Enhancing Brand Equity Through Sustainability: Waste Recycling

Unlike many existing research studies that explain reverse marketing from a purchasing perspective, this study recognizes it as an honest effort made by managers aiming to promote sustainability by purposefully managing waste and discusses the spillover effect of their initiatives on brand equity. It argues that efficient recycling of products through reverse marketing by a brand demonstrates its sincere intent to adopt sustainable business practices and enhances its equity in the marketplace. A business-to-business viewpoint has been used to combine knowledge about waste recycling and management through reverse marketing based on the unpretentious operations and management practices. The propositions reflect on the criticality of engaging business customer firms in a procedural mechanism of recycling for increase in brand equity as the success of reverse marketing. A comprehensive adoption of an initiative like waste management through reverse marketing by a brand highlights how sustainability initiatives can create value for the customers of the brand and ultimately drive brand equity

Innovative public governance through cloud computing: Information privacy, business models and performance measurement challenges

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze challenges and to discuss proposed solutions for innovative public governance through cloud computing. Innovative technologies, such as federation of services and cloud computing, can greatly contribute to the provision of e-government services, through scaleable and flexible systems. Furthermore, they can facilitate in reducing costs and overcoming public information segmentation. Nonetheless, when public agencies use these technologies, they encounter several associated organizational and technical changes, as well as significant challenges. Design/methodology/approach: We followed a multidisciplinary perspective (social, behavioral, business and technical) and conducted a conceptual analysis for analyzing the associated challenges. We conducted focus group interviews in two countries for evaluating the performance models that resulted from the conceptual analysis. Findings: This study identifies and analyzes several challenges that may emerge while adopting innovative technologies for public governance and e-government services. Furthermore, it presents suggested solutions deriving from the experience of designing a related platform for public governance, including issues of privacy requirements, proposed business models and key performance indicators for public services on cloud computing. Research limitations/implications: The challenges and solutions discussed are based on the experience gained by designing one platform. However, we rely on issues and challenges collected from four countries. Practical implications: The identification of challenges for innovative design of e-government services through a central portal in Europe and using service federation is expected to inform practitioners in different roles about significant changes across multiple levels that are implied and may accelerate the challenges' resolution. Originality/value: This is the first study that discusses from multiple perspectives and through empirical investigation the challenges to realize public governance through innovative technologies. The results emerge from an actual portal that will function at a European level. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Advancing Strategy: How to Lead Change in Corporate Societal Engagement

Implementing a strategy may be even harder than developing it. This learning brief is intended for corporate foundation and CSR leaders who have completed an initial strategy refresh process and who seek effecitve practices and tools to advance this strategy. In our experience advising more than 100 multinational companie, effective leaders facilitate structured, data-informed decisions and enable important organizational improvements to achieve their strategic objectives. Specifically, advancing strategy in corporate societal engagement typically requires leading change in two major areas of the overall portfolio: designing a signative initiative and transforming local giving

Living Labs as a navigation system for innovative business models in the music industry

Media industries and other rapidly evolving, complex, uncertain markets have a hard time to survive if they do not optimize or radically change their business models. This paper analyses the potential of involving all relevant stakeholders of the value network in the development of a business model by means of a panel based multi-method Living Lab approach. Using an in-depth case study analysis, a critical analysis of both the potential value and the weaknesses of such an approach are being assessed. Although some difficulties exist, opening this innovation process and involving external actors in a structural way has the potential to increase the value creation and sustainability of the business model. This paper also stresses the importance of multidisciplinary research on multi-stakeholder involvement in business model innovation

ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks: a literature review

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation is a complex and vibrant process, one that involves a combination of technological and organizational interactions. Often an ERP implementation project is the single largest IT project that an organization has ever launched and requires a mutual fit of system and organization. Also the concept of an ERP implementation supporting business processes across many different departments is not a generic, rigid and uniform concept and depends on variety of factors. As a result, the issues addressing the ERP implementation process have been one of the major concerns in industry. Therefore ERP implementation receives attention from practitioners and scholars and both, business as well as academic literature is abundant and not always very conclusive or coherent. However, research on ERP systems so far has been mainly focused on diffusion, use and impact issues. Less attention has been given to the methods used during the configuration and the implementation of ERP systems, even though they are commonly used in practice, they still remain largely unexplored and undocumented in Information Systems research. So, the academic relevance of this research is the contribution to the existing body of scientific knowledge. An annotated brief literature review is done in order to evaluate the current state of the existing academic literature. The purpose is to present a systematic overview of relevant ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks as a desire for achieving a better taxonomy of ERP implementation methodologies. This paper is useful to researchers who are interested in ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Results will serve as an input for a classification of the existing ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Also, this paper aims also at the professional ERP community involved in the process of ERP implementation by promoting a better understanding of ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks, its variety and history

Segmenting Publics

This research synthesis was commissioned by the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) to examine audience segmentation methods and tools in the area of public engagement. It provides resources for assessing the ways in which segmentation tools might be used to enhance the various activities through which models of public engagement in higher education are implemented. Understanding the opinions, values, and motivations of members of the public is a crucial feature of successful engagement. Segmentation methods can offer potential resources to help understand the complex set of interests and attitudes that the public have towards higher education. Key findings: There exist a number of existing segmentations which address many of the areas of activity found in Universities and HEIs. These include segmentations which inform strategic planning of communications; segmentations which inform the design of collaborative engagement activities by museums, galleries, and libraries; and segmentations that are used to identify under-represented users and consumers. Segmentation is, on its own, only a tool, used in different ways in different contexts. The broader strategic rationale shaping the application and design of segmentation methods is a crucial factor in determining the utility of segmentation tools. Four issues emerged of particular importance: 1. Segmentation exercises are costly and technically complex. Undertaking segmentations therefore requires significant commitment of financial and professional resources by HEIs; the appropriate interpretation, analysis, and application of segmentation exercises also require high levels of professional capacity and expertise 2. Undertaking a segmentation exercise has implications for the internal organisational operations of HEIs, not only for how they engage with external publics and stakeholders 3. Segmentation tools are adopted to inform interventions of various sorts, and superficially to differentiate and sometime discriminate between how groups of people are addressed and engaged. 4. For HEIs, the ethical issues and reputational risks which have been identified in this Research Synthesis as endemic to the application of segmentation methods for public purposes are particularly relevant

Mobile Value Added Services: A Business Growth Opportunity for Women Entrepreneurs

Examines the potential for mobile value-added services adoption by women entrepreneurs in Egypt, Nigeria, and Indonesia in expanding their micro businesses; challenges, such as access to digital channels; and the need for services tailored to women

Market orientation and corporate success: Findings from Germany

The significance of the markteing concept for corporate management is the subject of a long-standing controversy. This empirical study conducted in Germany, the largest European market, shows that together with other basic dimensions of management, market orientation contributes substantially to corporate success. In addition, the results indicate that popular practical measures designed to implement the marketing concept within the organization may cause negative side effects on corporate success. These risks could be controlled by observing a number of strategies suggested in this article. But detecting these risks requires a holistic research approach to corporate management, of which market orientation represents only one basic dimension. An integrated perspective of research, such as the one presented in this paper, is still alien to the empirical research regarding the question of whether market orientation exerts an impact on corporate success. --

Pursuing Energy-Efficient Behavior in a Regulatory Environment: Motivating Policymakers, Program Administrators, and Program Implementers

This white paper examines how policymakers, program administrators, and program implementers can be motivated to pursue behavioral change in a regulatory environment. For the purposes of this report, behavior change is defined rather broadly, encompassing both behaviors associated with the purchase and installation of energy efficiency technologies as well as behaviors, decisions, and actions that might be thought of as more independent of technology. These include energy use habits, lifestyle choices, and consumption patterns. The insights and lessons discussed in this paper are drawn from a wide variety of sources including interviews with representatives from the energy and utility communities, and program documentation for energy-related programs and projects