Old and new approaches to marketing. The quest of their epistemological roots

In recent years the marketing discipline faced a considerable increase in the number of approaches. Some of the new "labels" are probably just new names advertised to sell old products. But some may contain significant new issues that need to be identified and discussed. Do these new marketing denominations (viral, retro, vintage, postmodern, judo, tribal, buzz, and many more) identify distinctions on subjects being studied, without particular methodological implications, or rather, do new labels and new subjects imply orientations that start from different epistemological premises and involve different research methodologies? This paper try to investigate if the proliferation of labels related to alleged new methods of marketing analysis actually implies a distinctions of subjects being studied and different epistemological premises.marketing trends, marketing epistemology

Product-line variety and innovation along product life-cycle in car market: are carmakers’ policies really effective?

This paper presents some preliminary results of a research concerning the evolution of product variety and product innovation policies of carmakers in the European market. Three market segments are taken into consideration for the period 1984-2004; data concerning model sales and product characteristics of some of the main carmakers are examined and the aspects taken into consideration refers to Product Life-Cycle (PLC), price positioning, rough measures of Product Line Width (PLW) and Product Line Innovation (PLI). The aim of the research is to describe product replacement policies and timing pursued by carmakers within each segment to evaluate the effectiveness of carmakers PLC policies through inter-brand comparison mainly based upon: a) PLC extent for each model, b) PLW variation along the life-cycle, c) PLI effectiveness. Differences in brands policies, as well as evolutionary trends of persistence or of discontinuity within the same brand are investigated, as well as the relation between PLC trend and timing in new model introduction.Car Industry, Product Policy, Car Marketing

In quest for a sustainable motorization: the CNG opportunity

This article aims at describing the opportunity deriving from the substitution of conventional fuels, as gasoline and diesel, with the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), frequently indicated as methane. The use of CNG systems in vehicles cannot be considered the ultimate solution to the problem of pollution generated by road transport, but the advantages of this fuel are: a) relevant, as it concerns consumer’s expenses and ecological aspect; b) rapidly achievable, waiting for availability of new technologies capable of more relevant advantages; c) close to hand for several countries: Europe and U.S. and those where the motorization is at the take-off stage, like the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China), and others like: Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia and so on. In fact, such countries in take-off stage on the one hand have extensive reserves of methane, and on the other hand need to cut emission urgently, specifically in areas with a high density of population. From the economic point of view CNG results a viable solution with few contraindication. The most important bottleneck is represented by a possible shortage in the distribution network. If a country is crossed by a gas pipeline this shortage could be overcome rapidly and without relevant costs. In the others the solution could be achieved either through gas carriers ships or through local production of biomethane by the exploitation of biomasses.Sustainable motorization, CNG, car industry, low emission cars

Global sourcing in the automotive supply chain: The case of Fiat Auto "project 178" world car

Objective of this paper is to present how Fiat Auto has developed a peculiar and innovative global sourcing model in conjunction with the rolling out of its "world car" project ?178?. Differently from other OEMs, that have designed vehicles with common "global" underbody platforms adapting body, trim levels and ride characteristics to local conditions, Fiat Auto "world car" concept and globalization strategy is more ambitious and complex, since the standardization of the 5 models stemming from the 178 platform involves absolute cross-country identity not only of interior/exterior design and contents but also of quality levels, robustness and compliance with European rules in terms of safety and pollution. The international supply chain supporting this globalization process can be interpreted as a double network of operations and transactions: the ?internal? supply chain, where "makes" are exchanged between Fiat Auto plants; the ?external? supply chain where ?buys? are purchased by Fiat Auto plants from suppliers. In the "external" supply chain, Fiat Auto manages, in a global sourcing perspective, a relatively stable group of suppliers, though in a competitive perspective, in order to guarantee cross-plant and cross-market component uniformity and worldwide efficiency. After depicting Fiat Auto global sourcing policies and the related organizational structures and processes, the paper highlights achievements and challenges of the model. The paper argues that Fiat's global sourcing, while putting competitive pressure on suppliers by means of worldwide information transparency on prices, quality and service, works as a performance improvement stimulator within OEM-first tier suppliers partnership relationships ("voice" mechanism), rather than a pure and simple supplierswitching device ("exit" mechanism)

Managing Information Flows in Supplier-Customer Relationships: Issues, Methods and Emerging Problems

IMVP, Working Pape

Global sourcing in the automotive supply chain:The case of Fiat Auto

Objective of this paper is to present how Fiat Auto has developed a peculiar and innovative global sourcing model in conjunction with the rolling out of its "world car" project "178". Differently from other OEMs, that have designed vehicles with common "global" underbody platforms adapting body, trim levels and ride characteristics to local conditions, Fiat Auto "world car" concept and globalization strategy is more ambitious and complex, since the standardization of the 5 models stemming from the 178 platform involves absolute cross-country identity not only of interior/exterior design and contents but also of quality levels, robustness and compliance with European rules in terms of safety and pollution. The international supply chain supporting this globalization process can be interpreted as a double network of operations and transactions: the "internal" supply chain, where "makes" are exchanged between Fiat Auto plants; the "external" supply chain where "buys" are purchased by Fiat Auto plants from suppliers. In the "external" supply chain, Fiat Auto manages, in a global sourcing perspective, a relatively stable group of suppliers, though in a competitive perspective, in order to guarantee cross-plant and cross-market component uniformity and worldwide efficiency. After depicting Fiat Auto global sourcing policies and the related organizational structures and processes, the paper highlights achievements and challenges of the model. The paper argues that Fiat's global sourcing, while putting competitive pressure on suppliers by means of worldwide information transparency on prices, quality and service, works as a performance improvement stimulator within OEM-first tier suppliers partnership relationships ("voice" mechanism), rather than a pure and simple supplierswitching device ("exit" mechanism)

The Social Appearance Anxiety Scale in Italian adolescent populations: Construct validation and group discrimination in community and clinical eating disorders samples

Anxiety in situations where one’s overall appearance (including body shape) may be negatively evaluated is hypothesized to play a central role in Eating Disorders (EDs) and in their co-occurrence with Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD). Three studies were conducted among community (N = 1995) and clinical (N = 703) ED samples of 11- to 18-year-old Italian girls and boys to (a) evaluate the psychometric qualities and measurement equivalence/invariance (ME/I) of the Social Appearance Anxiety (SAA) Scale (SAAS) and (b) determine to what extent SAA or other situational domains of social anxiety related to EDs distinguish adolescents with an ED only from those with SAD. Results upheld the one-factor structure and ME/I of the SAAS across samples, gender, age categories, and diagnostic status (i.e., ED participants with and without comorbid SAD). The SAAS demonstrated high internal consistency and 3-week test–retest reliability. The strength of the inter-relationships between SAAS and measures of body image, teasing about appearance, ED symptoms, depression, social anxiety, avoidance, and distress, as well as the ability of SAAS to discriminate community adolescents with high and low levels of ED symptoms and community participants from ED participants provided construct validity evidence. Only SAA strongly differentiated adolescents with any ED from those with comorbid SAD (23.2 %). Latent mean comparisons across all study groups were performed and discussed

In quest for a sustainable motorization: the CNG opportunity

This article aims at describing the opportunity deriving from the substitution of conventional fuels, as gasoline and diesel, with the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), frequently indicated as methane. The use of CNG systems in vehicles cannot be considered the ultimate solution to the problem of pollution generated by road transport, but the advantages of this fuel are: a) relevant, as it concerns consumer’s expenses and ecological aspect; b) rapidly achievable, waiting for availability of new technologies capable of more relevant advantages; c) close to hand for several countries: Europe and U.S. and those where the motorization is at the take-off stage, like the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China), and others like: Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia and so on. In fact, such countries in take-off stage on the one hand have extensive reserves of methane, and on the other hand need to cut emission urgently, specifically in areas with a high density of population. From the economic point of view CNG results a viable solution with few contraindication. The most important bottleneck is represented by a possible shortage in the distribution network. If a country is crossed by a gas pipeline this shortage could be overcome rapidly and without relevant costs. In the others the solution could be achieved either through gas carriers ships or through local production of biomethane by the exploitation of biomasses

Managing product life-cycle in the auto industry: evaluating carmakers effectiveness

The article analyzes the evolution of product life-cycle policies of main carmakers in the three main European markets (Germany, Italy and France). Sales data regarding 212 models of 13 major carmakers are taken into consideration for the period 1970-2006. A sub-sample including more detailed data (sales and features) of 125 car models along the period 1984-2005 has been investigated with the aim of evaluating effectiveness of product innovation and product line extension. The aim of the study is to describe product replacement policies and timing pursued by carmakers within each segment and to evaluate the effectiveness of carmakers PLC policies through inter-brand comparison. According to our results, PLC is getting dramatically shorter, but the reduction does not apply to maturity and saturation phases. Generally speaking, companies seem not effective in timing for new products, with few exceptions. Moreover, carmakers tend to support sales with a policy of product line extension, while no evidence of effectiveness of such policies emerges. Product innovation seems related to increase in sales, although the introduction of new models and versions is generally delayed with respect to the optimal life-cycle timing. Results from this exploratory research are used to fromulate hypotheses to be verified in further research based on more detailed data