Conceptually meeting expectations of Generation Y by building personalised-customised hybrid bundles to target action sports consumers

This paper conceptually explores how bundling could lead to greater revenue and brand loyalty in the action sports industry by meeting the expectations of Generation Y. The author defines personalised-customised hybrid bundles and proposes using these bundles to target Generation Y action sports consumers. Generation Y grew up in an even more media-saturated and brand-conscious world then their parents. They use brands for self-expression to define what is 'cool' and seek counter cultures such as action sports. They expect a virtual dialogue with companies and comparison shop quickly. The author explores how bricks-and-clicks retailers can sell distinct products with different costs in a bundle through utilising multi-channel customer management (MCM) in combination with customer's self-selection. A conceptual model is developed explaining how action sports capture Generation Y, and a second model demonstrates how MCM combined with customer self-selection can be used to create personalised-customised hybrid bundles.Ye

Developing a Pricing Strategy for the Los Angeles Dodgers

In 2011, the Los Angeles Dodgers Stadium averaged 36,236 fans per game, dropping from 43,979 in 2010 and 46,440 in 2009, an overall loss of about 10,000 fans per game in just two years. In 2011, The Dodgers\u27 attendance ranking fell from first to eleventh in Major League Baseball (MLB), which amounted to a loss of over 800,000 tickets sold per year, as well as the resulting revenue from concessions and parking. Despite the Dodgers\u27 long and storied history, ticket demand had been negatively influenced by inconsistent performance, mounting bad publicity surrounding owner Frank McCourt\u27s divorce, the beating of a San Francisco Giants fan on opening day at Dodger Stadium, and the threat of suspension or termination of the Dodgers by MLB commissioner Bud Selig if McCourt did not agree to sell the team. In 2009, the San Francisco Giants were the first MLB team to adopt dynamic ticket pricing, which adjusts prices in real time to match fluctuations in consumer demand

Feeding Collective Impact: How to Foster Cross-Sector Partnerships that Build Innovative Solutions for Social Change

As Dave Krepcho, CEO of Second Harvest Food Bank (SHFB) of Central Florida, stared at the numbers, he realized they were not going to food bank their way out of the meal gap—the representative number of the meals missing for those whose food budget falls short in securing adequate, nutritious food year round. It remained at approximately 110 million meals. Every year SHFB has increased food distribution playing a vital role in alleviating hunger— ‘feeding the line’; however, the meal gap persisted. SHFB’s vision is to inspire and engage the community to end hunger— ‘shortening the line’. Given the complexity, causes, and effects of food insecurity—a household’s inability to provide consistent access to sufficient food for every person to live an active healthy life—the answer to how to shorten the line remained elusive. Increasingly, Dave and his executive team felt the solution would require SHFB to disentangle the social determinants of health—the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age, which include employment, housing, socioeconomic status, education, neighborhood and physical environment, and social support networks, as well as access to health care. Dave wondered: Where and how should SHFB start? He knew they could not do it alone and they would need cross-sector partnerships to co-create innovative solutions together. But, what organizations would be willing, motivated, and able to collaborate? Dave and his executive team began to reach out to healthcare industry leaders asking: what if we worked alongside each other instead of separately? Guiding their conversations was a goal of fostering collective impact, which was first defined by Kania and Kramer (2011) in their article published Stanford Social Innovation Review as “the commitment of a group of important actors from different sectors to a common agenda for solving a specific social problem” (p. 36). With each conversation they intentionally used the word ‘we’, emphasized the shared value of “Food as Medicine’, and encouraged collaborative exploration. The open-ended nature of the conversations focused on listening and ideation. As champions of collective impact, SHFB invested in values, focused on facilitating rather than owning the process, and embraced continuous iterative learning. The assumption is institutional change, which refers to changes in the general constitution of an entire class of organizations, is best led by governments and corporations as they have the infrastructure and resources to enact change, whereas nonprofits have limited bandwidth and capacity to expand their business operations. Nevertheless, SHFB—an established community nonprofit with a strong financial foundation and an entrepreneurial organizational culture focused on innovating for tomorrow—began to play the vital role of fostering cross-sector partnerships to build innovative solutions for social change.Ye

Social Entrepreneurship Questioning the Status Quo: Waste as a Resource

There has been an increasing interest in social entrepreneurs' roles in creating social value, fostering economic development, and advancing environmental sustainability. In institutional economics, there is extensive support for entrepreneurship as having a positive impact on economic development and personal wellbeing. This paper challenges the accepted understanding of social entrepreneurs as being "heroic," and their process of starting a new venture as beginning with passion or with the recognition of a social problem. Through examining the case of Clean the World, a social enterprise, we demonstrate that not all social ventures start with the intention of creating social value, but with the question: How can I make a profit? We discuss a recently proposed paradigm called effectual entrepreneurship, and then we illustrate how this paradigm fits the path of Clean the World. Effectual entrepreneurs have questioned the status quo and have focused on the existing or available resources, rather than on identifying opportunities first. We then explore how Clean the World fell into social entrepreneurship by "accident," while considering waste a resource. We conclude by making some suggestions about how to facilitate more of these "accidents" by fostering a culture that questions the status quo.Ye

Encouraging servant leadership: A qualitative study of how a cause-related sporting event inspires participants to serve

A longitudinal, qualitative case study was conducted to explore if a cause-related sporting event could inspire participants to serve others and how the event achieved this. Servant leadership theory, social leverage theory, and social capital theory were used to inform the investigation. Findings revealed the event encouraged servant leadership. The structural mechanisms and social processes which helped to achieve this were: (a) creating event-related social events to build a community; (b) encouraging themes and hosting ceremonies to create a culture of storytelling and safe spaces; and (c) facilitating formal and informal gathering places to foster celebration. These structural mechanisms and social processes then generated individual-level impacts, which helped participants practice servant leadership by: (a) developing broader identities; (b) nurturing participants’ abilities to see they can make a difference; and (c) strengthening awareness of the healing power of service. A conceptual framework emerged from the data to describe how a cause-related sporting event can create a sustainable community of servant leaders.Ye

A Systematic Literature Review of Servant Leadership Theory in Organizational Contexts

A new research area linked to ethics, virtues, and morality is servant leadership. Scholars are currently seeking publication outlets as critics debate whether this new leadership theory is significantly distinct, viable, and valuable for organizational success. The aim of this study was to identify empirical studies that explored servant leadership theory by engaging a sample population in order to assess and synthesize the mechanisms, outcomes, and impacts of servant leadership. Thus, we sought to provide an evidence-informed answer to how does servant leadership work, and how can we apply it? We conducted a systematic literature review (SLR), a methodology adopted from the medical sciences to synthesize research in a systematic, transparent, and reproducible manner. A disciplined screening process resulted in a final sample population of 39 appropriate studies. The synthesis of these empirical studies revealed: (a) there is no consensus on the definition of servant leadership; (b) servant leadership theory is being investigated across a variety of contexts, cultures, and themes; (c) researchers are using multiple measures to explore servant leadership; and (d) servant leadership is a viable leadership theory that helps organizations and improves the well-being of followers. This study contributes to the development of servant leadership theory and practice. In addition, this study contributes to the methodology for conducting SLRs in the field of management, highlighting an effective method for mapping out thematically, and viewing holistically, new research topics. We conclude by offering suggestions for future research.Ye

Developing a Pricing Strategy for the Los Angeles Dodgers

The article discusses the downfall of the Los Angeles Dodgers, a professional baseball team based in Los Angeles, California, and also suggests to develop pricing policies for its revival. It mentions that the number of fans for the team averaged 36,236 per game in 2011which was major loss. It suggests the team to reassess ticket prices owing to changes in the product on and off the field.Ye

Compound Voids and Unproductive Entrepreneurship: The Rise of the “English Fever” in China

China has emerged as an economic power due, in part, to government policies that opened China to the world and created a modern consumer culture. One of these policies is the advancement of English-language education, including private providers, which has spawned the “English Fever” phenomenon. We use the unique context of the private English-language education industry in China to illustrate the concept of “compound (institutional) voids” and their relationship to unproductive entrepreneurship. Our contribution is in untangling some of the complexities related to institutional relationships, and in describing how compound voids increase the likelihood of rent-seeking behavior.Ye

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Exploring the relationship between entrepreneurship and resilience among the Boruca Indians of Costa Rica

This paper aims to explore the relationship between entrepreneurship and resilience in an indigenous context. The overarching research questions are: What are the mechanisms that link entrepreneurial thought and action to resilience in a marginalized context? How can entrepreneurial thought and actions lead to building economic, community and cultural resilience?Ye

Change is hard: overcoming barriers to service innovation

Creating value through service innovation requires new processes and ways of communicating to multiple stakeholders. Institutions and stakeholders within the service ecosystem, however, often resist change. Adopting a new service strategy entails two distinct costs – monetary and psychological. The tensions between an organization’s need to generate incremental revenue and the challenges of balancing business as usual and the costs associated with service innovation are explored. Specifically, this paper aims to explore the adoption of a customer relationship management (CRM) technology solution in a bureaucratic setting, and the sequence of events needed for successful implementation, with emphasis on overcoming various barriers and hurdles.Ye