John Byrom and Kim Lehman
The Australian brewing sector has been subject to ever‐increasing concentration over recent years. Yet one firm, Coopers Brewery of South Australia, has managed to expand its…
Abstract
Purpose
The Australian brewing sector has been subject to ever‐increasing concentration over recent years. Yet one firm, Coopers Brewery of South Australia, has managed to expand its market share in a highly competitive trading environment. This paper aims to consider how Coopers, one of the few family firms “of stature” in that sector, has succeeded.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper adopts a case‐study approach to illustrate the various factors which have contributed to the firm's success. Fieldwork took place at Coopers' headquarters in Adelaide and secondary data sources are also drawn upon.
Findings
With fifth‐generation family members in charge at the company, Coopers has been able to distinguish itself from its main competitors in the sector, two multinational conglomerates with a combined market share of around 90 per cent. Coupled with investment in production facilities, the case‐study firm's expansion into new domestic and international markets has proved to be profitable. Part of Coopers' success lies in the niche marketing strategies it has employed – strategies which emphasise the company's unique products and stress their history and traditions. The concept of the extended family is highlighted through the company's approach to its consumers and staff members. Philanthropic activities also enhance the company's reputation in the community at large.
Practical implications
For managers, the case provides clear indications of the various successful niche marketing strategies which a family business in the brewing sector has adopted.
Originality/value
The case provides evidence of how one company has been able to draw on its traditions whilst at the same time maintaining its relevance to the market.
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Using oceanographer Rachel Carson's study The Edge of the Sea (1955) to contextualise tidal spaces, this chapter discusses how constantly shifting and eroding coastlines act as a…
Abstract
Using oceanographer Rachel Carson's study The Edge of the Sea (1955) to contextualise tidal spaces, this chapter discusses how constantly shifting and eroding coastlines act as a site for writing, re-writing and performing acts of cultural and personal memory. It also considers the ecological impact of human activity on tidal spaces and their more-than-human inhabitants.
14-18 NOW's Pages of the Sea, directed by Danny Boyle, invited communities around the United Kingdom to meet on their local beach to commemorate those who were lost in World War I by marking portraits in the tidal sands. Choreographer Chloë Smith's Tidal, performed in Berwick-upon-Tweed in 2015, was commissioned as a commemorative work but became an act of personal memorialising when Smith's brother drowned prior to the event. Performance company Curious's Out of Water (2012–2014), invites participants on a dawn-walk to the shoreline exploring memory, time, genealogy and water through song and movement. My own collaborative site-responsive work, Tide Times (2018), created with electroacoustic composer Tim Cooper for the tidal island of Cramond, explores the multiple identities of place over time. Tide Times encouraged audiences to create their own tidal poems and artworks through a series of invitations in treasure chests hidden around the island.
In explicating these aforementioned artworks, which explore ideas of remembrance using tidal spaces, this chapter will also acknowledge the forgetting that is implicit in performing these actions. What can the legacy of commemorations traced in such a transient and precarious space as a tidal zone be? This chapter argues that while shorelines provide sites for large and small scale acts of public remembering, they are simultaneously acts of forgetting as the twice daily tides cause inevitable erasure.
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Tim Cooper, Mark Purdy and Mark Foster
To help businesses throw light on potential sources of geographic advantage, Accenture researchers assessed the competitiveness of countries using the five dimensions: talent…
Abstract
Purpose
To help businesses throw light on potential sources of geographic advantage, Accenture researchers assessed the competitiveness of countries using the five dimensions: talent, capital, resources, innovation, and consumers and trade. This paper aims to present the results of that assessment.
Design/methodology/approach
For each of the five dimensions, Accenture researchers identified key indicators – characteristics that suggest how well positioned an economy is to compete in a multi‐polar world. They assessed each indicator using a range of primary and secondary data variables. Primary data were drawn from a global survey of more than 400 business leaders, conducted for Accenture by the Economist Intelligence Unit. Secondary data were drawn from sources such as the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations and the World Bank.
Findings
The paper offers an up‐to‐date assessment of how national resources and capabilities foster competitive advantage based on five issues – talent, capital, resources, innovation, and consumers and trade.
Practical implications
Locating to excel at innovation requires not just a focus on input factors – such as local investment in R&D and education – but also a focus on output measures – such as being able to locally produce valuable new products, services and business processes.
Originality/value
For leaders of companies seeking to re‐locate to compete in a multi‐polar world – that is, one with a diffusion of economic power across a wider range of regions and countries – the article explains why the best choice is to execute a diversified geographic strategy.
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Abstract
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I aim to understand how informal relationships at work provide a supportive context for individuals and contribute to their engagement in an environment of disruptive change when…
Abstract
Purpose
I aim to understand how informal relationships at work provide a supportive context for individuals and contribute to their engagement in an environment of disruptive change when they are likely to be stressed.
Design
The research was conducted in three UK public service organizations during pre-Brexit disruption. An app was used to capture 400+ transient emotions, reactions, and diary entries of employees about their interactions with co-workers, colleagues, and close colleagues. This was followed by 25 interviews to reflect more deeply on those relationships documented in the app.
Findings
Interactions with co-workers, colleagues, and close colleagues are shown to contribute in different ways to emotions felt and different aspects of engagement. Closer relationships, less transactional and more emotional in nature, contribute to feelings of trust, significance, and mutual reliance. A typology of four close colleague relationship types also emerged variously driven by the depth of the relationship and sense of shared mutuality.
Value
This research documents employees' lived experience during disruption to show that relationships provide support for the meaningfulness, psychological safety, and availability aspects of personal engagement. It maps the process of developing supportive workplace relationships that form the relational context with four sub-contexts, distinguishing work, and personal engagement by their different foci. Practical and social implications are discussed.
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Helen Goworek, Tom Fisher, Tim Cooper, Sophie Woodward and Alex Hiller
This paper aims to investigate consumers' perspectives on sustainable clothing consumption and to examine ways in which this information could influence retailers' policies.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate consumers' perspectives on sustainable clothing consumption and to examine ways in which this information could influence retailers' policies.
Design/methodology/approach
Qualitative research was conducted using focus groups, home tasks and workshops with 99 participants. The sample represented different groups of consumers in relation to their sustainability behaviour.
Findings
Focus group participants had a limited awareness of the sustainability impacts of clothing. Where participants displayed pro‐environmental behaviour, this was not necessarily intentional, but was largely a response to other influences. The respondents' maintenance and disposal of clothes were found to be influenced mainly by existing habits and routines, which usually take precedence over awareness of sustainable practice. The research indicated that consumers could be persuaded to change their behaviour in relation to sustainability by being encouraged and enabled to reflect more on their behaviour.
Research limitations/implications
This study uses qualitative research and is limited to UK consumers. Future research in this field could incorporate quantitative methods or in‐depth interviews. Academics could conduct further research and generate theories which apply to the sustainable consumption of clothing.
Social implications
The findings have implications for retailers, academics and society. Retailers can develop and implement more sustainable policies and practices in relation to clothing production and consumption. There are wider implications for society and the environment in that retailers' practices can impact greatly on the sustainability of the planet's resources.
Originality/value
This paper's originality lies in its assessment of the implications for retailers of consumers' views on the sustainable consumption of clothing.
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R.D. Schueller and A.P. Plepys
Tape ball grid array (TBGA) packages offer many of theadvantages of plastic BGAs, namely excellent durability, improved board space utilisation and ease ofsurface mount assembly…
Abstract
Tape ball grid array (TBGA) packages offer many of the advantages of plastic BGAs, namely excellent durability, improved board space utilisation and ease of surface mount assembly along with the associated yield improvements. TBGA packages go a step further, however, and offer the added benefits of improved signal integrity, better heat dissipation, and extendability to higher pin counts. This paper outlines the design and material selection process to produce a low‐cost TBGA which allows the wire bonding of a die. This type of package offers an attractive solution for applications requiring mid to high I/O capability and good electrical and thermal properties. Preliminary results have demonstrated the feasibility of wire bonding to this package at temperatures up to 200°C.
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Reveals how telecommunications giant BT has created a stress‐management toolkit to help its 102,000 employees worldwide to review their own stress levels and take action to…
Abstract
Purpose
Reveals how telecommunications giant BT has created a stress‐management toolkit to help its 102,000 employees worldwide to review their own stress levels and take action to resolve any issues highlighted.
Design/methodology/approach
Describes how BT helps its employees to identify stress problems, promotes awareness and understanding, provides counselling and support, and facilitates flexible working and role adjustment. Provides a case study of an employee who has been helped by some of these initiatives. Details general research on the problem of stress in the workplace.
Findings
Concentrates on: “Stream”, which provides a fast and effective way to assess stress levels and gives advice to help to maintain a healthy state of mind; “Stride”, which brings together in one place all the information on the resources and specialist support available to BT people; a guide giving a short description of the main mental‐health conditions and suggestions about possible ways forward for both the employee and line manager; the counselling and support available to BT employees; and the systems of flexible working and role adjustment that the company has in place.
Practical implications
Shows that investing in the mental health and well‐being of the workforce is a sensible business proposition.
Originality/value
Demonstrates that workplace discrimination against people who have suffered mental ill health may not be deliberate or conscious, but it does waste ability, talent and skills, and spoil lives.