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The purpose of this paper is to explore how resource recombination (RR) may be conceptualized with special reference to the competitiveness of Higher Education Institutions (HEI).

The paper consists of two main studies. Building on pertinent available literature on the subject area, a qualitative investigation was conducted with the help of a semi-structured interview guide. Findings of study one were systematically analysed against a literature derived template. Study two presents a quantitative survey investigation that follows from the codes and themes derived from study one. In study two, findings were validated and analysed with the help of structural equation modelling.

Study one findings identified a total of 64 individual themes representing resources (21 themes), business processes (29 themes) and complementary factors (14 themes), as elements of RR in HEI competitiveness. In study two, the measurement model for RR was found to contain five main factors, namely, asset, research and affiliation processes, automated technology management, financial support for HR and departmental initiatives mainstream staff rewards and retention and institutional brand image appeal.

A significant contribution is made to theory development in the area of RR. Other implications to HEI competitiveness in contribution to national development were offered.

The area of RR remains largely uncovered in strategic management. Conceptualizing RR in the context of HEI competitiveness is new and in the right direction to jumpstart interest in this area by proposing a validated measurement model of HEI.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the overarching role of learning capabilities by presenting a framework to describe how learning capability development is captured by combining the three main elements of internal marketing orientation, exploratory capabilities and resource recombination.

This is a conceptual paper building upon the theoretical integration approach of Mayer and Sparrowe (2013) to establish competitive empowerment through learning capability development, effective internal response and resources recombination.

The competitive learning capability model provides a firm’s foundation for theorizing organizational competitive models from an internal perspective, by mastering learning capability development at the centre of the model.

The paper emphasizes the competitive connotation of learning capabilities as a construct in strategic management. It shows the underlying role of learning across organizational processes; hence, its theoretical significance through the learning capabilities model.

This paper argues that learning is at the centre of organizational competitiveness. Firms can achieve more fruitful results by continuously implementing resource integration strategies built on their learned experiences.

The principal significance of this paper lies in the achievement of conceptualizing learning from a strategic management perspective. Insight in this area helps bridge organizational efforts in pursuit of competitive advantage by exploiting key core learning competencies embedded in a firm’s resources and capabilities.

This study aims to examine the effects of enhanced visualization of intangible service value through integration of means-end perspectives on advertising effectiveness.

Banking advertisements, incorporating message stimuli derived from salient values desired by the financial consumers and designed to assist message elaboration and stimulate personal relevance, were developed to examine the influence of cognitive connectivity on vividness of intangible service benefits and service advertising effectiveness.

The findings demonstrate that greater cognitive connectivity positively affects perceived tangibility, attitude toward the advertisement and attitude toward the brand. Additionally, the results indicated that perceived personal relevance has higher influence on envisioning service components, compared to one’s ability to connect visual cues to perceived benefits and to immediate end-goals.

This study incorporated visual stimuli limited only to financial security and social recognition. Future research should aim to examine the effects of different types of values on consumers’ elaboration process and their ability to visualize financial services.

This study extends knowledge of the means-end chain by proposing a means-end cognitive connectivity construct which influences the degree that consumers are able to mentally picture intangible service attributes. This study also provides insight that different values have different degree of influence on one’s ability to visualize service.

Country of origin (COO) is well established as an extrinsic product cue that influences buyer behavior in the business-to-business (B2B) context. However, non-product-specific attitudes to a COO, including the notion of animosity, have received rather less attention. This paper aims to investigate COO as a multi-dimensional construct and animosity as a normative dimension of buyers’ attitudes and intentions.

The work is based on data collected from industrial buyers in Egypt and Canada to enable a comparative perspective between developing and developed countries. Structural equation modeling was used to test the study’s hypotheses.

Country of manufacture was an antecedent of perceived quality and a determinant of brand evaluation in both countries. Price was an antecedent of perceived risk and value in Egypt, while its impact on perceived risk was less pronounced in Canada. Perceived value was the strongest determinant of willingness to buy, while animosity played a significant role in this respect in Canada but not in Egypt.

Country of brand was not included as a dimension to be investigated; industry type was not controlled and may confound the results; and generalization of the results is limited given the cross-sectional approach.

The study’s contribution lies in four main elements, viewed individually and in combination: investigating a large number of COO constructs that have not been studied within a single research context in B2B before; including the animosity construct in a B2B setting; contrasting “benefit received” and “sacrifice given” constructs that help to shape industrial buyers’ purchase decisions; and carrying out the research in two very different countries to help improve the generalizability of results.

Examines the case of the consumer adoption of Internet financial services, which may be viewed as an innovation in service delivery. The qualitative study employed Rogers’ model of perceived innovation attributes is augmented by Bauer’s concept of perceived risk. The perceived innovation attributes were found to be important determinants of consumers’ adoption decisions. However, two additional dimensions were found to influence people’s adoption decisions, highlighting the complexity of the adoption decision for Internet financial services.

Traditionally, marketing in financial services had been a largely tactical activity, concerned primarily with the advertising and selling of existing products. With the growth in environmental turbulence which characterized the 1980s the notion of marketing as a strategic activity became increasingly important. The 1980s were, in many senses, an era of expansion and diversification. However, many organizations over‐stretched themselves in this period and the 1990s has seen many organizations looking to refocus on core businesses.

The strategic importance of distribution for financial services was reflected in and reinforced by the provisions of the Financial Services Act. Through requirements relating to polarization, best advice and commission disclosure, the Financial Services Act sought to create a regulatory framework which would provide the level of investor protection which was appropriate in a market characterized by a high level of information asymmetry and a heavy dependence on commission‐based selling. In practice the desired level of investor protection has failed to materialize, and this can be attributed not so much to a failure of the principles within the Financial Services Act as to a failure in the way in which those principles have been implemented.

The implementation of the EC′s programme to liberalise the financial services sector as part of the movement towards a Single European Market will significantly reduce the costs of entry into non‐domestic markets for Community banks. Reducing entry costs will increase competition in banking markets, but it is unlikely that all segments of the banking market will experience the same patterns of change. The large‐scale corporate market already displays a high volume of cross‐border trade, while retail markets may be inaccessible for many non‐domestic banks, except by acquisition. The small‐ and medium‐sized corporate sector is widely regarded as an attractive niche market at the European level and it is suggested that there are particular gaps in this market in the UK. These gaps may make such a market susceptible to increased competition from non‐UK Community banks, although at the same time, improvements in the product offerings to this market by UK banks may provide the basis for a strategy to protect existing domestic markets and develop into new non‐domestic markets.

Increased competitive pressure in the market for loanable funds has encouraged the banks to place greater emphasis on the marketing of their services to both corporate and personal customers. The small business sector of the corporate market covers the majority of corporate accounts and for a substantial volume of bank lending. However, the proliferation of product differentiation in relation to small business customers in order to improve banks′ competitive position appears to have been less than successful. The small business sector is heterogeneous; customer needs vary but there is little evidence to suggest that banks differentiate their products sufficiently to appeal to distinct market segments. On the contrary, despite competitive pressures and new marketing strategies, small business customers generally perceive the services provided by the different banks as indistinguishable.

Consumer protection was an important motivating factor behind the introduction of polarization in the Financial Services Act. Despite the potential benefits to the consumer of using independent financial advice as a source of information and a medium for the purchase of financial services, the majority of consumers appear to attach little value to the status of a financial adviser per se and instead attach importance to the image and reputation of particular suppliers. Reports a survey by in‐depth interviews of 140 consumers in the East Midlands, UK, that confirms the relatively low level of interest in independent financial advice, with the groups most likely to use such advisers being identified as the younger consumers from higher social class groupings who do not regularly collect product information from alternative sources such as newspapers and television.