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To create a model of the anatomic distribution, recurrence, and growth patterns of recurrent respiratory papillomatosis (RRP).Prospective, multi-institutional cohort study.Adult patients with a diagnosis of RRP evaluated between August 1, 2018 and February 1, 2021 at six participating centers were invited to enroll. At each office or operating room encounter, laryngologists recorded the location and size of RRP lesions using a 22-region schematic. A generalized linear mixed effects model was used to compare region variations in lesion prevalence and recurrence.The cohort comprised 121 patients: 74% were male, 81% had been diagnosed with adult-onset RRP, and a plurality (34%) had undergone 0 to 3 RRP interventions prior to enrollment. Across the study period, the odds of a lesion occurring in the glottis was significantly higher (odds ratio [OR]: 26.51; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 11.76-59.75, P .001) compared with all other areas of the larynx and trachea. Within the true vocal folds, the membranous vocal folds had significantly higher odds (OR: 6.16; 95% CI: 2.66-14.30, P .001) of lesion occurrence compared to the cartilaginous vocal folds. Despite these strong trends in lesion distribution, there were no differences in the odds of lesion recurrence, growth, or in the time to recurrence, between anatomic subsites.RRP lesions are most likely to occur in the glottis, particularly the membranous vocal folds, compared with other regions of the larynx or trachea. However, all lesions demonstrate similar behavior with respect to recurrence, growth, and time to recurrence regardless of anatomic location.3 Laryngoscope, 132:2403-2411, 2022.

Life-history traits, which are physical traits or behaviours that affect growth, survivorship and reproduction, could play an important role in how well organisms respond to environmental change. By looking for trait-based responses within groups, we can gain a mechanistic understanding of why environmental change might favour or penalize certain species over others. We monitored the abundance of at least 154 bee species for 8 consecutive years in a subalpine region of the Rocky Mountains to ask whether bees respond differently to changes in abiotic conditions based on their life-history traits. We found that comb-building cavity nesters and larger bodied bees declined in relative abundance with increasing temperatures, while smaller, soil-nesting bees increased. Further, bees with narrower diet breadths increased in relative abundance with decreased rainfall. Finally, reduced snowpack was associated with reduced relative abundance of bees that overwintered as prepupae whereas bees that overwintered as adults increased in relative abundance, suggesting that overwintering conditions might affect body size, lipid content and overwintering survival. Taken together, our results show how climate change may reshape bee pollinator communities, with bees with certain traits increasing in abundance and others declining, potentially leading to novel plant–pollinator interactions and changes in plant reproduction.

Motivated by accelerating anthropogenic extinctions, decades of biodiversity–ecosystem function (BEF) experiments show that ecosystem function declines with species loss from local communities. Yet, at the local scale, changes in species' total and relative abundances are more common than species loss. The consensus best biodiversity measures are Hill numbers, which use a scaling parameter, ℓ , to emphasize rarer versus more common species. Shifting that emphasis captures distinct, function-relevant biodiversity gradients beyond species richness. Here, we hypothesized that Hill numbers that emphasize rare species more than richness does may distinguish large, complex and presumably higher-functioning assemblages from smaller and simpler ones. In this study, we tested which values of ℓ produce the strongest BEF relationships in community datasets of ecosystem functions provided by wild, free-living organisms. We found that ℓ values that emphasized rare species more than richness does most often correlated most strongly with ecosystem functions. As emphasis shifted to more common species, BEF correlations were often weak and/or negative. We argue that unconventional Hill diversities that shift emphasis towards rarer species may be useful for describing biodiversity change, and that employing a wide spectrum of Hill numbers can clarify mechanisms underlying BEF relationships. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Detecting and attributing the causes of biodiversity change: needs, gaps and solutions’.

The relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem function (BEF) remains unclear in many natural ecosystems, partially for lack of theoretical and analytical tools that match common characteristics of observational community data. The ecological Price equation promises to meet this need by organizing many different species-level changes into a few ecologically meaningful categories that sum to total ecosystem function change. Current versions of the ecological Price equation focus on species richness and presence-absence. However, abundance and relative abundance are better estimated in samples and are likely showing a stronger response to global change. Here, we present a novel, abundance-based version of the ecological Price equation in both discrete and continuous forms and explain the similarities and differences between this method and a related, previously developed richness-based method. We also present new empirical techniques for applying the Price equation to ecological data. Our two demonstration analyses reveal how additive effects of increasing abundance on total function are modified by concurrent selection effects due to shifts in species' composition as well as intraspecific change in species' per capita function. The ecological Price equations derived here complement existing approaches and together offer BEF researchers analytical tools and a unifying framework for studying BEF in observational community data.

Urbanization has become a dominant driver of landscape transformation across the world, with cities representing centers of economic and socio-cultural development [...]

The banking industry is undergoing a paradigm change in the form of financial innovation and enabling technology. The advent of Financial Technology, or FinTech, in banking has changed the landscape of firm-customer interactions and delivery of unique customer experiences. Revolutionary FinTech firms are using technology to design and offer novel services that proactively meet consumer needs of financial services in direct and valuable ways (Gomber et al. 2018). The disrup-tive innovation triggered by technology has pitted incumbent banks against the agile new entrants, such as challenger or digital-only banks and FinTech firms. Crucially, customer experience has emerged as the new competitive front for financial ser-vices. Banks can no longer compete on product, price or the number of physical branches they have. What wins customer over is innovative products, proactive approach, and convenience in interacting via wide variety of channels (EY Banking Survey 2016).Despite widespread media and industry interest in FinTechs’ increasing ability to provide superior customer experience, academic research on this issue is still in an embryonic stage. This research seeks to understand how FinTech firms are develop-ing greater customer orientation by delivering superior customer experiences. Does FinTech-driven experience promote greater consumer trust and satisfaction, and does it have a positive impact on word-of-mouth? This research aims to inform the industry and marketing professionals in understanding how the acceptance of tech-nology by customers is influencing their customer experience.Our research methodology aims to explore the perceptions of customers of vari-ous large banks through a survey questionnaire. The survey consist of statements related to the factors affecting acceptance of online banking (TAM), online consumer experience antecedents and statements related to the interaction between service provide and customers via technology. Findings will provide insights into how banks can formulate successful strategies to address emerging competitive threats. Our policy contribution is to inform the industry and marketing professionals in understanding how the acceptance of technology by customers is influencing their customer experience. This research joins ongoing regulatory dialogues (e.g. Australian Securities and Investment Commission, 2018; Chartered Banker Institute, 2018), which assert that despite an increasingly important role of technology, service staff still plays a key role in rendering superior customer experience in banking. This study aims to conduct a detailed analysis of the dynamic role played by employee- customer (Branch-level) and technology-customer (FinTech) interfaces. Are they complements or substitutes? Our findings will provide insights into how banks can formulate successful strategies to address emerging competitive threats.

Installing pollinator habitat is a ubiquitous conservation tool, but little is known about which pollinator taxa require support, or which benefit from habitat installations.We studied the response of rare and common bees to pollinator habitat enhancement. We used independent regional datasets to designate bee species as common or rare based on their rank according to one of three metrics: a) site occurrence frequency, b) local relative abundance, and c) geographic range size. We asked whether the abundance or richness of rare and common bees were greater in pollinator habitat, relative to old-field controls. Because we used an arbitrary, quantile-based cutoff to categorize species rarity, we conducted sensitivity analysis and controlled for rarity classification errors with a null model. With this null model, we determined whether rare and/or common species responded to pollinator habitat disproportionately, compared to the expectation for ‘typical’ bee species.We found that the number of individuals and of species designated as rare based on local relative abundance was greater in pollinator habitat enhancements. The number of individuals from bee species designated as rare based on site occurrence was lower in pollinator habitat enhancements, but the number of species was not clearly different between habitat types. We did not find a clear positive nor negative effect of habitat enhancement for species designated rare based on geographic range size. For all three rarity metrics, common species increased in abundance and richness in pollinator habitat relative to controls. Null models indicated that in most cases, neither rare nor common species disproportionately benefited from pollinator habitat.Synthesis and Applications:Our results suggest that pollinator habitat can lead to an increase in the abundance and richness of bees, including species that are rare and that are common. However, rare species appeared to respond differently than typical species, and depending on how species were classified as rare, could display muted or even negative responses to habitat enhancement. Targeting rare species with specific floral resources or unique habitat types may lead to better outcomes for rare and threatened species.

Fil: Senapathi, Deepa. University of Reading. School of Agriculture, Policy & Development. Centre for Agri-Environmental Research. Reino Unido. Fil: Fründ, Jochen. University of Freiburg. Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources. Biometry and Environmental System Analysis. Alemania. Fil: Albrecht, Matthias. Agroscope. Institute for Sustainability Sciences. Suiza. Fil: Garratt, Michael P. D. University of Reading. School of Agriculture, Policy & Development. Centre for Agri-Environmental Research. Reino Unido. Fil: Kleijn, David. Wageningen University. Plant Ecology and Nature Conservation Group. Países Bajos. Fil: Pickles, Brian J. University of Reading. School of Biological Sciences. Reino Unido. Fil: Potts, Simon G. University of Reading. School of Agriculture, Policy & Development. Centre for Agri-Environmental Research. Reino Unido. Fil: An, Jiandong. Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Institute of Apicultural Research. China. Fil: Andersson, Georg K. S. Universidad Nacional de Río Negro. Instituto de Investigaciones en Recursos Naturales, Agroecología y Desarrollo Rural. Río Negro, Argentina. Fil: Andersson, Georg K. S. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Investigaciones en Recursos Naturales, Agroecología y Desarrollo Rural. Río Negro, Argentina. Fil: Bänsch, Svenja. University of Göttingen. Department of Crop Sciences. Functional Agrobiodiversity. Alemania. Fil: Basu, Parthiba. University of Calcutta. Centre for Pollination Studies. India. Fil: Benjamin, Faye. The State University of New Jersey. Department of Ecology, Evolution and Natural Resources. Estados Unidos. Fil: Bezerra, Antonio Diego M. The State University of New Jersey. Department of Ecology, Evolution and Natural Resources. Estados Unidos. Fil: Bhattacharya, Ritam. University of Calcutta. Centre for Pollination Studies. India. Fil: Biesmeijer Jacobus C. Naturalis Biodiversity Centre. Países Bajos. Fil: Blaauw, Brett. University of Georgia. Department of Entomology. Estados Unidos. Fil: Blitzer, Eleanor J. Carroll College. Department of Biology. Estados Unidos. Fil: Brittain, Claire A. Jealott’s Hill International Research Centre. Syngenta. Reino Unido. Fil: Carvalheiro, Luísa G. Universidade Federal de Goiás. Departamento de Ecologia. Brasil. Fil: Cariveau, Daniel P. University of Minnesota. Department of Entomology. Estados Unidos. Fil: Chakraborty, Pushan. University of Calcutta. Centre for Pollination Studies. India. Fil: Chatterjee, Arnob. University of Calcutta. Centre for Pollination Studies. India. Fil: Chatterjee, Soumik. University of Calcutta. Centre for Pollination Studies. India. Fil: Cusser, Sarah. Michigan State University. W. K. Kellogg Biological Station. Estados Unidos. Fil: Danforth, Bryan N. Cornell University. Department of Entomology. Estados Unidos. Fil: Degani, Erika. University of Reading. School of Agriculture, Policy & Development. Centre for Agri-Environmental Research. Reino Unido. Fil: Freitas, Breno M. The State University of New Jersey. Department of Ecology, Evolution and Natural Resources. Estados Unidos. Fil: Garibaldi, Lucas A. Universidad Nacional de Río Negro. Instituto de Investigaciones en Recursos Naturales, Agroecología y Desarrollo Rural. Río Negro, Argentina. Fil: Garibaldi, Lucas A. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Investigaciones en Recursos Naturales, Agroecología y Desarrollo Rural. Río Negro, Argentina. Fil: Geslin, Benoit. Aix Marseille Univ, Avignon Université. IMBE. Francia. Fil: de Groot, G. Arjen. Wageningen University and Research. Wageningen Environmental Research. Países Bajos. Fil: Harrison, Tina. University of California Davis. Department of Entomology and Nematology. Estados Unidos. Fil: Howlett, Brad. The New Zealand Institute for Plant & Food Research Limited. Nueva Zelanda. Fil: Isaacs, Rufus. Michigan State University. Department of Entomology. Estados Unidos. Fil: Jha, Shalene. The University of Texas at Austin. Department of Integrative Biology. Estados Unidos. Fil: Klatt, Björn Kristian. University of Göttingen. Department of Crop Sciences. Agroecology. Alemania. Fil: Krewenka, Kristin. University of Heidelberg. Heidelberg Research Service. Alemania. Fil: Leigh, Samuel. University of Reading. School of Agriculture, Policy & Development. Centre for Agri-Environmental Research. Reino Unido. Fil: Lindström, Sandra A. M. Lund University. Department of Biology. Biodiversity. Suecia. Fil: Mandelik, Yael. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment. Department of Entomology. Israel. Fil: McKerchar, Megan. University of Worcester. School of Science and Environment. Reino Unido. Fil: Park, Mia. Cornell University. Department of Entomology. Estados Unidos. Fil: Pisanty, Gideon. Canadian National Collection of Insects, Arachnids and Nematodes. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Canada. Fil: Rader, Romina. University of New England. School of Environment and Rural Science. Australia. Fil: Reemer, Menno. Naturalis Biodiversity Centre. Países Bajos. Fil: Rundlöf, Maj. Lund University. Department of Biology. Biodiversity. Suecia. Fil: Smith, Barbara. University of Calcutta. Centre for Pollination Studies. India. Fil: Smith, Henrik G. Lund University. Centre of Environmental and Climate Research & Department of Biology. Suecia. Fil: Nunes Silva, Patrícia. Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Biologia. Brasil. Fil: Steffan-Dewenter, Ingolf. University of Würzburg. Department of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology. Alemania. Fil: Tscharntke, Teja. University of Göttingen. Department of Crop Sciences. Agroecology. Alemania. Fil: Webber, Sean. University of Reading. School of Agriculture, Policy & Development. Centre for Agri-Environmental Research. Reino Unido. Fil: Westbury, Duncan B. University of Worcester. School of Science and Environment. Reino Unido. Fil: Westphal, Catrin. University of Göttingen. Department of Crop Sciences. Functional Agrobiodiversity. Alemania. Fil: Wickens, Jennifer B. University of Reading. School of Agriculture, Policy & Development. Centre for Agri-Environmental Research. Reino Unido. Fil: Wickens, Victoria J. University of Reading. School of Agriculture, Policy & Development. Centre for Agri-Environmental Research. Reino Unido. Fil: Winfree, Rachael. The State University of New Jersey. Department of Ecology, Evolution and Natural Resources. Estados Unidos. Fil: Zhang, Hong. Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Institute of Apicultural Research. China. Fil: Klein, Alexandra-Maria. University of Freiburg. Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources. Nature Conservation and Landscape Ecology. Alemania. While an increasing number of studies indicate that the range, diversity and abundance of many wild pollinators has declined, the global area of pollinator-dependent crops has significantly increased over the last few decades. Crop pollination studies to date have mainly focused on either identifying different guilds pollinating various crops, or on factors driving spatial changes and turnover observed in these communities. The mechanisms driving temporal stability for ecosystem functioning and services, however, remain poorly understood. Our study quantifies temporal variability observed in crop pollinators in 21 different crops across multiple years at a global scale. Using data from 43 studies from six continents, we show that (i) higher pollinator diversity confers greater inter-annual stability in pollinator communities, (ii) temporal variation observed in pollinator abundance is primarily driven by the three-most dominant species, and (iii) crops in tropical regions demonstrate higher inter-annual variability in pollinator species richness than crops in temperate regions. We highlight the importance of recognizing wild pollinator diversity in agricultural landscapes to stabilize pollinator persistence across years to protect both biodiversity and crop pollination services. Short-term agricultural management practices aimed at dominant species for stabilizing pollination services need to be considered alongside longer term conservation goals focussed on maintaining and facilitating biodiversity to confer ecological stability. .

Purpose This paper re-conceptualizes and measures brand identity (BI) from a services perspective. This paper aims to develop and test a psychometrically valid and reliable scale to measure service brand identity (SERVBID). Design/methodology/approach A multi-stage research design was adopted drawing on qualitative and quantitative studies consistent with extant scale development procedures. Qualitative studies comprised a comprehensive literature review, expert panel review and interviews to develop a theoretical framework and generate items. Quantitative studies comprised pilot testing (n = 106), online survey for scale development (n = 246) and scale validation (n = 245) on UK-based consumers using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Findings The study finds support for a five-dimensional SERVBID scale comprising: process identity; organization identity; symbolic identity; servicescape identity; and communication identity. Practical implications The SERVBID scale provides practitioners with a practical tool to understand, benchmark and assess SERVBID. The scale will assist marketers in assessing the strength of BI overall as well as the strength of individual facets of BI. Originality/value This study provides a deeper and complete understanding of the theoretical construct of BI through a service-dominant lens, in particular recognizing the defining role of the service process and servicescape in SERVBID construction.

AIM: Land use change reorganizes local communities, resulting in complex changes in biodiversity at larger scales. The biotic homogenization hypothesis predicts that the replacement of sensitive loser species with widespread winner species will lead to loss of beta diversity and ultimately loss of regional diversity at multiple levels of ecological organization. We ask if land use is associated with biotic homogenization patterns in bee communities at two large spatial scales, using both species and phylogenetic dissimilarity indices. LOCATION: North‐eastern USA (New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania). TIME PERIOD: 2013–2015. MAJOR TAXA STUDIED: Superfamily Apoidea (bees). METHODS: We sampled bee communities from replicated sites in forest, agriculture and urban land use types within a large spatial extent spanning four distinct ecoregions. We compared pairwise compositional dissimilarity within and between ecoregions, using both species and phylogenetic dissimilarity indices. We also investigated how compositional difference is related to geographic distance between sites. RESULTS: Forested, agricultural and urban landscapes did not differ detectably in either mean pairwise species dissimilarity or slope of distance‐decay. Dissimilarity among both agricultural and urban bee communities increased with geographic distance. However, urban landscapes had significantly lower phylogenetic pairwise dissimilarity, indicating strong phylogenetic homogenization at within‐ and between‐ecoregion scales. MAIN CONCLUSIONS: We did not detect bee species homogenization in agricultural or urban land use types. However, urban land use was associated with phylogenetic homogenization across a large regional extent. Urban bee communities are dominated by closely related species that maintain beta diversity at the species level, but contribute to low phylogenetic beta diversity relative to forest and agricultural bee communities. We observed similar levels of homogenization at landscape and regional spatial extents, despite inter‐site distances differing by an order of magnitude between these scales. Further urbanization could result in loss of bee biodiversity and evolutionary history at multiple spatial scales.

Forest-associated species, which depend on forest habitat for their survival, are among the world's most vulnerable species due to widespread forest loss. However, in many parts of the world, forests are re-growing. Thus, if forest-associated species can persist in young forests their conservation outlook is less bleak. We examined the effects of forest loss and regrowth on bee pollinators in eastern North America using three datasets totaling 36,605 individual specimens. First, we conducted a regional-scale study to identify forest-associated and habitat generalist bee species. Second, we examined how the abundance and richness of each group change with forest area and age, by collecting bees from forests chosen to vary orthogonally in these variables. Lastly, we examined whether the results of our field studies were consistent with long-term, regional trends in the richness of both groups, using a dataset of museum specimens collected between 1872 and 2011, which was a period of reforestation in our study region. We found that the abundance and richness of forest-associated bees increase with forest area, while being relatively insensitive to forest age. By contrast, habitat generalist bees are unaffected by forest area, but decrease in abundance with forest age. Consistent with these results, we found a 16% increase in the richness of forest-associated bees over a 140-year time series as reforestation occurred in eastern North America, but no significant trend for habitat generalists. Overall, our results show that the loss of forest area from a landscape harms forest-associated bees, and that young forests have high conservation value for both forest-associated and habitat generalist bees.

The response of rare species to human land use is poorly known because rarity is difficult to study; however, it is also important because rare species compose most of biodiversity, and are disproportionately vulnerable. Regional bee pollinator faunas have not been assessed for rarity outside of Europe. Therefore, we do not know to what extent anthropogenic landscapes support rare North American bee biodiversity. We ask how richness and abundance of bee species respond to land use, within quartiles of species defined by their numerical, phenological, and geographical rarity. We conducted a field study to sample bee communities in forested, agricultural, and urban landscapes replicated across a large spatial extent of the northeastern United States. We used large independent data sets to classify observed bee species according to three forms of rarity: their numerical rarity (low regional frequency in a museum-based data set), phenological rarity (short flight season length) and geographical rarity (small range size). For all three forms of rarity, we found half as many rare bee species in agricultural landscapes compared to forest. We found half as many phenologically rare species in urban landscapes. Bees that had both shorter flight seasons and smaller range sizes were between one-third and one-half as rich in both types of anthropogenic landscapes, regardless of regional frequency. Although a minority of rare bee species were found in anthropogenic landscapes, our overall conclusion is that the native vegetation of our region, forest, is critical for supporting rare bee biodiversity.

Anthropogenic landscapes are associated with biodiversity loss and large shifts in species composition and traits. These changes predict the identities of winners and losers of future global change, and also reveal which environmental variables drive a taxon's response to land use change. We explored how the biodiversity of native bee species changes across forested, agricultural, and urban landscapes. We collected bee community data from 36 sites across a 75,000 km2 region, and analyzed bee abundance, species richness, composition, and life history traits. Season-long bee abundance and richness were not detectably different between natural and anthropogenic landscapes, but community phenologies differed strongly, with an early spring peak followed by decline in forests, and a more extended summer season in agricultural and urban habitats. Bee community composition differed significantly between all three land use types, as did phylogenetic composition. Anthropogenic land use had negative effects on the persistence of several life history strategies, including early spring flight season and brood parasitism, which may indicate adaptation to conditions in forest habitat. Overall, anthropogenic communities are not diminished subsets of contemporary natural communities. Rather, forest species do not persist in anthropogenic habitats, but are replaced by different native species and phylogenetic lineages pre-adapted to open habitats. Characterizing compositional and functional differences is crucial for understanding land use as a global change driver across large regional scales. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Financial education has been recognised as a transformative service. It aims to increase individuals’ capability as financial consumers, thereby improving their financial well-being. Whilst many countries have developed financial education programmes for schools, the impact of such interventions is mixed (Hoffmann and Otteby 2018). A parliamentary report on financial education in schools in the UK (APPG 2016) concludes that much more support is needed to strengthen the delivery of financial education in schools, in particular through improving teacher confidence and skill set.

The construct of online consumer engagement (OCE) has emerged as a key metric of social media marketing outcomes. Research has focused on positive OCE resulting in limited insight into negative OCE. It is important to address this gap since negative OCE maintains relationship proximity but exhibits intense antagonistic thoughts, feelings and actions towards the brand; which are manifested actively (unlike disengagement which is manifested passively) (Hollebeek and Chen 2014; Naumann et al. 2017). Examples of negative OCE include resisting firm-initiated communication (Gretry et al. 2017), posting abusive comments (Keashly and Neumann 2008), complaining (Presi et al. 2014), boycotting and revenge (Tuzovic 2010). We focus upon negative OCE as a lack of research attention means there is limited insight into the frustration and angry reactions present within the dark-side of social media (Gebauer et al. 2013; Hollebeek and Chen 2014).

Bumble bees are among the best‐studied bee groups worldwide, yet surprisingly we know almost nothing about their overwintering habitats nor the microsite characteristics that govern selection of these sites. This gap represents a critical barrier for their conservation, especially if preferred overwintering habitats differ from foraging and nesting habitats. Current conservation plans focus on foraging habitat, potentially creating a problem of partial habitats where improved forage might fail to prevent population declines due to limited overwintering sites. We provide the first data on the overwintering habitat for any western North American bumble bee. Our data suggest that overwintering and foraging habitats are likely distinct, and queens’ selection of overwintering sites may be shaped by environmental stressors of the year. In our study area, queens overwintered in litter beneath cypress trees, where no floral resources exist. Whether this separation of overwintering and foraging habitat holds for other bumble bee species remains to be discovered. Our data highlight the need to consider the whole life cycle for understanding population dynamics and conservation planning. This need is underscored by growing evidence for the decline of multiple North American bumble bee species.

Strategy formulation is commonly understood as the match between a firm’s internal resources and skills and its external environment. Marketing strategy performance is the function of a dynamic, interactive process incorporating internal firm resources, external environmental factors and competitive actions. The study aims to assess the impact of competitor actions on marketing strategy performance. We develop a model that accommodates the effects of 29 variables (comprising internal marketing strategy variables, external environmental factors and competitors’ marketing mix variables) on business performance. We empirically test the model using simultaneous equation modelling of time-series data on UK car manufacturers collected from publicly available resources and annual reports. The results show that external factors, in particular competitors’ marketing mix elements, have a greater influence on a company’s business performance than internal (marketing and non-marketing) strategy variables. Implications for marketing theory and management are discussed.

Summary Plant–pollinator interactions are affected by global change, with largely negative impacts on pollination and plant reproduction. Urban areas provide a unique and productive study system for understanding the impacts of many global change drivers on plant–pollinator interactions. We review the mechanistic pathways through which urban drivers alter plant–pollinator interactions. The literature on urban drivers of plant–pollinator interactions is small but growing and has already produced exciting insights about how population processes or pollinator behaviour interacts with landscape urban drivers to affect pollination outcomes. Habitat loss and fragmentation can change flower visitation rates and pollination success through changes in pollinator foraging behaviour or through population-level effects on pollinators. Urban environments, where impermeable surface provides an inhospitable matrix, may allow researchers to identify habitat fragments more clearly than in many other environments. Recent studies have found that non-native plants are not differently preferred by pollinators relative to native plants, therefore removing the basis for expecting pollinator-mediated competition between native and non-native plants in urban habitats. However, non-native species together with managed vegetation may have powerful effects in urban habitats via changes in community-level plant phenology and consequent changes in pollinator phenology. The current level of climate warming has not caused plants and pollinators to become detectably temporally separated, although at the same time, diversity among species’ phenological responses could buffer plant–pollinator interactions from climate variation. Due to the urban warming effect, cities provide a promising system for better understanding the warming effects on plant–pollinator interactions. Environmental contaminants such as soil nitrogen and heavy metal pollution have been examined with respect to plant–pollinator interactions in small-scale, mechanistic studies. The extent to which environmental contaminants drive plant–pollinator interactions in actual urban landscapes is, however, currently unknown. Important knowledge gaps that require research attention include understanding the consequences of plant and pollinator trait filtering on plant–pollinator interactions, and expanding the literature to include underrepresented biomes and pollinator taxa.

This study focuses on creativity and innovation in the gastronomy sector, where both concepts have become increasingly relevant determinants of success, business performance and longer-term survival. Specifically, it investigates the key factors that effectively stimulate the actions and behaviours leading to a continuous flow of novel and useful ideas that can be turned into innovations. To achieve this, an inductive methodology was used, based on the study of a single but significant case, using the semi-structured in-depth interview. The results show that new ideas are mainly generated directly by the chef; hence individual features play a leading role, together with endless experimentation. They furthermore underline that the innovation process is mainly influenced by a trial-and-error approach, which is possible only if the chef has a genuine entrepreneurial spirit. These results hold several relevant theoretical and practical implications.

This paper aims to contribute to the universal discourse on financial services continuance behavior by examining the impact of service cost on customers’ service-quality perception and service continuance intention. It presents the results of an empirical study that has explored the impacts of service cost, service quality, and customer satisfaction on health insurance customers’ behavioral intention toward continuing or discontinuing with their service providers. Very few studies had examined the impact of service cost on service-quality perception. Our study attempts to fill that gap. A sample of 820 customers was surveyed, and 624 usable responses were analyzed with ANOVA, standard multiple regression, and logistic regression. Our findings indicate that, although highly satisfied health insurance customers will most likely retain their current service providers, customer dissatisfaction does not necessarily lead to discontinuance. Our results also provide some operational implications for health insurance managers, with strategies for reducing attrition and improving customer retention.

Risk represents the unknown future: an intangible commodity. Public risk may affect any part of society and government is expected to respond, implying a need for governance and accountability. Public risk governance though is complicated by the multiplicity of different stakeholders and the network of interactions. We explore public risk governance through the actors involved in public risk governance and accountability. Through synthesis of the related and theoretically consistent concepts of governance, stakeholder theory and social network theory we develop the concept and underlying principles of ‘knowledgeable supervision’ as a means of public risk governance.

This study examines how consumers perceive sports sponsorship by a financial services organisation. Current literature provides information on the advantages and objectives of sponsorship to an organisation. However, it is evident that there is little on how consumers react to sponsorship and in particular how the differences in brand and event involvement (EI) affect response. Data was collected from two audiences of a sponsored sports event, those who attended the game and those who did not. The research findings indicate that, in the context of sponsorship activity, brand involvement is a direct positive influence on brand attractiveness and brand meaningfulness. This study also shows that EI has a direct negative influence on brand trustworthiness. Those who were classed as involved spectators considered the brand to be less trustworthy. Limitations of the study include the economic environment, type of research method and sample size. Areas of further research are recommended.

The response and effect trait framework, if supported empirically, would provide for powerful and general predictions about how biodiversity loss will lead to loss in ecosystem function. This framework proposes that species traits will explain how different species respond to disturbance (i.e. response traits) as well as their contribution to ecosystem function (i.e. effect traits). However, predictive response and effect traits remain elusive for most systems. Here, we present detailed data on crop pollination services provided by native, wild bees to explore the role of six commonly used species traits in determining how crop pollination is affected by increasing agricultural intensification. Analyses were conducted in parallel for three crop systems (watermelon, cranberry, and blueberry) located within the same geographical region (mid-Atlantic USA). Bee species traits did not strongly predict species’ response to agricultural intensification, and the few traits that were weakly predictive were not consistent across crops. Similarly, no trait predicted species’ overall functional contribution in any of the three crop systems, although body size was a good predictor of per capita efficiency in two systems. So far, most studies looking for response or effect traits in pollination systems have found weak and often contradicting links. Overall we were unable to make generalizable predictions regarding species responses to land-use change and its effect on the delivery of ecosystem services. Pollinator traits may be useful for understanding ecological processes in some systems, but thus far the promise of traits-based ecology has yet to be fulfilled for pollination ecology.

This article compares consumer expectations of bank website functionality for two online task scenarios: information search and transaction. This study uses task technology fit theory and follows a novel methodological approach by using expectation ‘fit’ according to a set of website attributes. An online questionnaire, distributed through e-mail invitation, achieved a sample of 469 Internet users. This research finds several points of similarity and difference with regard to consumer expectations of website attributes according to task context and makes an important and original contribution to both practice and theory. For marketing practitioners, the findings inform how they might ‘manage’ expectations to facilitate positive website experiences. Theoretical contributions are made through integrating IS and Marketing theory to identify the impact of goal-directed behaviour on satisfaction with website attributes.

Branding is a key success driver for services organizations (Berry 2000). Strong brands are created and sustained in part through their identity (Aaker 1996). Upshaw (1995, p. 12) defines brand identity (BI) as the “configuration of words, images, ideas, and associations that form a consumer’s aggregate perceptions of a brand” arguing that brand identity is the consumer’s perception of what has been created. By contrast, Aaker (1996) defines BI as “a unique set of brand associations that the brand strategist aspires to create or maintain.” The majority of research since Aaker’s (1996) work has tended to view BI as a managerial construct (de Chernatony 1999; Gylline and Lindberg-Repo 2006; Alsem and Kostelijk 2008), failing to account for the most important stakeholder: the consumer.

The increasing interest in the wider societal responsibilities of the business community has highlighted the call for the employment of transparent and accountable commercial practices (Initiative for Responsible Investment 2014). This pressure for transparency in business activities has resulted in a growth of information disclosure methods. The most recent addition in the approaches used to convey the responsibility message has centred on the disclosure of nonfinancial information, involving both mandatory and voluntary actions taken by companies (BIS 2013). This focus has now entered an increasingly monitored period, with laws, directives and regulations being introduced at an international level. According to research headed by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP et al. 2010), this is aimed at strengthening compliance and comparability of corporate social responsibility (CSR)-related initiatives.

The concept of switching generally assumes that customers have choice and the ability to change from one service/product provider to another. Yet, not all situations present consumers with the same degree of choice or ability to switch. In the UK, lack of competition, choice, and switching barriers are cited as particular problems facing consumers in switching from one bank to another. Previous studies of switching have tended to focus only on certain aspects affecting switching behavior, such as switching factors (Keaveney 1995; Gerrard and Cunningham 2004) or staying factors (Patterson and Smith 2003; Panther and Farquhar 2004; Colgate and Lang 2001). Other studies have combined elements (Bansal and Taylor 1999) such as switching and sociopsychological factors; but few studies have combined factors affecting both switching and staying. We attempt to provide a more holistic analysis of the factors prompting switching intentions including those factors that serve to promote or inhibit switching or staying. We take as our theoretical basis migration theory and the theory of planned behavior.

Due to the complexity and inherent risk associated with financial services decisions, many consumers seek advice and guidance from sales advisors and even delegate responsibility for decision making to them. The performance of financial services salespeople is therefore of critical importance to their clients in securing appropriate financial decisions and outcomes. Whilst different models of sales advising exist, many sales advisors work separately and at a distance from the firm, leading to a common perception of the financial services advisor as one of “lone ranger.” Monitoring the direct performance of advisors is thus difficult, if not impossible; a key factor leading to the blame of advisors following the recent financial crisis. Set against this context, this paper focuses on the role of feedback as a key factor impacting a financial advisor’s effectiveness and performance, specifically the extent of sales advisors’ feedback orientation.

Interest in the subject of Financial Services Marketing, both practically and theoretically, has grown substantially over the last few decades. This growth in interest is recognition of the importance of the financial services industry to the economies of nations globally and the acknowledgment that marketing and consumption of financial services are different from the marketing and consumption of tangible goods and indeed many other intangible services. Few other industries have such wide-reaching impact on the welfare of individuals and nations. The decisions that consumers (and financial organizations on their behalf) make regarding saving, investing, and borrowing have significant implications on their ability to consume a wide range of other products and services, in turn affecting lifestyles, standards of living and how people spend their time. The recent financial crisis has brought this to the forefront of attention.