Restaurant kids’ meal beverage offerings before and after implementation of healthy default beverage policy statewide in California compared to citywide in Wilmington, Delaware

Objective: In 2019, California and Wilmington, Delaware implemented policies requiring healthier default beverages with restaurant kids’ meals. This study assessed restaurant beverage offerings and manager perceptions. Design: Pre-post menu observations were conducted in California and Wilmington. Observations of cashiers/servers during orders were conducted pre-post implementation in California and post-implementation in Wilmington. Changes in California were compared using multilevel logistic regression and paired t-tests. Post-implementation, managers were interviewed. Setting: Inside and drive-through ordering venues in a sample of quick-service restaurants in low-income California communities and all restaurants in Wilmington subject to the policy, the month before and 7-12 months after policy implementation. Participants: Restaurant observations (California n=110; Wilmington n=14); managers (California n=75; Wilmington n=15). Results: Pre-implementation, the most common kids’ meal beverages on California menus were unflavored milk and water (78.8%, 52.0%); in Wilmington, juice, milk, and sugar-sweetened beverages were most common (81.8%, 66.7%, 46.2%). Post-implementation, menus including only policy-consistent beverages significantly increased in California (9.7% to 66.1%, p<0.0001), but remained constant in Wilmington (30.8%). During orders, cashiers/servers offering only policy-consistent beverages significantly decreased post-implementation in California (5.0% to 1.0%, p=0.002). Few managers (California 29.3%; Wilmington 0%) reported policy knowledge, although most expressed support. Most managers wanted additional information for customers and staff. Conclusions: While the proportion of menus offering only policy-consistent kids’ meal default beverages increased in California, offerings did not change in Wilmington. In both jurisdictions managers lacked policy knowledge and few cashiers/servers offered only policy-consistent beverages. Additional efforts are needed to strengthen implementation of kids’ meal beverage policies.

MSME Owner/Manager Perceptions Towards the Adoption of E-Marketing Activities in India

This chapter covers the MSMEs (micro, small, and medium enterprise) owners/managers' perceptions towards the adoption of e-marketing with respect to its importance and effectiveness for business success, implementation, barriers, future use, expenditure, and general awareness about the government e-marketing initiatives. Data was collected from 253 MSMEs located in states of Punjab, Haryana, and Himachal Pradesh in India. The authors observed that MSMEs perceive e-marketing as an important element in the success of their businesses. They feel that display advertising, social media marketing, and mobile marketing add more effectiveness to their business. They perceive that display advertising is effective for brand awareness, search engine marketing for lead generation, affiliate marketing for customer acquisition and increasing ROI, mobile marketing for better CRM, and search engine optimisation for generating web traffic. MSMEs indicated an increase in future expenditure on digital marketing activities. However, a large section of MSMEs were unaware of the government's e-marketing initiatives.

Emergency Manager Perceptions of the Effectiveness and Limitations of Mass Notification Systems: A Mixed Method Study

Disasters can move quickly. Effective communication is a critical resource that can significantly enhance public safety. A mass notification system (MNS) uses text messaging to inform constituents of crisis, provide recommendations, connect to resources, and has the advantage of speed. Limited research has been conducted on the variables that influence the effectiveness, utilization, and perceptions of MNS. The extant study employs a multi-method approach to advance the scholarly knowledge on MNS. All emergency managers in a state were surveyed on issues of MNS enrollment, utilization, and brand. A subgroup of emergency managers were then interviewed to provide depth to the survey findings. Key findings indicate wide variability in MNS usage, little relationship between population size and enrollment, and a high perceived importance of MNS as a communication modality. Policy implications and recommendations are offered.

Owner–manager perceptions of regulation and micro-firm performance: An exploratory view

Regulation has traditionally been explored in terms of its negative burden on financial performance. We posit a true assessment should consider both its burden and value, as well as financial and wider performance criteria. This hypothesis is explored in the context of micro-firms using original survey data from the English tourism industry, using multivariate regression techniques and qualitative comments. Perceived-Burden demonstrates a negative association with financial performance, while Perceived-Value demonstrates a positive association with goal-satisfaction. Resulting policy recommendations focus on accompanying future regulatory changes with appropriate positive information so managers can move beyond burden to recognize the inherent value, and suggesting the need for further research in this area.