Robert James Thomas, Gareth Reginald Terence White and Anthony Samuel
The purpose of this study is to evaluate children’s perceptions and attitudes towards sponsorship transition, specifically the change from Nike to PUMA as kit sponsors for…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to evaluate children’s perceptions and attitudes towards sponsorship transition, specifically the change from Nike to PUMA as kit sponsors for Manchester City Football Club (MCFC) in July 2019.
Design/methodology/approach
A sample of 368 children, between 7 and 16 years of age were recruited for the study. Using electronic diaries, 1,577 diary entries were captured between February 2019 and March 2020.
Findings
Data reveals that children conceptualise sponsorship as a social exchange, with sponsoring brands seen as human entities and interaction with them reflecting the dynamism of social and familial relationships. Consequently, children in this study demanded prosocial and interpersonal behaviours from sponsors and sponsee during the transition period.
Research limitations/implications
The research has an immediate and direct application for brand managers and the sponsee when considering terminating long-term sponsorship. Both the departing and incoming sponsors can maximise their relationships with these younger fans through an orchestrated departure, arrival and dedicated handover.
Practical implications
The findings enable marketing brand managers to effectively evaluate sponsor transition to maximise opportunities to maintain, and indeed start, brand relationships with younger fans.
Originality/value
This is the first study that has examined sponsorship children’s responses to sponsorship transition.
Details
Keywords
Robert Anthony Allen, Giannis Panagoulis and Gareth Reginald Terence White
In order to address operational effectiveness in the banking sector caused by the 2008 global economic crisis, the purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of operational…
Abstract
Purpose
In order to address operational effectiveness in the banking sector caused by the 2008 global economic crisis, the purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of operational wastes that exist within four large Greek banks.
Design/methodology/approach
A Delphi study was undertaken with ten managers and ten employees.
Findings
The waste of underutilised people is found to be the dominant form of waste present and affecting the efficiency of banking operations, and managers and employees consider the waste of underutilised people as having a significant influence on the efficiency of the banking sector.
Practical implications
This has implications for managers of banking operations needing to address efficiencies in an increasingly competitive global economic environment. The paper also highlights the drawbacks of analysing typologies of waste across organisations and industrial sectors.
Originality/value
While some studies have examined the overall efficiency banking sector, to date, none has explored the nature of the inefficiencies that manifest as waste.
Details
Keywords
Robert James Thomas, Gareth Reginald Terence White and Anthony Samuel
The purpose of this research is to understand what motivates 7–11-year-old children to participate in online brand communities (OBCs). Prior research has concentrated on…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to understand what motivates 7–11-year-old children to participate in online brand communities (OBCs). Prior research has concentrated on prescriptive product categories (games and gaming), predominantly adolescent groups and the social aspects of community engagement and actual behaviour within communities, rather than the motivations to participate with the OBC. This has ultimately limited what has been gleaned, both theoretically and managerially, from this important segment.
Design/methodology/approach
An interpretive, longitudinal position is adopted, using a sample of 261 children (113 male and 148 female) from across the UK, using event-based diaries over a 12-month period, generating 2,224 entries.
Findings
Data indicate that children are motivated to participate in a brand community for four reasons: to support and ameliorate pre-purchase anxieties, resolve interpersonal conflicts, exact social dominance in terms of product ownership and perceptions of product knowledge and to actively engage in digitalised pester power. The study also reveals that certain motivational aspects such as conflict resolution and exacting dominance, are gender-specific.
Research limitations/implications
Knowledge of children’s motivation to engage with OBCs is important for marketers and brand managers alike as the data reveal markedly different stimuli when compared to known adult behaviours in the field. Given the nature of the study, scope exists for significant future research.
Practical implications
The study reveals behaviours that will assist brand managers in further understanding the complex and untraditional relationships that children have with brands and OBCs.
Originality/value
This study makes a novel examination of a hitherto little-explored segment of consumers. In doing so, it uncovers the theoretical and practical characteristics of child consumers that contemporary, adult-focussed literature does not recognise. The paper makes an additional contribution to theory by positing four new behavioural categories relating to community engagement – dependers, defusers, demanders and dominators – and four new motivational factors which are fundamentally different from adult taxonomies – social hegemony, parental persuasion, dilemma solving and conflict resolution.
Details
Keywords
Robert James Thomas, Gareth Reginald Terence White and Anthony Samuel
The purpose of this paper is to explore the social and personal drivers of co-creation in children.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the social and personal drivers of co-creation in children.
Design/methodology/approach
A sample of 463 children aged between 7 and 13 years were recruited. Using electronic event-based diaries, 2,631 entries were captured during an 18-month period.
Findings
Data from 861 entries identified a series of anomalous external social and personal factors that drove children to engage in co-creation. These were for maintaining external relationships, dealing with addiction to the co-creation process and dealing with personal loneliness.
Research limitations/implications
The study reveals new, unconventional and gender-specific behaviours that might assist marketers in understanding children’s complex relationships with co-creation and brands.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study of its kind to examine children’s social and personal drives to engage in co-creation.
Details
Keywords
Gareth Reginald Terence White, Anthony Samuel, Ken Peattie and Bob Doherty
The paper aims to critically review the increasingly taken-for-granted view of social enterprise (SE) as inherently paradoxical and tackles the research question as follows: are…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to critically review the increasingly taken-for-granted view of social enterprise (SE) as inherently paradoxical and tackles the research question as follows: are the tensions experienced by SE and social entrepreneurs (SEnt) actually paradoxical and if not, what are the implications for theory and practice?
Design/methodology/approach
A paradox theory (PT) approach has been utilized to explore the implications, validity and helpfulness of the paradox perspective in understanding and managing the tensions that are inherent in SE.
Findings
Conceptualizing the primary tension of doing social good through commercial activity as a paradox is argued to be a limiting misnomer that conspires to reify and perpetuate the tensions that SE and SEnt have to manage. Drawing upon PT, the findings of the paper reconceptualize these tensions as myths, dilemmas and dialectics, which are subsequently used to develop a more complete ontological framework of the challenges that arise in SE and for SEnt.
Practical implications
Reconceptualizing the “inherent paradoxes” of SE as either dilemmas or dialectics affords a means of pursuing their successful resolution. Consequently, this view alleviates much of the pressure that SE managers and SEnt may feel in needing to pursue commercial goals alongside social goals.
Originality/value
The work presents new theoretical insights to challenge the dominant view of SE as inherently paradoxical.
Details
Keywords
Anthony Samuel, Cathy McGouran, Robert J. Thomas, Gareth Reginald and Terence White
Places have deep-seated meaning and serve to shape our social grouping and practices. Sporting stadia are a highly influential aspect of many people’s lives that drive the…
Abstract
Purpose
Places have deep-seated meaning and serve to shape our social grouping and practices. Sporting stadia are a highly influential aspect of many people’s lives that drive the inexorable journey towards team affiliation, immersive experiences, intense loyalty and the creation of an enduring, local identity. This paper aims to explore how the nature of a sporting place has been shaped to change the practice of football as a sport, as a business and as entertainment. This paper uncovers how Forest Green Rovers (FGR) differentiates itself from the historical and socio-economic roots of football and uses numerous novel sustainability initiatives to re-imagine a new type of football place, club and fandom.
Design/methodology/approach
Over a two-year period, the authors used multiple data collection methods, engaging in participant observation, interviews and focus groups, at FGR and related events. A thematic data analysis was conducted to pinpoint and extract key areas surrounding the unique structures, practices and reinforced behaviours that have developed in FGR.
Findings
The findings show that FGR’s place operates as a central location through which stakeholders, ideas, resources and practices have been disrupted and re-imagined around the principles of sustainability. This fundamental shift in FGR’s place, changing its composition, character and reach, means that FGR can be conceptualised as a novel place synonymous with new global social movements.
Originality/value
This study presents unique insights into the world’s first socially and environmentally conscious football club. This study examines the construction and operation of the place that facilitates its actions which go beyond what has been seen and maybe expected from commercial sporting institutions.