Search results

This chapter reviews and integrates the empirical literature on the influence of organizational factors on hospital financial performance. Five categories of organizational characteristics that research has addressed are identified and examined as part of the review: ownership, governance, integration, management strategy, and quality. With some exceptions, our review reveals a general lack of consistency and conclusiveness across studies in each area. Exceptions were found in the areas of governance (e.g., physician participation and board processes) and integration (e.g., horizontal system centralization). Despite the lack of conclusive findings across studies, our review suggests substantial opportunities for future work, including opportunities for qualitative and exploratory work. Additional implications for theory and management are discussed.

John D. Blair examines, in systematic detail, the challenges and opportunities that arise from the significantly different perspectives of context-specific versus context-free researchers and the literatures to which they contribute. He argues that reviews of one type or the other or both types of literatures may provide different understandings of the state of the art in a particular area of health care management. He also provides some detailed suggestions for writing quality reviews along with suggested topics for future reviews.

This chapter will explore the development of a research project which seeks to capture the experiences of young disabled people who are undertaking a programme with The Comedy Trust. The programme seeks to address the barriers encountered by disabled young people when entering the world of work and to encourage more inclusive recruitment practices. The authors seek to highlight how comedy can be used not only as a tool to promote social justice but also as a research method. The chapter is based on co-produced piece of research which brings together a young disabled person (Harry Georgiou), a careers lead and inclusion mentor based within a special school (Sarah Spoor), a community operations and fundraising manager based within The Comedy Trust (Charlene Davies) and a university academic (Marie Caslin). For all of the team the authors' central aim is to ensure that young disabled people's voices are heard throughout this chapter and the authors will outline how they hope to achieve this. The authors are currently at the very early stages of their project, and with this chapter, the authors hope to provide an insight into the lessons we have learnt so far.

The purpose is to argue that market-generated and brand-related phenomena such as fandoms work as a social and institutional force beyond the market and to showcase their influence on the society as a whole.

The influence of fandoms on many societal institutions is explored through the literature on fandom studies and consumer research.

The research indicates that market-generated resources and their related sociocultural dynamics play a significant role in shaping the evolution of many institutions of current societies.

The research is exclusively focused on fandoms despite the varied facets of market-related sociocultural dynamics, opportunity exists for research beyond the exploratory work done here shifting the focus from fandoms to brand systems.

Researchers, especially in Consumer Culture Theory (CCT), may use the perspective shift from market to society to enlarge the scope to new fields of study, out of the market.

The research provides new lenses to understand emerging phenomena in fields such as religion and/or politics difficult to understand with traditional frameworks.

This paper provides exploratory research identifying market-related social and institutional processes and emphasizing how they influence other societal institutions, such as family, religion, corporations, professions, and politics; rather than bringing social and institutional processes into the marketplace.

Capital increasingly takes the form of intangible assets, especially trademarked corporate brands. Further, contemporary capitalism increasingly accumulates through commodification of iconic cultural images and legendary narratives constituting a “second enclosure movement” (Boyle, 2008). This paper develops a critical theory of brands, branding, and brand management within economies of spectacle.

A case study of the consumer culture surrounding large displacement motorcycling is used to critique the central premise of consumer culture theory (marketing professionals create brands that become valuable icons) and develop an alternative view using concepts from critical theory, especially spectacle (Debord, 1967) and culture industry (Adorno, 1991).

After initial enclosure, legends were managed by Crossmarketing Licensing Networks (CMLN), coalitions of corporate and state actors, each possessing a piece of the legendary pie. The Sturgis CMLN was organized into two political divisions, rally profiteers and civic leaders, with overlapping but differentiated interests and approaches to the management of the Sturgis legend. The CMLN intervened in the cultural commons to overcome legendary degradations (banality, incoherence, undesirability) surrounding the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.

Brands are capitalized culture created by enclosures, a form of primitive accumulation. Under current conditions of immaterial production, CMLN’s engage in ongoing cultural production to maintain the capitalized value of their brands. Brands are not only hunted in the wilds of culture, but also increasingly domesticated and fattened when herded through legendary commons.

Brand backstories enable consumers the opportunity to go behind-the-scenes of their favourite brands. This chapter explores the role of the brand backstory experience in the consumer–brand relationship, detailing the manner in which these experiences are structured to immerse consumers within the brand storyworld.

A qualitative analysis of two brand backstory experiences, a museum exhibit documenting the television series Outrageous Fortune and a factory tour of snack foods brand Herr Food Inc. was carried out using in-depth interviews with backstory creators and observatory field notes of the backstory exhibit and tour.

This study reveals how temporal and spatial elements craft the overall architectonics of the brand backstory experience and how the brand backstory reveal progresses to ultimately unite consumers with the brands’ imagined and real families.

By illuminating the dynamism and evolution of brands and branding practices, this chapter offers exploratory insights into a scarcely explored aspect of the brand experience.

There has been a substantial increase in research concerning the identification and support of twice exceptional students. However, much of the scientific and theoretical literature exclude the experiences and perspectives of twice exceptional African American students. This chapter focuses specifically on the experiences and needs of twice exceptional African American students, including those challenges around identification and navigating the school environment. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how school counselors may use a group counseling intervention to help twice exceptional African American students achieve healthy identities (i.e., race, giftedness, disability) needed to achieve their educational goals.

Tourism in the wake of films, literature, and music is gaining interest among academics and practitioners alike. Despite the significance of converging tourism and media production and popcultural consumption, theorizing in this field is weak. This chapter explores complex relationships among popcultural phenomena, destination image creation, and tourism consumption. By taking a broader social science approach, it revisits and connects research themes, such as symbolic consumption, negotiated representations, fans and fandom, technology mediation, and media convergence. The chapter concludes with an integrative model, or “popcultural placemaking loop,” which is qualified through six propositions.

Fantasy is a concept often used in everyday life and in academic research. While it has received attention in consumer research due to its connection to desires, community creation, meaning evocation, and identity development, it lacks a commonly shared understanding. This paper explores and theorizes consumers’ experiences of fantasy as performed in real-life situations.

The research was conducted as an ethnographic study of live action role-playing games (LARP) and analyzed through the lens of performance theory.

LARPs are performances that take place between imagination and embodied reality, with participants drawing on each realm to enrich the other. Consumption elements of LARP include media products and materials used in creating settings, costumes, and props. LARPers gain various benefits from the performance of fantasy, including escapist entertainment, self-reflection, personal growth, and participation in social criticism. Fantasy performance is, therefore, an important and under-theorized vehicle for consumer identity development and social interaction.

This research theorizes the experience of fantasy as a performance that takes place between reality and imagination. As such, it involves both embodied and social aspects that have largely been ignored in prior research. A richer theorization of fantasy performance promises greater insights into research areas including the dynamics of consumer identity projects and of consumption communities.