Internal marketing: Concepts,measurement and application

Internal marketing issues have been discussed widely for a number of years yet this remains an area in marketing with many fundamental questions unanswered. Previous research has not satisfactorily addressed a number of crucial issues in its development. The lack of attention to detail has hindered its progress and thus relegated it to the sidelines. As part of a wider study which investigates internal marketing from a transaction cost perspective, this paper sets the scene and explores the different views and applications of internal marketing. It addresses those fundamental questions that have not been thoroughly considered in the past. What are the principles that form the foundations for internal marketing? Does internal marketing belong in all organizations? Is internal marketing merely synonymous with good human resource management or should the organization pursue internal marketing in conjunction with external marketing activities? Then, with the transaction cost framework in mind, this paper considers how internal marketing can be measured and whether it is necessary, merely nice, irrelevant or indeed illegitimate.     

Peer Reporting and the Perception of Fairness

Economic motives are not the only reasons for committing a (small) crime. People consider social norms and perceptions of fairness before judging a situation and acting upon it. If someone takes a bundle of printing paper from the office for private use at home, then a colleague who sees this can take action by talking to the offender or someone else (peer reporting). We investigate how fairness perception influences the decision to act upon incorrect behavior or not.     

Who Benefits from Multiple Brand Celebrity Endorsements? An Experimental Investigation

Advertisers commonly use celebrity endorsers to increase the effectiveness of advertising in persuading consumers. In many cases, these celebrities endorse more than one brand. Little is known, however, about the benefit to brands from these multiple endorsements by the same celebrity. This research applies classical conditioning theory to an exploration of multiple brand endorsements by a single celebrity, and examines how brand concept consistency between endorsed brands affects consumers’ evaluations of the endorsed brand. The findings, over two separate studies, indicate that exact and high concept consistency between endorsed brands positively influences consumers’ attitude toward these brands.     

中国地方债务有救

中国的地方政府债务显然处于可控水平。近几个月，有批评人士指出，中国地方债务以高企的地价为抵押，被用于为浪费性的基础设施项目融资，因此中国面临着金融崩溃的危险。他们大错特错。相比很多富裕国家的债务负担，中国的整体债务负担要可持续得多，其融资对象也是在经济上更有效的项目。     

The Marketing of Tourism

The objectives of this article are to present the applications of marketing management in the tourism industry. The article discusses the various factors affecting the tourism market and its major sectors: (i) travel agencies and tour operators; (ii) hotel and catering; and (iii) transport. Any meaningful analysis of tourism marketing, should be based on: (a) market segmentation; (b) tourism marketing mix; and (c) marketing strategies. As the market for tourism services and products is dynamic and accompanied by rapid changes in the environment due to increased competition, technological changes and inflation, increased attention should be giver7 to the ernployme17t of appropriate marketing management methods as this industry, as indicated in the present article.     

Guest editors' introduction growth and globalization: Evolution of human resource management practices in Asia

In this introductory note, we offer an overview of how human resource management in Asian countries and corporations is evolving in the face of rapid business growth and integration into the global economy and we describe how the articles in this Special Issue contribute to new knowledge and insights regarding key issues, challenges, and evolution in the field of HRM in Asia. Driven by the combined forces of rapid gross domestic product growth in many Asian economies and their further integration into the global business arena, firms in Asia are in constant flux, no matter whether they are developed economies like Japan, Korea, andTaiwan; developing economies like Malaysia andThailand; or transitional economies like China and Vietnam. How will HRM systems in these countries evolve and transform under the combined forces of growth and globalization? We argue that HRM systems in these Asian firms most likely will evolve toward “bounded convergence.” The demands and expectations of the HR function to take on strategic roles (versus administrative roles) and address critical HR issues like attracting and retaining key talent, building talent pipelines, and creating high‐performing cultures are greater than ever. We conclude with a high‐level summary of the key contribution of the eight articles covered in this Special Issue. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Managing new product development: Some alternative ways to organise the work of technical specialists

There is an increasing amount of management literature about how to manage the product development process. By‐and‐large this concentrates on organisational and management techniques to be applied within the enterprise. Based on a piece of empirical work carried out in a number of engineering‐based companies, this paper suggests a range of organisational and managerial options extending beyond the boundaries of the firm. For those firms engaged in product developments which require the expertise of technical specialists choices have to be made about how much occupational control these specialists exert; how much managerial control should be exercised over them; how much of this expertise should be available in‐house and how much bought‐in; and what relations there should be with government in the training and development of these technical experts. This paper explores these options in the context of a study of engineering designers.