bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Methodological issues in studying hidden populations operating in informal economy
Authors: Vershinina Natalia , Rodionova Yulia 
Published: October 2011

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to discuss the issues in studying hidden populations, with particular focus on methodology used to investigate ethnic minority entrepreneurs who illegally run their businesses in the UK. In this paper, on reflection, the authors look at what issues should be considered before engaging with such communities, as we identify current approaches and evaluate their merits.Design/methodology/approachCertain methodological problems are faced by researchers working with hidden populations, and this paper explores these using a sample of Ukrainian illegal self‐employed construction workers operating in London. Semi‐structured interviews with 20 Ukrainians showcase the issues raised and help illustrate the limited applicability of some commonly used research methods to ethnic minority entrepreneurship studies. The authors used an intermediary to help gain access to these illegal migrants in order to satisfy the sensitive issues of this vulnerable group of respondents.FindingsThe authors analyse the ethical considerations, problems and issues with access to such data, discuss early and more recent sampling methodologies and the ways to estimate the size of hidden population. This paper, hence, establishes the state‐of‐the‐art approaches in this field and proposes potential improvements in achieving representativeness of the data. Using the Ukrainian illegal self‐employed construction workers as an example, this paper evaluates the choices made by the researchers.Originality/valueThe main contribution of this paper is to showcase the methodological issues emerging when studying hard‐to‐reach groups and to emphasise the limited applicability of some methods to research on hidden populations.
Surviving post‐socialism: the role of informal economic practices
Authors: Polese Abel , Rodgers Peter 
Published: October 2011

PurposeThis paper represents an editorial for this special issue on “Surviving post‐socialism”, with a particular geographical focus on countries located in the former Soviet Union (FSU) and in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). In total, six articles are included in this special issue, which seeks to contribute to the existing body of literature on surviving post‐socialism in general and in particular, across all the papers included, paying particular attention to the role of informal economic relations and practices, as fundamental parts of wider economic relations across the FSU and CEE regions. Whilst the papers included in this special issue demonstrate the richness of empirical data which can be generated, also they demonstrate how authors, located in different academic traditions – sociology, political economy and anthropology – can clearly contribute to debates regarding the role of informal economic relations in a number of theoretical and conceptual ways.Design/methodology/approachThis paper attempts to synthesise the main contributions of the six papers within the special issue and in particular seeks to engage with core questions relating to how the empirical findings in these papers contribute to relevant wider theoretical and conceptual debates.FindingsThis paper finds that there is a high degree of linkages between the six papers, in particular relating to the issue of the intermeshing of formal and informal economic spheres.Originality/valueThe value of this paper is that it provides an introduction, overview and clear and concise summary of the remaining six papers in this special issue on “Surviving post‐socialism”, outlining the special issue's core aims and contributions.
Interview with Rhymer Rigby, author of 28 Business Thinkers Who Changed the World
Authors: by Juliet Harrison Interview 
Published: October 2011

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to provide an interview with Rhymer Rigby, UK based journalist and author of 28 Business Thinkers Who Changed the World.Design/methodology/approachThe interview is conducted by an independent interviewer.FindingsRhymer Rigby is a journalist based in the UK. He writes a weekly slot for the Financial Times and has contributed to publications ranging from the Sunday Telegraph and Management Today to GQ and Condé Nast Traveller. Before going freelance he was featured editor for Business 2.0 and a section editor for Management Today and Human Resources.Practical implicationsIn profiling business people who have left a lasting and significant impact Rhymer provides the reader with a fascinating insight into the methods and styles of those who reshaped their business sectors.Originality/valueRhymer presents an accessible description of 28 highly successful and pioneering business thinkers, both in terms of their entrepreneurship and their personal lives, offering valuable insight into the accent to success.
CSR and development: a mining company in Africa
Authors: Mària SJ Josep F. , Devuyst Emmanuelle 
Published: October 2011

PurposeThis case study seeks to present the CSR activity of a mining company in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the conflict between the company and its local stakeholders. The company promotes an enlightened CSR, focused on the promotion of individuals' rights; but the local population has inherited a paternalistic mindset, which clashes with this enlightened approach.Design/methodology/approachThe conflict is presented and analyzed at three levels: company‐government, company‐local communities, and company‐local employees. The cultural change necessary to address the conflict involves fundamental questions in SGM's business model: strategy, structure and mainly purpose, processes and culture.FindingsThe company needs to design individual and industry‐wide strategies to tackle the problems with the Central Government; develop dialogues with key leaders of local communities in order to promote with them an enlightened culture of CSR and of development; and change the processes to diffuse and eventually modify the company values affecting local employees.Originality/valueResearch on CSR in the Democratic Republic of Congo, specifically in the Katanga province, is very scarce, even if mining companies are starting to operate in that Province, raising important problems in terms of development and cultural change. In spite of several problems, SGM is a case of good practice that can inspire other mining companies or extractive industries in developing countries.
Hayleys PLC: corporate responsibility as stakeholder relations
Authors: Lee Hunter Mark , Van Wassenhove Luk N. 
Published: October 2011

PurposeThis paper aims to answer the following questions: Is corporate responsibility only a cost, or is it also a profitable business strategy? If so, can the strategy work in a B2B context, as well as in the B2C context typically covered by research on corporate responsibility? Finally, how does the geopolitical context of a developing Asian nation affect corporate responsibility, from both a managerial and a stakeholder perspective?Design/methodology/approachThe paper adopts a case study approach, building from observed data to grounded theory.FindingsIn a firm where trust and transparency are both ingrained and enforced among managers, Hayleys PLC used those values as tools to transform relations with key stakeholders from costs to marketing assets. In the process, it created an ethical market network in which membership depends on adherence to the same values. Thus emergent ethical marketplaces are directly related to the spread of CR practices.Research limitations/implicationsThe effects of transparency beyond financial disclosure or sustainability reporting on stakeholder relations would be a particularly valuable object of further research. The structure of ethical markets, and the costs and benefits of participating in them, require and justify further study.Practical implicationsAn ethical markets strategy can lead to stable long‐term relationships with major buyers. However, in the present circumstances, it also entails dependence on a limited number of major customers. Another issue is that, if “the factory becomes a sales tool”, it may also kill a sale if and when standards slip or a stakeholder creates conflict.Social implicationsA corporate responsibility strategy may transform not only managerial practices, but also the social environment, by enabling or disabling stakeholder partners or adversaries. The means to this objective include providing services and empowerment to stakeholders (in this case, workers) who cannot obtain them from their traditional interlocutors.Originality/valueThis paper adds insight into the implications of corporate responsibility for firms involved in B2B markets, as well as for Asian multinationals. It also contributes to answering the question of how corporate responsibility adds value, by demonstrating how corporate responsibility may strengthen key productive and commercial relationships with stakeholders essential to the sustainability of the firm.
CSR in Asian logistics: operationalisation within DHL (Thailand)
Authors: Ferguson David 
Published: October 2011

PurposeThis paper aims to provide an insight around operationalising CSR and sustainability activities within an Asian‐Pacific subsidiary of a leading CSR global third‐party logistics company; Deutsche Post DHL.Design/methodology/approachAn in‐depth single case‐study approach was adopted for this study. Using semi‐structured interviews with managers, the research maps various strategic CSR activities from the European corporate centre across to activities within this Asian subsidiary's different business units.FindingsThe research provides evidence of activities and issues around this subsidiary's internalisation of CSR by selectively highlighting local initiatives and solutions that help address and contribute towards the global CSR strategic objectives. It describes some issues and opportunities around global policies and local activities that affect the subsidiary's present scope for decision making and management accountability. Along with the issues and challenges from this loose fit tactic of bottom‐up with top‐down engagement, it highlights influential aspects of social, cultural and business management models and the interpretations, context and limitations of the subsidiary's CSR contributions to date.Originality/valueLittle has been written around the empirical operationalisation of CSR and sustainability from third‐party logistic companies; even less so from the Asia Pacific region. The activities, themes and challenges serve as useful references for practitioners. With new, original data sets, for academic scholars, the findings also serve to provide deeper and more explanatory contributions as complementary theory development resources.
Embedding corporate responsibility and sustainability: Marks & Spencer
Authors: Grayson David 
Published: October 2011

PurposeThe British retailer Marks & Spencer aspires to be the world's most sustainable major global retailer by 2015. This paper seeks to examine how the company is embedding sustainability.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is written as part of an ongoing investigation into how businesses do this. It is based on direct dialogue with corporate sustainability specialists inside and outside the company; participation in company stakeholders' briefings held regularly since the launch of Marks & Spencer's Plan A for sustainability in January 2007; and analysis by the company's own corporate sustainability specialists about how they are embedding.FindingsThis case demonstrates that, in order to speed their journey, Marks & Spencer have aligned sustainability with core strategy. Top leadership is driving the strategy, which is overseen by the board. M&S have made a very public commitment: Plan A with measurable targets, timescales and accountabilities. The strategy is being integrated into every business function and strategic business unit; and involves suppliers, employees and increasingly customers. To enable implementation, the company is developing its knowledge‐management and training; engaging with wider stakeholders including investors; building partnerships and collaborations; and has evolved its specialist sustainability team into an internal change‐management consultancy and coach/catalyst for continuous improvement.Originality/valueThe value of the case study is that it provides an analysis of how one company, which has been active in progressing corporate sustainability, has evolved its approach in recent years.
Sabaf: moving to a learning environment
Authors: Roome Nigel , Louche Céline 
Published: October 2011

PurposeSabaf, a world‐leading manufacturer of components for domestic gas cooking appliances, went through a transformation process between 1993 and 2005 to develop a strategic approach to corporate responsibility that embedded social, environmental and governance issues into its organisation, its approach to business and its overall performance. This case describes the learning and change process within the company that set the ground for today's success.Design/methodology/approachThis teaching case builds on data gathered through sites visits, interviews and company materials. The case research protocol explored the notion that the company was learning how to interact, and respond to its changing context, while its responses were creating the ground for internal organisational change that in turn would impact the relationship between the company and its context.FindingsWhile on the surface the change process which Sabaf experienced can be regarded as a move from an implicit to a more explicit approach to corporate responsibility, it is also possible to take the view that the company was engaged in developing a more “humanistic” approach to management that permeated the whole organization. What became explicit at Sabaf was not corporate responsibility but rather the term “corporate responsibility” used to describe much older concepts of business that valued people and the natural environment alongside economics. The case also shows the process of organizational leadership for learning, management innovation and change that supported the processes through which this approach was developed and integrated into the company.Originality/valueThis case provides unique insights into the approach Sabaf adopted in its pioneering transformation to become a leading corporate responsibility company and a world leader in its sector. This case can be used as a benchmark for other companies that might embark on the process of integrating corporate responsibility and business performance as a strategic process that has effects that cut across the business as a whole.
Marketing theory and critical phenomenology
Authors: Ardley Barry 
Published: October 2011

PurposeThis paper uses phenomenology as a critical theoretical lens through which to view marketing management theory. The aim is to demonstrate that it can uncover the extent to which established theory neglects the human side of marketing.Design/methodology/approachTo facilitate a phenomenological discussion, the critical framework of Mingers is utilised. This identifies a critique of rhetoric, of tradition, of authority and of objectivity. Secondary sources are then used to highlight the central role played by individual meaning in marketing practice, as opposed to the systemic based framework of the dominant theory.FindingsFindings suggest that traditional theory is based on questionable assumptions regarding the nature of the individual and their managerial practice. Marketing theory is not a transferable objective technology, but is constituted by the vagaries of the human agent. It is also posited that the subject boundaries of marketing are set by established authorities that are prone to discourage alternative perspectives.Research limitations/implicationsThis is a position paper and additional empirical research could be undertaken in order to help further discuss the claims made.Practical implicationsThis paper suggests that marketing management has the potential to be understood in ways that go beyond the representation of it in established theory. Alternative conceptions of marketing hold the potential of informing future theory and practice developments.Originality/valueInsights into marketing practice, acquired through the use of an innovative and critically informed phenomenological framework, have led to the questioning of a dominant theory that routinely ignores the human side of marketing activity.
An expanded model of marketing performance
Authors: Pimenta da Gama António 
Published: October 2011

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to develop a model identifying key metric categories on which companies should focus attention, so that they can better understand their current situation whilst offering guidance for improvement.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is structured in three parts. It begins with a general overview of performance measurement, followed by a description of marketing performance and metrics in particular. Then, it develops the proposed model in terms of its rationale and content. Finally, concluding remarks are presented.FindingsThe benefits from extending knowledge about marketing performance are substantial. The author believes that if companies develop an integrated set of relevant measures and systematically collect, analyze and disseminate information about them, then marketing may be viewed as a more credible discipline.Research limitations/implicationsIt is hoped that this contribution may stimulate research, particularly in terms of testing the model's content and sequence, as well as the effect of influencing factors.Practical implicationsMarketing metrics have historically privileged outputs. This paper draws attention not only to the processes leading to such results, but also to the requirements necessary to proper accomplishment of these activities. The model positions itself as a tool that allows measurement of both the conditions determining good marketing practice and its contribution to value creation.Originality/valueMost of the literature on this theme focuses on individual metrics, not on integrated performance. The model presented expands the existing ones as it encompasses new evaluative dimensions (marketing culture, marketing processes) and factors influencing process effectiveness.
Segmenting technology markets: applying the nested approach
Authors: Weinstein Art 
Published: October 2011

PurposeSound target marketing leads to winning business strategies. While market segmentation is an intriguing academic concept, most B2B practitioners struggle with the design and implementation of such initiatives. This paper aims to illustrate an effective strategic segmentation process in a high‐technology market context.Design/methodology/approachBonoma and Shapiro's nested model – consisting of geodemographics, operating variables, purchasing approaches, situational factors and characteristics of the buyer – is used as a conceptual framework for market segmentation analysis. The model is applied to Citrix Systems as a way of finding new business opportunities in the desktop application streaming market.FindingsIn this study, 17 potential segmenting variables within the five major levels are examined with an initial emphasis on firmographics and technology. Census data identified market priorities based on establishment size, key sectors and geographic sales territories.Practical implicationsA four‐stage segmentation plan consisting of corporate commitment, research/refinement, implementation and evaluation/enhancement is proposed and discussed. Strategic planning lessons and research extensions are offered.Originality/valueWhile the work on business segmentation has proliferated over the past 25 years, there has been a paucity of practical applications on how to conduct segmentation analysis successfully in technology markets. This paper provides an important roadmap for marketers to enhance segmentation initiatives via a comprehensive application and analysis of a leading global company.
The application of marketing principles to a social marketing campaign
Authors: Henley Nadine , Raffin Sandrine , Caemmerer Barbara 
Published: October 2011

PurposeThis paper aims to explain how the principles of marketing can be applied to the planning and implementation of a social marketing campaign.Design/methodology/approachA wealth of secondary sources are reviewed and discussed, including academic literature, market research and campaign data.FindingsThe planning and implementation of social marketing campaigns is complex and requires a wide range of tasks. For one, the case study illustrates that identifying the right themes is crucial in order to reach the desired target audiences to create attitudinal and behavioural change. Further, a coherent implementation of the marketing mix is necessary in order to ensure campaign effectiveness over time. As social marketing campaigns often need to reach a wide range of audiences, the task of managing marketing initiatives in these contexts is more complex and requires constant evaluation in order to identify levels of effectiveness and areas for improvement over long periods of time.Originality/valueApplies marketing theory to an interesting real‐life social marketing campaign and highlights the complexity of the tasks involved.
Towards an integrative framework of brand country of origin recognition determinants
Authors: Martín Martín Oscar , Cerviño Julio 
Published: October 2011

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to propose a framework integrating the types and levels of the determinants of brand country of origin (CO) recognition and to provide evidence on internet users’ brand CO recognition rates, using a sample of multi‐regional and global brands from a variety of product categories and countries.Design/methodology/approachThe authors integrate “level‐1” consumer and brand characteristics and “level‐2” product category and country effects in a single framework. Data obtained through an original on‐line survey hosted by Yahoo provide the basis for the empirical analysis. Seven hypotheses are tested using a two‐level cross‐classified random‐effect model (HCM2).FindingsIt is found that: education is positively related with brand CO recognition; experience with brands is positively related with brand CO recognition; integration between the consumer and the country of a foreign brand is positively related with brand CO recognition; internet users’ classification performance is significantly better for domestic than for foreign brands; brand‐name congruence with true brand origin is positively related with brand CO recognition; brand equity explains brand CO recognition; and product categories with higher consumer involvement enhance brand CO recognition. Brand CO recognition performance by internet users is in line with classification performance rates reported in other studies dealing with well‐known and global brands.Practical implicationsManagers would benefit from considering product category and country aspects of their most valuable brands. Policy makers should encourage firms to promote a clear association between brands and countries (when these countries have a positive image) and discriminate between high and low involvement product categories.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to the brand CO awareness literature by integrating consumer and brand characteristics in a theoretical model, and identifying level‐2 product category features and CO effects previously disregarded in brand CO recognition frameworks. In addition, the study positively contrasts with previous research by providing empirical evidence on brand CO recognition from the largest set of global brands (109), countries of origin (19) and product categories (15) ever investigated.