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This paper aims to analyze the impact of brand management system (BMS) practices on subjective and objective performance in both service- and product-oriented sectors.

Based on a “grounded-in-practice” approach to BMS, a comprehensive formative BMS scale is developed and its validity is assessed. The impact of BMS on subjective brand performance (i.e. predictive validity) and on objective financial performance is assessed. Data are collected from a sample of 298 brand managers and marketing directors in five business sectors (cosmetics, convenience goods, industry, bank/insurance and media) and from a financial database. Path analysis and multigroup analysis are performed to test mediating and moderating effects.

The results reveal that subjective brand performance (perceived brand performance) mediates the relationship between the BMS and objective financial performance of the firm and on each of the three BMS dimensions; and product-oriented (vs service-oriented) sector positively moderates the relationship between the BMS and subjective brand performance.

The paper offers insights into adapting brand management practices along all BMS dimensions to achieve better business performance and improve objective financial performance in product-oriented activities. It highlights the role of brand management implementation, as well as the role of brand management in hierarchical relationships, in improving performance in service activities.

The formative BMS scale offers a tool which can be used to improve strategic decisions and give practical guidance on product vs service sector specificities. The indirect impact of a BMS on financial objective performance reinforces the legitimacy of brand managers and marketing managers.

This paper shows the impact of the BMS on objective financial performance by using a “grounded-in-practice” BMS scale. It also affords explanation on sectoral effects of brand management practices and their consequences on subjective and objective performance.

Brand management systems (BMSs) are of prime importance for brands to monitor effective brand management and enhance firms' performance. The existing scales take various conceptual bases and sometimes eliminate some dimensions, depending on the sector of activity. Based on praxis and a variety of sectors, the purpose of this paper is to identify stable dimensions of BMSs and make configurational patterns emerge according to firms' and sector's characteristics.

A total of 15 in-depth interviews (with a semi-structured questionnaire) were conducted with marketing and communication directors in five sectors of activity (cosmetics, convenience goods, industry, bank/insurance, media). Content analysis was used to examine the configurational patterns that emerged, following a strategy-as-practice approach.

A general BMS pattern emerged from the content analysis with three dimensions: brand identity and values-based, hierarchically based, and implementation based. Interestingly, typical configurations were identified on each dimension and distinct configurational patterns for five sectors.

Additional research on other sectors is suggested to further validate the findings as well as building a scale on the basis of the general pattern to analyze the effect of BMS on performance.

Configurational patterns represent a flexible, adaptive, and easy-to-apply way to approach and monitor BMS for researchers and managers.

This cross-sector research delineates innovative and integrated BMS dimensions and subdimensions emerging from practice and examines their universality. The key subdimension(s) for each dimension is (are) identified and related to recent research on BMS.

There are a number of conflicts today involving groups and individuals as regards nature in its various forms. The aim of this article is to examine how these give rise to changes in the forms of critique and justification that underpin them. Based on various points of disagreement as to how nature should be developed, three possibilities of change have been put forward for examination according to the importance of the transformations required: (a) integration of the model into existing orders of justification, (b) development of a new order based on the same model, (c) serious adjustment of the underlying common matrix of orders and the basis it offers for appreciating injustice.

Purpose – Focusing on popular culture as unstructured, emergent talk, rather than encapsulated genre or text, this chapter dramatizes a slice of life riven by constant fear of violent assault.

Approach – I access accusatory discourse as the victim of the robbery that precipitates it. The chapter creates an impromptu alternative arena for reflexive ethnographic analysis of crime.

Findings – Most Brazilians live in South Atlantic coastal cities where beaches are loci of social and symbolic action carried out in a carnivalesque mode. The beach symbolizes the myth of national identity, or brasilidade. Culturally specific, yet transnational, beaches are sexually pleasurable spaces of race and class mixing. Armed robbery is the painful shadow-twin of celebration, as much a part of popular culture as bikinis, drink, and dance, but so, too, are the informal community mechanisms attempting to exclude less desirable carnival propensities from spaces marked safe and respectable. A whirlpool of rumor draws on an array of deviant images and acts.

Originality/value – Crime and social control are part of popular culture not merely as engines of re-presentation but as elemental aspects of practical living.

Purpose – To explain the unswerving loyalty given to Charles Manson by his followers from a religious perspective by drawing on Durkheim’s (1912/1976) theory of religion and Hall’s (2003, 2013) theory of religion and violence.

Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative analysis of archived multimedia either quoting, or written by, members of the Manson Family. Specifically, a theoretical thematic analysis is used to draw inferences on how members explained their participation in the 1969 murders.

Findings – The Manson Family display a unified belief system premised on the sacredness ascribed to Helter Skelter, forming a moral community at Spahn Ranch. Manson was conceived as the clan’s God, thereby meeting most of Durkheim’s requirements for a religious formation. A main component of their belief system was the inevitability of Helter Skelter, or the upcoming racial revolution; the ultimate war and end of the world. This belief provides one explanation for the Manson murders; that they were carried out as a religious duty to initiate Helter Skelter.

Originality/value – Despite the continued public fascination with the Manson murders, only a few studies have applied a sociotheoretical framework to explain this event and none have used a religious account from the perspective of those involved. By introducing religion as one plausible framework, this research is not only an extension of Durkheim’s work but also contributes to existing literature on the relationship between religion and violence.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the ‘real’ world and substantially impacted the virtual world and thus the Internet ecosystem. It has caused a significant exogenous shock that offers a wealth of natural experiments and produced new data about broadband, clouds, and the Internet in times of crisis. In this chapter, we characterise and evaluate the evolving impact of the global COVID-19 crisis on traffic patterns and loads and the impact of those on Internet performance from multiple perspectives. While we place a particular focus on deriving insights into how we can better respond to crises and better plan for the post-COVID-19 ‘new normal’, we analyse the impact on and the responses by different actors of the Internet ecosystem across different jurisdictions. With a focus on the USA and Europe, we examine the responses of both public and private actors, with the latter including content and cloud providers, content delivery networks, and Internet service providers (ISPs). This chapter makes two contributions: first, we derive lessons learned for a future post-COVID-19 world to inform non-networking spheres and policy-making; second, the insights gained assist the networking community in better planning for the future.

This study explores the effect of internal branding on organisational financial performance and brand loyalty with the mediating role of psychological empowerment.

The data gathered from 200 Pasargad insurance employees in Iran were analysed. Structural equation modelling and R were used to evaluate the model. Financial performance was measured by four concepts (ROI, ROE, Sales growth, ROA) based on available data from March 2010 to March 2020.

The results revealed that internal branding and psychological empowerment have no significant effect on financial performance, but both have a significant positive effect on brand loyalty. Likewise, the mediating role of psychological empowerment on the subject of the impact of internal branding on brand loyalty was confirmed. Furthermore, psychological empowerment did not play a mediating role in the impact of internal branding on financial performance.

The findings of this study could be important for managers of organisations active in the insurance industry to highlight internal branding and enhance psychological empowerment and employee brand loyalty. Moreover, managers' perception of the effective role of psychological empowerment to enhance employee brand loyalty is another practical aspect of this research.

Considering the mediating role of psychological empowerment to the effect of internal branding on financial performance and brand loyalty is an innovative aspect of the present study. Meanwhile, the use of R software for VB-SEM was another point to surge the value of this paper.

The aim of this study is to describe work-engaged teams in terms of interpersonal interaction.

Six teams (N = 31 individuals) were videotaped during a decision-making task, for one hour. Based on a priori defined categories, the authors coded the videos in terms of the degree of interaction between team members, the physical distance between members, the degree of team’s activation and the valence of their interaction. The videos were also coded in terms of motivational and affective processes. Team work engagement was assessed using questionnaires.

Highly engaged team members work physically close and have an increment on their interactions up until the task’s temporal midpoint. They have an initial peak of activation and show more positive emotional valence in the first and the last moments of the task. The most interpersonal processes used are affective. The worst performing team had the highest initial interaction levels followed by an abrupt decrease both in their levels of interaction and in their levels of activation. Simultaneously, they present higher peaks of positive emotional valence.

Although engaged teams are essentially characterized by the presence of positive interactions, it is fundamental to alternate more “exited” and fun moments with more task focused ones and collective interaction moments with individual work.

This study answers to Kozlowski and Chao’s (2012) call for studying emergence in a more direct way, using qualitative analysis of video data.

Ireland's Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015 established the requirement for a National Adaptation Framework (NAF) composed of nine sectoral plans, of which Built and Archaeological Heritage is one. All the plans were written according to the six-step process outlined in Sectoral Planning Guidelines for Climate Change Adaptation produced by the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment (DCCAE, 2018) which is also the government department charged with coordinating the NAF. This article will summarise the application of the methodology to heritage resources in Ireland, the issues encountered and the results achieved.

The plan was informed by existing research and incorporated expert, stakeholder and public consultation throughout the process. It also closely considered published plans from other sectors in order to aid consistency within the NAF and to ensure cross-cutting issues were highlighted.

Of the many potential impacts of climate change, those identified as priorities for adaptation planning in Ireland were flooding (inland and coastal), storm damage, coastal erosion, soil movement (landslip or erosion), changing burial preservation conditions, pests and mould, wildfires and maladaptation. Goals, objectives and an action plan were developed commensurate with the five-year term of the plan, but also initiating a long-term strategic vision. A monitoring strategy was developed to monitor progress, identify problems and inform improvements to the adaptation plan as part of an iterative process.

Much work is being done on the topic of climate change and cultural heritage, yet at the time of writing Ireland is believed to be the only country to have adopted a national adaptation plan for cultural heritage.