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The purpose of this paper is to investigate how and to what extent the attributes of a new shopping centre entrant evolve during the first seven months of operation, and the implications this has for the incumbents. To capture the strategic relevance of those changes a consumer image tracking analytical tool is developed and applied.

Qualitative research followed by a longitudinal survey. Hypothesis testing approach and descriptive analysis.

The correlates between the magnitudes of shopping centre attribute perception variations, the level of self‐confidence in image evaluation, shopping centre frequency of visits, degree of the “halo effect”, shopping centre and store consumer's preferences are analysed. Only the self‐confidence and store preference did not evolve with the image magnitude changes as hypothesised.

The assessment of shopping centre image changes over time, as well as the factors underlying those changes help managers to plan strategy. Some monitoring procedures are proposed and their implications for both marketing and shopping centre operations are discussed.

By incorporating the time dimension, the true nature of image variation can only be captured if the identification of attributes, and the amount, intensity and direction of changes are obtained, measured and analysed together. The magnitude of image variation is more associated with a shopping centre than with its stores.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the interesting dynamics of image transfer when multiple brands get together to sponsor a property, referred to as concurrent sponsorship, and its effects on the consumer-based brand equity (CBBE) of the sponsor or the sponsored property, in the context of Indian Premier League of cricket.

Two pre-tests, for identifying the sponsored property and sponsors, were followed by the main experiment, involving 500 respondents. A general linear model was used for data analysis.

The findings reveal that for brands with high CBBE, investment in concurrent sponsorship leads to larger benefits, especially if they have similar associations to the sponsored property. This study also shows that image of the sponsored property is strongly dependent on combined CBBE of the sponsors. Finally, it is found that brands with high (low) CBBE are benefited more in concurrent (solo) sponsorship conditions.

This paper is an original contribution in this field, with limited works studying the impact of concurrent sponsorship on the brand equity of sponsors or the sponsored property.

The chapter introduces a methodological approach to analyzing visual material based on Erving Goffman's frame analysis. Building on the definition of dominant frames in a set of visual material, and the analysis of keying within these frames, the approach provides a tangible tool to analyze contextualized visual material sociologically. To illustrate the approach, the chapter analyzes visual representations of social movement contention in two local contexts, the cities of Lyon, France, and Helsinki, Finland. The material was collected during ethnographic fieldwork and consists of 505 images from local activist websites. The analysis asks how femininity, masculinity, and gender/sex ambiguity key visual representations of different aspects of contentious action, such as mass gatherings, violence, protest policing, and performativity. Strong converging features are found in the contents of the frames in the two contexts, yet differences also abound, in particular in the ways femininity keys different frames of contention in visual representations. The results show, first, that the visual frame analysis approach is a functioning tool for analyzing large sets of visual material with a qualitative emphasis, and second, that a comparison of local activism through visual representations calls into question many general assumptions of political cultures, repertoires of contention, and cultural gender systems, and highlights the importance for sociologists of looking closely enough for both differences and similarities.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of inputs from consumers' past experiences of a company on their current image‐construction processes, in the context of non‐food retailing.

Research data were collected by a multi‐method combination of several different qualitative research methods from individuals selected by the theoretical sampling procedure. Analysis and interpretation conformed to a classic grounded theory approach.

It was found that consumer images generated by relevant past experience are a direct and influential input into real‐time corporate image formation. Two new theoretical concepts were identified, “image heritage” and “image‐in‐use”, respectively, distinguishing consumers' past‐based images from those they construct in real time. Image heritage is moderated by three principal variables: timespan of awareness, content of earlier experiences, and key temporal focus.

This study focused on the corporate image of non‐food retailers. Future research should broaden the context, to enhance understanding of image heritage and image‐in‐use, and yield useful conceptual generalisations.

Given that the consumer's view of the company's past plays an important role in their interpretation of its present corporate brand, branding strategy should be informed by a systematic effort to identify the probable components of that historical perception.

This study is the first to focus on the influence of the past on consumers' current corporate images. The constructs identified and the terminology novel, offering a radically new dimension to corporate image research.

The purpose of this paper is to semantically annotate the content of digital images with the use of Semantic Web technologies and thus facilitate retrieval, integration and knowledge discovery.

After a review and comparison of the existing semantic annotation models for images and a deep analysis of the characteristics of the content of images, a multi-dimensional and hierarchical general semantic annotation framework for digital images was proposed. On this basis, taking histories images, advertising images and biomedical images as examples, by integrating the characteristics of images in these specific domains with related domain knowledge, the general semantic annotation framework for digital images was customized to form a domain annotation ontology for the images in a specific domain. The application of semantic annotation of digital images, such as semantic retrieval, visual analysis and semantic reuse, were also explored.

The results showed that the semantic annotation framework for digital images constructed in this paper provided a solution for the semantic organization of the content of images. On this basis, deep knowledge services such as semantic retrieval, visual analysis can be provided.

The semantic annotation framework for digital images can reveal the fine-grained semantics in a multi-dimensional and hierarchical way, which can thus meet the demand for enrichment and retrieval of digital images.

The purpose of this paper is to accelerate the time‐consuming task of assembling the impedance matrix resulting from the discretization of integral equations by the moment method, accelerated using massively parallel processing scheme.

This paper provides several approaches for the implementation of moment method on compute unified device architecture (CUDA) capable general purpose video cards, as well as giving general implementation design patterns and a good overview on the topic.

The proposed method seems to be efficient in the light of the presented numerical results.

The subject of the paper is an evolving, considerably new aspect among computation techniques which could be of high interest for the scientific community.

The purpose of this paper is to build and test theory regarding how rivalry in environmental management (EM) affects a focal firm’s environmental image and financial performance.

The theory is tested with an original panel data set of 2,776 focal-rival dyad pairs. Measures of environmental signals are developed from content analysis of corporate sustainability reports. Environmental performance data are drawn from the Newsweek US 500 Green Rankings database. Financial performance data are drawn from COMPUSTAT.

The main findings are that focal firm signals have a positive and significant impact on both focal firm environmental image and financial performance. Rival firm signals have a negative effect on focal firm environmental image. Surprisingly, rival firm signals have a positive impact on focal firm financial performance.

This paper can serve as a testament to the value of monitoring rival firm strategies and signaling to counter the impact of rival signals in the environmental domain. Environmental practices can be a source of competitive advantage for firms, and failure to compete in this space can place the firm at a competitive disadvantage.

This study makes several contributions to the EM literature. Leveraging competitive dynamics and the institutional viewpoints, this study builds theory with regard to how signals of competitive EM activity among a focal firm and its rivals affect environmental image and financial performance.

This research is located at the intersection of communication, memetics, and the study of the imaginary. As a presupposition, we put forward the existence of a communicational imaginary, in which the contemporary person functions through their competencies in social networks, by meeting the demands of the public and the private, managing the obsessiveness of the sharing of intimacy and the exorbitant number of images. Considering memes as a significant aspect of this communicational imaginary, we seek to understand the dynamics and path of memes in the midst of this plethora of images. From the concept of iconophagy, we deal with the exacerbated multiplication of the images and the path of memes starting from a marginalized environment until it is integrated into social roles and a rational level of thought. Thus, it is the general objective of this research to understand the dynamics and the path of memes amidst the plethora of images in the context of communicational imagery and to investigate the multiplication of memes as representative of the myriad images in contemporary imagery.

The aim of this paper is to discuss how corporate brand images evolve in consumers' everyday life and its implications for the company's branding strategies.

A conceptual discussion and a framework are presented that maps four alternative views on corporate brand images and market dynamics in relation to corporate branding.

Corporate brand evolution is suggested as a way of including consumers' everyday brand image constructions and re‐constructions in a company's branding strategy. Corporate brand evolution is based on two new concepts: image heritage and image‐in‐use. A model for understanding evolving strategic corporate branding is proposed.

The proposed view on evolving corporate brands is deliberately developed for understanding open source brand dynamics in ever‐changing markets. This paper is limited to make a conceptual contribution. Therefore, research implications are to develop empirically the understanding of image‐in‐use and image heritage in various business contexts.

An understanding on how brands evolve over time has two major practical implications for companies. First, companies need to develop new approaches and methods to understanding how brands evolve over time. For example, by investigating the consumer' image heritage of the company. This may enhance considerably possibilities for open branding strategies that meet consumer reality to be developed.

The two new concepts, image heritage and image‐in‐use, and the novel approach of evolving corporate brand images are important as they are based on a new consumer understanding, recognizing that consumers' corporate image constructions are dynamic ever‐changing processes and not static end‐states.

This study aims to take a step toward integrating research regarding the image, role and identity of management accountants by understanding how employers’ perceptions of the ideal management accountant image differ from operational managers’ perceived role expectations, how management accountants perceive their identity and how those factors shape management accountants’ understanding of who they are and want to be.

A qualitative design draws upon the case company’s 100 job advertisements and 31 semi-structured interviews with management accountants and operational managers. Those data are entwined with role theory and its core concepts of expectations and identities and also early recruitment-related theoretical aspects such as image and employer branding.

The findings reveal how employers’ perceptions of the ideal image and operational managers’ role expectations shape and influence the identity of management accountants. However, management accountants distance themselves from a brand image and role expectations. They experience identity conflict between their current and desired identity, the perception of not being able to perform the currently desired role. Although this study presents some possible reasons and explanations, such as employer branding for the misalignment and discrepancy between perceptions of employer (image), expectations of operational managers (role) and management accountants’ self-conception of the role (identity), this study argues that the identity of a management accountant results from organizational aspects of image and role and individual aspects of identity.

Image and external role expectations can challenge identity construction and also serve as a source of conflict and frustration; thus, a more comprehensive approach to studying the identity of management accountants is necessary to understand what contributes to the fragility of their identity.

The results provide an understanding of the dynamics of the image, role and identity to support management accountants and employers and to further address the suggested dissonance and ambiguities.

This study contributes by showing how the dynamics and connections between the image, role and identity influence the identity construction of management accountants. Moreover, this study shows how overpromising as a part of employer branding might not reflect the reality experienced by management accountants but may cause frustration and threaten the management accountants’ identity.