Search results

Changes in the financial services sector, brought about by new legislation and increased competition, have led to many institutions turning to marketing as a means of adjustment. Building societies, in particular, have been placed in a situation where the development of marketing is crucial to corporate performance. In this scenario, marketing information systems should serve to underpin and strengthen the marketing concept in its implementation phase. Suggests, via empirical evidence, that current strategies deployed by smaller building societies for the development of marketing information systems may actually fall short in terms of marketing intelligence.

This article appraises the current marketing policies of the building societies and suggests an alternative strategy based upon an assessment of the motivations of investors and the dynamics of the funds market. In particular a short review of the societies' growth over the previous decade shows their extremely successful performance (giving timely perspective to the recent and well‐publicised difficulties of the movement), but a detailed analysis of the marketing programmes and “products” offered by the societies does suggest that societies as a whole have been slow to adapt to the maturity and size of the market in which they now operate. It is argued that these delays have accentuated the recent difficulties of the movement, and clearly they hold serious longer‐term threats to growth. Finally a strategy of market segmentation is outlined which is based upon the heterogeneity of investors and the nature of competition for funds.

Presents the results of an empirical study that investigates comparatively the mortgage‐pricing determinants of national, regional and local building societies. Considers and discusses the importance of the three main generic strategies (focus, differentiation and cost leadership) and building societies′ main pricing objectives – profit margins, market share, and mutuality. The findings suggest that building societies′ mortgage pricing is influenced primarily by internal industry determinants – such as “costs” and “competitors′ prices” – and to a lesser extent by market‐related factors (customers′ perception of value and elasticity of demand). A large majority of building societies view profit margins, rather than market share, as their primary pricing objective. In order to facilitate this pricing objective, societies select strategies that match their size and market characteristics. Local building societies employ primarily a focus strategy, while national and regional building societies aim at achieving their profit margins mainly through differentiation and cost leadership strategies.

Marketing is commonly assumed to be responsible for the consumer society with its hedonistic lifestyle and for undermining other cultures by its materialistic stance. This, for many critics, is the dark side of consumer marketing, undermining its ethical standing. This paper considers the connection between marketing, the consumer society, globalization and the hedonistic lifestyle, and whether marketing is guilty as charged. After all, anything that affects the image of marketing as a profession is important, as this influences both recruitment and social acceptance.

The aim of this article is to explore how social engineering and social marketing are connected, and how social marketing is a tool used to achieve adherence to social engineering.

Through examination of contemporary and historical thinking around social marketing, we present a conceptual argument that social marketing is another tool of the social engineer, and that social engineering, through methods such as social marketing, is pervasive throughout all societies in positive ways.

We develop a conceptual model of social engineering and social marketing, which goes beyond behaviour change to incorporate the essentials of society and the influencers of those essentials. In doing so, we show that social marketing influenced behaviour lies within the social engineering influenced laws, codes and norms of society, which in turn lie within the morals, values and beliefs of society.

This article provides for the first time a conceptual grounding of social marketing within social engineering, enabling academics and practitioners to contextualise social marketing activities in a broader societal framework.

Looks at the savings market, its importance to building societies and the way it is changing, with specific reference to the competition from other sectors and the emergence of postal accounts. Five areas of focus are examined which may provide some ways forward for building societies in achieving competitive advantage. These are (1) customer retention, (2) service quality, (3) customer segmentation, (4) serving customer needs, and (5) a consideration of customer profitability. Now would seem to be the right time for building societies to consider carefully how they can provide a superior service to particular groups of customers.

This paper revisits old questions of the proper subject and bounds of economics: does economics study “provisioning”? or markets? or a method of reasoning, self‐interested rational optimization?

A variety of scholars and others in many fields make use of a taxonomy of society consisting of three “spheres”: markets, governments, and communities. It is argued here that this tripartite taxonomy of society is fundamental and exhaustive. A variety of ways of understanding this taxonomy are explored, especially Fiske's (1991, 2004) “Relational models theory.” Then – after communities and their products, social goods, are defined more thoroughly – a visual model of interactions among the three spheres is presented.

The model is first used briefly to understand the historical development of markets. The model is then applied to understanding how economic thinking and market ideology, including the notion of social capital, can be destructive of communities and their production of social goods (and their production of social capital as well).

It is not possible to measure these effects monetarily, so calculating precisely “how this affects results” in a standard economic model is impossible.

Nevertheless we could better prepare students for real‐world analysis, and better serve our clients, including the public, if – whenever relevant, such as in textbook introductions and in benefit/cost analyses – we made them aware of the limitations of economic analysis with respect to communities and social goods.

The three‐spheres model offered here, based on Fiske's “Relational models theory,” facilitates this awareness.

Legislative changes have opened up new opportunities for building societies in Britain to operate as retail banks offering a wide range of services. These organisations have operated very successfully in their traditional role for many years and have acquired a favourable generic image. The factors underlying consumer perceptions of the images of building societies are explored and compared with those relating to banks. Findings are presented to suggest that, although the building societies retain a generally favourable image, there are aspects of it that may hinder their successful operation in new markets. There is no evidence of the existence of distinct images for particular societies. Possible marketing implications of the findings are considered.

Reviews the conceptual approaches to marketing which have been developed within socialist countries. Examines in detail some of the consequences of these changes. Suggests that substantial changes are taking place in the USSR and other socialist economies. Draws comparisons with Western economies.

This research aims to understand the determinants of consumers' behaviour and motivations to buy taboo items online. Two theoretical lenses, theories of psychological reactance and system justification, are invoked to frame the role of online shopping in shaping consumer behaviour in taboo markets.

A naturalistic inquiry paradigm was used to test a sample of 34 Saudi women who were buying taboo products online.

The determinant of such behaviour is based on differences in understanding the ritual restrictions between people, their society and their country. The four principal attitudes towards restrictions are justifying, accepting, rejecting and reacting. These attitudes frame five motivations: satisfying the restriction, to be unique, but aligned with social norms; breaking social norms; aligning one's self-image to liberal societies; and joy in challenging legal restrictions. The motives for online shopping are justification/utilitarian, to accommodate other restrictions in going to local markets; and reactance hedonic, to break restrictions. These motivations create seven different patterns of online shopping behaviour.

This research contributes to the literature by presenting an alternative perspective on online shopping motivations for taboo products. Furthermore, this research calls for a new socio-psychological theory for understanding the role of technology in influencing consumer behaviour in restrictive societies.