Search results

This chapter focuses on how social media tools can be used to enhance collaboration in higher education and the benefits and challenges that this can bring. We investigate how two social media tools, social bookmarking, and microblogging, can be utilized to foster collaboration and determine why this is important in contemporary higher education. Case studies of social media use at Bournemouth University show how social bookmarking and microblogging have already yielded benefits.The case studies are grounded in the challenges facing higher education in 2010. We explore how social media has been used in the context of a need to enhance academic excellence and drive efficiencies in the face of funding constraints and changing demographics.

The case studies illustrate, first, how social bookmarking has been used to foster group cohesion, reflective practice, and evaluative skills in students, as well as being used at an institutional level to drive professional and administrative efficiencies; and second, how microblogging has made a difference in promoting reflective learning, group cohesion, and professional awareness in students and how this style of social networking has contributed to enhancing academic and professional networks.

Whilst the tools, uses, and stakeholders vary, the case studies show how social media has enabled collaboration between, students, academics, librarians, learning technologists, and even professional groups beyond the institution. We conclude that, when used appropriately, social media can facilitate the collaboration that will be essential to overcome the challenges facing higher education.

Jill Beard is a Library and Learning Support Manager at Bournemouth University, a service which includes libraries, learning technology, and academic skills development. She has written extensively over many years on a wide range of subjects and is currently co-editing a book on Digital Library Environments in Higher Education (Ashgate, 2010).

Despite the importance of developing sales personnel to become sales managers, virtually no attention has been given to this topic in the sales management literature. This paper presents a model that sales executives can use in developing potential sales managers. Valuable sales management skills are identified and methods for providing skill development are offered.

In recent years the importance of market‐related information obtained by the sales force and used in marketing decision making has been recognized, but seldom studied. Where investigations have explored the sales force intelligence‐gathering function, researchers have focused on selected aspects of this activity and generally ignored the overall system in which information collection and transfer take place. This article attempts to satisfy the need for such a system by presenting a model of the sales force intelligence‐gathering function.

The paper seeks to examine empirically the potential dilution and enhancement of brands that share product platforms with other brands.

Study 1 uses two real platform‐sharing examples from the automobile and consumer electronics industries in an experimental setting. Study 2 uses conjoint analysis in the same two industries to study the impact of platform‐sharing on preference and willingness to pay for a unique brand.

Study 1 finds that sharing a platform with an upscale brand is preferable to sharing with a downscale brand, although results are mixed on whether a unique‐to‐brand platform is preferred to sharing with an upscale brand. Study 2 finds that unique‐to‐brand platforms are preferred to any type of platform sharing, and calculates that this preference is worth about 6‐10 per cent of the product's retail price.

Both studies use student samples, although all product classes and brands tested are popular with this demographic, which is a key target market for the tested industries.

Platform sharing is an increasingly popular product development strategy that offers great cost savings in product design, manufacturing and servicing. The findings suggest that managers also need to carefully consider the potential cost to a brand's equity when calculating the financial implications of platform sharing.

This paper brings together two areas that are usually not studied together, i.e. product development and brand equity management, and finds that choices made in the former can have important implications for the latter.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a retrospection on the importance, origins and development of the research programs in the author’s career.

The study uses an autobiographical approach.

Most of the articles, research monographs and books that constitute this research and publishing efforts can be categorized into seven distinct, but related, research programs: channels of distribution; marketing theory; marketing’s philosophy debates; macromarketing and ethics; relationship marketing; resource-advantage theory; and marketing management and strategy. The value system that has guided these research programs has been shaped by specific events that took place in the author’s formative years. This essay chronicles these events and the origins and development of the seven research programs.

Chronicling the importance, origins and development of the seven research programs will hopefully motivate and assist other scholars in developing their own research programs.

Since the advent of the digital campus, numerous changes have occurred. In early developments, we were able to improve efficiencies and eliminate the need for human intervention to conduct routine activities. The power of processing massive amounts of data moved from mainframes to desktops and mobile computers. The transition to a ubiquitous computing environment was a relatively quick transition and one that has had a profound impact on the work we do and the way we do it. The presence of information technology has actually transformed the teaching, learning, and administrative environment in post-secondary education world-wide.

Considers the impact of multi‐faceted measures of job satisfaction on customer‐oriented behaviours demonstrated by service providers. Reveals how overall job satisfaction, together with specific satisfaction related to supervision, colleagues, promotion and work are positively related to customer‐orientation, while satisfaction with pay is not of significance in this case. Discusses recommendations for management and suggestions for further research.