Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The 1990s saw a rapid expansion of coffee shops in the United States, with Starbucks leading the upswing. Through interviews with patrons in independently- and corporately-owned coffee shops in the District of Columbia, this research explores consumers’ perceptions of how coffee shops fit into their lives. Our particular interest is a group of coffee shop patrons we call Campers, who spend long periods of time in the coffee shop and are involved in a variety of solitary activities. This paper identifies the conventions that attract such patrons to the coffee shop and how these have come to shape its culture: the Coffee Shop World.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: I use non-participant observation, as well as analysis of photographic images to investigate whether the dynamics of interaction between mall patrons and the shopping mall Santa identified by Thompson and Hickey (1989) are still relevant more than a decade later. In the process of doing so, I highlight the importance of unlimited access (via photographs) to contextual details for linking micro to macro levels of analysis, and the value of setting for discerning the relationship between time, space, and social relations. It was only upon reviewing the images and expanding the focus of inquiry that the wider-ranging implications of this project became apparent. The untapped potential for researchers, as well as our students in undergraduate sociology courses, to benefit from the use of images is immense.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This study concerns social control strategies in planned spaces, but as an ethnomethodological investigation addresses issues beyond the deliberate agendas of security policy and architectural planning. This study's focus is
on how persons orient to design elements of shopping malls- corridors, furniture, colours, and the like- and how these design features are
construable as "players" in those contexts. To that end I examine how design can militate techniques of social-interactional "management" produced by interactants themselves and unforeseen in architects' or designers' plans.
This research suggests a broadening of the notion of "social control" beyond formal and informal human sources to include the physical features of
spaces like shopping malls, and not only of prisons or similar total institutions. This study advises moreover how inanimate objects and the
spaces that comprise them are informative for and relevant to the behaviours of human interactants.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: to be provided

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This study extends the conventional wisdom concerning how a commercial website can be configured to attract online shoppers, and specifically, initial shoppers. Based on past research (e.g., Torkzadeh & Dhillon, 2002) and theory (e.g., Rogers, 1995), a number of “form” and “substantive” website features were assessed as to their attractiveness to consumers of varying (a) Internet experience and (b) innovativeness. A self-administered survey was completed by a convenience sample of 363 residents of the U.S. and Canada. A discriminant analysis confirms that two functions, generally representing form and substantive features, each discriminate between (a) high and low innovativeness (DF1) and (b) high and low Internet experience (DF2). Further, those with more Internet experience show a stronger preference for substantive features than do those with less experience. But high and low experience groups do not differ noticeably with regard to preference for form features. It was also found that, conversely, the more innovative shoppers reveal a stronger preference for form features. But high and low innovativeness groups do not differ appreciably in respect to desire for substantive features. This suggests the dynamics underlying the attraction of initial Internet users to particular shopping sites. Both theoretic and practical implications of the findings are discussed.