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1 – 10 of 503
Open Access
Article
Publication date: 31 May 2021

Nuno Baptista, Helena Alves and José Pinho

This paper aims to reinforce the arguments for applying the social support concept in social marketing.

2296

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to reinforce the arguments for applying the social support concept in social marketing.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper aims to conceptually outline the potential positive contribution of social support for social marketing practice as a tool to induce behavior change.

Findings

This paper focuses on the philosophical principle of social exchange, highlights the consumer-centered perspective of social marketing, which implies the natural evaluation of the social networks of influence and support and presents social support as a mechanism to induce long-term behavior change.

Research limitations/implications

No empirical (qualitative or quantitative) investigations were used to test the application of the concept in practical interventions.

Practical implications

This paper provides significant insights for intervention developers that can be used to program and theoretically justify future social marketing interventions applying the social support concept.

Social implications

Empirical research concluded for a positive relation between social support and human health and well-being. Thus, increasing the use of the concept in social marketing can serve to attain these social goals.

Originality/value

The concept of social support has gained considerable interest in the areas of behavioral medicine and health psychology. Despite such interest, it is still not clear how it can be approached in social marketing as there is a lack of conceptual literature discussing social support from a social marketing perspective, the number of social marketing interventions operationalizing the concept is limited and, till date, no research has focused in comprehensively establishing a theoretical rationale to operationalize the concept in social marketing.

Details

RAUSP Management Journal, vol. 56 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2531-0488

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 7 June 2021

Fiona Spotswood, Gareth Wiltshire, Sara Spear and Angela Makris

This paper aims to explore four disruptions that practice theory makes to traditional social marketing approaches to school physical activity (PA) intervention.

1672

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to explore four disruptions that practice theory makes to traditional social marketing approaches to school physical activity (PA) intervention.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper draws on existing literature from sustainable consumption, sociology of health and illness and the authors’ experiences working with primary schools in the UK to plan and execute social marketing approaches to PA, targeting interconnected social practices from which PA emerges or fails to emerge. The paper explores a practice-oriented theoretical framing, engaging with calls from interdisciplinary areas for PA interventions to shape the PA emerging from a school’s everyday routines, rather than promote PA participation at an individual level.

Findings

The paper argues first that a practice perspective would focus on situation research rather than audience research, with practices rather than people as the focus. Second, the purpose of practice-oriented social marketing would be to achieve transitions in practices rather than behaviour change. Third, the planning and management approach of practice-oriented social marketing would account for unintended consequences and complex interconnections between practices. Finally, an evolved evaluation approach to practice-oriented social marketing would take a longer term approach to understand how cultural transitions are emerging.

Originality/value

This paper contributes to an important stream of critical social marketing scholarship that seeks to advance social marketing away from its individualist routes. It sets an agenda for further research that considers the ontological and practical possibilities for practice informed approach to social marketing.

Details

RAUSP Management Journal, vol. 56 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2531-0488

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 17 February 2022

Ulla-Maija Sutinen

The paper aims to elucidate the potential of a socio-cultural approach to social marketing. Drawing on a practice-theoretical understanding of change, the paper discusses how a…

3047

Abstract

Purpose

The paper aims to elucidate the potential of a socio-cultural approach to social marketing. Drawing on a practice-theoretical understanding of change, the paper discusses how a socio-cultural approach can inform social marketing and enhance the possibilities of the field to address complex, multifaceted issues that require changes beyond the individual.

Design/methodology/approach

While the paper is conceptual in nature, it uses an illustrative example of food waste as the basis for an investigation of what a socio-cultural approach, rooted in practice-theoretical understanding of change, means for social marketing.

Findings

The paper is conceptual in nature but highlights new opportunities for social marketing connected to a socio-cultural approach foregrounding practice changes. The paper introduces potential roles that social marketers can adopt to initiate and support practice changes in the context of food waste.

Practical implications

The paper emphasises the importance of focussing on the socio-culture and practices connected to the issue in question, both when scoping for insight and when developing the ways to address it.

Originality/value

By integrating a practice-theoretical understanding of change, social marketing and food waste literature, the paper offers novel insights about the potential of adopting a socio-cultural approach to social marketing. The paper discusses a socio-cultural approach to social marketing in context, emphasising the roles social marketers can play in practice changes.

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 12 April 2022

Fernanda Rodrigues de Siqueira, Carlos André da Silva Müller and Osmar Siena

This research aimed to analyze how information on public policies to mitigate the judicialization of the SUS (Brazilian Unified Health System) have been disseminated via digital…

Abstract

Purpose

This research aimed to analyze how information on public policies to mitigate the judicialization of the SUS (Brazilian Unified Health System) have been disseminated via digital media to citizens and stakeholders.

Design/methodology/approach

Under a qualitative and inductive paradigm, the research was based on the search for news on the Google pages. Data were grouped into higher categories to formalize theoretical generalizations.

Findings

Data analysis showed that there are news classified into 11 codes, forming three news groups broadcast as an effort by the programs to legitimize themselves with society: Perceived Quality, Publicity Produced and Results Achieved.

Research limitations/implications

The relationship between the effectiveness of public policies and their dissemination in digital media has implications for the result/legitimacy relationship, not excluding that public marketing can make a program legitimate without having results that confirm its effectiveness.

Social implications

The work provides a means of understanding the dissemination of public policies, in particular, verifying whether these are being provided in order to establish responsible and transparent communication with the citizen or to legitimize public policies without effective results.

Originality/value

The proposed conceptual model is based on four quadrants and represents the relationship between the results achieved by public policies and legitimacy, considering a phenomenon resulting from public marketing. The association between the intensity of these constructs constitutes four themes: fake public marketing, inefficient public policy, deficient public marketing and full public policy.

Details

Revista de Gestão, vol. 29 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1809-2276

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 17 October 2019

Diego Mota Vieira

This study aims to analyze the use of discourse to solve issues related to coordination between advocacy coalitions in processes of gradual and transformative institutional change

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to analyze the use of discourse to solve issues related to coordination between advocacy coalitions in processes of gradual and transformative institutional change related to public policies.

Design/methodology/approach

Theoretical background is based on the advocacy coalition framework (ACF), new discursive institutionalism and critical discourse analysis theories. The research examines shorthand notes of public hearings held in the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies and the Federal Senate between 1999 and 2012, carrying out a case study on Belo Monte hydroelectric power plant. The speech extracts were categorized according to the modes of operation of ideology and typical strategies of symbolic construction proposed by Thompson (1995).

Findings

The results suggest that the discourse can be an instrument of internal coordination and between coalitions that share beliefs about a policy, as in the case of Belo Monte. Potentially existing coalitions define their identities and set positions on controversial issues, aligning interests and expectations. In the case studied, the modes of operation of ideology verified as instruments of the coalitions were dissimulation, reification, fragmentation, unification and legitimation.

Research limitations/implications

The paper represents a unique analysis of the modes of operation of ideology (Thompson, 1999) in the case of Belo Monte. In addition, the paper aims to contribute to the New Discursive Institutionalism and to the ACF when it uses the critical discourse analysis to articulate a method to analyze the use of the Discourse by the coalitions. In fact, such an approach integrating the ACF, the New Discursive Institutionalism and the critical discourse analysis is something original. Finally, it also addresses a gap in ACF: issues related to advocacy coalition coordination.

Practical implications

Attentive readers linked to organizations working on infrastructure and environmental policies can benefit from the results by envisaging the deliberate manipulation of typical symbolic construction strategies and general modes of operation of ideology.

Social implications

The study sheds light on the daily and behind-the-scenes disputes among stakeholders who are interested in a certain public policy. It may draw attention to the access and professional use of the shorthand notes of the hearings held at the National Congress.

Originality/value

This paper aims to fill a gap pointed out by Jenkins-Smith et al. (2014) regarding problems of coordination of advocacy coalitions. In addition, it innovates by using critical discourse analysis as a methodological reference in ACF empirical studies. In addition, this work continues a trajectory of two other previously published studies dealing with the same phenomenon: a theoretical essay and a case study.

Details

RAUSP Management Journal, vol. 55 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2531-0488

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 18 November 2021

Michael Opara, Oliver Nnamdi Okafor, Akolisa Ufodike and Kenneth Kalu

This study adopts an institutional entrepreneurship perspective in the context of public–private partnerships (P3s) to highlight the role of social actors in enacting…

1449

Abstract

Purpose

This study adopts an institutional entrepreneurship perspective in the context of public–private partnerships (P3s) to highlight the role of social actors in enacting institutional change in a complex organizational setting. By studying the actions of two prominent social actors, the authors argue that successful institutional change is the result of dynamic managerial activity supported by political clout, organizational authority and the social positioning of actors.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors conducted a field-based case study in a complex institutional and organizational setting in Alberta, Canada. The authors employed an institutional entrepreneurship perspective to identify and analyze the activities of two allied actors motivated to transform the institutional environment for public infrastructure delivery.

Findings

The empirical study suggests that the implementation of institutional change is both individualistic and collaborative. Moreover, it is grounded in everyday organizational practices and activities and involves a coalition of allies invested in enacting lasting change in organizational practice(s), even when maintaining the status quo seems advantageous.

Originality/value

The authors critique the structural explanations that dominate the literature on public–private partnership implementation, which downplays the role of agency and minimizes its interplay with institutional logics in effecting institutional change. Rather, the authors demonstrate that, given the observed impact of social actors, public–private partnership adoption and implementation can be theorized as a social phenomenon.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 34 no. 9
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 30 October 2023

Giacomo Pigatto, John Dumay, Lino Cinquini and Andrea Tenucci

This research aims to examine and understand the rationales and modalities behind the use of disclosure before, during and after a corporate governance scandal involving CPA…

Abstract

Purpose

This research aims to examine and understand the rationales and modalities behind the use of disclosure before, during and after a corporate governance scandal involving CPA Australia (CPAA).

Design/methodology/approach

Data beyond CPAA's annual reports were collected, such as news articles, media releases, an independent review panel (IRP) report, and the Chief Operating Officer's letter to members. These disclosures were manually coded and analysed through the word counts and word trees in NVivo. This study also relied on Norbert Elias' conceptual tool of power games among networks of actors – figurations – to model the scandal as a power game between the old Board, the press, concerned members, the IRP and the new Board. This study analysed the data to reveal a collective and in fieri power balance that changed with the phases of the scandal.

Findings

A mix of voluntary, involuntary, requested and absent disclosures was important in triggering, managing and ending the CPAA scandal. Moreover, communication and disclosure fulfilled a constitutive role since both: mobilised actors, enabled coordination among actors, contributed to pursuing shared goals and influenced power balances. Such a constitutive role was at the heart of the ability of coalitions of figurations to challenge and restore the powerful status quo.

Originality/value

This research introduces to accounting studies the collective and in fieri dimensions of power from figurational theory. Moreover, the research sheds new light on using voluntary, involuntary, requested and absent disclosures before, during and after a corporate crisis.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 36 no. 9
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 3 September 2020

Zack Walsh, Jessica Böhme, Brooke D. Lavelle and Christine Wamsler

This paper aims to increase related knowledge across personal, social and ecological dimensions of sustainability and how it can be applied to support transformative learning.

4204

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to increase related knowledge across personal, social and ecological dimensions of sustainability and how it can be applied to support transformative learning.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper provides a reflexive case study of the design, content and impact of a course on eco-justice that integrates relational learning with an equity and justice lens. The reflexive case study provides a critical, exploratory self-assessment, including interviews, group discussions and surveys with key stakeholders and course participants.

Findings

The results show how relational approaches can support transformative learning for sustainability and provide concrete practices, pathways and recommendations for curricula development that other universities/training institutions could follow or learn from.

Originality/value

Sustainability research, practice and education generally focuses on structural or systemic factors of transformation (e.g. technology, governance and policy) without due consideration as to how institutions and systems are shaping and shaped by the transformation of personal agency and subjectivity. This presents a vast untapped and under-studied potential for addressing deep leverage points for change by using a relational approach to link personal, societal and ecological transformations for sustainability.

Details

International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, vol. 21 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1467-6370

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 7 November 2023

Rogers Rugeiyamu and Ajali Mustafa Nguyahambi

The world is experiencing democratic backsliding such that the situation is down back to 1986. This has resulted in the global shrinking of civic space for civil society…

Abstract

Purpose

The world is experiencing democratic backsliding such that the situation is down back to 1986. This has resulted in the global shrinking of civic space for civil society organizations (CSOs). NGOs engaging in advocacy activities are seen to be among the CSOs affected. Using four NGOs cases from Tanzania, the study contributes to the civic space debate by uncovering how advocacy NGOs become resilient.

Design/methodology/approach

The study is anchored in interpretivism and a cross-sectional case study design, following a qualitative approach path. Data were collected through interviews and a documentary review.

Findings

Results show that several strategies such as complying, building community back-up, collaboration, strategic litigation, using digital media and changing the scope are applied. However, strategies face obstacles including scope limitations, expected democratic roles, high cost, changes in the scope and being outsmarted by the government, and hence their effectiveness is questionable.

Research limitations/implications

This study focused on advocacy NGOs. More studies can be conducted for other advocacy-related CSOs on how they become resilient.

Practical implications

While NGOs are allowed to exist in the country, their freedom continue to be curtailed. Even the effectiveness of resiliency becomes temporary and depends on the political will of the existing regime.

Originality/value

Tanzania NGOs have to build strong bonds with citizens, expand the scope of strategies and use deliberative democratic principles to educate the government to change laws and tolerate plural political culture. Also, NGOs in other countries with confined civic space can apply the same.

Details

Journal of Humanities and Applied Social Sciences, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2632-279X

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 12 September 2023

Michael Price, Nicholas Wong, Charles Harvey and Mairi Maclean

This study explores how a small minority of social entrepreneurs break free from third sector constraints to conceive, create and grow non-profit organisations that generate social

Abstract

Purpose

This study explores how a small minority of social entrepreneurs break free from third sector constraints to conceive, create and grow non-profit organisations that generate social value at scale in new and innovative ways.

Design/methodology/approach

Six narrative case histories of innovative social enterprises were developed based on documents and semi-structured interviews with founders and long serving executives. Data were coded “chrono-processually”, which involves locating thoughts, events and actions in distinct time periods (temporal bracketing) and identifying the processes at work in establishing new social ventures.

Findings

This study presents two core findings. First, the paper demonstrates how successful social entrepreneurs draw on their lived experiences, private and professional, in driving the development and implementation of social innovations, which are realised through application of their capabilities as analysts, strategists and resources mobilisers. These capabilities are bolstered by personal legitimacy and by their abilities as storytellers and rhetoricians. Second, the study unravels the complex processes of social entrepreneurship by revealing how sensemaking, theorising, strategizing and sensegiving underpin the core processes of problem specification, the formulation of theories of change, development of new business models and the implementation of social innovations.

Originality/value

The study demonstrates how social entrepreneurs use sensemaking and sensegiving strategies to understand and address complex social problems, revealing how successful social entrepreneurs devise and disseminate social innovations that substantially add value to society and bring about beneficial social change. A novel process-outcome model of social innovation is presented illustrating the interconnections between entrepreneurial cognition and strategic action.

Details

International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, vol. 29 no. 11
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1355-2554

Keywords

1 – 10 of 503