Causes and success of brand deletions. The role of brand orientation

La eliminación de una marca es una decisión crítica dentro de la estrategia de marketing de una empresa. Pese a que en los últimos años muchas organizaciones han tomado este tipo de decisión y han acometido drásticos programas de eliminación de marcas, la literatura sobre este tema es muy escasa y fragmentada, y son múltiples las cuestiones que se deben abordar. Concretamente, en este trabajo nos proponemos examinar la influencia de las causas de eliminación de una marca –previamente clasificadas en proactivas y reactivas– en el éxito de la decisión. Además, exploramos el efecto que la orientación a la marca tiene en la mayor o menor ocurrencia de eliminaciones por causas proactivas o reactivas. Implícitamente, en el trabajo proponemos que la orientación a la marca tendrá un doble efecto indirecto positivo en el éxito de una eliminación. En primer lugar, a través de incremento de eliminaciones exitosas que ocurren por causas proactivas y, en segundo, por la reducción de eliminaciones no exitosas que sobrevienen por causas reactivas. La propuesta investigadora que realizamos se testa sobre una muestra de 155 casos de eliminación de marca. Los análisis preliminares indican que la orientación a la marca contribuye al éxito a través de la adopción de eliminaciones enfocadas en el aprovechamiento de oportunidades de la marca, tales como un mayor ajuste estratégico o unos menores costes de oportunidad. Además, la orientación a la marca previene de realizar eliminaciones simplemente por causas problemáticas, eliminaciones que no acaban arrojando grandes resultados.Brand deletion (BD) is a critical decision within a firm’s marketing strategy. Despite in recent years many organizations have pruned their brand portfolios and undertaken drastic BD programs, the literature on this topic is extremely scarce and fragmented, and several issues of BD can be investigated. This research is primarily concerned with the study of the impact of BD causes –previously classified as proactive versus reactive– on BD success. In addition, we explore the effect of the firm’s brand orientation on the occurrence of deletions by proactive versus reactive causes. Implicitly, we suggest that brand orientation will have a double positive indirect effect on BD success: first, through the increase of successful BDs due to proactive causes and, second, by the reduction of unsuccessful BDs precipitated by reactive causes. Our research proposal is tested on a sample of 155 cases of BD. Preliminary findings indicate that brand orientation contributes to the BD success through the adoption of BDs focused on taking advantage of brand opportunities, such as searching for a better strategic fit or avoiding opportunity costs. Besides, brand orientation prevents deletions due to merely problematic causes, deletions that, after all, do not generate success

Tres perspectivas del acoso moral en el trabajo: psicológica, jurisprudencial y preventiva

El acoso moral en el trabajo es un fenómeno muy común en las organizaciones empresariales. Lo que se intenta en este trabajo es analizar y estudiar dicho fenómeno desde tres perspectivas completamente distintas pero a la vez interrelacionadas entre si (psicológica, jurisprudencial y preventiva).Grado en Relaciones Laborales y Recursos Humano

Breve recorrido histórico de la formación profesional en la ciudad de Lorca [Texto impreso]: escuela elemental de trabajo y formación profesional

Bibliografía: p. [157

A Cholinergic Synaptically Triggered Event Participates in the Generation of Persistent Activity Necessary for Eye Fixation

An exciting topic regarding integrative properties of the nervous system is how transient motor commands or brief sensory stimuli are able to evoke persistent neuronal changes, mainly as a sustained, tonic action potential firing. A persisting firing seems to be necessary for postural maintenance after a previous movement. We have studied in vitro and in vivo the generation of the persistent neuronal activity responsible for eye fixation after spontaneous eye movements. Rat sagittal brainstem slices were used for the intracellular recording of prepositus hypoglossi (PH) neurons and their synaptic activation from nearby paramedian pontine reticular formation (PPRF) neurons. Single electrical pulses applied to the PPRF showed a monosynaptic glutamatergic projection on PH neurons, acting on AMPA-kainate receptors. Train stimulation of the PPRF area evoked a sustained depolarization of PH neurons exceeding (by hundreds of milliseconds) stimulus duration. Both duration and amplitude of this sustained depolarization were linearly related to train frequency. The train-evoked sustained depolarization was the result of interaction between glutamatergic excitatory burst neurons and cholinergic mesopontine reticular fibers projecting onto PH neurons, because it was prevented by slice superfusion with cholinergic antagonists and mimicked by cholinergic agonists. As expected, microinjections of cholinergic antagonists in the PH nucleus of alert behaving cats evoked a gaze-holding deficit consisting of a re-centering drift of the eye after each saccade. These findings suggest that a slow, cholinergic, synaptically triggered event participates in the generation of persistent activity characteristic of PH neurons carrying eye position signals.Unión Europea Grants BI04-CT98-0546España, Ministerio de Ciencia PB98-0011, BFI2000-00936, BFI2000-1190, y BFI2002-0137

Do proactive and reactive causes to delete a brand impact deletion success? The role of brand orientation

Producción CientíficaOne critical decision concerning a firm´s brand portfolio management is brand deletion (BD). Although many organizations have recently undertaken drastic BD programs and pruned their brand portfolios, the literature on this topic remains extremely scarce and fragmented. Our work focuses on studying the impact of BD causes –previously classified as proactive versus reactive– on BD success. How the firm’s brand orientation affects the incidence of proactive versus reactive deletions is also explored. Implicitly, we suggest that brand orientation exerts a positive indirect effect on BD success through increased successful BDs due to proactive causes. We test our research proposal on a sample comprising 155 cases of BD. Findings indicate that brand orientation contributes to BD success through the proactive adoption of BDs focused on taking advantage of brand opportunities, such as searching for a better strategic fit or avoiding opportunity costs. Moreover, brand orientation prevents deletions by reactive or problematic causes, deletions which, after all, do not generate success. In sum, brand oriented firms seek to prevent rather than fix any problems derived from maintaining inadequate brands in their portfolio.Fondo Social Europeo (proyecto ORDEN EDU/828/2014)Junta de Castilla y León (ORDEN EDU/828/2014)Ministerio de Economía y Competetitividad (proyecto ECO2017-86628-P)Fondo europeo de desarrollo regional (proyecto VA112P17)Junta de Castilla y León (proyecto VA085G18

Minimizing the negative impact of brand deletion

Producción CientíficaPurpose: This research is primarily concerned with studying the impact of brand workers' problems on brand deletion (BD) outcomes. The authors also analyze how the level of consensus achieved during BD adoption and implementation influences the impact of brand workers' problems on BD outcomes. Design/methodology/approach: A questionnaire was designed to obtain data from a representative sample of 155 real cases of BD. Findings: Findings indicate that in contexts where workers feel their jobs are threatened or challenged, BD success may be undermined. However, the company does possess one important mechanism that can alleviate the negative impact of brand workers' problems: empowering them to pave the way toward consensus-building. Results do not support a negative effect of brand workers' problems on BD time efficiency or any effect of BD time efficiency on BD's contribution to a firm's economic performance. Practical implications: Managers must be aware that problems derived from brand workers' actions are especially harmful for the company when there is no consensus, such that managers must prevent deletion from occurring under these circumstances. Originality/value: This pioneering study proposes and empirically validates the relationship between brand workers' problems and BD success and BD time efficiency, moderated by consensus.Junta de Castilla y León (Project VA219P20)Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Project PID2021-123004NB-I00

Pressure Point Thresholds and ME/CFS Comorbidity as Indicators of Patient’s Response to Manual Physiotherapy in Fibromyalgia

Current pharmacological treatments of Fibromyalgia (FM) are merely symptom palliative, as clinical trials have so far failed to provide overall benefits without associated harms. Polypharmacy often leads to patient’s health deterioration and chronic drug use to an eventual lack of patient’s response. Emerging evidence supports that physiotherapy treatments based on mechanical triggers improve FM symptoms and therefore could be used for therapeutic purposes by themselves or in combination with current pharmacological treatments, as part of integrative medicine programs. However, a paucity of studies rigorously and systematically evaluating this possibility exists. This study uses scores from validated standardized questionnaires, algometer pressure point threshold (PPT) readings and responses from a custom self-developed questionnaire to determine the impact of a pressure-controlled custom manual protocol on FM hyperalgesia/allodynia, fatigue and patient’s quality of life. The results show that patient’s baseline sensitivity to pain inversely correlates with treatment response in FM. Moreover, post-stratification analysis unexpectedly reveals that patients presenting comorbid ME/CFS do not seem to respond to the applied therapy as those presenting FM only. Therefore, pre-treatment PPTs and ME/CFS comorbidity may serve as indicators to predict patient’s response to physiotherapy programs based on mechanical triggers. Further exploration of these findings is granted. In addition, the study of gene expression profiles in the blood collection generated by this study should help unveil the molecular mechanisms behind patient’s differential response to manual therapy.Medicin

Pressure Point Threshold and ME/CFS comorbidity as Indicators of Physiotherapy Response in Fibromyalgia

Current pharmacological treatments of Fibromyalgia (FM) are merely symptom palliative, as clinical trials have so far failed to provide overall benefits without associated harms. Polypharmacy often leads to patient´s health deterioration and chronic drug use to an eventual lack of patient´s response. Emerging evidence support that physiotherapy treatments based on mechanical triggers improve FM symptoms and therefore could be used for therapeutic purposes by themselves, or in combination with current pharmacological treatments, as part of integrative medicine programs. However, a paucity of studies rigorously and systematically evaluating this possibility exists. This study uses scores from validated standardized questionnaires, algometer pressure point threshold (PPT) readings and responses from a custom self-developed questionnaire to determine the impact of a pressure-controlled manual protocol on FM hyperalgesia/allodynia, fatigue and patient´s quality of life. The results show that patient´s baseline sensitivity to pain inversely correlates with treatment response in FM. Moreover, patients presenting comorbid ME/CFS do not seem to respond to the applied therapy as those presenting FM only. Thus, pretreatment PPTs and ME/CFS comorbidity may serve as indicators to predict patient´s response to physiotherapy programs based on mechanical triggers, as the one evaluated here. These unexpected findings grant further explorations including the study of gene expression profiles associating to patient´s treatment response in the blood collection of samples generated by this study.Medicin

Evaluation of the shallow geothermal potential for heating and cooling and its integration in the socioeconomic environment: A case study in the Region of Murcia, Spain

In order to boost the use of shallow geothermal energy, reliable and sound information concerning its potential must be provided to the public and energy decision-makers, among others. To this end, we developed a GIS-based methodology that allowed us to estimate the resource, energy, economic and environmental potential of shallow geothermal energy at a regional scale. Our method focuses on closed-loop borehole heat exchanger systems, which are by far the systems that are most utilized for heating and cooling purposes, and whose energy demands are similar throughout the year in the study area applied. The resource was assessed based on the thermal properties from the surface to a depth of 100 m, considering the water saturation grade of the materials. Additionally, climate and building characteristics data were also used as the main input. The G.POT method was used for assessing the annual shallow geothermal resource and for the specific heat extraction (sHe) rate estimation for both heating and, for the first time, for cooling. The method was applied to the Region of Murcia (Spain) and thematic maps were created with the outputting results. They offer insight toward the thermal energy that can be extracted for both heating and cooling in (MWh/year) and (W/m); the technical potential, making a distinction over the climate zones in the region; the cost of the possible ground source heat pump (GSHP) installation, associated payback period and the cost of producing the shallow geothermal energy; and, finally, the GHG emissions savings derived from its usage. The model also output the specific heat extraction rates, which are compared to those from the VDI 4640, which prove to be slightly higher than the previous one

Tau Phosphorylation by GSK3 in Different Conditions

Almost a 20% of the residues of tau protein are phosphorylatable amino acids: serine, threonine, and tyrosine. In this paper we comment on the consequences for tau of being a phosphoprotein. We will focus on serine/threonine phosphorylation. It will be discussed that, depending on the modified residue in tau molecule, phosphorylation could be protective, in processes like hibernation, or toxic like in development of those diseases known as tauopathies, which are characterized by an hyperphosphorylation and aggregation of tau