Measuring Service Quality in a Corporatised Public Sector Environment

ABSTRACT

Using a modified SERVQUAL scale, this paper measures perceived service quality in a corporatised public sector environment. Five factors were identified: personalised proficiency, empathic professionalism, reliability, tangibles and access; explaining 61% of overall variance. Further analysis using multiple regression also indicated that 45% of the variability in customer satisfaction and 43% of the variability in overall service quality was explained by the five factors. The research was conducted in response to calls for the application of this measure and following a review of extant literature that indicated the limited number of studies undertaken within the public sector that assessed service quality.     

A Survey of Capital Budgeting Techniques in the Public and Private Sectors of a Less Developed Country (LDC)

ABSTRACT

This study surveys the capital budgeting practice in private and commercially-oriented public sector enterprises in the Sudan, an African Less Developed Country (LDC). The study attempts to fill a gap in the existing literature by documenting the capital budgeting practice in an LDC where the economic environment is different than the developed and developing counterparts and where public sector still plays a major role in the economy.

The study found a sizable number of commercially-oriented public corporations that do not use capital budgeting techniques in their capital investment decisions while the majority of private sector companies use these methods. Among the corporations that use capital budgeting methods, both in the public and private sector, the payback method (PB) is the most widely used method, followed by the Internal Rate of Return (IRR) and Net Present Value (NPV) in the private sector and the public sector respectively.

The study also revealed additional factors such as cost, size, quality, experience and hard currency requirements that affect the capital budgeting process in both sectors. However, there are differences in the level of importance of these factors between the two sectors.     

Making Trade Shows Pay Off

Abstract

This article reviews the literature on IMC and then examines its development empirically in Turkey. In this paper, we explore perceptions of IMC derived from a sample of advertising agency executives, and explore how perceptions of IMC within the developing country of Turkey. The main aim of the survey was to explore how agencies implement, coordinate, and evaluate IMC programs, and examine barriers relating to these. Managerial and public policy implications of the study are also offered. Findings underpin global adoption of IMC even in conditions of economic turbulence. Moreover, the findings confirm that IMC (in Turkey) as elsewhere is more related to tactical implementation of promotion than to strategic business development.     

Developing M-Education for Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses

Abstract

Mobile computing has the potential to be of great benefit to aspiring entrepreneurs and small business owners. Small businesses and entrepreneurs have been the subject of much literature, national policy and regional policy. A recurring concern has been the inability to transfer the benefits arising from new technologies to this important segment of the business community. The simplest and most obvious manner of rectifying these situations would be to have the small business sector participants come to the local colleges, universities, or small business development centers. However, due to a plethora of external and internal barriers, most attempts to reach this segment have proven quite futile. This gives rise to Mobile education (M-education). This article explores the possibilities and limitation of M-education. It gives a potential way of utilizing the technology and potential partnership in the Inland Empire of Southern California. The partnership is known as TECH-BOOST.     

Consumers’ Behaviors and Attitudes toward Doggy Bags: Identifying Barriers and Benefits to Promoting Behavior Change

ABSTRACT

This study identifies barriers and benefits of consumers’ current doggy bag behaviors and provides the information required to run an effective community-based social marketing campaign encouraging consumers to take their uneaten restaurant and café food home. This is done by applying a two-stage methodology, including quantitatively analyzing existing survey data and qualitatively investigating focus group discussion. Multiple barriers to widespread doggy bag participation were common and varied for different individuals and included both convenience and social stigma-related factors. The rational appeal of “saving money” was found to be the most effective motivator for encouraging doggy bag usage, especially for women, young people, students/unemployed, and low-income earners. Social marketing strategies and behavior change tools can be developed to remove the barriers and enhance the benefits of using doggy bags, such as developing positive social norms around using doggy bags and highlighting the financial incentive of using them. This research contributes to a limited but growing literature on out-of-home food waste and provides practicable insights for both public policy and for the food service sector for future initiatives aiming to reduce food waste.     

Barriers to the Formalization of Economic Activity and Marketing Solutions for Developing Economies

ABSTRACT

This research investigated barriers to the formalization of economic activity that was generally untaxed and unmeasured, referred to as informal economic activity, in an emerging economy. Nepal was selected as the country for study because it presents a case of a market undergoing economic and political liberalization. The paper presents background information on the economy of Nepal, the conduct of the fieldwork in Nepal, perspectives on informal economic activity, and the necessity of harnessing this activity. This is followed by research dealing with the informal economy and perceptions of the barriers to integration based on fieldwork in Nepal. Suggestions to harness this activity are offered. The results of this study may provide insights into the formulation of public policy and social marketing initiatives for addressing informal sector development in emerging markets.     

Testing a Model of Behavioral Intentions in the Republic of Macedonia: Differences Between the Private and the Public Sectors

In this study, we developed a model of unethical behavior intentions, collected data from managers of the private (n = 208) and the public (n = 307) sectors in the Republic of Macedonia, and tested our model across these two sectors. Results suggested that for both sectors, unethical behavior intentions were not related to the love of money and corporate ethical values, whereas irritation was negatively related to life satisfaction. Moreover, corporate ethical values were related to life satisfaction for the private sector only, whereas the love of money and unethical behavior intentions were related to irritation for the public sector only. Managers in the private sector had higher corporate ethical values, lower unethical behavior intentions, lower irritation, and higher life satisfaction than those in the public sector. There was no difference in the love of money. There were more bad apples in the public sector (34.85%) than in the private sector (23.56%). The strongest factor of unethical behavior intentions in the private and the public sectors␣was theft and corruption, respectively. Finally, for the culture-free (etic) model, the love of money was positively related to irritation. Corporate ethical values had a positive “double-whammy” effect: reducing irritation and enhancing life satisfaction. Unethical behavior intentions were positively related to irritation (a mediator), which was negatively related to life satisfaction. Our theory provides new insights regarding doing business in the Republic of Macedonia.

Systems-thinking social marketing: conceptual extensions and empirical investigations

ABSTRACT

Systems thinking dominated the 2015 World Social Marketing conference with the premise that a more holistic approach takes into account all the issues at play for effective change. Augmenting the broadening social marketing literature, we contend that systems-thinking social marketing enhances the field’s conventional behavioural change with concepts of scale, causation, and iterative co-creating change processes for complex health and environmental problems. The results of our empirical Sea for Society study, a sustainable European marine ecosystem examination of what the barriers to change are and how they are interrelated, find systems-thinking social marketing offers the potential to strategically and critically reinforce, not replace, behavioural change campaigns. With systems-thinking social marketing, a coherent theory of change becomes a possibility. Orchestrating social change may become a reality.     

Factors Affecting the Adoption of the Internet in the Public Sector

ABSTRACT

Research in the area of electronic marketing has focused considerable attention on consumers' and advertisers' perceptions of the Internet as a marketing communication medium. Whilst such research has been undertaken mostly in the private sector, it is important to recognize, and attempt to understand, the growing number of public sector organizations that have an Internet presence. Results of a study of the perceptions of managers in public sector organizations of the Internet as a marketing communication tool are reported. Findings suggest that decision makers in the public sector who feel that there is a need for their organizations to have an Internet presence, are more inclined to adopt the Internet as part of their marketing communications program. Furthermore, they are more likely to feel that use of the Internet will improve their overall marketing effectiveness. It is also interesting to note that the perceived complexity of using the Internet has a significant effect on both the adoption of and attitude towards the Internet as a marketing communications tool. This suggests that there is still some uncertainty amongst public sector organizations as to the usefulness of the Internet in marketing their services.     

The Impact of Social Marketing on Social Engineering in Economic Restructuring

SUMMARY

Social Marketing is a rapidly growing marketing sub-discipline based on the premise that bringing successful commercial marketing technologies to bear on problems of individual and social welfare can generate positive outcomes. This paper gives an overview of recent developments in Social Marketing in a global context and discusses the relationship of these developments to those in commercial, not-for-profit or third sector and public sector marketing, and public relations. The paper then relates the global context back to developments in Australasian and Asian nations, with particular reference to social engineering during economic restructuring.     

Evaluation of Brand Use on City Government Websites: A Search for Brand Type,Repetition, and Consistency

ABSTRACT

There is growing interest in bringing marketing thought and practice to government. By examining the use of brand symbols and slogans on ninety-seven city government websites, I expose challenges in branding within a public sector context. My study reveals that city governments vary in the types of brands emphasized on their websites and their websites' reflection of recommended branding practices. The majority of the websites present city symbols and slogans. For some websites, there are inconsistencies in and infrequent use of brand elements suggesting a need for greater integration of marketing communications and the opportunity to more fully embrace marketing principles.     

Social capital in service-oriented firms: future directions

Abstract

This collection aimed to provide a broader picture of the implications of social capital in service-oriented firms. In this piece, we identify trends for future research on social capital with a focus on the services industry, an important sector of the economy. We focus on three future directions: the internationalization of service firms, social capital for service-oriented social enterprises and public policy programmes to create social capital, particularly in the context of Asia Pacific. We then identify how the contributions to this collection are related to these future directions to encourage more confirmatory work in this dynamic field of research and practice on social capital in service-oriented firms in the Asia Pacific region.     

The Impact of Involvement,Perceived Moral Intensity,and Satisfaction upon Trust in Non-Profit Relational Contexts: Processes and Outcomes

ABSTRACT

This study applies the basic concepts of relationship marketing, including involvement, knowledge, moral intensity, satisfaction and trust in the non-profit environment, specifically in a university setting. These relational concepts are employed in the development of a relational model used in an exploratory investigation. Results indicate significant relationships between the constructs, emphasizing the importance of relationship management for non-profit and public sector entities. Results, managerial implications and research implications are included.     

Marketing innovation: a systematic review

ABSTRACT

This study aims to investigate the development of ‘marketing innovation’ defined as the implementation of new marketing practices involving significant changes in the design, distribution, promotion or pricing of a product or service. We conduct a systematic review to provide conceptual, methodological and thematic guidance for scholars interested in studying marketing innovation. Our findings suggest while marketing innovation is often merged with the dominant technological focus underpinning product or service innovation, there is a growing trend to consider the innovation potential offered by the development of new distribution channels, branding strategies, communication types or pricing mechanisms. Digitisation, a key driver for marketing innovation, enables new communication methods, branding strategies, offering designs, and transaction settings. There is a growing trend to focus on cocreation, service-dominant logic and user community perspectives.     

This is your brain on neuromarketing: reflections on a decade of research

ABSTRACT

In this commentary, we reflect on the last decade of research in the field of neuromarketing and present a schematic illustration of the basic process of a typical neuromarketing study. We then identify three critical points of interest in this illustration that have not received enough discussion in neuromarketing-relevant literature, and which we consider to be somewhat problematic. These are the dominance of event-based designs in neuromarketing, the potential of alternative modalities in neuromarketing and the current focus on reverse inference in neuromarketing. We argue that, taken together, these points have substantive implications for the development of a more reflective neuromarketing, which in turn has greater potential to make a positive impact on marketing knowledge, marketing practice and public perceptions of marketing activity in general.     

Increasing the Effectiveness of Export Assistance Programs

Abstract

This study focuses on the export assistance needs of small and medium-sized firms in the California EnviroTech industry. The objectives of this study are to: (1) provide public sector assistance providers research-based recommendations to increase the effectiveness of their export assistance programs to the EnviroTech industry; and (2) promote the advantages of a single industry study as the basis for providing public sector export assistance.     

Safety of motorized two-wheeler riders in the formal and informal transport sector

Abstract

Road fatalities are largely preventable problem with large socioeconomic impact. Due to the rapidly increasing population, transport systems and road infrastructure have not met the demand. The use of motorized two-wheeler vehicles has increased, as informal transport. However, evidence on their safety is scarce. The aim of this article is to examine the safety and social equity issues in MTW in the informal transport sector. Factors can be used to explain traffic collisions in MTW in the formal/informal transport sectors: design, rider behavior, road design, enforcement, and regulation of the informal transport sector. Evidence suggests that MTWs could be a common related to pedestrian fatalities. Informal transport drivers are typically poor, uneducated, young men who due to lack of other employment options move into the informal sector. Their vehicles are old, unmaintained and have a lack of protective equipment for themselves and their passengers. Young, male drivers speed, take risks and not use protective equipment. Users of informal transport live in the poorer peripheries of cities, which, have limited, inefficient or unaffordable public transport. The provision of transport has therefore become an often unrecognized, important social equity issue and studies are urgently needed on MTW in the informal transport sector.     

Barriers Inhibiting Export Performance of Small and Medium-Sized Manufacturing Firms

Abstract

This study uses a step-wise discriminant analysis to address two related questions. First, to identify those inhibiting factors perceived to be both important and difficult to counter when a firm is initiating an export program. Second, to address the criticism that the current export research has failed to differentiate between degree of importance and the level of difficulty that firm may encounter when entering foreign markets. Two-hundred and forty-two small and medium-sized Wisconsin manufacturing firms were surveyed. The findings identified three barriers perceived to be both important and difficult to overcome. However, they did not support the criticism that we must differentiate between the degree of importance and the level of difficulty.     

Bonding Ties,Bridging Ties,and Firm Performance: The Moderating Role of Dynamic Capabilities in Networks

ABSTRACT

Purpose: Building on the dynamic capabilities view and the configuration of network ties, this study investigates how dynamic capabilities moderate the relationships between bonding and bridging ties and firm performance, thus an area with potential to explain the divergent empirical results contained in the existing literature on the relationship between intra/extraorganizational ties and performance.

Methodology: This study employed a mail survey to senior executives. A total of 169 firms operating in an industrial district were collected. Regression analysis was employed to test the proposed model.

Findings: This study found that the combination of dynamic capabilities and bonding/bridging ties helps improve firm performance. Furthermore, this study found a positive relationship between bonding ties and firm performance, but no equivalent relationship for bridging ties.

Research Implications: Research results indicate that firm performance is significantly enhanced by bonding ties, which provide opportunities for sharing information and exchanging resources. Moreover, the empirical results reaffirm the proposition that dynamic capabilities are important transformational mechanisms for managing resources.

Practical Implications: The findings reveal that managers can improve firm performance by simultaneously building social ties and developing and implementing dynamic capabilities.

Originality/Value: This study demonstrates that the components of dynamic capabilities (i.e., sensemaking and reconfiguration) are transformational mechanisms and can moderate the positive relationship between bonding and bridging ties and firm performance, empirically supporting recent perspectives from the literature on dynamic capabilities and social networks.     

Space for the informal tourism economy

ABSTRACT

In developing countries, many informal economy service providers obtain their livelihoods from tourism, and occupy and share public spaces to do so. As such, these actors must develop ‘rules in use’ that allow them to work alongside other providers, both formal and informal, in these shared spaces. These actors engage in coopetition, a mix of cooperation and competition, with each other. This paper provides a case study of informal sector service providers in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, to examine how these actors access resources and interact. Snowball sampling was adopted to identify actors and 47 in-depth interviews with pedicab drivers and street vendors were conducted and supplemented with naturalistic observation. Results indicate the public spaces occupied by the informal sector may be classified as common pool resources, collective goods, or semi-private goods. Further, the interaction among the actors in these public spaces is based on the types of, and capacity in, providing goods and services, and trust generated from the actors’ interactions. This research identified the formal and informal ‘rules in use’ that govern the behaviours of the actors related to the use of spaces. Suggestions for how informal economy actors can manage such spaces to enhance their livelihoods are provided.