William James Newell, Chris Ellegaard and Lars Esbjerg
The purpose of this paper is to explore how the choice of buying managers to share or limit the sharing of strategic information with their suppliers relates to the presence or…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how the choice of buying managers to share or limit the sharing of strategic information with their suppliers relates to the presence or absence of goodwill and competence trust in the buyer–supplier relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
An interpretive single case study of a mid-sized retailer was used. In total, 17 semi-structured interviews examining information sharing events were conducted with buying managers, along with the analysis of company documents.
Findings
Goodwill and competence trust have a positive effect on strategic information sharing, yet this study reveals several tactics used by buying managers in the presence of competence trust only. With a lack of established trust, or earlier trust breaches, little to no information sharing occurs.
Research limitations/implications
This study featured cross-sectional data of a single case from the buyer’s perspective. This limits its generalizability, yet provides opportunities to test the findings through longitudinal studies, potentially gathering data from both buyers and suppliers.
Practical implications
Relating which types of information being shared for different forms of trust guides managers’ expectations on which type of trust they wish to build for each of their buyer–supplier relationships.
Originality/value
This study examines the trust and information sharing relationship in more detail, linking different types of trust to categories of strategic information. It also distinguishes between the different concepts of encouraging information sharing and deliberately limiting strategic information sharing.
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Klaus G. Grunert, Lars Esbjerg, Tino Bech‐Larsen, Karen Brunsø and Hans Jørn Juhl
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how three dimensions of retailer brand architecture – share or retailer brands, quality of retailer brands and visibility of retailer…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how three dimensions of retailer brand architecture – share or retailer brands, quality of retailer brands and visibility of retailer brands – affect consumer intention to shop at stores
Design/methodology/approach
A conjoint analysis is conducted with a sample of 599 Danish consumers, which rated intention to shop at hypothetical new shops based on profiles derived from an orthogonal design
Findings
Two segments of consumers emerge, one price conscious and one more differentiated. Consumers prefer shops with lower price levels, with dominantly manufacturer brands, with quality of retailer brands at the same level as manufacturer brands, and with good visibility of retailer brands.
Research limitations/implications
The results are based on the evaluation of hypothetical stores, and many additional factors affect store choice in the real world.
Practical implications
Results suggest that we may be heading towards a polarized retail market, mainly divided between discount concepts and high quality retailer brand concepts.
Originality/value
The paper is innovative in isolating the effect of dimensions of retailer brand architecture on consumer store preference.
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Lars Esbjerg, Steve Burt, Hannah Pearse and Viviane Glanz-Chanos
– The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role that retailers play in innovation in the food sector.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role that retailers play in innovation in the food sector.
Design/methodology/approach
Analysis is based on interviews with retailers and food suppliers from Belgium, Denmark and the UK.
Findings
The findings show that in different ways retailers act both as caretakers of consumer interests and as barriers to innovation. Retailers are not interested in new technologies per se, but whether new technologies and the products made using them provide clearly identifiable benefits to consumers. These products must carry minimum risk for the retailer and there is a clear need for benefits to be communicated in commercial rather than technological terms to both retailers and consumers.
Research limitations/implications
The main limitation is that the study is based on interviews with retailers and suppliers in three countries.
Practical implications
Food suppliers developing new products based on novel technologies need to identity and communicate clear benefits to consumers if their products are to be adopted by grocery retailers.
Originality/value
This paper extends the understanding of the important role that retailers play in the diffusion of new innovative food products, services and technologies to consumers.
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Tino Bech‐Larsen, Lars Esbjerg, Klaus G. Grunert, Hans Jørn Juhl and Karen Brunsø
The objective of this article is to conduct a case study of the Supermalt brand of malt beer, which has become the preferred beverage of Afro‐Caribbean consumers in Brixton on a…
Abstract
Purpose
The objective of this article is to conduct a case study of the Supermalt brand of malt beer, which has become the preferred beverage of Afro‐Caribbean consumers in Brixton on a very limited marketing budget.
Design/methodology/approach
The article uses the concepts of personal identity and brand identity in a qualitative study to explore how Brixton‐based Afro‐Caribbean consumers construct their self‐identities and the brand identity of Supermalt. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 14 Afro‐Caribbean consumers. Each interview was divided into three parts. The first part focused on consumers' self‐identities. The second part explored the role of food and beverage products in the construction of self‐identities. The final part focused on the construction of brand identity for Supermalt.
Findings
The article provides information on the self‐identities constructed by Afro‐Caribbean informants. The food and beverage consumption of informants reflects their mixed cultural identity. The brand identity Supermalt appears to be malleable, with ample room for consumer co‐construction. Perceptions of brand identity differ markedly among informants, who are all able to construct Supermalt as one of their own.
Research limitations/implications
The findings are based solely on semi‐structured interviews with a small sample of Afro‐Caribbean consumers. The findings are therefore not generalizable.
Practical implications
The Supermalt brand represents an interesting case for companies aiming to develop strong brands with a limited marketing budget. Based on the Supermalt case, suggestions are made regarding branding in relation to ethnic minorities.
Originality/value
This article provides a study of a brand that has become strong within a narrowly defined group of consumers.
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Pradeep Kumar Ponnamma Divakaran and Sladjana Nørskov
The purpose of this paper is to investigate two questions. First, are movie-based online community evaluations (CE) on par with film expert evaluations of new movies? Second…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate two questions. First, are movie-based online community evaluations (CE) on par with film expert evaluations of new movies? Second, which group makes more reliable and accurate predictions of movie box office revenues: film reviewers or an online community?
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from a movie-based online community Fandango for a 16-month period and included all movies released during this time (373 movies). The authors compared film reviewers’ evaluations with the online CE during the first eight weeks of the movie’s release.
Findings
The study finds that community members evaluate movies differently than film reviewers. The results also reveal that CE have more predictive power than film reviewers’ evaluations, especially during the opening week of a movie.
Research limitations/implications
The investigated online community is based in the USA, hence the findings are limited to this geographic context.
Practical implications
The main implication is that film studios and movie-goers can rely more on CE than film reviewers’ evaluation for decision making. Online CE can help film studios in negotiating with distributors, theatre owners for the number of screens. Also, community reviews rather than film reviewers’ reviews are looked upon by future movie-goers for movie choice decisions.
Originality/value
The study makes an original contribution to the motion picture performance research as well as to the growing research on online consumer communities by demonstrating the predictive potential of online communities with regards to evaluations of new movies.
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Jørgen Pedersen and Blaine Stothard
– The purpose of this paper is to provide an outline of the origins, rationale and ways of working of the Danish schools, social services, police (SSP) system.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide an outline of the origins, rationale and ways of working of the Danish schools, social services, police (SSP) system.
Design/methodology/approach
Narrative account of origins and contexts and discussion of implications for other nations and contribution to knowledge of prevention work.
Findings
The SSP system represents an involvement by Danish state institutions in the welfare and development of young people. Practice indicates its broad acceptance by parents, young people and professionals. Recent extension of SSP work is demonstrating some of the limitations of the approach in working with alienated young people.
Research limitations/implications
The present SSP system relies on local evaluation and assessment. Wider national and longitudinal evaluation needs further consideration.
Practical implications
The need for a career structure and continuing and nationally consistent professional development opportunities was identified in a previous evaluation.
Social implications
SSP enjoys broad acceptance amongst parents, young people and professionals in that it provides a universal input into young people’s well-being and social integration. It is proving less successful in work in some urban areas with high levels of alienation amongst older young people. There is also a need for re-statement of confidentiality aspects.
Originality/value
The paper provides an insight into and overview of a cross-disciplinary approach to young people’s development and well-being where the state plays a key and accepted role. The rationale is equally relevant to the UK and other countries.
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LOOKING BEFORE AND AFTER : BEFORE Opening, as we do, a new volume of THE LIBRARY WORLD, especially as with it we reach the venerable age of sixty‐one, does suggest retrospective…
Abstract
LOOKING BEFORE AND AFTER : BEFORE Opening, as we do, a new volume of THE LIBRARY WORLD, especially as with it we reach the venerable age of sixty‐one, does suggest retrospective and prospective view. The magazine is the oldest amongst independent library journals, though others existed before 1899 in different forms or under other titles than those by which they are known to‐day. When at the end of last century it was felt that utterances were needed about libraries, unfettered by uncritical allegiance to associations or coteries, librarianship was a vessel riding upon an official sea of complacency so far as its main organisation was concerned. It was in the first tide, so far as public libraries were concerned, of Carnegie gifts of buildings, not yet however at the full flood. The captains were men of the beginnings of the library voyage; who were still guided themselves by the methods and modes of the men who believed in libraries, yet feared what the public might do in its use of them. Hence the indicator, meant to show, as its name implies, what books were available, but even more to secure them from theft, and to preserve men and women from the violent mental reactions they would suffer from close contact with large numbers of books. There were rebels of course. Six years earlier James Duff Brown has turned his anvil shaped building in Clerkenwell into a safeguarded open access library in which he actually allowed people, properly vetted, to enter and handle their own property. This act of faith was a great one, because within a mile or so some 5,000 books had been lost from the Bishopgate Institute Library, which has open shelves, too, not “safeguarded”. Brown's “cave of library chaos” as a well‐known Chairman, who by one visit was convinced of its good sense and practicability, called it, focused the attention of scores of librarians—so much so that Brown had to beg them to keep away for about a year, so that the method might be better judged after sufficient trial. It also focused the attention of the inventors of the indicator, who, presumably, had more than a benevolent interest in its sales. So there was war against this threat and for several years this childish contention raged at conferences, in private conversations amongst library workers, and in letters to the press aimed to convict Brown and all his satellites of encouraging dishonesty, mental confusion and other maladies public. Hence Brown, L. Stanley Jast, William Fortune and others initiated this journal to teach librarians and library committees how libraries were to be run. That, in extreme brevity, is our genesis. For sixty years it has encouraged voices, new and old, orthodox or unorthodox, who had something to say, or could give a new face to old things, to use its pages. Brown was its first honorary Editor, and with some assistance in the later stages remained so for the thirteen years he had yet to live. Nearly every librarian of distinction in his day has at some time or other contributed to these pages. So much of our past may be said and we hope will be allowed.
Anne Benedicte Juul, Christian Gluud, Jørn Wetterslev, Torben Callesen, Gorm Jensen and Allan Kofoed‐Enevoldsen
To examine the availability and quality of clinical guidelines on perioperative diabetes care in hospital units before and after a randomised clinical trial (RCT) and…
Abstract
Purpose
To examine the availability and quality of clinical guidelines on perioperative diabetes care in hospital units before and after a randomised clinical trial (RCT) and international accreditation.
Design/methodology/approach
Interventional “before‐after” study in 51 units (38 surgical and 13 anaesthetic) in nine hospitals participating in a RCT in the greater Copenhagen area; 27 of the units also underwent international accreditation.
Findings
The proportion of units with guidelines increased from 24/51 (47 percent) units before to 38/51 (75 percent) units after the trial. Among the 27 units without guidelines before the trial, significantly more accredited units compared to non‐accredited units had a guideline after the trial (9/10 (90 percent) compared to 5/17 (29 percent). The quality of the systematic development scale and the clinical scales improved significantly after the trial in both accredited units (both p<0.001) and in non‐accredited units (both p<0.02). The improvement of the systematic development scale was significantly higher in accredited than in non‐accredited units (p<0.01).
Originality/value
The combination of conducting both the DIPOM Trial and international accreditation led to a significant improvement of both dissemination and quality of guidelines on perioperative diabetic care.
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Celebrates the 90th birthday of Bengt Hjelmqvist in October 1993with an account of his life and work. Illustrates his role in fosteringAnglo‐Scandinavian public library…
Abstract
Celebrates the 90th birthday of Bengt Hjelmqvist in October 1993 with an account of his life and work. Illustrates his role in fostering Anglo‐Scandinavian public library conferences. Outlines his major publications and examines his work on Scandinavian public library buildings, as Head of the Library Section of the National Board of Education in Stockholm from 1945‐1969. Explains also his influence on British librarianship.