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There is a danger of allowing competitive analysis to receive less than adequate attention in the marketing‐planning process as it is subordinated to a customer‐driven focus. Clearly important though customers are, they should not dominate marketing strategy and planning to the exclusion of other influential groups, one of these being competitors. With this in mind, a pilot research project was undertaken to gain a better understanding of how UK companies conduct competitive intelligence. From this pilot, a tentative typology of companies was developed to reflect four attributes of competitive intelligence activity: attitude, gathering, use, and location. Further research was subsequently undertaken to corroborate the findings of the pilot study, test the appropriateness of the typology and further develop the classification definitions. The research has resulted in a typology that illustrates a continuum of behaviour on the four strands of investigation. From this, an understanding of CI best practice can be deduced.

This chapter focusses on analysing the origins and evolution of the SWOT analysis. It explains the drivers and limitations of the conventional SWOT analysis, laying the groundwork for new decision-making models that can aid researchers and practitioners in comprehending both the external landscape and the internal characteristics of a company. This chapter demonstrates how the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the SWOT analysis can be approached dynamically. Conventional SWOT analysis offers only a limited perspective on the environment and employs terminology that can confuse users, hindering their clear understanding of the factors that influence an organisation’s situation. This chapter provides a concise literature review of tools for evaluating quality management, its resources, and the surrounding environment, which serves as a valuable means to grasp the economic and social context within which a firm operates.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of account planning by tracing its origins, development and role from its genesis to its current status. Account planning grew out of dissatisfaction with advertising agencies’ ability to meet the challenges they were facing in the early 1960s. It started out by combining elements of research and strategic planning to inform creative development and to provide the guidance and direction needed to use consumer insight to drive successful creative solutions. Since those early beginnings, a changing advertising environment has fuelled account planning’s exodus as it has been adopted internationally and by marketing communications fields that extend beyond advertising. While the paper brings us to the current day, account planning continues to evolve. It is expected that the trend of adoption by a range of marketing communications specialist agencies will persist but that a new account planning “revelation” will be in the form of independent strategy consultancies and increased client activities.

The purpose of this paper is to consider why and how a research culture might be established in an academic library and to describe and evaluate efforts to achieve this at the University of Northampton.

Contextualised within current literature on this topic, the paper examines the top-down and bottom-up approaches taken to facilitate practitioner research in one academic library.

The approaches taken have led to a significant increase in practitioner research activity from library staff, resulting in a variety of enhancements to library services; a number of innovative practices being shared with the professional community through conference presentations and publications; and consequent rise in profile and reputation for individuals, the department and the university.

The paper offers a wide range of ideas and practical suggestions for encouraging and facilitating practitioner research in an academic library. These include incorporating research activity into job descriptions and annual performance reviews; facilitating peer support for research; and providing competitive research awards, research training opportunities and funding for staff presenting at external events. Many of these require relatively little resource, yet offer significant benefit to those involved.

It is rare, and maybe unique in the UK, for an academic library to attempt to instil a research culture throughout its staff and to provide ongoing resources, activities and practical support for this. The many positive outcomes from this work demonstrate its success and value. The experiences described in this paper are transferable to other academic and research libraries and, if replicated, have the potential to increase librarians’ engagement in research activity, promote research-informed practice and stimulate interest in library and information research across the sector.

The purpose of the empirical study was to examine whether strategies shown to work well in one model of network development for library and information science (LIS) practitioners and researchers could be applied successfully in the development of a new network and contribute to the narrowing of the research–practice gap in LIS.

Overall, 32 members of a new professional network were surveyed by a questionnaire following the completion of a programme of four network events held between 2019 and 2021.

The analysis demonstrates the transferability of the existing model of network development to a new network and that it can be successfully adapted for online delivery of network events and activities.

The criteria deployed for the evaluation of the new network could be used in other similar settings. Funding bodies can also use these findings as demonstration of the value of their investment in network grants.

This contribution on means of growing collaborative networks to narrow the LIS research–practice gap stands out in contrast with prior research that tends to focus the support of research productivity of academic librarians in North American universities for the purposes of career development. Here wider aspects of research engagement are considered of value for LIS practitioners from a range of sectors and institutions, beyond North America, for purposes that are broader than personal advancement.

Stemming from the resource-based view (RBV) approach, this article overcomes the limits of the conventional strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis, setting the basis for the model actual–potential, positive–negative, internal–external (APPNIE). This paper enacts a new framework demonstrating how strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of SWOT can be replaced by actual or potential, positive or negative elements, considered in a dynamic way.

The traditional SWOT analysis provides only a partial view of the environment and adopts incorrect terminology that can confuse the user, preventing a clear understanding of the factors affecting the organisation’s situation. The authors developed a new tool to help managers in their decision-making processes.

This study proposes a new tool for assessing the quality of management, resources and environment, which is useful in understanding the economic and social scenario in which a firm is embedded. From a practical point of view, the new tool is applied in the case study, and it shows how managers and students can use it while choosing between alternative options (different strategies, markets, technologies, etc.).

The APPNIE model introduces a new dimension that the SWOT analysis does not consider. Moreover, for each element of the new matrix, the authors propose a plan of action, which is another valuable benefit of the APPNIE model.

Over the last few years, the wine industry has been undergoing a process of accelerated change, consequent to the constantly changing wine geography, both from the demand and the supply sides. This research is based on the 2011 work of Rossi et al. and aims to develop a preliminary prescriptive strategic branding framework for the Campania (Italy) wine firms.

The research focuses on branding strategies and financial performance. It is based on extensive secondary data; the research is exploratory in nature, and it is a theoretical research.

The paper achieves four main objectives: to understand the industry's local and international competitive situation; to identify the role and potentialities of branding in competitive terms; to identify the underlying factors of consumer behavior in relation to wine branding; and to develop a preliminary prescriptive strategic branding framework for the Campania wine firms, with generic application and value.

The limitations of the paper are the result of its very nature: it is a largely conceptual paper. Empirical research is therefore needed to test and validate the essentially preliminary framework developed and the (well‐based) assumptions made towards its development.

The value of the paper stems from the fact that practically no research exists on the subject and this work provides a solid and comprehensive theoretical foundation for further research to build on. Additionally, this research studies the subject but also through the identification of true underlying consumer behavior factors.

This research aims to undertake a business theory application into the political marketing context, examine the degree and nature of its theoretical and practical compatibility, and develop a preliminary conceptual marketing communications (MCs) framework for small political parties (SPPs) in developed countries.

The paper is conceptual and incorporates and interrelates the findings of existing business marketing research as applied to the context of political marketing. Through a comprehensive literature review, it adopts a multi‐perspective analysis and interrelation of three dimensions of existing theory: the behavioural, the contextual and the operational dimension. The paper eventually bridges the fields of political and business marketing, identifies the underlying causes of voter behaviour, and distils the critical factors of SPPs' marketing communications success.

The research identifies a number of critical factors of SPPs' marketing communications success and four principal SPPs' marketing communications findings: an increasing association between business and political marketing, an environmental context that stimulates and nurtures a symbiotic relationship between parties and voters, a predominant association of SPPs' critical factors of success with the concept of “perception management”, and the existence of a number of discrepancies regarding the application of classical marketing theory to SPPs. Based on these findings, the research finally develops a marketing communications framework for SPPs in developed countries.

While the conceptual nature of the research is a methodologically viable approach to understanding the complex interrelation of the elements involved, so early in the development of a contextually new theory, it is also its main limitation. Hence, the research considers the framework produced to be preliminary and that substantial primary research is further required to test and refine the individual framework components and to provide the necessary validity to the framework in its entirety.

The value of the paper relates to its focus on small political parties, which are largely overlooked by existing research. Additionally, the research adds considerable value to academic knowledge on the fundamental discussion on the applicability of business marketing theory to politics, also contributing an analogous political marketing framework to the existing literature.

To investigate awareness, attitudes and implementation with respect to competitive intelligence (CI) in Greece.

In‐depth interviews with a sample of 50 well‐known companies around Thessaloniki, an area of strategic marketing importance in Greece, representing a reasonable cross section of types and sizes of enterprise.

For the present, adoption in Greece is well behind the USA, but roughly on a par with the UK. The reasons for slow adoption are: unawareness, lack of sufficiently competent staff and a shortage of experts available to train them, perceptions of the cost, and somewhat complacent satisfaction with the general market research activity of in‐house marketing departments. The focus is on short‐term customer satisfaction, rather than long‐term competitiveness.

A deliberately limited exploratory study of a small sample in a highly localised setting. Recommendations are presented for further research.

In the turbulent business environments of the present day, CI can make a crucial strategic contribution to competitive success.

This study broadly confirms the findings and conclusions of previous research in the UK. It has clear value to strategic planning for marketing in Greece itself, but also in general.

The vulnerability of worn-out textures in the face of natural disasters is one of the most significant challenges that have forced planners and urban managers to intervene in these structures. In this context, the new-urbanism, or the new urbanization, movement is one of the most novel approaches. This paper aims to organizing one of the worn-out neighborhoods in Rudsar, northern Iran with an approach toward the new urbanism.

The procedure adopted in this research is a combination of both quantitative and qualitative practices with an applied approach. Therefore, through utilizing the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and space syntax methods, the principles of the new urbanism are examined using the Expert Choice and Depthmap software. Subsequently, the appropriate priorities are mentioned for organizing the neighborhood with the new-urbanism approach using the building information system (BIM) and strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) techniques.

The findings of this study indicate that among the main characteristics of the new urbanism, walkability is recognized as the most important factor. Afterward, the components of maintaining the traditional structure of neighborhoods and connectivity were in the second and third ranks, respectively, of importance. Accordingly, by identifying the societal potential of roads according to their spatial configuration, it is possible to boost walkability, as well as economic prosperity in these areas.

The combination and correlation of the four utilized methods in this research can be adopted in the future studies as a new outlook of the mixed methods in the field of urban studies.