Question: Moral growth, executive capabilities, pinnacle experiences, and neural activity in professional and amateur classical musicians: Analyzed through the lens of a Unified Performance Theory.

This paper presents an updated and integrative theory of the P300 event-related brain potential (ERP), encompassing the P3a and P3b subcomponents. The factors influencing the amplitude, latency, and overall features of the P300 are thoroughly examined. Particular attention is paid to the neuropsychological underpinnings of P3a and P3b, elucidating how the difficulty in discriminating targets from standards affects the topography of the brain's electrical activity. The specific brain regions involved in the generation of P3a and P3b are delineated, alongside a cognitive framework that distinguishes their functions: P3a is linked to stimulus-driven attention mechanisms in the frontal lobe during task engagement, potentially modulated by dopaminergic pathways, whereas P3b is associated with temporal-parietal activity, indicative of attention and memory processing, possibly influenced by norepinephrine. Neuroinhibition is posited as a central theoretical construct for the P300, which is triggered when stimulus detection activates memory operations, reflecting a complex interplay of cognitive and neural processes.

Creativity is a vast construct, seemingly intractable to scientific inquiry-perhaps due to the vague concepts applied to the field of research. One attempt to limit the purview of creative cognition formulates the construct in terms of evolutionary constraints, namely that of blind variation and selective retention (BVSR). Behaviorally, one can limit the "blind variation" component to idea generation tests as manifested by measures of divergent thinking. The "selective retention" component can be represented by measures of convergent thinking, as represented by measures of remote associates. We summarize results from measures of creative cognition, correlated with structural neuroimaging measures including structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI), diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), and proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS). We also review lesion studies, considered to be the "gold standard" of brain-behavioral studies. What emerges is a picture consistent with theories of disinhibitory brain features subserving creative cognition, as described previously (Martindale, 1981). We provide a perspective, involving aspects of the default mode network (DMN), which might provide a "first approximation" regarding how creative cognition might map on to the human brain.

Both physiological and behavioral studies have suggested that stimulus-driven neural activity in the sensory pathways can be modulated in amplitude during selective attention. Recordings of event-related brain potentials indicate that such sensory gain control or amplification processes play an important role in visual-spatial attention. Combined event-related brain potential and neuroimaging experiments provide strong evidence that attentional gain control operates at an early stage of visual processing in extrastriate cortical areas. These data support early selection theories of attention and provide a basis for distinguishing between separate mechanisms of attentional suppression (of unattended inputs) and attentional facilitation (of attended inputs).

Handwritten autobiographies from 180 Catholic nuns, composed when participants were a mean age of 22 years, were scored for emotional content and related to survival during ages 75 to 95. A strong inverse association was found between positive emotional content in these writings and risk of mortality in late life (p < .001). As the quartile ranking of positive emotion in early life increased, there was a stepwise decrease in risk of mortality resulting in a 2.5-fold difference between the lowest and highest quartiles. Positive emotional content in early-life autobiographies was strongly associated with longevity 6 decades later. Underlying mechanisms of balanced emotional states are discussed.

Self-determination theory (SDT) maintains that an understanding of human motivation requires a consideration of innate psychological needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness. We discuss the SDT concept of needs as it relates to previous need theories, emphasizing that needs specify the necessary conditions for psychological growth, integrity, and well-being. This concept of needs leads to the hypotheses that different regulatory processes underlying goal pursuits are differentially associated with effective functioning and well-being and also that different goal contents have different relations to the quality of behavior and mental health, specifically because different regulatory processes and different goal contents are associated with differing degrees of need satisfaction. Social contexts and individual differences that support satisfaction of the basic needs facilitate natural growth processes including intrinsically motivated behavior and integration of extrinsic motivations, whereas those that forestall autonomy, competence, or relatedness are associated with poorer motivation, performance, and well-being. We also discuss the relation of the psychological needs to cultural values, evolutionary processes, and other contemporary motivation theories.

Emotions seem to play a critical role in moral judgment. However, the way in which emotions exert their influence on moral judgments is still poorly understood. This study proposes a novel theoretical approach suggesting that emotions influence moral judgments based on their motivational dimension. We tested the effects of two types of induced emotions with equal valence but with different motivational implications (anger and disgust), and four types of moral scenarios (disgust-related, impersonal, personal, and beliefs) on moral judgments. We hypothesized and found that approach motivation associated with anger would make moral judgments more permissible, while disgust, associated with withdrawal motivation, would make them less permissible. Moreover, these effects varied as a function of the type of scenario: the induced emotions only affected moral judgments concerning impersonal and personal scenarios, while we observed no effects for the other scenarios. These findings suggest that emotions can play an important role in moral judgment, but that their specific effects depend upon the type of emotion induced. Furthermore, induced emotion effects were more prevalent for moral decisions in personal and impersonal scenarios, possibly because these require the performance of an action rather than making an abstract judgment. We conclude that the effects of induced emotions on moral judgments can be predicted by taking their motivational dimension into account. This finding has important implications for moral psychology, as it points toward a previously overlooked mechanism linking emotions to moral judgments.

Mindfulness is an attribute of consciousness long believed to promote well-being. This research provides a theoretical and empirical examination of the role of mindfulness in psychological well-being. The development and psychometric properties of the dispositional Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) are described. Correlational, quasi-experimental, and laboratory studies then show that the MAAS measures a unique quality of consciousness that is related to a variety of well-being constructs, that differentiates mindfulness practitioners from others, and that is associated with enhanced self-awareness. An experience-sampling study shows that both dispositional and state mindfulness predict self-regulated behavior and positive emotional states. Finally, a clinical intervention study with cancer patients demonstrates that increases in mindfulness over time relate to declines in mood disturbance and stress.

In literary and drama criticism, emotions, and moral emotions in particular, have been pointed out as one of characterizing features of stories. In this paper, we propose to model story characters as value-based emotional agents, who appraise their own and others’ actions based on their desires and values, and feel the appropriate moral emotions in response to narrative situations that challenge their goals and values. In order to validate the appropriateness of the agent model for narrative characters, we ran an experiment with human participants aimed at comparing their expectations about characters’ emotions with the predictions of the value-based model of emotional agent. The results of the experiment show that the participants’ expectations meet the predictions of the model. 1998 ACM Subject Classification I.2.11 Intelligent Agents, I.2.0 Cognitive Simulation

Although authenticity has a long history as a philosophical and psychological idea, this concept has received scarce attention in the business literature until very lately. Nevertheless, scholars belonging to a broad array of disciplines have pointed out the escalation in the individuals' search for authenticity within developed societies. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to assess the link between authenticity and subjective wellbeing within the rarely explored context of faith-driven organizations, where the management of emotions attains a particular significance. Specifically, this study links authenticity with subjective wellbeing among the distinct groups that shape a large international Catholic organization. This study uses Partial Least Squares (PLS) to test our research model and hypotheses. This paper covers two noteworthy research gaps. On the one hand, it provides evidence of the relationship between authenticity and subjective wellbeing within the context of religious organizations. On the other hand, our results suggest that this relationship is not homogeneous among the distinct groups that shape the organization. Implications of the research are finally discussed.

Working memory capacity increases throughout childhood and adolescence, which is important for the development of a wide range of cognitive abilities, including complex reasoning. The spatial-span task, in which subjects retain information about the order and position of a number of objects, is a sensitive task to measure development of spatial working memory. This review considers results from previous neuroimaging studies investigating the neural correlates of this development. Older children and adolescents, with higher capacity, have been found to have higher brain activity in the intraparietal cortex and in the posterior part of the superior frontal sulcus, during the performance of working memory tasks. The structural maturation of white matter has been investigated by diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DTI). This has revealed several regions in the frontal lobes in which white matter maturation is correlated with the development of working memory. Among these is a superior fronto-parietal white matter region, located close to the grey matter regions that are implicated in the development of working memory. Furthermore, the degree of white matter maturation is positively correlated with the degree of cortical activation in the frontal and parietal regions. This suggests that during childhood and adolescence, there is development of networks related to specific cognitive functions, such as visuo-spatial working memory. These networks not only consist of cortical areas but also the white matter tracts connecting them. For visuo-spatial working memory, this network could consist of the superior frontal and intraparietal cortex.

Research into the functioning of the human brain, particularly during the past decade, has greatly enhanced our understanding of cognitive behaviours which are fundamental to education: learning, memory, intelligence, emotion. Here, we argue the case that research findings from cognitive neuroscience hold implications for educational practice. In doing so we advance a bio-psycho-social position that welcomes multi-disciplinary perspectives on current educational challenges. We provide some examples of research implications which support conventional pedagogic wisdom, and others which are novel and perhaps counter-intuitive. As an example, we take a model of adaptive plasticity that relies on stimulus reinforcement and examine possible implications for pedagogy and curriculum depth. In doing so, we reject some popular but over-simplistic applications of neuroscience to education. In sum, the education profession could benefit from embracing rather than ignoring cognitive neuroscience. Moreover, educationists should be actively contributing to the research agenda of future brain research.


Question: Moral growth, executive skills, peak moments, and neural activity in professional and amateur classical musicians: Analyzed through the lens of a Unified Performance Theory.

Enhanced Auditory Cortex Functionality in Musicians: A Study on Tonotopic Maps and Musical Training

Neuroscientific studies have demonstrated that auditory stimuli are processed through the auditory pathway, involving the neocortex, where neurons are organized into 'tonotopic' maps based on their frequency specificity. Prior research on animals has shown that these tonotopic maps are not rigidly fixed in the adult brain but can undergo reorganization in response to cochlear damage or as a result of auditory discrimination training. This study employed functional magnetic source imaging (using the single dipole model) to investigate cortical representations in professional musicians. The findings revealed that dipole moments for piano tones were approximately 25% larger in musicians compared to non-musician controls, when tested against pure tones of similar fundamental frequency and matched for loudness. This enlargement was significantly correlated with the age at which the musicians began their practice, and interestingly, did not differ between musicians with absolute and relative pitch abilities. These results, in conjunction with evidence of modified somatosensory representations of the fingers in proficient violinists, suggest that use-dependent functional reorganization extends across sensory cortices, reflecting the unique sensory input processed by musicians as they develop their musical expertise. This adaptation underscores the brain's plasticity in response to long-term musical training and the sensory demands of musical performance.

Recent studies have begun to elucidate the roles played in social cognition by specific neural structures, genes, and neurotransmitter systems. Cortical regions in the temporal lobe participate in perceiving socially relevant stimuli, whereas the amygdala, right somatosensory cortices, orbitofrontal cortices, and cingulate cortices all participate in linking perception of such stimuli to motivation, emotion, and cognition. Open questions remain about the domain-specificity of social cognition, about its overlap with emotion and with communication, and about the methods best suited for its investigation.

A growing body of literature shows that one's working memory (WM) capacity can be expanded through targeted training. Given the established relationship between WM and higher cognition, these successful training studies have led to speculation that WM training may yield broad cognitive benefits. This review considers the current state of the emerging WM training literature, and details both its successes and limitations. We identify two distinct approaches to WM training, strategy training and core training, and highlight both the theoretical and practical motivations that guide each approach. Training-related increases in WM capacity have been successfully demonstrated across a wide range of subject populations, but different training techniques seem to produce differential impacts upon the broader landscape of cognitive abilities. In particular, core WM training studies seem to produce more far-reaching transfer effects, likely because they target domain-general mechanisms of WM. The results of individual studies encourage optimism regarding the value of WM training as a tool for general cognitive enhancement. However, we discuss several limitations that should be addressed before the field endorses the value of this approach.

In 3 experiments, the authors examined mathematical problem solving performance under pressure. In Experiment 1, pressure harmed performance on only unpracticed problems with heavy working memory demands. In Experiment 2, such high-demand problems were practiced until their answers were directly retrieved from memory. This eliminated choking under pressure. Experiment 3 dissociated practice on particular problems from practice on the solution algorithm by imposing a high-pressure test on problems practiced 1, 2, or 50 times each. Infrequently practiced high-demand problems were still performed poorly under pressure, whereas problems practiced 50 times each were not. These findings support distraction theories of choking in math, which contrasts with considerable evidence for explicit monitoring theories of choking in sensorimotor skills. This contrast suggests a skill taxonomy based on real-time control structures.

The brain circuitry underlying emotion includes several territories of the prefrontal cortex (PFC), the amygdala, hippocampus, anterior cingulate, and related structures. In general, the PFC represents emotion in the absence of immediately present incentives and thus plays a crucial role in the anticipation of the future affective consequences of action, as well as in the persistence of emotion following the offset of an elicitor. The functions of the other structures in this circuit are also considered. Individual differences in this circuitry are reviewed, with an emphasis on asymmetries within the PFC and activation of the amygdala as 2 key components of affective style. These individual differences are related to both behavioral and biological variables associated with affective style and emotion regulation. Plasticity in this circuitry and its implications for transforming emotion and cultivating positive affect and resilience are considered.

Music is a cross-cultural universal, a ubiquitous activity found in every known human culture. Individuals demonstrate manifestly different preferences in music, and yet relatively little is known about the underlying structure of those preferences. Here, we introduce a model of musical preferences based on listeners' affective reactions to excerpts of music from a wide variety of musical genres. The findings from 3 independent studies converged to suggest that there exists a latent 5-factor structure underlying music preferences that is genre free and reflects primarily emotional/affective responses to music. We have interpreted and labeled these factors as (a) a Mellow factor comprising smooth and relaxing styles; (b) an Unpretentious factor comprising a variety of different styles of sincere and rootsy music such as is often found in country and singer-songwriter genres; (c) a Sophisticated factor that includes classical, operatic, world, and jazz; (d) an Intense factor defined by loud, forceful, and energetic music; and (e) a Contemporary factor defined largely by rhythmic and percussive music, such as is found in rap, funk, and acid jazz. The findings from a fourth study suggest that preferences for the MUSIC factors are affected by both the social and the auditory characteristics of the music.

BACKGROUND
Many studies are currently researching the effects of video games, particularly in the domain of cognitive training. Great variability exists among video games however, and few studies have attempted to compare different types of video games. Little is known, for instance, about the cognitive processes or brain structures that underlie learning of different genres of video games.

OBJECTIVE
To examine the cognitive and neural underpinnings of two different types of game learning in order to evaluate their common and separate correlates, with the hopes of informing future intervention research.

METHODS
Participants (31 younger adults and 31 older adults) completed an extensive cognitive battery and played two different genres of video games, one action game and one strategy game, for 1.5 hours each. DTI scans were acquired for each participant, and regional fractional anisotropy (FA) values were extracted using the JHU atlas.

RESULTS
Behavioral results indicated that better performance on tasks of working memory and perceptual discrimination was related to enhanced learning in both games, even after controlling for age, whereas better performance on a perceptual speed task was uniquely related with enhanced learning of the strategy game. DTI results indicated that white matter FA in the right fornix/stria terminalis was correlated with action game learning, whereas white matter FA in the left cingulum/hippocampus was correlated with strategy game learning, even after controlling for age.

CONCLUSION
Although cognition, to a large extent, was a common predictor of both types of game learning, regional white matter FA could separately predict action and strategy game learning. Given the neural and cognitive correlates of strategy game learning, strategy games may provide a more beneficial training tool for adults suffering from memory-related disorders or declines in processing speed, particularly older adults.

Julian C. Motzkin,1 Joseph P. Newman,2 Kent A. Kiehl,3,4 and Michael Koenigs1 1Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53719, 2Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, 3The MIND Research Network, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131, and 4Departments of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131

Recent studies suggest that months to years of intensive and systematic meditation training can improve attention. However, the lengthy training required has made it difficult to use random assignment of participants to conditions to confirm these findings. This article shows that a group randomly assigned to 5 days of meditation practice with the integrative body-mind training method shows significantly better attention and control of stress than a similarly chosen control group given relaxation training. The training method comes from traditional Chinese medicine and incorporates aspects of other meditation and mindfulness training. Compared with the control group, the experimental group of 40 undergraduate Chinese students given 5 days of 20-min integrative training showed greater improvement in conflict scores on the Attention Network Test, lower anxiety, depression, anger, and fatigue, and higher vigor on the Profile of Mood States scale, a significant decrease in stress-related cortisol, and an increase in immunoreactivity. These results provide a convenient method for studying the influence of meditation training by using experimental and control methods similar to those used to test drugs or other interventions.

Clinical psychology has focused primarily on the diagnosis and treatment of mental disease, and only recently has scientific attention turned to understanding and cultivating positive mental health. The Buddhist tradition, on the other hand, has focused for over 2,500 years on cultivating exceptional states of mental well-being as well as identifying and treating psychological problems. This article attempts to draw on centuries of Buddhist experiential and theoretical inquiry as well as current Western experimental research to highlight specific themes that are particularly relevant to exploring the nature of mental health. Specifically, the authors discuss the nature of mental well-being and then present an innovative model of how to attain such well-being through the cultivation of four types of mental balance: conative, attentional, cognitive, and affective.

Action, cognition, emotion and perception can be mapped in the brain by using set of techniques. Translating unimodal concepts from one modality to another is an important step towards understanding the neural mechanisms. This paper provides a comprehensive survey of multimodal analysis of brain signals such as fMRI, EEG, MEG, NIRS and motivations, assumptions and pitfalls associated with it. All these non-invasive brain modalities complement and restrain each other and hence improve our understating of functional and neuronal organization. By combining the various modalities together, we can exploit the strengths and flaws of individual brain imaging methods. Integrated anatomical analysis and functional measurements of human brain offer a powerful paradigm for the brain mapping. Here we provide the brief review on non invasive brain modalities, describe the future of co-analysis of these


Question: Moral growth, executive skills, peak moments, and neural activity in professional and amateur classical musicians: Analyzed through the lens of a Unified Theory of Performance.

This study investigates the relationship between extensive navigation experience and structural changes in the hippocampus, specifically in licensed London taxi drivers. Using structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), the brains of these drivers were analyzed and compared to those of control subjects without taxi driving experience. The findings revealed that the posterior hippocampi of the taxi drivers were notably larger compared to the control group. Conversely, a more anterior region of the hippocampus was larger in the control subjects than in the drivers. The volume of the hippocampus was found to correlate with the duration of time spent as a taxi driver, with a positive correlation in the posterior region and a negative correlation in the anterior part. These results support the hypothesis that the posterior hippocampus plays a crucial role in storing a spatial representation of the environment and can undergo regional expansion to accommodate enhanced navigational skills. The study suggests that the healthy adult human brain has the capacity for localized structural plasticity in response to environmental demands, such as the high navigational demands faced by taxi drivers.

The average evoked-potential waveforms to sound and light stimuli recorded from scalp in awake human subjects show differences as a function of the subject's degree of uncertainty with respect to the sensory modality of the stimulus to be presented. Differences are also found in the evoked potential as a function of whether or not the sensorymodality of the stimulus was anticipated correctly. The major waveform alteration is in the amplitude of a positive-going component which reaches peak amplitude at about 300 milliseconds.

What motivates individuals to regulate their emotions? One answer, which has been highlighted in emotion-regulation research, is that individuals are motivated by short-term hedonic goals (e.g., the motivation to feel pleasure). Another answer, however, is that individuals are motivated by instrumental goals (e.g., the motivation to perform certain behaviors). We suggest that both answers have merit. To demonstrate the role instrumental goals may play in emotion regulation, we pitted short-term hedonic motives and instrumental motives against each other, by testing whether individuals were motivated to experience a potentially useful, albeit unpleasant, emotion. We found that (a) individuals preferred activities that would increase their level of anger (but not their level of excitement) when they were anticipating confrontational, but not nonconfrontational, tasks and that (b) anger improved performance in a confrontational, but not a nonconfrontational, task. These findings support a functional view of emotion regulation, and demonstrate that in certain contexts, individuals may choose to experience emotions that are instrumental, despite short-term hedonic costs.

Are people who are best able to implement strategies to regulate their emotional expressive behavior happier and more successful than their counterparts? Although past research has examined individual variation in knowledge of the most effective emotion regulation strategies, little is known about how individual differences in the ability to actually implement these strategies, as assessed objectively in the laboratory, is associated with external criteria. In two studies, we examined how individual variation in the ability to modify emotional expressive behavior in response to evocative stimuli is related to well-being and financial success. Study 1 showed that individuals who can best suppress their emotional reaction to an acoustic startle are happiest with their lives. Study 2 showed that individuals who can best amplify their emotional reaction to a disgust-eliciting movie are happiest with their lives and have the highest disposable income and socioeconomic status. Thus, being able to implement emotion regulation strategies in the laboratory is closely linked to well-being and financial success. Emotion Regulation Ability 3 The Ability to Regulate Emotion is Associated with Greater Well-Being, Income, and Socioeconomic Status Individual variation in cognitive abilities, such as language and mathematics, has been shown to relate strongly to a number of important life criteria, including performance at school and at work (Kunzel, Hezlett, & Ones, 2004; Schmidt & Hunter, 1998). Research in recent years has suggested that there is also important variation among individuals in emotional abilities (see Mayer, Roberts, & Barsade, 2008; Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2008, for reviews). In particular, the ability to regulate emotions reflects variation in how well people adjust emotional responses to meet current situational demands (Gross & Thompson, 2007; Salovey & Mayer, 1990). Equipped with this ability, individuals can aptly modify which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience and express them (Gross, 1998). This ability is arguably one of the most critical elements of our emotion repertoire, and it is the focus of the present research. Past research has begun to examine whether individual variation in the ability to regulate emotions is associated with various criteria. This research has found that variation in knowledge of how to best regulate emotions – whether people know the rules of emotion regulation – is associated with well-being, close social relationships, high grades in school, and high job performance (e.g., Côté & Miners, 2006; Lopes, Salovey, Côté, & Beers, 2005; MacCann & Roberts, 2008). The measures used in these studies assess the degree to which people know how to best manage emotions. Specifically, they reflect how closely respondents’ judgments of how to best regulate emotion in hypothetical scenarios match the judgments of experts. For instance, the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT; Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2002) asks respondents to rate the effectiveness of a series of strategies to manage emotions in several hypothetical scenarios, and their responses are compared to those provided by expert emotion researchers. Emotion Regulation Ability 4 Notwithstanding the importance of knowing how to best manage emotions, knowledge does not fully represent the domain of emotion regulation ability. People who know the best strategies may not implement them well. The distinction between knowledge and the ability to implement is established in the larger literature on intelligence (cf. Ackerman, 1996), and it is also theoretically useful to describe emotional abilities. For example, a customer service agent who knows that cognitively reframing an interaction with a difficult customer is the best strategy may not implement that strategy well during the interaction. Thus, to understand fully how emotion regulation ability is associated with criteria such as well-being and financial success, researchers must also examine the ability to implement strategies to regulate emotions – whether people can actually operate the machinery of emotion regulation. Several of the measures used in studies of the relationship between emotion regulation and other criteria do not assess actual ability to implement emotion regulation strategies. For example, the MSCEIT (Mayer et al., 2002) does not ask respondents to implement the strategy that they believe best addresses the issues depicted in the scenarios. Recent advances in affective science, however, provide tools to objectively assess the ability to implement emotion regulation strategies (Gross & Levenson, 1993; Hagemann, Levenson, & Gross, 2006; Jackson, Malmstadt, Larson, & Davidson, 2000; Kunzmann, Kupperbusch, & Levenson, 2005). In these laboratory paradigms, individuals receive specific instructions about how to regulate their emotions (e.g., reduce the intensity of their emotional expressive behaviors) when encountering emotional stimuli, such as loud noises or emotionally evocative film clips. Success at implementing the emotion regulation strategy can be measured objectively, for example, by coding how much respondents change their emotional expressive behavior when being instructed to do so. Several studies have used this paradigm to examine how regulating emotions is associated with cognitive task performance (Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Muraven, & Tice, 1998; Emotion Regulation Ability 5 Bonanno, Papa, Lalande, Westphal, & Coifman, 2004; Schmeichel, Demaree, Robinson, & Pu, 2006), the activation of neural systems (Beauregard, Levesque, & Bourgouin, 2001; Oschner, Bunge, Gross, & Gabrieli, 2002), and emotion experience, emotional expressive behavior, and autonomic physiology (Demaree, Schmeichel, Robinson, Pu, Everhart, & Berntson, 2006; Giuliani, McCrae, & Gross, 2008; Gross & Levenson, 1993, 1997; Hagemann et al., 2006). This paradigm has also been used as an individual difference measure to test how the ability to implement emotion regulation strategies is associated with age (Kunzmann et al., 2005; Scheibe & Blanchard-Fields, 2009), working memory (Schmeichel, Volokhov, & Demaree, 2008), and executive function (Gyurak, Goodkind, Madan, Kramer, Miller, & Levenson, 2008). In addition, one study employed this paradigm to assess people’s flexibility in using different emotion regulation strategies depending on the situation, showing that flexibility is associated with lower distress after a traumatic event (Bonanno, Papa, Lalande, Westphal, & Coifman, 2004). Thus, this body of research supports the utility of these laboratory paradigms for assessing individual variation in the ability to implement emotion regulation strategies and the correlates of this ability. In this report, we present the results of two studies that examine whether individual variation in the ability to implement strategies to regulate emotions is associated with well-being and financial success and, if so, in what direction. Most people regulate their emotions daily, and more than half the time, they do so by modifying the expression of emotions in their face, voice, and posture (Gross, Richards, & John, 2006). Given the frequency with which we regulate our emotional expressive behavior, it is reasonable to expect that the individual’s ability in this realm would exhibit important associations with other constructs. The regulation of visible expressive behavior encompasses both up-regulation (amplifying emotional expressive behavior) and downEmotion Regulation Ability 6 regulation (reducing emotional expressive behavior). We considered the association of both with our criteria. We now turn to our theoretical development. A review of the existing literature suggests the possibility of both a positive and a negative association between the ability to implement emotion regulation strategies assessed in the laboratory and well-being and financial success. Furthermore, because we do not test the direction of causality in our studies, we consider theoretical arguments for both causal directions of associations, reviewing literatures that suggest that emotion regulation ability has consequences for well-being and financial success (both positive and negative), and also that well-being and financial success have consequences for emotion regulation ability (both positive and negative). The Ability to Regulate Emotional Behavior and Well-Being and Financial Success: Positive Associations In this section, we present theoretical arguments suggesting that the ability to regulate emotion and well-being and financial success are positively associated. We first describe why high emotion regulation ability may help people become happier and garner more financial resources, and then we examine whether happiness and financial resources may help people develop better abilities to regulate their emotions. Why Would Emotion Regulation Ability Increase Well-Being and Financial Success? Philosophers have argued that rational thought and a happy life requires the ability to rein in on emotional impulses (Aristotle, 1884; Solomon, 1993). The ability to modify emotional expressive behavior effectively may help people adapt flexibly to situational demands. Equipped with this ability, individuals might be more successful in communicating attitudes, goals, and intentions that are appropriate in various situations (Keltner & Haidt, 1999) and that might be Emotion Regulation Ability 7 rewarded and fulfilled. The ability to adapt successfully to situational demands then could be associated with various indicators of well-being and success. At a more micro-level, modifying emotional expressive behavior effectively may help people conform to display rules about who can show which emotions to whom and when they can do so (Friesen, 1972). People often attain rewards for conforming to displays rules in various settings. For instance, employees who conform to display rules at wo

Does music make you smarter? Music listening and music lessons have been claimed to confer intellectual advantages. Any association between music and intellectual functioning would be notable only if the benefits apply reliably to nonmusical abilities and if music is unique in producing the effects. The available evidence indicates that music listening leads to enhanced performance on a variety of cognitive tests, but that such effects are shortterm and stem from the impact of music on arousal level and mood, which, in turn, affect cognitive performance; experiences other than music listening have similar effects. Music lessons in childhood tell a different story. They are associated with small but general and long-lasting intellectual benefits that cannot be attributed to obvious confounding variables such as family income and parents’ education. The mechanisms underlying this association have yet to be determined. KEYWORDS—music cognition; intelligence; cognitive development People’s eagerness for quick fixes can be seen in the seemingly irrational appeal of crash diets, get-rich-quick schemes, and getsmart-fast programs. Is the claim of music as a route to enhanced intelligence yet another self-improvement fantasy? In the pages that follow, I outline the origins of the claim and evaluate the available evidence. Intellectual benefits of exposure to music would be noteworthy if (a) they extend to nonmusical abilities, (b) they are systematic and reliable, and (c) they are more likely to result from hearing or playing music than from other activities. Unlike in other cultures, where virtually everyone participates in music making, musical experiences in Western society typically involve listening and, only in some cases, lessons and performing. Music listening is ubiquitous, both purposefully (e.g., listening to the radio) and incidentally (e.g., background music in stores and restaurants). By contrast, relatively few individuals take music lessons for several years. The consequences of music listening are likely to differ quantitatively and qualitatively from those of music lessons.

Background and Purpose: The sport motivation scale (SMS; [Pelletier, L. G., Fortier, M. S., Vallerand, R. J., Tuson, K. M., Brière, N. M., & Blais, M. R. (1995). Toward a new measure of intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and amotivation in sports: The sport motivation scale (SMS). Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 17, 35–53]) was developed to measure an athlete’s motivation toward sport participation. However, the SMS does not measure the most autonomous form of extrinsic motivation, integrated regulation, which is inconsistent with self-determination theory (SDT; [Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behaviour. New York: Plenum Press]) upon which the instrument is based. Moreover, several studies (e.g., [Martens, M. P., & Webber, S. N. (2002). Psychometric properties of the sport motivation scale: An evaluation with college varsity athletes from the U.S. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 24, 254–270]) have questioned the factorial validity of the SMS. Hence, the purpose of this study was to develop a revised version of the SMS, including integrated regulation. Method: In Stage 1, the factorial validity of the SMS was examined using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on data collected from 614 Australians (elite athletes and university students). In Stage 2, the scale was revised by including integrated regulation items and replacing problematic items through an iterative process using CFA for data collected from 557 Australian university students. Concurrent validity of the revised scale was examined by evaluating correlations with the dispositional flow scale-2 (DFS-2) [Jackson, ARTICLE IN PRESS www.elsevier.com/locate/psychsport 1469-0292/$ see front matter r 2007 Published by Elsevier Ltd. doi:10.1016/j.psychsport.2006.12.005 Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 7 33656765; fax: +61 7 33656877. E-mail addresses: cmallett@hms.uq.edu.au (C. Mallett), masato@hms.uq.edu.au (M. Kawabata), newc@psy.uq.edu.au (P. Newcombe), andres.otero@gmail.com (A. Otero-Forero). Author's personal copy S. A., & Eklund, R. C. (2004). The flow scales manual. Morgantown, WV: Fitness Information Technology]. Results: The revision led to development of a six-factor 24-item scale (SMS-6) that indicated a more parsimonious and improved fitting model consistent with SDT. Correlations between the SMS-6 and DFS-2 factors support the concurrent validity of the revised scale. Conclusion: From statistical and theoretical viewpoints, the revised SMS-6 was preferable to the original SMS, except for the discriminant validity issue of identification regulation. Further examination of the instrument is necessary by cross-validating the findings from this study. r 2007 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Music has been shown to have a profound effect on listeners’ internal states as evidenced by neuroscience research. Listeners report selecting and listening to music with specific intent, thereby using music as a tool to achieve desired psychological effects within a given context. In light of these observations, we argue that music information retrieval research must revisit the dominant assumption that listening to music is only an end unto itself. Instead, researchers should embrace the idea that music is also a technology used by listeners to achieve a specific desired internal state, given a particular set of circumstances and a desired goal. This paper focuses on listening to music in isolation (i.e., when the user listens to music by themselves with headphones) and surveys research from the fields of social psychology and neuroscience to build a case for a new line of research in music information retrieval on the ability of music to produce flow states in listeners. We argue that interdisciplinary collaboration is necessary in order to develop the understanding and techniques necessary to allow listeners to exploit the full potential of music as psychological technology.

OBJECTIVE
The underlying changes in biological processes that are associated with reported changes in mental and physical health in response to meditation have not been systematically explored. We performed a randomized, controlled study on the effects on brain and immune function of a well-known and widely used 8-week clinical training program in mindfulness meditation applied in a work environment with healthy employees.

METHODS
We measured brain electrical activity before and immediately after, and then 4 months after an 8-week training program in mindfulness meditation. Twenty-five subjects were tested in the meditation group. A wait-list control group (N = 16) was tested at the same points in time as the meditators. At the end of the 8-week period, subjects in both groups were vaccinated with influenza vaccine.

RESULTS
We report for the first time significant increases in left-sided anterior activation, a pattern previously associated with positive affect, in the meditators compared with the nonmeditators. We also found significant increases in antibody titers to influenza vaccine among subjects in the meditation compared with those in the wait-list control group. Finally, the magnitude of increase in left-sided activation predicted the magnitude of antibody titer rise to the vaccine.

CONCLUSIONS
These findings demonstrate that a short program in mindfulness meditation produces demonstrable effects on brain and immune function. These findings suggest that meditation may change brain and immune function in positive ways and underscore the need for additional research.

UNLABELLED
People perceive meaningful wholes and later separate out constituent parts (D. Navon, 1977). Yet there are cross-national differences in whether a focal target or integrated whole is first perceived. Rather than construe these differences as fixed, the proposed culture-as-situated-cognition model explains these differences as due to whether a collective or individual mind-set is cued at the moment of observation. Eight studies demonstrated that when cultural mind-set and task demands are congruent, easier tasks are accomplished more quickly and more difficult or time-constrained tasks are accomplished more accurately (

STUDY 1
Koreans, Korean Americans; STUDY 2: Hong Kong Chinese; STUDY 3: European- and Asian-heritage Americans; STUDY 4: Americans;

STUDY
5 Hong Kong Chinese; STUDY 6: Americans; STUDY 7: Norwegians; STUDY 8: African-, European-, and Asian-heritage Americans). Meta-analyses (d = .34) demonstrated homogeneous effects across geographic place (East-West), racial-ethnic group, task, and sensory mode-differences are cued in the moment. Contrast and separation are salient individual mind-set procedures, resulting in focus on a single target or main point. Assimilation and connection are salient collective mind-set procedures, resulting in focus on multiplicity and integration.

The hypothesis was tested of whether neurofeedback training (NFT)--applied in order to increase upper alpha but decrease theta power--is capable of increasing cognitive performance. A mental rotation task was performed before and after upper alpha and theta NFT. Only those subjects who were able to increase their upper alpha power (responders) performed better on mental rotations after NFT. Training success (extent of NFT-induced increase in upper alpha power) was positively correlated with the improvement in cognitive performance. Furthermore, the EEG of NFT responders showed a significant increase in reference upper alpha power (i.e. in a time interval preceding mental rotation). This is in line with studies showing that increased upper alpha power in a prestimulus (reference) interval is related to good cognitive performance.

Laboratory measures of visual reaction time suggest that some aspects of high-speed ball games such as cricket are 'impossible' because there is insufficient time for the player to respond to unpredictable movements of the ball. Given the success with which some people perform these supposedly impossible acts, it has been assumed by some commentators that laboratory measures of reaction time are not applicable to skilled performers. An analysis of high-speed film of international cricketers batting on a specially prepared pitch which produced unpredictable movement of the ball is reported, and it is shown that, when batting, highly skilled professional cricketers show reaction times of around 200 ms, times similar to those found in traditional laboratory studies. Furthermore, professional cricketers take roughly as long as casual players to pick up ball flight information from film of bowlers. These two sets of results suggest that the dramatic contrast between the ability of skilled and unskilled sportsmen to act on the basis of visual information does not lie in differences in the speed of operation of the perceptual system. It lies in the organisation of the motor system that uses the output of the perceptual system.


Question: A fresh viewpoint on port supply chain administration based on the service-dominant rationale.

RECONCEPTUALIZING PORT SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT THROUGH THE LENS OF SERVICE-DOMINANT LOGIC

Adopting a service-dominant logic perspective on port supply chain management provides a fresh framework for understanding and enhancing organizational performance. This paradigm shift emphasizes the importance of service, value co-creation, value propositions, operant resources, network dynamics, service ecosystems, and learning. By embracing these concepts, researchers and practitioners are presented with a plethora of opportunities to redefine and improve supply chain management strategies. The integration of service-dominant logic into port supply chain management not only enriches the scholarly discourse but also has the potential to significantly impact and elevate the practical relevance of supply chain operations.

This new perspective encourages organizations to view their supply chains as interconnected service ecosystems, where value is co-created through collaborative networks. It highlights the role of operant resources, such as knowledge and skills, in facilitating value co-creation. Furthermore, the emphasis on learning within these ecosystems fosters a continuous improvement mindset, essential for adapting to the dynamic and complex nature of port supply chains.

By reorienting the focus from product-centric to service-oriented, supply chain managers can better align their strategies with customer needs and expectations, leading to enhanced customer satisfaction and competitive advantage. The service-dominant logic framework thus serves as a powerful tool for rethinking and optimizing port supply chain management practices.

Purpose The purpose of this research is to understand the mechanisms of knowledge management (KM) for innovation and provide an approach for enterprises to leverage KM activities into continuous innovation. Design/methodology/approach – By reviewing the literature from multidisciplinary fields, the concepts of knowledge, KM and innovation are investigated. The physical, human and technological perspectives of KM are distinguished with the identification of two core activities for innovation: knowledge creation and knowledge usage. Then an essential requirement for continuous innovation –an internalization phase is defined. The systems thinking and human-centred perspectives are adopted for providing a comprehensive understanding about the mechanisms of KM for innovation. Findings – A networking process of continuous innovation based on KM is proposed by incorporating the phase of internalization. According to the three perspectives of KM, three sources of organizational knowledge assets in innovation are identified. Then based on the two core activities of innovation, a meta-model and a macro process of KM are proposed to model the mechanisms of KM for continuous innovation. Then, in order to operationalize the KM mechanisms, a hierarchical model is constructed by integrating three sources of knowledge assets, the meta-model and the macro process into the process of continuous innovation. This model decomposes the complex relationships between knowledge and innovation into four layers. Practical implications – According to the lessons learned about KM practices in previous research, the three perspectives of KM should collaborate with each other for successful implementation of KM projects for innovation; and the hierarchical model provides a suitable architecture to implement systems of KM for innovation. Originality/value – The meta-model and macro process of KM explain how the next generation of KM can help the value creation and support the continuous innovation from the systems thinking perspective. The hierarchical model illustrates the complicate knowledge dynamics in the process of continuous innovation.

According to Enterprise Architecture (EA) approaches, organizations have motivational concepts that are used to model the motivations that underlie its design or change, which represent the organization’s Business Motivation Model (BMM). Likewise, this BMM is also present in the organizations who provide IT services. ITIL has become a reference for IT service providers, but is commonly modeled as a process-oriented approach to IT Service Management, often disregarding the remaining EA domains or its motivational elements. Conversely, we believe that like EA, ITIL has an important motivation model that should be formally represented.

This paper reports some findings of an on-going research into ERP implementation issues. A part of the research, which this paper reports, consists of reviewing several cases of successful implementations of ERP systems. The analysis of all these cases revealed that the critical factors for successful implementation of ERP systems fall into two main categories: technological and organizational factors. However, the organizational factors seem to be more important than the technological ones as far as the successful implementation of ERP systems under SCM is concerned.

a r t i c l e i n f o The services section has started to dominate economic activity in many industrialized economies since the last decade. The growth of services in Electronic Mediated Environment (EME) has changed the manner in which firms and consumers interact. Drawing on such theoretical foundations as trust, risk perceptions, trying, emotion, and satisfaction, this study proposes an integrative research model to investigate the relationships among these constructs in the EME context. We collected data from 415 consumers and found that consumer innovativeness and emotion are significant antecedents of trust, risk perception of service, perceived benefits, and service quality. These important factors will influence consumer satisfaction in EME. This empirical investigation breaks a new ground for future studies to understand and gauge the influence of innovativeness and emotion in emerging IT artifacts such as EME services. The service sector has become quantitatively the most essential sector in the world economy over the last decade. It now leads economic activities in a wide variety of industrialized economies. According to CIA World Factbook [14], the service industry accounted for 76.8% and 73.1% of the U.S. and European Union gross domestic product in 2011, respectively. Concurrently, there are more service companies on the list of Future 500 companies than before. Given the precipitously growing rate of the service section, technologically empowered advancements of information technology (IT) and the ever developing Internet are constantly galvanizing today's organizations to more effectively and efficiently coordinate with their constituents via the value-added electronic services (e-services) conduit. Furthermore, the mushrooming growth of e-commerce reflects the increasingly paramount role of IT in e-services while IT spurs the influx of e-service economy across the Internet. It is apparent that Information Systems (IS) plays a crucial role in EME because contemporary organizations have to leverage IT to improve business performance and assist the communication and service delivery amid various value-chain constituents. Consumers play a focal role in the paradigmatic change from the exchange of goods towards a service-centered model of exchange as found in both IS and marketing literature [73]. In this study, the conceptual definition of services in EME is based on Dai and Salam [19] and thereafter refers to the " services being facilitated by IT where the consumer interacts with a proper user interface including web site, mobile phone, social media, virtual world environment, tablets, etc., so as to gain a consumption …

Efficient inventory management is a complex process which entails the management of the inventory in the whole supply chain. The dynamic nature of the excess stock level and shortage level from one period to another is a serious issue. In addition, consideration of multiple products and more supply chain members leads to very complex inventory management process. Moreover, the supply chain cost increases because of the influence of lead times for supplying the stocks as well as the raw materials. A better optimization methodology would consider all these factors in the prediction of the optimal stock levels to be maintained in order to minimize the total supply chain cost. Here, we are proposing an optimization methodology that utilizes the Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm, one of the best optimization algorithms, to overcome the impasse in maintaining the optimal stock levels at each member of the supply chain.


Question: A fresh viewpoint on port supply chain management based on the service-dominant logic.

This paper explores the evolving relationship between consumers and producers in the context of co-creation, co-production, and prosumption, proposing a critical perspective on these phenomena. It argues that the traditional roles of 'consumer' and 'producer' are not necessarily blurred when consumers engage in tasks typically handled by companies. Drawing on Marx's distinction between 'use value' and 'exchange value', the paper posits that when consumers create exchange value for companies, this does indeed signify a fundamental shift in economic roles. Recent technological advancements have enabled customers to contribute to organizational processes in unprecedented ways. For instance, at Threadless.com, customers not only vote for clothing designs but also submit their own designs for consideration. Similarly, National Instruments leverages an online community for half of its research and development activities, where customers collaborate to find solutions to problems using the company's products. Procter & Gamble's 'Vocalpoint' program engages over 500,000 members who promote products in exchange for rewards. Some view these trends as a consumer-as-creator revolution, a new paradigm of message creation and delivery, and a blurring of the lines between producers and consumers. The term 'prosumer', originally coined by Alvin Toffler in 1980, has resurfaced to describe individuals who simultaneously act as consumers and producers. However, the paper argues that while consumers are increasingly performing tasks typically handled by companies, this redefinition of roles can sometimes be superficial. It also suggests that while the distinction between employees and customers can be blurred, a clear line remains between those who create use value and those who create exchange value. The paper concludes that when individuals, traditionally defined as consumers, start producing exchange value for companies, this represents a significant change in economic organization. Using the use value-exchange value distinction, the paper delves into the ethical and normative implications of consumer production in the broader capitalist system, where consumers have historically played a pivotal role.

In the context of port supply chain management, this perspective on the changing roles of consumers and producers offers insights into how value is co-created within the supply chain. It highlights the potential for port stakeholders to collaborate more closely, blurring traditional role boundaries to enhance efficiency and value creation. For instance, port users could contribute to port operations, such as optimizing logistics processes or providing real-time data for predictive maintenance, thus becoming active participants in the value creation process rather than mere recipients of services. This shift towards a more collaborative and integrated approach could redefine the dynamics of the port supply chain

Globalization and the use of technology call for an adaptation of value creation strategies. As the potential for rationalization and achieving flexibility within companies is to the greatest possible extent exhausted, approaches to the corporate reorganization of value creation are becoming increasingly important. In this process, the spread and further development of information and communication technology often provide the basis for a reorganization of cross-company value nets and lead to a redistribution of roles and tasks between the actors involved in value creation. While cooperative, decentralized and self-organizing value creation processes are in fact being promoted, the associated potential for development and production engineering is being underestimated and hence not implemented sufficiently. This contribution will introduce a value creation taxonomy and then, using its notion and structure, describe the emerging transformations in value creation on the basis of case studies. Finally an adequate framework for analysing and configuring value creation will be presented.

According to Enterprise Architecture (EA) approaches, organizations have motivational concepts that are used to model the motivations that underlie its design or change, which represent the organization’s Business Motivation Model (BMM). Likewise, this BMM is also present in the organizations who provide IT services. ITIL has become a reference for IT service providers, but is commonly modeled as a process-oriented approach to IT Service Management, often disregarding the remaining EA domains or its motivational elements. Conversely, we believe that like EA, ITIL has an important motivation model that should be formally represented.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore if six sigma and lean are new methods, or if they are repackaged versions of previously popular methods – total quality management (TQM) and just-in-time (JIT). Design/methodology/approach – The study is based on a critical comparison of lean with JIT and six sigma with TQM, a study of the measure of the publication frequency – the number of academic articles published every year of the previous 30 years – for each topic, and a review of critical success factors (CSF) for change efforts. Findings – The more recent concepts of lean and six sigma have mainly replaced – but not necessarily added to – the concepts of JIT and TQM. lean and six sigma are essentially repackaged versions of the former, and the methods seem to follow the fad (product) life cycle. The literature offers fairly similar and rather general CSF for these methods, e.g. top management support and the importance of communication and information. What seems to be missing, however, is the need for a systemic approach to organizational change and improvement. Practical implications – A prediction is, given the fad or product life cycle phenomenon, that there will be a new method promoted soon, something perhaps already experienced with the borderline preposterous concept of lean six sigma. On the other hand, based on the gap in time between both JIT and lean, and TQM and six sigma – a gap filled by BRP/reengineering – the next method will be process oriented. This paper concludes with the discussion of the need for a process-based approach to organizational improvement efforts. Originality/value – This paper is of value in that it analyzes what lessons can be learnt from organizational change and improvement efforts. The analysis includes a comparison of CSF for any change project before discussing the need for a process (systems) perspective for successful organizational improvement efforts.

Customer-centric Web-based systems, such as ecommerce Web sites, or sites that support customer relationship management (CRM) activities, are themselves information systems, but their design and maintenance need to follow vastly different approaches from the traditional systems lifecycle approach. Based on marketing frameworks that are applicable to the online world, and following design science principles, we develop a model to guide the design and the continuous management of such sites. The model makes extensive use of current technologies for tracking the customers and their behaviors, and combines elements of data mining and statistical analyses. A case study based on a financial services Web site is used to provide a preliminary validation and design evaluation of our approach. The case study showed considerable measured improvement in the effectiveness of the companys Web site. In addition, it also highlighted an important benefit of the our approach: the identification of previously unknown or unexpected segments of visitors. This finding can lead to promising new business opportunities.

The present study proposes a design for an Information Technology Balanced Scorecard (IT BSC) that integrates with business and environment and balances and optimizes deployment and control of the Information Technology strategy. This Strategic and Tactical IT Planning model enhances IT's role in obtaining and measuring its contribution to business value: optimizing IT operational efficiency or proposing new business ideas with a high IT component. The proposed model stimulates innovation in each of the parts of the IT Services lifecycle, is based on IT Service Management best practices and uses ideas from the ITIL v3 standard.

Consumers now purchase several offerings from direct sellers, including catalog and Internet marketers. These direct channels exist in parallel with the conventional retail stores. The availability of multiple channels has significant implications for the performance of consumer markets. The literature in marketing and economics has, however, been dominated by a focus on the conventional retail sector. This paper is an effort toward modeling competition in the multiplechannel environment from a strategic viewpoint. At the outset, a parsimonious model that accommodates the following consumer and market characteristics is introduced. First, the relative attractiveness of retail shopping varies across consumers. Second, the fit with the direct channel varies across product categories. Third, the strength of existing retail presence in local markets moderates competition. Fourth, in contrast with the fixed location of the retail store that anchors its localized market power, the location of the direct marketer is irrelevant to the competitive outcome. The model is first applied in a setting where consumers have complete knowledge of product availability and prices in all channels. In the resulting equilibrium, the direct marketer acts as a competitive wedge between retail stores. The direct presence is so strong that each retailer competes against the remotely located direct marketer, rather than against neighboring retailers. This outcome has implications for the marketing mix of retailers, which has traditionally been tuned to attract consumers choosing between retail stores. In the context of market entry, conditions under which a direct channel can access a local market in retail entry equilibrium are derived. Our analysis suggests that the traditional focus on retail entry equilibria may not yield informative or relevant findings when direct channels are a strong presence. Next, the role of information in multiple-channel markets is modeled. This issue is particularly relevant in the context of direct marketing where the seller can typically control the level of information in the marketplace, sometimes on a customer-by-customer basis (e.g., by deciding on the mailing list for a catalog campaign). When a certain fraction of consumers does not receive information from the direct marketer, the retailers compete with each other for that fraction of the market. The retailer’s marketing mix has to be tuned, in this case, to jointly address direct and neighboring retail competition. The level of information disseminated by the direct marketer is shown to have strategic implications, and the use of market coverage as a lever to control competition is described. Even with zero information costs, providing information to all consumers may not be optimal under some circumstances. In particular, when the product is not well adapted to the direct channel, the level of market information about the direct option should ideally be lowered. The only way to compete with retailers on a larger scale with a poorly adapted product is by lowering direct prices, which lowers profits. Lowering market information levels and allowing retailers to compete more with each other facilitates a higher equilibrium retail price. In turn, this allows a higher direct price to be charged and improves overall direct profit. On the other hand, when the product is well adapted, increasing direct market presence and engaging in greater competition with the retail sector yields higher returns. The finding that high market coverage may depress profits raises some issues for further exploration. First, implementing the optimal coverage is straightforward when the seller controls the information mechanism, as in the case of catalog marketing. The Internet, in contrast, is an efficient mechanism to transmit information, but does not provide the sellers with such control over the level of market information. A key reason is that the initiative to gather information on the Internet lies largely with consumers. The design and implementation of mechanisms to control aggregate information levels in electronic markets can, therefore, be an important theme for research and managerial interest. Second, direct marketers have traditionally relied on the statistical analysis of customer records to decide on contact policies. The analysis in this paper reveals that these policies can have significant strategic implications as well. Research that integrates the statistical and strategic aspects could make a valuable contribution. The paper concludes with a discussion of issues for future research in multiple-channel markets, including avenues to model competition in settings with multiple direct marketers. (Channels of Distribution; Catalog Marketing; Direct Marketing; Electronic Marketing; Internet Marketing; Competitive Strategy; Game Theory)

The design of crisis management services is crucial for emerging countries such as Algeria. It must take into account the experiences of diverse stakeholders. The authors investigate user experience (UX) practices from a service design perspective and describe a case study from Algeria exploring UX-driven service design for crisis management.


Question: A fresh viewpoint on port supply chain administration based on the service-dominant rationale.

Transitioning to a Service-Dominant Logic in Marketing: A Paradigm Shift

The traditional model of exchange in marketing, deeply rooted in economics, was built on a dominant logic centered around the exchange of "goods," typically referring to manufactured products. This logic emphasized tangible resources, the embedded value within these goods, and the transactional nature of exchanges. However, over recent decades, a series of new perspectives have challenged this conventional wisdom, leading to a revised logic that places greater emphasis on intangible resources, the co-creation of value, and the establishment of enduring relationships. These emerging viewpoints are converging to form what we believe is a new dominant logic for marketing, where service, rather than goods, is the cornerstone of economic exchange. This paper delves into the evolution of this new logic and its implications for marketing scholars, practitioners, and educators, illustrating how the field of marketing is undergoing a profound paradigm shift to embrace a service-dominant perspective.

In business-to-business marketing, managers are often tasked with developing effective global pricing strategies for customers characterized by different cultures and different utilities for product attributes. The challenges of formulating international pricing schedules are especially evident in global markets for service offerings, where intensive customer contact, extensive customization requirements, and reliance on extrinsic cues for service quality make pricing particularly problematic. The purpose of this article is to develop and test a model of the antecedents of business customers’ price elasticities of demand for services in an international setting. The article begins with a synthesis of the services, pricing, and global marketing literature streams and then identifies factors that account for differences in business customers’ price elasticities for service offerings across customers in Asia Pacific, Europe, and North America. The findings indicate that price elasticities depend on service quality, service type, and level of service support and that horizontal segments do exist, which provides support for pricing strategies transcending national borders. The article concludes with a discussion of the managerial implications of these results for effective segmentation of global markets for services.

Ž . Design management and process management are two important elements of total quality management TQM implementation. They are drastically different in their targets of improvement, visibility, and techniques. In this paper, we establish a framework for identifying the synergistic linkages of design and process management to the operational quality Ž . Ž . outcomes during the manufacturing process internal quality and upon the field usage of the products external quality . Through a study of quality practices in 418 manufacturing plants from multiple industries, we empirically demonstrate that both design and process management efforts have an equal positive impact on internal quality outcomes such as scrap, rework, defects, performance, and external quality outcomes such as complaints, warranty, litigation, market share. A detailed contingency analysis shows that the proposed model of synergies between design and process management holds true for large and small firms; for firms with different levels of TQM experience; and in different industries with varying levels of competition, logistical complexity of production, or production process characteristics. Finally, the results also suggest that organizational learning enables mature TQM firms to implement both design and process efforts more rigorously and their synergy helps these firms to attain better quality outcomes. These findings indicate that, to attain superior quality outcomes, firms need to balance their design and process management efforts and persevere with long-term Ž . implementation of these efforts. Because the study spans all of the manufacturing sectors SIC 20 through 39 , these conclusions should help firms in any industry revisit their priorities in terms of the relative efforts in design management and process management. q 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Internet of things capability and alliance: entrepreneurial orientation, market orientation and product and process innovation Xiaoyu Yu Bang Nguyen Yi Chen Article information: To cite this document: Xiaoyu Yu Bang Nguyen Yi Chen , (2016),"Internet of things capability and alliance: entrepreneurial orientation, market orientation and product and process innovation", Internet Research, Vol. 26 Iss 2 pp. Permanent link to this document: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/IntR-10-2014-0265

This paper reports some findings of an on-going research into ERP implementation issues. A part of the research, which this paper reports, consists of reviewing several cases of successful implementations of ERP systems. The analysis of all these cases revealed that the critical factors for successful implementation of ERP systems fall into two main categories: technological and organizational factors. However, the organizational factors seem to be more important than the technological ones as far as the successful implementation of ERP systems under SCM is concerned.


Question: A fresh viewpoint on managing port supply chains based on the service-dominant logic.

The Growing Influence of Digital Platforms on Trade Dynamics
In contemporary economic landscapes, markets hold a pivotal position, acting as conduits for the interchange of information, commodities, services, and financial transactions. This exchange not only benefits buyers and sellers but also enriches market facilitators and the broader society by generating significant economic value. Over the past decade, there has been a pronounced escalation in the integration of information technology within market structures. This trend is evident not only in the transformation of conventional markets but also in the burgeoning phenomenon of digital marketplaces, notably exemplified by the proliferation of internet-based online auctions. These virtual platforms have redefined traditional trading mechanisms, offering new avenues for commerce and enhancing the efficiency and accessibility of market interactions.

Consumers now purchase several offerings from direct sellers, including catalog and Internet marketers. These direct channels exist in parallel with the conventional retail stores. The availability of multiple channels has significant implications for the performance of consumer markets. The literature in marketing and economics has, however, been dominated by a focus on the conventional retail sector. This paper is an effort toward modeling competition in the multiplechannel environment from a strategic viewpoint. At the outset, a parsimonious model that accommodates the following consumer and market characteristics is introduced. First, the relative attractiveness of retail shopping varies across consumers. Second, the fit with the direct channel varies across product categories. Third, the strength of existing retail presence in local markets moderates competition. Fourth, in contrast with the fixed location of the retail store that anchors its localized market power, the location of the direct marketer is irrelevant to the competitive outcome. The model is first applied in a setting where consumers have complete knowledge of product availability and prices in all channels. In the resulting equilibrium, the direct marketer acts as a competitive wedge between retail stores. The direct presence is so strong that each retailer competes against the remotely located direct marketer, rather than against neighboring retailers. This outcome has implications for the marketing mix of retailers, which has traditionally been tuned to attract consumers choosing between retail stores. In the context of market entry, conditions under which a direct channel can access a local market in retail entry equilibrium are derived. Our analysis suggests that the traditional focus on retail entry equilibria may not yield informative or relevant findings when direct channels are a strong presence. Next, the role of information in multiple-channel markets is modeled. This issue is particularly relevant in the context of direct marketing where the seller can typically control the level of information in the marketplace, sometimes on a customer-by-customer basis (e.g., by deciding on the mailing list for a catalog campaign). When a certain fraction of consumers does not receive information from the direct marketer, the retailers compete with each other for that fraction of the market. The retailer’s marketing mix has to be tuned, in this case, to jointly address direct and neighboring retail competition. The level of information disseminated by the direct marketer is shown to have strategic implications, and the use of market coverage as a lever to control competition is described. Even with zero information costs, providing information to all consumers may not be optimal under some circumstances. In particular, when the product is not well adapted to the direct channel, the level of market information about the direct option should ideally be lowered. The only way to compete with retailers on a larger scale with a poorly adapted product is by lowering direct prices, which lowers profits. Lowering market information levels and allowing retailers to compete more with each other facilitates a higher equilibrium retail price. In turn, this allows a higher direct price to be charged and improves overall direct profit. On the other hand, when the product is well adapted, increasing direct market presence and engaging in greater competition with the retail sector yields higher returns. The finding that high market coverage may depress profits raises some issues for further exploration. First, implementing the optimal coverage is straightforward when the seller controls the information mechanism, as in the case of catalog marketing. The Internet, in contrast, is an efficient mechanism to transmit information, but does not provide the sellers with such control over the level of market information. A key reason is that the initiative to gather information on the Internet lies largely with consumers. The design and implementation of mechanisms to control aggregate information levels in electronic markets can, therefore, be an important theme for research and managerial interest. Second, direct marketers have traditionally relied on the statistical analysis of customer records to decide on contact policies. The analysis in this paper reveals that these policies can have significant strategic implications as well. Research that integrates the statistical and strategic aspects could make a valuable contribution. The paper concludes with a discussion of issues for future research in multiple-channel markets, including avenues to model competition in settings with multiple direct marketers. (Channels of Distribution; Catalog Marketing; Direct Marketing; Electronic Marketing; Internet Marketing; Competitive Strategy; Game Theory)

Despite a recent surge of interest, the subject of pricing in general and value-based pricing in particular has received little academic investigation. Yet, pricing has a huge impact on financial results, both in absolute terms and relative to other instruments of the marketing mix. The objective of this paper is to present a comprehensive framework for pricing decisions which considers all relevant dimensions and elements for profitable and sustainable pricing decisions. The theoretical framework is useful for guiding new product pricing decisions as well as for implementing price-repositioning strategies for existing products. The practical application of this framework is illustrated by a case study involving the pricing decision for a major product launch at a global chemical company. D 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

In this paper, the use of systems development as a methodology in information systems (is) research is described and defended. A framework to explain the nature of systems development as a research methodology in is research is proposed. Use of this methodology in the engineering field in general is compared with its use specifically in computer science and computer engineering. An integrated program for conducting IS research that incorporates theory building, systems development, experimentation, and observation is proposed. Progress in several application domains is reviewed to provide a basis upon which to argue that systems development is a valid research methodology. A systems development research process is presented from a methodological perspective. Software engineering, which is the basic method of applying the systems development research methodology, is then discussed. It is the authors' belief that systems development and other research methodologies are complementary and that an integrated multi-dimensional and multimethodological approach will generate fruitful is research results. The premise is that research contributions can result from systems development, experimentation, observation, and performance testing of the systems under development and that all of these research approaches are needed to investigate different aspects of the research question. An earlier version of Ihis paper was originally published in the Proceedings of ihe Twenty-Third Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (IEEE Computer Society Press, 1990). Journal of Management Information Systems I Winter 1990-91, Vol. 7, No, 3, pp. 89-106. Copyright © M. E. Sharpe, Inc., 1991. 90 NUNAMAKER, CHEN. AND PURDIN

In turbulent markets, businesses and opportunities are constantly falling out of alignment. New technologies and emerging markets create fresh opportunities. Converging markets produce more. And of course, some markets fade. In this landscape of continuous flux, it's more important to build corporate-level strategic processes that enable dynamic repositioning than it is to build any particular defensible position. That's why smart corporate strategists use patching, a process of mapping and remapping business units to create a shifting mix of highly focused, tightly aligned businesses that can respond to changing market opportunities. Patching is not just another name for reorganizing; patchers have a distinctive mindset. Traditional managers see structure as stable; patching managers believe structure is inherently temporary. Traditional managers set corporate strategy first, but patching managers keep the organization focused on the right set of business opportunities and let strategy emerge from individual businesses. Although the focus of patching is flexibility, the process itself follows a pattern. Patching changes are usually small in scale and made frequently. Patching should be done quickly; the emphasis is on getting the patch about right and fixing problems later. Patches should have a test drive before they're formalized but then be tightly scripted after they've been announced. And patching won't work without the right infrastructure: modular business units, fine-grained and complete unit-level metrics, and companywide compensation parity. The authors illustrate how patching works and point out some common stumbling blocks.

Globalization and the use of technology call for an adaptation of value creation strategies. As the potential for rationalization and achieving flexibility within companies is to the greatest possible extent exhausted, approaches to the corporate reorganization of value creation are becoming increasingly important. In this process, the spread and further development of information and communication technology often provide the basis for a reorganization of cross-company value nets and lead to a redistribution of roles and tasks between the actors involved in value creation. While cooperative, decentralized and self-organizing value creation processes are in fact being promoted, the associated potential for development and production engineering is being underestimated and hence not implemented sufficiently. This contribution will introduce a value creation taxonomy and then, using its notion and structure, describe the emerging transformations in value creation on the basis of case studies. Finally an adequate framework for analysing and configuring value creation will be presented.

The growth of e-commerce and mobile services has been creating business opportunities. Among these, mobile marketing is predicted to be a new trend of marketing. As mobile devices are personal tools such that the services ought to be unique, in the last few years, researches have been conducted studies related to the user acceptance of mobile services and produced results. This research aims to develop a model of mobile e-commerce mobile marketing system, in the form of computer-based information system (CBIS) that addresses the recommendations or criteria formulated by researchers. In this paper, the criteria formulated by researches are presented then each of the criteria is resolved and translated into mobile services. A model of CBIS, which is an integration of a website and a mobile application, is designed to materialize the mobile services. The model is presented in the form of business model, system procedures, network topology, software model of the website and mobile application, and database models.

Recently, ‘Industry 4.0’ has become the supporting force in the manufacturing field. From CPS to Industry 4.0, they are leading a new round of industrial revolution. To meet the fourth industrial revolution, USA, European countries, Japan, South Korea and China have presented different versions of the so-called ‘Industry 4.0’ strategies respectively, which are different from each other in the content, but their common goal is to achieve manufacturing structural adjustment and restructuring and upgrading, to seize a place for future manufacturing, to provide users with better service. What is more, we summarised the five major trends of the future manufacturing. Then, we introduce some enabling technologies about Industry 4.0, among them, CPS plays a key role in the Industry 4.0 factory. Based on the customer to business (C2B) mode, we regard everything as a service, and propose a structure of Industry 4.0. Finally, the automotive industry as an example, we make a brief introduction about an Industry 4.0 case. [Received 15 December 2015; Revised 30 May 2016; Accepted 30 May 2016]

The emergence of digital innovations is accelerating and intervening existing business models by delivering opportunities for new services. Drawing on the automotive industry, leading trends like self-driving cars, connectivity and car sharing are creating new business models. These are simultaneously giving rise for innovative market entrants, which begin to transform the automotive industry. However, literature does not provide a generic value network of the automotive industry, including new market players. The paper aims to visualize the current automotive ecosystem, by evolving a generic value network using the e3-value method. We define different roles, which are operating in the automotive industry by analyzing 650 companies reported in the Crunchbase database and present the value streams within the ecosystem. To validate the proposed generic value network we conducted five preliminary interviews with experts from the automotive industry. Our results show the central role of mobility service platforms, emerging disruptive technology providers and the dissemination of industries, e.g., as OEMs collaborate with mobile payment providers. Scholars in this field can apply the developed generic value network for further research, while car manufacturers may apply the model to position themselves in their market and to identify possible disruptive actors or potential business opportunities.

We describe a variety of inter-related decisions made during daily operations at a container terminal. The ultimate goal of these decisions is to minimize the berthing time of vessels, the resources needed for handling the workload, the waiting time of customer trucks, and the congestion on the roads and at the storage blocks and docks inside the terminal; and to make the best use of the storage space. Given the scale and complexity of these decisions, it is essential to use decision support tools to make them. This paper reports on work to develop such a decision support system (DSS). We discuss the mathematical models and algorithms used in designing the DSS, the reasons for using these approaches, and some experimental results. D 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.