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1 – 10 of over 22000This study aims to explore brand meaning from a consumer perspective, identifying tangible attributes and intangible associations and their arrangement in brand meaning…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore brand meaning from a consumer perspective, identifying tangible attributes and intangible associations and their arrangement in brand meaning frameworks. Previous literature has focused on brand meaning flowing from intangible associations, and new insights are offered into the tangible attributes’ contribution to brand meaning.
Design/methodology/approach
A phenomenological approach was adopted, and meanings were gathered from lived experiences with consumers of local food brands. Quasi-ethnographic methods were used, including accompanied shopping trips to food fairs and local farm shops, kitchen visits and in-depth interviews in and around the county of Dorset in the south-west of England.
Findings
The findings demonstrate that tangible attributes have sensorial and functional brand meanings and are mentally processed. Both hierarchical and flatter patterned approaches are present when connecting attributes and associations. The hierarchical approach reflects both short and long laddering approaches; the flatter alternative offers an interwoven, patterned presentation.
Research limitations/implications
This is a small in-depth study of local food brands, and the findings cannot be generalised across other brand categories.
Practical implications
Local food brand practitioners can promote relevant sensorial (e.g. taste) and functional (e.g. animal welfare) attributes. These can be woven into appropriate intangible associations, creating producer stories to be communicated through their websites and social media campaigns.
Originality/value
A revised brand meaning theoretical framework updates previous approaches and develops brand meaning theory. The study demonstrates that tangible attributes have meaning and hierarchical connections across tangible attributes, and intangible associations should not always be assumed. An additional patterned approach is present that weaves attributes and associations in a holistic, non-hierarchical way.
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Xi Zhan, Roger Goddard and Anika Anthony
Existing research suggests that organizational learning, jointly implemented by principals and teachers may reduce agency risks and improve school management effectiveness…
Abstract
Purpose
Existing research suggests that organizational learning, jointly implemented by principals and teachers may reduce agency risks and improve school management effectiveness. However, research investigating how this process occurs is lacking. The relationship between school leaders promoting the involvement of teachers in school-wide processes focused on instructional improvement and the coherence characterizing a school's instructional program remains unclear.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors identified shared instructional leadership and instructional coherence, as two key variables describing the process of organizational learning and the outcome of agency risk reduction. The authors employed hierarchical linear modeling to test the hypothesis that shared leaderships positively predicts differences among schools in instructional coherence.
Findings
Based on a sample of 113 public high schools selected from a U.S. Midwestern state, the results confirm the hypothesis.
Research limitations/implications
This study uses the existing theoretical and empirical findings to interpret the potential relationship between shared leadership and instructional coherence, and validates it through empirical data analysis. The findings expand the understanding of the shared leadership theory. Although the design of this study is strictly based on theoretical and empirical findings, and part of the purpose of the research is to find the reasons why shared leadership seems to be insignificant in some countries and regions, readers should still note that the sample source is American schools. The findings of this study are worth examining with different samples in future studies.
Practical implications
Since the direct relationship between shared leadership and student standardized test scores has been difficult to measure, and in some countries even negative, there is debate about the need for shared leadership. The difficulty of measurement is caused by the diversity of leadership subjects and the complexity of leadership tasks. This study finds out the direct object of shared leadership and the process of exerting its effects, which will expand the understanding of the positive meaning of shared leadership. This will help different countries and regions better identify and play the role of shared leadership.
Originality/value
Based on the combination of organizational learning theory, agency theory and shared leadership theory, the study modeled the process of collaborative organizational learning among principals and teachers. The study employed instructional coherence as a form of structured organizational learning that is a prerequisite for improvement in common measures of student learning such as standardized test scores. Do so provide practical guidance for educators seeking improvement through organizational learning.
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David Rae and Per Blenker
This paper aims to introduce the concept of Entrepreneurial Collective Intelligence (ECI) as a means of understanding how communities of entrepreneurial actors learn to act both…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to introduce the concept of Entrepreneurial Collective Intelligence (ECI) as a means of understanding how communities of entrepreneurial actors learn to act both collectively and knowingly. It explores how connections between processes of CI, agency and action can explain and enable the development entrepreneurial community organisations.
Design/methodology/approach
There is a selective literature review of prior works on the related fields of community and collective entrepreneurship; collectives and intelligence; agency and action. The review is used to propose a framework of collective entrepreneurial intelligence, agency and action. An interpretive approach is used to research four case studies of community organisations which use CI to generate entrepreneurial outcomes.
Findings
The cases are compared with themes from prior literature to develop a conceptual model of four ECI processes which enable intelligence, agency and action: collaborative processes; distributed working; intelligence representations and organisation of infrastructures. These are theorised to discuss ideas, challenges, methods and questions to enhance entrepreneurial actions, based on sharing knowledge and learning, in the context of collective agency, action and intelligence.
Research limitations/implications
The four processes, both together and separately, represent a coherent framework useful for further studies on the role of collectives in enterprising communities.
Practical implications
The four processes each represent a central area of attention, not only for development, learning, decision-making and leadership within enterprising communities but also for entrepreneurship education in terms of alternative didactics, pedagogies and learning forms.
Social implications
The improved knowledge on the role of collective agency and CI within entrepreneurial processes is useful for strengthening civil activism and other fruitful forms of entrepreneurial collective processes. This may help solve complicated societal problems where traditional conceptions of entrepreneurship fail.
Originality/value
The conceptual contribution is to explain the dynamic relationships between ECI and action, mediated by collective agency. The role of CI in informing entrepreneurial communities is explored and four enabling processes are proposed. This coherent framework is useful for further studies on the role of collectives in enterprising communities, whilst informing their learning, decision-making and leadership.
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The paper aims to explore the intergenerational maps project that set out to map the Brimbank and Moonee Valley residents' awareness of their favourite aspects of their local…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to explore the intergenerational maps project that set out to map the Brimbank and Moonee Valley residents' awareness of their favourite aspects of their local community. In reflecting on the way this project enabled local knowledge exchanges between different age groups, the paper examines the way intergenerational interactions become pedagogical and make public and public pedagogy visible.
Design/methodology/approach
This research paper employs the theoretical and methodological framework of performance (Charman and Dixon, 2021) to read the author's experience with the intergenerational maps project. Insights gained from performance framework are shared to illuminate the complexity of public pedagogy and its entanglement with place, public and knowledge.
Findings
The critical reflection on the author's encounter with a pedagogical event points to the importance of using a new theorisation of public pedagogy (Charman and Dixon, 2021) as a useful generative method to guide the reading, learning and research within the fields of public pedagogy and intergenerational relations.
Practical implications
The practical implications of this paper centres on its deployment of a new theorisation of public pedagogy as a useful framework for studying intergenerational interactions. This places these intergenerational interactional dynamics in the field of public pedagogy and can be practically applied to further develop desirable public pedagogical practices within the arena of public pedagogy.
Originality/value
The paper offers a subjective interpretation of the author's experience with an intergenerational interaction project and presents an application of a theoretical framework to read events as pedagogical performances that brings insights into the pedagogical potential of these public performances.
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Vasilis Gkogkidis and Nicholas Dacre
Research into responsible management education has largely focused on the merits, attributes, and transformation opportunities to enhance responsible business school education…
Abstract
Research into responsible management education has largely focused on the merits, attributes, and transformation opportunities to enhance responsible business school education aims. As such, a prominent part of the literature has occupied itself with examining if responsible management modules are inherently considered a non-crucial element of the curriculum and determining the extent to which business schools have introduced such learning content into their curriculum. However, there has been scant research into how to apply novel teaching approaches to engage students and promote responsible management education endeavours. As such, this paper seeks to address this gap through the development of a teaching framework to support educators in designing effective learning environments focused on responsible management education. We draw on constructivist learning theories and Lego Serious Play (LSP) as a learning enhancement approach to develop a pedagogical framework titled The Educator's LSP Journey. LSP is chosen due to its increasing application in learning environments to help promote critical discourse, and engage with highly complex problems, whether these are social, economic, environmental, or organisational. Therefore, this paper contributes to the responsible management education discourse by providing educators with a practical methodology to support student engagement and co-creation of knowledge by fostering exploratory learning environments and enriching the practices of active learning communities.
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Laura Reynolds, Heike Doering, Nicole Koenig-Lewis and Ken Peattie
Drawing on the service-dominant logic and taking a multi-stakeholder brand value co-creation perspective, this paper aims to investigate whether positioning a place brand around…
Abstract
Purpose
Drawing on the service-dominant logic and taking a multi-stakeholder brand value co-creation perspective, this paper aims to investigate whether positioning a place brand around sustainability helps or hinders stakeholders’ ability to co-create value for themselves and the brand.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is based on a case study of Bristol’s city branding following its award of European Green Capital, drawing on 29 in-depth interviews with key informants from multiple stakeholder groups. These interviews are supported by secondary material and field observations.
Findings
The findings evidence a “tale of two cities”. When sustainability is used as a positioning device, tensions are identified across three elements of brand co-creation: brand meanings; extraordinary versus mundane brand performances; and empowerment and disempowerment in branding governance. These tensions create stakeholder experiences of both engagement and estrangement.
Research limitations/implications
This paper is based on one case study and evaluates face-to-face stakeholder interactions. Future research could access further stakeholders, across multiple cities and also examine their digital engagement.
Practical implications
Positioning a brand as sustainable (i.e. green) requires strong commitment to other ethical principles in practice. Brand practitioners and marketers may benefit from advancing stakeholders’ everyday brand performances to reduce disillusionment.
Originality/value
Rallying around virtuous associations, i.e. sustainability, does not in itself facilitate the generation of value for stakeholders and the brand, but instead can illuminate power imbalances and tensions in stakeholder interactions that result in a co-destruction of value.
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Hajira Liaqat, Ishfaq Ahmed and Sheikh Usman Yousaf
This study aims to explore the phenomenon of Islamic religious communication and how Islamic banks in Pakistan use religion-based communication, along with its expected outcomes.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the phenomenon of Islamic religious communication and how Islamic banks in Pakistan use religion-based communication, along with its expected outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach
Transcendental phenomenology approach is opted using a multi-stage data collection strategy consisting of observations, documentary reviews and semi-structural interviews to get deep into the phenomenon in a particular context.
Findings
Findings highlight Islamic religious communication as workplace Islamic da’wah that is majorly categorized into compulsive da’wah, objectics da’wah and impulsive da’wah, serving its role in bringing spirituality to work through work-faith integration.
Research limitations/implications
The finding of the study can be used in planning, formulating and implementing Islamic da’wah-based model to induce spirituality at work.
Originality/value
This study is the first of its type exploring Islamic da’wah in an organizational context as a mean to bring spirituality at work.
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Lesley Jones, Nicky Cullum, Ruth Watson and John Keady
This study aims to address this need. In the UK, people with dementia admitted to National Health Service mental health in-patient dementia assessment wards [dementia assessment…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to address this need. In the UK, people with dementia admitted to National Health Service mental health in-patient dementia assessment wards [dementia assessment wards] present as complex and experience a number of changed behaviours, such as excessive walking, agitation and aggression. The complexity of the presentation of dementia has been identified as underpinning pre-and post-admission to these care environments, but limited study has so far been conducted to explore the boundaries and meaning of complexity and its relationship to dementia assessment ward practice.
Design/methodology/approach
An online electronic survey of UK-based national dementia leaders was conducted in 2018. Nineteen completed questionnaires were returned, and mental health nurses comprised the largest sub-sample. Qualitative data of the free-text responses were analysed using manifest content analysis.
Findings
Four routes to admission to a dementia assessment ward were identified. Multiplicity of needs and interconnectedness were seen as important domains in uncovering the meaning of complexity. The importance of life story and formulation approaches were highlighted. Challenges uncovered included, better understanding changed behaviour and its relationship to complexity, the need for understanding the boundaries of complexity and making visible care practices on these specific wards.
Originality/value
Findings can be used to produce a heightened awareness about the meaning and function of complexity in dementia assessment wards. Policymakers and researchers need to increase the emphasis on this area of mental health and dementia care. Further training for the multidisciplinary team on formulation approaches could help to improve the evidence-base for practice.
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Chad S. Seifried, Milorad M. Novicevic and Stephen Poor
This study aims to use a theoretical-based case study of two distinct ownership groups of the Jack Daniel’s brand to explore how rhetorical history (i.e. malleability of the past…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to use a theoretical-based case study of two distinct ownership groups of the Jack Daniel’s brand to explore how rhetorical history (i.e. malleability of the past for strategic goals) may evoke and capitalize on different forms of nostalgia. Within, the authors configure four forms of nostalgia (i.e. personal, historical, collective and cultural) from the individual or collective interaction and level of direct experience one has with the past as lived or happened.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses an historical research approach which involved the identification of primary and secondary sources, facility tour, source criticism and triangulation to create themes of rhetorical history infused with nostalgic narratives using compelling evidence through rich description of this fusion.
Findings
The findings reveal how nostalgia-driven narratives reflecting different collective longing for the re-creation of an American Paradise Lost used by Jack Daniel (i.e. the man) and later but differently by Brown-Forman. This study uncovers how the company’s inherited past was used rhetorically throughout its history, beginning with the nostalgic story of Jack Daniel and the distillery’s nostalgically choreographed location in Lynchburg, Tennessee. This study delves into this setting to highlight the importance of symbols, details, emotional appeals and communications for collective memory and identity development and to showcase the ways in which they are influenced by different types and forms of nostalgia.
Originality/value
This study adds to a limited number of studies focused on understanding the impact of founders on an organization’s brand and how that is malleable. This study responds to scholarly calls to study the influence of sequenced historical rhetoric on an organization and highlight the relevance of social emotions such as nostalgia for rhetorical history. Finally, the theoretical contribution involves the advancing and construction of a theory typology of nostalgia previously proposed by Havlena and Holak in 1996.
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