Frank Alpert, Mark Brown, Elizabeth Ferrier, Claudia Fernanda Gonzalez-Arcos and Rico Piehler
This study aims to investigate marketing managers’ views on the existence and nature of the academic–practitioner gap in the branding domain.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate marketing managers’ views on the existence and nature of the academic–practitioner gap in the branding domain.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a purposive sampling method, the researchers conduct semi-structured qualitative interviews with 20 experienced marketing managers from a wide range of industries and organisations, whose roles are focussed on the planning, implementation and management of broad marketing and branding strategies.
Findings
Branding practitioners have little or no contact with academics and their theories-in-use with regard to brand management suggest they do not consider academic research relevant to their work.
Research limitations/implications
The process of describing and explaining the gap provides valuable insights into bridging the gap; it provides actionable branding strategies that include raising awareness, building relationships, improving the benefits offer and communicating more effectively.
Practical implications
This research has practical implications for branding academics. The interviewed practitioners confirm the gap, viewing it as academics’ (not practitioners’) problem and responsibility. They characterise it as a branding problem that academics can overcome using branding strategies, to establish themselves as credible sources of branding expertise for practitioners. Key areas for increasing collaboration stem from practitioners’ desire for independent, credible, ethical and timely third-party advice on branding issues; relevant, timely and shorter professional branding education across their organisations; and closer connections with universities to identify new branding talent and ideas.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to empirically examine and recommend solutions to the academic-practitioner gap in the branding domain by studying marketing professionals with branding responsibilities, using in-depth interviews.
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Janet R McColl-Kennedy, Lilliemay Cheung and Elizabeth Ferrier
The purpose of this paper is threefold: to introduce a practice-based framework designed to integrate and deepen our understanding of how individuals co-create service experience…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is threefold: to introduce a practice-based framework designed to integrate and deepen our understanding of how individuals co-create service experience practices; to identify co-creating service experience practices; and to provide a compelling agenda for future research, and offer practical strategies to enhance co-created service experiences. Accordingly, we extend practice theory, building on Kjellberg and Helgesson’s (2006) practice-based framework for markets by integrating Holt’s (1995) consumer practices and social capital-based practices (Gittell and Vidal, 1998; Woolcock, 2001).
Design/methodology/approach
The authors interpretive analysis draws on naturalistic observations carried out over 18 months, supplemented with 35 interviews (17 with residents, and 18 with staff) and a diary study of nine non-management staff (including nursing staff, kitchen and cleaning staff and administrative staff) at a residential aged care facility.
Findings
This paper offers a new conceptualization of service experience. Rather than viewing service experiences as dyadic, designed and produced by the firm for the customer, the authors conceptualize service experience as dynamic, experiential, relational activities and interactions, thus highlighting the collective, collaborative, evolving and dynamic nature of service experience.
Research limitations/implications
Building on McColl-Kennedy et al.’s (2012) foundational work, the authors articulate three distinct types of practices that characterize service experiences. We extend practice theory offering an integrative practice-based framework consistent with our practice-based conceptualization of service experience. Based on the service ecosystem metaphor and drawing parallels and contrasts with an ant colony, the authors provide a co-created service experience practices (CSEP) framework comprising: representational practices – assimilating, producing and personalizing; normalizing practices – bonding, bridging and linking; and exchange practices – accounting (searching and selecting), evaluating (sorting and assorting), appreciating, classifying (displaying objects and demonstrating collective action, and play (communing and entertaining). Our CSEP framework integrates three theoretical frameworks, that of Kjellberg and Helgesson’s (2006) market practices framework, Holt’s (1995) consumer practices and social capital-based practices (Gittell and Vidal, 1998; Woolcock, 2001), to yield a deeper explanation of co-created service experience practices.
Practical implications
It is clear from our observations, interviews with residents and staff, and from the diary study, that customers co-create service experiences in many different ways, each contextually determined. In some cases the customers are well equipped with a wide array of resources, integrated from exchanges with other customers, staff, friends and family and from their own resources. In other cases, however, few resources are integrated from few sources. Importantly, the authors found that some staff are willing and able to offer an extensive range of resources designed to complement the customers’ own resources to help facilitate the service experience. We offer a seven-point practical plan designed to enhance service experiences.
Originality/value
The authors work contributes theoretically and practically in four important ways. First, the authors provide a critical analysis of prior service experience conceptualizations. Second, consistent with the conceptualization that service experiences are dynamic, experiential, relational activities and interactions developed with the customer and potentially other actors, including for example, other customers, organizations, and friends and family, we draw parallels and contrasts with a biological ecosystem and offer a co-created service experience practices (CSEP) framework designed to integrate and deepen the understanding of co-created service experiences and extend practice theory. Third, the authors provide managerial implications, including a seven-point practical plan. Finally, the authors offer a research agenda to assist further theory development.
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Yuko Minowa and Terrence H. Witkowski
This purpose of this paper is to investigate the policies and consequences of state‐directed consumerism in Iran during the reign of Shah Abbas I (1587–1629) of the Safavid…
Abstract
Purpose
This purpose of this paper is to investigate the policies and consequences of state‐directed consumerism in Iran during the reign of Shah Abbas I (1587–1629) of the Safavid dynasty.
Design/methodology/approach
The research is based upon several secondary literatures, especially Middle Eastern studies and art history, as well as primary source materials in the form of architecture, its decorative elements, and other works. The visual content and consumption themes of a selected tile painting are described and analyzed.
Findings
The Shah strengthened the state by building infrastructure, encouraging international trade, and creating a robust silk industry where he controlled production and marketing. He utilized his city and its architecture as a means of communication to impress his subjects and foreign visitors and to increase domestic demand for silk textiles. These promotional efforts led to a surge in spending, which occurred about the same time as similar booms in England and France. Economic problems and rising Islamism dampened this episode of Persian consumerism in the latter part of the seventeenth century.
Research limitations/implications
The set of visual data sources is small and limited to works from just one city, Isfahan.
Originality/value
The research fills gaps in the marketing and consumption history literatures which have not as yet fully considered the use of state resources to promote domestic consumption, consumer marketing in the Middle East, and the promotional roles played by architecture and its decorative elements.
Examines the tenth published year of the ITCRR. Runs the whole gamut of textile innovation, research and testing, some of which investigates hitherto untouched aspects. Subjects…
Abstract
Examines the tenth published year of the ITCRR. Runs the whole gamut of textile innovation, research and testing, some of which investigates hitherto untouched aspects. Subjects discussed include cotton fabric processing, asbestos substitutes, textile adjuncts to cardiovascular surgery, wet textile processes, hand evaluation, nanotechnology, thermoplastic composites, robotic ironing, protective clothing (agricultural and industrial), ecological aspects of fibre properties – to name but a few! There would appear to be no limit to the future potential for textile applications.
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The principal purposes of this paper are to provide normative advice in terms of managing the British Monarchy as a Corporate Heritage Brand and to reveal the efficacy of…
Abstract
Purpose
The principal purposes of this paper are to provide normative advice in terms of managing the British Monarchy as a Corporate Heritage Brand and to reveal the efficacy of examining a brand's history for corporate heritage brands generally.
Design/methodology/approach
Taking a case history approach, the paper examines critical events in the Crown's history. It is also informed by the diverse literatures on the British Monarchy and also marshals the identity literatures and the nascent literature relating to corporate brands. Six critical incidents that have shaped the monarchy over the last millennium provide the principal data source.
Findings
In scrutinising key events from the institution's historiography it was found that the management and maintenance of the Crown as a corporate brand entail concern with issues relating to: continuity (maintaining heritage and symbolism); visibility (having a meaningful and prominent public profile); strategy (anticipating and enacting change); sensitivity (rapid response to crises); respectability (retaining public favour); and empathy (acknowledging that brand ownership resides with the public). Taking an integrationist perspective, the efficacy of adopting a corporate marketing approach/philosophy is also highlighted.
Practical implications
A framework for managing Corporate Heritage is outlined and is called “Chronicling the Corporate Brand”. In addition to Bagehot's dictum that the British Monarch had a constitutional obligation to encourage, advise and warn the government of the day, the author concludes that the Sovereign has a critical societal role and must be dutiful, devoted and dedicated to Her (His) subjects.
Originality/value
This is one of the first papers to examine the British Monarchy through a corporate branding lens. It confirms that the Crown is analogous to a corporate brand and, therefore, ought to be managed as such.
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“WE come now to another aspect of the question, and it must be admitted that the resource and ingenuity of the opposition have left nothing unnoticed. This is the common and…
Abstract
“WE come now to another aspect of the question, and it must be admitted that the resource and ingenuity of the opposition have left nothing unnoticed. This is the common and constantly repeated assertion that novels are so cheap that every working man in the country can buy all he needs for less than the annual library rate. This statement was first made some years ago when publishers commenced to issue cheap reprints of non‐copyright novels at 1s. and 6d. each. Previous to this the halfpenny evening paper had been relied upon as affording sufficient literary entertainment for the working man, but when it was found to work out at 13s. per annum, as against a library rate of 1od. or 1s. 4d., the cheap newspaper argument was dropped like a hot cinder. We doubt if the cheap paper‐covered novel is any better. Suppose a workman pays £20 per annum for his house, and is rated at £16, he will pay 1s. 4d. as library rate, or not much more than 1¼d. per month for an unlimited choice of books, newspapers and magazines. But suppose he has to depend on cheap literature. The lowest price at which he can purchase a complete novel of high quality by any author of repute is 3d., but more likely 4½d. or 6d. However, we will take 3d. as an average rate, and assume that our man has leisure to read one book every fortnight. Well, at the end of one year he will have paid 6s. 6d. for a small library by a restricted number of authors, and it will cost him an additional 4s. or 5s. if he contemplates binding his tattered array of books for future preservation. Besides this, he will be practically shut off from all the current literature on topics of the day, as his 3d. a fortnight will hardly enable him to get copyright books by the best living authors. With a Public Library at his command he can get all these, and still afford to buy an occasional poet or essayist, or novel, or technical book, well bound and printed on good paper, such as his friend who would protect him against an iniquitous library rate would not blush to see on his own shelves. It seems hard that the working men of the country should be condemned to the mental entertainment afforded by an accumulation of pamphlets. Literature clothed in such a dress as gaudy paper covers is not very inspiring or elevating, and even the most contented mind would revolt against the possession of mere reading matter in its cheapest and least durable form. The amount of variety and interest existing among cheap reprints of novels is not enough, even if the form of such books were better. It is well known to readers of wide scope that something more than mere pastime can be had out of novels. Take, for example, the splendid array of historical novels which have been written during the present century. No one can read a few of these books without consciously or unconsciously acquiring historical and political knowledge of much value. The amount of pains taken by the authors in the preparation of historical novels is enormous, and their researches extend not only to the political movements of the period, but to the geography, social state, costume, language and contemporary biography of the time. Thus it is utterly impossible for even a careless reader to escape noticing facts when presented in an environment which fixes them in the memory. For example, the average school history gives a digest of the Peninsular War, but in such brief and matter of fact terms as to scarcely leave any impression. On the other hand, certain novels by Lever and Grant, slipshod and inaccurate as they may be in many respects, give the dates and sequence of events and battles in the Peninsula in such a picturesque and detailed manner, that a better general idea is given of the history of the period than could possibly be acquired without hard study of a heavy work like Napier's History. It is hardly necessary to do more than name Scott, James, Cooper, Kingsley, Hugo, Lytton, Dumas, Ainsworth, Reade, G. Eliot, Short‐house, Blackmore, Doyle, Crockett and Weyman in support of this claim. Again, no stranger can gain an inkling of the many‐sided characteristics of the Scot, without reading the works of Scott, Ferrier, Galt, Moir, Macdonald, Black, Oliphant, Stevenson, Barrie, Crockett, Annie Swan and Ian Maclaren. And how many works by these authors can be had for 3d. each? The only way in which a stay‐at‐home Briton can hope to acquire a knowledge of the people and scenery of India is by reading the works of Kipling, Mrs. Steel, Cunningham, Meadows Taylor, and others. Probably a more vivid and memory‐haunting picture of Indian life and Indian scenery can be obtained by reading these authors than by reading laboriously through Hunter's huge gazetteer. In short, novels are to the teaching of general knowledge what illustrations are to books, or diagrams to engineers, they show things as they are and give information about all things which are beyond the reach of ordinary experience or means. It is just the same with juvenile literature, which is usually classed with fiction, and gives to that much‐maligned class a very large percentage of its turnover. The adventure stories of Ballantyne, Fenn, Mayne Reid, Henty, Kingston, Verne and others of the same class are positive mines of topographical and scientific information. Such works represent more than paste and scissors industry in connection with gazetteers, books of travel and historical works; they represent actual observation on the part of the authors. A better idea of Northern Canada can be derived from some of Ballantyne's works than from formal topographical works; while the same may be said of Mexico and South America as portrayed by Captain Mayne Reid, and the West Indies by Michael Scott. The volume of Personal Reminiscences written by R. M. Ballantyne before he died will give some idea of the labour spent in the preparation of books for the young. The life of the navy at various periods can only be learned from the books of Smollett, Marryat and James Hannay, as that of the modern army is only to be got in the works of Lever, Grant, Kipling, Jephson, “John Strange Winter” and Robert Blatchford.
Marcellinus C. Dike and Elizabeth L. Rose
The purpose of this paper is to map the relevant studies pertaining to internationalization in the mobile telecommunications (telecom) sector, with the aims of reflecting and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to map the relevant studies pertaining to internationalization in the mobile telecommunications (telecom) sector, with the aims of reflecting and categorizing what has already been studied on this topic, as a means of guiding future research.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use the systematic literature review methodological approach, adopting the “Antecedents-Phenomenon-Consequences” theoretical framework as a guide. Consistent with this framework, they identify and categorize studies in the academic literature that have discussed the cross-border expansion of mobile telecom firms. Their review is based on 50 research publications, selected based on the relevance of their findings and their underlying arguments. The authors then categorized each piece’s findings and arguments into themes and sub-themes.
Findings
The authors find evidence that mobile network operators (MNOs) are driven into international markets by a collection of factors that can broadly be categorized as either firm-specific/country factors or the desire to capture first-mover advantages (FMAs). They also find evidence that the Uppsala stages model does not provide an appropriate explanation of MNOs’ internationalization patterns, with firms tending to skip posited stages. Market size, the regulatory environment and government policies appear to be key influences in MNOs’ choices of foreign investment locations, and despite being a driver of internationalization, FMAs often erode with the entry of competitors. MNOs tend to prefer collaborative entries over greenfield investments, especially in countries in which telecommunications infrastructure is already in place. Finally, there is no consensus with respect to whether internationality is positively associated with financial performance for MNOs.
Originality/value
This review of the literature offers value to both academia and practice, by providing both insights into what has already been studied with respect to the internationalization of mobile telecom firms and a guide for future research.
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I AM GOING TO BE TALKING about the library of Niddrie Marischal School in Edinburgh, because I feel very strongly that a school library has to fit its school, has to fit the needs…
Abstract
I AM GOING TO BE TALKING about the library of Niddrie Marischal School in Edinburgh, because I feel very strongly that a school library has to fit its school, has to fit the needs of its pupils. What is a good school library for one school may not be only inadequate but calamitous for another school. The school librarian—whether a teacher or a trained librarian—the staff, the pupil‐librarians, and succeeding classes of pupils have to work together over many years to build up a library and a tradition—for a library is more than books. Moreover, there must always be room for improvement. The librarian must always be open to new ideas.
FOR public libraries the Ministerial statement that proposals for the future of local government will be laid before Parliament before October may prove to be most significant. We…
Abstract
FOR public libraries the Ministerial statement that proposals for the future of local government will be laid before Parliament before October may prove to be most significant. We say may, because such preliminaries usually raise undue expectations. Meanwhile during the summer speculation may range over the public library possibilities of the situation. Will the known blue‐prints made for us come into the picture: the masterly, and at that time far too advanced, pattern in the McColvin Report, already fourteen years old, and the older Ministry of Reconstruction Report, made as the First World War was closing, which would have given libraries, willy‐nilly, to the Education Committee? Will the present L.A. plan, which everyone knows, affect matters? Will public libraries come in at all? Local Government, as at present organized, does work, even if the machinery creaks with too many uncontrolled bodies intervening in every part, too much remote control, and, conversely, too little co‐operative organization, too many jealousies, boundary graspings, disputes and much expensive, unnecessary litigation. That public librarians can provide an acceptable solution for their own admittedly limited field will, alas, not occur to many authority minds. In the reconstruction of the patchwork now existing our library leaders must be alert to prevent complete indifference to library needs and possibilities. We feel sure they will be. That vigilance will be necessary even if, as we suspect from the tendency of the times, what will be proposed is not likely to produce radical redistributions and changes. The counties, municipal corporations, and the urban districts together form a formidable combination and, we think, can prevent further encroachments on their areas and increased restrictions of their powers. The way may be somewhat plainer before the L.A. Annual General Meeting is held in September, but the announcement we are discussing came later than the printing of the outline programme of the Conference which is inserted in the May L.A. Record.