Jordi Franciscus Gosselt

Why should I comply? Sellers’ accounts for (non-)compliance with legal age limits for alcohol sales

BackgroundAvailability is an important predictor of early and excessive alcohol consumption by adolescents. Many countries have implemented age limits to prevent underage purchases of alcohol. However, shop-floor compliance with these age limits appears to be problematic. This study addresses the issue of non-compliance with age limits. Which measures do vendors take to avoid underage alcohol sales, and what do they report as important reasons to comply or not with age limits for alcohol sales?MethodsOpen-ended telephone interviews were conducted with store managers selling alcohol (N = 106). Prior to the interviews, all outlets were visited by an underage mystery shopper in order to measure compliance with the legal age limits on alcohol sales. The interview results are compared against actual compliance rates.ResultsSeveral measures have been taken to prevent underage sales, but the compliance level is low. Furthermore, open coding resulted in 19 themes, representing both valid and invalid arguments, that vendors mentioned as relevant to their decisions of whether to comply with the law. Compliance with age limits is dependent on the knowledge of the rules and the ability and motivation to follow the rules. The ability aspect in particular seems to be problematic, but in many cases, the motivation to actively comply with the age limits is lacking.ConclusionsTo enhance compliance, it is important to raise the awareness of the importance of age limits and to connect possible violations of the regulations to negative consequences.

Media rating systems: do they work? Shop floor compliance with age restrictions in the Netherlands

Media rating systems have been introduced in many countries to protect minors from being exposed to harmful media content. This study examines whether retailers comply with the guidelines of media ratings in the Netherlands. In a mystery shopping study, minors tried to buy or rent media products for which they were too young. An overall success rate of 86% shows that compliance on the shop floor is problematic. In a mystery call study, parents asked vendors for advice about media ratings. Only 33% of the parents were advised in accordance with the age classifications. A survey of vendors investigated the determinants of compliance. Personal acceptance, awareness of a legal basis, and perceived surveillance proved to be important determinants of self-reported compliance.

Voters' Perceptions of Voting Technology

Despite their unmistakable advantages, the use of voting machines in elections is a topic of vivid debates. This article focuses on the experiences of voters using three types of voting equipment: (a) a paper ballot, (b) a voting machine, and (c) a voting machine with paper audit trail. An independent-groups experiment was conducted in which voters had to cast a vote for a donation to a charity organization and afterwards filled out a questionnaire about their voting experiences. The paper ballot was considered to be the most anonymous way of voting, especially by female voters. The voting machine (with or without paper trail), on the other hand, was considered to be more user-friendly than the paper ballot and gave the voters more confidence that their votes would actually be processed correctly. No differences were found between the voting machine with and without paper audit trail.

Regional public affairs activities in The Netherlands: How to gain ground in the national and European arena

The role of regional authorities is undeniably increasing in Europe. Due to increasing regionalism efforts within European Union (EU) member states and to the fact that EU legislation is affecting subnational authorities more and more directly, these authorities are not only striving for influence in the national arena, but in the European arena as well. The primary task of a public affairs (PA) practitioner working for a regional government in the EU is placing regional interests on national and European political agendas. However, since regional PA is a rather young discipline, opposite to PA in the private sector and in national government, much is unknown about the way regional PA practitioners are operating in the national and European political arenas, and how these arenas are receiving the subnational PA practitioners. In this study, 41 Dutch PA practitioners and PA receivers were interviewed about their opinions on and experiences with regional PA in both arenas: What are the relevant characteristics of these arenas for regional PA activities, and how are regional PA practitioners managing arena characteristics? The results show that at the national level, it is a struggle to find recognition for regional issues, due to dominant high-profiled regions, centralisation tendencies at the national level and a more general non-subnational attitude. At the European level, regional issues are more welcome, but regional PA practitioners have to overcome the dominant national interests of member states.

Adolescents' experiences and perceived (dis)advantages of the three main outlet types for alcohol purchases

Based on the existing literature, relevant determinants of availability for on-premises locations, off-premises locations, and the Internet were qualitatively explored and categorized by “experts” consisting of underage alcohol purchasers. In total, 14 focus group discussions were conducted with 94 Dutch adolescents. For on-premises locations, the high prices were perceived as the biggest disadvantage, and the ease to circumvent legal age limits as the biggest advantage. For off-premises locations, the cheap pricing was perceived as the most positive aspect, and the legal age limit as the biggest disadvantage. For online purchases, the waiting time was perceived as the most negative aspect, and the proximity of online stores as the biggest advantage.

Buzzing health: health education by buzz compared to print media

Marketeers and service providers increasingly turn to word of mouth (WOM) as a means to persuade and inform individuals regarding an organization, brand or product. Positive results have been reported within the commercial sector, but does WOM also work within the context of a health education campaign? To explore the potential of WOM in health education, effects of medium channel (WOM vs. print vs. control condition) and consumer involvement (low vs. high) on participant responses were investigated. Furthermore, additional in-depth interviews were conducted in which participants disclosed their experiences. The findings suggest that WOM communications, instigated by a relatively small number of highly involved participants, can inspire attitude change among those who are lowly involved with the subject at hand. Interview results, however, indicate that health professionals should be aware of the increased efforts required from participants that WOM entails.

Technological start-ups in the innovation system: an actor-oriented perspective

ABSTRACT The functional approach of the Technological Innovation System (TIS) has become important in innovation theory to understand the dynamics of technological innovations. Until now, TIS has mainly been applied top-down from a policy perspective. The aim of this study was to investigate whether TIS can be used in the management domain, from an actor-oriented perspective, to explain the dynamics in which technological start-ups are involved when developing innovations. We interviewed the founders of 24 technological start-ups about their experiences with the developmental processes of their innovations. Our results highlight that the functions of TIS provide a useful framework to structure the interactions of technological start-ups. Especially the functions ‘Resource Mobilisation’ and ‘Legitimation’ appeared to be important functions for start-ups when developing an innovation. Our findings show that TIS is a promising framework for the strategic management domain that can offer guidance in the development of innovations.

The framing of alcohol in (non-)sponsored movies: A comparative content analysis of alcohol advertising and portrayals in sponsored and non-sponsored Dutch movies

Abstract Aims: Alcohol advertising, in the form of product placement, has been shown to influence the viewer’s alcohol consumption. However, it is not just the portrayal itself that affects behavioural outcomes; the particular message that is conveyed in an alcohol portrayal may actually influence consumer behaviour in a manner known as “framing”. Therefore, the prevalence and framing of alcohol portrayals in movies was investigated by focussing on product placement strategies, several portrayal characteristics and compliance with relevant guidelines/laws. Furthermore, a comparison is made between movies sponsored by an alcohol brand and non-sponsored movies. Methods: Sixteen Dutch movies (of which 50% were sponsored) underwent content analysis using a four-category, 21-item coding scheme. Alcohol was present in every movie and a total of 937 alcohol portrayals were analysed. Findings: The results show that the alcohol portrayals were predominantly positive. In the sponsored movies, more liquor was consumed and alcohol portrayals had a lower plot connection. Conclusions: In general, the differences between alcohol portrayals in movies sponsored by an alcohol brand compared with non-sponsored movies were rather small. However, the portrayals sometimes offend the legislation regarding regular alcohol commercials, and given the effects of alcohol portrayals on young viewers, this needs attention.

The psychology of electoral mobilization: a subtle priming experiment

ABSTRACT In this paper we test the idea that citizens can be stimulated to vote in an election via subtle psychological processes, which have little or nothing to do with the act of voting as such. More specifically, we argue that presenting voters with stimuli that induce an active mood will increase their tendency to vote. We conducted an experiment to test our ideas. Participants were subtly primed by giving them a campaign leaflet that contained a word puzzle, which included words that are associated with either action or inaction. The results indicate that subtly primed participants in the action condition reported stronger voting intentions than those in the inaction condition. These findings suggest that individuals can indeed be stimulated (or inhibited) to vote through subtle psychological processes. We discuss the implications of our results for the study of voting behaviour as well as campaigns aimed at electoral mobilization.

The Effectiveness of Media Ratings in Five Empirical Studies

To protect children and adolescents against and inform parents about harmful media content, media ratings show whether a media products content is harmful for minors below a given age. In this research project, we performed a series of studies into the effectiveness of media ratings in the Netherlands. We especially focused on the moment at which industry meets the public (the transaction moment) and placed special emphasis on the degree of compliance with the applicable rules (does the media industry comply with media ratings?). Based on a literature study and document analysis, several parameters for effectiveness were identified. These were then empirically investigated using a wide variety of communication research methods. Methodological issues concerning all five research methods studied will be addressed.