An international review of sponsorship research: extension and update

This article extends and updates an existing review of 80 Anglo-Saxon studies on sponsorship published prior to 1996 with contributions of European origin (66 additional studies) and studies published subsequently (87 additional studies). It thus gives an account of the evolution and current state of sponsorship research worldwide and points out new research directions. Over the past six years there have been clear advances in research into, and evaluation of, sponsorship effects and strategic sponsorship management. There has also been a notable shift towards a better understanding of how sponsorship is perceived by the end consumer. Overall, however, research is focused too much on consumer goods and service companies pursuing awareness and image objectives while engaged in sports sponsorship. Other types of institutions, other sponsorship objectives and other sponsorship areas are widely neglected. The same is true of the functional affiliation of sponsorship within the firms and sponsorship budgeting processes.     

Who we are and what we do: A profile of marketing academics in UK universities

This paper explores the professional identity of marketing academics in UK universities by focusing on two aspects, i.e. (1) their background characteristics and (2) the activities typically pursued by them. Specifically, the characteristics of marketing academics are explored in terms of demographic profiles, educational background and career structures, while activity patterns provide insights into the composition and length of the working week, research record and the relative importance of outside sources of income.     

Quo Vadis,marketing? Toward a relationship marketing paradigm

The marketing mix and its 4Ps have remained the marketing paradigm for decades. In the article it is argued that the foundation for this paradigm is weak and that it has had negative effects on marketing research and practice. Contemporary research into services marketing and industrial marketing demonstrates that a new approach to marketing is required. This new approach is based on building and management of relationships. A paradigm shift in marketing is under way. The thoughts and actions of marketing academics and practitioners should not be constrained by a paradigm from the 1950s and 1960s.     

Challenges for land system science

While considerable progress has been made in understanding land use change, land system science continues to face a number of grand challenges. This paper discusses these challenges with a focus on empirical land system studies, land system modelling and the analysis of future visions of land system change. Contemporary landscapes are contingent outcomes of past and present patterns, processes and decisions. Thus, empirical analysis of past and present land-use change has an important role in providing insights into the socio-economic and ecological processes that shape land use transitions. This is especially important with respect to gradual versus rapid land system dynamics and in understanding changes in land use intensity. Combining the strengths of empirical analysis with multi-scale modelling will lead to new insights into the processes driving land system change. New modelling methods that combine complex systems thinking at a local level with macro-level economic analysis of the land system would reconcile the multi-scale dynamics currently encapsulated in bottom-up and top-down modelling approaches. Developments in land use futures analysis could focus on integrating explorative scenarios that reflect possible outcomes with normative visions that identify desired outcomes. Such an approach would benefit from the broad and in-depth involvement of stakeholders in order to link scientific findings to political and societal decision-making culminating in a set of key choices and consequences. Land system models have an important role in supporting future land use policy, but model outputs require scientific interpretation rather than being presented as predictions. The future of land system science is strongly dependent on the research community's capacity to bring together the elements of research discussed in the paper, via empirical data collection and analysis of observed processes, computer simulation across scale levels and futures analysis of alternative, normative visions through stakeholder engagement.     

Pro-poor growth,poverty and inequality in rural Vietnam

This study explores the effects of Vietnam's transition on the welfare of different ethnic groups in rural Vietnam. It draws on three rounds of national household surveys in 2002, 2004 and 2006. It is first observed that the pace of poverty reduction for minorities surpassed the majority over the period 2002–2006, although poor people were still concentrated in the minority groups throughout the period. Secondly, the disparity in living standards has been widening. In particular, inequality within both the majority and minority groups increased over the period. Thirdly, the study shows that the effect of economic growth on poverty is estimated to have been greater if inequality remained constant. It is also noted that the impacts of economic growth on poverty vary across different ethnic groups. Finally, regression decompositions of within inequality have confirmed that the main driver of inequality is not the same among ethnic groups. Given the diversity across different ethnic groups, we can conclude that government policy aimed at equal access to infrastructure and more equal distribution of assets, such as land, for ethnic minority groups would lead to more equal distribution of consumption and poverty reduction of those groups. Also, consideration of local needs would be necessary in designing and implementing public policies, given the heterogeneous socio-economic circumstances surrounding each ethnic minority group.     

How Sensitive Are Bank Managers to Shareholder Value?

We test for the existence of market discipline by shareholders of banks with a wide range of ownership structures. Discipline by shareholders manifests itself through monitoring banks’ level of risk as well as through influencing banks’ management actions. We find that shareholders utilize the relation between stock returns and different types of risk measures to monitor risky banks. Shareholders partially influence bank management by responding to decreasing stock returns with a demand to improve loan quality. Moreover, the influence on management in small banks is more pronounced compared to large banks.     

The role of experience in six sigma project success: An empirical analysis of improvement projects

Recent learning-by-doing research highlights the importance of examining multiple measures of experience and their relationship to the performance of work teams. Our paper studies the role of individual experience, organizational experience, team leader experience, and experience working together on a team (team familiarity) in the context of improvement teams. To do so, we analyze successful and failed six sigma improvement team projects at a Fortune 500 consumer products manufacturer with multiple business groups. Such improvement project teams focus on deliberate learning, which differs from the primary focus of work teams.Our analysis uses archival data generated by these improvement project teams over a six year time span. Of the four experience variables we study, we find that team leader experience exhibits the strongest relationship with project success, followed by organizational experience. Further, in contrast to prior-related research on work teams, we find no relationship between individual experience or team familiarity and project success beyond that explained by team leader and organizational experience. These results suggest that a well-developed and deployed structured problem-solving process—characteristic of effective six sigma deployments—may reduce the importance of team familiarity in the context of improvement teams.     

A methodology to assess the current situation in irrigated agriculture: An application to the village of Tauste (Spain)

Abstract

This paper presents a simple weighted goal programming model which can be used to predict the current allocation of agricultural enterprises in a particular geographical area. Moreover, it also shows how the approach proposed can be integrated into a multiobjective framework to measure the opportunity cost of maintaining the current situation in terms of several criteria relevant from a private and a public perspective. In this way, the opportunity cost of sustaining the current allocation of agricultural enterprises in the irrigated lands of Tauste (Spain) is assessed in terms of gross margin, employment, seasonal labour and water consumption.