Drought-induced water shortage and salinization are a global threat to agricultural production. With climate change, drought risk is expected to increase as drought events are assumed to occur more frequently and to become more severe. The agricultural sector's adaptive capacity largely depends on farmers' drought risk perceptions. Understanding the formation of farmers' drought risk perceptions is a prerequisite to designing effective and efficient public drought risk management strategies. Various strands of literature point at different factors shaping individual risk perceptions. Economic theory points at objective risk variables, whereas psychology and sociology identify subjective risk variables. This study investigates and compares the contribution of objective and subjective factors in explaining farmers' drought risk perception by means of survey data analysis. Data on risk perceptions, farm characteristics, and various other personality traits were collected from farmers located in the southwest Netherlands. From comparing the explanatory power of objective and subjective risk factors in separate models and a full model of risk perception, it can be concluded that farmers' risk perceptions are shaped by both rational and emotional factors. In a full risk perception model, being located in an area with external water supply, owning fields with salinization issues, cultivating drought-/salt-sensitive crops, farm revenue, drought risk experience, and perceived control are significant explanatory variables of farmers' drought risk perceptions.

This paper examines the effects and significance of various controllable marketing factors likely to influence the online consumers' behaviour and buying decisions. The study is based on a proposed taxonomy of these factors, classified as elements of what is commonly called Online or Web Experience. The paper analyses the results of a consumer survey held in a realistic online shopping environment and ascertains the influence of the various elements of the Online Experience on the choice of a virtual vendor. Next to evaluating and validating the various elements of the proposed classification the study identifies the relative importance of these elements and their effects on the online consumers' decisions when acting in combination. The statistical analysis of the survey results leads to the conclusion that the usability and the trust-building elements of web sites are the most significant influencing factors of online customer behaviour.

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Climate change projections show that periods of droughts are likely to increase, causing decreasing water availability, salinization, and consequently farm income loss in the south-west Netherlands. Adaptation is the key to decrease a farmer's drought vulnerability and to secure the agricultural sector's performance at the aggregate level. Possible adaptation strategies include responses at the field scale, farm-level measures and joint adaptation measures. Using the results of a recent survey, we explore farmers' adaptive behaviour to drought. We give detailed insight into the influence of risk appraisal and coping appraisal factors on the current level of farmers' adaptation motivation and the adoption of three types of adaptive responses. Our findings show that behavioural factors make a significant contribution to explain the actual level of farmers' adaptation motivation.Furthermore, we find that components of threat and coping appraisal influence adoption decisions differently across three types of drought adaptation measures.

At present, two modes of the strategic relationship of the researcher with his environment are known. These are the 'ivory tower' and 'strategic research', known also as mode1 and mode2. In this paper, we develop an analytical model that not only predicts these two well-known modes but also leads to a new, third mode -the research entrepreneur. The research entrepreneur is directing his environment by creating demand for his scientific products instead of supplying on the demand of his environment. The first results of a few cases from an empirical study conducted at the MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology confirm the feasibility of the model in creating observables for the different modes of strategic positioning of the researcher, in this case MESA+.