Search results

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the environment surrounding a decision-making event affects whether decision-makers consider the credibility of their advisors and take their advice.

In two experiments, the characteristics of the event and credibility of the advisor were manipulated, the extent to which participants considered the information from the advisor was measured, and whether participants took advice was determined.

Decision-makers are more likely to take advice from advisors when the decision-making event is of low urgency or high criticality because they are more likely to consider information provided by high-credibility advisors.

Within organizations, decision-makers may be making suboptimal decisions when faced with highly urgent decisions or decisions with low criticality. This study suggests that under these conditions, decision-makers are less likely to consider the information provided by high-credibility advisors. Organizations may consider encouraging decision-makers to override their tendency to disregard advice from credible advisors.

This study introduces a contextual factor relevant to managers, event characteristics, which has an effect on whether decision-makers take advice. A unique experimental design was utilized in which credibility was manipulated across two studies with an explicit (Study 1: resume) vs implicit (Study 2: video) method, and advice-taking was measured with a decision that was clearly right or wrong.

Sponsorship has been a growth area in the marketing mix through the 1980s with “corporate” aims joining brand‐directed objectives in recent years. The alcoholic drinks industry has now the second biggest sponsorship spend of any sector. The market is subdivided into five areas. Sports sponsorship has traditionally been the largest sector but new legislation is likely to see sponsorship of the media, especially television, increase very rapidly, at the expense of involvement in sports. Many pundits also foresee a rise in resources applied to the arts, education, social and charitable sponsorship. The drinks industry is likely to make greater use of corporate sponsorship to achieve a positive image to help fight off restrictive legislation.

Some employers contend that the college graduates they hire should have stronger communication and critical thinking skills upon arrival from their various college/university programs in which they majored. As higher education continues its efforts to meet the demands for employers, the authors contend that the benefits of participation in debate exercises can be incorporated into various courses as a teaching tool to increase facility with these soft skills. A practical application of debate in a specific organizational leadership course is presented, along with highlights of the student participants’ reflections upon the experience, and the initial signs of positive impact on these skills. Suggestions of future application of debate into curricula are also shared.

Recent changes in the UK political landscape have brought about cuts in public sector spending. Local authorities, in common with other public sector agencies, are required to make significant cost savings over the coming years. Procurement is an area of public sector administration characterised by considerable costs and inefficiency where the adoption of innovative technologies, such as e‐markets, can be deployed to effect significant costs savings. However, there are many barriers to the adoption of such technologies. The purpose of this paper is to explore and expound the factors that impede local authorities from adopting e‐markets and to present a learning opportunity for procurement managers and other stakeholders involved in technology adoption in local government and the wider public sector.

A case study based on in depth interviews with 17 senior level executives in e‐markets and local authorities on barriers to e‐market adoption in the local government sector is presented. The interviews were transcribed and subsequently coded and analysed using the qualitative data analysis software QSR N6.

A number of factors (risk perception, knowledge deficits, trust, firm size, and organisational readiness) pertaining to Johnson's framework of e‐market adoption barriers were found to affect e‐market adoption and use in the local government sector. Importantly, the study also found factors that are idiosyncratic to the sector that impinged on e‐market adoption.

The scope of the study is limited to examining such barriers from a buy‐side local authority perspective, the findings of which may have implications for the adoption of e‐markets and other e‐procurement technologies in the wider public sector and beyond. The paper also makes a contribution to the literature on e‐market adoption by adding to the body of knowledge relating to institutional theory.

The case study can help local authority and other public sector procurement managers, academic researchers, practitioners, consultants and other professionals involved in technology adoption better understand, and find practical ways to offset, the barriers that impinge on the adoption of e‐markets and other innovative technologies that can reduce costs within public sector organisations.

E‐market adoption has the potential to realise a number of significant cost saving benefits within and between organisations. However, such benefits cannot be realised if there are barriers to their adoption and full utilisation. To date, research on the dynamics of e‐market adoption has largely focused on private sector enterprises with few studies examining this phenomenon in public sector environments. Therefore, e‐market adoption in the public sector has received limited attention in the literature over the past decade. This study examines, and provides empirical evidence of, barriers to e‐market uptake and usage in the local government sector in order to act as a starting point to creating better understanding of such barriers among academic and practitioner audiences.

The objective of this paper is to explore and determine a set of factors that are critical to the success of business‐to‐business (B2B) e‐markets in the aerospace and defence, healthcare, higher education and local government industry sectors, in order to advance our current understanding of what factors facilitate e‐market adoption and success. The paper examines critical success factors (CSFs) for e‐markets from a strategic fit perspective.

The study adopted a semi‐inductive qualitative approach based on a review of the literature, followed by a pilot study and 58 indepth semi‐structured interviews with senior level executives in buyer, supplier, e‐market and third‐party organisations. Qualitative data analysis software, QSR N6, was used to code and analyse the interview data for citations that corresponded with the candidate e‐market CSFs that had been identified either in the literature, pilot study or during the course of the interviews with respondents. The CSFs for e‐markets were ranked by the frequency of respondents citing a particular CSF.

The study found eight factors that are critical to e‐market success and four factors (critical mass, integration issues, value proposition, and leadership participation) were found to be conducive to e‐market success in all four industry sectors. Likewise, four factors (industry knowledge, revenue model, branding and reputation, and rich content) were found to be only conducive to e‐market success in three of the four industry sectors.

The paper can help academic researchers, managers, consultants, practitioners and other professionals better understand what factors are critical to the success of e‐markets and other online enterprises operating in the B2B marketspace.

There have been numerous calls for more empirical research on the dynamics of e‐market adoption for more than a decade. To date, research on the CSFs for e‐markets has been largely anecdotal and sporadic with a paucity of studies noting factors that are likely to be favourable to e‐market success. This study addresses the call for more research on e‐markets and imparts empirical evidence on factors that are perceived to be conducive to the success of e‐markets. It contributes to the base of knowledge on e‐markets by relating the concept of CSFs with the theory of strategic fit as, to date, no known study has examined CSFs for e‐markets from a strategic fit perspective. The study also presents the benefits capabilities‐industry participants’ needs fit conceptual model as a precursor for theory building in future studies on B2B e‐markets and informs stakeholders involved in developing e‐markets or other online B2B ventures to better comprehend the conditions and determinants of success.

The objective of this paper is to explore and determine a set of factors that are critical to the success of business-to-business (B2B) e-markets in the aerospace and defence, healthcare, higher education and local government industry sectors, in order to advance our current understanding of what factors facilitate e-market adoption and success. The paper examines critical success factors (CSFs) for e-markets from a strategic fit perspective.

The study adopted a semi-inductive qualitative approach based on a review of the literature, followed by a pilot study and 58 indepth semi-structured interviews with senior level executives in buyer, supplier, e-market and third-party organisations. Qualitative data analysis software, QSR N6, was used to code and analyse the interview data for citations that corresponded with the candidate e-market CSFs that had been identified either in the literature, pilot study or during the course of the interviews with respondents. The CSFs for e-markets were ranked by the frequency of respondents citing a particular CSF.

The study found eight factors that are critical to e-market success and four factors (critical mass, integration issues, value proposition, and leadership participation) were found to be conducive to e-market success in all four industry sectors. Likewise, four factors (industry knowledge, revenue model, branding and reputation, and rich content) were found to be only conducive to e-market success in three of the four industry sectors.

The paper can help academic researchers, managers, consultants, practitioners and other professionals better understand what factors are critical to the success of e-markets and other online enterprises operating in the B2B marketspace.

There have been numerous calls for more empirical research on the dynamics of e-market adoption for more than a decade. To date, research on the CSFs for e-markets has been largely anecdotal and sporadic with a paucity of studies noting factors that are likely to be favourable to e-market success. This study addresses the call for more research on e-markets and imparts empirical evidence on factors that are perceived to be conducive to the success of e-markets. It contributes to the base of knowledge on e-markets by relating the concept of CSFs with the theory of strategic fit as, to date, no known study has examined CSFs for e-markets from a strategic fit perspective. The study also presents the benefits capabilities-industry participants’ needs fit conceptual model as a precursor for theory building in future studies on B2B e-markets and informs stakeholders involved in developing e-markets or other online B2B ventures to better comprehend the conditions and determinants of success.

The objective of this research is to provide insight into the management of service quality and emotions across customer relationships in the business‐to‐consumer market and to identify which segmentation method, i.e. conceptual versus data‐driven, is more effective for this purpose.

A cross‐sectional customer satisfaction survey conducted in the hotel industry was used to test the predictions. The respondents were Norwegian customers (n=689) of an international hotel chain, interviewed by telephone through a professional marketing research bureau. Several statistical analyses were applied to analyze the data, i.e. Cluster, MANOVA and regression. The conceptual model was estimated using PLS.

It would appear that the weaker the relationship segment, the more quality‐based and disappointing is the customer experience. The stronger or closer the relationship segment, the more balanced (with respect to price and quality) and joyful is the experience. One segmentation method seems to be more efficient than the other in this context.

The sample consists of Norwegian customers from the hotel industry represented by the business customer segment. There are more men than women in the samples.

The findings will allow service providers to develop more effective product‐service‐price offerings and manage the emotional responses of customers with whom they have very different relationships.

This is the first scientific study to examine just how the role of emotions varies across relationship segments while comparing the findings from two different segmentation techniques.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and expound the factors that impinge on the adoption and usage of industrial e‐markets.

A review of the literature on e‐market adoption was followed by in‐depth interviews with senior managers in buyer, supplier, and e‐market organisations. Senior level executives (15) reported barriers and challenges to the adoption and usage of e‐markets operating in the aerospace and defence and higher education sectors. The interview data is transcribed, coded and analysed using the qualitative data analysis programme QSR N6.

The paper found a number of barriers and challenges related risk perception, knowledge deficits, trust, firm size, and organisational readiness that moderate the adoption and usage of e‐markets in the sectors.

There is unequal representation of buyer and supplier organisations between the two e‐market sectors. However, the case material enabled the research question to be answered and did not compromise the aims of the research.

The case material presented in the paper can help academic researchers, managers, practitioners and other professionals better understand the barriers that impinge on e‐market adoption and find practical ways to mitigate those barriers.

Recently, research on the barriers and challenges to e‐markets has been largely anecdotal and patchy with a paucity of studies noting factors that are likely to be conducive to e‐markets success. This study departs from such studies by offering empirical evidence of the factors in moderating the uptake of e‐markets.