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We examine personnel policies and careers in public agencies, particularly how wages and promotion standards can partially offset a fundamental contracting problem: the inability of public-sector workers to contract on performance, and the inability of political masters to contract on forbearance from meddling. Despite the dual contracting problem, properly constructed personnel policies can encourage intrinsically motivated public-sector employees to invest in expertise, seek promotion, remain in the public sector, and work hard. To do so requires internal personnel policies that sort “slackers” from “zealots.” Personnel policies that accomplish this task are quite different in agencies where acquired expertise has little value in the private sector, and agencies where acquired expertise commands a premium in the private sector. Even with well-designed personnel policies, an inescapable trade-off between political control and expertise acquisition remains.

The surging growth of state export promotion budgets in the United States should be justified by evaluating the effectiveness of the activities they support. This study relates the assessment of export promotion efforts to the level of state export activity. Multiple correspondence analysis was used to analyse the telephone survey data collected from export promotion officials in 45 states. Findings show relationships among the level of state export activity and the level of effort required for evaluation, the size of export promotion budgets, and the use of selected export promotion activities.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the unexplored part of the historical evolution of travel agencies in Spain, from the end of the 20th century to the 21st century. When examining promotion strategies, the study focuses on the change in marketing and public relations strategies based on the incorporation of information and communication technologies and, in particular, the use of the internet.

This study draws on a qualitative analysis of the different strategies used by traditional agencies and online agencies in Spain from the mid-19th century to the present. This analysis shows how traditional communication strategies survived at the beginning of the 21st century, together with other more innovative ones, while some disappeared, being eliminated by the new online travel agencies, which created a particular conception of marketing and communication. This paper is divided into the following parts: the introduction; the beginnings of travel agency promotion in the 20th century; the evolution of promotion in travel agencies since the late 20th century; communication innovation at the beginning of the 21st century; online travel agencies; and conclusions.

This study shows that although online agencies did not manage to position themselves with a large turnover, they generated advantages and sharpened their imagination to create a new, more economical advertising model, eliminating the costs of public relations and advertising campaigns. In addition, they allowed clients to have greater independence when making their reservations, while enabling them to monitor the tastes of potential and real clients and add blogs so that consumers could express their degree of satisfaction with the product or services provided by the agency.

The focus of attention is the travel agency sector in Spain and, more specifically, communication. Studies on travel agencies and their marketing have been very scarce and partial, impeding professionals in the tourism sector from having a broad vision to direct their promotional and public relations actions. The originality of this article lies in its making a comparison between two different visions of tourism marketing and, specifically, of travel agencies, that is, the traditional vision and the innovative one. It thus helps all professionals in the sector to value and improve their marketing and communication strategies.

This study aims to investigate how investment promotion agencies (IPAs) attract funds effectively from emerging to established countries.

A qualitative action research (AR) study with data collected from focus groups and semi-structured interviews, observation and journaling. Comparative case studies are also presented to provide an external perspective to the researchers’ internal action researcher positions.

The research identifies four main factors that impact IPAs’ effectiveness in seeking a strategic asset in the UK from a developing country, China. The factors are policy advocacy, targeting industry, regional strategy and cultural adaption, which provide positive and significant influences on IPAs’ effectiveness.

Little research has been published about the roles of IPAs in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) from a developing to a developed country. The study uses an AR approach and case studies, which have not previously been used to investigate IPAs’ performance. The study extends the sparse extant research and provides insights into what influences the performance of IPAs, thus contributing to knowledge and practice.

The findings provide insights into the ways in which IPAs influence FDI flows. The research contributes to discipline knowledge and practice by identifying factors influencing funding in a non-traditional manner, that is from a developing to a developed country.

Little research has been published about the roles of IPAs in attracting FDI from a developing to a developed country. The study uses an AR approach and case study, which have not previously been used to investigate IPAs’ performance. The study extends the sparse extant research and provides insights into what influences the performance of IPAs, thus contributing to knowledge and practice.

Advertising agencies, as communication professionals, should use “best practice” activities for promoting themselves to attract new clients. Presents the results of a survey of executives from the top advertising agencies in Australia to determine the activities the agencies use to promote themselves. Overall, it was indicated that “personal contact” and “positive recommendations of satisfied clients” were perceived to be the most effective for winning new clients. Other activities perceived to be effective were: responding to requests for new business presentations, publicity on recent successful campaigns and winning industry awards.

The promotional planning process is seen as being responsible for many of the problems associated with the increase in sales promotions. Planning, implementation and evaluation processes are influenced by the potentially conflicting goals of senior management and brand/product managers, a failure to integrate media plans and trade plans, and the prevalence of subjective and ad hoc decision making. All these factors are observed among large fast‐moving goods companies in New Zealand. Demonstrates that the promotional planning process is an important driver of how much use is made of sales promotions. A promotional planning matrix is offered as an analytical tool to allow managers to understand the impact of budget allocations and to help overcome planning problems that were identified in the study.

This article provides an overview of the literature on the impact of ‘the Troubles’ on mental health in Northern Ireland. It identifies three main phases of professional and policy response from concerns about the effects of the violence in the early 1970s, through many years of collective denial and neglect, until acknowledgment, following the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 (Northern Ireland Office, 1998), of high levels of trauma and unmet need. The issues of inequality and stigma are also considered and it is argued that peace is necessary but insufficient for promoting mental health. The development of mental health services in Northern Ireland and the relatively recent focus on promoting mental health are also outlined and examined. It is suggested that attempts to address the needs arising as a result of ‘the Troubles’ and more general mental health promotion strategies have, to some extent, developed in parallel and that it may be important to integrate these efforts. The relative under‐development of mental health services, the comprehensive Bamford Review (2005; 2006) and the positive approach of the Public Health Agency mean that, even in the current economic climate, there are great opportunities for progress. Routine screening, in primary care and mental health services for trauma, including Troubles‐related trauma, is recommended to identify and address these issues on an individual level. It is also argued, however, that more substantial political change is needed to effectively address societal division, inequality and stigma to the benefit of all.

This article investigates the interaction between urban place marketing actors with specific reference to marketing urban areas as shopping destinations – town centre managers, shopping centre managers, local authority economic development managers and marketing managers and tourism promotion managers. It reports the results of a survey of these actors in the top 173 urban shopping destinations in the UK. It identifies those actors with prime responsibility for marketing urban retail provision (i.e. town centre managers and shopping centre managers), the nature of their collaboration (via formal, informal, and initiative‐specific interaction), and the factors impelling interaction (i.e. recognition of the linkages between the activities of different organisations, ensuring wider representation of organisational interests and the financial imperative). With the recent publication of Draft PPS6 and its increased focus on the strategic development of smaller centres, the implications for the marketing/promotion of such centres are addressed in detail.

Focuses on the relations that product managers, as industrial buyers, develop with industrial service providers (advertising, promotional and marketing research agencies, lawyers, other consultants and distribution channels) in different business sectors in Greece. Investigates how brand managers in the pharmaceutical and other fast‐moving consumer goods industries view their relationships with their various interfaces, by analysing the allocation of their working time, the level of contact, and the perceived significance and quality of relationships with their interfaces. The results indicate that there are differences in the development of relationships amongst the sectors analysed.

Offers a discussion on the interorganizational network approach as an interesting, alternative avenue for the development of sponsorship research. An example of how to describe and analyze a sport sponsorship arrangement case, using the interorganizational network approach as a theoretical frame of reference, is presented. Researching sports sponsorship from a network perspective extends the interorganizational network thinking from a traditional industrial/marketing channel context to the context of sponsorship formed by actors from the fields of sports, media and business. The phenomenon of networking is quite visible in the case of NMP‐FIS sponsorship arrangement. NMP has entered into relationships with various types of organizations in order to more effectively gain benefits from its sponsorship investment. Actors of the NMP’s focal snowboard sponsorship net possess different kinds of resources linked to public relations management, sports management and distribution of television rights. Different network actors bring to the arrangement not only their own resources and capabilities, but also their own networks of value adding relationships. Consequently, when planning international sponsorships companies need to assess not only the sponsored event/organization (its resources) but also its corresponding network (ability to link activities and tie resources with those of other actors), i.e. the “network identity” of the sponsored. The case presented clearly demonstrates the appropriateness of the network approach to sponsorship and other service‐oriented situations different from the “traditional” production situations. Further research could continue to add examples from other kinds of sponsorship relationships and networks, for example, from different kinds of sports and arts sponsorship arrangements. Furthermore, longitudinal perspectives are needed in order to gain understanding of the development processes of sponsorship relationships and networks.