Magnus Söderlund, Jonas Colliander, John Karsberg, Karina T. Liljedal, Erik Modig, Sara Rosengren, Sofie Sagfossen, Stefan Szugalski and Nina Åkestam
This paper aims to assess the impact of perceived effort related to packaging on overall product evaluations. Perceived effort, defined as the consumer’s perceptions of how much…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to assess the impact of perceived effort related to packaging on overall product evaluations. Perceived effort, defined as the consumer’s perceptions of how much manufacturer effort that lies behind an offer, is assumed to contribute to evaluations by signaling unobservable characteristics of an offer.
Design/methodology/approach
Three between-subjects experiments were conducted with soft drink bottles, which were subject to variation in perceived effort.
Findings
The results show that perceived effort was positively associated with overall evaluations. The results also show that the impact of perceived effort was mediated by product quality perceptions, which indicates that effort signals quality.
Originality/value
Perceived effort has to date not been examined in the packaging literature. The present findings thus imply that models of packaging characteristics and their impact on consumers would benefit from including the effort aspect.
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– This paper aims to investigate the impact of advertising creativity on consumer perceptions of product quality, value, retailer brand attitude and purchase intention.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the impact of advertising creativity on consumer perceptions of product quality, value, retailer brand attitude and purchase intention.
Design/methodology/approach
Two experimental studies were conducted. Study 1 shows the impact of creativity (high/low) for two product categories (mineral water and chewing gum) and one known retailer. The findings are replicated and extended in Study 2 for four categories (mineral water, chewing gum, batteries and detergent) and two known retailers.
Findings
The results show that advertising creativity positively signals perceived product quality, which increases perceived value. These effects fully mediate a positive impact on retailer brand attitude and purchase intentions. The positive effect of advertising creativity on perceived product quality is mediated by perceived advertisement effort.
Practical implications
This study introduces advertising creativity as a way for retailers to increase perceived product quality and value. The results show that advertising creativity increases perceived effort on behalf of the sender, which positively influences purchase intentions.
Originality/value
The current study shows that advertising creativity can work as a signal of product quality, which has positive effects for retailers.
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Kaisa Henttonen, Minna Janhonen and Jan‐Erik Johanson
From the structural perspective of social‐capital theory, this research investigates how a team's social‐network relationships affect its performance. More specifically, it…
Abstract
Purpose
From the structural perspective of social‐capital theory, this research investigates how a team's social‐network relationships affect its performance. More specifically, it concerns the type of work‐group‐internal connectedness in instrumental and expressive networks that is associated with enhanced team performance, and whether knowledge mediates these effects.
Design/methodology/approach
The research was survey based, involving 76 work teams and a total of 499 employees in 48 organisations. The work teams carried out fairly knowledge‐intensive but only moderately complex tasks, some of which were routine in nature.
Findings
Both dense and fragmented instrumental‐network structures affect work‐team performance. However, fragmentation in expressive networks has a negative impact. Furthermore, the mediation results give empirical support to the implicit understanding that only instrumental networks transfer knowledge, especially if they are dense.
Research limitations/implications
The results indicate that social‐network relationships affect team performance and also provide access to social capital (here knowledge). However, instrumental and expressive networks differ in terms of theoretical and practical implications. Future research could overcome the limitations of this study through increasing the sample size and focusing on much more fine‐grained intervening mechanisms (here knowledge sharing).
Practical implications
The recommendation to managers is to stimulate dense instrumental relationships in order to facilitate knowledge sharing and avoid overly fragmented expressive relationships.
Originality/value
First, in examining the social structure of both instrumental and expressive relationships this study responds to the growing call in organisational theory for research into the social content of social networks. Second, the contribution of this research paper lies in directly testing whether team knowledge mediates the effects of advice‐network structures on team performance.
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Kaisa Henttonen, Jan-Erik Johanson and Minna Janhonen
– The focus in this paper is on the extent to which bonding and bridging social relationships predict the performance effectiveness and attitudinal (identity) outcomes.
Abstract
Purpose
The focus in this paper is on the extent to which bonding and bridging social relationships predict the performance effectiveness and attitudinal (identity) outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach
The research was survey-based, involving 76 work teams and a total of 499 employees in 48 organisations.
Findings
The analysis reveals a positive relationship between both bonding and bridging relationships and performance effectiveness and attitudinal outcomes. Team identity mediates the relationship between the team ' s social-network structure and its performance effectiveness.
Research limitations/implications
The research investigates the performance effectiveness and attitudinal outcomes of social networks simultaneously, which is rare, but for study-design reasons fails to investigate behavioural outcomes. More extensive data would reveal more about the possible interaction between bridging and bonding.
Practical implications
In order to improve performance effectiveness managerial attention should focus on building a team and social networks.
Originality/value
The research shows that team identity fully mediates the influence of bonding and bridging social relationships. This finding sheds light on the processes that mediate performance effectiveness, which in turn facilitate understanding of how team dynamics lead to differing performance levels. The results also reveal how the type of social network affects the creation of a team identity: individuals identify with the team through the social networks to which they belong both within it and outside. Thus, team identity matters given the evidence suggesting that those who identify more with their work teams perform more effectively.
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Henrik Sternberg, Gunnar Stefansson, Emma Westernberg, Rikard Boije af Gennäs, Erik Allenström and Malin Linger Nauska
The purpose of this paper is to develop a waste framework for motor carrier operations by adapting the classical 7 waste framework, and furthermore, to validate it by collecting…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop a waste framework for motor carrier operations by adapting the classical 7 waste framework, and furthermore, to validate it by collecting empirical data from several motor carrier operators.
Design/methodology/approach
The chosen approach includes three steps, starting with analyzing qualitative data from a literature review and an interview study. The interviewees were experts from carrier operations, the lean field, carrier technology providers and carrier service buyers. The findings were validated with qualitative and quantitative studies at five motor carrier operators.
Findings
The finding of this paper is a waste framework adapted to motor carrier operations that has been based on the classical 7 waste framework. This provides a structured framework of inefficiencies found in motor carrier operations.
Originality/value
Previous literature is scarce on both holistic approaches to describing waste in carrier operations and in‐depth studies of day‐to‐day transport operations. It is also a novel approach to use a waste framework for transport operations.
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Thomas Borup Kristensen, Henrik Saabye and Amy Edmondson
The purpose of this study is to empirically test how problem-solving lean practices, along with leaders as learning facilitators in an action learning approach, can be transferred…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to empirically test how problem-solving lean practices, along with leaders as learning facilitators in an action learning approach, can be transferred from a production context to a knowledge work context for the purpose of becoming a learning organization while enhancing performance. This is important to study because many organizations struggle to enhance efficiency in the short term while still trying to be long-term learning oriented (i.e. learning organization development).
Design/methodology/approach
The authors draw on theory on learning interventions to show how lean practices for problem-solving can foster learning and help an organization to become adaptive. This study’s subject is a non-production department of 100 employees at the LEGO corporation. The authors applied survey results from a natural experiment lasting 18 months between a pre-measurement survey and a post-measurement survey. The results were compared to a control department of 50 employees who were not exposed to the lean practices intervention. The authors’ focus was on the individual level as individuals have different perceptions of lean practices, performance, and learning.
Findings
Using repeated-measures tests, difference-in-difference regressions analyses, and structural equation models, the authors find that a package of contemporary lean practices for problem-solving, along with leaders who function as learning facilitators, significantly improved learning organization dimensions while also enhancing efficiency and quality and that learning organizations positively mediate the relationship between the lean intervention and quality-related performance, while efficiency is directly affected by the lean interventions. Data from LEGO's key performance indicators (KPIs), benefit trackers, on-site observations and more than 40 interviews with managers provided results that were consistent with the survey data. A detailed description of the lean practices implemented is provided to inspire future implementations in non-operations environments and to assist educators.
Research limitations/implications
The authors contribute to the learning literature by showing that a learning-to-learn approach to lean management can serve as an active and deliberate intervention in helping an organization becoming a learning organization as perceived by the individual organizational members. The authors also add to the lean literature by showing how a learning approach to lean, as used by LEGO, can positively affect short-term efficiency and quality and create a foundation for a longer-term competitive advantage (i.e. a learning organization) in a non-production context. By contrast, most of the lean literature streams treat efficiency separately from a learning organization and mainly examine lean in a production context.
Originality/value
The extant literature shows three research streams on lean, learning, and performance. The authors built on these streams by trying to emphasize both learning and efficiency. Prior research has not empirically tested whether and how the application of problem-solving lean practices combined with leaders as learning facilitators helps to create a comprehensive learning organization while enhancing performance in a non-production context.
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Jenny Madestam and Lena Lid Falkman
The purpose of this paper is to analyze how political leaders can rhetorically use social media to construct their leadership, with a special focus on character – rhetorical ethos.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze how political leaders can rhetorically use social media to construct their leadership, with a special focus on character – rhetorical ethos.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors used a qualitative case study which consisted of two political leaders’ activities on Twitter. The leaders were chosen on the basis of similarity – both foreign ministers in Scandinavian countries and early adapters to ICT. All tweets, including photos, for selected period were analyzed qualitatively with the classical rhetorical concept of ethos.
Findings
Social media is the virtual square for political leadership. The two political leaders studied use social media similarly for rhetorical means and aims, with ethos as rhetorical strategy. The rhetorical ethos they constructed differs radically though: busy diplomat vs a super-social Iron man. There is no single constructed ethos that political leaders aim for.
Research limitations/implications
Even though this is just one qualitative case study, it shows a variety of rhetorical means and constructs of ethos in political leadership.
Practical implications
The study shows a possibility for political leaders to construct their own image and character through social media, for a potentially large audience of voters, without being filtered by political parties or media.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the evolving area of rhetoric in leadership/management and it adds to knowledge about how political leaders use social media.