Semantic priming in Parkinson's disease: Evidence for delayed spreading activation

Nineteen persons with Parkinson's disease (PD) and 19 matched control participants completed a battery of online lexical decision tasks designed to isolate the automatic and attentional aspects of semantic activation within the semantic priming paradigm. Results highlighted key processing abnormalities in PD. Specifically, persons with PD exhibited a delayed time course of semantic activation. In addition, results suggest that experimental participants were unable to implicitly process prime information and, therefore, failed to engage strategic processing mechanisms in response to manipulations of the relatedness proportion. Results are discussed in terms of the 'Gain/Decay' hypothesis (Milberg, McGlinchey-Berroth, Duncan, & Higgins, 1999) and the dopaminergic modulation of signal to noise ratios in semantic networks.

The game of leapfrog and the Internet: Developing countries and the information-divide

Recent rapid advances in communication technology have changed global structural patterns and produced new concepts and poles of dynamism in international relations. One such technology, which is increasingly causing a mixed reaction across international boundaries, is that of the Internet. For the first time in history the emergence of the Internet has produced an anarchic power that is capable of influencing individuals, societies and governments on a scale previously unimaginable.

Service guarantees: A strategic mechanism to minimise customers' perceived risk in service organisations

Service offerings are largely intangible in nature. Customers are thus unable to assess the purchase outcome prior to experience, rendering the risk of possible customer dissatisfaction very high. It is argued that the concept of service guarantees proposed by services management theory can be effectively utilised to reduce the perceived risk of dissatisfaction for the customer in service organisations. Additionally, it is suggested that service guarantees force management to undertake activities which elevate the superiority of the organisation in the eyes of the customer and, thus, the opportunity to transform one-time customers into loyal ones. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to illustrate how customers’ behavioural intentions can be influenced by the use of a service guarantee; and second, to outline a systematic process that can help service business managers to develop and implement an effective service guarantee. This research highlights the numerous benefits available to service organisations by utilising the service guarantee as a strategic tool. Some of the important management implications are also outlined.

Securing the commercial internet: Lessons learned in developing a postgraduate course in information security management

This paper describes the inception, planning and first delivery of a security course as part of a postgraduate ecommerce program. The course is reviewed in terms of existing literature on security courses, the common body of knowledge established for security professionals and the job market into which students will graduate. The course described in this paper is a core subject for the e-commerce program. This program was established in 1999 and the first batch of students graduated in 2001. The program is offered at both postgraduate and undergraduate level. The work described here relates to the postgraduate offering. Students on this program are graduates of diverse disciplines and do not have a common e-commerce or business background.

Information internalisation in internationalising the firm

Internationalisation occurs when the firm expands its selling, production, or other business activities into international markets. Many enterprises, especially small- and medium-size firms (SMEs), are internationalising today at an unprecedented rate. Managers are strategically using information to achieve degrees of internationalisation previously considered the domain of large firms. We extend existing explanations of firm internationalisation by examining the nature and fundamental, antecedent role of internalising appropriate information and translating it into relevant knowledge. Based on case studies of internationalising firms, we advance a conceptualisation of information internalisation and knowledge creation within the firm as it achieves internationalisation readiness. In the process, we offer several propositions intended to guide future research. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.