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In this article, Roy Ritson, Bookers manager in Zambia, outlines the problems faced by an emerging African state when confronted with a situation in the distributive trades where previously the control was white. He sheds some light on the methods used by the Zambian government to overcome both the economic and educational difficulties raised — but much still needs to be done.

In this chapter, we examine the current research on how technology is applied to benefit students with emotional and/or behavioral disorders (EBD). First, we describe the iterative yet unpredictable nature of technological innovation to suggest that incremental successes are qualified by the creation of often unforeseen consequences. We then identify commonly used nonelectronic technologies in education to emphasize that the hoped-for advances in electronic technology have failed to deliver on their decades-old promise of educational revolution. We continue with our review of the literature on empirical studies examining how technology is used to support students with EBD. These findings indicate that the research design primarily employed in this field is single-subject. Examples of specific findings include web-based graphic organizers for student writing, virtual self-modeling for targeting student behaviors, and virtual coaching for teachers of students with EBD. We conclude by reviewing how leaders in the field of special education predict the field will change in the future. Overall, with an increased emphasis on research accessibility and practitioner-validated knowledge, and advances in neuroscience and artificial technologies, practitioners may hold a more central role to the creation and dissemination of knowledge.

This paper attempts to explore and identify the growing segments of online buyers of premium brands in the context of the post-pandemic market in India. The multi-dimensional trait of fashion orientation has been used as the psychographic construct for segmenting young urban consumers who shop on e-commerce platforms.

An online study across major cities resulted in a sample of 555 urban consumers of premium apparel and accessories brands. Hierarchical, two-step and k-means cluster analysis were conducted to identify diverse consumer segments and arrive at a demographic and usage-based profiling of the clusters. Furthermore, one-way analysis of variance was conducted to assess the key drivers for an online purchase among the obtained segments.

The pioneering use of fashion orientation as a base for segmentation helped identify three distinct clusters of socially conscious fashionistas, fashion involved and fashion indifferent buyers. The study identified significant differences in the demographic composition as well as their usage patterns and purchase motivations to shop online.

The study looks at an extremely important but neglected category of premium brands. The distinct clusters of premium brand buyers highlighted by the study adds theoretical value as well as managerial insights for the premium brand marketer as they seek to target consumers in Asian economies.

The present study aims to propose a novel employee-centric framework for the study of employer brand attractiveness. This framework disentangles the role of employer attributes, employee benefits and employee perceived value in the study of employer brands to better develop policies for talent attraction. Additionally, this study formulates a research agenda to help advance an employee-centric view of the employer’s brand management by following the tradition of customer-centric research and identifying benefits and forms of value that are yet unexplored.

This paper performs a systematic and critical review of the literature on employer brand attraction from the lens of means-end chains to examine how the notions of “employer attributes”, “employee benefits” and “perceived value” have been addressed in past studies and what relations have been established among these three concepts.

The results unveil the existing conflation among attributes, benefits and value in the conceptualization of employer brand attractiveness. By proposing an employee-centric framework following the tenets of current consumer-centric paradigms, this paper disentangles the notions of attributes, benefits and value in the creation of attractive employer brands; establishes a hierarchical relationship among them; and suggests studying the multiple paths of relationships between attributes and benefits. These conditions should help organizations understand how to create successful strategies to ultimately ensure that they are selected as employers of choice.

Further research is needed to clarify the domains in which the already studied empirical relations hold. This could be achieved by conducting a laddering process based on a means–end chain approach. Additionally, the impact of this framework on the construction of effective value propositions and employee market segmentation should be further explored.

This paper has revisited the construct of employer brand from a means–ends approach to propose an employee-centric view guiding employer brand strategies. As competition for the best employees sharpens, understanding how employer brand traits are valued in the eyes of different segments of employees and applicants may help organizations to develop more effective strategies to attract the best talent.

This paper aims to offer a quantitative methodology to identify and measure the gap between the communicated brand identity and perceived brand image by channel members and the consumers. Brand marketers communicate with their target consumers to make them aware of brand identity and communicate the same way to the channel members directly. Channel members, in turn, convey the same to the end-users. Thus, a proper alignment of these three crucial nodes, namely, brand marketers, channel members and consumers, is inevitable for the efficient transfer of brand identity. However, in reality, not all are successful to synchronize communicated brand identity and image perception. So, the identification and measurement of identity-image gap is essential.

Based on the literature review, the authors propose a conceptual model for the study and generate the basic research questions. In this study, Kapferer’s brand identity prism has been taken as the focal point of study to measure brand identity. So far as the vector measure is concerned, a p-dimensional setup is present, each dimension representing each facet of Kapferer’s brand identity prism. Now, given these sets of observations, the authors introduce for each set, a multivariate distributional setup to represent the underlying population behavior.

In this study, a theoretical framework is proposed to identify and measure brand identity and image consistency. To minimize the problem associated with subjective decisions, an objective procedure has been proposed to measure the brand knowledge structure of company personnel, consumers and channel members about the considered brands. The results of this study show that brand knowledge consistency is missing among marketers, consumers and channel members for considered brands. The proposed methodology may help marketers to measure the identity-image gap in a more objective manner with pinpoint accuracy by adopting a quantitative approach.

The proposed methodology may help marketers to measure the identity-image gap in a more objective manner with pinpoint accuracy by adopting a quantitative approach. Once a gap is identified, it will be easy for marketers to adopt possible measures to bridge the gap. This helps brand marketers to understand the branding process more objectively.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, there is a lack of concrete quantitative approach, attempting to discuss the methodology to measure the gap between brand identity facets and brand image. In this backdrop, this might be the first paper offering a quantitative methodology to identify and measure the gap between the communicated brand identity and perceived brand image by channel members and the consumers.

The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of three dimensions of media context – program type, break type, and pod position – on two types of humorous advertisements: incongruity resolution (IR) and arousal safety (AS). The study aims to demonstrate that different humor types are evaluated differently under similar media context elements and a particular humorous advertisement can be evaluated differently under different elements of media context.

The hypotheses were tested through two experiments which were planned and conducted as “between-subjects” design. The analysis of collected data were done through ANOVA using IBM SPSS 22.

The results indicated that the adverse impact of negative mood (vs positive mood) was greater on IR advertisements as compared to AS advertisements. Similarly, the negative impact of an abrupt break (vs smooth break) was greater on IR advertisements. However, both humor types were effective when placed in positive mood programs and smooth breaks.

The findings suggest that campaign and media planners need to consider the media context as well as humor types to get better return on their adspend. Results of this study can also be applicable for online medium.

This is the first study to test the impact of three dimensions of media context on two types of humorous advertisements.

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualise, develop and validate a scale to measure the employer brand from the perspective of existing employees.

The methodology entailed the compilation of a literature review and conduction of qualitative interviews to generate items. Five employer brand dimensions have been derived through exploratory factor analysis and further validated through confirmatory factor analysis by using a separate data of 313 employees. Also, the employer brand has been specified as a second-order factor that is determined by five first-order factors.

A final 23-item EB scale covering five dimensions of the employer brand has been developed. The dimensions identified are: a healthy work atmosphere, training and development, work-life balance, ethics and corporate social responsibility, and compensation and benefits. Also, the higher order measurement model suggests that employer brand is most influenced by the “healthy work atmosphere” dimension. These dimensions reflect the perceptions of existing employees regarding their organisation. The scale is found to be psychometrically sound for measuring the employer brand.

The scale is useful for both researchers and practitioners. A deeper insight into the dimensions may help managers to identify their impact on organisational outcomes like employee satisfaction, employee retention, commitment and productivity. Also, organisations can measure the perceptions of employees for identifying improvement gaps and developing effective attraction and retention strategies. The scale also provides researchers with a sought-after conceptualisation of employer brand.

The authors believe that the study is the first of its kind wherein the employer brand has been modelled as a second-order factor from the perspective of the existing employees.

The brand identity–image gap is a well-known marketing field. However, very little academic work has been done within the wine industry regarding collective brands. With the aim of filling this gap, this paper analyzes and describes the relationship between identity and the image of Bordeaux wines. It is intended as a collective wine brand.

From a positivist–functionalist perspective, a 45-question survey has been administered online to N = 53 internal brand operators (winery owners or managers) and to N = 655 external consumers (mainly focusing on 18–25 year-old segment). Nonprobabilistic sampling techniques have been used. Questions were structured within a semantic opposition.

Data analysis has shown that the nine-dimension model (physical, personality, culture, self-image, reflection, relationship, positioning, vision and heritage) is capable of collecting a richer and more pertinent set of information concerning the brand identity; statistically significant gaps have been found in 25 out of 45 items; counterintuitively, the consumers have a very different opinion about the brand compared with existing ideas. Direct implications are that internal brand operators may suffer from imposter syndrome; information asymmetry may play a central role in brand perception; and the brand lacks symbolic and inspirational functions.

Providing an original model to analyze and evaluate the brand identity–image gap, specifically adapted for collective wine brands, this work contributes to the literature by increasing the knowledge about brand identity issues.

Business at Birmingham's National Exhibition Centre has disproved the critics who believed that only London was a suitable venue for major shows. But NEC space costs are rising to such an extent that some exhibitors are threatening to pull out. Report by Dave Grayston.

This paper aims to clarify the persuasion mechanism of chief executive officers (CEOs) and employees as endorsers of brand advertising and helps discern consumer attitudes toward internal endorsement.

The exploratory character of the present research required a qualitative approach combining focus groups and face-to-face interviews considered as both meaningful and complementary.

The findings suggest that while the celebrity endorsement ensures familiarity and likability, internal endorsement supports credibility and congruity with an important role of storytelling. Moreover, employee endorsements induce an internalization process based on the real-self, while the endorser CEO induces admiration grounded in the ideal self. More fundamentally, the study reveals how the internal endorsement modifies the meaning transfer model and involves a process of meaning translation, which affects the corporate brand image rather than the product brand image.

The present paper reveals that CEOs and employees can be strong levers for gilding the corporate brand image compared to the celebrities who enhance the product brand image. Moreover, the authors show that the CEO is a character who can be admired without the threat of upward comparison at the opposite of celebrities. Finally, this research highlights the specific role of employees bringing authenticity because of their anchorage in real life.