Charlie Hughes and Richard Spray
This paper addresses the relevance of ‘smart communities’ to corporate real estate. It defines smart communities within a context of smart growth, ethical investment, brownland…
Abstract
This paper addresses the relevance of ‘smart communities’ to corporate real estate. It defines smart communities within a context of smart growth, ethical investment, brownland regeneration and sustainability and seeks to explore the potential of such communities to leverage value for the corporation, not just in terms of land value as bottom‐line benefit but also in respect of longer‐term added shareholder value as expressed by the positioning of the corporation within its community and its political access level. Focusing on corporations with significant non‐operational land banks, it addresses the problem, the potential and the process supporting this with a current example of best practice.
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Dominique Braxton and Loraine Lau-Gesk
Frontline service providers are a key touchpoint in a customer’s overall experience with a brand. Though they are recognized as important contributors to brand experiences…
Abstract
Purpose
Frontline service providers are a key touchpoint in a customer’s overall experience with a brand. Though they are recognized as important contributors to brand experiences, service providers have received relatively little attention in both experienced marketing and branding research. This paper aims to illuminate the importance of understanding factors that contribute to the role services providers play within the environmental context of the customer’s brand journey.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses two experimental studies to show that greater customer happiness and customer loyalty could be achieved through collective brand personification whereby the frontline service provider’s identity and core values align with those of the brand persona and store environment.
Findings
Specifically, findings reveal that customer happiness increases because of feelings of belongingness and greater brand authenticity when the service provider aligns with the retailer’s brand persona and store environment.
Research limitations/implications
While this study gets us closer to understanding how managers can leverage human capital in the retail service environment, there are opportunities to further explore issues such as the impact of collective brand personification on the employee.
Practical implications
Given the strong desire companies have to bolster customer happiness to increase brand loyalty, the findings bolster the importance of understanding the influential factors associated with frontline service providers. Their role in creating optimal customer experiences should not be underestimated.
Social implications
As an important cautionary note, firms should take care when creating the appearance and personality-based occupational qualifications by considering social norms and the impact on societal well-being (e.g. self-consciousness and exclusion can lead to serious illnesses and including depression). Study shows that people have an inherent need to feel accepted and belong to social groups that help to construct and affirm their self-concept, and appreciate opportunities that empower them to seize control against exclusion. Therefore, appearance and personality-based occupational qualifications should be strategically aligned with the image and goals of the firm, and not subject to management bias from an unconscious reaction to an applicant’s physical and interpersonal presentation.
Originality/value
The present study builds on both customer experience and branding literature by examining the relationship between customer happiness and collective brand personification – where the frontline service provider’s identity and core values align with those of the brand. Two experiments test the hypotheses that customer happiness increases because of feelings of belongingness with the brand and the consumer’s perception of the brand’s authenticity when the customer service provider aligns with the brand’s identity and core values.
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Johanna Sumiala, Katja Valaskivi, Minttu Tikka and Jukka Huhtamäki
Karen Tocque, John Currie, Elizabeth Hughes and Charlie Brooker
The North of England characteristically has higher levels of alcohol‐related harm and higher levels of mental illness compared with the South. The purpose of this paper is to…
Abstract
Purpose
The North of England characteristically has higher levels of alcohol‐related harm and higher levels of mental illness compared with the South. The purpose of this paper is to present observations on the use of services by people who have both alcohol and mental health problems to explore the equality and economic impact of services.
Design/methodology/approach
Inpatient hospital datasets as well as other NHS service datasets were examined to gather intelligence on alcohol and co‐occurring mental and behavioural disorders.
Findings
The study finds that there are high levels of dual diagnosis (DD) of alcohol and mental health in the North West with significantly higher rates in the more socially deprived areas and gap in access to services.
Research limitations/implications
These health inequalities in relation to DD can only be demonstrated robustly for hospital inpatient admissions because other datasets currently provide intelligence only at larger geographies – such as Primary Care Trust – or by service provider.
Practical implications
Population surveys are useful to generate estimates of the prevalence of mental health issues in alcohol users which then reveal that there are greater inequalities in access to services in more deprived populations. Such valuable intelligence should be generated at the local level so that the most appropriate and the most cost effective services can be commissioned for the local population.
Originality/value
This is the first time that the economic cost of DD in the various services has been estimated.
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The purpose of this paper is to obtain an insight into how mental health and alcohol services are responding to people presenting with alcohol and mental health problems, as a…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to obtain an insight into how mental health and alcohol services are responding to people presenting with alcohol and mental health problems, as a part of a wider North West Alcohol and Mental Health Project commissioned by Drink Wise North West and Alcohol Improvement Programme (Department of Health).
Design/methodology/approach
An electronic survey was sent to managers and clinical leads in mental health and alcohol services across the North West region of England.
Findings
The paper found a variation in definitions of dual diagnosis and that not all areas had a strategy in place. NHS mental health and alcohol services seemed to offer a wider range of treatment options; but, this reflects the more complex nature of the service users. Workforce issues were identified as an important issue. Barriers to accessing effective care included lack of agreements between local agencies, and solutions included greater partnership working.
Research limitations/implications
This was a small sample of respondents, accessed opportunistically and, therefore, unlikely to be a true representation of all services in the North West of England.
Originality/value
Whilst limited in scope, this survey highlights that even after ten years of service development related to alcohol and mental health, there are still significant barriers to effective care and that more workforce development and multi‐agency collaboration is required.
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John E. Marsh, Jack Demaine, Raoul Bell, Faye C. Skelton, Charlie D. Frowd, Jan P. Röer and Axel Buchner
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the potential susceptibility of eyewitness memory to the presence of extraneous background speech that comprises a description…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the potential susceptibility of eyewitness memory to the presence of extraneous background speech that comprises a description consistent with, or at odds with, a target face.
Design/methodology/approach
A between-participants design was deployed whereby participants viewed an unfamiliar target face in the presence of quiet, or extraneous to-be-ignored speech comprising a verbal description that was either congruent or incongruent with the target face. After a short distractor task, participants were asked to describe the target face and construct a composite of the face using PRO-fit software. Further participants rated the likeness of the composites to the target.
Findings
Recall of correct facial descriptors was facilitated by congruent to-be-ignored speech and inhibited by incongruent to-be-ignored speech compared to quiet. Moreover, incorrect facial descriptors were reported more often in the incongruent speech condition compared with the congruent speech and quiet conditions. Composites constructed after exposure to incongruent speech were rated as worse likenesses to the target than those created after exposure to congruent speech and quiet. Whether congruent speech facilitated or impaired composite construction was found to depend on the distinctiveness of the target face.
Practical implications
The results suggest that the nature of to-be-ignored background speech has powerful effects on the accuracy of information verbally reported from having witnessed a face. Incongruent speech appears to disrupt the recognition processes that underpin face construction while congruent speech may have facilitative or detrimental effects on this process, depending on the distinctiveness of the target face.
Originality/value
This is one of the first studies to demonstrate that extraneous speech can produce adverse effects on the recall and recognition of complex visual information: in this case, the appearance of a human face.
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A feature of specialised film production in the last few years has been the move made by a few major industrial film sponsoring organisations to transform their internal film…
Abstract
A feature of specialised film production in the last few years has been the move made by a few major industrial film sponsoring organisations to transform their internal film units into production companies catering for other sponsors besides the host company. British Rail made this change with British Transport Films — although the new policy has kept the unit still working within the transport field. ICI, in creating Millbank Films as the successor to ICI Film Unit, have undertaken a similar move and, whilst the bulk of the unit's output has been concerned with different aspects of ICI's public relations and commercial interests, the latest series of films to be produced has introduced a significant newcomer to management film making. In this instance Millbank Films has cooperated with Sheppard Moscow and Associates Ltd, management consultants, in the production of a film series with associated publications designed for use in management training, and the films themselves are being distributed by Guild Sound and Vision, one of Britain's three major industrial film libraries with a rapidly expanding catalogue of management training material.