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Examines regional marketing as a mean of stimulate growth on national brands competing in stagnant categories, to build networks of acquired regionally marketed brands for national clout and efficiency, and to provide springboards for building brands targeted for national distribution. Using Campbell Soup and Borden as case studies, looks at different approaches to regional marketing and also considers some wider implications of regional marketing for the manufacturing industry.

Examines regional marketing in the food manufacturing industry and how it can be used to build networks of regionally‐marketed brands for national clout and efficiency, to develop nationally‐distributed brands and to encourage growth on national brands which may be competing in stagnant categories. Adopts a case study approach using Borden and Campbell Soup. Investigates approaches to regional marketing and tackles the wider implications of the concept for the food manufacturing industry.

This paper explores the findings emerging from the inaugural conference of a new network called the World Wide Workplace Web, an international forum for future real property leaders mainly within public sector real estate organisations. It focuses on the challenges of defining and demonstrating value added in the field of public sector corporate real estate. What is perceived as value added within the public sector CREOs? Is the meaning of added value evolving in the eyes of the customer? How are public sector CREOs partnering with customers to establish value, demonstrate their performance against customer expectations and continuously improve the way business is conducted in light of the feedback received? The paper is applicable to both public and private sectors, but refers frequently to a public sector context.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an insight, through an examination of the American Civil Rights Movement and the Anti‐Apartheid Movement in South Africa, into how desired change occurs at a national or cultural level of social organization.

The words and actions of two key figures in these national change movements are analyzed through the use of intentional change theory, and its constituent elements of discontinuous change, reference groups, the ideal self and emotional attractors.

The findings lead to the suggestion that great leaders, at times of national change, articulate a shared ideal or national vision and are primarily grounded in the positive emotional attractor. Furthermore, they appeal to their followers' cognition and affect.

While these two figures are prominent historical figures in their respective change movements, it is naïve to suggest that they were solely responsible for the change. Future research could look at the many other figures and factors that played a role in these tremendously complex and sensitive change processes.

This paper has important implications for people involved in change efforts at the national and cultural level. It provides evidence from two exemplary cases that could be applied to other such situations.

This paper develops an insight into how desired change occurs at a national or cultural level of social organization. In a world riddled with tension, violence and poverty, this insight is potentially of great value.

Technological innovation in context has been studied by economists and sociologists of technical change and innovation. I shall present the insights and perspectives from this body of literature (including some of my own work), in order to highlight the dynamics of technological innovation processes and the possibilities to influence them — by managers, as well as governmental and societal actors. These actors often work with a limited view of the complexities of technological change and innovation, and they might do better if they were to use recent insights, as I have argued previously (Rip, 1995). Thus, a further topic, visible between the lines of my main exposé, is the relation between the “theory” — i.e., insights from social scientific studies — and the “practice” of policy or action.

This paper aims to review how current policy instruments drive (or not) environmental innovation and, by doing so, to reinvestigate the relationship between innovation and regulation.

A comprehensive literature review on innovation and environmental regulation created a theoretical foundation of the paper. Using the grounded theory, a model was developed and evaluated using interviews. This is a timely topic as the new shape of recent environmental regulation appears to be fairly strict. A new model is presented to encapsulate highly dynamic interaction of environmental innovation and regulation to provide results that reflect on the present innovation behaviour and its implications.

The model highlights various diffusion pathways that are triggered by the main three drivers of innovation namely government (regulation), market (competition and cost) and technology which has the possibility of an autonomous diffusion.

The empirical data are limited to 13 qualitative experts' interviews within industry, consultancies and governmental departments.

The suggested model is particularly useful for policy makers to better understand the innovation dynamics and its diffusion pathways to design smarter regulations that incentivise rather than force organisations to comply with regulation.

The paper shows how regulation drives (or not) innovation and how various diffusion pathways can be used by external stakeholders to direct and promote innovation.

The purpose of this paper is to respond to calls in the literature to examine personality variables which may provide sharper insights into accountants’ judgments in applying principles-based International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). This paper contributes to the literature on the global convergence of financial reporting by examining the influence of an important personality variable, construal of self, on Chinese accountants’ aggressive financial reporting judgments.

A between-subjects quasi-experiment was applied. In total, 122 Chinese professional accountants were categorized as either independents or interdependents, on the basis of their scores on construal of self scales. Subjects made their consolidation reporting judgments in the manipulated situations based on the financial performance of the investee entity, which refers to the situation where the investee entity makes a significant profit or a significant loss in the reporting period.

Compared to interdependent accountants, independent accountants used the flexibility allowed in the principles-based standards to make more aggressive consolidation reporting judgments. Also, adoption of IFRS may not necessarily ensure consistent judgments even within China.

This paper provides empirical evidence of the importance of construal of self in examining accountants’ aggressive judgments. The authors suggest that it may be premature to assume that adoption of IFRS will lead to comparable financial reporting. The findings are relevant to researchers who are interested in examining personality and cultural influences on accountants’ judgments both within and across countries. Companies and organizations may incorporate appropriate strategies to recruit and train independent and interdependent accountants, particularly by addressing the influence of construal of self on aggressive financial reporting judgments.

How do radical technological fields become naturalized and taken for granted? This is a fundamental question given both the positive and negative hype surrounding the emergence of many new technologies. In this chapter, we study the emergence of the US nanotechnology field, focusing on uncovering the mechanisms by which leaders of the National Nanotechnology Initiative managed hype and its concomitant legitimacy challenges which threatened the commercial viability of nanotechnology. Drawing on the cultural entrepreneurship literature at the interface of strategy and organization theory, we argue that the construction of a naturalizing frame – a frame that focuses attention and practice on mundane, “rationalized” activity – is key to legitimating a novel and uncertain technological field. Leveraging the insights from our case study, we further develop a staged process model of how a naturalizing frame may be constructed, thereby paving the way for a decrease in hype and the institutionalization of new technologies.