Maria M. Raciti, Catherine Manathunga and Jing Qi
Social marketing and government policy are intertwined. Despite this, policy analysis by social marketers is rare. This paper aims to address the dearth of policy analysis in…
Abstract
Purpose
Social marketing and government policy are intertwined. Despite this, policy analysis by social marketers is rare. This paper aims to address the dearth of policy analysis in social marketing and introduce and model a methodology grounded in Indigenous knowledge and from an Indigenous standpoint. In Australia, a minuscule number of First Nations people complete doctoral degrees. The most recent, major policy review, the Australian Council of Learned Academies (ACOLA) Report, made a series of recommendations, with some drawn from countries that have successfully uplifted Indigenous doctoral candidates’ success. This paper “speaks back” to the ACOLA Report.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper subjects the ACOLA Report, implementation plans and evaluations to a detailed Indigenous Critical Discourse Analysis using Nakata’s Indigenous standpoint theory and Bacchi’s Foucauldian discourse analysis to trace why policy borrowing from other countries is challenging if other elements of the political, social and cultural landscape are fundamentally unsupportive of reforms.
Findings
This paper makes arguments about the effects produced by the way the “problem” of First Nations doctoral education has been represented in this suite of Australian policy documents and the ways in which changes could be made that would actually address the pressing need for First Nations doctoral success in Australia.
Originality/value
Conducting policy analysis benefits social marketers in many ways, helping to navigate policy complexities and advocate for meaningful policy reforms for a social cause. This paper aims to spark more social marketing policy analysis and introduces a methodology uncommon to social marketing.
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Leonard Vance, Maria M. Raciti and Meredith Lawley
Sponsorship can be an effective strategic marketing tool yet it attracts criticism as a corporate indulgence shaped by the personal interests of senior executives. While research…
Abstract
Purpose
Sponsorship can be an effective strategic marketing tool yet it attracts criticism as a corporate indulgence shaped by the personal interests of senior executives. While research into the outcomes of sponsorship is extensive, the practices involved in sponsorship selections have been largely ignored. Today, sponsorship selection in large corporations is recommended to be a formal process involving evaluation criteria aligned to corporate policy and strategic priorities. Yet, in reality, corporate culture influences sponsorship selection, as do sponsorship managers’ beliefs about sponsorship types and motivations. The purpose of this paper is to explore sponsorship selection practices and to consider the interplay between corporate culture and sponsorship managers’ beliefs about sponsorship types and their motivations. The findings provide not only new interpretation of the literature but also reveal a detailed picture of sponsorship selection.
Design/methodology/approach
This exploratory qualitative study comprises in-depth interviews with senior sponsorship managers from eight large Australian companies that use sponsorship as a strategic marketing tactic.
Findings
This study concludes that the sponsorship selection process is strongly influenced by corporate culture as well as the sponsorship manager’s beliefs about sponsorship types and their motivations.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the sponsorship management research stream by providing important insights into under-researched factors that influence the sponsorship selection process.
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Lenny Vance, Maria M. Raciti and Meredith Lawley
Global spending on sponsorship continues to rise and many companies now establish portfolios containing a range of sponsorships across sport, arts and cause-related activities…
Abstract
Purpose
Global spending on sponsorship continues to rise and many companies now establish portfolios containing a range of sponsorships across sport, arts and cause-related activities. Yet a lack of practical methodologies for the measurement and comparison of sponsorship performance within a portfolio context remains a challenge. Sponsors often rely solely on proxy measures for brand exposure drawn from advertising. These do not capture the higher-level outcomes of sponsorship awareness and goodwill transfer, often attributed to sponsorship as a ‘halo effect’. This paper aims to present a matrix tool that combines consumer awareness of and goodwill for a sponsorship so the halo effects of sponsorships within a portfolio can be quantified and compared.
Design/methodology/approach
This archival analysis study is based on six years of brand tracking data (comprising some 15,500 consumer surveys) supplied by a large Australian company. A sponsorship portfolio matrix is developed to measure the halo effect.
Findings
This study demonstrates that a sponsorship’s halo effect can be measured and comparisons can be drawn across sponsorship types within a portfolio. The study shows that despite the significantly higher levels of brand awareness achieved by commercially oriented professional sports sponsorship types, community relations oriented sponsorship types achieve a greater halo effect because of their more positive impact on the sponsor’s brand attributes.
Originality/value
The matrix provides a valuable tool by which sponsorships can be compared, evaluated and managed to meet the longer-term brand and marketing objectives of a company.
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Rebekah Russell-Bennett, Rowan Bedggood and Maria M. Raciti
The purpose of this editorial is to call out the practice of using identity-first language and labelling consumers and customers, describing them as “vulnerable” and offers…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this editorial is to call out the practice of using identity-first language and labelling consumers and customers, describing them as “vulnerable” and offers practical strategies for person-first language of consumers/customers experiencing vulnerability.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use Australian Indigenous and Indigenous women’s standpoint theory to reflect on their own use of terminology in the field of consumer/customer vulnerability and use their personal experiences to offer a series of practical strategies.
Findings
The authors propose six motivations for the use of person-first language in the field of consumer/customer vulnerability: easy to use, an English language convention, common practice, easy to measure, unintentional ignorance and an “us vs them” mindset.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to call out the practice of using identity-first language in the consumer/customer vulnerability field and offer practical strategies to enable person-first language.
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Maria Raciti, Foluké Abigail Badejo, Josephine Previte and Michael Schuetz
This commentary extends our 2020 11th SERVSIG Panel The moral limits of service markets: Just because we can, should we?, inspired by Michael J. Sandel’s book What Money Can’t Buy…
Abstract
Purpose
This commentary extends our 2020 11th SERVSIG Panel The moral limits of service markets: Just because we can, should we?, inspired by Michael J. Sandel’s book What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets. In Sandel’s (2012) book, the pursuit of “the good life” is a common motivation for pushing the moral boundaries of markets and “the good life” is dominated by service consumption.
Design/methodology/approach
Like Sandel (2012), this commentary begins with a provocation regarding the need for moral development in services marketing. Next, we present three real-life case studies about a modern slavery survivor service, aged care services and health-care services as examples of moral limits, failings and tensions.
Findings
The commentary proposes four guidelines and a research agenda. As service marketers, we must reignite conversations about ethics and morality. Taking charge of our professional moral development, exercising moral reflexivity, promoting an ethics of care and taking a bird’s-eye perspective of moral ecologies are our recommended guidelines. Morality is an essential condition – a sine qua non – for service marketers. Hence, our proposed research agenda focuses first on the service marketer and embeds a moral gaze as a universal professional protocol to engender collective moral elevation.
Originality/value
This commentary highlights the need for a moral refresh in services marketing and proposes ways to achieve this end.
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Rebekah Russell-Bennett, Mark Scott Rosenbaum, Raymond P. Fisk and Maria M. Raciti
This editorial aims to organise the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into seven ServCollab service research themes to provide a way forward for service…
Abstract
Purpose
This editorial aims to organise the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into seven ServCollab service research themes to provide a way forward for service research that improves human and planetary life.
Design/methodology/approach
A conceptual approach is used that draws on observations from the scholarly experience of the editors.
Findings
This editorial offers seven research themes for service researchers: services that enable the WELL-BEING of the human species; services that provide OPPORTUNITY for all humans; services that manage RESOURCES for all humans; ECONOMIC services for work and growth for all humans; services from INSTITUTIONS that offer fair and sustainable living for all humans; service ecosystems with the PLANET; and COLLABORATION services for sustainable development partnerships.
Practical implications
Service scholars are urged to pursue collaborative research that reduces suffering, improves well-being and enables well-becoming for the sustainability and prosperity of Planet Earth.
Originality/value
This editorial provides service scholars with a new framework synthesising the SDGs into research themes that help focus further service research.
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Social marketing has come of age. Today, we are a legitimate discipline with a wealth of empirical evidence that manifestly demonstrates the ability to bring about behaviour…
Abstract
Purpose
Social marketing has come of age. Today, we are a legitimate discipline with a wealth of empirical evidence that manifestly demonstrates the ability to bring about behaviour changes for the greater good. As social marketers, we are rapidly expanding the horizons, with a growing interest in the labyrinth of systems that influence the chosen social causes. We have become brave and bold, but is the study now running the risk of romanticising the work and ourselves? It is time to recalibrate, to take stock and to address the elephants in the social marketing room.
Design/methodology/approach
Expanding on my Change 2020 Driving Systems Change panel presentation, this viewpoint article is a provocation, a think piece, centred around two observed phenomena.
Findings
The first phenomenon observed is the many identities of the contemporary social marketer – hackers, change agents, heroes, political power brokers and master puppeteers. The second phenomenon observed is the accelerated interest in systems thinking for which the author propose three preconditions are needed – an awareness of the system(s); an acknowledgement that this study is a part of the system(s) and the need to decolonise social marketing.
Originality/value
This article poses challenging questions but offers no solutions as to how social marketers should, could or do square up our blind spots, make peace with our paradoxes or unblinker the views. Not only would it be naïve to proffer solutions but it would also stifle the growth of you, the reader, in your journey to becoming an integrated person and woke social marketing professional.
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Maria M. Raciti, Linda Alkire and Amanda Beatson
This paper is part of the Special Issue series Improving Life on Planet Earth – A Call to Action for Service Research to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). This…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper is part of the Special Issue series Improving Life on Planet Earth – A Call to Action for Service Research to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). This paper aims to provide the groundwork for Service Research Theme 2 – services that provide OPPORTUNITY for all humans. Service Research Theme 2 comprises SDG4, quality education; SDG5, gender equality; and SDG10, reduced inequalities and seeks to mobilize ServCollab’s aspirations to reduce human suffering, improve human well-being and enable well-becoming.
Design/methodology/approach
A scoping review appraising existing service research related to SDG4, SDG5 and SDG10 was conducted, establishing interlinkages, identifying patterns within each SDG and then assembling a research agenda for service researchers.
Findings
The scoping review identifies 18 patterns in service research (six patterns per SDG) pertaining to Service Research Theme 2. Common patterns among the SDG4, SDG5 and SDG10 included underrepresentation, consumer-centricity, the absence of explicit SDG linkages, the predominance of one theoretical anchor and the preference for quantitative studies, particularly surveys. Overall, the scoping review found that service research related to Service Research Theme 2 is patchy in that it is overdeveloped in some topics, methodologies and methods yet underdeveloped or silent in others.
Originality/value
The high-level research problem of Service Research Theme 2 is as follows: How have services provided OPPORTUNITY for all humans? This paper analyzes patterns in service research and, from these patterns, assembles a research agenda that sparks and guides further research.
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Tommy Daniel Andersson, Don Getz, David Gration and Maria M. Raciti
The research question addressed is whether an event portfolio analysis rooted in financial portfolio theory can yield meaningful insights to complement two approaches to event…
Abstract
Purpose
The research question addressed is whether an event portfolio analysis rooted in financial portfolio theory can yield meaningful insights to complement two approaches to event portfolios. The first approach is extrinsic and rooted in economic impact analysis where events need to demonstrate a financial return on investment. In the second approach events are valued ally, with every event having inherent value and the entire portfolio being valued for its synergistic effects and contribution to social and cultural goals. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
Data from visitors to four events in the Sunshine Coast region of Australia are analyzed to illustrate key points, including the notion of “efficient frontier.”
Findings
Conceptual development includes an examination of extrinsic and intrinsic perspectives on portfolios, ways to define and measure value, returns, risk, and portfolio management strategies. In the conclusions a number of research questions are raised, and it is argued that the two approaches to value event portfolios can be combined.
Research limitations/implications
Only four events were studied, in one Australian local authority. The sample of residents who responded to a questionnaire was biased in terms of age, education and gender.
Social implications
Authorities funding events and developing event portfolios for multiple reasons can benefit from more rigorous analysis of the value created.
Originality/value
This analysis and conceptual development advances the discourse on portfolio theory applied to event management and event tourism.