Social Marketing as Transformational Marketing in Public Services

Abstract

This article presents a case study of a social marketing intervention, developed as an innovative action research project for a Fire Service, to tackle the public service challenge of reducing the incidence of deliberate countryside fire-setting in certain communities. The case demonstrates the effectiveness of a social marketing approach to tackling an anti-social behaviour that had become a local social norm which conventional education-based campaigns had failed to change. The case also explores unexpected impacts that applying a social marketing approach had on the sponsoring Fire Service, acting to transform certain aspects of its operations and culture.     

Learning from the alien: knowledge relationships with temporary workers in network contexts

This paper contributes to our understanding of the role of temporary workers in learning for innovation in network contexts. The strategy literature advocates that the knowledge and talent of workers is vital to competitive success yet at the same time temporary workers are becoming more prevalent, making relationships with workers more ephemeral. These shifting competitive and employment contexts make insights into learning from, and with, contractual nomads paramount. The setting is the UK television industry, where such workers are dominant. Internationally, creative industries are a prime site of networks where temporary workers are brought together for specific projects. In the television industry, a range of knowledge attachment employee relationships have been developed by firms to ‘contain’ and sustain worker contributions in terms of knowledge and talent. These relationships are identified as freelance, regular contract, golden handcuffs and invest in knowledge firm. This paper highlights the learning implications both positive and negative arising from these different ways of relating to temporary workers thereby extending our understanding of employee relationships built on mutuality.     

Guide to the Ethics of Ex Parte Communications

Ex parte communications can become an administrative quagmire for anyone trying to deal with tribunals that regulate business matters. These communications involve contact between a decision maker and one party outside the presence of another, interested party. At a time when codes of ethics are enacted to make corporate financial officers and boards of directors more accountable to their stockholders, and thus, to restore the confidence of the investing public, it appears most important that administrative judges and hearing officers adhere strictly to their own Codes of Conduct. This article defines and explains ex parte contacts and consequent problems that might arise during administrative appeals. It is not the author’s intent to present the law of any specific jurisdiction, but to present a general overview of typical state law in the United States, a market of interest to many entrepreneurs and exporters worldwide.     

Neoliberalism and health care

Within the context of globalization, health care reform is occurring around the world. This paper explores the neoliberal mind set shaping health care reform in the UK, Canada, United States, Australia and New Zealand. Neoliberalism is comprised of three principles: individualism, free market via privatization and deregulation, and decentralization. After describing the nature of a health care system that is shaped by those embracing this mind set, an alternative approach is introduced that could bring dignity and a human face to health care. The basic premise of the paper is that we must broaden our analysis of health care by understanding and challenging the neoliberal mind set.     

UK state pension deferral incentives and sustainability

Pay-as-you-go state pension schemes such as that operated in the United Kingdom face growing pressures from the rising old-age dependency ratio and improvements to life expectancies. Alongside compulsory increases in the statutory retirement age, governments have used incentives to encourage workers to postpone voluntarily their exit from employment, deferring their Basic State Pension in exchange for the additional financial reward of an enhanced pension at a later point in time. The impact of pension deferral upon the sustainability of the state pension system is dependent on the interplay of short-term savings from payment delay and increased subsequent longer-term payments to pension recipients. This article presents a model that simulates the financial effect of deferral uptake on the National Insurance Fund over a 40-year projection under alternative scenarios, including current and revised post-2016 deferral incentives. The findings indicate that the recent change in enhancement rate from 10.4 per cent to 5.8 per cent will significantly impact on state pension sustainability while still providing an incentive to defer. We estimate that any reduction below 4 per cent would result in zero uptake of the deferral option, based on a rational financial choice.     

A new research framework for family resource management applied to financial preparedness of mid‐life working couplesa

In order to continue to move forward, the field of family resource management needs rich research programmes based on holistic, synergetic approaches. To this end, this paper presents a multi‐perspective research framework for designing family resource management research programmes using insights from five existing perspectives to understand families: life cycle stages, life spiral across generations, unplanned life transitions, the historical context of the course of one's life, and the different levels of influence on daily life ranging from the cosmos to the unknown (spheres of influence perspective). A modernization of the life cycle perspective is proposed as well to accommodate the gap between the full nest and the empty nest. We then use this new research framework to shape the development of a programme targeting retirement preparedness of mid‐life working couples with dependents (children and aged or infirm adults). We anticipate that deeper, more holistic insights into family resource management strategies can be gained from using this new research framework.     

Empowering communities: The experience of the church urban fund

This article seeks to report on ways of empowering local communities who are suffering multiple deprivation. It is set within the context created by the requirement for partnership in the submission of funding applications to City Challenge and the Single Regeneration Budget. This exploration draws upon an evaluation of the Church Urban Fund undertaken by the authors in 1993-4 funded by the Department of the Environment, the Church Urban Fund, the Paul S. Cadbury Trust and the Wates Foundation (Farnell et al, 1994).     

Localization: A Global Manifesto

Localization: A Global Manifesto. Ed. by Colin Hines (2000). London. Published by Earthscan Publishing. ISBN 1‐85383‐612‐5 (softcover). In Canada, the book is available from http://www.renoufbooks.com for Can$29.00. In the UK, the book is available at http://www.earthscan.co.uk for £10.99 or earthinfo@earthscan.co.uk