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Recently the industry's clients, designers and society as a whole, have begun to accept that innovation can offer key benefits in the form of financial growth and increased profits. Therefore, it is apparent that the development of a culture of innovation is of utmost importance if a business is to become universally proactive, entrepreneurial and remain successful. This owes much to the fact that the agility and ability of an organisation to respond to the changing marketplace is driven by its propensity to innovate. This paper does not attempt to resolve these problems; it merely attempts to raise awareness of the key issues relating to innovation, diffusion and the associated management of change. Moreover, it promotes the benefits afforded by developing an organizational culture of innovation. The content will be of interest to industrialists and researchers and will describe the key issues associated with product derivation, introduction and wider diffusion. Ultimately, it aims to demonstrate that creativity, the promotion of a culture for innovation, and the development of intellectual capital are issues of utmost importance in generating and maintaining a proactive and entrepreneurial organisation.

Permalite technical sales representative for the South. Paul Hagan has been appointed by Permalite as an additional technical sales representative for their metal finishing chemicals and processes for the South of England.

Although there are many companies in the computer industry which represent excellent examples of success stories, Apple Computers, Hewlett Packard, and Microsoft, were chosen because each pioneered specific areas of the computer industry. For Apple computers it was the move from large main frame computer systems to personal computers; Hewlett Packard led the industry in developing both high quality and low cost ink jet and laser printers; and Microsoft launched their multi‐billion dollar business developing software compatible with Apple and IBM computers. Getting to market first helped each one of these companies establish themselves as a leader in the industry, but as all three companies understand, today's products quickly become obsolete in this constantly changing industry.

Provides a framework for managers to approach the hiring process effectively. Looks at job analysis and the legal position when advertising and hiring new staff. Covers the screening process and resumes and interviewing. Gives some basic suggestions to consider and ask at interview. Uses Microsoft as a case study. Briefly looks at referencing and stresses the importance of effective hiring for the successful operation of any company.

The Norsk Senter for Informatikk A/S (NSI) recently became a privately‐owned limited company. The main shareholders are the Bergens Tidende, Fabritius, IDA (a consortium of three banks), NTNF, Kunnskapsfor‐laget and twenty‐nine of the thirty‐four NSI staff members. Among its new projects will be a videotex network between Oslo and Bergen so that users in Oslo can use the Bergens Tidende videotex service bureau. Under the reorganisation NSI will place more emphasis on being an umbrella IP, on the establishment of closed user groups and development of hardware and software.

While past studies have shown that corporate social responsibility (CSR) influences brand equity, loyalty and brand attitudes, research about CSR effects on the responsible and active dimensions of brand personality remains limited. This study aims to address this gap and examine how brands with different personality strength benefit from CSR communication, providing novel insights about CSR’s branding payoffs to firms.

Three experiments were conducted. Study 1 tested if CSR communication influenced responsible and active brand personality dimensions compared to non-CSR communication. Study 2 examined how varying CSR spending allocations affect personality perceptions of weak and strong brands. Studies 1 and 2 measured responsible and active brand personalities before and after exposure to experimental manipulations, assessing immediate changes in brand personality. Study 3 replicated the results of Study 2 using fictitious brands whose initial brand personalities were manipulated as either weak or strong.

CSR communication has the potential to influence brands’ responsible and active personalities compared to non-CSR communication. However, changes in brand personalities were contingent on CSR manipulations (smaller vs larger CSR spending) and initial brand strength. Brands that lacked strongly responsible and strong active personalities experienced an improvement in these perceptions after exposure to any CSR spending message. However, brands with strong responsible or strong active personalities experienced brand erosion after exposure to smaller CSR spending message or no improvement when the CSR message was aligned with the responsible and active conduct (e.g. mentioned larger CSR spending).

This study is the first to examine how CSR affects brand personality. By combining signalling and attitude change/congruity principle theories, it provides novel theoretical contributions to explain when CSR can improve, erode or exert no effect on the responsible and active brand personalities, providing insights for effective brand management.

The delivery of high-quality service is critical for the success, or otherwise, of many retailers. However, despite calls to examine the efficacy of the dimensions of quality in different service contexts, it is still largely unknown how dimensions such as empathy and responsiveness interact to determine consumers’ perceptions of service quality. Recent research also suggests that loyalty strategies may not be equally effective across all services contexts. The purpose of this paper is, therefore, to contribute to the service quality literature by providing a better understanding of how marketing strategy is effectively operationalised into improved services and consumer loyalty in physical stores.

Consumers from ten stores of one pharmacy retailer were surveyed. The retailer provides high-service levels at present and is examining ways of how to deliver a better quality service to its prescription and non-prescription account holding consumers. By examining consumer loyalties in high-services contexts in pharmacy retailing, the authors also propose how retailers in other sectors can learn to operationalise services quality into increased loyalties.

The findings of this research demonstrate that empathy, rather than responsiveness, is more important in a high service delivery context such as pharmacy retailing. Non-prescription account holding and non-store loyal consumers also do not perceive that high service responsiveness is compromised by offering of a highly empathetic (and possibly more time consuming) service by the retailer.

These findings present specific implications for retailers in the development of consumer loyalty in a high-service context. Moreover, the findings of this research also illustrate how retailers can more effectively target their investments in service design to enhance service quality and consumer loyalty.

In order to emphasize in-depth analyses of individual life stories, seven informants were selected. Since breadth of experience will contribute to a more detailed contextualization of the consumer's use of products in identity negotiation, diversity across informants was emphasized. Interviews generally followed the format as suggested by Thompson, Locander, and Pollio (1989). A comfortable setting was chosen and pseudonyms were used to ensure anonymity. Interviews were audio-taped and lasted anywhere from one to just over two hours. Grand tour questions (McCracken, 1988) focused on the meaning of the tattoo design, the experience of being tattooed, perceptions of the body, words the informants used to describe themselves, and other biographical information important for understanding the informant's personal myth. Every effort was made to present a natural front, keep the informant on track without being too directive, demonstrate active listening, and prompt the informant as a way of probing for details (Spradley, 1979). To ensure accuracy, an experienced and trained transcriptionist transcribed each of the seven interviews. The final text totaled 450 typed double-spaced pages.

This study aims to address customer focus as an important component of total quality management (TQM) and explore the key drivers of member satisfaction in tennis clubs via a novel theory-based member satisfaction index (MSI) model with high explanatory and predictive power. Furthermore, the study aims to investigate the relationship between satisfaction and behavioral intentions (willingness to stay; WTS) with consideration of the mediating effect of identification with the club.

This study uses variance-based partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to estimate the MSI model, which was tested in a leading tennis club in Germany (n = 185).

The results reveal that club atmosphere, club facilities and the price/quality ratio of the membership fee are the most important drivers of member satisfaction in tennis clubs. Member satisfaction has a large influence on the WTS of tennis club members. Identification with the club, when included as a mediator in the model, increases the variance explained in WTS considerably.

The small sample limits the generalizability of findings, and further research is recommended.

The MSI model is a useful benchmark tool for club managers who want to quantify the satisfaction and WTS of their club members. In addition, because of the integrated formative measurement models, the PLS-SEM results show which indicators can be used to positively impact satisfaction with each of the service quality dimensions, overall member satisfaction and WTS. The most important of these results are discussed in an importance-performance map analysis.

The MSI model is a multi-attribute index model through which members' evaluations of various dimensions of service and value are derived through multivariable linear function with each dimension weighted according to its importance in one holistic model. The model shows the strong impact of satisfaction on WTS of sports club members and reveals that findings of previous research on the relationship between fan and spectator identification and loyalty are transferable to sports club members. The MSI represents a new contribution to the literature; it was applied here to tennis clubs but is also suitable for application to other sports clubs.

Focuses on how successful collaboration has been achieved between three Canadian university libraries. The management recognised that there were cultural differences between the three library systems, and encouraged an open examination of values, personal systems and attitudes in order to prepare for the effects of change. Discusses the planning process and the lessons learned from the TriUniversity Group of Libraries collaboration.