Resilience in the face of adversity

With the third anniversary of 9/11 just passed and the threat of terrorist attacks still ever-present, reflection both personally and professionally has become a greater part of our lives. In a dynamic marketing environment, now more than ever, it is important to value the personal characteristics that makes us rise above a crisis and forge new pathways. This reminds me of an outstanding conference presentation I heard at the Academy of Management annual conference two years ago. Dr Steven Freeman, of the University of Pennsylvania, won a prestigious Best Paper award for his presentation, which outlined how an investment bank located in the twin towers not only survived the crisis but increased its market share

A Comparison of Attitudinal Loyalty Measurement Approaches

The aim of this paper is to present the empirical tests of two measures of attitudinal brand loyalty to identify if they are items of a single construct or two distinct constructs. These two measures are an individual's propensity to be brand loyal, and attitude towards the act of purchasing a specific brand. This paper also seeks to determine which of these measures would be more useful for explaining purchasing behaviour. The results confirm the hypothesis that there is no significant relationship between the two measures in the business services market. This indicates that they are in fact not measures of the same concept but two separate concepts. Aggregating the scores from both measures to form a single score for attitudinal loyalty would reduce richness of explanation for marketing practitioners. in addition, the results suggest that the attitude towards the act of purchasing a brand can be used to explain or predict purchasing behaviour

Consumer Appraisals of Mobile Marketing Communications

This paper reports on a study that investigates the emotions elicited from appraising SMS-based mobile marketing (m-marketing) communications under three marketing conditions: product consistency, incentives and permission giving. Results from the experimental design show that appraising m-marketing communications elicits both single emotions and mixed emotions; that is, a mixture of positive and negative emotions in the same response. Additionally, the results show that the influence of specific marketing conditions may increase or reduce the intensity of the emotions elicited. This study contributes to marketing practice by examining consumer appraisals of m-marketing communications under different combinations of marketing conditions. The results provide insights into which emotions are likely to be elicited as a result, and how a specific marketing condition might influence their levels of intensity. The study contributes to marketing theory also through combining appraisal theory with Richins (1997) consumption emotion set

A Typology of Mass Services: The Role of Service Delivery and Consumption Purpose In Classifying Service Experiences

Purpose — The purpose of this paper is to provide services marketers with a deeper understanding of the elements that characterize mass services. The paper shows that many studies have been conducted within the context of professional and retail services, knowledge of mass service contexts is limited despite the growth of services within this context. Design/methodology/approach — This paper provides a conceptual overview of mass services and develops a typology for mass services based on an extensive review of the services literature. Specifically, the typology developed classifies mass services on the basis of service delivery and purpose. The typology forwarded, therefore, classifies mass services using a two-by-two framework with individual and collective mass services classified as either utilitarian or hedonic in nature. Findings — The typology found in this paper provides a practical insight into the characteristics of services falling into the classification of mass services. The value of the classification is that managers can better understand the unique aspects of mass services, thus, allowing for a better utilization of limited resources. Moreover, the paper provides insights into a service classification that has received limited research emphasis, yet, is attracting increasing industry attention. Originality/value — This paper provides academics and practitioners with a framework that has both tactical and strategic implications. These implications include enhancing the customer experience and thus customer retention, resource management, employee training and service management. Given that such a framework has not been forwarded in the literature, the typology presented in the current paper makes an original contribution to the literature

Does High Intensity Treadmill Therapy in Infants with Down Syndrome Contribute to Attaining Motor Milestones at an Earlier Age?

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this systematic review is to determine whether or not high intensity treadmill therapy is effective in helping children with Down syndrome attain motor milestones at an earlier age

Back on the market: Understanding condom use behaviour in heterosexual adults 50 years+

Older adults began their sexual lives with an unprecedented sense of freedom thanks to the development of the contraceptive pill and women’s liberation movement. However with divorce rates rising and marriage rates declining, older adults are increasingly ‘back on the market’. This is also accompanied by a rise in the incidence of sexually transmitted infections that could be prevented by using a condom. The current literature on condom use typically has a youth focus and in particular an emphasis on contraception. Given the differing nature of sexual encounters for older consumers, there is a need for alternative explanations of condom use behaviour that reflect key motivations and barriers in this age cohort. Therefore we propose a new conceptual model to explain heterosexual older adult condom-use behaviour by drawing on two theoretical frameworks; protection motivation theory and sexual scripting theory. The new framework contains four categories of factors; sexuality, gender roles, threat appraisal and coping appraisal

Introduction – London 1600-1800: Communities of Natural Knowledge and Artificial Practice

This essay introduces a special issue of the BJHS on communities of natural knowledge and artificial practice in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century London. In seeking to understand the rise of a learned and technical culture within a growing and changing city, our approach has been inclusive in terms of the activities, people and places we consider worth exploring but shaped by a sense of the importance of collective activity, training, storage of information and identity. London’s knowledge culture was formed by the public, pragmatic and commercial spaces of the city rather than by the academy or the court. In this introduction, we outline the types of group and institution within our view and acknowledge the many locations that might be explored further. Above all, we introduce a particular vision of London’s potential as a city of knowledge and practice, arising from its commercial and mercantile activity and fostered within its range of corporations, institutions and associations. This was recognised and promoted by contemporary authors, including natural and experimental philosophers, practical mathematicians, artisans and others, who sought to establish a place for and recognition of their individual and collective skills and knowledge within the metropolis

Brace yourself! Why managers should adopt a synthetic media incident response playbook in an age of falsity and synthetic media

Synthetic media presents looming threats to managers in a business setting. To address this issue, we first offer a short overview of the evolution of media manipulation to contextualize the new era of synthetic media. Then, we present the problems associated with synthetic media via veridicality and heuristics to illustrate how consumers have little choice but to believe what they see, read, and hear online. We outline the most likely and impactful types of synthetic media threats and attacks and present a synthetic media incident response playbook. Our aim is to inform managers about six specific phases so they can prepare, assess, detect, analyze, and recover from synthetic media incidents and coordinate their lessons learned