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The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the effects of 8Ps of services marketing affect students’ selection of self-financing sub-degree programmes in Hong Kong. The factors that affect students’ selection of self-financing sub-degree programmes have not been studied in higher education market of Hong Kong. This research is to fill the gap by examining the effects of 8Ps (“Product Elements”, “Price and Other User Outlays”, “Place and Time”, “Promotion and Education”, “People”, “Process”, “Physical Environment” and “Productivity and Quality”) on self-financing sub-degree programmes in Hong Kong.

The research taken was a quantitative survey of students at Community College at Lingnan University in Hong Kong.

The results reveal that “Productivity and Quality” is the most important element of 8Ps of services marketing. Accreditation of programmes seeking recognition in Hong Kong and overseas can increase student enrolment. “Promotion and Education” element is the least important element of 8Ps of services marketing. Self-financed higher education institutions should develop strategies to build relationships with the secondary school teachers and counsellors rather than invest money on advertising.

The data were collected from a particular community college in Hong Kong only.

Management can increase student recruitment by allocating minimum amount of limited resources to recruit maximum number of students.

This research adds knowledge to the marketing of higher education in Hong Kong. The management of self-financing sub-degree programmes can use the findings of this research as a reference to develop their marketing strategies.

With growing mobility in a globalized world and an estimate of more than 300 million people going on religious pilgrimages every year, various researchers have been focusing on pilgrimage-driven travel services. In this context and within the Islamic religious tradition, the “Umrah” is used as a case study in this paper. In addition, this study also investigated the effects of Umrah SMM (promotion, place, people, product, price, process, physical evidence, marketing communication and after sale service) on customer satisfaction and loyalty toward Umrah travel agents in “Malaysia.”

Convenience sampling technique at four international airports in “Malaysia” was used to obtain data from Umrah travelers who had used Umrah services at least once. A total of 384 usable questionnaires were collected from this study and the data were analyzed using the partial least square.

The result indicated that the marketing mix has a significant positive effect on customer loyalty through customer satisfaction both directly and indirectly. This study will be of interest to the Umrah travel industry, for Malaysia and all the other countries, in understanding how marketing mix strategies are essential in maintaining a long-term relationship with customers.

The literature on Umrah travel services revealed that the traditional service marketing mix (SMM) of 7P’s is inadequate. The purpose of this paper is to address this gap and examine an innovative service marketing mix strategy for “Umrah Service” including marketing communication and after sales service. It investigates the effects of enhanced Umrah SMM on customer satisfaction and loyalty towards Umrah travel agents in “Malaysia”.

University selection in higher education is a complex task for aspirants from a decision-making perspective. This study first aims to understand the essential parameters that affect potential students' choice of higher education institutions. It then aims to explore how these parameters or priorities have changed given the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Learning about the differences in priorities for university selection pre- and post-COVID-19 pandemic might help higher education institutions focus on relevant parameters in the post-pandemic era.

This study uses a mixed-method approach, with primary and secondary data (university parameters from the website and LinkedIn Insights). We developed a university selector system by scraping LinkedIn education data of various universities and their alumni records. The final decision-making tool was hosted on the web to collect potential students' responses (primary data). Response data were analyzed via a multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) model. Portal-based data collection was conducted twice to understand the differences in university selection priorities pre- and post-COVID-19 pandemic. A one-way MANOVA was performed to find the differences in priorities related to the university decision-making process pre- and post-COVID-19.

This study considered eight parameters of the university selection process. MANOVA demonstrated a significant change in decision-making priorities of potential students between the pre- and post-COVID-19 phases. Four out of eight parameters showed significant differences in ranking and priority. Respondents made significant changes in their selection criteria on four parameters: cost (went high), ranking (went low), presence of e-learning mode (went high) and student life (went low).

The current COVID-19 pandemic poses many uncertainties for educational institutions in terms of mode of delivery, student experience, campus life and others. The study sheds light on the differences in priorities resulting from the pandemic. It attempts to show how social priorities change over time and influence the choices students make.

Theories of marketing management and strategy need to evolve and change to keep pace with changes in the marketplace and in marketing practice. As the next century draws closer, it is apparent that some marketing managers are basing their relationships with customers on policies and procedures called either “individualisation”, “mass‐customisation”, or as we prefer, “personalisation”. The core of this practice involves tailoring goods and services to the individual needs and wants of specific consumers, just the opposite of one‐size‐fits‐all. We propose that personalisation is so important to marketing strategy that it should become one of the featured elements of the marketing mix, alongside product, price, promotion, place, personnel, physical assets, and procedures, to form a new marketing mix, the 8Ps.

The purpose of this paper is to present the development and validation of the Universal Transformational Management Framework (UTMF), an entrepreneurial tool that guides the development of inclusion-driven strategic management, planning and practice in sport organizations.

A range of qualitative data collection techniques was undertaken in this action research: seven cross-sectoral semi-structured interviews; one focus group with sports professionals; a qualitative survey and research group consultations. A matrix analysis, a thematic analysis and secondary research were undertaken to analyze data.

The UTMF is a staged framework that embeds principles of behavioral, organizational and transformative change theory, guiding strategic development toward inclusion from a contemplation phase toward an action and maintenance stage. The UTMF is composed of 14 fundamental components identified as key areas that sport entrepreneurs should recognize and address for planning and delivering sport services that leave no one behind.

Policy makers, management and sport professionals have at their disposal an inclusion-driven framework that challenges their systems and establish mechanisms to leave no one behind.

Organizational transformation can ultimately produce a contagion effect advancing equality and inclusion in society. The UTMF offers a structure for sport entrepreneurs aiming to facilitate and activate social transformation in and through sport.

The UTMF is a wide-ranging framework to facilitate an orchestrated transformation of sport organizations in order to provide universal services that include marginalized groups and address global challenges identified in intersectional agendas like the SDGs.

Competitiveness and contemporary changes in our society and modern technologies force countries to apply the innovative processes in their managerial and marketing activities. Cities as the places of life of human beings and their coexistence with modern technologies could benefit from the implementation of place marketing and branding strategies and from the accepting of new approach to their consumers, predominantly citizens, but also local and international businesses and visitors. This process should be governed by the active and effective co-operation of public authorities, which means a symbiosis of multilateral parties aiming at one goal – a successful and satisfied city users and a destination with modern and effective leadership. For this reason, not only a concept of the effective co-operation is crucial, but also a concept of modern technologies application, for instance a model of smart city or the co-creation principles applied in the fulfilment of service provision to citizens. In order to succeed in competitiveness, it is important to support in destinations the application of the innovative development and sound managerial strategies. This chapter explored a strategy applied in city marketing of one city in Slovakia, Banska Bystrica. The methods of comparison and benchmarking to propose the innovative approach to marketing have been applied. In primary and secondary researches, mixed methods have been used, a combination of quantitative methods (demand side perspective) and the application of the importance–performance analysis and qualitative methods (interviews with the representatives of municipalities, private sector and non-governmental sector representatives, e.g., supply side perspective).

Food manufacturers, trade associations and information services which supply resource material for teachers of nutrition and food science.

Mobile shopping emerges, but the marketing factors driving consumers’ mobile shopping lack clarification. Literature gaps also exist to view mobile shopping from a consumer behavior’s perspective. The purpose of this paper therefore is to empirically explore the issue based on the lifestyle perspective, 4Ps marketing theory and the information system (IS) success model.

A survey method was adopted. Data were gathered from consumers who had experience in mobile shopping. The collected data were analyzed with PLS to explore the issues.

The results showed that platform use habit, price comparison preference, shopping independence preference and promotion marketing quality were significantly associated with consumers’ use of mobile shopping apps/websites. They also showed that promotion marketing quality, price marketing quality and product marketing quality were the important marketing factors driving consumers’ user satisfaction of mobile shopping apps/websites. Finally, the results also indicated the importance of both consumers’ use and user satisfaction of mobile shopping apps/websites in arousing their continuous use intention.

The results of the study bridge the gap between the 4Ps marketing theory and the IS success model. They provide a direction for further studies to bridge the marketing theories and the IS theories in exploring the development of mobile commerce.

The results facilitate the management of mobile shopping apps/websites in building and keeping a long-term relationship with consumers through providing good marketing qualities in the core marketing mix. The results also indicate the importance of user satisfaction in branding management and relationship management of mobile shopping apps/websites.

The results showed that price comparison preference and shopping independence preference were significantly associated with consumers’ use of mobile shopping apps/websites due to the convenient access empowered by mobility in shopping services. The results also suggest that with good design in 4Ps marketing qualities of mobile shopping apps/websites, including product, price and promotion, mobile shopping could be a suitable lifestyle satisfying consumers. However, the results also showed that factors driving consumers’ system use and user satisfaction of mobile shopping apps/websites were not the same. Finally, the results validated the significant impact of both system use and user satisfaction in activating consumers’ continuance intention of mobile shopping. They provided a positive link between consumers’ mobile shopping apps/websites use to their keeping the lifestyle of mobile shopping.

Attempts to provide clarification over the definition of strategic management. Identifies and discusses a number of interrelated components which collectively create a configuration or domain for strategic management.