A methodological approach to visceral hedonic rhetoric

One of the most important tasks as an industrial designer is to evoke specific affective responses via the creation of their designed products. This paper describes an investigation of visceral hedonic rhetoric through the study of interactive products. This research lays the foundation for this work by discussing the scope, significance and limitations of currently available research in the areas of visceral design, consumer hedonics and product rhetoric. Understanding why consumers respond to certain visceral hedonic rhetoric stimulus and what those stimuli are will provide further understanding into the field of emotional design. The study examines visceral hedonic responses given by consumers to three interactive products including mobile telephones, USB memory sticks and MP3 players. The methods used in this study will be discussed in further detail in this paper.

Questions of English : ethics, aesthetics, rhetoric, and the formation of the subject in England, Australia and the United States

The impact and content of English as a subject on the curriculum is once more the subject of lively debate. Questions of English sets out to map the development of English as a subject and how it has come to encompass the diversity of ideas that currently characterise it. Drawing on a combination of historical analysis and recent research findings Robin Peel, Annette Patterson and Jeanne Gerlach bring together and compare important new insights on curriculum development and teaching practice from England, Australia and the United States. They also discuss the development of teacher training, highlighting the variety of ways in which teachers build their own beliefs and knowledge about English.

Antecedents of importer relationship performance in Latin America

Emerging market importers are increasingly engaging in relationships with foreign suppliers. Nevertheless, characteristics of the institutional and cultural environments of countries may affect relationship behaviour. Furthermore research on relationship marketing primarily focuses on the marketing activities of exporters from developed countries and much less attention is paid to the import side of the exchange process. Thus, the objective of this study is to empirically examine importer relationship performance in a Latin America context. This article proposes and tests a conceptual model that includes the antecedents and outcomes of trust and commitment with a survey of Chilean importers. The model uses confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to develop the construct measures and structural equation modelling (SEMS) to test the model. The findings of this study contribute to a better understanding of the driving forces of trust and commitments and their influence on importing firms' performance in an emerging market context.

Rhetoric of landscape architecture and interior design discourses : preparation for cross-disciplinary practice

The rhetoric of the pedagogic discourses of landscape architectural students and interior design students is described as part of a doctoral study undertaken to document practices and orientations prior to cross-disciplinary collaboration. We draw on the theoretical framework of Basil Bernstein, an educational sociologist, and the rhetorical method of Kenneth Burke, a literary dramatist, to study the grammars of ‘landscape’ representation employed within these disciplinary examples. We investigate how prepared final year students are for working in a cross-disciplinary manner. The discursive interactions of their work, as illustrated by four examples of drawn images and written text, are described. Our findings suggest that we need to concern ourselves aspects of our pedagogic discourse that brings uniqueness and value to our disciplines ,as well as that shared discourses between disciplines.

The impact of rhetoric and reality on community anticipation of risk in the development of multi-purpose services (MPS) : A grounded theory study

better health service.Conclusion:This research provides an insight into the perceptions of the rhetoric and reality of community member involvement in the process of developing multi-purpose services. It revealed a grounded theory in which fear and trust were intrinsic to a process of changing from a traditional hospital service to the acceptance of a new model of health care provided at a multi-purpose service.

Visceral hedonic rhetoric : exploring the design of interactive products

Blurb: This empirical study analysed consumer emotional responses towards interactive products, specifically looking at properties that persuasively induce the pursuit of pleasure at an instinctual level of cognition, now known as ‘visceral hedonic rhetoric'. By analysing three different types of interactive products results found hierarchical and inter-relatable attributes with the potential to provide a positive consumer-product relationship that is more meaningful, less disposable and more sustainable in the future.

Visceral hedonic rhetoric

Emotional responses can incite and entice consumers to select a particular product from a row of similar items and thus have a considerable impact on purchase decisions. Consequently, more and more companies are challenging designers to address the emotional impact of their work and to design for emotion and consumerproduct relationships. Furthermore, the creation of emotional attachment to one’s possessions is one way of approaching a sustainable consumer-product relationship. The aim of this research is to gain a deeper understanding of the instantaneous emotional attachment that consumers form with products and its subsequent implications for product development. The foci of the study are visceral design, consumer hedonics and product rhetoric. Studied in a conglomerate they become an area of new investigation: visceral hedonic rhetoric. In this context, the term “visceral hedonic rhetoric” is defined as the properties of a product that persuasively elicit the pursuit of pleasure at an instinctual level of cognition. This study explores visceral hedonic rhetoric evident in the design of interactive products and resides within the context of emotional design research. It employs an empirical approach to understand how consumers respond hedonically on a visceral level to rhetoric in products. Specifically, it examines visceral hedonic responses given by thirty participants to the stimuli of six mobile telephones, six Mp3 players and six USB memory flash drives. The study findings demonstrate a hierarchy of visceral hedonic rhetoric evident in interactive products. This hierarchy of visceral hedonic attributes include: colour, size, shape, intrigue, material, perceived usability, portability, perceived function, novelty, analogy, brand, quality, texture and gender. However, it is the interrelationships between these visceral hedonic attributes that are the most significant findings of this research. Certain associations were revealed between product attribute combinations and consumer perception. The most predominant of these were: gender bias associated with colour selection; the creation of intrigue through a vibrant attention-grabbing colour; perceived ease of use and function; product confidence as a result of brand familiarity and perceived usability; analogous association through familiarity with similar objects and shapes; and the association of longevity with quality, novelty or recent technology. A significant outcome of the research is the distillation of visceral hedonic rhetoric design principles, and a tool to assist designers in harnessing the full potential of visceral hedonic rhetoric. This study contributes to the identification of the emerging research field of visceral hedonic rhetoric. Application of this study’s findings has the potential to provide a hedonic consumer-product relationship that is more meaningful, less disposable and more sustainable. This theory of visceral hedonic rhetoric is not only a significant contribution to design knowledge but is also generally transferable to other research domains, as later suggested in future research avenues.

The collaborative push : pushing beyond rhetoric and gaining evidence

Collaboration has been enacted as a core strategy by both the government and nongovernment sectors to address many of the intractable issues confronting contemporary society. The cult of collaboration has become so pervasive that it is now an elastic term referring generally to any form of ‘working together’. The lack of specificity about collaboration and its practice means that it risks being reduced to mere rhetoric without sustained practice or action. Drawing on an extensive data set (qualitative, quantitative) of broadly collaborative endeavours gathered over ten years in Queensland, Australia, this paper aims to fill out the black box of collaboration. Specifically it examines the drivers for collaboration, dominant structures and mechanisms adopted, what has worked and unintended consequences. In particular it investigates the skills and competencies required in an embeded collaborative endeavour within and across organisations. Social network analysis is applied to isolate the structural properties of collaborations over other forms of integration as well as highlighting key roles and tasks. Collaboration is found to be a distinctive form of working together, characterised by intense and interdependent relationships and exchanges, higher levels of cohesion (density) and requiring new ways of behaving, working, managing and leading. These elements are configured into a practice framework. Developing an empirical evidence base for collaboration structure, practice and strategy provides a useful foundation for theory extension. The paper concludes that for collaboration, to be successfully employed as a management strategy it must move beyond rhetoric and develop a coherent model for action.

The growth and international expansion of an emerging market retailer in Latin America

This study contributes to the literature on international retailing by addressing a gap in the literature as to how retailers from emerging markets expand internationally. This historical case study analyzes the growth and internationalization process of Chilean retailer Falabella, one of the largest in Latin America and has been able to compete with multinationals from developed countries. The research is based upon primary and secondary data sources including 33 oral interviews with company managers and family executives, as well as industry data, corporate reports, and trade journals. Drawing on institutional theory, the findings show that by belonging to a family conglomerate, engaging in networks and partnerships, organizational learning, and having an experienced management team helped Falabella gain legitimacy in all international markets.

Problematising the processes of participation in networks : working through the rhetoric

Participation in networks, both as a concept and process, is widely supported in environmental education as a democratic and equitable pathway to individual and social change for sustainability. However, the processes of participation in networks are rarely problematized. Rather, it is assumed that we inherently know how to participate in networks. This assumption means that participation is seldom questioned. Underlying support for participation in networks is a belief that it allows individuals to connect in new and meaningful ways, that individuals can engage in making decisions and in bringing about change in arenas that affect them, and that they will be engaging in new, non-hierarchical and equitable relationships. In this paper we problematize participation in networks. As an example we use research into a decentralized network – described as such in its own literature - the Queensland Environmentally Sustainable Schools Initiative Alliance in Australia – to argue that while network participants were engaged and committed to participation in this network, 'old' forms of top-down engagement and relationships needed to be unlearnt. This paper thus proposes that for participation in decentralized networks to be meaningful, new learning about how to participate needs to occur.

Organizational rhetoric in the prospectuses of elite private schools: unpacking strategies of persuasion

The way in which private schools use rhetoric in their communications offers important insights into how these organizational sites persuade audiences and leverage marketplace advantage in the context of contemporary educational platforms. Through systemic analysis of rhetorical strategies employed in 65 ‘elite’ school prospectuses in Australia, this paper contributes to understandings of the ways schools’ communications draw on broader cultural politics in order to shape meanings and interactions among organizational actors. We identify six strategies consistently used by schools to this end: identification, juxtapositioning, bolstering or self-promotion, partial reporting, self-expansion, and reframing or reversal. We argue that, in the context of marketization and privatization discourses in twenty-first-century western education, these strategies attempt to subvert potentially threatening discourses, in the process actively reproducing broader economic and social privilege and inequalities.