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This paper aims to expose the inadequacy of social marketing to tackle complex social problems, while proposing an expansion in the discipline’ conceptual repertoire. The goal is to incorporate complexity tools, in particular from the system dynamics field, and the promotion of mindware within a true transdisciplinary paradigm.

This paper uses literature review to support the proposed theoretical development. It also presents a short case study.

Most problems that plague our modern societies have a distinctive complex nature that is not amenable to traditional social marketing interventions. Social marketing has simplified the problem of bringing about societal change by thinking that upstream social actors can be influenced in the same way as downstream individuals. This paper shows that this is not the case while proposing a framework to close this gap.

The proposed framework is a theoretical one. It depends on further refinements and actual application to wicked problems.

Complex social problems – or wicked problems – remain widespread in modern societies. Moreover, they are getting worse over time. The paper presents a proposal to redefine the limits of the social marketing discipline so it can be more useful to tackle such problems. Practical approaches such as measuring the success of mindware in the marketplace of ideas are implied in the proposed framework.

The increase in complexity of social problems has not been accompanied by an evolution in the discipline of social marketing. The lack of proper conceptual tools has prevented the discipline from contributing to tackling these problems effectively. Some interventions may actually worsen the underlying problems, as illustrated in the paper.

This paper identifies two major gaps associated with the social marketing discipline, in particular the lack of complexity and systems thinking and the forsaking of ideas (mindware) as a legitimate goal of the discipline. This realization corroborates the claim that boundaries among disciplines are often artificial, hindering the proper understanding of complex social problems. In turn, only the use of adequate conceptual lenses makes it possible to devise interventions and programs that tackle actual causes (instead of symptoms) of complex social problems.

I would recommend the following two readings: Kotter, J. P. 2001. “What leaders really do” Harvard Business Review, vol, December 2001, pp. 85-96 and MIntzberg, H. & Waters, J. A. 1985. “Of strategies, deliberate and emergent” Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 6, pp. 257-272 Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

This case study aims to provide following four learning outcomes: enhanced understanding of organizational leadership style/approach in terms of rigidness or flexibility to bring modifications in organizational vision to tap current opportunities, enhanced understanding of the use of emotions and rationality in organizational decision-making to strike a balance between organizational needs and community needs in the context of organizational priority framework, enhanced understanding of issue of integration to meet community needs smartly particularly in social development organizations and enhanced understanding of leadership strategies for successful business diversification.

This case study highlights and discusses three issues: first, it explores issues related to change in organizational vision and aims keeping in mind the needs of community rather than sticking to organizational needs (flexibility versus rigidity). Second, it explores the role of emotions and rationality in organizational decision-making by its leadership. Third, it discusses the role of leadership in successfully transforming one-dimensional organization into multidimensional organization by adding new avenues for future growth by mobilizing existing organizational strengths and competencies. Finally, this case discusses theories of leadership and change management in the context of social development organizations to align their activities with community’s emerging needs.

Master Level - Master of Business Administration and Master of Management. This case provides sufficient material to be discussed at master level courses such as change leadership and change management in social development organizations.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

Management science

The purpose of this paper is to present initial findings from a vulnerability assessment based on the perceptions of practitioners working in four tourism and hospitality sectors in Wuhan and Hubei Province, namely, cruise lines, hotels, travel agencies and touristic attractions.

The research note focuses on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak from January to March 2020. Using the destination sustainability framework and an “interpretation” mixed methods research design, the authors analyze phone interviews (n = 151) and subsequent online surveys (n = 370) to assess sector-specific perceptions of exposure, sensitivity and system adaptiveness.

Overall, findings paint a grim picture of each sector in the short-term. All respondents reported an immediate economic loss due to COVID-19, as well as recovery concerns and uncertainties. Immediate actions for addressing these issues centered on internal cost control and governmental subsidies, while anticipated next steps focused on product adjustment, a transformation of business structures and seeking governmental guidance and policies in restoring market confidence. Findings also allude to future strategies/directions.

This study is limited in its focus on practitioner views in the immediate COVID-19 outbreak. Implications highlight a crucial strategic dependence of each sector on effective government/managerial communication and support, with smaller, local businesses needing particular attention in crisis situations.

To the authors’ knowledge, this research note is the first comprehensive study presenting vital information pertaining to the impact of COVID-19 on tourism and hospitality businesses from a large group of business leaders in the site of the initial outbreak (i.e. Wuhan and Hubei Province). With the highly infectious COVID-19 representing an ongoing threat for populations worldwide, this paper hopes this research note provides valuable insights for practitioners in other vulnerable regions, as well as for researchers examining strategies for resilience against this and future disasters.

This paper uses a number of current examples from a variety of industries both regional and global, to explore the relationship between business longevity, environment, and adaptiveness to argue that only adaptive responses contingent on a proper classification of external circumstance will result in productive efficacy for the business. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

There is compelling evidence that businesses have limited life spans. Management and economic theories of creative destruction, argue that this is salutary for markets and economies. Yet as a counterpoint there are significant benefits to business longevity. Such longevity, however, is predicated on the business's dimensionalised understanding of its task and contextual environment and its deployment of an adaptive response contingent on such understanding.

It is mandatory in prevailing times that adaptive responses ensure that the overall business has external fit and alignment with its environment and internal congruence and consistency between organisational subsystems and their internal subenvironments.

The calculus of limited and unpredictable business life spans is justified by theories of creative destruction and hypercompetition. Yet there are intrinsic and extrinsic advantages to business longevity. A causative flow is proffered that predicates business longevity on its ability to; first, classify its prevailing environment, and thereafter deploy contingent adaptive responses for productive efficacy.

Noting that a fundamental tenet of service‐dominant (S‐D) logic is the co‐creation of value‐in‐use, this paper aims to explore the theoretical possibility that the interactions between service systems cannot only co‐create value, but also have adverse consequences leading to actual value co‐destruction.

This conceptual paper critically reviews the dominance of value co‐creation and value‐in‐use in S‐D logic. Noting the relative lack of research in the converse possibility, the study proposes and explores the implications of value co‐destruction as a new concept which should be introduced within the framework of S‐D logic.

The study proposes a formal definition for the new proposed concept of value co‐destruction. It describes in detail the process by which it occurs, showing that value can be co‐destroyed through the interactions between different systems, resulting in value destruction‐through‐misuse. Indeed, value co‐destruction occurs when a service system accidentally or intentionally misuses resources (its own resources and/or those of another service system) by acting in an inappropriate or unexpected manner.

This paper is purely conceptual and exploratory. Empirical examination of the theoretical findings regarding value‐co‐destruction is required. Possible avenues of interest for such empirical research of value co‐destruction are suggested.

Limiting the occurrence of misuse by aligning the mutual expectations of interacting service systems should reduce the risks of value co‐destruction. Recovering from misuse should also be considered.

This study is apparently the first to have introduced the notion of value co‐destruction into the conceptual framework of S‐D logic.

This paper aims to adopt a conservation of resources (COR) theoretical approach to examine the process of value co-destruction (VCD) emanating from the misuse of customer resources by organisations.

A critical incidents approach was adopted where 120 customers recounted their negative experiences. The analysis identified both the nature of resources and processes involved.

From a customer perspective, the VCD process is triggered by a failure of the resource integration process to co-create expected value (resources). This involves customers in unexpected primary, and often secondary, resource loss. Loss “cycles” or “spirals” develop impacting negatively on well-being. Customers' attempts to restore their resources through coping strategies typically involve loss of well-being for the organisation.

The research is limited to a relatively small sample of UK customers involving diverse contexts. However, COR theory provides a framework for a better understanding of customer perceived value, the value co-creation and co-destruction process.

The findings offer a new perspective to practitioners for understanding customer expectations and behaviour. There is a need to re-evaluate and re-design value propositions in line with organisational capabilities and customers' resource needs.

Organisations' misuse of customers' resources negatively impacts on “well-being”: a phenomenon of increasing interest at the societal level.

This study is the first to empirically examine the concept of VCD, as perceived and experienced by customers, from a resource ecology perspective. It contributes to the growing body of work deriving from the service-dominant logic approach to value co-creation.

This paper aims to deal with the concepts of “institutions” and “institutional logics” in the context of business-to-business (B2B) marketing systems and uses institutional theory as a framework to look at value co-creation.

By integrating the literature on value co-creation, institutional theory and institutional entrepreneurship, the paper argues that the boundaries of B2B marketing systems are continuously reshaped through legitimation processes occurring through actors’ institutional work, thus making co-created value the only legitimate value.

The paper proposes a conceptual framework and furthers the conceptual development of value co-creation and augments the literature on service-dominant logic and the notion of co-created value by assuming a legitimacy-based B2B market systems perspective.

This paper presents a number of propositions that serve to illustrate several managerial implications. These arise from organizations co-creating value by conforming to the various institutional logics that maximize their legitimacy.

The paper makes a contribution by developing a critical theoretical framework based on the application of institutional theoretical constructs/concepts (e.g. ceremonial conformity, decoupling, considerations of face, confidence and good faith).

This paper aims to develop a theoretical framework of archetypical customer roles in a self-service-based system by applying role theory to understand customers’ resource integration and value co-creation efforts in practice.

This study is based on a three-phase explorative case study of customers’ experiences of using self-service technologies at a furniture retailer. A total of 90 interviews were conducted.

Four archetypical enacted customer roles during value co-creation in a self-service-based system are identified: passive non-bothered, passive hesitant, active realist and active independent. Furthermore, it is shown that these roles shape how resources become.

The challenges facing our retail practice bear similarities with those in other contexts, e.g. financial and travel industries, government or public sector service settings, in which self-service technologies are becoming more common. Therefore, this study setting enables some tentative generalizations. The case study approach, however, limits the statistical generalizability of the findings.

The importance of understanding is that not all customers are well-equipped for co-creating value through self-service. By engaging customers and offering them guidance when they encounter difficulties in managing the value co-creation process, as well as viewing them as resource integrators and value co-creators, firms can help them enact more active roles.

The archetypical customer roles contribute theoretically to detailing how resource integration and value co-creation can be shaped by enacted roles, an influence that has not been explicitly proposed in empirical service research.

This paper aims to contribute to the tactical and operational decision making of manufacturing and logistics operations by providing novel insights into modelling and simulation, based on complex adaptive systems (CAS).

The research approach is theoretically based on CAS with agent‐based modelling (ABM) as the implementation method. A case study is presented where an agent‐based model has contributed to increased understanding and precision in decision making at a packaging company in the UK.

The results suggest that ABM provides decision‐makers with robust and accurate “what‐if” scenarios of the dynamic interplay among several business functions. These scenarios can guide managers in the process of moving from policy space to performance space, i.e. concerning priorities of improvement efforts and choices of production/manufacturing policies, warehouse policies, customer service policies and logistics policies. Furthermore, it is found that ABM can include and pay attention to several aspects of CAS and thus provide understanding of, and explanation for, the patterns and effects which emerge in manufacturing and logistics settings.

Aided by agent‐based models and simulations, practitioners' levels of intuition can be enhanced since patterns on the macro level emerge from agents' interactive behaviour. Together with insights from CAS these emergent patterns can be explained and understood, and are thus beneficial for the improvement of decision making in companies.

The case presented distinguishes this paper from what has been written in previous articles on the application of ABM, since such articles have not produced any empirically verified results after implementation of ABM.

This conceptual paper argues that the emergence of Internet commerce is presenting a significant challenge to traditional internationalization explanations. Given rapid accessibility to customers and suppliers around the world, businesses appear to be turning towards networks of cooperation rather than external control structures. International supply chain management is proposed as a process of internationalization representing the implementation of a global uncertainty‐driven new network orientation. A network orientation is proposed to encourage more integrated levels of I‐commerce adoption which, in turn, further strengthens the relationship between a network orientation and its implementation. A number of propositions are presented along with a discussion of future research issues.