From Cattle and Coke to Charlie: Meeting the Challenge of Self Marketing and Personal Branding

Since the late 1990s, self marketing and personal branding have become increasingly popular as subjects of self-improvement books, Web sites and consultancy services, especially in the USA. To date, little of this interest appears to have permeated the discipline of marketing, either in terms of formal research, textbook contents or academic curricula. This paper examines the theoretical basis of self marketing and personal branding, identifies some of the conceptual, practical and ethical problems it poses for the discipline, and points to some of the challenges facing higher education in attempting to create a curricular framework within which marketing professionals can learn how to market and brand themselves effectively.     

The 2001 General Election: Factors Influencing the Brand Image of Political Parties and their Leaders

This paper considers the importance of building the brand image of parties and leaders in modern day politics. Firstly, the appropriateness of branding in the sphere of politics is considered. Then, brand image research on political parties and their leaders is identified and discussed. From this, the advertising (positive and negative), events and celebrity endorsements that affected the June 2001 election are discussed. Finally, some tentative conclusions on political image management are forwarded along with the likely future developments in this area.     

Branded lives: The production and consumption of meaning at work

Over the last number of decades, as a result of regulatory, technological and changing consumer dynamics, many service organisations operate in an increasingly competitive and dynamic external environment. These changes have led to service companies trying to both recruit and retain profitable customers. In order to compete effectively, do companies focus on transaction and relationship marketing activities only or on the balanced delivery of both? Apart from a small body of work (Brodie et al. 1997; Coviello et al. 1997; 2002), the literature has treated transaction and relationship marketing in an isolated and non-integrated fashion. In particular there has been limited consideration of the pertinent issues facing service organisations trying to integrate these two perspectives in practice. This article describes an in-depth study of a service organisation's transaction and relationship marketing activities. In this study theory was used in the development of a conceptual model. This model was used as a framework to guide the study and data collection using one retail bank case. The data were analysed in relation to the transaction and relationship marketing focus and activities of the bank. The findings indicate that resource investment in some aspects of transaction and relationship marketing activities, in practice, was unbalanced compared to the resource investment in a wide range of support activities. The study has implications for research and theory and to those attempting to deliver both transaction and relationship marketing in the context of dynamic and competitive environments.     

The Contract of Employment - Ethical Dimensions

A review of the literature indicates that faculty, students, and employers recognize the importance of professional behaviors for a successful career. These professional behaviors were defined by business school faculty to include honesty and ethical decision making, regular attendance and punctuality, professional dress and appearance, participation in professional organizations, and appropriate behavior during meetings. This paper presents the results of a survey administered to managers, faculty, and students about how business school professors can teach these professional behaviors. A hypothesis was tested that managers, professors, and students differ in their perceptions about what is appropriate professional behavior. Using a scale of strongly agree to strongly disagree to respond to critical incidents, one-way ANOVA indicated no group differences for items about cheating, plagiarism, and helping students to work projects on schedule. Group differences were found for ethics items (raising course grade for the purpose of tuition reimbursement, stopping excessive use of school printers, simplifying course work to accommodate weaker students), time management items (making accommodations for students unable to regularly attend class, refusing to admit late students), appearance items (requiring students to dress in suits for major presentations, counseling a student with facial piercing), and for items about required activities inside and outside of the classroom. Allen Hall received his Ph.D. in education from the University of Iowa. Currently he is an associate professor at the State University of New York (SUNY) Institute of Technology. His research projects center around surveys designed to measure changes in ethical awareness. His teaching area is Business & Society. He currently studies management issues in non-profit organizations. Lisa Berardino received her Ph.D. in management from Virginia Tech. Currently she is an associate professor at the State University of New York (SUNY) Institute of Technology and coordinator for the Master of Business Administration program. Her publications focus on identifying, measuring and building the critical skills that business students need in today’s workplace. Her teaching area is human resource management and compensation. Her current research projects center on how to build the competency of professional behavior and how to teach ethics.     

Ethical positioning and political marketing: the ethical awareness and concerns of UK voters

There is clear evidence of increased voter awareness and concern for environmental and other ethical issues, leading many organisations to reappraise and communicate more effectively their ethical credentials. The manifestos of the three main political parties in the UK show clear differences in their positioning on ethical issues.

Following a qualitative investigation using in-depth discussions and ZMET, a questionnaire was developed and administered to a representative UK sample of 1,000 consumers. This included a measure of awareness, concern and action on 16 ethical issues, the scale developed from the Stages of Change concept within the transtheoretical model.

Using principal components analysis, ANOVA and chi-squared analysis, differences are identified in the ethical positions of voter groups affiliated with the three main parties. These differences are not consistent between different sets of issues, suggesting further scope for ethical targeting and positioning by political marketers.     

The Influence of the Compensation System and Personal Variables on a Salesperson's Effective Listening Behaviour

Effective listening is crucial for salespeople to succeed in today's personal selling environment, yet poor listening is still one of the most important factors contributing to a salesperson's failure. Despite its importance, very little research has focused on effective listening in this context. This study proposes a model that explains the effective listening behaviour of salespeople in terms of their method of compensation, ability to use customer knowledge, intrinsic motivation, gender, education and experience. The findings suggest that the above factors, with the exception of experience, are significant determinants of effective listening in the sales environment. A discussion of theoretical and managerial implications is presented, and key areas for future research are suggested.     

个体文化特征对心理契约构建的影响

在总结心理契约交易型导向和关系型导向的基础上,基于个体主义与集体主义表征文化的核心价值观,本文发现个体主义者理解组织信息趋向于交易型契约,集体主义者趋向于关系型契约;个体主义价值观将激励个体缔结交易型心理契约,而集体主义价值观将影响个体建立关系型心理契约。因此,个体文化特征会对心理契约的构建产生影响。     

Fear,Negative Campaigning and Loathing: The Case of the UK Election Campaign

Fear has for some time been used in marketing communications particularly in social and health marketing. This paper explores how fear was used in the General Election Campaign and uses Aristotle's concept of rhetoric as a basis for understanding how messages are conveyed to the electorate. It argues that fear appeals are resonant with one particular type of voter but alienates other segments.     

The Buying of Private Brands and Manufacturer Brands in Grocery Retailing: A Comparative Study of Buying Processes in the UK,Sweden and Italy

Private brands in grocery retailing have evolved from a way to compete on price by selling low quality products at a low price, into a brand category in their own right, with a wide range of positioning options open to retailers. The buying and selling of private brands means that retailers' add new activities and processes to those that are traditionally associated with retailing. This paper compares the buying processes for manufacturer brands and private brands across three European countries in an attempt to analyse how the extension of the buying process inherent in private brand ranges, and the organisational contexts within which these processes operate impact upon complexity in the retail buying process     

What Is and What Is Not Social Marketing: The Challenge of Reviewing the Evidence

This paper describes our experience in undertaking a review of the effectiveness of using social marketing to tackle nutrition problems. One of the biggest challenges was identifying programmes which could be genuinely defined as 'social marketing'. Here we describe how we applied and tested a framework for identifying and assessing legitimate social marketing research. Implications for both social marketing theory and practice are discussed.     

外商直接投资对浙江省进出口贸易影响的实证分析

选用1992-2006年浙江进出口贸易和外商直接投资的数据,通过建立计量模型,就外商直接投资对浙江进出口贸易的影响,从总量、结构及贸易效益三方面进行分析。研究表明,外商直接投资对浙江省进出口贸易总额存在积极的拉动效应,对进出口商品构成产生明显的影响作用,通过提高加工贸易比重改变了浙江省的贸易方式结构,还在一程度上促进了浙江外贸竞争力的提高。同时也发现浙江省对外贸易与外资引进中仍存在一些问题,并针对这些问题提出解决对策。     

人民币实际有效汇率对我国进出口总额的影响

本文通过对1994年1月至2005年7月、2005年8月至2006年11月这两个阶段的人民币实际有效汇率、我国进口总额、出口总额的月度数据进行相关处理,利用向量自回归模型和格兰杰因果检验模型,验证了人民币实际有效汇率对我国进口总额和出口总额的影响。结果表明:随着2005年7月21日汇率制度改革的实施,人民币实际有效汇率对我国进出口的影响正在减小,美国等西方发达国家要求人民币升值以改善其贸易逆差之举在实践中是不合理的。     

The meaning of commitment in professional service relationships: a study of the meaning of commitment used by lawyers and their clients

Several authors have identified the importance of commitment in successful business relationships. However, few studies have considered the meaning of commitment, especially within the context of customer-supplier relationships.

Most studies of commitment within the marketing literature use existing conceptualisations developed within the psychology and organisational behaviour literatures. The purpose of this paper is to explore the meaning of commitment in a customer-supplier relationship context, and to compare this with traditional conceptualisation of commitment.

This study investigates the meaning of commitment used by both lawyers and their clients, within the context of their relationship. The findings show that the meaning of commitment used in professional relationships may be more complex than its traditional conceptualisation and should be extended to include at least three additional components including: 'partnership commitment', 'impression management commitment' and 'personal commitment'. It is argued that it is inappropriate to 'borrow' the conceptualisation of the construct of commitment from other disciplines, without considering the market-based context in which it is used. Implications for professional service relationships include that professionals and clients would benefit from sharing a similar meaning of commitment and this meaning may be influenced by the culture, systems and processes of their organisation.     

供应链企业间委托代理及激励监督问题研究

为了研究供应链企业间由于信息不对称而引起的委托代理问题,从供应链的核心企业——制造商的角度出发,设计出两种模型:即纯激励模型和加入了监督惩罚策略的激励监督模型。通过这两种模型的分析比较,得出了这两种模型各自的适用范围,并探讨了不同因素如分销商的成本系数、风险规避系数、外界环境的不确定性及制造商的监督成本系数对最优激励强度、最优监控强度的影响,为供应链企业间解决委托代理问题提供了一种有效的分析工具。     

The Contribution of Ethical Obligation and Self-identity to the Theory of Planned Behaviour: An Exploration of Ethical Consumers

Whilst the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) has generated much research interest, many market researchers are divided over the addition of further constructs to the model. The TRA and its many modifications have been applied in numerous behavioural contexts, however, research to-date has neglected an emerging group of "ethical" consumers. This paper outlines results from a recent survey of over 1400 UK consumers that applied the TRA to this complex area of decision making. Using readers to the Ethical Consumer magazine, the study addresses issues involving proposed model modifications - specifically, by the addition of control, ethical obligation and self-identify. Management implications of the findings are discussed, including the importance of understanding consumers' self-identification with ethical issues in marketing communications programmes; and the underlying potential importance of ethical issues to mainstream consumer groups. Finally, the need to develop conceptually as well as practically robust techniques by using Structural Equation Modelling, which represents the next stage in this research, is outlined.     

The Influence of Regionalization and Cultural Distance on the Direction of Exports

Research has identified two distinct influences on the direction of firm internationalisation, cultural distance, and regionalisation. This paper sets out to test the strength of these influences on the direction of exports in circumstances where they act in different directions. The paper applies a quantitative methodology to a large, purposively compiled data set of Australian export values over the period 1990 to 2004. The Australian context provides an interesting case because its cultural linkages and its geographic connections lie in different directions. It is shown that regionalisation is the dominant influence on the direction of exports in the Australian context.     

文化差异对国际商务谈判的影响及对策探析

分析了国际商务谈判的文化因素,探讨了文化差异对谈判方式、沟通方式、民族性格等方面的影响,重点分析了与美国人和日本人谈判的应对技巧,以促进谈判的有效进行和高效沟通。     

The Influence of Partner Knowledge Complementarities on the Effectiveness of IT Outsourcing

Despite the importance of knowledge complementarities to inter-firm cooperation, few researchers in information systems (IS) have examined, to date, the construct of knowledge complementarities (KC), and none have examined its role in the success of IT outsourcing alliances. In this paper, we distinguish between potential knowledge complementarities (PKC) and synergistic value, which comprise KC. PKC is conceptualized as a multidimensional construct encompassing knowledge types (similar and specialized) and knowledge domains (business and IT). Further, we examine the extent to which PKC between the client and the vendor promotes success in IT outsourcing alliances. This research also includes relative absorptive capacity because it is relevant when complementary knowledge flows between organizations. We used data from a field study of 81 firms in Korea to test the proposed model. Our findings indicate that each dimension of PKC contributes uniquely to knowledge complementarities. The results also show that PKC is significantly associated with IT outsourcing effectiveness. Relative absorptive capacity is found to be a moderator between PKC and IT outsourcing effectiveness. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed in the paper.     

追加配额后棉花进口对我国棉花产业的影响及规律——以华北地区为例

文章主要从棉花价格、棉农收益和棉花收购企业三方面分析追加棉花进口配额对我国棉花产业的影响,进而得出其形成的规律:配额发放两个月后,国内市场价格开始下降;追加配额的时间和数量决定价格下降幅度;滑准税率下,关税配额的管理方法更能起到保护国棉的作用.针对影响及规律,提出在WTO框架下,采取积极措施应对棉花进口对国内棉花产业造成的冲击.     

现代物流业对进出口贸易的影响——基于我国1995-2004年数据的实证研究

本文根据统计数据,对物流业与我国进出口贸易之间的关系进行了相关性分析和弹性分析。所得到的结论是:我国物流业发展对进出口贸易有积极的促进作用,就全国而言,物流每变化(增长或减少)1%,进出口贸易额就相应地变化(增长或减少)2.19%(或5.13%)。地区和个案研究也得到了类似的结论。