How to achieve true integration: the impact of integrated marketing communication on the client/agency relationship

ABSTRACT

Reports from the advertising industry suggest that the pressure to create effective integrated campaigns across the ever-increasing mix of paid, owned and earned media is putting an enormous strain on client/agency relationships. This research identifies the main challenges that an Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) approach places on this relationship and thereby advances the IMC literature by examining the practical challenges of implementation. Six key issues, developed from academic and industry sources, are presented to advertising experts, through a Delphi study, to stimulate debate and identify areas of agreement. The findings are brought together in a model which presents three main areas that need to be addressed, along with specific recommendations. These topics include the need for clients to provide stronger leadership in defining agency roles and responsibilities, more transparent remuneration systems to encourage teamwork across agencies as well as individual input and an increased emphasis on the strategic contribution from agencies.     

Comments on “time of consumption and the time of consumption: Consumer society and the ‘end’ of history”

The essay expounds upon the “problem” of time and its relation to history within the context of consumer culture. Beginning with the premise that consumer culture can be regarded as both the time of image consumption and the image of time consumption (from Debord 1983), the author goes on at length to discuss the concept of time in its three dimensions and then to relate briefly, the implications for the study of history. What follows is a short summary of the author's argument and then a reaction to it based on the idea of liberation.     

Child survival in East Africa: The impact of preventive health care

Since the mid-1980s or earlier, several East African countries have experienced constant or rising child mortality rates concurrent with social and biomedical improvements of the “Child Survival Revolution”. This study examines whether preventive primary health care enhanced early child survival in the late 1980s and early 1990s in five East African countries. Child mortality rates were considerably lower than they would have been in the absence of specific immunizations, access to safe drinking water, fertility regulation, and frequent antenatal care visits. There was, however, substantial missed opportunity for mortality decline as a result of insufficient use of preventive measures. In particular, universal immunization across these countries could have reduced rates of mortality under age two by as much as one-third. Continued pursuit of the goals of the World Summit for Children appears essential to offset macroeconomic and growing epidemiological constraints to child survival in the region.     

A validation and extension of a multidimensional ethics scale

Reidenbach and Robin (1988, 1990) proposed and refined a multidimensional ethics scale. This study replicates and extends their work by examining the generalizability of the scale beyond marketing to accounting, and to subjects from across the United States and other countries. Results indicate that, in general, the scale holds for this different sample and context. However, an additional utilitarian construct emerged in the current study as important for accounting academics in their ethical decision-making. We also found that when we refined Reidenbach and Robin's measure of intention to make a particular choice, a social desirability bias or halo effect was identified. Methodological implications for business ethics research are also presented.Jeffrey R. Cohen is Associate Professor of Accounting at Boston College. He is a C.M.A. and a KPMG Peat Marwick Faculty Fellow. His articles have appeared in theJournal of Accounting Research, Decision Sciences andThe Organizational Behavior Teaching Review. His work on Ethics has appeared inJournal of Business Ethics, Issues in Accounting Education, Management Accounting, andThe CPA Journal.Laurie W. Pant is Associate Professor of Accounting at Suffolk University. She holds an M.B.A. and a D.B.A. and an M.Ed. She serves on the editorial board ofIssues in Accounting Education. Her articles on Ethics have appeared inJournal of Business Ethics, Issues in Accounting Education, Management Accounting andThe Organizational Behavior Teaching Review.David Sharp is Assistant Professor of Accounting at University of Western Ontario. He holds a Ph.D. and an M.Sc. He serves on the editorial board of theJournal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation. His articles have appeared inThe Midland Corporate Finance Journal andSloan Management Review.     

The NAFTA Preference and US‐Mexico Trade: Aggregate‐Level Analysis

This paper focuses on the US tariff preference afforded to Mexico relative to non‐NAFTA trading partners and evaluates the trade effects of NAFTA in a manner consistent with the idea behind a preferential trading agreement. The estimation technique exploits the time‐varying dimension of the tariff preference over 1989 to 2001. This is important because the tariff preference for Mexico into the United States market existed prior to NAFTA. Further, the NAFTA preference was phased in over time. We find that a higher US tariff preference for Mexico corresponds to increased US import demand for Mexican goods, and that a higher Mexican tariff preference for the United States corresponds to increased Mexican demand for US exports. Interestingly, import demand was more responsive to changes in the tariff preference once NAFTA was in place than it was on average.     

Exploring the debate on short-termism: a theoretical and empirical analysis

The debate on short-termism has focused on the economic factors of capital markets and performance measurement systems. Laverty (1996) has advocated the inclusion of individual and organizational dimensions to extend the debate. We reorient Laverty's extended debate by drawing upon a broad management and accounting literature and thereby develop testable theoretical explanations of short-termism. The resulting hypotheses are tested in a telecommunications company. Our findings provide support for Laverty's (1996) argument that individual and organizational factors are important determinants of short-termism. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Emerging amenity landscapes: Invasive weeds and land subdivision in rural Australia

Throughout history non-native invasive species have created environmental, economic, and social problems. Technological change, trade, and land system change are among the key factors in their spread and intensification. A recent global phenomenon holds the potential to exacerbate the invasive species problem: amenity migration, the subdivision of farm and grazing land, and the introduction of alternative land uses and management regimes by new rural residents. An Australian case study explores the subdivision of fine wool sheep ranches, the arrival of amenity migrants, and the impact on the management of one of the country's worst weeds, serrated tussock (Nassella trichotoma). Interviews with property owners, government officials, and members of the community-based conservation group, Landcare, expose cultural, institutional, and economic barriers to the control of the invasive grass. As the subdivision process leads to smaller properties and higher population densities it holds the potential to improve management of serrated tussock if the result is fewer livestock and more people to chemically and mechanically control the grass. But roughly 65% of the newcomers are part-time residents and absenteeism tends to result in weak efforts to manage the weed. In addition, regardless of their full-time/part-time status, most of the newcomers are ‘amenity” landholders whose cultural context and ideas about land and nature is diverse, and who do not seek their primary income from the land. Much of rural Australia now contains amenity landscapes, with weakened social capital, and a reduced capacity to coordinate a response to regional-scale environmental problems.     

Opportunistic hiring and employee fit

Most research on selection processes and organizational fit deals with existing, unfilled positions where expectations and tasks are known and measurable. This article instead evaluates the reasons, processes, and implications of opportunistic hiring—hiring employees before their jobs exist. Examples from an exploratory study show how “fit” factors into selection decisions. A typology is offered along the dimensions of whether opportunistic hiring is used to meet immediate or anticipated needs and the extent to which these needs are articulated prior to selection. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Getting the Floor: Motive-Consistent Strategy and Individual Outcomes in Multi-Party Negotiations

Social motives influence negotiators actions and reactions. In this study we proposed that social motives moderate the relationship between persistence in the use of integrative or distributive negotiation strategy and individual outcomes in 33 four-person mixed-motive negotiations. Cooperative negotiators who persisted in using integrative strategy achieved higher outcomes than those who did not persist. Persistence in the use of integrative strategy did not pay off for individualistic negotiators in this multi-party setting. We theorized that this pattern of results was due to cooperative and individualistic negotiators using strategy differently. We found that cooperative negotiators used more motive-consistent integrative strategy and less motive-inconsistent distributive strategy than individualistic negotiators, whose pattern of strategy use was consistent with their self-interested motives, providing evidence for our motive consistency theory.