In Search of a Theory of Integrated Marketing Communications

For the most part, the literature base for Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) has developed from an applied or tactical level rather than from an intellectual or theoretical one. Since industry, practitioner and even academic studies have provided little insight into what IMC is and how it operates, our approach has been to investigate that other IMC community, that is, the academic or instructional group responsible for disseminating IMC knowledge. We proposed that the people providing course instruction and directing research activities have some basis for how they organize, consider and therefore instruct in the area of IMC. A syllabi analysis of 87 IMC units in six countries investigated the content of the unit, its delivery both physically and conceptually, and defined the audience of the unit. The study failed to discover any type of latent theoretical foundation that might be used as a base for understanding IMC. The students who are being prepared to extend, expand and enhance IMC concepts do not appear to be well-served by the curriculum we found in our research. The study concludes with a model for further IMC curriculum development

Evaluating the quality of undergraduate hospitality, tourism and leisure programmes

In this study, an instrument for measuring the quality of undergraduate programmes in hospitality, tourism and leisure (HTLP) was developed and empirically cross-validated. The study considered how total quality management (TQM) and context-input-process-product (CIPP) perspectives could be integrated to develop the framework, using documentary analysis, focus groups and content validity. Survey responses from 430 full-time teachers were used to verify the instrument for HTLP (IHTLP) via exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, and six standards, 12 dimensions and 63 indicators were identified. The six standards, in terms of relative importance, are curriculum and instruction; faculty; strategic planning; administrative management; student achievements; and resources. The implications for HTLP are also discussed

VLSI Revisited - Revival in Japan

This paper describes the abundance of semiconductor consortia that have come into existence in Japan since the mid-1990s. They clearly reflect the ambition of the government - through its reorganized ministry METI and company initiatives - to regain some of the industrial and technological leadership that Japan has lost. The consortia landscape is very different in Japan compared with EU and the US. Outside Japan the universities play a much bigger and very important role. In Europe there has emerged close collaboration, among national government agencies, companies and the EU Commission in supporting the IT sector with considerable attention to semiconductor technologies. Another major difference, and possibly the most important one, is the fact that US and EU consortia include and mix partners from different areas of the semiconductor landscape including wafer makers, material suppliers, equipment producers and integrated device makers.semiconductors, Hitachi, Sony, Toshiba, Elpida, Renesas, Sematech, VLSI, JESSI, MEDEA, ASPLA, MIRAI, innovation system

Industrial Policies in Developing Countries: History and Perspectives

This paper presents a historical and empirical account of the role played by government intervention in the form of industrial policies in spurring development and growth in developing countries in the last fifty years. Adopting the taxonomy proposed in Cimoli et alt. (2008), it describes the set of industrial policies implemented since the end of WWII to today in a number of developing countries. Which are the characteristics of successful industrial policies? Are there industrial policies, among the ones that have worked in the past, which can be also useful in the present context? Is there a fit-all recipe, or the high degree of country heterogeneity makes impossible to identify any general effective industrial policy? These are some of the questions this papers tries to suggest some answers.Industrial policy,Developing Countries,East Asia,Latin America

Organising the socio-economic relevance of university research: the case of nanomaterials research in Taiwan

This thesis is concerned with academics’ behaviour when organising research aimed at being relevant. More specifically, this study combines a sociological approach and an extensive bibliometric analysis, investigating the relationships between scientists’ perceptions of relevance, their research behaviours and their publishing activities in terms of organising nanomaterials research in Taiwan. By introducing a resource-based concept of the notion of relevance from a scientist’s perspective, it contributes to intellectual debates on changes to knowledge production and the relationship between scientific excellence and socio-economic relevance. The study finds that the ways nanomaterials scientists perceive and organise their research, specifically in terms of research orientation, industry involvement and interdisciplinary collaboration, are not entirely oriented towards socio-economic concerns. Scientists tend to adapt to the demand for relevance by demonstrating potential research applications and forming interdisciplinary collaborations. Nevertheless, they are more persistent in terms of not having industry involved in the research process. Balancing adaptation and persistence reflects scientists’ concerns with securing financial, intellectual and symbolic resources in order to establish their academic credibility. The bibliometric analysis broadly confirms the qualitative results findings, showing an increasing trend towards publishing in applied and targeted basic journals, and towards interdisciplinary collaboration. Yet, the proportion of university-industry papers has been rather stable over time. While our interviews suggest that senior scientists tend to consider interdisciplinary collaboration as a way to facilitate application, the bibliometric analysis shows that interdisciplinary co-authored papers tend to be more basic and receive more citations. The analysis also finds that junior scientists tend to feel more pressure to achieve a strong academic performance, thereby pushing them away from activities concerning achieving the envisioned socio-economic relevance of their research. Given the ambiguous notion of relevance and the inconsistency of policy practices, this thesis suggests that the real pressure is more to do with the demand for excellence than for relevance