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This study aims to examine the relationship between marginalization, Web presence and firm performance for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

This study relies upon interviews and surveys of managers and/or owners of SMEs. Using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling, the authors tested an integrated model of the relationship between marginalization, Web presence and firm performance.

Findings indicate that marginalization enhances the risk perceptions entrepreneurs assign to internet use. This enhanced risk perception then limits the extent to which an entrepreneur responds to online customer feedback, which has implications for the SME’s relationship and reputation management efforts with buyers, ultimately impacting the enterprise’s performance.

This study sheds light on the overlooked phenomena of marginalization and internet avoidance among entrepreneurs. The findings provide insight for entrepreneurs on the deleterious consequences associated with lacking an online presence.

Organizations can benefit significantly from the growing capabilities of the internet. As the Web facilitates purchasing and reduces the costs of marketing, companies can connect with customers through the use of storytelling. This study aims to examine how small businesses leverage the use of storytelling to engage with customers and drive revenue and online reputation management.

Both qualitative and quantitative insights are offered in two studies. In Study 1, interviews were conducted with business owners to explore the efforts made by their companies to connect and engage with consumers online. Study 2 builds on the findings from Study 1 and uses survey methodology to test a model which outlines how storytelling can foster engagement with customers.

Results indicate that story content is positively related to emotional content and the personal connection an individual feels toward a firm’s products. Furthermore, user-generated content moderates the relationship between story content creation and personal connections. Findings also demonstrate that personal connection is essential to customer engagement. Ultimately, engagement can lead to revenue generation from social commerce as well as increased reputation management activity.

This research demonstrates how small businesses can use the power of storytelling to immerse and transport audiences in such a way that customer beliefs and attitudes toward the firm are impacted in a favorable way. By telling its brand story well, firms have the power to increase the value of their products.

This research aims to examine the unique emotional distress experienced during the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. It explores the role of fear and anxiety, what fueled it and how fear and anxiety impacted consumption and behaviors of conformity and compliance.

An exploratory assessment of the emotions and behaviors of individuals during the early part of the coronavirus outbreak (early March 2020) was conducted by sending a questionnaire to a national panel (n = 42). The insight offered from these individuals, in conjunction with prior literature, provided the basis for the development of a conceptual model that was tested using survey methodology (n = 691).

Both exploratory and empirical research indicate that ruminative thoughts were positively related to feelings of fear and anxiety, whereas trust in leadership was negatively related to fear and anxiety. Feelings of fear and anxiety were also associated with purchasing in large quantities, in compliance with guidelines to slow the spread of the virus and the management of negative feelings through consumption.

Important insight for marketers and public policymakers in how fear and anxiety might be both tempered and mitigated during emergencies is offered.

This research provides new insight into what fuels fear and anxiety during a pandemic and investigates how fear and anxiety impacts consumption and behaviors of conformity and compliance.

Freight and logistics are central to everyday life. These sectors depend on a variety of workers, and the types of work have changed rapidly with shifts towards e-commerce and changes to urban logistics. Yet a particular form of masculinity dominates imaginaries of the sector, especially freight transport. Such imaginaries rest on ideas of freight drivers requiring (physical) strength, toughness, flexibility, mobility and driving competencies, as well as being unencumbered by caring responsibilities. In the UK, and elsewhere, the freight sector, and particularly driving-related freight jobs, are heavily reliant on male workers. The freight driver shortage crisis in the UK has been referred to as a ‘ticking timebomb’, emerging from a reliance on white male workers, the majority of whom are over the age of 50. A ‘diversifying’ agenda has been the primary response to this crisis, which has largely focussed on increasing the number of female drivers. At the same time, however, little has been done to address issues associated with pay and conditions for freight workers. In this chapter, the authors examine gendered freight work across three themes: changing mobilities of work, ‘flexibilisation’ of freight working practice and automation of freight vehicles.

This paper aims to explore some of the contextual reasons for the failure of key or strategic account management (K/SAM) programmes. It will discuss how organisational context impacts the implementation and effective operation of such programmes in business-to-business markets. The paper looks at the issues affecting K/SAM programmes rather than the management of individual relationships.Organisational context shapes the work environment (Rice 2005, Porter and McGloghlin, 2006): it is comprised of those elements that drive behaviour and facilitate or impede management processes (Goodman and Haisley, 2007). The literature prescribes a wide range of contextual elements conducive to K/SAM processes, but is less expansive on the subject of elements that may cause K/SAM programmes to disappoint.

This work in-progress paper takes an inductive approach to material provided by surveys of K/SAM communities and their discussions in LinkedIn special interest groups or similar forums to develop a model to give structure to the organisational context issues which may be responsible for K/SAM failure.

From an initial reading of the literature, two broad categories of factors were identified as elements of organizational context: what might be called the formal or “hard” elements supporting K/SAM programmes and the “soft”, more informal and partly cultural elements that “moderate” or “intervene” in implementation. A model is developed to illustrate the linkages between organizational elements in K/SAM.

Although a pilot study, we believe that valuable insights into KAM failure are provided by the study. The next stage will include a co-operative inquiry approach based on this data, in which participants will actively validate and develop the model by exploring it within their organisations.

The paper draws out a number of significant implications for managers.

The existing context within which attempts are made to implement K/SAM have received little attention and often are ignored or remain “unspoken”. This paper addresses those important issues.

Postdocs make up a significant portion of the biomedical workforce. However, data about the postdoctoral position are generally scarce, and no systematic study of the landscape of individual postdoc salaries in the USA has previously been carried out. The purpose of this study was to assess actual salaries for postdocs using data gathered from US public institutions; determine how these salaries may vary with postdoc title, institutional funding and geographic region; and reflect on which institutional and federal policy measures may have the greatest impact on salaries nationally.

Freedom of Information Act Requests were submitted to US public universities or university systems containing campuses with at least 300 science, engineering and health postdocs, according to the 2015 National Science Foundation’s Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering. Salaries and job titles of postdocs as of December 1, 2016, were requested.

Salaries and job titles for nearly 14,000 postdocs at 52 US institutions around December 1, 2016, were received. Individual postdoc names were also received for approximately 7,000 postdocs, and departmental affiliations were received for 4,000 postdocs. This exploratory study shows evidence of a postdoc gender pay gap, a significant influence of job title on postdoc salary and a complex relationship between salaries and the level of institutional National Institutes of Health/NSF funding.

These results provide insights into the ability of institutions to collate and report out annualized salary data on their postdocs, highlighting difficulties faced in tracking and reporting data on this population by institutional administration. Ultimately, these types of efforts, aimed at increasing transparency regarding the postdoctoral position, may lead to improved support for postdocs at all US institutions and allow greater agency for postdocs making decisions based on financial concerns.

This study uses the balanced scorecard(BSC) framework to assess the business performance of information technology (IT) expenditures in the Korean banking industry. The relationship between IT expenditures and bank’s financial performance or market share was significantly different depending upon the level of IT. For banks that maintain high IT level, IT expenditures appear to have (1) increased labor productivity, (2) decreased payroll expenses and increased operating and total administrative expenses, (3) increased market share, and (4) increased revenue and profit. The evidence suggests two important practical implications. First, if banks effectively use IT strategy to improve competitive advantage, they are likely to reduce payroll expenses and increase market share as well as profitability. Second, this study posits that bank managers should consider using a balanced scorecard approach to measure business performance of both IT and management strategies. Thus, evidence of this study provides guidance for achieving competitive advantage in the banking industry.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the impact of the shift to a service‐based economy on the employability of unemployed job seekers, specifically focussing on skill acquisition and utilisation. The article considers the provision of training opportunities for unemployed people who are seeking to re‐enter the workplace, and whether such training is taking into account the skills demanded in interactive service work. The article also considers the views of unemployed people towards interactive service work.

The study employs a qualitative approach drawing on interview and focus group data gathered from policymakers, training providers and unemployed job seekers.

The data suggests there is little existing training provision for interactive service work for unemployed job seekers and that where it does exist it is not geared towards the skills demands of employers. It is also apparent from the research that unemployed job seekers hold a negative view of employment in the interactive service sector, due to both objective and subjective factors.

The research is limited to one geographical region and research in other regenerating cities could offer potentially different insights.

The article enjoins with policy debates which are focussing on skills training to enhance employability, considering the importance of apposite skills training. The article also examines the practical and attitudinal barriers to employment that prevent many unemployed jobseekers from gaining access to service sector employment.

The article offers a valuable contribution to ongoing debates surrounding access to employment in the service sector for unemployed job seekers.

The purpose of this study is to describe the determinants of profitability in terms of the strategic profitability model (the Du Pont model), depicting the “route” to high profitability in grocery retail stores located in market areas possessing dissimilar competitive conditions.

Different physical characteristics (e.g. store formats) have traditionally been used as control criteria, but it is argued in this paper that management principles in retail chains should be based on different clusters of stores, formed from local competitive conditions. The paper proposes a clustering method based on five indicators of local competition. The research results are derived from local competitive conditions and the performance of 168 supermarkets, located in Sweden, and controlled by one retail chain.

The paper identifies four clusters of local markets labeled monopoly, fleet market, venue, and duopoly, based on local competitive conditions. The findings show that the “route” to profitability significantly differs between the clusters. In monopoly the route to high profitability goes through high‐gross margin, while in fleet market the key figures are low cost, large number of shoppers per week, and high productivity. Venue and duopoly both gain from high‐average transactions per shopper.

Supermarkets under different competitive conditions have different critical success factors and would probably be better managed, supported and evaluated on a different basis, i.e. retail chains need to adjust their approach to their supermarkets depending on local competitive conditions.

Based on the findings the paper proposes unique management strategies for different clusters of local markets to further enhance current strength areas.