Building bank brands:how leadership behavior influences employee commitment

Front line employees are critical to service brand success, as their performance brings brand promises to life. Banking employees, like others, must remain committed to their employers, to live the brand, particularly during periods of economic uncertainty and customer frustration. Employees' commitment influences their brand adoption and brand-supporting behavior during service encounters. Effective leadership fosters employee commitment and brand supporting behaviors. This study examines the nature of employee commitment in banking, distinguishing between affective, continuance and normative commitment. The study explores bank leaders, examining whether initiating structure leader behavior or considerate leader behavior is most effective in encouraging employee commitment. Data from a sample of 438 employees in a leading Irish bank reveals the optimal leadership style for employee commitment. © 2012 Elsevier Inc.

The influence of culture and market orientation on services brands:insights from Irish banking and retail firms

Purpose: This paper aims to examine the influence of the culture of the service firm on its interpretation of the role of the brand and on the development and implementation of its brand values. Design/methodology/approach: A grounded theory approach was used. Interviews were conducted with 20 managers within two leading banking firms in Ireland and two leading grocery retailers in Ireland. Findings: The development of the brand, and its role within the firm, is closely related to the firm's culture. The research shows obstacles and opportunities created by the cultural context of firms wishing to disseminate and embed a set of brand values. The paper presents an "involvement model" of brand values implementation and outlines changes required to implement brand values. Research limitations/implications: The study was bound by access to firms, and managers' availability. The authors sought an insight into the relationship between each firm's culture and its brands. They advocate quantitative research to further investigate the findings within these service sectors and to test proposed antecedents (transformational leadership, employee involvement) and outcomes (employee-based brand equity and consumer-based brand equity) of values adoption. Practical implications: The paper identifies aspects of retail and banking cultures which support or detract from brand development. In particular, it presents the learnings from successful brand values implementation in a clan culture, aspects of which are applicable across other cultures. Originality/value: The paper provides valuable insights into the role of the brand within the service firm and the positive and negative influence of context on brand values and their development and implementation. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

"Lájk első látásra?" – Mi inspirálja a márkák kedvelését az online térben, kis vendéglátóhelyek esetében? ("Like at first sight?" – What inspires liking brands in online social media in the case of small catering establishments?)

A márkatulajdonosok számára elsődleges fontosságú, hogy feltérképezzék saját márkaközösségüket, ezáltal is elősegítve a közösségi fókuszú kommunikációs tevékenységüket. Különösen igaz ez a jellemzően kis- és középvállalati formában működő vendéglátóhelyek számára, ahol a közösségi média sokszor az egyetlen rendelkezésre álló marketingkommunikációs eszköz. Empirikus kutatásunkban fogyasztói narratívákat (n=151) elemzünk a tartalomelemzés módszertanával. A válaszadókat arra kértük, hogy írjanak kedvenc vendéglátóhelyükkel való kapcsolatukról az online térben. Elemzésünkben arra keressük a választ, hogy a márkaközösségek tagjai milyen belső indíttatásból kerültek kapcsolatba kedvenc vendéglátóhelyeikkel a közösségi platformokon. Az elsősorban fogyasztási élményekhez kötött kapcsolat online közösségi térbe való kiterjesztésére olyan belső motivációkat tártunk fel, mint a pragmatikusabb információközpontú indíttatások (pl. kizárólagos információk, naprakészség, vállalati ajánlatok, közösségimédia-specifikus tartalmakhoz való hozzáférés igénye), az érzelmi kötődés kifejezése (pl. nosztalgia, ismerősöknek való ajánlás, személyes érintettség), a társas befolyás (oldalak kedvelése mint kommunikációs tartalom, konformitás, önkifejezés), valamint a vállalati alapképességeken túlmutató egyéb tematikus kapcsolódások. ____ It is of primary importance for brand owners to map their own brand community, in order to stimulate their social-focused communication activity. This is especially true for typically small and medium-sized catering enterprises, where in most cases, social media is the only available marketing communications tool. In our empirical research, we analyze consumer narratives (n=151) with the methodology of content analysis. We asked the respondents to write about their relationship with their most preferred catering establishments in the online social sphere. In our research, we search for the inner intention by which members of brand communities got connected with their most preferred catering establishments on social platforms. We revealed such inner motivations for users extending a primarily experience (an consumption) based relationship to the online social sphere like rather pragmatic, information-focused intentions (e.g. exclusive information, timeliness, company offers, access claim for social media -specific contents), the expression of emotional binding (e.g. nostalgia, reference for acquaintances, personal involvement), social influence (the like as communication content, conformity, self-expression), and other thematic linkages beyond core company competences.

Franchise Opportunities Abound with New and Established Brands

The president of Choice Hotels International discusses important considerations for investors and operators interested in pursuing franchise affiliations.

Market-Driven Hotel Brands: Linking Market Orientation, Innovation, and Performance

"Market orientation" is a term popularized by marketing practitioners to indicate the extent to which a firm is market driven. This presumed linkage between market orientation and profitability has caught the attention of scholars, but, surprisingly, only two prior studies have reported a positive association between the two. Given the special relevance to the hotel industry of being market driven, we believe this industry provides the ideal setting for demonstrating the link between market orientation and performance. This research examines this linkage in the hotel industry. The results of our study suggest that market orientation is positively and significantly related to innovation, subjective performance, and objective performance. This result yields a number of useful ideas about how to harness the power of the marketing concept.

Restaurant Customer Loyalty: A Qualitative Assessment of Niche Brands

Using the Loyalty Triangle framework developed by Lewis and Shoemaker (1999) and focus group methodology, the study examined how a niche brand restaurant best achieved long-term loyalty. Results indicate that customers are loyal to a niche brand because of the unique characteristics inherent to the brand. Customers have higher perceptions of such qualities as the presentation of service, consistency of product, and the benefits offered by the loyalty program than characteristics that are shared across all brands. Niche brand restaurants can be more effective in developing these qualities to promote customer loyalty.

Greenhouse gas mitigation potentials in the livestock sector

Acknowledgements This paper constitutes an output of the Belmont Forum/FACCE-JPI funded DEVIL project (NE/M021327/1). Financial support from the CGIAR Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) and the EU-FP7 AnimalChange project is also recognized. P.K.T. acknowledges the support of a CSIRO McMaster Research Fellowship.

Brands, Close Relationships, and Consumer Well-Being

Consumers have relationships with other people, and they have relationships with brands similar to the ones they have with other people. Yet, very little is known about how brand and interpersonal relationships relate to one another. Even less is known about how they jointly affect consumer well-being. The goal of this research, therefore, is to examine how brand and interpersonal relationships influence and are influenced by consumer well-being. Essay 1 uses both empirical methods and surveys from individuals and couples to investigate how consumer preferences in romantic couples, namely brand compatibility, influences life satisfaction. Using traditional statistical techniques and multilevel modeling, I find that the effect of brand compatibility, or the extent to which individuals have similar brand preferences, on life satisfaction depends upon power in the relationship. For high power partners, brand compatibility has no effect on life satisfaction. On the other hand, for low power partners, low brand compatibility is associated with decreased life satisfaction. I find that conflict mediates the link between brand compatibility and power on life satisfaction. In Essay 2 I again use empirical methods and surveys to investigate how resources, which can be considered a form of consumer well-being, influence brand and interpersonal relations. Although social connections have long been considered a fundamental human motivation and deemed necessary for well-being (Baumeister and Leary 1995), recent research has demonstrated that having greater resources is associated with weaker social connections. In the current research I posit that individuals with greater resources still have a need to connect and are using other sources for connection, namely brands. Across several studies I test and find support for my theory that resource level shifts the preference of social connection from people to brands. Specifically, I find that individuals with greater resources have stronger brand relationships, as measured by self-brand connection, brand satisfaction, purchase intentions and willingness to pay with both existing brand relationships and with new brands. This suggests that individuals with greater resources place more emphasis on these relationships. Furthermore, I find that resource level influences the stated importance of brand and interpersonal relationships, and that having or perceiving greater resources is associated with an increased preference to engage with brands over people. This research demonstrates that there are times when people prefer and seek out connections with brands over other people, and highlights the ways in which our brand and interpersonal relationships influence one another.

Celebrity Capital in the Political Field: Russell Brand’s migration from stand-up comedy to Newsnight

Our case study of charismatic celebrity comedian Russell Brand’s turn to political activism uses Bourdieu’s field theory to understand the process of celebrity migration across social fields. We investigate how Brand’s capital as a celebrity performer, storyteller and self-publicist translated from comedy to politics. To judge how this worked in practice, we analysed the comedic strategies used in his stand-up show Messiah Complex and undertook a conversational analysis of his notorious interview with Jeremy Paxman on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)’s flagship current affairs programme Newsnight. We argue that Brand was able to secure political legitimacy by creatively constituting himself as an authentic anti-austerity spokesperson for the disenfranchised left in United Kingdom. In order to do so, he repurposed his celebrity capital to political ends and successfully deployed the cultural and social capitals he had developed as a celebrity comedian to secure widespread engagement with his media performances.

The Role of Luxury Fashion Brands : A qualitative research of how the consumption of luxury fashion brands relate to young consumers' self-concept

The market for luxury brands has outpaced other consumption categories through its growth, and has been found in continuous development. As there is an increasing amount of luxury categories, the consumption of luxury fashion brands account for the largest proportion of luxury profits, and the marketing costs for such brands has shown to surpass those of other fashion categories. Consumer researchers have throughout decades emphasized how individuals participate in consumption behavior to form their self-concept in relation to brands. However, previous research has disregarded the multidimensional perspective regarding the theory of self-concept when examining the consumption of brands. Hence, the current research paper aims to strengthen the existing self-concept theory by exploring the role in which luxury fashion brands have by focusing on how the consumption of such brands relate, and contribute, to the consumer’s self-concept. By applying a qualitative method to investigate such purpose, and involving the existing theory of self-concept, brand image, and brand personality, it appeared that luxury fashion brands has a function to operate as a confidence booster for young consumers’ perception of their self-concept. In terms of the theoretical contribution of this paper, this research further illustrates how the theoretical explanation of brand image and brand personality relates to two different dimensions of the consumer’s self-concept. The consumption of luxury fashion brands has shown a significant role in individuals’ consumption behavior by emphasizing a striving, and motivating, part in the self-concept of young consumers.

Herd management and livestock productivity in the Altai region of Western Mongolia

This thesis analyses the influence of qualitative and quantitative herbage production on seasonal rangelands, and of herd and pasture use strategies on feed intake, body mass development and reproductive performance of sheep and goats in the Altai mountain region of Bulgan county (soum) in Khovd province (aimag). This westernmost county of Mongolia is characterized by a very poor road network and thus very difficult access to regional and national markets. The thesis explores in this localized context the current rural development, the economic settings and political measures that affect the traditional extensive livestock husbandry system and its importance for rural livelihoods. Livestock management practices still follow the traditional transhumant mode, fully relying on natural pasture. This renders animal feeding very vulnerable to the highly variable climatic conditions which is one of many reasons for gradually declining quantity and quality of pasture vegetation. Small ruminants, and especially goats, are the main important species securing economic viability of their owners’ livelihood, and they are well adapted to the harsh continental climate and the present low input management practices. It is likely that small ruminants will keep their vital role for the rural community in the future, since the weak local infrastructure and slow market developments currently do not allow many income diversification options. Since the profitability of a single animal is low, animal numbers tend to increase, whereas herd management does not change. Possibilities to improve the current livestock management and thus herders’ livelihoods in an environmentally, economically and socially sustainable manner are simulated through bio-economic modelling and the implications are discussed at the regional and national scale. To increase the welfare of the local population, a substantial infrastructural and market development is needed, which needs to be accompanied by suitable pasture management schemes and policies

Cryptosporidiosis in farm livestock

Although diarrhoea caused by Cryptosporidium is prevalent in livestock species throughout the world relatively little is known about the species and subtypes of Cryptosporidium found in cattle on Scottish farms. In particular, little is known about the shedding profiles (age when calves become infected and duration of shedding) of the different species found in cattle and how calves become infected. There are several theories about how neonatal calves first become infected with the parasite but the role which adult cattle play in the transmission of the parasite has not been fully addressed. It was previously thought that adult cattle did not become infected with the same species of Cryptosporidium which causes disease in the young calves. Some studies have shown that this may not be true and with the advance of new techniques to discriminate species this is an area which should be revisited. In addition, it is known that it is possible for humans to become infected with Cryptosporidium and show clinical disease early in life and then again later in adulthood. In livestock however, diarrhoea caused by the parasite is generally only seen in neonatal livestock while older animals tend to be asymptomatic. It is not known if this resistance to clinical disease at an older age is due to changes in the host with an increase in age or if prior infection “immunises” the animal and provides protection against re-infection. It is also not known if infection with one isolate of C. parvum will provide protection against infection with another or if the protection formed is species/isolate specific. The main aims of this thesis were to: determine the species and subtypes of Cryptosporidium found in calves on a study farm over a one year period from birth; assess the role which adult cattle play in the transmission of the parasite to newborn calves; develop new typing tools to enable the rapid and easy differentiation of Cryptosporidium species found in cattle and to examine the host-pathogen interactions in animals given serial experimental challenges with distinct Cryptosporidium parvum isolates to determine if the resistance seen in older animals on farms is due to an increase in age or as a result of prior infection. iii A variety of different approaches were taken to achieve these aims. Longitudinal experiments carried out on a study farm revealed that in calves <9 weeks of age the most common species of Cryptosporidium is C. parvum and that all calves in the group became infected with Cryptosporidium within the first two weeks of life. Sample collection from the same animals later in life (at 6 months of age) showed that contrary to most previous studies the most common species detected at in this age group was also C. parvum although, interestingly, the subtype which the calves were shedding was not the same subtype that they were shedding previously. The longitudinal study which investigated the role of adult cattle in the transmission of Cryptosporidium also yielded some interesting results. It was found that most of the adult cattle on this farm were shedding Cryptosporidium albeit intermittently. Speciation of the positive samples revealed that, on this farm, the most predominant species of Cryptosporidium in adult cattle was also C. parvum. This is very unusual as most previous studies have not found this level of infection in older cattle and C. parvum is not usually found in this age group. A number of different subtypes were found in adult cattle and some animals shed more than one subtype over the course of the study. This contradicts prior findings which demonstrated that only one subtype is found on a single farm. The experimental infection trial involving infection of young (<1 week old) and older (6 week old) lambs with distinct C. parvum isolates demonstrated that an increase in age at primary infection reduces the effect of clinical disease. Animals which were infected at <1 week of age were re-challenged at 6 weeks of age with either a homologous or heterologous infection. Results revealed that previous exposure does not protect against re-infection with the same or a different isolate of C. parvum. This study also demonstrated that an increase in infective dose leads to a shorter pre-patent period and that there are variations in the clinical manifestations of different isolates of the same Cryptosporidium species.

Motivations to interact with brands on Facebook – Towards a typology of consumer–brand interactions

In recent years, Facebook and other social media have become key players in branding activities. However, empirical research on consumer–brand interactions on Facebook is still in its infancy. Therefore, the aim of this research is to provide additional insights to brand managers on how to adapt their approaches to increase consumers’ interactions with brands on Facebook. In this study, we apply the uses and gratification theory proposed by Katz to develop a new typology of consumers based on consumer motivations to interact with brands on Facebook, and explore the type and intensity of these interactions. We identify five main motivations that might influence consumers’ interactions with a brand on Facebook: (i) social influence, (ii) search for information, (iii) entertainment, (iv) trust and (v) reward. Building on these five motivations, a classification using clustering techniques reveals four different groups of consumers: (i) ‘brand detached’, (ii) ‘brand profiteers’, (iii) ‘brand companions’ and (iv) ‘brand reliants’. Our results provide valuable and applicable insights for social media marketing activities, which will assist brand managers to develop strategies for effectively reaching and influencing the most desirable groups of consumers.

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