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This study aims to show how cost savings can be achieved through optimizing the scheduling of e-commerce enablements. The University of California is one of the largest, most prestigious public education and research systems in the world, yet diminished state support is driving the search for system-wide cost savings.

This study documents the preparation for and rollout of an e-procurement system across a subset of campuses. A math programing tool was developed for prioritizing the gradual rollout to generate the greatest expected savings subject to resource constraints.

The authors conclude by summarizing the results of the rollout, discussing lessons learned and their benefit to decision-makers at other public institutions.

The pilot program comprising three campuses has been predicted to yield $1.2m in savings over a one-year period; additional sensitivity analysis with respect to savings, project timelines and other rollout decisions illustrate the robustness of these findings.

Data collected from 319 senior executives and 2477 of their subordinates from a global diversified organization were used to explore the impact of differences in individual personality orientation on the processes by which these individuals enable their workgroups. Personality orientation was defined in terms of self‐ratings on four distinct groupings derived from a k‐means cluster analysis of self‐ratings on the Myers‐Briggs Type Indicator and the Kirton Adaptation Inventory. Perceptions of enablement and ratings of executive behavior were based on questionnaires completed by subordinates. Although no differences were found with respect to the overall degree of enablement experienced by subordinates, personality orientation did affect the specific behaviors employed by executives to enable others and the degree of managerial self‐awareness exhibited (operationalized as congruence in self vs. subordinates' ratings). Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.

This paper aims to understand if, and how, internal communication strategies can promote strategic employee communicative actions such as to disseminate positive information that enhances the company's reputation. These communicative actions sustain the competitive advantage of a company.

This paper is based on interviews with internal communication experts; internal communication managers in ten American and 22 Italian companies. Three focus groups in Italy comprised of internal communication managers, scholars and experts.

Employee communicative actions have been categorized into: exploration, interpretation, sharing and acting. Internal communication strategies enable employees to be effective communicators.

A survey among employees was used to investigate the link between employee communicative actions and internal communication and relationship quality.

Internal communication managers are expected first, to become enablers towards employees and line managers; and second, to facilitate sense-making processes and the quality relationship building.

This article provides empirical evidence of the emerging issues of employee communicative actions and the enablement function of internal communication. It adds a broader and validated range of employee communicative actions to those that had previously been studied, and develops a preliminary inventory of enablement strategies that have been adopted by leading companies.

Information technology (IT) is increasingly being used towards the effectiveness of supply chains. There are, however, some barriers in this process. These barriers influence one another and also adversely affect the IT‐enablement of a supply chain. The aim of this paper is to understand these mutual influences so that those barriers which are at the root of few more barriers (called driving barriers) and those which are most influenced by the others (called dependent barriers) are identified.

A questionnaire‐based survey was conducted to rank the barriers.

The results of the survey and the interpretive structural modeling (ISM) methodology have been used to evolve the mutual relationships among these barriers.

It is observed that there are some barriers, which have both high driving power and dependency and therefore need more attention.

This paper aims to present a digest of the main discussion points and key findings from a recent Social Care Institute for Excellence report on risk enablement and safeguarding in the context of self‐directed support and personal budgets.

The paper explores how the personalisation agenda and adult safeguarding can work together in policy and practice and addresses some of the frontline concerns about empowerment and duty of care.

Evidence on how self‐directed support and personal budgets can be used to enable people to take positive risks while staying safe and emerging practice is examined. It suggests that person‐centred working in adult safeguarding, along with the mechanism of self‐directed support planning and outcome review, can support the individual to identify the risks they want to take and those they want to avoid in order to stay safe. It is clear that if frontline practitioners are overly occupied with protecting organisations and individuals from financial abuse, this will impact on the capacity of those practitioners exercising their duty of care at the front line. This means that practitioners are less able to engage with individuals to identify safeguarding issues and enable positive risk taking. Defensive risk management strategies or risk‐averse frontline practice may then result in individuals not being adequately supported to make choices and take control and, therefore, being put at risk. Practitioners need to be supported by local authorities to incorporate safeguarding and risk enablement in their relationship‐based, person‐centred working. Good quality, consistent and trusted relationships and good communication are particularly important for self‐directed support and personal budget schemes.

The use of “risk enablement panels” and “personalisation and safeguarding frameworks” are two ways to address some of the issues in practice.

Some enablers support the information technology (IT) enablement of supply chains. The aim of this paper is to understand mutual influences of these enablers and also to identify those enablers which support other enablers (“driving enablers”) and those which are most influenced by others (“dependent enablers”). A questionnaire‐based survey has been conducted to rank these enablers. The results of the survey and the interpretive structural modeling (ISM) methodology have been used to evolve mutual relationships among these enablers. It is observed that two enablers, namely “awareness about use of IT in supply chains” and “trust among supply chain partners”, have high driving power and therefore deserve serious attention. The study concludes with a discussion and managerial implications.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of managerial strategies in promoting employee brand consistent behavior. Using a recently developed holistic model of behavioral branding, that suggests that a wide array of managerial strategies affects the branding process, this study addresses two specific questions: what communication strategies, in the opinion of managers, sustain employee brand consistent behavior? And what are the most important factors, both contextual and related to their cognitive-emotional states, that employees think affect their brand ambassadorship behavior?

A long-term research program was conducted based on a multiple methods research strategy to answer the two questions. The choice of different methods was mainly based on the specific characteristics of the two targets: communication managers and employees. The first one based on interviews with 32 managers, and the second one based on a case study of a single company.

The results show that enablement-oriented strategies are more effective than communication-oriented strategies in sustaining employee brand builder roles. Weak employee commitment, unsatisfactory external communication, and low levels of motivation are strong contextual factors inhibiting employee attitudes to brand ambassadorship, one of the most relevant employee brand consistent behaviors in competitive contexts. The main practical implication is that companies should engage employees as brand ambassadors, not by means of prescriptions of in-role behavior, but enablement strategies leading to authentic and voluntary behaviors; besides, that companies should put a significant effort in “preparing the soil,” i.e. investing in enhancing employee commitment, level of motivation, and understanding/alignment with the external communication.

The main practical implication is that companies should engage employees as brand ambassadors not by means of in-role behavior prescriptions rather by means of enablement strategies leading to authentic and voluntary behaviors. Besides, managers should invest significant efforts in enhancing employee motivation, commitment, and understanding/alignment to external communication as they represent key factors in sustaining brand ambassadorship behaviors.

The values of the study lies in having highlighted the crucial role of enablement-oriented strategies, and the relevance of specific contextual variables affecting the attitude of employee toward brand consistent behaviors.

In the shift from government to governance the possibility of an increased role or roles for third sector actors becomes greater. In addition, the potential for different roles also increases. In public governance, for example, third sector civil society actors¹ can adopt an advocacy and campaigning role or a partnership role. This chapter seeks to understand public governance roles of Irish third sector organisations compared to those in South Africa inspired by the work of Habib (2008, 2007a, 2007b) which draws attention to the concept of substantive uncertainty. Substantive uncertainty, Habib says, is a necessary condition for democratic functioning and refers to uncertainty of outcomes in political processes. In other words, the ability to challenge elites and facilitate the dispersal of power, so that space for opposition is engendered, is the essence of democracy. Because substantive uncertainty involves this uncertainty of outcomes it challenges hegemony therefore, Habib says. Yet, he notes, the political literature has not paid a lot of attention to this concept.

The purpose of this study is to bring theories of branding and relationship marketing together under the lens of the brand manager and reseller relationship for integrating into a single paradigm. The conceptualization bridges a gap in theory and practice by explaining how a brand can be managed by brand managers building empathetic relationships with resellers and understanding their requirements.

It draws upon qualitative methodology and data collected from 12 business-to-business resellers for brands and 8 brand managers working for international brands in India.

Brand personified and represented in research questions investigated showed the enablement aspects of brand representatives in competitive reseller networks.

The findings of this study will be very useful for brand managers aiming to penetrate markets through individuals who could represent their brands to resellers.

This study will help brand managers to create a stronger brand-reseller relationship marketing strategy by incorporating the emotional aspect of personification to benefit a socially driven relationship.

This study offers new insights into the temporal aspects of branding for business-to-business markets.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the implementation of the Welsh Network of Healthy School Schemes (WNHSS) at national, local and school levels, using a systems approach drawing on the Ottawa Charter.

The approach takes the form of a single‐case study using data from a documentary analysis, interviews with Healthy Schools Co‐ordinators (n=23) and stakeholder (n∼93) discussion of interim findings at three regional workshops.

There was almost universal adherence to a national framework based on Ottawa Charter principles. Substantial progress had been made with advocacy and mediation, although the framework provided less specific guidance regarding enablement. All‐Wales training for co‐ordinators, the commitment of co‐ordinators to working across administrative and professional boundaries, and support from local education and health partnerships, were important determinants of healthy school schemes' growth and efficiency. Primary schools were more successful than secondary schools in embedding health‐related changes.

Although findings are largely based on indirect evidence, the use of a social‐ecological model of evaluation provided valuable insights into implementation processes at multiple levels. Findings suggest that strong national support benefits programme development and dissemination and should include effective monitoring of local performance. The national strategic environment was influential at all levels of programme implementation. Priorities for further research include application of the social‐ecological model and organisational theory to investigate indicators of sustainability and influences on inequalities in health in school health promotion programmes.

The review illustrates the importance of evaluating health promotion programmes at multiple levels using a systems approach.