Has Mumsnet changed me? SNS influence on identity adaptation and consumption

Abstract

This paper seeks to assess how one SNS network may support ongoing processes of identity adaptation and explore the role of consumption references in identity negotiation on the site. Drawing on theories of the liminality of motherhood, and the identity reconstruction processes that emerge in online communities, this paper traces the complexity of identity adaptation on SNS. With focus on SNS as a platform that may enable different phases of liminality, the transition to reincorporation phase is explored, revealing how members may experience support for ongoing identity renewal. Adopting a qualitative approach and direct observation method, posts from 12 extensive mumsnet.com discussion threads were screened and analysed using qualitative content analysis. Findings show how the functionality of this SNS site may facilitate some identity reconstruction.     

Creating a Sustainable Supply Chain Network by Adopting Relationship Management Strategies

ABSTRACT

Purpose: This paper develops a conceptual framework to analyze the impact of a supply chain network (SCN) structure on relationship management strategies (RMS) that focal firms apply to manage sustainability issues within the SCN.

Design/methodology/approach: This paper is based on a comprehensive review and analysis of the industrial marketing and purchasing (IMP), sustainable supply chain management (SSCM), and SCN literature.

Findings: The conceptual framework expands the network perspective in the SSCM context by considering the important role of the SCN structure in the firm’s decision-making process. Four factors (dependency, distance, power, and transparency) were found that are useful in conceptualizing the SCN structure. The conceptual framework also categorizes various sustainability practices into four RMS (noncompliance, transactional, dictatorial, and collaborative), which are needed to make an SCN more sustainable. In addition, 16 propositions are developed based on how firms may identify the most effective RMS to implement appropriate sustainability practices through examining their SCN structure.

Research limitations/implications: The conceptual framework, developed as a result of a comprehensive review of the literature, led to the development of 16 propositions, which can assist in furthering a research agenda on RMS to diffuse various sustainability practices within SCN structures.

Originality/value: The relationship between SCN structure and RMS in the sustainability context remains an under-researched but emerging area of interest. This paper leverages existing research to develop a conceptual framework suitable for empirical testing.     

Key account management: Theory,practice and challenges

Key account management is a natural development of customer focus and relationship marketing in business‐to‐business markets. It offers critical benefits and opportunities for profit enhancement to both sides of the seller/buyer dyad.

This paper describes a framework for understanding the development of key account relationships. It has also incorporated a comprehensive guide to the current practice of key account management and comments on the challenges for the future of key account management practice. The paper is based on research involving in‐depth interviews with key account managers, their managers and their main contacts in the customer organisation.

The scope of key account management is widening and becoming more complex. The skills of professionab involved in it at strategic and operational levels need to be constantly updated and developed. This paper demonstrates how key account management can be implemented and points decision‐makers in the right direction for better practice in the long term.     

An Investigation on Incentive Strategies in Community Building in Business-to-Business Electronic Markets

ABSTRACT

Purpose: Community building is recognized as an important governance mechanism in business-to-business (B-to-B) electronic markets by enhancing firms’ participation in these platform markets. However, little research has been done regarding the role of incentive strategies in community building. The main purpose of this paper is to understand how to motivate merchants to participate in a merchant community with incentive strategies.

Methodology: Data were collected in a community of a large B-to-B electronic platform market in China. We randomly chose a sample of 605 participants from among all merchant firms registered in this community, and track their behaviors for 2 weeks. Their behaviors are recorded based on our research design.

Findings: With the empirical analysis from a community of a large B-to-B electronic platform market in China, our results show that (1) both platform and peer incentive strategies can significantly enhance community participation, while platform incentives is more effective in general; (2) platform incentive strategy is a more effective strategy as seller firm uncertainty increases; (3) peer incentive strategy is a more effective strategy as buyer firm uncertainty increases.

Originality: This paper is among the first to investigate two types of incentive strategies in community building, platform level and peer level. We also investigate the moderating role of market uncertainties due to market participants from seller and buyer when examining the effectiveness of these two incentive strategies.     

Political branding: sense of identity or identity crisis? An investigation of the transfer potential of the brand identity prism to the UK Conservative Party

Abstract

Brands are strategic assets and key to achieving a competitive advantage. Brands can be seen as a heuristic device, encapsulating a series of values that enable the consumer to make quick and efficient choices. More recently, the notion of a political brand and the rhetoric of branding have been widely adopted by many political parties as they seek to differentiate themselves, and this has led to an emerging interest in the idea of the political brand. Therefore, this paper examines the UK Conservative Party brand under David Cameron’s leadership and examines the applicability of Kapferer’s brand identity prism to political branding. This paper extends and operationalises the brand identity prism into a ‘political brand identity network’ which identifies the inter-relatedness of the components of the corporate political brand and the candidate political brand. Crucial for practitioners, this model can demonstrate how the brand is presented and communicated to the electorate and serves as a useful mechanism to identify consistency within the corporate and candidate political brands.     

Consumer-to-consumer e-commerce: outcomes and implications

Abstract

One outcome of the digitised retail environment is the emergence of consumer-to-consumer (C2C) electronic commerce. Existing research has extensively addressed C2C commerce in an offline environment, while relatively little is known about online C2C behaviour. Thus, there is a need to deepen the understanding of how and why consumers engage in C2C e-commerce as well as the implications that C2C e-commerce holds for retailers. To address this gap, a comprehensive survey targeting Finnish consumers was conducted. The survey yielded a total of 2823 respondents who had transacted on C2C e-commerce platforms. The data are used to profile C2C e-commerce with demographics, product categories, customer value and key retail outcomes. This analysis provides a well-grounded basis for discussing the implications of C2C e-commerce for retailers.     

Ethnic Consumer Reaction to Targeted Marketing: A Theory of Intercultural Accommodation

Abstract

Marketers are increasingly recognizing the growing power of ethnic groups, and are responding with targeted marketing efforts. Targeted communications often draw on various references to the ethnic culture in an attempt to enhance communication with and gain the approval of the intended audience. However, research on how such accommodation efforts may be received is lacking. Drawing on a variety of disciplines, the authors develop a theory of intercultural accommodation to fill that gap. The proposed model views the consumer as having both affective and attributional responses to a targeted communication. The consequences of the response are proposed to influence the consumer's evaluation, comprehension, and recall of the message, and to influence behavioral intentions toward the communicator.     

Rules of engagement: A discrete choice analysis of sponsorship decision making

Abstract

This paper draws on exchange and utility theories to propose and test a model of sponsorship decision making using discrete choice analysis. Grounded in prior sponsorship research and current management practice, the model describes sponsorship selection as a sequence of choices about sponsorship packages of differing value. The core thesis is that managers attempt to maximise their utility when selecting sponsorships by evaluating the various pay-offs from the alternatives available. This research applies a simulated choice-based experiment with 196 sponsorship managers to assess their preferences for a set of criteria likely to shape their future decisions about sponsorship selection. While perceptions of brand-image congruence and relationship quality significantly affect sponsor preferences, contrary to some evidence, short-term business arrangements appear more desirable than longer-term sponsorships.     

Globalization of Faculty,Students, and Programs

ABSTRACT

The objective of this paper is to develop a comprehensive approach to globalization of the educational effort in business colleges that is meaningful within the context of available resources and public funding. More specifically, the objective is to inventory approaches that have been used in the past to produce successful results and introduce new approaches more suitable to present needs. This strategy proposes that a successful globalization effort relies on three fundamental concepts: (1) strong commitment from the administration on all levels of the university; (2) strong leadership from faculty to develop, operationalize, and manage the globalization effort; and (3) clear encouragement of interested students and commitment from administration and faculty that they will benefit from their participation in the globalization effort of the university.     

Models of Equal Employment Opportunity

ABSTRACT

Employees in an organization have the right to fair treatment in all matters of employment. While principles of democracy require equality among the citizens, there is also a need to provide equal employment opportunity (EEO) and to undo the effects of past discrimination in employment. This paper provides a three-nation comparison and analyzes the EEO provisions in United States, Nigeria, and India. It describes the main bases of discrimination and the efforts made by the three countries in redressing them. It explores the unresolved EEO issues in the three countries. The United States has a fairly comprehensive set of legislation to address the problems of discrimination. However, it lacks a national consensus on how to address the issue of past discrimination. Nigerian and Indian provisions for EEO address a relatively limited set of causes of discrimination only among their public sector of employment. These two countries are yet to develop a comprehensive set of legislation and enforcement mechanism to ensure EEO for all its citizens. Implications for other countries are discussed.     

Package graphic design and communication across cultures: An investigation of Chinese consumers' interpretation of imported wine labels

Package graphic design is a powerful tool for brand communication. Yet, an important question is how the designs are understood across cultures. A considerable amount of research has focused on cross-cultural marketing communications, prompting discussions on the emergence of global consumer cultures, which make package standardization possible or, conversely, the awareness of cultural differences, which has suggested that package localization is necessary. No research, however, has considered this question from a design-centered perspective and examined whether some package graphic designs are more likely than others to remain intelligible across cultures. This research proposes that packages using motivated signs in their graphic designs are more likely to be intelligible across cultures than packages using arbitrary signs. To explore this proposition, eight imported wine labels were analyzed through a semiotic study (study 1). Then, two studies investigated the interpretations of the wine labels by Chinese consumers. The results indicate that the labels that were classified as “motivated” succeeded in conveying the desired brand meanings to the Chinese respondents (study 2: N = 1391) even when they were not familiar with the wine brand culture (study 3: N = 795). The research presents a theoretical contribution by introducing the concept of sign motivation to the marketing literature and nuancing the classic assumption that visual signs convey different meanings across cultures. It also presents a managerial contribution by presenting a conceptual framework and methodology for the analysis of whether or not a graphic design is likely to be intelligible across cultures. It therefore provides guidelines for the design of packages for international markets.     

Sensemaking About Business-to-Business Strategies and Relationships: A Commentary on Reid and Plank's Review

ABSTRACT

Weick (1995) describes retrospection as a distinguishing characteristic of sensemaking: “people can know what they are doing only after they have done it” (p. 24) and “how can I know what we did until I see what we produced” (p. 30). While each of us engages in sensemaking implicitly, applying explicit sensemaking tools-such as written retrospection-helps to clarify and deepen our understanding of phenomena. Reid and Plank's business-to-business marketing retrospection of more than 2,500 journals, proceedings, and book references from 1978–1997 serves well as a sensemaking tool. A strength of Reid and Plank's retrospection is its breadth of coverage of topics and sources. Limitations of their review include the lack of coverage of key findings from the cited empirical studies and the failure to develop theoretical propositions on relationships and strategies. By reading Reid and Plank's review, both new and lifelong students of business-to-business marketing will find useful references and insights for improving sensemaking capabilities.     

Trialogue on Facebook pages of grocery stores: Customer engagement or customer enragement?

Abstract

The pervasiveness of social media is compelling businesses to review their way of managing customer experiences. Businesses use social media to interact and engage with customers. Several studies have studied why businesses have adopted social media. However, there is a dearth of research as to why customers interact with businesses on social media in the grocery sector. This paper aims to explore how and why customers react to corporate messages on Facebook pages of Tesco and Walmart. Netnography approach was adopted to gain an insight into the various ways customers engage with the grocery stores on its Facebook pages. This study reveals that social media empower customers, influence the relationships customers have with grocery stores and generate customer engagement. Findings also show that the social customer is both a curse and a blessing to Tesco and Walmart when they create or destroy value for the business. This paper contributes to knowledge by (1) uncovering how customers react to corporate and customer posts on corporate Facebook pages; (2) showing how value can be created and destroyed; and (3) proposing a model illustrating how the main constructs of the study are interconnected: social media, relationship marketing, customer empowerment and customer engagement.     

Factors Affecting Skepticism toward Green Advertising

Abstract

Despite the growth of green marketing, there is a shortage of studies on green communication. Thus, this research aims to understand whether consumers who are concerned about the environment conserve resources and have environmentally friendly buying habits and whether they are skeptical about the green communications conveyed by companies. Using a proposal of a model about skepticism toward green advertising, several hypotheses are tested. The results indicate that the more environmentally concerned an individual is, the more skepticism he or she will be toward green claims exhibited on packages or featured in ads. In addition, results indicated no significant differences between men and women regarding this skepticism.     

A Commentary on Business Marketing: A Twenty Year Review and an Invitation for Continued Dialogue

ABSTRACT

This article is a commentary on the literature review conducted by Reid and Plank. The objective of the paper is to both critique and complement the review and to provide a forum for debate as to the future direction of research in business-to-business (B2B) marketing research. The paper begins with a challenge to the reader to think beyond the traditional role of B2B marketing and think about how future B2B research could be more relevant and more strategic in focus. The concept of the new competition is offered as a framework for presenting future research issues. The new competition converges on the role of the extended enterprise as the reference point for thinking about competitive forces in a global marketplace. The implications for B2B marketers are discussed.     

A Comparative Analysis of Managerial Adaptation to Privatization

ABSTRACT

Economic analysis on emerging economies of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has shown a flourishing private sector coexisting with shrinking state enterprises fueling speculation that growth would come from the new private sector. In this view, it is important to (1) assess the private sector which continues to grow and is vital to the process of emerging new market economies; and (2) account for the current place of entrepreneurship and assign its role in the process of systemic transformation which takes place in the economies of the CEE. Based on interviews and models on en-trepreneurship, the paper analyzes how the entrepreneurs' behavior is influenced by government regulation, credit terms, taxation, long-term and short-term financing options, level of infrastructure, and preferences to small business, and how entrepreneurs' consequent behavior can in turn influence the working system itself. The goal is to show that the emerging small business sector of the post-Communist Hungarian economy fulfills important material and ideological functions. The paper concludes that the Hungarian entrepreneurship is an independent vehicle for economic growth and bringing about the emergence of capitalist forms of economic production in the post-Communist Hungarian economy.     

A Fair Trade-off? Paradoxes in the Governance of Fair-trade Social Enterprises

This paper explores how fair trade social enterprises (FTSEs) manage paradoxes in stakeholder-oriented governance models. We use narrative accounts from board members, at governance events and board documents to report an exploratory study of paradoxes in three FTSEs which are partly farmer-owned. Having synthesized the key social enterprise governance literature and framed it alongside the broader paradox theory, we used narratives to explore how tensions are articulated, how they can be applied within an adapted paradox framework, and how governance actors seek to mitigate paradoxes. The paper contributes to current debates in social enterprise scholarship concerning hybridity (Pache and Santos, Acad Manag Rev 35(3):455–476, 2010; in Institutional logics in action, Part B (Research in the sociology of organizations), 2012), hybrid organizing (Battilana and Lee, Acad Manag Ann 8(1):397–441, 2014) and operational tensions (Smith et al., Bus Eth Q 23(3):407–442, 2013) by illustrating empirically how the central social/enterprise paradox manifests in FTSEs governance arrangements. We build on the paradox categories proposed by Lüscher and Lewis (Acad Manag J 51(2):221–240, 2008) and adapted in Smith et al. (Bus Eth Q 23(3):407–442, 2013) by developing a recursive model of legitimacy-seeking governance processes, conceptualizing how boards seek to mitigate, but not necessarily resolve, paradoxes.     

Creativity or Coercion: Alternative Perspectives on Rights to Intellectual Property

Part one of this paper considers the question of property rights in general and asks how such rights can be justified, contrasting Consequentialist with other approaches and concludes that it is impossible to avoid a broadly Consequentialist approach. Part two considers the question of intellectual property (IP) and asks how property rights justifications apply to it. The basic economics if IP is indispensable in this discussion. Finally, part three, considers IP in the light of modern technological developments. I conclude that the real dangers lie more in the specific ways government and special interests respond to this technology than from the nature of IP rights themselves. Peter Lewin is a Clinical Professor of Economics at the University of Texas at Dallas, School of Management. His research and publications are varied but usually contain aspects of policy analysis. His recent work focuses on the use of knowledge by the business firm.