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This study is an attempt to apply the techniques of semiotics in conjunction with quantitative analysis to decode and interpret an advertisement which promotes the South…
Abstract
Purpose
This study is an attempt to apply the techniques of semiotics in conjunction with quantitative analysis to decode and interpret an advertisement which promotes the South Australian Barossa Valley as a tourist destination.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey was submitted to a Southeast Asian student and postgraduate sample. Regression analysis and qualitative analysis were carried out, which suggested that the advertisement was engaging the majority of the audience.
Findings
Most respondents expressed a desire to visit the location and used language which was evocative and connective. Those who did not or who were turned off by the advertisement's content expressed themselves in language which terminated further engagement.
Research limitations/implications
The sample was a non-target group, but this is an advantage because it provides a base level of unconditioned response.
Practical implications
A better understanding of semiotics may reinforce other areas of marketing endeavour such as social marketing approaches which are gaining more importance in the still developing COVID-19 economy. This methodology can be extended to other marketing communication contexts.
Social implications
Once campaigns have been aimed at target audiences, there may be potential to orientate another campaign at non-target audiences using the same advertisement. In terms of global marketing, this is extension rather than adaptation.
Originality/value
This study provides an example of how marketing could use semiotics in conjunction with quantitative methods to determine an audience's response and the intention to purchase a product or service.
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Memoona Iqbal, Muhammad Rafiq and Saira Hanif Soroya
Digital libraries are not only an assortment of information assets yet have turned into a digital community for correspondence, searching and electronic learning. Also…
Abstract
Purpose
Digital libraries are not only an assortment of information assets yet have turned into a digital community for correspondence, searching and electronic learning. Also, economically the investment in terms of money, time, energy and manpower associated with the development of effective digital library (DL) systems demands high utilization of these resources. This study aims to explore the factors that affect the utilization of digital libraries and may lead to users’ satisfaction and finally high exposure to information systems like digital libraries. However, these factors may work differently in different cultures. Considering this fact, DeLone and McLean’s IS success model (ISSM) is tested and expanded in a local academic context.
Design/methodology/approach
Following the quantitative research design, a total of 355 responses were collected through a questionnaire-based survey. Research scholars of the University of Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan were the reviewed population of this study. A two-stage stratified random sampling method was used to choose the sample. Structural equation modelling is used to find out the nature and extent of the relationship among studied variables.
Findings
The findings confirm that service quality is the strong predictor of DL system use, whereas overall users’ satisfaction mediates the relationship between the predictors (content and service quality) and the outcome variable (use).
Originality/value
This work done is the first main endeavour to use the “Information System Success” theories to intervene and mediate the effect of content, IQ, system quality and service quality on the use of DL in the local context.
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Ida Okkonen, Tuomo Takala and Emma Bell
The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into the reciprocal relations between the caregiving imparted by immigration centre managers and the role of the researcher in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into the reciprocal relations between the caregiving imparted by immigration centre managers and the role of the researcher in responding to the care that is given by managerial caregivers. To enable this, we draw on a feminist theory of care ethics that considers individuals as relationally interdependent.
Design/methodology/approach
The analysis draws on a semi-structured interview study involving 20 Finnish immigration reception centre managers.
Findings
Insight is generated by reflecting on moments of care that arise between research participants and the researcher in a study of immigration centre management. We emphasise the importance of mature care, receptivity and engrossment in building caring relationships with research participants by acknowledging the care they give to others. Our findings draw attention to the moral and epistemological responsibility to practice care in organizational research.
Originality/value
The paper highlights the relationality between practicing care in immigration centre management and doing qualitative organizational research, both of which rely on mature care, receptivity and engrossment in order to meet the other morally. We draw attention to the moral responsibility to care which characterises researcher–researched relationships and emphasise the importance of challenging methodological discourses that problematise or dismiss care in qualitative organizational research.
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Ingo Pies and Vladislav Valentinov
Stakeholder theory understands business in terms of relationships among stakeholders whose interests are mainly joint but may be occasionally conflicting. In the latter case…
Abstract
Purpose
Stakeholder theory understands business in terms of relationships among stakeholders whose interests are mainly joint but may be occasionally conflicting. In the latter case, managers may need to make trade-offs between these interests. The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of managerial decision-making about these trade-offs.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper draws on the ordonomic approach which sees business life to be rife with social dilemmas and locates the role of stakeholders in harnessing or resolving these dilemmas through engagement in rule-finding and rule-setting processes.
Findings
The ordonomic approach suggests that stakeholder interests trade-offs ought to be neither ignored nor avoided, but rather embraced and welcomed as an opportunity for bringing to fruition the joint interest of stakeholders in playing a better game of business. Stakeholders are shown to bear responsibility for overcoming the perceived trade-offs through the institutional management of social dilemmas.
Originality/value
For many stakeholder theorists, the nature of managerial decision-making about trade-offs between conflicting stakeholder interests and the nature of trade-offs themselves have been a long-standing point of contention. The paper shows that trade-offs may be useful for the value creation process and explicitly discusses managerial strategies for dealing with them.
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In the early 1930s, Nicholas Kaldor could be classified as an Austrian economist. The author reconstructs the intertwined paths of Kaldor and Friedrich A. Hayek to disequilibrium…
Abstract
Purpose
In the early 1930s, Nicholas Kaldor could be classified as an Austrian economist. The author reconstructs the intertwined paths of Kaldor and Friedrich A. Hayek to disequilibrium economics through the theoretical deficiencies exposed by the Austrian theory of capital and its consequences on equilibrium analysis.
Design/methodology/approach
The author approaches the discussion using a theoretical and historical reconstruction based on published and unpublished materials.
Findings
The integration of capital theory into a business cycle theory by the Austrians and its shortcomings – e.g. criticized by Piero Sraffa and Gunnar Myrdal – called attention to the limitation of the theoretical apparatus of equilibrium analysis in dynamic contexts. This was a central element to Kaldor’s emancipation in 1934 and his subsequent conversion to John Maynard Keynes’ The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936). In addition, it was pivotal to Hayek’s reformulation of equilibrium as a social coordination problem in “Economics and Knowledge” (1937). It also had implications for Kaldor’s mature developments, such as the construction of the post-Keynesian models of growth and distribution, the Cambridge capital controversy, and his critique of neoclassical equilibrium economics.
Originality/value
The close encounter between Kaldor and Hayek in the early 1930s, the developments during that decade and its mature consequences are unexplored in the secondary literature. The author attempts to construct a coherent historical narrative that integrates many intertwined elements and personas (e.g. the reception of Knut Wicksell in the English-speaking world; Piero Sraffa’s critique of Hayek; Gunnar Myrdal’s critique of Wicksell, Hayek, and Keynes; the Hayek-Knight-Kaldor debate; the Kaldor-Hayek debate, etc.) that were not connected until now by previous commentators.
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