Christian Hauser and Annmarie Ryan
This paper aims to propose a framework to map partnerships as practiced in higher education institutions (HEIs) and trace the current mode of engagement between HEIs and their…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to propose a framework to map partnerships as practiced in higher education institutions (HEIs) and trace the current mode of engagement between HEIs and their partners. This paper reflects on the alignment between current practices and what is understood in the literature as “true” partnerships. We are interested in the different modes of engagement that are labeled by the HEIs as partnerships and consider the plasticity of the term. The interest is in how the term is operationalized by HEIs and how variations in approach can be accounted for while still maintaining some stability and common understanding of the term partnership.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on extant literature in the field of cross-sector partnerships, a three-dimensional framework is proposed to map partnerships as practiced in HEIs. Furthermore, this paper draws on insights gained from the partnership stories of 13 leading principles of responsible management education (PRME) signatories to evidence examples of how this framework can help us to categorize the different types of engagement that the HEIs call partnerships. These case stories were gathered in the fall of 2019, based on a brief inquiry form sent to the 39 PRME signatories who were part of the PRME Champions Cycle 2018–2019.
Findings
This paper sees cases where faculty drive interaction on sustainable development goal-related issues with external stakeholders, but where the impact of these interactions seems to reside within the main business of the HEI (teaching and research). In contrast, much partnering work addresses broader social impacts. Of particular, interest in partnerships that seek to address a specific local issue, first and foremost and doing so in such a way as to apply the unique resources of the HEI working in multi-stakeholder networks. This paper also notes important variation between individual faculty-driven initiatives and initiatives where the school provides a strategic framework to support these efforts.
Research limitations/implications
By focusing on the academic sector and its stakeholder partnerships, this paper contributes to the literature on cross-sector partnerships. In particular, the specifics of this context and the importance of, for example, academic freedom have been under-researched in this field. Furthermore, the framework presented is novel in that it helps us to grasp the nuances of external university partnerships that can form out of individual, programmatic and other institutional levels.
Practical implications
From a practice perspective, the framework offers a useable tool for HEI partnership managers to position themselves and their activities and reflect more on how they organize external partnerships. Further, this tool offers a more precise framework for the discussion on partnerships within the PRME to sharpen the partnership instrument and bring more clarity about what is meant by the partnership for the goals.
Originality/value
The paper offers a novel partnership portfolio framework that contributes both to theory and practice. The framework aids in mapping the locus of benefits/outcomes and the material and affective commitments made by the HEI to bring these collaborations about. In dimensionalizing partnerships in this way, this paper can conceptualize a balanced portfolio in an HEI’s partnerships for the goals.
Details
Keywords
Najmeh Hafezieh, Neil Pollock and Annmarie Ryan
Digital technologies, digitalised consumers and the torrent of customer data have been transforming marketing practice. In discussing such trends, existing research has either…
Abstract
Purpose
Digital technologies, digitalised consumers and the torrent of customer data have been transforming marketing practice. In discussing such trends, existing research has either focussed on the skills marketers need or broad-based approaches such as agile methods but has given less consideration to just how such skills or approaches might be developed and used in marketers' day-to-day activities and in the organisation of marketing in the firm. This is what the authors address in this paper.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper adopts an in-depth case study approach to examine an exemplary digital enterprise in transformation of their digital marketing. The insights were gathered from 25 interviews, netnography and document analysis of the case organisation in addition to 10 interviews with independent experts.
Findings
Drawing on practice-oriented approach, the authors show how organisations respond to the emerging trends of digital consumers and big data by taking a ‘hacking marketing’ approach and developing novel marketing expertise at disciplinary boundaries. The authors put forward three sets of practices that enable and shape the hacking marketing approach. These include spanning the expertise boundary, making value measurable and experimenting through which their adaptive, iterative and multidisciplinary work occurs. This explains how managing digital consumers and big data is not within the realm of information technology (IT) functions but marketing and how marketing professionals are changing their practice and moving their disciplinary boundaries.
Practical implications
This study offers practical contributions for firms in terms of identifying new work practices and expertise that marketing specialists need in managing digital platforms, digitalised consumers and big data. This study’s results show that enterprises need to design and implement strong training programmes to prepare their marketing workforce in adopting experimentations of agile approach and data-driven decision making. In addition, Marketing education should be changed so that programmes consider a review of their courses and include the novel marketing models and approaches into their curriculum.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the nascent discussions by unpacking how enterprises can develop new marketing expertise and practices beyond skillsets and how such practices form new hacking marketing approach which addresses the problem of the inability of the conventional marketing approach to show its value within the firm.
Details
Keywords
Charles Tocci, Ann Marie Ryan, David C. Ensminger, Catur Rismiati and Ahlam Bazzi Moughania
The International Baccalaureate (IB) programme centers on developing students' international mindedness. Central to this effort is the programme's “Learner Profile,” which details…
Abstract
Purpose
The International Baccalaureate (IB) programme centers on developing students' international mindedness. Central to this effort is the programme's “Learner Profile,” which details ten attributes that teachers seek to cultivate through classroom instruction. This article reports on the ways that middle grades and high school social studies and English teachers in Chicago Public Schools' (CPS) IB programmes are attempting to implement the Learner Profile as part of their classroom practice to support students' international mindedness.
Design/methodology/approach
The project was carried out as a two phase, sequential mixed-methods design. Phase I entailed a survey of IB teachers and programme coordinators across CPS to assess the incorporation of the Learner Profile into instruction. Phase II consisted of mixed-methods case studies of CPS IB programmes selected partially on Phase I data analysis.
Findings
We find that while teachers express high levels of familiarity with the Learner Profile attributes and confidence in incorporating them into practice, we find wide variation in the actual implementation. Taken as a whole, we find CPS programmes take divergent approaches to incorporating the Learner Profile based on differences in understanding of the attributes and its purposes as well as key organizational facets related to implementation.
Originality/value
Ultimately, we argue that the wide variation and lack of explicit incorporation of the Learner Profile into classrooms is related in large part to the broad, indistinct nature of “international mindedness” as a concept. The programme would benefit from creating more space for teacher and students to critique the concept, especially those working from non-Western traditions.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to address a particular tension in arts marketing, that is, the ongoing search for balance between achieving artistic excellence and financial…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to address a particular tension in arts marketing, that is, the ongoing search for balance between achieving artistic excellence and financial stability, while keeping work accessible and satisfying a range of stakeholders, public and private.
Design/methodology/approach
Using Fiske’s (1992) relational models theory as a framework to categorize different modes of exchange between a sponsor and an arts organization, this paper focusses on the varied nature of interactions between parties.
Findings
Drawing on data from a longitudinal case study, the authors evaluate the many opportunities and risks associated with sponsorship arrangements and to explore how these become manifest and potentially resolved within the relational structure over time. Moreover, the authors examine how an arts marketer can employ particular relational models of exchange to mitigate the risks of another model which is operational within the sponsorship.
Research limitations/implications
The aim of this paper is to consider the variety of exchange ongoing in long-term sponsorship arrangements, and in using Fiske’s RM theory, to identify the risk and opportunities associated with these exchanges. The case study examined here is, of course, idiosyncratic in terms of people, time and place. However, what is general, and what the authors wish to draw attention to, is how managers can employ different models of exchange to mitigate risks arising out of the dominance of any one model in the sponsorship relationship.
Practical implications
For executives involved in the management of sponsorship relationships, a rich understanding of their risks and opportunities is important. For example, rather than assuming that market-based considerations or social bonds to be either wholly positive or negative, in this paper the authors have demonstrated that each can have an important role in the dynamic of sponsorship relationships. Therefore, for example, while strong social bonds will mitigate the risks of market-based mechanisms, the risks of social bonds themselves can be balanced through appropriate intermittent recourse to market-based mechanisms. In any specific sponsorship arrangement it will become a matter of balance, and a development of understanding of the role of market, hierarchical, reciprocal and communal dimensions associated with long-term relationships.
Originality/value
In this regard, the authors offer six propositions, which capture the mitigation and enhancement of risks and opportunities, respectively, as well as considerations for relationship dynamics arising from the analysis.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how a financial fraud which originates as an affinity fraud can utilise the interpersonal trust, which is a central feature of an…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how a financial fraud which originates as an affinity fraud can utilise the interpersonal trust, which is a central feature of an affinity fraud, to move the fraud into situations such as organizational markets, where personal relationships are much less dominant.
Design/methodology/approach
Sources of information consisted of scholarly articles and articles retrieved from the web.
Findings
The trust which develops naturally between members of a community with common interests can be exploited by a fraudster who is, or purports to be, a member of that community. This trust can then be used as the basis of creating trust within other types of relationships – especially where some people are active in more than one relationship – where personal relationships play a minor role.
Practical implications
Both individuals and organizations when making investments should regularly formally evaluate their relationship with the organization in whom they are investing; constantly evaluate alternative relationship opportunities; and, calculate how divergent the partner's behaviour can be from the expected before dissolving the relationship.
Originality/value
This paper, by utilizing Fiske's Relational Models Theory, argues that trust that has been developed in a communal situation can be used to build up a momentum of trust. This enables the perpetrator of a fraud to extend the fraud into situations where different types (and possibly impersonal) relationships operate.
Details
Keywords
Annmarie Ryan, Ingrid Kajzer Mitchell and Sofia Daskou
This paper aims to present an interactions and networks approach (INA) to the issue of change for sustainability, which can bring business out of the firm‐centric impasse and lead…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to present an interactions and networks approach (INA) to the issue of change for sustainability, which can bring business out of the firm‐centric impasse and lead to collaborative action and transformation.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper builds upon the extant relational theories in management, and presents a holistic multi‐level framework (the system/network, issue‐based or strategic nets, dyadic relationships and the network organization) to conceptualize change for sustainability.
Findings
By adopting INA business is able to discuss: the nature and role of the network in building systems level change; the role of dyadic relations as a central mechanism for change; and the nature of organizational level capabilities necessary to enhance learning for sustainability.
Research limitations/implications
Areas of future inquiry include examination of the dynamics of intra‐stakeholder relationships over time, specifically the development of actors' attitudes, behavior and cognition in business networks alongside how actors perceive and capitalize on network embedded learning. Further scholarly attention in these areas can further the appreciation of how an INA can assist in building more sustainable organizational futures.
Practical implications
The paper builds on the concept of “ecological literacy” at an organizational level, and considers the specific capabilities required including network visioning, orchestration and the ability to perceive the “other” as partners in creating new market realities. Moreover, it discusses the role and importance of firm “change agent power” in this regard.
Originality/value
By building on an INA approach, the paper provides an important conceptual stepping stone towards the ongoing realization of sustainable organization and market forms.
Details
Keywords
Wendy Hein, Stephanie O'Donohoe and Annmarie Ryan
This paper examines the value of mobile phones in ethnographic research, and seeks to demonstrate how this particular technology can support and enhance participant observation.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper examines the value of mobile phones in ethnographic research, and seeks to demonstrate how this particular technology can support and enhance participant observation.
Design/methodology/approach
Reflecting in detail on one researcher's experience of incorporating this technological device into an ethnographic study, the paper considers how new observational tools can contribute to research beyond data generation.
Findings
The study suggests that the mobile phone can be an extension of the ethnographer and act as a powerful prosthetic, allowing the researcher to translate ethnographic principles into practice.
Research limitations/implications
This paper reflects on the uses of a mobile phone in an ethnographic study of young men's consumer experiences. Thus, the discussion focuses on a research site where the mobile phone holds a ubiquitous position. However, there are now more than four billion mobile phones in circulation worldwide, so whilst acknowledging important differences in research sites, this research can be seen to have wide implications beyond the study of young consumers.
Practical implications
The paper argues that mobile phones allow researchers to record their observations, co‐create data and share experiences with their participants in ways that enhance the quality of ethnographic interpretations and understanding.
Originality/value
Little research attention has been paid to how emerging technologies support the more traditional participant observer, or how researchers actually embed them within their fieldwork. This paper addresses this gap and considers the wide‐ranging role that technology can have throughout this research process.
Details
Keywords
Päivi Jämsä, Jaana Tähtinen, Annmarie Ryan and Maarit Pallari
This paper seeks to examine how sustainable SMEs utilize their networks. Here utilization refers to activities SMEs perform in network and how the SMEs are influenced by and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to examine how sustainable SMEs utilize their networks. Here utilization refers to activities SMEs perform in network and how the SMEs are influenced by and influence networks. While the importance of networks has been acknowledged in SME marketing research, linking sustainability to SME networking has been a more neglected area of research.
Design/methodology/approach
A multiple case study of two Finnish SMEs operating in the food sector was conducted for this study. The main methods applied to gather the research data were group and individual interviews.
Findings
This study shows that SMEs utilize their networks as a source of opportunities and resources and their networks can serve as an avenue for change towards sustainability. Moreover, learning in the network was identified as a key process through which the enterprises and the network evolve.
Research limitations/implications
The main limitation of this paper is that the case study interviews were conducted at a single point in time and thus the study is based on historical instead of follow‐up data.
Practical implications
SMEs are encouraged to develop skills (e.g. willingness to solve problems), which on the one hand, help them to utilize the network as a source of opportunities and resources and, on the other hand, influence the network to develop it further.
Originality/value
This paper demonstrates that SMEs utilized their networks to bring about enhanced sustainability, a perspective less understood in previous research. Moreover, the study connects sustainability to SME networking, which is also less studied, but a highly valuable way for resource‐constrained SMEs to enhance social and ecologic sustainability.