued that it remains the case that learning disability is treated as a stigmatised identity and as such is rendered invisible through the strategic control of information. However, findings point towards the conclusion that there has been a cultural reversal in how this process is managed.     

Managing Production and Distribution for Supply Chains in the Processed Food Industry

We develop and evaluate a modeling approach for making periodic review production and distribution decisions for a supply chain in the processed food industry. The supply chain faces several factors, including multiple products, multiple warehouses, production constraints, high transportation costs, and limited storage at the production facility. This problem is motivated by the supply chain structure at Amy's Kitchen, one of the leading producers of natural and organic foods in the United States. We develop an enhanced myopic two‐stage approach for this problem. The first stage determines the production plan and uses a heuristic, and the second stage determines the warehouse allocation plan and uses a non‐linear optimization model. This two‐stage approach is repeated every period and incorporates look‐ahead features to improve its performance in future periods. We validate our model using actual data from one factory at Amy's Kitchen and compare the performance of our model to that of the actual operation. We find that our model significantly reduces both inventory levels and stockouts relative to those of the actual operation. In addition, we identify a lower bound on the total costs for all feasible solutions to the problem and measure the effectiveness of our model against this lower bound. We perform sensitivity analysis on some key parameters and assumptions of our modeling approach.     

Cultures of intergenerational transmission in four-generation families

Intergenerational transfers in families are increasingly a topic of interest in the context of reductions in the welfare state and increased longevity. This paper draws upon data from a study of four‐generation families which afforded an opportunity to examine the transfer of material and care resources across family generations. It explores ways in which family members from different generations talked about family obligations and the relevance of the concept ‘cultures of transmission’ in classifying these discourses. It addresses the questions: How far are cultures of transmission familial in the sense of typifying particular families? And how far are they shaped by life course phase and by historical context?     

Using Evaluative Research to Support Practitioners and Service Users in Undertaking Reflective Writing for Public Dissemination

Outputs of research are mainly reports, in a variety of formatsfor different audiences: web-based materials, conference presentationsand articles. Usually, these are the researchers’ products,with different levels of input by research participants, dependantupon the participative methods adopted. Two strands of discoursein relation to research allow for inclusion of other potentialoutputs for research: service user involvement in research andthe notion of the research-informed or aware practitioner. Thisarticle focuses upon the experience of using evaluative researchprojects to generate practitioner and user writing for publicdissemination, drawing upon these two themes.     

Environmental Justice and Social Power Rhetoric in the Moral Battle over Whaling*

This study examines the ideological battle between the Makah Indian Tribe and anti‐whaling activists over the Tribe's quest to resume its 2000‐year‐old tradition of hunting gray whales for traditional and ceremonial purposes. Through qualitative discourse analysis of 268 newspaper articles, this study analyzes the competing rhetoric surrounding the indigenous whaling issue and exposes fundamental differences in how the opposing campaigns frame their arguments. This study contributes to the literature on social movements and environmental justice in two primary ways. First, this article exposes the social power dynamics and experientially based assumptions inherent in the “framing contests” of competing social movements that comprised those from diverse racial, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Second, this article expands existing work in the field of environmental justice to include American Indian issues and concerns.     

Children's Perceptions of Family Relationships as Assessed in a Doll Story Completion Task: Links to Parenting, Social Competence, and Externalizing Behavior

This study was designed to examine the links between parenting, children's perceptions of family relationships, and children's social behavior. Seventy‐four children (M age=6.01 years; 39 boys; 35 girls) and their parents took part in the study. Children completed relationship‐oriented doll stories that were coded for coherence, prosocial themes, and aggressive themes. Parents completed a report of their child's social behavior, a parenting scale, and a number of demographic items. Teachers also completed measures of children's social competence and externalizing behavior. Warm parenting predicted both a child's representation of prosocial themes in the doll stories and social competence, whereas harsh parenting predicted both a child's use of aggressive themes in the doll stories and a child's externalizing behavior. These findings support the idea that children are constructing models of relationships out of the early interactions with caregivers, and that they use these representations to guide their social behavior.