A bittersweet past: The negative equity of corporate heritage brands

In this article we call for increased focus on the historicity of corporate heritage brands, pointing to the fact that perceptions of the past in the present do change as time goes by. Building on the idea of corporate brand historicity, we introduce the notion of ‘Negative Heritage Brand Equity’ (NHBE) to capture the historically contingent downside potentially associated with corporate heritage brands. We use the Danish consumer-co-operative COOP as an exemplary corporate heritage brand whose heritage has become historically balanced at the threshold between asset and liability. Based on a longitudinal analysis of COOP’s heritage we demonstrate how the entwinement of the company’s corporate heritage brand and Danish culture and identity worked to the benefit of COOP in some historical epochs, but has become increasingly misaligned with its political and cultural-economic environment since the 1980s. As the cultural, political and economic environments changed throughout COOP’s 120 years of history, so did the nature of COOP’s corporate heritage brand, which with the passing of time, negatively impacted on COOP’s image and constrained the company’s strategic option

Mild Pd-Catalyzed Aminocarbonylation of (Hetero)Aryl Bromides with a Palladacycle Precatalyst

A palladacyclic precatalyst is employed to cleanly generate a highly active XantPhos-ligated Pd-catalyst. Its use in low temperature aminocarbonylations of (hetero)aryl bromides provides access to a range of challenging products in good to excellent yields with low catalyst loading and only a slight excess of CO. Some products are unattainable by traditional carbonylative coupling.National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Award GM46059)Danish National Research Foundation (Grant DNRF59)Villum FoundationDanish Council for Independent Researc

Mild and Efficient Nickel-Catalyzed Heck Reactions with Electron-Rich Olefins

A new efficient protocol for the nickel-catalyzed Heck reaction of aryl triflates with vinyl ethers is presented. Mild reaction conditions that equal those of the corresponding palladium-catalyzed Heck reaction are applied, representing a practical and more sustainable alternative to the conventional regioselective arylation of vinyl ethers. A catalytic system comprised of Ni­(COD)₂ and 1,1′-bis­(diphenylphosphino)­ferrocene (DPPF) in combination with the tertiary amine Cy₂NMe proved effective in the olefination of a wide range of aryl triflates. Both electron-deficient and electron-rich arenes proved compatible, and the corresponding aryl methyl ketone could be secured after hydrolysis in yields approaching quantitative. Good functional group tolerance was observed matching the characteristics of the analogous Pd-catalyzed Heck reaction. The high levels of catalytic activity were explained by the intermediacy of a cationic nickel­(II) complex potentially responsible for the successive β-hydride elimination and base promoted catalyst regeneration. Although these elementary reactions are normally considered challenging, DFT calculations suggested this pathway to be favorable under the applied reaction conditions