Small and medium size firm’s marketing competitive advantage and environmental initiatives in the Middle East

The paper explores Small and Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs) in Saudi Arabia within the context of environmental sustainability. The objective of the study is to examine whether SME’s sustainable marketing competitive advantage through environmental initiatives can positively associate to a firm’s environmental (green) best practices and stakeholder influences; similarly, it also identifies if best practices mediate environmental costs and competitive advantage. A sample of 181 responses are obtained and are analysed using factor analysis, multiple regression and their interaction effects. The findings show that the association between firms that have competitive advantage due to environmental initiatives were found to be significant for best practices and indirect stakeholder influences. Furthermore, the results identified that by using environmental best practices, SMEs can lower their environmental costs to gain marketing competitive advantage. These findings highlight the function of environmentalism and how it can influence practitioners.     

Aligning the sustainable supply chain to green marketing needs: A case study

The research explores the challenges facing organisations in aligning sustainable procurement requirements and marketing needs and the attendant shifts in supply chain management practices. Whilst external influences are readily understood (e.g. regulation and customer demand), less is understood about the implications for suppliers trying to meet sustainable procurement requirements and the organisational challenges of aligning marketing with sustainable supply chain management. An exploratory case study of a UK University catering department has been undertaken, to explore the strategies, processes and relationships associated with synthesising sustainable supply chain and green marketing needs. The empirical findings illustrate the divergence between organisational perspectives on sustainability and procuring sustainable products with marketing demands. Thus, the findings extend the theoretical discussion on sustainable supply chains by providing empirical data based on real-life implementation and from this an emergent aligned supply chain model is proposed, which confirms two drivers for alignment, ‘lean and resource efficient’ and ‘local and seasonal’ — contingent on market demand. The findings emphasise the benefits of a reverse information flow, the importance of intermediaries, and relationships in its fulfilment, while indicating the resurgence of a supply ‘push’ of sustainable products into core markets. Future research directions are also posited.     

The probability evaluation game: an instrument to highlight the skill of reflexive listening

This paper describes the development of the Probability Evaluation Game (PEG): an innovative teaching instrument that emphasises the sophistication of listening and highlights listening as a key skill for accounting practitioners. Whilst in a roundtable format, playing PEG involves participants individually evaluating a series of probability terms and then calling out their evaluations amongst fellow players who have done the same. When listening to peers’ responses, any difference in evaluation of the same term confronts players with the knowledge that without skilled, reflexive listening conversations are dangerous playgrounds of miscommunication. The PEG presents a valuable learning opportunity where the potential impact of this issue for accounting and business world can be discussed. This paper details how PEG was developed, its format and how it has been used with students and accounting practitioners. Furthermore emergent, and often intriguing, learning points are discussed and related to accounting and the workplace more generally.     

AIDS Policy and Pharmaceutical Patents: Brazil's Strategy to Safeguard Public Health

Developing nations are challenged to strike a balance between their patent obligations as members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and their drug pricing strategies. The Brazilian approach to pharmaceutical price negotiations has been strikingly effective. Describing the context of the Brazilian pharmaceutical sector, their public health system and the Brazilian AIDS policy, this paper examines the Brazilian strategy vis‐à‐vis the international pharmaceutical manufacturers to explore why their tactics were successful and the potential for wider application by other developing countries.     

Being appropriately professional: the interaction between professionalism,ICT and knowledge transfer

This article examines how professionalism impacts on the interaction and knowledge transfer of professionals within open plan workspaces and between distributed workplaces when using ICT. Knowledge is key to the system of professions and the power of professionals. At the same time, professional work requires professionals to behave in an appropriate and professional‐like manner, and this includes sharing knowledge with colleagues. Yet, the ideology of professionalism is changing. Alongside, professionals are working differently, including across distributed workplaces and often interacting via ICT. These shifting contexts make understanding the interaction between professionalism, knowledge transfer and ICT crucial. Drawing on Goffman's work, particularly his exposition of interaction rituals, interviews with accountants reveal that when using ICT, the professional framework of interaction – what can be said, who has the right to speak and who is the audience – meets appropriateness in sometimes contradictory ways, potentially limiting the growth and propagation of knowledge.     

Acknowledgments and manuscript status

Robert Christie Mill and Alastair M. Morrison, The Tourism System (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice‐Hall, Inc., 1985), ISBN 0–13–925645–8, 457 pp. $21.95.

Marion Clawson and Carlton Van Doren, eds., Statistics on Outdoor Recreation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984), ISBN 0–915707–1110X, 368 pp., $15.00, paper.

Yi‐Fu Tuan, Dominance and Affection: The Making of Pets (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1984), ISBN 0–300–03222–6, 193 pp., $19.95.     

Environmental management systems: an alternative marketing strategy for sustainability

The purpose of the paper is to shed light on the extent to which environmental management systems such as ISO 14000 standards influence marketing efforts. By examining firms who prefer ISO 14000 standards against those who do not, this research provides a platform for understanding their significance when applied to marketing and seeks to improve environmental marketing strategies. The study empirically tests whether statistically significant differences exist between the two groups on a set of marketing variables. The study uses hierarchical clustering Ward’s method and measurement using squared Euclidean distances to determine the two groups. Discriminant analysis (DA) was used to classify each of the observations into selected groups; and test differences between these groups. Stepwise DA identified customer satisfaction as the best marketing predictor. This research indicates that green market-driven solutions for responsible consumption work best when it is consumer-driven, and consumers derive satisfaction from those results. The results adopts the view that investing in IS0 14000 standards is also highly beneficial for the wider applicability of developing strategies that would help firms make better decisions in marketing.     

From rhetoric to reality: farmer perspectives on the economic potential of biochar in China

Biochar has garnered much attention for its potential to improve farming productivity and sustainability by amending soil, enhancing crop yields, improving fertilizer use efficiency and sequestering carbon. However, few publications consider farmer perspectives on whether biochar is attractive as an agricultural input. This paper therefore investigates the micro-economics and social suitability of biochar in four contrasting Chinese agricultural systems, using linear optimization models and qualitative contextual data. Results demonstrate that commercially produced biochar is uneconomic as an independent farming input, whilst farm-produced biochar shows promise in just one of four case-study sites. This suggests that biochar research in China should shift away from on-farm production and application of pure biochar, towards combined biochar-inorganic fertilizer products.