201,778 research outputs found
Product Recalls, Imperfect Information, and Spillover Effects: Lessons from the Consumer Response to the 2007 Toy Recalls
No full textIn 2007, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued 276 recalls of toys and other children's products, a sizeable increase from previous years. The overwhelming majority of the 2007 toy recalls were due to high levels of lead content and almost all of these toys were manufactured in China. This period of recalls was characterized by substantial media attention to the issue of consumer product safety and eventually led to the passage of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008. This paper examines consumer demand for toys following this wave of dangerous toy recalls. The data reveal four key findings. First, the types of toys that were involved in recalls in 2007 experienced above average losses in Christmas season sales. Second, Christmas sales of infant/preschool toys produced by manufacturers who did not experience any recalls were about 25 percent lower in 2007 as compared to earlier years, suggesting industry-wide spillovers. Third, a manufacturer’s recall of one type of toy did not lead to a disproportionate loss in sales of their other types of toys. And, finally, recalls of toys that are part of a brand had either positive or negative effects on the demand for other toys in the property, depending on the nature of the toys involved. Our examination of the stock market performance of toy firms over this period also reveals industry wide spillovers. The finding of sizable spillover effects of product recalls to non-recalled products and non-recalled manufacturers has important implications for regulation policy.
Creating parental trust in children's toy brands: The antecedents and dimensions of trustworthy behaviour of toy companies
No full textThis thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Based around a case study of the traditional toy industry, the research examines how companies create trust with parents, the main toy purchasers, and the importance of ethical behaviour in trust development when a vulnerable community is involved. Previous literature has revealed that trust leads to mutually beneficial company-consumer relationships but scholars have failed to agree on its definition, dimensions or measurement due to its complexity, diversity and intangibility. Few have distinguished between 'trustworthiness' as a moral quality of organisations and 'trust', which is a consumer judgement about companies and brands, made as part of their purchase deliberations.
A review of the literature led to the development of a framework of trustworthy behaviour identifying five sets of antecedents (organisational, individual, control, relational and branding factors) and four key dimensions with related variables - 'Integrity' and 'Benevolence', relating to ethical constructs and 'Commitment' and 'Satisfaction', relating to organisational constructs. The model was then substantiated through qualitative research with a sample of senior managers in 12 leading toy companies and other stakeholders including industry body representatives, retailers and parents.
The findings revealed that in a challenging economic climate, trust in toy companies is being driven principally by the marketing offer and by external influencers such as legislators, retailers, licensors, and the media. Examples of good ethical practices were identified, although often unnoticed by consumers, and the worthier companies, for whom trustworthiness was important, appeared to be faring less well economically than companies selling third party brands. Consumers' trust was significant in the preschool market but diminished in importance as children matured when their influence overrode parents' more rational purchase considerations. The research revealed a paradox that parents as well as children are vulnerable consumers who are often bypassed in the marketing process. Whatever children's consumer rights, there will always be a lack of trust in the industry whilst young children rather than parents are so blatantly targeted
Folk Toy As the Embodiment of the National Ideal
No full textThe author of this article tries to find the ideals that are original for Russian people, to trace their evolution and existence through the prism of such a phenomenon as a folk toy that includes a conglomerate of meanings. The article considers the folk toy as a reflection and expression of the national ideal. The article analyzes a connection of cultural traditions and images of toys, the way a folk toy reproduces emotions, character and mental features of an ethnos. The author considers the generation aspect of national ideal`s reflection through the national toy. The original senses of a traditional toy are transformed quite often in modern sociocultural space, and its material embodiment is replaced by simulacras or parodies. Therefore, it is necessary to turn to its genetic roots to understand the meaningful phenomenon.</jats:p
Family play-learning through informal education: Make and play activities with traditional Thai toy activities at a science museum
No full textThis thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel UniversityThis thesis charts the outcomes of family play-learning through make-and-play activities with traditional Thai toys activities (TTTA). Family learning is a component of inter-generational learning, and the research explores this through ‘edutainment’ activities within the informal educational system of a science museum. The thesis also identifies key factors that influence family play-learning through TTTA and explores the nature and impact of traditional Thai culture, local wisdom and Western modern science after participation with the TTTA. Participants in the toy-making activities at the National Science Museum, Thailand are members of the general public, day visitors to the museum who volunteer to join the activities, and represent all age groups. They also have varied levels of educational achievement, backgrounds in science and dispositions towards play. The research follows 93 families, including children, teenagers and adults, a total of 179 participants. Participants’ dispositions towards play are collected through self-reporting questionnaires based upon Barnett's (2006) work on playfulness; data on their individual and group actions have been collected in terms of their levels of enjoyment and engagement with the tasks, and learning outcomes. The data from structured routine observation indicates that, within the make-and-play activities, there is a two-way transfer of learning from older to younger, and from younger to older. The analysis of family learning is based upon Bandura’s (2005) social cognitive theories, used here in relation to informal museum education. Family play-learning is seen as significant, where more experienced members of the family transfer their knowledge and role-model skills to their children or younger members of the family. There is also an upward transfer where discerning youth model the fun and creativity they bring to the tasks. The Toy Learning Outcomes Questionnaire (TLOQ) has been used to study families’ learning outcomes from the TTTA with 51 families composed of 125 participants in total. The TLOQ is based upon work of the Research Centre of Museums and Galleries at the University of Leicester (Hooper-Greenhill, 2007), and uses a four-point Likert-style scale to explore seven areas of interest: (i) knowledge and understanding; (ii) skills; (iii) attitudes and values; (vi) enjoyment, inspiration and creativity; (v) action, behaviour and progression; (vi) scientific learning, and (vii) attitude towards Thai local wisdom. The findings show that families appear to have learned most in relation to two of these areas, ‘scientific knowledge’ and ‘Thai local wisdom’, when compared with the other areas.
Data from semi-structured ‘exit interviews’ at the end of the activities, explore this clash of cultures, between Western modern science (WMS) and Thai local wisdom (TLW). This allows for a discussion of the integration of knowledge systems versus distinctive and separate fields. Findings from the interview data indicate that participants treat the TTTA, and work of the museum generally, bi-gnosically: they had positive yet parallel attitudes towards both domains of knowledge.
The overall outcomes of this body of work indicate two main factors that encourage family play-learning: (i) the context of the play, which emphasises participants’ personal engagement, social relationships, and the physical setting (the environment and resources in the TTTA); and (ii) the conditions to play, playfulness of the participants and the opportunities they take to learn together through play. The thesis concludes with the implications of this work and recommendations for further research.Thai government, the National Science Museum, Thailand (NSM), Mr. Suchin Kanhadilok and Mrs Pim Kanhadilok, who have sponsored me to study for my doctoral degree at Brunel Universit
A Study of Pricing Evolution in the Online Toy Market
No full textWe examine the pricing trends in the online toy markets based on a unique set of panel data collected across three years’ span. The analysis was made through panel data regression models with error components and serial correlation, allowing comparisons of prices and price dispersions between the two types of online retailers as well as examinations of dynamics of prices and price dispersions. Our results indicate that both online branch of multichannel retailers (OBMCRS) and dotcoms charge similar prices on average, and over time their prices move in tandem. Although the OBMCR retailers charge significantly different prices, the dotcoms do charge similar prices. Moreover, both retailer types demonstrate different magnitudes of price dispersion that move at different rates over time. Although the price dispersion of OBMCRS is higher than that of the dotcoms at the beginning, the gap narrows over time.e-commerce, online pricing strategies, online toy market, price dispersion, pricing trends
The effect of environment on the properties of type Ia supernovae
No full textSince the discovery that the expansion of the Universe is accelerating, the field of modern observational cosmology with type Ia supernovae has strived to ratify and confirm this result. While one way to do so is to reduce uncertainties on measured cosmological parameters via the increase in sample size, recent years have seen an increased focus on understanding the underlying astrophysical phenomena that alter the measurable properties of type Ia supernovae. Many alterations currently are simply corrected for, without a complete understanding of the underlying cause. In this Thesis, we use the Dark Energy Survey’s 5 year, photometrically confirmed type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) sample, and investigate the effects of large and small scale environment on many properties of type Ia supernovae. We aim to investigate how these properties affect the supernovae themselves, and probe the underlying causes of some of these changes. We identify that 66 of these supernovae have occurred within red-sequence selected galaxy clusters from the redMaPPer SVA1 catalogue. We compare light-curve and host galaxy properties of the cluster SNe to 1024 SNe Ia located in field galaxies, the largest comparison of two such samples at high redshift (z > 0.1) to date. We find that cluster SN light curves decline faster than those in the field at 97.7 per cent confidence. However, when limiting these samples to host galaxies of similar colour and mass, there is no significant difference in the SN light curve properties. Additionally, we measure the intrinsic rate of SNe Ia in cluster and field environments. We find the average ratio of the SN Ia rate per galaxy between high mass (10 ≤ log (M∗/M⊙) ≤ 11.25) cluster and field galaxies to be 0.594 ± 0.068. This difference is mass-dependent, with the ratio declining with increasing mass, which suggests that the stellar populations in cluster hosts are older than those in field hosts. We show that the mass-normalised rate (or SNe per unit mass) in massive-passive galaxies is consistent between cluster and field environments. Additionally, both of these rates are consistent with rates previously measured in clusters at similar redshifts. We conclude that in massive-passive galaxies, which are the dominant hosts of cluster SNe, the cluster delay time distribution, determining the expected rate of supernovae as a function of the time passed since a sample of white dwarfs is formed, is comparable to the field. Motivated by our detection of a declining light curve width as a function of normalised galactic separation, we also investigate the effects of this separation on SNe Ia light curves and standardisation. We use 1533 SNe Ia and show, for the first time, that the difference in SN Ia post-standardisation brightnesses between high and low-mass hosts reduces from 0.078 ± 0.011 mag in the full sample to 0.036 ± 0.018 mag for SNe Ia located in the outer regions of their host galaxies, while increasing to 0.100 ± 0.014 mag for SNe in the inner regions. In these inner regions, the difference in post-standardisation brightness between high and low mass hosts between can be reduced (but not removed) using a model where th
Sounding Toy
No full textPatent for a sounding toy. The toy is in the form of windmill whereby an object generates noise as the wheel spins. Illustration included
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