Keeping promises: Interview with Professor Christian Grönroos

Professor Christian Grönroos, from the Hanken School of Economics at Helsinki in Finland, recently selected as a Legend in Marketing, shares his vision of the future for marketing

Marketing management capability: the construct, and its dimensions: an examination of managers' and entrepreneurs' perceptions in a retail setting

Purpose – This paper explores the relationship between corporate cultural/intangible assets and marketing capabilities by examining entrepreneurs’ and manager perceptions in a retail setting. Design/methodology/approach – Nineteen face-to-face interviews were conducted with UK Small and Medium Sized Enterprise (SMEs) managers and entrepreneurs to identify six sub-capabilities that form the marketing capability. We further validated the relationship between marketing sub-capabilities and its antecedent tangible and intangible assets. The qualitative approach employed provided a deeper insight into the motivations, perceptions and association of the stakeholders behind these intangible concepts, and their relationships with their customers. Findings – The research identified that there is a strong relationship between tangible and intangible assets, their components, and the following capabilities: corporate/brand identity management, market-sensing, customer relationship, social media/communication, design/innovation management, and performance management. In addition, companies need to clearly understand what tangible and intangible assets comprise these capabilities. Where performance management is one of the key internal capabilities, companies must underscore the importance of strong cultural assets that substantially contribute to a company’s performance. Originality/value – Previous work on dynamic capability analysis is too generic, predominantly relating to the manufacturing sector, and/or focussing on using a single case study example. This study extends the concept of marketing capability in a retail setting by identifying six sub-capabilities and describing the relationship of each with tangible and intangible assets. Through extensive qualitative analysis, we provide evidence that by fully exploiting their embedded culture and other intangible components, companies ca

Evaluating the impact of corporate logos towards corporate reputation: a case of Persia and Mexico

Purpose - This paper examines the impact of corporate logos on corporate image and reputation in creating competitive advantage in the context of Persia and Mexico as emerging markets. This paper provides an extensive links between corporate logo and its dimension and internal stakeholders’ attitudes towards advertisement, familiarity, and recognisability as intermediaries to corporate image and reputation. Design/methodology/approach - A qualitative exploratory approach was taken, comprising 12 face-to-face interviews 14 skype in-depth interviews were conducted with graphic designers, design, communication and marketing consultant in Mexico and Persia based on attribution theory. Findings - The study posits that the more favorable the name, color, typeface and design of the company and color, the more favorable the attitude Mexican consumers have towards the corporate logo, corporate image and reputation. However, in comparison for Persia these factors have less effect on customers’ judgment and behavior, towards the corporate logo, corporate image and reputation. The research findings suggest that the selection of color in a corporate logo is related to its marketing objectives, cultural values, desired customer relationship levels with the organisation, and organisation’s corporate communications. Practical implications - Corporate logo should be considered a constructive tool that can be effectively applied to managing the image and reputation of any organization. Moreover we suggest that regional or cultural variants can play an important role while selecting the logos in different cultures. The results are helpful for communication professionals who deal with organization’s corporate identity, branding, and communication, and aim to enhance the consistency of messages both visual and written within their organization Originality/value - Corporate logo has received little attention in marketing literature and barely been researched in emerging market. This is the first research of its kind to find the effect of the compound logo in emerging markets of Persia and Mexico. It thereby adds to the corporate visual identity literature by developing of the sphere of influence of the corporate logo and its antecedents and consequences (corporate image and corporate reputation)

An integrated core competence evaluation framework for portfolio management in the oil industry

The proponents of resource-based theory argue that efficient management of core competence portfolio provides sustainable competitive advantages. However, literature demonstrates little evidence regarding (i) how to identify core competence, specifically for a company operating in the oil sector, (ii) how to identify tangible and intangible resources related to the core competence of the company, and (iii) how to manage a company’s competence portfolio more efficiently by forging network alliances with collaborating firms. Drawing upon resource-based theory this paper presents a core competence evaluation framework for managing the competence portfolio of an oil company. The paper introduces a network typology to illustrate how to form different types of strategic alliance relations with partnering firms to manage and grow the competence portfolio. The framework is tested using a case study approach involving face-to-face structured interviews with twenty-five divisional managers of a large oil company in the Middle East. We identified purchasing, refining and sales and marketing as strong candidates to be the core competencies of the company. However, despite the company’s core business of refining oil, the core competencies were identified to be their research and development and performance management (PM) capabilities. We further provide a procedure to determine different kinds of physical, intellectual and cultural resources making a dominant impact on company’s competence portfolio. In addition, we provide a comprehensive set of guidelines on how to develop core competence further by forging a partnership alliance choosing an appropriate network topology. The paper makes many contributions to the field of strategic management and core competence evaluation in the oil sector. The guidelines provided can assist practitioners with devising appropriate network relationships with partnering companies in order to outsource, divest, protect and/or develop their core competence portfolio

Knowledge sharing by entrepreneurs in a virtual community of practice (VCoP)

Purpose. This paper examines how entrepreneurs engage in a Virtual Community of Practice (VCoP) to share knowledge. Intensity of engagement is taken as a proxy to measure the strength of knowledge sharing. Design/methodology/approach. The archival data spanning over a three-year period from ‘Start-up-Nation©’ (a VCoP purposefully setup for entrepreneurs) is used for analysis. A set of indices are introduced to measure participants’ intensity of engagement in terms of message length, message frequency and reciprocity in the knowledge sharing process. Content analysis is employed to test a sample of ‘highly engaged’, ‘moderately engaged’, ‘low engaged’ and ‘not engaged’ discussion topics as part of the on-line discourse. Findings. We find that entrepreneurs normally use short (fewer than 100 words) or medium (fewer than 250 words) message size to contribute to the discussions. In addition, we find that senior members and discussion moderators play important roles in igniting the ‘reciprocity’ behaviour in stimulating the interest of the community with the topic discussion. We also find that highly engaged topics usually lead to further discussion threads. Originality/value. This is the first study of its kind to explore how entrepreneurs engage in a VCoP to share their knowledge and experiences. The set of measurement indices tested here provide a tool for the owner, designer and moderator of the VCoP to measure the utility of their website in terms of its members’ participation. In addition, the set of textual and subjective interventions identified here enable the moderator (administrator) of a VCoP to design effective interventions to facilitate on-line discourse and augment the knowledge sharing process amongst its community members

How do entrepreneurs learn and engage in an online community-of-practice? A case study approach

This paper investigates the ways in which entrepreneurs use communities of practice (CoPs) to express themselves, using narrative theory and rhetorical analysis, to gain insight into an electronic social network medium, namely, YoungEntrepreneur.com. In particular, the study focuses on CoPs themes, including why entrepreneurs engage in CoPs, what role the moderators and resident entrepreneurs can play in managing online CoPs, on communication rituals of the knowledge sharing through interactivity, and on “how to develop an intervention” to maintain and stimulate entrepreneurs for engaging in on-line community. Findings reveal that topic title plays major role in attracting people. Successful topics with successful conclusion (in terms of the original query was answered) will not necessary get high responses and vice versa. It is observed that the domain expert does not play a big role in keeping the discussion going. Finally, the study also discovered that entrepreneurs like to communicate in story telling genre. A comprehensive set of engagement measurement tools are introduced to effectively measure the engagement in a virtual CoP, along with a classification to define and categorise discourse of messages in terms of content and context, which allow practitioners to understand the effectiveness of a social networking site

The role of place branding and image in the development of sectoral clusters: the case of Dubai

This paper contextualizes how place branding and image influence the development of Dubai’s key sectoral clusters, including the key determinants of growth and success under the impression of Porter’s cluster theory. The approach is exploratory and of a qualitative inductive nature. Data was collected through conducting 21 semi-structured interviews with Dubai’s marketing/communication managers and stakeholders. Findings suggest that Dubai’s traditional clusters, namely, trading, tourism and logistics that have strong place branding and image show strong signs of success owing to Dubai’s geographical location (i.e., physical conditions). Among the new clusters, the financial sector is also benefitting from place branding. The results suggest that the success of traditional clusters have a positive spill over effect on the new clusters, in particular on construction and real estate. For policy makers it is worth to note that the recent success of the financial services cluster in Dubai will have positive impact on both, the traditional as well new clusters. The marketing and brand communication managers must consider the correlation and interplay of strength of activities amongst trading, tourism and logistics clusters and its implication while undertaking place branding for clients in their sector

Efficient adaptive switch design for charge pumps in micro-scale energy harvesting

The performance of Micro-scale energy harvesting unit depends on the efficient design of charge-pump. Optimization of the dimension of MOSFET switches in charge pump is one of the techniques to improve the efficiency. In this work, a new optimization technique for transistor sizing and a concept of reconfigurable adaptive switches has been introduced to maximize the extracted power. A control unit is designed for adaptive reconfiguration of the switches. These proposed techniques are validated for linear charge-pump topology in UMC 180nm technology. Combined effect of size optimization of switch along with reconfigurable switch offers an improvement up to 23.5% in the net harvested power with 6% less silicon area

Hypothyroidism conversion to hyperthyroidism: it's never too late.

Primary hypothyroidism is a common endocrine condition, most commonly caused by autoimmune thyroiditis (Hashimoto's disease) while Graves' disease is the most common cause of hyperthyroidism. Hypothyroidism is usually a permanent condition in most patients requiring lifelong levothyroxine treatment. Transformation from Hashimoto's disease to Graves' disease is considered rare but recently been increasingly recognised. We describe a case of a 61-year-old lady who was diagnosed with hypothyroidism approximately three decades ago and treated with levothyroxine replacement therapy. Approximately 27 years after the initial diagnosis of hypothyroidism, she started to become biochemically and clinically hyperthyroid. This was initially managed with gradual reduction in the dose of levothyroxine, followed by complete cessation of the medication, but she remained hyperthyroid, ultimately requiring anti-thyroid treatment with Carbimazole. This case highlights that there should be a high index of suspicion for a possible conversion of hypothyroidism to hyperthyroidism, even many years after the initial diagnosis of hypothyroidism. To our knowledge, this case illustrates the longest reported time interval between the diagnosis of hypothyroidism until the conversion to hyperthyroidism. Learning points: Occurrence of Graves' disease after primary hypothyroidism is uncommon but possible.In this case, there was a time-lapse of almost 28 years and therefore this entity may not be as rare as previously thought.Diagnosis requires careful clinical and biochemical assessment. Otherwise, the case can be easily confused for over-replacement of levothyroxine.We suggest measuring both anti-thyroid peroxidase (TPO) antibodies and TSH receptor antibodies (TRAB) in suspected cases.The underlying aetiology for the conversion is not exactly known but probably involves autoimmune switch by an external stimulus in genetically susceptible individuals

Extraction of Cerium (IV) Using Di–n-butylsulfoxide in Chloroform from Nitric Acid and Determination with Arsenazo (III) as Chromogenic Reagent

A new and advantageous extraction procedure was developed for extraction of cerium (IV) from nitric acid with di-n-butylsulfoxide (DBSO) in perchloric acid. The extracted Ce (IV) was determined spectrophotometrically using 0.01 % solution of arsenazo-III in 3Mper-chloric acid. Various parameters such as equilibration time, metal ion concentration, effect of temperature and diverse ions on the extraction of the Ce (IV) were established. U (VI), Th (IV) and Pb (II) interfere whereas only phosphate and fluoride suppress the extraction among anions. The stoichiometric composition of the cerium complex withDBSO was determined by slope analysis and found to be 1:4. The process of extraction was found to be exothermic. Deionized water was the most appropriate solvent for back extraction of cerium. This method is easier and more sensitive than many of the reported procedures.KEYWORDS Cerium, extraction, DBSO, perchloric acid, arsenazo-II