A novel romance : the technology acceptance model with emotional attachment

E-readers, or devices designed primarily for reading e-books, are taking the world by storm. Several papers in library studies and education have examined e-book consumption for academic reading. However, no previous marketing study has investigated consumers’ adoption of e-readers for pleasure reading. We address this gap by testing an extended version of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) with emotional attachment (TAME) in this context. Consumers’ attachment to paper books is proposed as a barrier to their adoption of e-readers. This speaks to a key deficiency of the TAM, being its focus on cognition at the expense of consumer emotion. A three-phase study finds support for the TAME, with 64% of the variance explained in consumers’ intentions to adopt e-readers. Emotional attachment to paper books is found to be weakly and negatively associated with consumers’ attitude toward using e-readers. The qualitative findings suggest that e-reader adoption may not involve a binary choice between paper and e-formats.

Acceptance and leadership-hegemonies of e-commerce policy perspectives

This paper presents an analysis of the e-Commerce policies developed and implemented in the USA, Canada, Australia, Victoria, Finland, Norway, the UK, Ireland, the EU (by the OECD), Singapore, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand and Hong Kong (Special Administrative Region). The paper shows that e-Commerce policy adopted is generally trying to achieve two fundamental aims:

1. to minimize regulatory environments for e-Commerce; and
2. to ease logistical problems in doing e-Commerce—i.e. in paying electronically, in deliver y of goods and in customs, tariffs and duties.

These strategies are designed to create an environment where e-Commerce is adopted by business and government in these countries to achieve ‘best practice’, to become ‘modern’, to gain ‘efficiencies’, because ‘it is the way to go’, because ‘we must have it, because everybody has it’, and because they ‘perceive the benefits of it’. In essence it is being used to gain hegemony in the economic competitiveness of the geopolitical environment created by the Internet. This paper argues that differentiating types of policy is related to ideology and hegemony in the various countries.

Accountability, completeness, credibility and the audit expectations gap

This article deals with two concerns in achieving greater accountability in social reports: the lack of completeness of reporting, and the lack of credibility of reports. The article focuses, in particular, on the role of social audits in improving the completeness and credibility of reporting, thereby reducing the audit expectations gap. We suggest that this gap arises due to an over-emphasis on the validity of performance data at the expense of addressing completeness and credibility, both of which, we argue, require stakeholder involvement. The article reviews recent guidelines aimed at ensuring that companies produce reports that are complete in all material respects including those produced by the Global Reporting Initiative and the Federation des Experts Comptables Europeens, focusing particularly on AccountAbility's AA1000 Standard and AA1000S Assurance Standard. Finally, the article considers the development of a practical approach to social audit following principles increasingly being incorporated into developing assurance guidelines aimed at reducing the audit expectations gap.

The ethical, social and environmental reporting-performance portrayal gap

The purpose of this article is twofold. First, it assesses in detail the extent to which corporate reporting on ethical, social and environmental issues reflects corporate performance in case study company Alpha. This “reporting-performance” portrayal gap is a key measure of the extent to which an organisation is accountable to its stakeholders. Alpha's disclosures concerning its ethical, social and environmental performance for the years 1993 and 1999 were compared with information obtained on Alpha's performance from other sources. Two different pictures of performance emerged leading to the conclusion that, in the case of Alpha, reports do not demonstrate a high level of accountability to key stakeholder groups on ethical, social and environmental issues. Of particular concern is the lack of “completeness” of reporting. Second, the article assesses the potential of recent standards or guidelines developed by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the Institute of Social and Ethical AccountAbility (AccountAbility) as well as the industry's own “responsible care” initiative to reduce this “reporting-performance” portrayal gap and improve corporate accountability. The conclusions point to the need for other measures to improve accountability including mandatory reporting guidelines, better developed audit guidelines, a mandatory audit requirement for MNCs and a radical overhaul of corporate governance systems.

Well-being and menopause: an investigation of purpose in life, self-acceptance and social role in premenopausal, perimenopausal and postmenopausal women

Objectives: Many studies have investigated anxiety and depression during the menopausal transition. However, there is little understanding of positive aspects of well-being among menopausal women. This paper reports on two studies which investigated how menopausal stage and age accounted for how women felt about their purpose in life, self-acceptance and social role. Method: In Study One, 304 women from a community sample completed structured questionnaires which included questions relating to demographic background and two subscales of the Psychological Well-being Inventory: purpose in life and self-acceptance. In Study Two, 203 participants from Study One returned a follow-up structured questionnaire related to purpose in life and social role. Results: Study One found that the effects of age group and menopausal group could not be separated: All women felt they would be more positive about these well-being measures in the future than they had been in the past and at present. Study Two found that women who were perimenopausal and postmenopausal did not feel as positive about their role/s in life as premenopausal women, regardless of their age. Conclusions: The results suggest that the menopause may indicate to women that their role/purpose in life is changing. It is important that any understanding of the menopause incorporate psychosocial aspects of women''s lives. Further longitudinal studies are needed to explore well-being factors and the menopause.

From e-learning to virtual learning community: bridging the gap

'Community' has become a buzz word in the E-Learning arena. This paper examines the concept of virtual community, in the context of E-Learning. It defines what constitutes a virtual community and virtual learning community. A model comprising four essential criteria that define a virtual learning community is proposed. These criteria are discussed with relation to Deakin University's E-Learning system. The paper concludes by highlighting the factors that may help bridge the gap between Deakin's present provision of E-Learning to the development of a virtual learning community.

Universal nonuniform random vector generator based on acceptance-rejection

The acceptance/rejection approach is widely used in universal nonuniform random number generators. Its key part is an accurate approximation of a given probability density from above by a hat function. This article uses a piecewise constant hat function, whose values are overestimates of the density on the elements of the partition of the domain. It uses a sawtooth overestimate of Lipschitz continuous densities, and then examines all local maximizers of such an overestimate. The method is applicable to multivariate multimodal distributions. It exhibits relatively short preprocessing time and fast generation of random variates from a very large class of distributions

Labour market institutions and the gender wage gap in Britain and Australia, 1973-90

The importance of wage structure is frequently interpreted as indirect evidence of the role played by labour market institutions. The current paper follows in this tradition, examining the role of wage structure in explaining the trend in the gender wage gap over the period 1973–91 for both Australia and the UK. The focus is upon whether changes in wage structure (and associated gender wage gap) both across country and over time are compatible with institutional explanations. Combining comparisons both cross‐country and over time yields a more stringent, albeit indirect, test of the role of institutions.

Convergence in the gender wage gap in Australia over the 1980s: identifying the role of counteracting forces via the Juhn, Murphy and Pierce Decomposition

The paper utilises the Juhn Murphy and Pierce (1991) decomposition to shed light on the pattern of slow male-female wage convergence in Australia over the 1980s. The analysis allows one to distinguish between the role of wage structure and genderspecific effects. The central question addressed is whether rising wage inequality counteracted the forces of increased female investment in labour market skills, i.e. education and experience. The conclusion is that in contrast to the US and the UK, Australian women do not appear to have been swimming against a tide of adverse wage structure changes.

The gender wage gap in Australia- the path of future convergence

The paper attempts to project the future trend of the gender wage gap in Australia up to 2031. The empirical analysis utilises the Income Distribution Survey (1996) together with Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) demographic projections. The methodology combines the ABS projections with assumptions relating to the evolution of educational attainment in order to project the future distribution of human capital skills and consequently the future size of the gender wage gap. The analysis suggests that female relative pay will continue to rise up to 2031. However, gender wage convergence will be relatively slow, with a substantial gap remaining in 2031.

The emergence of the public sector expectations gap

This paper focuses on the continuing worldwide phenomenon of homogenisation of audit rules, regulation and procedures between the government and private sectors. The observations are informed by Pusey’s (1991) criticisms of ‘economic rationalism’ as the driving mechanism behind public sector reforms in Australia. The presumed superiority of commercial audit is questioned in association with the work of Hopwood (1983, 1998), Otley and Pierce (1996) and, Power (1992, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997) that contextualise the role of audit. In the private sector audit there continues to be an ‘expectations gap’ arising from commercial pressures and a rhetorical support for the public interest. It is contended that audit quality in the public sector is driven by a different perception of public interest that has been eroded with the advent of economic rationalism. The consequent emergence of a public sector audit ‘expectations gap’ is an amalgam of new components particular to the government audit environment and, aspects of the private ‘expectations gap’ which have been transplanted into the public domain.