Intra-organisational marketing culture and market orientation: a case study of the implementation of the marketing concept in a public library

The measurement of both marketing culture and behaviour provides the opportunity to gain more insight into the overall market focus of organisations. This article seeks to determine the market orientation and marketing culture of all staff within organisations, to ascertain to what extent other members of an organisation support or create barriers to the successful implementation of the marketing concept. This paper will provide a brief overview of the existing literature in the field of market orientation and marketing culture. After detailing the research design and methodology, a summary developed from 11 focus group sessions - consisting of all staff in one public library service in Victoria, Australia - is presented. The findings indicate that while all areas within this organisation are committed to marketing, there are various interpretations of marketing and how it should be implemented. In addition, the research finds a number of factors that could be instrumental in the successful implementation of the marketing concept in public libraries.

Prediction intention to quit in the call centre industry: does the retail model fit?

Purpose – Models of workplace turnover are rarely assessed in contexts other than that in which they were developed. This reduces their generalizability and their usefulness in providing managers with guidance as to what they might do to reduce workers intentions to quit. The purpose of this study is to test a model derived from a study of shop floor retail salespeople in the call centre environment.

Design/methodology/approach – A questionnaire measuring the variables in the model was completed by 126 call centre representatives recruited from 11 call centres in Melbourne, Australia.

Findings – Although the model was supported, the interactions among the variables differed. In particular, stressors played a bigger, albeit indirect, role in the intention to quit.

Practical implications – Call centre managers need to consider carefully the aspects of the work environment that may be stressful. If appropriately addressed, turnover may be reduced, and productivity increased.

Originality/value – This paper demonstrates that the model of turnover derived from shop floor salespeople is generally robust in the call centre setting. It provides management of call centres with some guidance as to the factors associated with turnover and areas that can be addressed to reduce it.

Relationship orientation : towards an antecedent model of trust in marketing relationships

With the advent and the increasing use of the concept of Relationship Marketing as a basis for marketing strategy, it has become evident that a lack of empirical knowledge exists as to the operational basis of the concept. Information regarding the conceptual basis of Relationship Marketing and a possible new orientation toward the concept may be of substantial value to both practitioners and scholars of relationship marketing. This paper considers the emergence of a Relationship Orientation within the marketing literature and proposes an antecedent model of Trust as a basis. The role of Ethics as a possible antecedent to Trust is emphasised and identified as a gap within the relationship marketing literature. Based on previous exploratory work and a review of the literature of relationship marketing, exchange theory, general marketing theory, marketing ethics and sales management, four key antecedent dimensions of Trust are identified: Ethics, Bonding, Empathy and Reciprocity. Additional possible antecedents are suggested. Future empirical research is proposed in order to validate the model.

The inhibiting effect of brand salience on brand name recall

This paper reports on a replication of Alba and Chattopadhyay’s (1986) study of the effects of substantially heightened brand salience upon the recall of competing brand names. Heightened salience was consistently shown to have an inhibiting effect on recall across a variety of experimental conditions. However, in the replication study this salience effect was not observed. Instead a trend in the reverse direction was found. This new finding is congruent with associative network model of memory and its prediction that subjects concentrating on a brand should trigger links in memory to the brand and other brands in the category.

Implemetation of electronic commerce and human resource strategies in an Australian retail banking context

As organisations deploy eCommerce and internet technologies for competitive advantage and to satisfy increasingly demanding customers, they will need to develop human resource (HR) strategies that prepare their employees to work with these technologies effectively. Little systematic investigation has been undertaken to discover how companies manage their HR functions to achieve these outcomes. In the retail banking sector these issues have become very important with increased competition, industry changes and heightened competition. This paper examines HR management strategy in one Australian bank as it moves towards online service provision and adopts other eCommerce applications. The paper draws on theoretical insights from Porter’s (2001) views of competitive advantage from the internet and writers discussing the informational society (Castells, 2001) and post-fordist organisations (Clegg, 1990). An analysis of interview data from this case study shows the issues that one bank is dealing with as it seeks competitive advantage from its customer service offerings while it revises its HR strategies.

Redefining brand salience using memory theory and implications for measurement

The concept of brand salience, or brand accessibility in memory, has been prevalent in the area of brand research for several decades. Brand salience has been driven by memory theory and psychological research, but debate has continued over the structure of memory systems, the way in which consumers undertake memory search, and what they do with brand information once it is retrieved. With the rise to prominence of brand equity, brand salience has been subsumed into the awareness category, as an operationalisation of recalling information. This paper looks at redefining brand salience and proposes new methods for measuring brand salience.

A retail supply chain risk assessment conceptual model

Supply chains are increasingly relying on information and communications technologies and in particular electronic commerce to facilitate transactions between supply chain partners. The adoption of these enabling technologies brings several enhancements to the conduct of business including gains in efficiency. However there are also drawbacks inherent in these technologies that include threats that are imposed on businesses that use them. This paper presents a study on retail supply chains and the risks and vulnerabilities that cooperating supply chain partners are exposed to when adopting these technologies. In particular, the paper discusses the various threats and vulnerabilities of retail supply and presents a conceptual model of such risks.

An empirical investigation of high relational orientation sport club members

Relationships between businesses, businesses and end customers, as well as between customers are an important area of practical and scientific interest. In the present era, largely due to digital technologies such as the database, public and private networks, and data collection and information distribution via TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) interface tools such as the World Wide Web (Web), the interest in relationships and related aspects such as trust as it relates to Web interactivity continues. An important antecedent empirical study established that arts patrons (customers) of a New York theatre company could be segmented according to their relational orientation, and that this orientation mediated between component attitudes and future purchase intentions. The study reported in this paper employs Web-based data collection and postal data collection methods in an investigation of the mediation effects of these data collection methods used with the same population of a premier football club in Australia. While a future aim is to more closely compare the outcomes established in the arts study with those from a similarly constructed study in the sporting arena, the focus of this initial paper is the differences in response exhibited by online respondents relative to postal survey respondents. The paper reports findings which do not support those of the antecedent arts and entertainment study concerning the weakness of overall satisfaction on the purchase intentions of high relational orientation customers. The paper also reports findings which give confidence to users of online surveys that despite differences in demographic profiles of these respondents and postal survey respondents, there is a degree of similarity in the responses of the two groups on the measures used in this study. The paper also suggests the need for further research into these data collection effects as they relate to relationship marketing.

Linking eCommerce and human resource strategies: a case study in a large Australian retail bank

The implementation of eCommerce technologies has considerably changed how employees in the banking industry interact with customers. For example, some customers use electronic banking applications to such an extent that they find little or no need to go into a branch. This change has had a significant impact on the way that jobs are designed and the way that employees are being managed. The preliminary findings from the case study of a large bank in Australia indicate that moving customers out of the branch to an online environment has created unforeseen issues for the way employees interact with customers and this in turn has changed the way that they do their jobs. The key challenge for banks in the future is how to form effective relationships with customers without some kind of face-to-face interaction. This impacts how organisations recruit and retain their staff as well as the level and type of skills required for jobs redesigned after the implementation of eCommerce applications. It is also an important factor in employee satisfaction.

Orientation and impact of nonprofit museum web sites

Museums face increasing pressure to attract wider audiences. This requires an understanding of visitor expectations and motivations for visiting the ‘real’ museum. Websites can act as an attracting mechanism for ‘real’ museum visits. However, for the most part, museums have concentrated their efforts on attracting visitors to promotional efforts and collecting statistical data on the demographic profiles of visitors. Museum websites as a means of attracting audiences have been ignored in the research literature. This paper researches the role of museum websites in developing audiences with special attention to the attracting power of the websites for visitors. Content analysis of 40 Australian museum websites was conducted using a structured tool, WebNPattract, designed and tested specifically for the purpose. Content analysis results can be used for the purpose of strategic positioning of the museum and cultural tourism. The paper outlines five aspects of museums—museum offer; corporate governance; finding the museum; characteristics; and governance communication—and two approaches to museum websites: the ‘aesthetic’ and the ‘services’ perspectives. Marketing implications can be deduced from website orientation.

Brand value in the context of Australian Football League clubs

This conceptual paper focuses on brand value for non-traditional products, and particularly, brand value in relation to Australian Football League Clubs, and its measurement. The concept of brand value has been addressed by a plethora of definitions and models in the literature, many of which focus on the measurement of brand value within traditional product industries. These models are often contingent on the intrinsic utility of the product itself, yet within non-traditional product areas, the product and the brand may be two distinct entities which should be differentiated in order to facilitate an accurate measurement of consumer-based brand value. To date, there has been limited research in this area and the general aim of this paper is to reveal the gaps in the current literature by providing an extension of traditional brand valuation theory to a non-traditional field. This paper illustrates its points with reference to a relevant model associated with “traditional” brand theories, and shows how it can be applied to the area of Australian Football League Clubs. This paper argues for the configuration of a more holistic model of brand value, including the antecedents and consequences of the value ascribed to brands by consumers, in order to encourage future research in brand equity based on the total utility derived from Australian Football League Clubs’ brands.