Search results

Despite technological advances banking still concerns people. Frontline personnel form a critical means of competition in the marketplace and motivating them is a key task. Internal marketing provides the framework for such activities. Data gathered and analysed prior to and after the implementaton of an internal marketing programme confirms that it does impact on the quality of the service provided, recognising the value of communication in informing and motivating staff and creating positive attitudes and a sense of belonging. Apart from size there is little to differentiate banks from one another as all carry a similar range of services and charge similar rates. The bank that shows its superiority in the customer contact area should have a competitive tool and a means of successfully differentiating itself from competitors.

This study aims to explore the character and attainment of an effective URL system by expanding the concept of URL normalization, originally connected to machine-reading access of web pages, to form a broader understanding of URL systematization that includes user-focused cognitive and practical elements.

A revised understanding of URL normalization will be used to critically analyzed URLs of main admissions pages from M1 universities, as designated by the Carnegie Foundation.

The study found that very few institutions implemented well-organized systems of Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) and redirects and that many included unintelligible and impractical URLs that would hinder the effective use of their websites.

A broader understanding of URL systematization will result in more effective website design. URLs must serve an indexical function pointing to a unique web resource, whatever the URL's format. However, URLs should also consider human usability issues and strive to be simple, short, communicable, intelligible and ultimately useful as part of social interactions. Poorly designed URLs create frustration, if not failure, by being difficult to use, confusing or interminable. An effective URL system should also include redirects to anticipate alternate, meaningful URLs that are different from the canonical path. The framework and recommendations arising from this study are applicable to many website structures.

The expanded understanding of the concept of URL normalization and subsequent evaluation principles can be used to assess the overall coherence and completeness of the website in general, thus improving website usability.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and evaluate a workflow for establishing name authority in uncontrolled collections.

The authors developed a workflow incorporating command-line tools and tested it in the electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) collection. The authors narrowed the scope of the study to born-digital ETDs in the collection and to contributor names, including chairs and committee members.

This workflow can save staff time and allows for flexible implementation depending on staff numbers and skills as well as institutional needs.

This workflow could be used by other institutions with little or no modification, as it does not rely on specialized software or extensive expertise.

Choosing an effective method for instruction is a decision the training professional must deal with as an integral part of course design. The importance of the training professional being able to make this decision is relatively obvious, but effective training methods are also something that every manager should be aware of. Given that people indeed are the most valuable asset to an organisation, developing that resource is a key responsibility of the manager.

This monograph looks at the growing use of the outdoors for management development on both sides of the Atlantic. The author suggests the term “Outdoor Development” to describe a systematic use of outdoor activities which incorporate process reviews and the application of experiential learning methods.

Influencing positive financial behaviors is the natural next frontier for social marketers to “get serious about”, as there are clear behaviors that, once adopted by target populations, will improve the quality of life for individuals as well as society. The purpose of this paper is to describe a study conducted on behalf of the Consultive Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), an independent policy and research center dedicated to advancing financial access for the world's poor.

The seven best practices presented in this paper are based on original research undertaken in 2009‐2010 which examined more than 100 cases around the world where a social marketing approach was used to influence a financial behavior.

Relevant behaviors identified, including those related to establishing a bank account, increasing savings, using credit wisely, avoiding over indebtedness, applying for micro finance loans, adopting new technologies, reducing chances of fraud, choosing the right insurance, reporting abuse, and shopping around and comparing offers. Potential target audiences were broad, ranging from sex workers in India, to farmers in “self‐help” groups in Kenya, to girls aged 10‐18 in Mongolia, to the homeless in San Francisco, to households on tea estates in India.

The paper describes seven best practices essential for success when applying social marketing principles and techniques to influence desired financial behaviors. For each practice, case examples are then presented, ones that demonstrate the successful application of the highlighted best practice to influence a specific financial behavior. In total, ten cases have been chosen to provide a range of countries, behaviors, target audiences, and strategies.

The aim of this study is to explore the attempts by early twentieth century cyclecar manufacturers in the UK and USA to segment the personal transportation market and to position early cyclecars through the development of unique product attributes and advertising. More specifically, the authors speculate about early twentieth century British cyclecar marketing strategies that implicitly recognized a sports car segment and positioned cyclecar brands to meet the needs of that segment.

The primary source material for this research is a sample of 205 print ads and articles from the early twentieth century (1912-1921) specialty magazines devoted to cyclecars in the UK and USA. We combine the content analysis of the sample of ads with a critical reading and interpretation of a sub-sample of those same ads.

Between 1910 and 1921, a new form of personal transportation was developed that combined the technology of motorcycles with the utility of automobiles. Known as “cyclecars”, these vehicles were typically constructed from off-the-shelf motorcycle parts and assembled in small batches by a myriad of manufacturers. Current scholarship suggests that the cyclecar craze of the 1910s ended with the introduction of low cost “real” automobiles such as the Ford Model T, Austin 7 and Morris Oxford. We use the content analysis of cyclecar advertisements to construct a brand-positioning map of this emerging segment of the transportation market. We argue that while the core cyclecar positioning was in direct competition with small economically positioned cars such as the Ford Model T, a significant part of the market, primarily centered in the UK, could be considered as for sports cars. That segment of the cyclecar market, along with the development of cyclecars into urban delivery vehicles, continued over time and has re-emerged today in a range of three-wheeled sports cars, including the updating and continuation of the British Morgan 3 Wheeler model which was launched during the heyday of cyclecars.

The authors can only speculate about the impact of the Ford Model T in this study. Further research on that issue is needed.

This is the first historical study of cyclecar marketing. Most of what little has been published about cyclecars focuses on their design and technology.

When Sir William Mather becomes President of the Association of Colleges for Further and Higher Education in February, he will be assuming an office which was first occupied by his grandfather, The Right Honourable Sir William Mather PC, in 1895. Continuity—of which this is anexample—amongst people, policies and philosophies has strongly characterised the 80‐year history of the Association. R. L. Roberts, father of the present Honorary Treasurer, Brian Roberts, also served the Association for many years as Honorary Treasurer. He was in addition Chairman of the Council in 1930 and 1950, as was Brian in 1964. In the last thirty years the Association has had only three Honorary Secretaries—J. C. Jones, Eric Richardson, and myself—all three of whom, by rare coincidence, were present at the 1974 summer conference in Bournemouth.