Relationship formation and governance in consumer markets: Transactional analysis versus the behaviourist approach

Although relationship marketing (RM) is widely discussed in contemporary marketing literature, its theoretical foundations are rarely debated. Much published work on the subject relies implicitly on behaviourist exchange theory to support major propositions. Exchange theory neatly elucidates many RM hypotheses, but cannot explain the failure of campaigns that furnish customers with increasingly generous relationship rewards. Phenomenological approaches which explore the fundamental psychodynamics of supplier/customer relationships (especially the ways in which entities inwardly construct their own meanings for their experiences) represent a powerful alternative to the behaviourist model. A business, it is suggested, is like a person in that it possesses an ego, has a collective psyche, adopts specific ego states, and occupies a particular corporate life position which helps determine the nature of its relationships with its clientele. Core propositions of transactional analysis are commandeered to categorize managerial feelings towards customers. It is concluded that positive self‐regard, corporate openness and integrity, transparency of the corporate self, genuine liking for customers, and unadulterated confidence in the propriety of the company's mission are necessary prerequisites for successful RM. Also the firm has to view RM as an entire philosophy of marketing; not merely as a set of promotional practices and techniques.     

Giving to the Giver: Can Charities Use Premium Incentives to Stimulate Donations?

SUMMARY

A projective role-playing research technique was applied that simulated 3 situations wherein a hypothetical person was presented with an incentive to donate to a charity. Participants were then asked (i) to state what they believed this hypothetical person should do, and (ii) to complete a questionnaire concerning some of their personal characteristics and tendencies (e.g., deal proneness, relationship proneness, need for social recognition, and personal involvement with the act of giving to charity). A multinomial logistic regression analysis was completed to predict the participants' responses on the basis of the abovementioned personality traits plus certain other variables.     

Organizational performance with a broader focus: The case for a stakeholder approach to leadership

In 2019, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and the other 179 CEO members of the Business Roundtable argued that the purpose of a corporation must reflect not only the fiduciary interests of owners but also the varied interests of all stakeholders: employees, customers, partners, and broader society. This idea challenges a decades-old norm of shareholder primacy, so it is reasonable for organizational leaders to wonder whether doing so is truly in their firms’ best interests, and if so, how to implement this approach to leadership. To answer these questions, we draw on over 200 peer-reviewed articles covering leadership research to demonstrate how servant leadership, a stakeholder-focused approach to management, outperforms other leadership approaches across both shareholder and stakeholder criteria. We leverage case studies of organizational leaders from SAS, Zappos, Starbucks, and Jason’s Deli, financially successful organizations that exemplify how managers provide value and sustainability to stakeholders and shareholders through servant leadership. We also include practical steps managers can take to begin putting this form of leadership into practice.     

Burger King and McDonald’s: Where’s the Spillover?

This paper studies how spillover effects from competitors’ choices affect a firm’s decision to open a store. Using panel data from the UK’s fast food industry, I propose and estimate a game of entry under incomplete information that incorporates spillover effects between firms’ entry decisions. A positive spillover is identified for Burger King – increasing the stock of existing McDonald’s by one outlet increases Burger King’s estimated equilibrium probability of opening a new store by approximately 18 percentage points. Furthermore, the estimated model suggests that this spillover affects Burger King’s variable profit, as opposed to its fixed cost of entry. It is less clear whether this externality matters for McDonald’s.     

A REPORT ON THE INTEGRATION OF A UNIT OF DESIGN STUDIES INTO ADVANCED COURSES IN HOME ECONOMICS.

The content of a unit of Design Studies which has been produced for a degree course in Home Economics is outlined and an exercise in three dimensional problem solving is described. The potential of the contribution of Design Education to the development of the modern home economist and consumer is discussed, and the case for an integrated and central role for design studies in Home Economics Courses is presented.     

Learning to Be Job Ready: Strategies for Greater Social Inclusion in Public Sector Employment

‘Learning to be job ready’ (L2BJR) was a pilot scheme involving 16 long-term unemployed people from a range of backgrounds being offered a 6-month paid placement within the care department of a city council in Northern England. The project was based on a partnership with the largest college in the city specialising in post-16 education and training for residents and employees. The college targeted people as potential candidates for the programme through their prior attendance on or interest in care courses at the college, rather than the council employing more traditional methods of recruitment. Surveys, focus groups and interviews were utilised to capture the views and experiences of the participants, project workers and line managers, and also evidence of the project’s impact on service delivery in the care department. The article adds to our conceptual and practical knowledge of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the public sector in three distinct ways. From a social and business perspective, the findings of the research highlight a potentially more robust strategy for matching long-term unemployed citizens to training and job opportunities in the public sector than is otherwise possible through the more conventional route of the job centre. Secondly, through this approach and with appropriate pre-training, a greater understanding of and empathy for the service users can be developed in the new organisational members, strengthening the subsequent ethical delivery and quality of the service. Finally, a re-conceptualisation of Carroll’s influential model of CSR, which also specifically incorporates the ethical and social inclusion duties of public sector organisations not only as service providers but also as potential employers, offers a more tailored paradigm for understanding this unique yet under-researched element of CSR theory and practice.     

Regional environmental and economic impact evaluation: An input-output approach

This article develops a regional input-output model which deals with both the environmental sector and the traditional treatment of the economy. The model differs from previous work in that environmental interactions are treated non-linearly and explicit account is taken of environmental feedback to the economic sector. Estimation of non-linear environmental feedback makes it possible to more accurately assess the sensitivity of the regional economic-environmental structure to shifts in final demand over time.     

New product development practices of urban regeneration units: a comparative international study

The new product development (NPD) activities of 14 not‐for‐profit urban regeneration organisations in three cities (London, Copenhagen and Boston) were examined to establish the degree to which they reflected the best practices recommended by the academic NPD literature in the for‐profit field. Executives in each organisation were questioned about the stages of the NPD process that they activated most intensively, relationships between marketing staff and technical urban development specialists, mechanisms for consulting end users of place products, methods for generating new ideas and the major problems they experienced. Parallels between the NPD behaviour of nonprofit urban regeneration organisations managing projects involving widespread change and that previously observed among for‐profit organisations engaged in the development of radically new products were investigated. Copyright © 2004 Henry Stewart Publications