How are Bodies Shaped by Technology, and How is Technology Shaped by Bodies?

This session investigates how technologies that assess our bodies for fitting, fixing, aiding (and hindering?) shape our identities, from fashion construction to medical prostheses to bodies in social media

Teaching innovation: equipping students to overcome real-world challenges

© 2016 The Author(s). Business students beginning their careers find that they must innovate to solve nebulous problems, work in interdisciplinary groups and environments, and effectively communicate their knowledge to colleagues and clients with diverse backgrounds. Addressing this, researchers devised a flipped classroom cross-disciplinary (CD) client-based project (CBP), in which two different business classes, containing students from two different fields, worked together on a semester-long project. The project aimed to address three areas in which students tend to be weak as they attempt to begin their careers: innovativeness, interdisciplinary collaboration, and real-world experience. The flipped classroom CD CBP was centered around two different innovation methods (Design Thinking and Productive Thinking) in order to create an appropriate learning environment. Results showed that students recognized the value of the process, perceived improvements in their communication skills, and were left feeling more prepared for real-world workplace environments. As an exploratory case study, this paper provides insight into student perceptions of flipped classroom CD collaboration, and serves as a starting point in developing more real-world experiences in the classroom

Early-Career Professional Athletes, Social Media Marketing, and Sponsorship

The sports marketing industry has changed in the new era of easy internet access and ubiquitous mobile devices. Sports marketers are beginning to use social media platforms, such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram, to promote their brands and to connect with fans. In addition, legislative trends and announcements by the NFL and NCAA show that individual athletes, early in their professional careers (at the college level), will be able to profit from their names, images, and likenesses. While research into social media marketing by sports brands is existent and growing, most studies are concerned with the strategies and impacts of social media use by sports leagues and teams, or by professional athlete celebrities. The use of social media marketing by individual professional athletes, early in their careers, as a tool to achieve sponsorship, has been unexplored. Therefore, this study uses both social media content analysis and interviews with early-career professional athletes to examine the strategies utilized and their impact on athletes’ personal brands

Physical and Emotional Impact of Lighting Conditions in Higher Education Classrooms

The literature review shows that researchers in different fields have long explored the impact of the physical classroom environments (e.g., lighting, temperature, classroom layout, and furniture) to identify the ideal classroom environments. When the lighting condition is poor (i.e., light levels below standards), it can cause drowsiness, leading to lower concentration and motivation, and elevated student stress. However, most studies focused on K-12 learning environments. Therefore, this study aims to specifically focus on the lighting conditions in educational facilities around a university campus in the Southeastern United States and to explore whether these lighting conditions impact students’ mental well-being, their perceptions of their academic performance, and classroom satisfaction

Modeling the Relationship between Destination Perceived Value and Tourist Souvenir Buying Intention

While there is an increasing academic research focusing on value perception in the hospitality and tourism industry, not much study has explore the relationship between tourist’s perceived destination attributes and shopping intentions. Therefore, this research explores the influence of value perceptions on tourists’ souvenir purchase decisions. Particularly, this study seeks to answer two specific research questions: 1) will value perception have a direct influence on tourist souvenir buying intentions? and 2) which aspect of perceived value has stronger ties with tourist souvenir buying intentions. A convenience sample of 380 respondents from a southeastern US university filled out survey instruments. The survey instrument consists of questions asking respondents their demographics, souvenir buying intentions, and destination value perceptions. All the value and intention questions were measured by a 5-point Likert type scale: 1=absolutely disagree and 5=absolutely agree. Meanwhile, demographic questions solicit respondents’ gender, age, ethnicity, highest education, and household income. Descriptive statistics and reliability of the scaled used in this study were computed. Results show that all value dimensions had an alpha higher than .85 achieving high-reliability score. The outcomes of the study reveal that approximately 90% of the respondents aged were between 18-25. Additionally, about 52% of the participants were female and Caucasians and African Americans were the two majority ethnicity groups in this study. Further analysis discloses that there are significant positive influences between all five-value perceptions (functional, value for money, emotional, novelty, and social) and tourists’ souvenir purchase intentions. In addition, results suggest that destination marketers should focus on the strong indicators, such as functional, value for money, and emotional value, when optimizing future marketing and planning strategies. Future studies should investigate the underlying causes for choosing certain types of souvenirs. It is also promising to cross-validate the structural relationship in other cultures and in other settings

Social Networking Sites: An Exploration of Scale Reliability

After their emergence, the growth of social networking sites (SNSs) (e.g., Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, LiveJournal) has been explosive (Boyd & Ellison, 2007). Many instructors in higher education , recognizing this new, and potentially fortuitous technology, have begun to integrate SNSs into their face-to-face, hybrid, or distance learning classrooms. Research shows that classroom use of SNSs can increase level of communication and collaboration, increase student engagement, build classroom community, and promote community of practices (Brady, Holcomb, & Smith, 2010; Hung & Yuen, 2010). Additionally, SNSs creates opportunities for students to interact beyond the classroom. Such interaction can lead to additional learning opportunities and enhance participation in face-to-face classroom (Hung & Yuen, 2010)

Integrating Service-Learning Pedagogy: A Faculty Reflective Process

Research on service-learning has focused mainly on student outcomes. However, this study addresses the transformative change that three faculty members from different disciplines experienced during a semester-long fellowship on service-learning as a pedagogical method. Through their personal reflections, the authors show how service-learning and the scholarship of teaching were intertwined as they engaged in course redesign. This experience went beyond creating an academic service-learning course to transforming the teachers into reflective practitioners actively engaged in systematically improving their teaching practice

Developing Scale of Tourists’ Attitude Toward Culture Souvenirs

A variety of scales exist related to culture, but the literature lacked a scale measuring Attitude Toward Cultural Souvenirs (ATCS). The purpose of this study was to fill this literature gap by developing and testing a scale to measure ATCS. The scale development approach recommended by Churchill (1979) and Netemeyer, Bearden and Sharma’s (2003), which uses theory to guide the conceptualization and development of measurement items, was adopted. The resulting scale proves to be robust and reliable across cultures. Beyond the theoretical value of scale development, the current study broadens the literature by adding findings on attitudes towards cultural souvenirs. Retailers can use these findings to better understand their customers, make strategic decisions, and better meet their needs

Travel Motivation Influence Attitudes toward Cultural Souvenirs and Travel Intentions

This study identifies structural relationships between tourists’ travel motivations and attitudes toward cultural souvenirs and travel intentions. An online survey fielded through Amazon Turk yielded a purposeful sample of 893 respondents who were representative of the population of interest. Results reveal respondents prefer to travel during summer rather than during spring, winter, and fall seasons. Additionally, they desire to purchase souvenirs on family trips. Also, data analysis indicates travel motivations positively influence tourists’ attitudes towards cultural souvenir and travel intentions. Physical, relaxation, and pleasure motives influence travel motivations