This article studies the relationship between the production of the Mediterranean border between Italy and Tunisia, and Italy’s internal geographies of uneven development, commonly known as the 'Southern Question’. Through a study of contemporary Tunisian migration to Sicily in relation to turn of the 20th century Sicilian southward migration to French Protectorate Tunisia, it claims that Sicilians were made into Italians and Europeans through their relationship with Tunisians, and that Sicily was produced as Europe through the progressive demarcation and fortification of the Mediterranean border. Drawing on literature on colonial socio-spatial differentiation, internal colonialism and postcolonial analyses of migration to Europe, this article reframes current debates around the ‘integration’ of migrants as part of longer-term questions around the incorporation of ‘difference’ into the body-politic of the nation—questions that were historically posed in relation to colonial subjects and populations of metropolitan peripheries. Thus, the article considers current debates around the incorporation of migrants as part of a longer-term process of definition of the ‘civilizational’ boundaries of Europe. 相似文献
This study proposes brand communities as an effective tool within the integrated marketing communication (IMC) system. The paper utilizes the Brand Concept Map quali-quantitative technique in order to represent and compare mental association texture within one group of non-members of a brand community versus one group of people engaged in the same community. Brand stimulus is Nutella (chocolate cream) which boasts a crowded and lively online brand community: Nutellaville. Results show that brand community is effective in terms of contribution, commonality, and complementarity within the IMC system. In particular, Nutella brand image within the online community participants is composed of some mental associations overlapping other communication tools (commonality), and by new mental associations (complementarity) referred to the brand image dimension named ‘brand as person’ (seductive, popular, reassuring); second, this anthropomorphism effect solves the issue of sense of guilt excited by chocolate (contribution). 相似文献
The paper uses unique data on contracts concluded by providers of home care to evaluate the effect of provider market power
on prices of home care services in the Netherlands. Since, at least in some regions, one or two providers dominate the market,
there are concerns about the effect of providers’ market power on the pricing of home care services. Using data on contracted
prices and quantities for 2004–2006, we find that providers with a larger market share are able to contract at a higher price.
The effect remains after controlling for quality. 相似文献
Many firms have experienced greater success through implementing relationship marketing strategies. This is achieved by gaining knowledge about their own customers through database marketing and about the general marketplace through marketing research. Over time, this has led firms to adopt a general framework which we call the conventional path to profitability. This conventional framework suggests that new product innovation leads to acquisition, acquisition combined with a rich experience leads to satisfaction, satisfaction leads to loyalty and customer retention, and loyalty/retention leads to profitability. However, we show that some of the links in the framework are weak based on both academic research and marketplace realities. Consequently, we reverse the logic of the conventional path to profitability. We introduce a new approach that starts the customer relationship management strategy with customer profitability and the notion that different customers should be rewarded and satisfied differently. In addition, we outline a strategy that relationship marketing firms can implement, leading to higher levels of customer profitability and offer directions for future research. 相似文献
Although many scholars have demonstrated that companies engaged in collaborations achieve better environmental performance than other companies, existing studies have not analyzed in depth whether this effect changes considering the characteristics of cooperation. Our paper aims to explore whether collaboration with other companies always has a positive effect on environmental performance or whether it depends on cooperation goals, collaboration type, or company size. Empirical analysis based on a sample of 773 European companies demonstrated that an external source of knowledge is an important way to foster firms' environmental proactivity, especially when environmental goals are shared at the basis of collaboration. Second, we verified that companies involved in JVs with environmental goals achieve greater environmental performance than companies that use M&As to acquire external knowledge. Finally, we demonstrated that it is more important for small companies to be involved in environmental collaboration than larger ones. 相似文献
Past research on scapegoating argues that this crisis communication strategy is often ineffective because it can be perceived as an unfair attempt at shifting blame. In contrast, a few studies have shown that scapegoating can be effective by increasing the perceived ethicality of the sender relative to the target that is presented as responsible for wrongdoing. Reconciling these inconsistent findings, we show that the relative effectiveness of scapegoating depends on the perceptions of the sender and of the target. Our findings show that both the positioning of the sender as an underdog or a top dog and the positive or negative CSR record of the target contribute to explaining the effectiveness of scapegoating. Following a crisis, scapegoating appears to be most effective when the sender is an underdog and the target has a negative CSR record. The effectiveness of scapegoating for an underdog is however reduced when the target has a positive CSR record. At the opposite end, scapegoating might backfire when the sender is a top dog that attacks a target with a positive CSR record. Finally, when a top dog attacks a target with a negative CSR record, scapegoating reduces negative word of mouth even though this effect does not appear to be mediated by perceived ethicality. The study contributes to research on scapegoating communications and on the consequences of an underdog positioning and a positive CSR record for companies trying to manage the negative fallout from an ethical crisis.
Journal of Business Ethics - Companies faced with a crisis sometimes blame others in their communications, when they feel that responsibility for the negative event lies elsewhere. Research has... 相似文献
ABSTRACT A comparative analysis of population dynamics worldwide contributes to profile distinctive demographic and economic trajectories of urban growth, discriminating processes of settlement concentration or dispersion under sequential cycles of urbanization. However, a wide-ranging characterization of urban cycles based on demographic dynamics worldwide is still missing. The present work is aimed at filling such a gap analysing long-term changes (1950–2030) in annual population growth rate of 1691 urban agglomerations with more than 300,000 inhabitants in 74 world countries. Results of this study indicate that metropolitan growth worldwide was associated with largely variable rates of population growth, highly positive before 2000 and progressively reducing over recent decades. Despite important differences at continental (and country) scale, demographic expansion of urban agglomerations showed two contrasting phases with a break point in the 1980s denoting a progressive reduction in spatial heterogeneity of population growth rates and a moderate slowdown in demographic dynamics. Intensity of urban expansion and spatial heterogeneity in population growth rates across metropolitan agglomerations evidences a trade-off between fast and slow demographic dynamics. These findings can be better understood to support theories of sequential city growth, making a suitable contribution to policy making, especially in countries where urban population is expanding more rapidly. 相似文献