This study examines cross-cultural differences beliefs related to e-commerce use for Italy and the United States. We argue that for both cultures, the user's decision to make an online purchase is simultaneously influenced by a set of contrary factors. These include decision facilitators such as propensity to trust and institutional trust, and decision inhibitors such as perceived risk and privacy concerns. We argue that substantial cultural differences exist that affect the above factors and the relationships among them. We use Hofstede's cultural theory and Fukuyama's theory of trust and social capital, along with emic factors important for the Italian society, to develop the study's propositions. The hypotheses were empirically tested using LISREL structural equation modeling and multigroup analysis. The results revealed that the Italian society exhibited lower propensity to trust, institutional trust, privacy concerns, and higher perceived risk. The relationships between institutional trust and ecommerce use, privacy concerns and e-commerce use, and perceived risk and institutional trust are all weaker for Italy. The relationship between perceived risk and privacy concerns is stronger for Italy. The paper's major contribution is in validating an important model of e-commerce use across two cultures and showing the moderating effects of culture.

Purpose This study aims to understand the impact of rational and emotional appeals on children’s attitude towards two public service announcements (PSAs) that promoted eating fruits and vegetables. Design/methodology/approach A mixed-methods study was conducted with children aged 8 to 11. A convergent parallel design was selected that comprised a questionnaire for the quantitative approach and a semi-structured focus group for the qualitative approach. Findings The results from the quantitative and qualitative phases converged, showing that both components (i.e. emotional and rational) play a significant role in children’s preference towards an advertisement, but the emotional component appeared to be the preeminent. Research limitations/implications Future studies should use other social subjects and children of different age brackets from various countries to test whether they continue to prefer emotional appeals in advertising. Practical implications An understanding of which elements children prefer in PSAs will enable advertising campaigns and social marketing strategies with targeted approaches that respect children’s tastes to be planned. Social implications A properly designed social advertisement could have important effects on disseminating useful information, changing or preventing unhealthy habits and adopting good practices in children. Originality/value Few studies have examined the effectiveness of PSAs, especially those targeted at children. This paper contributes to extend concepts from the commercial field of advertising directed to children to the field of social advertising. To date, this field has received little attention.

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Data provided by 7380 middle managers from 60 nations are used to determine whether demographic variables are correlated with managers' reliance on vertical sources of guidance in different nations and whether these correlations differ depending on national culture characteristics. Significant effects of Hofstede's national culture scores, age, gender, organization ownership and department function are found. After these main effects have been discounted, significant although weak interactions are found, indicating that demographic effects are stronger in individualist, low power distance nations than elsewhere. Significant nonpredicted interaction effects of uncertainty avoidance and masculinity-femininity are also obtained. The implications for theory and practice of the use of demographic attributes in understanding effective management procedures in various parts of the world are discussed.

Purpose. In a context characterized by growing ageing of the global population, this paper aims to examine the relationship between proactive personality and training motivation among older workers (aged over 55). We have hypothesized that proactive personality predicts the motivation to learn of older workers, and furthermore that this relationship is mediated by goal orientation. In particular, the proposal is that learning goal orientation mediates the relationship between proactive personality and learning motivation. Methodology. Employees of an Italian bank completed an on-line questionnaire. AMOS 17 was used in order to carry out Confirmatory Factor Analysis, and SPSS-macro to test the meditational model. Findings. Our results confirm both the hypotheses, demonstrating the influence of proactive personality on training motivation of older workers, as mediated by goal orientation and, in particular, by learning goal orientation. Practical implications. From a practical point of view, this study may have implications for organizations which aim to increase the employability of older people by encouraging them to undertake more training. In particular, interventions aimed at increasing learning goal orientation could contribute to strengthen proactive personality that, in turn, may affect levels of training motivation. Originality. Even if proactive personality has been already found as a predictor of learning motivation, to the best of our knowledge this is the first study demonstrating the mediating role of goal orientation in the relationship between proactive personality and training motivation.