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Christensen's Theory of Disruptive Technologies predicts that mainstream organisations and industries can be made obsolete by new technologies that change the whole paradigm of the industries in which they operate. This paper demonstrates the relevance of the theory of disruptive technologies to academic libraries, higher education and the academic publishing industry. The way universities are organised and how they operate could change radically; scholarly communication could be transformed, placing academic publishers at risk; academic libraries may become irrelevant as new business models emerge. There are strategies that these organisations might adopt to limit the effect of such technologies and/or preferably transform them into sustaining technologies.

This study examines the effects of congruence and reliability on cause-brand alliance (CBA) program attitudes—exploring how CBA program attitudes and sport entity attitudes affect attitudes toward a sport-related and sport-unrelated brand in a single CBA.

About 240 survey participants answered questions before and after being exposed to information about the NFL Play 60 program. Consistent partial least squares structural equation modeling is utilized to test the hypotheses.

Results suggest both congruence and reliability positively influence CBA program success; and both sport-related and sport-unrelated brands positively affect consumer attitudes when they participate in a CBA with a high-profile sport entity. This occurs directly through CBA program attitudes for a sport-unrelated brand and indirectly through sport entity attitudes for a sport-related brand.

This study extends the CBA literature in sports by showing (1) the role of reliability on CBA program attitudes, (2) the role of sport entity attitudes on other cause partner attitudes and (3) different paths for sport-related versus sport-unrelated brands that are partnered with a premium sport entity to achieve CBA program brand enhancements.

Branching Out is a 12‐week ecotherapy programme for clients who use mental health services within the Greater Glasgow and Clyde area. Over the course of a year 110 clients attended the programme, of whom 77 (70%) completed the course. In order to ascertain the outcomes of the programme and the elements that appeared to facilitate change, semi‐structured interviews with clients (n=28) and two focus groups with clinicians (n=5 and n=3) from the referring services were conducted.The data gathered therein was analysed using interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA). From the results, five themes emerged as client outcomes. These were: improvements to mental well‐being, improvements to physical health, provision of daily structure and routine, transferable knowledge and skill acquisition, and increased social networking and social skills development. Three themes pertaining to the service logistics (team building and social inclusion, contrast of environments and work and recognition) emerged as potential explanations for the client outcomes. There was a perception among clients and clinicians that Branching Out represented a ‘stepping stone to further community engagement’. The results reflect a recovery‐oriented approach to health care. The limitations of the evaluation and implications for the future are discussed.

The purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which a cause-brand alliance (CBA) leads to improved attitude toward cause-brand alliance, which in turn leads to improved brand identification.

The approach uses a 2 × 2 × 2 between-subjects experimental design to examine the interaction effect of the brand ally, the non-profit ally, and the perception of cause controversy on a customer’s attitude toward the CBA, which in turn affects identification with the brand ally.

On average, customers’ perception of cause controversy influences attitude toward the CBA and subsequently the level of identification with the brand ally. When a non-profit organization is connected to a controversial issue, managerial options for building a successful CBA are more limited than when the non-profit is noncontroversial.

We contribute to consumer learning theory in the context of CBA research by identifying an important boundary condition – perceived cause controversy. Perceived cause controversy impedes the customer’s learning about partners in CBA. Moreover, fit and cue consistency are separate constructs.

CBAs help build customer brand identification. Brand managers must include the customer’s perceived cause controversy, the ally’s unique information, and the customer’s attitude toward the nonprofit in the decision calculus. Brands have an opportunity to demonstrate corporate social responsibility and build identification by helping a less well-established nonprofit to build positive customer attitudes. If the non-profit is linked to controversy, this opportunity is constrained.

A boundary condition-perceived cause controversy influences how the partners in a CBA differentially influence the customer’s attitude toward the CBA and, ultimately, brand identification.

The purpose of this study is to continue research and development of the ECAD-P learning system with an emphasis on developing a scalable unit for testing in a larger number of more diverse correctional settings. There are almost 2.3 million US persons incarcerated. Geriatric and end-of-life (EOL) care in corrections is not as equitable as care in the free world. Technological delivery of geriatric training to staff through computer-based learning (CBL) offers a novel approach to improve care and reduce disparities among those who are most vulnerable during confinement.

This mixed methods study built an interactive CBL for multidisciplinary staff to address EOL and geriatric issues in prisons. The CBL was iteratively built and tested prior to launching a full-scale evaluation using a pre/post-intervention design.

Evaluation of the CBL occurred at 7 sites (i.e. 6 state prisons and 1 prison health-care vendor). A total of 241 staff were recruited with 173 completing post-tests. Outcomes were knowledge acquisition regarding care for aging and dying incarcerated persons (i.e. cognitive measure) and attitudes, motivations and values for providing care (i.e. affective measure). Cognitive and affective post-tests were significantly better than at pre-test (all ps < 0.01). ANCOVAs revealed no significant differences for sex or ethnicity.

Outcomes reveal that the CBL is acceptable, feasible and usable in corrections. Staff improved their knowledge after receiving the training. Correctional settings face increasing pressures to better address the health care and management needs of aged, chronically ill and dying incarcerated persons. This e-learning holds promise to contribute to better preparation of corrections staff to effectively care for these populations.

Cause‐related marketing (CRM), the practice of donating money to a charity for each consumer purchase, has become an important part of corporate philanthropy. This research seeks to explore two types of product‐cause fit in CRM, and examine whether the selection of consistent‐fit and complementary‐fit causes could be influenced by product type and donation level.

An experiment in conjoint design was conducted based on a computer‐based survey involving 512 choice‐based conjoint interviews.

It is found that consumers are more likely to choose a hedonic product offering a donation with a complementary‐fit cause. In contrast, individuals tend to prefer a utilitarian product with a consistent‐fit cause. Beneficial effects of a complementary‐fit cause are enhanced when the donation level is high.

This paper is one of the first to present comprehensive qualitative analyses of consumer behavior with regard to product‐cause fit with diversity of products and situations. It provides more fruitful results than simple willingness‐to‐buy studies or direct inquires into people's attitudes toward CRM used in previous research, since less socially desired answers are obtained by taking an indirect approach to discovering consumer preferences. The paper raises concerns over the understanding of product‐cause fit and how exactly it works, especially with regard to sponsoring a cause that is complementary to the product image.

The recent development in the scholarship of cause-related marketing (CRM) highlights the growing popularity of this field of research. CRM is one of the forms of communicating corporate social responsibility (CSR). Although CSR is being extensively studied as a field of research, researchers have made limited efforts to review the development and progression of CRM research. Being an embryonic research field, a deeper understanding of the current state of CRM research and future research propositions is required. This study aims to fill this gap by providing a bibliometric review of the CRM research published in the Web of Science (WoS) database.

A bibliometric literature review has been conducted of the papers published in WoS database to map the field of research in CRM. Various techniques, namely, citation analysis, co-citation analysis, co-authorship analysis, co-occurrence analysis and bibliographic coupling have been incorporated, and analysis has been provided.

The findings highlight the important themes and research areas focused by CRM researchers. The study throws light on the important research avenues present in the field of CRM.

The findings offer both academic and practical implications. The present study is a novel study exploring the scholarship of CRM using the bibliometric analysis technique.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on college students, users of online social networks, as main sources of information that helps advertisers understand the ways in which advertisements are perceived online.

Results were reached through qualitative research. Personal in‐depth interviews, utilizing Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique (ZMET), were conducted among 20 college students. Interviews consisted of using screenshots of advertisements in online social networks to uncover respondents' reactions.

It was generally concluded that the users of online social networks do not dislike advertisements, but they simply do not notice them. Other content found in online social networks mitigates the attractiveness of the advertisements. Hence, the respondents reported that the brand recognition in online social networks was found to be much lower than the one created through other media channels.

Advertising in online social networks is a major unexplored advertising area. Interactivity on the internet shifts the ways in which users perceive advertising, and whether they perceive it at all. The paper discusses content that catches users' attention and its relation to advertisements.

Through literature review it has been revealed that no similar research exists. The findings of this research will aid advertisers in recognizing the possibility of advertising to the online social networks' population, taking into consideration different needs, and preferences of such users.