The BP Deepwater Horizon débâcle and corporate brand exuberance

This article is available to download from the publisher’s website at the link below.No abstract available (Editorial)

Scrutinising the British Monarchy: The corporate brand that was shaken, stirred and survived

Purpose – The principal purposes of this article are to provide normative advice in terms of managing the British Monarchy as a Corporate Heritage Brand and to reveal the efficacy of examining a brand’s history for corporate heritage brands generally. Design/methodology/approach – Taking a case history approach, this article examines critical events in the Crown’s history. This article is also informed by the diverse literatures on the British Monarchy and also marshals the identity literatures and the nascent literature relating to corporate brands. Six critical incidents that have shaped the monarchy over the last millennium provide the principal data source for this article. Findings - In scrutinising key events from the institution’s historiography it was found that the management and maintenance of the Crown as a corporate brand entail concern with issues relating to (1) continuity (maintaining heritage and symbolism), (2) visibility (having a meaningful and prominent public profile), (3) strategy (anticipating and enacting change), (4) sensitivity (rapid response to crises), (5) respectability (retaining public favour), and (6) empathy (acknowledging that brand ownership resides with the public). Taking an integrationist perspective, the efficacy of adopting a corporate marketing approach/philosophy is also highlighted. Research limitations – The insights derived from this article are based on the extant literatures on the Monarchy: richer insights would, of course, be derived from undertaking research within the institution. However, the difficulty in gaining access to the Royal Household in undertaking empirical/publishable research renders most methodologies currently used within management research virtually unavailable. Practical implications – There are two. In terms of the Crown a new tripartite dictum is offered which is broader in scope than Bagehot’s and takes account of the Monarchy’s constitutional, societal and symbolic obligations. As such, the Crown should be Dutiful to the tenets of a constitutional monarchy; Devoted to the peoples of the realm and Dedicated to maintaining royal symbolism. In terms of the management of corporate brands/heritage brands a five- faceted approach/modus operandi is introduced which is called: ‚Chronicling the Corporate Brand.‛ These are: (a) chronicling the brand’s history; (b) assembling a cross-section of individuals to set down the corporate brand narrative; (c) documenting and communicating the insights from the aforementioned (d) marshalling the narrative vis a vis corporate brand management/crisis management; (e) revisiting the brand’s history for new insights. Originality/value – This is one of the first articles to examine the British Monarchy through a corporate branding lens. It confirms that the Crown is analogous to a corporate brand and, therefore, ought to be managed as such

Corporate brands, the British Monarchy, and the resource-based view of the firm

Drawing on the nascent literature on corporate brands, the economic theory of the resourced-based view of the firm and the extensive literature on the British Monarchy, this article examines the branding credentials of the British Crown. This is the first time that this most arcane of institutions has been examined from organizational and management perspectives. The synthesis of these literatures confirmed the branding credentials of the Crown. From this, it is deduced that if the British Crown is a corporate brand then it ought to be managed as such. A conceptual model for the management of the monarchy is introduced and this involves the dynamic orchestration of five elements (Royal, Regal, Relevant, Responsive and Respected.) This is called “The Royal Branding Mix.” The Royal and Regal elements equate to a brand’s identity and have an explicit organizational focus. In contrast, the Relevant, Responsive, and Respected dimension have a public (stakeholder) focus. A “Corporate Branding Mix” is introduced which aims to have a more general utility and represents an adaptation of the “Royal Branding Mix.

Disrupting Homelessness: Alternative Christian Approaches

Title: Disrupting homelessness: alternative Christian approaches Author: Laura A Stivers Publisher: Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 2011. ISBN: 978080069797

Fields of Blood

Title: Fields of blood: religion and the history of violence. Author: Karen Armstrong. Publisher: New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014. ISBN: 9780307957047

Presheaves of triangulated categories and reconstruction of schemes

To any triangulated category with tensor product $(K,\otimes)$, we associate a topological space $Spc(K,\otimes)$, by means of thick subcategories of $K$, a la Hopkins-Neeman-Thomason. Moreover, to each open subset $U$ of $Spc(K,\otimes)$, we associate a triangulated category $K(U)$, producing what could be thought of as a presheaf of triangulated categories. Applying this to the derived category $(K,\otimes):=(D^{perf}(X),\otimes^L)$ of perfect complexes on a noetherian scheme $X$, the topological space $Spc(K,\otimes)$ turns out to be the underlying topological space of $X$; moreover, for each open $U\subset X$, the category $K(U)$ is naturally equivalent to $D^{perf}(U)$. As an application, we give a method to reconstruct any reduced noetherian scheme $X$ from its derived category of perfect complexes $D^{perf}(X)$, considering the latter as a tensor triangulated category with $\otimes^L$.Comment: 18 pages; minor change

Church of the oldest child

Luke 15:11-32