Russell Adams, Tom Coyle, Clara Downey and Marvin Lovett
This paper aims to determine what impact an economic recession and recovery had on the selling and non-selling activities of trade show attendees and the subsequent marketing…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to determine what impact an economic recession and recovery had on the selling and non-selling activities of trade show attendees and the subsequent marketing tactic changes.
Design/methodology/approach
Samples were collected from an international trade show during the recession (2009) and during the recovery (2013). The responses were analyzed using ANOVA and structural equation modeling to establish significant changes in activities between the periods and to provide a factor model.
Findings
Direct selling goals do not change during economic conditions. Intangible priorities increase during recessions.
Research limitations/implications
The trade show is limited to one location; therefore, is not a representative sample. Questionnaire design issues did not allow the linking of survey respondents to specific companies; therefore, is not a true longitudinal study.
Practical implications
Companies should focus on prospecting, enhancing corporate image and morale, testing and introducing new products and gathering intelligence during economic downturns. Conversely, companies should focus on sales and servicing clients during economic recovery.
Originality/value
This is the first research to study the macroeconomic impact on marketing tactics over multiple periods in an international setting. Several accepted selling and non-selling instrument goals are measured in an international context. A new model for structuring trade show goals is developed.
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Anayo D. Nkamnebe, Steve Ukenna, Carol Anionwu and Victoria Chibuike
– The purpose of this paper is to identify and ranks factors that influence bank selection by undergrads in South East Nigeria.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify and ranks factors that influence bank selection by undergrads in South East Nigeria.
Design/methodology/approach
Totally, 300 undergrads were sampled from two universities. Five-point Likert-type question containing 49 bank selection items was designed to collect primary data. Cronbach's α was used to test the reliability of the instrument while factor analysis with principal component extraction was used to identify the underlying factors.
Findings
Six principal factors were identified and ranked in order of importance. These factors are: bank's financial stability, available and functional ATMs, professional bank staff, family and friends influence, proximity of bank branch to university campus, and internal and external aesthetics of bank.
Practical implications
This study provides insight on the factors that influence the selection of a bank in the emerging and growing undergrads segment of bank market in Nigeria, which has obvious management and theory implications.
Originality/value
Reports bank selection criteria from apparently under-researched and under-reported undergrad segment in a typical sub-Saharan African context.
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This essay demonstrates how information systems — collections of documents, data, or other information-bearing objects — function internally as sites for creative manipulation of…
Abstract
Purpose
This essay demonstrates how information systems — collections of documents, data, or other information-bearing objects — function internally as sites for creative manipulation of genre resources. In the information systems context, these textual activities are not clearly traced to the purposeful actions of specific writers.
Findings
Genre development for information systems can result from actions that may appear individually to be rote, repetitive, passive, and uninteresting. But as these actions are aggregated at increasing scales, genre components interact and shift, even if change is limited to one element of the larger assemblage. Although these changes may not be initiated by writers in accordance with targeted work activities and associated rhetorical goals, the composite texts thus produced are nonetheless powerful documents that come to partially constitute the broader activities they appear to merely support.
Originality/value
In demonstrating “writerless” phenomena of genre change in distributed, regulated systems, this essay complements and extends the strong body of existing work in genre studies that emphasizes the writer’s perspective and agency in its accounts of genre development. By showing how continually evolving compound documents such as digital libraries constitute such sites of unacknowledged genre change, this essay demonstrates how the social actions that these composite documents facilitate for their users also change.
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In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of…
Abstract
In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.
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The purpose of this paper is two‐fold. First, to describe in detail a particular sub‐class of powerful prospective methods based on the method of “morphological analysis”. And…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is two‐fold. First, to describe in detail a particular sub‐class of powerful prospective methods based on the method of “morphological analysis”. And second, to extend their use to create a basis for strengthening strategic analysis and policy development.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper examines the history and use of morphological methods in foresight work, and briefly describes three main “lineages” currently in use, and proposes some extensions to models of practice.
Findings
Recent research in cognitive psychology suggests that requiring a detailed and systematic examination of future possibilities before a decision is made leads to more effective assessments of futures. Morphological methods, by design and construction, are perfectly suited to this, and so can form an exceptionally strong basis for thinking systematically about the future.
Practical implications
The paper also describes how to go about designing a foresighting capacity based on a systematic evaluation of future systemic contexts, as well as discussing what aspects of the external environment to include in robust competitive intelligence, strategic monitoring, environmental scanning, and “horizon scanning” activities.
Originality/value
The paper proposes some extensions to existing practice and describes some ways to tie the development of a strategic meta‐language to clearly‐targeted intelligence scanning. This paper should be of interest to anyone involved in trying to strengthen strategy development, policy planning or intelligence analysis.
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David Coyle, Mark Matthews, John Sharry, Andy Nisbet and Gavin Doherty
Although mental health problems increase markedly during adolescent years, therapists often find it difficult to engage with adolescents. The majority of disturbed adolescents do…
Abstract
Although mental health problems increase markedly during adolescent years, therapists often find it difficult to engage with adolescents. The majority of disturbed adolescents do not receive professional mental health care and of those who do fewer still will fully engage with the therapeutic process (Offer et al. 1991; US Surgeon General 1999). Personal Investigator (PI) is a 3D computer game specifically designed to help adolescents overcome mental health problems such as depression and help them engage more easily with professional mental health care services. PI is an implementation of a new computer mediated model for how therapists and adolescents can engage. The model has its theoretical foundations in play therapy and therapeutic storytelling and applies current research on the educational use of computer gaming and interactive narrative systems to these foundations. Previously demonstrated benefits of computer games and interactive narrative systems in education include increased motivation, increased self‐esteem, improved problem solving and discussion skills and improved storytelling skills (Bruckman 1997; Bers 2001; Robertson 2001; Robertson and Oberlander 2002; Bers et al. 2003; Squire 2003). PI aims to take advantage of these benefits in a mental health care setting. PI incorporates a goal‐oriented, strengths based model of psychotherapy called Solution Focused Therapy (SFT). By engaging adolescents, in a client‐centred way, it aims to build stronger therapeutic relationships between therapists and adolescents. PI is the first game to integrate this established psychotherapy approach into an engaging online 3D game. Results of trials of PI with four adolescents, referred to clinics for issues including anxiety and behaviour problems, attempted suicide, and social skills difficulties, are presented.
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This chapter aims to help librarians understand the underlying rationale for Resource Description and Access (RDA) and recognize the great potential of the Semantic Web for…
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter aims to help librarians understand the underlying rationale for Resource Description and Access (RDA) and recognize the great potential of the Semantic Web for libraries.
Design/methodology/approach
It explains the linked data model and Semantic Web technologies in basic, informative terms, and describes how the Semantic Web is constructed. Semantic Web standards and technologies are discussed in detail, including URI, RDF, and ontologies. The study also traces the development of RDA and some of the major library Semantic Web projects. The authors explore how RDA shapes bibliographical data and prepares it for linked data in the Semantic Web. In addition, this study examines what libraries in the United States and the rest of the world have achieved in implementing RDA since its release.
Findings
RDA is the correct approach libraries should take.
Originality/value
This is the first and only chapter that covers the development of RDA in other countries as well as in the United States. It is highly informative for anyone who wishes to understand the RDA and Semantic Web and their relevance to libraries in a short period of time.
Abstract
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Thomas Baker, Karen Coyle and Sean Petiya
The 1998 International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) document “Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records” (FRBR) has inspired a family of models that view…
Abstract
Purpose
The 1998 International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) document “Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records” (FRBR) has inspired a family of models that view bibliographic resources in terms of multiple entities differentiated with regard to meaning, expression, and physicality. The purpose of this paper is to compare how three FRBR and FRBR-like models have been expressed as Semantic Web vocabularies based on Resource Description Framework (RDF). The paper focusses on IFLA’s own vocabulary for FRBR; RDF vocabularies for Resource Description and Access (RDA), an emergent FRBR-based standard for library cataloging; and BIBFRAME, an emergent FRBR-like, native-RDF standard for bibliographic data.
Design/methodology/approach
Simple test records using the RDF vocabularies were analyzed using software that supports inferencing.
Findings
In some cases, what the data actually means appears to differ from what the vocabulary developers presumably intended to mean. Data based on the FRBR vocabulary appears particularly difficult to integrate with data based on different models.
Practical implications
Some of the RDF vocabularies reviewed in the paper could usefully be simplified, enabling libraries to integrate their data more easily into the wider information ecosystem on the Web. Requirements for data consistency and quality control could be met by emergent standards of the World Wide Web Consortium for validating RDF data according to integrity constraints.
Originality/value
There are few such comparisons of the RDF expressions of these models, which are widely assumed to represent the future of library cataloging.
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Using qualitative data from 20 managers in four small Singaporean businesses in the services sector this article explores the issue of organisational commitment. The findings…
Abstract
Using qualitative data from 20 managers in four small Singaporean businesses in the services sector this article explores the issue of organisational commitment. The findings generally support those in the positivistic literature on organisational commitment. It also argues, however, that continuance commitment, largely seen as negative for organisations and performance, can be both positive and negative in certain circumstances. The article further suggests that owner/manager style in the businesses may have an important impact on manager commitment and that the future growth and development of these businesses may be stunted as a consequence of negative aspects of the entrepreneurial management style.