Understanding the construction of marketers’ credibility by NZ senior managers: An interpretive study

Academics report that marketers are losing their influence in the boardroom due in part to serious challenges to marketing’s credibility. Although the credibility of marketing sources has received much attention since the early 1950s, research into how individuals in business organisations construct the credibility of marketers is scarce. This study, using in-depth interviews, describes how seven senior managers from different New Zealand businesses construct the credibility of marketers. For these senior managers, the credibility of marketers is grounded in their performance in delivering commercial outcomes. The findings also suggest that senior managers construct credibility in terms of a work aspect and a social aspect of a marketer’s performance, and that both these aspects have to be present if the marketer is to be considered credible. The work aspect of performance is made up of a marketer’s Pedigree, Projects, and Pervasive Influence. The Pedigree of a marketer includes their qualifications, skills and background. A degree is usually the minimum qualification required, particularly for more senior marketing roles. Skills expected from marketers include leadership, management, sales and intuition. With regard to background, the marketer needs to demonstrate they have achieved commercial outcomes in previous employment to be considered credible. Projects describes how marketers must design and implement cogent marketing plans, work effectively without supervision, achieve commercial outcomes in a clever or creative way, and provide evidence that their projects have contributed to commercial outcomes. Pervasive Influence describes how marketers influence others in the organisation toward customer-centricity. Marketers can lose credibility in the work aspect of their performance when they have no structured purpose to their marketing research, are unable to execute marketing plans or are unable to demonstrate the results of a marketing project. The social aspect of a marketer’s performance is made up of Personal Integrity and Professional Conduct. Personal Integrity describes marketers who are respected, take pride in their work, strive to improve themselves and are not precious. Professional Conduct describes a marketer who relates and collaborates competently and professionally with others, and is a team fit. Marketers lose credibility in the social aspect of their performance when they are precious, flighty, argumentative, and only out for themselves. This paper contributes a framework that describes the construction of a marketer’s credibility from a senior manager’s perspective. It also introduces a new understanding of credibility, grounded in performance terms, which is distinct from past conceptualisations of credibility found in the literature, which is based on expertise and trustworthiness. These findings demonstrate that while a marketer might be considered an expert and trustworthy, if they are not delivering commercial outcomes then they may not be considered credible, from a senior manager’s perspective

A field study to assess the degradation and transport of diuron and its metabolites in a calcareous soil

An experimental plot has been established on a calcareous soil in southern England to investigate the fate and transport of diuron (N'-[3,4-dichlorophenyl]-NN-dimethylurea), a commonly used phenylurea herbicide. An agricultural grade of diuron was applied to the soil surface at a rate of 6.7 kg/ha along with a potassium bromide conservative tracer applied at 200 kg/ha, in early January, 2001. Hand augured samples were taken at regular intervals over the next 50 days, with samples collected down to 54 cm. Porewaters were extracted from the soil cores by using high speed centrifugation and the supernatant fluids were retained for analysis by HPLC, for diuron and three of its metabolites, N'-[3,4-dichlorophenyl]-N,N-methylurea (DCPMU), N'-3,4-dichlorophenylurea (DCPU) and 3,4-dichloroaniline (DCA). The centrifuged soil was retained and then extracted with methanol prior to HPLC analysis for the same suite of phenylureas. A mass balance approach showed large variations in diuron distribution, but on average accounted for 104% of the diuron applied. Concentrations of diuron and its metabolites were roughly five times higher in the soil than in the soil porewaters. After 50 days, metabolites comprised 10% of the total diuron present in the porewater and 20% of the total diuron sorbed to the soil matrix. After 36 days, a large pulse of diuron and DCPMU appeared in the porewaters and soil matrix at a depth of 54 cm, travelling an average of 0.15 cm/day faster than Br. A preferential route for diuron transport is suggested. There is evidence to suggest that degradation occurs at depth as well as at the soil surface. Metabolites generally appear to move more slowly than the parent compound. All metabolites were encountered, but interpreting transport and degradation processes simultaneously proved beyond the scope of the study. Diuron was detected once in a shallow (5 m) observation well, situated on the experimental plot. High concentrations of diuron and metabolites were still present in the soil and soil solutions after 50 days and remain as a source of potential groundwater contaminatio

Socio-Economic Evaluation of the Potential for Australian Tree Species in the Philippines

Crop Production/Industries,

Naturally Occurring Markets and Exogenous Laboratory Experiments: A Case Study of the Winner's Curse

There has been a dramatic increase in the use of experimental methods in the past two decades. An oft-cited reason for this rise in popularity is that experimental methods provide the necessary control to estimate treatment effects in isolation of other confounding factors. We question the relevance of experimental findings from laboratory settings that abstract from the field context of the task that theory purports to explain. Using common value auction theory as our guide, we identify naturally occurring settings in which one can test the theory. In our treatments the subjects are not picked at random, as in lab experiments with student subjects, but are deliberately identified by their trading roles in the natural field setting. We find that experienced agents bidding in familiar roles do not fall prey to the winner's curse. Yet, when experienced agents are observed bidding in an unfamiliar role, we find that they frequently fall prey to the winner's curse. We conclude that the theory predicts field behavior well when one is able to identify naturally occurring field counterparts to the key theoretical conditions.

Women-owned small and medium enterprises in England: analysis of factors influencing the growth process

Practical implications – This research has implications for government or other business development agencies seeking to understand the growth patterns and problems of women-owned enterprises in the East of England. Originality/value – There are few British studies that have focussed on growth oriented women-owned businesses. This study contributes to the body of knowledge by attempting to understand the nature and activities of such business, by analysing the main growth factors and their influence on different growth strategies.Purpose – This study attempts to understand the nature and activities of growth-oriented women-owned businesses in the East of England by highlighting the problems faced by women entrepreneurs during the growth process. Design/methodology/approach – The approach analysed the main growth factors and their influence on the adoption of different growth strategies. An online questionnaire was designed using Snap survey software™, with results exported to SPSS™ for analysis. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected via a variety of scaled, open-ended, rank order, dichotomous, multiple choice and open questions. Findings – The research indicates that most do not opt to develop growth-oriented businesses, choosing instead small, non-scalable, locally focused businesses providing services or operating in low-tech industries. Women who are growth-oriented appear to be inhibited due to a lack of access to, and control over such resources as, capital, business premises, information and technology, production inputs, appropriate childcare, qualifications, experience, training facilities and appropriate assistance from business development agencies. Non-effective accumulation and use of social capital hinders access to appropriate decision-making circles, and limits the probability of accessing critical management and financing resources, especially through the venture capital industry

Some new results on decidability for elementary algebra and geometry

We carry out a systematic study of decidability for theories of (a) real vector spaces, inner product spaces, and Hilbert spaces and (b) normed spaces, Banach spaces and metric spaces, all formalised using a 2-sorted first-order language. The theories for list (a) turn out to be decidable while the theories for list (b) are not even arithmetical: the theory of 2-dimensional Banach spaces, for example, has the same many-one degree as the set of truths of second-order arithmetic. We find that the purely universal and purely existential fragments of the theory of normed spaces are decidable, as is the AE fragment of the theory of metric spaces. These results are sharp of their type: reductions of Hilbert's 10th problem show that the EA fragments for metric and normed spaces and the AE fragment for normed spaces are all undecidable.Comment: 79 pages, 9 figures. v2: Numerous minor improvements; neater proofs of Theorems 8 and 29; v3: fixed subscripts in proof of Lemma 3

Are Albumin levels a good predictor of mortality in elderly patients with neck of femur fractures?

Neck of femur fractures are associated with significant morbidity and mortality. The National Hip Fracture database in England suggest an 8.2% 30 day mortality. Suggested mortality predictors include: The Nottingham Hip Score, POSSUM score, Lactate, End Tidal CO2, Total Lymphocyte Count and Albumin. Predictors of short-term mortality may be a useful healthcare tool in these patients. Hypoalbuminaemia is determined as a level less than 35g/dl. No classification for degree of hypoalbuminaemia exists. It’s clinical significance are associated with liver/renal failure, chronic illness and poor nutritional states. We wanted to assess whether there is an association between hypoalbuminaemia and patient survival, if the severity affected outcomes and whether highlighting those patients with hypoalbuminaemia would be a useful prognostic tool