Perceptions of Integration: What the Literature Says and What Stakeholders See

This paper compares perceptions of integrated marketing communication (IMC) to establish whether consumers perceive integration in the same way as the literature. It begins by reviewing the literature to identify shared assumptions about integration and factors thought to contribute to the integration of marketing communication and, in an experiment, compares these with the perceptions of consumers. Many of the shared assumptions in the literature have been supported by the findings of this study. Integration has been demonstrated to be both a strategy and a tactic. The strategic side is part of a management process and is unable to be observed by consumers from the marketing communication output. Consumers can, however, identify the tactics and are able to recall a number of integration factors such as logo, corporate colours and image. Consumers in the total message integration groups perceived the messages they received as more integrated than those in partial integration or no integration groups.

Education for all : providing curriculum for students with disabilities in a standards-based environment : implications for Queensland schools

This report investigates lessons learned by educators in the United States when providing a standards-based curriculum for all students including Students with Disabilities (SWD). Assumptions about implementation of these lessons are then made to the Queensland school system. Queensland mainstream schools currently provide a standards-based curriculum for over sixteen thousand-four hundred students with mild-moderate disabilities and appear to be challenged by this new educational reform and its implications to school and teacher practices, beliefs and attitudes. The analysis of US research, literature and educational policy for this report, has provided some implications for Queensland schools in the areas of student participation, achievement and curriculum planning to provide an “education for all”. The analysis and comparison of legislation and policy, which demonstrates some significant similarities, provides greater validity for the application of lessons learned in the United States to the Queensland context. The key findings about lessons learned provides Queensland schools with some assumptions as to why and how they need to refocus school leader and teachers’ practices, beliefs and attitudes to provide an “education for all”. These lessons infer that school leaders and teachers to explicitly focus on equity, expectation, accountability, performance, alignment and collaboration so that effective curriculum is provided for SWD, indeed all students, in the Queensland standards-based curriculum environment.

Structural differentiation and corporate venturing : the moderating role of formal and informal integration mechanisms

Research has suggested that corporate venturing is crucial to strategic renewal and firm performance, yet scholars still debate the appropriate organizational configurations to facilitate the creation of new businesses in existing organizations. Our study investigates the effectiveness of combining structural differentiation with formal and informal organizational as well as top management team integration mechanisms in establishing an appropriate context for venturing activities. Our findings suggest that structural differentiation has a positive effect on corporate venturing. In addition, our study indicates that a shared vision has a positive effect on venturing in a structurally differentiated context. Socially integrated senior teams and cross-functional interfaces, however, are ineffective integration mechanisms for establishing linkages across differentiated units and for successfully pursuing corporate venturing.