Journal articles on the topic 'Degree Discipline: Marketing'

Language tools that implement the marketing model of consumer behavior and ensure the consumer’s purchase decision, have occupied the focal place in linguistic studies. Such studies have led to the formation of a new pragmalinguistic direction – marketing linguistics. This syllabus is designed for 45.04.02 direction of training ("Linguistics"), the orientation (profile) "General and typological linguistics and applications in the field of linguistics" (training level – master's degree, graduate qualification – master's degree).

The paper investigates how Information Systems (IS) has emerged as the product of interdisciplinary discourses. The research aim in this study is to better understand diversity in IS research, and the extent to which the diversity of discourse expanded and contracted from 1995 to 2011. Methodologically, we apply a combined citations/co-citations analysis based on the eight Association for Information Systems basket journals and the 22 subject-field classification framework provided by the Association of Business Schools. Our findings suggest that IS is in a state of continuous interaction and competition with other disciplines. General Management was reduced from a dominant position as a reference discipline in IS at the expense of a growing variety of other discourses including Business Strategy, Marketing, and Ethics and Governance, among others. Over time, IS as a field moved from the periphery to a central position during its discursive formation. This supports the notion of IS as a fluid discipline dynamically embracing a diverse range of adjacent reference disciplines, while keeping a degree of continuing interaction with them. Understanding where IS is currently at allows us to better understand and propose fruitful avenues for its development in both academia and practice.

Abordagem teórica a partir de um estudo de caso. Busca compreender a real necessidade de se aplicar os conceitos e técnicas de Marketing na área da Arquivologia. Pretende-se identificar o grau de relevância que é dado para a disciplina de Marketing nas pesquisas e estudos arquivísticos, possibilitando, portanto, a construção de um referencial teórico que auxilie na compreensão e aceitação por parte de pesquisadores e profissionais da inserção do Marketing como disciplina necessária na formação profissional dos arquivistas. Utiliza o método hipotético–dedutivo, aplicando-se a técnica de observação indireta (pesquisa documental e bibliográfica). Analisa o Projeto Político-Pedagógico do Curso de Graduação em Arquivologia da Universidade Federal da Paraíba, e os periódicos científicos de maior destaque na área de Ciência da Informação. Foram realizadas consultas a profissionais e docentes que trabalham com questões arquivísticas contemporâneas. Após análise dos dados coletados, a pesquisa resultou na comprovação do argumento de que com a aplicação das técnicas de marketing pelo profissional arquivista, a unidade de informação (arquivo), passa a ser mais reconhecida como elemento indispensável à exeqüibilidade das funções administrativas. Para tanto, faz-se necessário que este (o profissional), esteja freqüentemente atualizado com as novas técnicas arquivísticas desenvolvidas em âmbito acadêmico, possibilitando a oferta de serviços de qualidade. O marketing pode se tornar uma ferramenta estratégica de vantagem competitiva para este profissional de potencial ainda desconhecido pelo mercado.AbstractTheoretical approach starting from a case study. This work tries to understand the real need of applying the Marketing concepts and techniques in the field of Archivology. Seeks to identify the degree of relevance that is attributed to the Marketing discipline in researches concerning archival studies, allowing the construction of a theoretical framework to help the understanding and acceptance of Marketing as a discipline required to the formation of professional archivists. In this research it is applied the technique of indirect observation (documentary and bibliographic research), and it is analyzed the Political and Pedagogical Project (PPP) of the undergraduate course in Archivology of the Federal University of Paraíba. Prestigious scientific journals in the area of Information Science are also used. It is demonstrated the argument that with the use of marketing techniques by the professional archivist, an information unit (archive) becomes recognized as an indispensable element for the practice of management tasks. Indicates that the professional archivist needs to be updated with the archival techniques developed in academic environment, enabling the offer of quality services. Concludes that Marketing can become a strategic tool for competitive advantage for the professional archivist.

Marketing executives operate in increasingly complex marketplaces characterized by global competition, accelerating sustainability concerns, and an increased focus on innovation. This complexity risks a fragmentation of thought more severe than that which Theodore Levitt discussed in his seminal article on marketing myopia. Indeed, we’ve become market myopic as a discipline and lost focus on the generalities that apply to markets and exchange more broadly. Our goal is to provide a description of the modern marketplace that allows us to re-envision this complexity as a symptom of a more general phenomenon. We do this by arguing that market complexity can (and should) be understood as a consequence of the circular relationship between exchange and shared understanding. We then show how this relationship can be expressed in simple terms using vectors to symbolize the degree to which this understanding is shared across actors and the rate at which this “shared-ness” is changing in time. The resulting model allows us to cast the variety and variability of the complex modern marketplace as a symptom of shared understanding dynamics. This, in turn, helps us move beyond the morass of contextual idiosyncrasy and toward a more parsimonious description of the market.

Distributor sharing of strategic information with suppliers is an important but underresearched issue within the marketing discipline. The authors develop and test a conceptual framework based on exchange theory that focuses on the degree to which distributors share external and internal strategic information with associated suppliers. Relying on survey data collected from 479 distributors across three industries, the authors find that distributors share strategic information with suppliers according to factors that affect the perceived benefits, costs, and risks of such behavior. The sharing of internal strategic information has distinct determinants compared with those of external strategic information. The interrelationships between environmental uncertainty and the sharing of internal strategic information, including both main and interactive effects, are especially notable.

The conditions of modern pharmaceutical market development require leadership at each level that lets not only respond rapidly and efficiently on the changes of the environment but initiate the necessary changes. Leaders as agents of changes can transform people’s values, to motivate and inspire, to form the vision of development of healthcare system and pharmaceutical sector taking into account the principles of system thinking for the provision of population with available, quality and safe pharmaceutical care and the improvement of their life. The aim of the work is the development of an elective discipline «Leadership in Pharmacy» for training Master of Pharmacy, Industrial Pharmacy. The literature review based on the data of international and foreign educational standards of higher pharmaceutical education, the current national educational standard, the experience of teaching subjects devoting to leadership in pharmacy both abroad and in Ukraine has been carried out. Such a scientific quantitative method as a survey has been used. 221 students from the School of Pharmacy at Bogomolets National Medical University have taken part in the survey. The recommendations of the International Pharmaceutical Federation pay attention to the advisability of forming leadership competencies for pharmaceutical workers. The national standards of higher pharmaceutical education in the USA, Great Britain, Australia, Canada include a specific list of leadership competencies. The domestic standard of higher education for getting a Master’s degree in Pharmacy, Industrial Pharmacy includes certain general competencies based on the leadership. Some leadership skills are listed as special competencies and they are reflected in the discipline «Pharmaceutical Management and Marketing». However, a discipline aimed at the complex and systematic formation of leadership competencies is not presented in the working educational plan for training Masters in the field of knowledge «Healthcare» and specialty «Pharmacy». About 70% of the School of Pharmacy students at Bogomolets National Medical University think that the materials devoted to leadership «worth including» to the educational program and 28% of them notice that «rather worth including». According to the students’ opinions, the most interesting leadership topics are traits of leaders aimed at the success, leadership and team, the formation of leadership strategy – 76%, 72% і 70% respectively. The structure of the elective discipline «Leadership in Pharmacy» with an indication of the aim, list of topics, and the desired educational outcomes (competencies) has been presented. The elective discipline «Leadership in Pharmacy» considering the formation of leadership skills at three successive levels, namely individual, team and organization has been developed. This discipline consists of the following modules: «Foundations of Leadership. Personal Leadership», «Leadership and Collaboration», «Leadership and Organizational Change».

This research was conducted based on the results of interviews and observations of the 1 Bae Kudus State Senior High School, which is a high school that uses the gusjigang philosophy as the inculcation of character values in the school learning system as well as outlined in the achievements of the school's vision and mission. The purpose of this study was to analyze the impact of local genius gusjigang internalization in inculcating character values (discipline, religion and entrepreneurship) for students at SMA Negeri 1 Bae Kudus. This type of research used descriptive qualitative methods with an ethnographic approach to find out more deeply and systematically about the impact of local genius gusjigang internalization in instilling character values (discipline, religion and entrepreneurship) for students at SMA Negeri 1 Bae Kudus. Data collection techniques are carried out by means of observation, interviews, and documentation. The source of this research data is primary data obtained from interviews with the Principal, Deputy Head of Curriculum, Deputy Student Affairs, Teachers and Students of SMA Negeri 1 Bae Kudus. The research data validity technique used the criteria for the degree of trust (credibility) with the triangulation technique. The results of the study can be concluded that the impact of local genius gusjigang internalization in instilling character values (discipline, religion and entrepreneurship) in SMA Negeri 1 Bae Kudus is not limited to transferring knowledge about good values, but making how these character values embedded and united in the totality of one's thoughts and actions. The internalization of local genius gusjigang in instilling character values (discipline, religion and entrepreneurship) at SMA Negeri 1 Bae Kudus shows a positive impact on the character values of discipline and religiosity of students. The "Gus" character value in disciplinary behavior is characterized by significant behavior including: a) discipline in attendance; b) value time; c) guard the oral; d) always neatly dressed; e) competing for more achievements; f) obedience or obedience to teachers and parents and g) friendly and courteous behavior towards teachers/staff, parents and fellow students. The value of the character "Ji" in religious behavior shows the results of symptoms of improvement including: a) a better understanding of faith in Allah SWT; b) accustomed to worship when at home; c) bring a sense of closer to God; d) understanding of the history of the development of Islam in the world; e) emergence of literacy culture; f) aware of the obligation to always learn and seek knowledge and practice it. The character value of "Gang" or entrepreneurship also shown a positive response marked by; a) the emergence of creativity and innovation; b) independent and unyielding behavior is formed; c) growing courage to try; d) have a marketing and communicative soul; e) increasing knowledge and skills; f) be confident and responsible and g) have concern for the preservation of nature. Keywords: Character education, Local genius gusjigang, Education internalization, School education system.

The article presents review of the textbook for bachelors “Management of library and information activity”. The author analyses the structure of the book and highlights the content of seven chapters. The article describes educational, scientific and practical significance of the publication. The book was published in early 2021 in the publishing house “Profession” as part of the publishing project on series of textbooks on basic academic disciplines for sectoral bachelorʼs degree course. The textbook is prepared by specialists of universities of culture and national, federal and scientific libraries. The basis of the publication is the marketing concept of management, considered in the context of priority areas of sectoral management. The textbook describes theoretical, legal, functional, technological and economic foundations of management of information and library activity and characterizes its areas. The author highlights the issues of personnel management and also considers the role of the head of library institution. At the end of each chapter, the textbook presents the summary, the questions for self-checking of knowledge learning, as well as the lists of the main publications on the topic. The textbook contains the subject index. In the text, there are graphically revealed the key concepts, using tables, graphs and figures. The textbook includes previously unpublished analytical material by I.M. Suslova “Evolution of approaches to library management”. The appendices contain provisions on the trends in libraries activity, as well as organizational and legal documents that can be used to develop their own local documents in specific cultural institutions. The textbook presents the material, taking into account the achievements of the modern level of domestic library science. The publication will be useful for both students and library specialists. The book makes significant contribution to the development of modern educational literature in the profile discipline and helps students learn the course “Management of library and information activity”.

The purpose of the article is to determine the organizational and methodological conditions of organizing physical education and health classes in floorball for children 5-6 years in the educational process. Theoretical analysis and generalization of data from literature sources and experience of best practice in physical education of preschool children, as well as pedagogical experiment, were used. Determining the organizational and methodological conditions of the preschool education institution №18 “Zirnytsia” was necessary for our pedagogical experiment. Effectively organized physical culture and health classes in a preschool education institution can implement the marketing component of educational services, as it is a step towards raising the level of the institution, a condition for improving teachers’ professionalism, a stimulus to creative search for new tools for preschool development and education. Among the newest means of development and education of preschool children it is expedient to use means of sports game in floorball. Methods of forming theoretical knowledge were used for realization of the physical culture and health program; mastering motor skills and development of physical qualities. The load was regulated by observation, which revealed the degree of fatigue of children by external signs. Attention was paid to skin color, degree of sweating, facial expression, breathing patterns, coordination of children’s movements and attention, no complaints of fatigue and more. Thus, physical culture and health classes with the use of floorball for older preschool children contributed to the comprehensive development of physical and mental qualities. Such classes were characterized by the presence of mutual conditioning of children’s behavior, which contributed to moral education (collectivism, camaraderie, conscious discipline). Prospects for further research will be related to the development of a program of physical education and health classes in floorball for junior pupils.

The development of all spheres of public life is associated with the optimization of information processes (collection, storage, processing, transmission of information), so modern society is called information. Modern information and communication technologies play an important role in teaching a foreign language in non-philological higher education institutions. The organization of education using electronic tools allows significant deepening the professional knowledge and optimizing the educational process for students. Modern lexicography has significantly expanded and strengthened its tools with computer technology for creating and using dictionaries. Special programs (databases, computer files, word processing programs) let us automatically generate dictionary entries, store dictionary information and process it. The purpose of the study is to reveal the specifics of computer lexicography use for training managers in a modern agricultural university. To achieve this goal, a set of methods was used: theoretical: comparison and generalization (study of the degree of scientific development of the term “computer lexicography”), analysis, synthesis and generalization of psychological, pedagogical and methodological literature, theoretical forecasting and modeling of computer lexicography to determine scientific bases of the researched problem; empirical: diagnostic methods (interviews, interviews with teachers, questionnaires, analysis of products of professional activity of teachers, which provide philological disciplines in teaching the agricultural managers). The analysis of the problem showed its insufficient representation in modern scientific works. The article characterizes the role of disciplines of the philological cycle in the professional training of higher education students majoring in “Management”; the term “computer lexicography” is defined and its typology is singled out; the conditions for the introduction of computer lexicography in the educational process of agricultural universities are determined; analyzed software for the introduction of elements of computer lexicography in training the marketing specialists in agricultural universities; the positive and negative aspects of the use of computer lexicography as a component of education are revealed. The article for the first time revealed the specifics of the use of computer lexicography in teaching the philological disciplines for the specialty “Management” at the universities in the agricultural sector. The variety of trends in the introduction of computer lexicography at all stages of teaching the discipline is obvious, and, in particular, the variety of approaches to the creation of electronic dictionaries of different types. The obtained results allow deepening the knowledge of future specialists in the field of management, expanding the interests of higher education seekers, simplifying the work of students with special terminology, systematizing the acquired knowledge, improving the quality of philological disciplines through the introduction of information and communication technologies.

Purpose – A key driver of procurement effectiveness is the alignment of the procurement function with interlinked functions, such as R & D, engineering, production, and marketing. In the strategic management literature, the degree of alignment of individual team members on strategic objectives is termed “consensus.” The purpose of this paper is to investigate antecedents of consensus on objectives in cross-functional sourcing teams, the relationship between the degree of consensus and supplier performance, and moderators of the consensus-performance relationship. To do so, it ties strategic management literature to SCM and supplier selection research. As a result of these investigations, this research holistically introduces the concept of consensus to the discipline. Design/methodology/approach – The study analyzes a sample of 88 sourcing teams (233 team members) from three manufacturing companies using regression analysis and moderated regressions. Findings – Consensus on objectives for supplier selection among sourcing team members is positively related to the selection of higher performing suppliers. Sourcing team member experience is positively related to the level of consensus, and formalization of the selection process positively moderates the consensus-performance relationship. Team demographic diversity does not affect consensus among team members or supplier selection effectiveness. Research limitations/implications – This study investigates consensus on objectives as a state within the sourcing team; it does not analyze how decision-making processes unfold in situations of low- or high-initial consensus among sourcing team members. Practical implications – This paper provides insights into the drivers and effects of consensus on objectives and formalization of supplier selection in cross-functional setups. Originality/value – This research addresses a gap in the SCM literature by investigating the role of consensus on objectives and thereby contributes to a better understanding of cross-functional sourcing team setups and effectiveness. The study introduces a key construct from the strategic management literature to supply management research, and empirical evidence shows how consensus can improve supplier selection performance.

Purpose Limited attention has been given to the study of social marketing at the graduate level. Such a study not only reveals research interests and trends, but also provides insights into the level of academic evolution or maturity of the social marketing field. This paper aims to examine social marketing as the subject of master’s theses. Design/methodology/approach A search strategy found 266 social marketing-focused master’s theses completed from 1971 to 2015. These theses were analysed by host countries, institutions, disciplinary contexts and degree programmes for which they were submitted. Findings Only four theses were submitted from 1971-1980 and eight completed in 1981-1990. The number of theses increased to 35 in 1991-2000, 118 between 2001 and 2010 and 101 in the past five years (2011-2015). The USA was the leading producer of social marketing master’s theses, followed by Canada, Sweden, China, South Africa, the UK and Kenya. A majority of theses were housed in the disciplines of business, health and communication, and none of them was submitted for a Master of Social Marketing degree. Originality/value This is the first study that investigates master’s theses with an exclusive focus on social marketing. Implications for the evolution, learning and teaching of social marketing are provided.

The article deals with the formation of entrepreneurial competencies by students in various educational programs, where entrepreneurial disciplines are not core. Under non-core areas in the framework of this article, we will agree to understand educational programs for undergraduate programs that are aimed at forming specialists in professions other than entrepreneurs, for example, the profiles of “Project Management”, “Finance and Credit”, “Sports Management”, “Event Management”, “Management in the hotel and Restaurant Business”, “Marketing”, “Civil law”, “Economic security” and others. This is a preparation for a specialty other than entrepreneurship, so the entrepreneurship competencies for these programs is a general professional one. Entrepreneurial education seems to be relevant for students in various areas and profiles of undergraduate studies. Entrepreneurship competencies is a general professional competencies for non-core areas, while it is possible to integrate it into the main educational program as a professional one. Students can open their own business in small and medium-sized businesses, initiate intra-company entrepreneurship. For systematic training, it is advisable to introduce a practice module for running your own startup with a connection to the infrastructure for entrepreneurship. This article is devoted to the solution of this problem – building a system for teaching entrepreneurship in non-core areas of bachelor’s degree, focused on the following goals: а) identify and describe competencies in the field of entrepreneurship for students of managerial, economic, in the future and other profiles of higher education; b) present a system of teaching entrepreneurship through a module of adapted academic disciplines from a proven set of courses in entrepreneurial education; c) identify the main topics of the courses included in the module, and the types of necessary training sessions that will allow you to achieve the required level of development of the proposed competencies. In this article, a team of authors who teach courses on entrepreneurship as core disciplines at Synergy University presents a vision and a general outline for building this direction and basic courses for non-core students, which will also be detailed in subsequent publications.

Marketing communication practitioners lack a guideline for implementing social mediastrategically. In the light of this, the authors of this article explored the strategic implementationof social media within a marketing communication context. A grounded theory process was firstlyfollowed in order to compile a list of social media messaging categories. This list was then pairedwith the disciplines of the marketing communication mix, based on their inherent similarities. Todemonstrate the practical relevance of the pairings thereafter, the authors followed a process ofaction research as a way of analysing an organisation’s existing social media messaging plan, referencing the strategic considerations that the pairing process inferred. By doing so, the authorsestablished that the pairing and action research process explored could be used as a strategicguideline for social media managers to improve the degree to which an organisation’s socialmedia messaging is conducive to the reaching of specific marketing communication objectives.

The following is a reflection on Spanish undergraduate studies that combine the concepts of marketing and public relations. Sharing origins and often functions and specialists, both concepts have run parallel paths that have merged on multiple occasions. This evolution has been studied from different points of view. Initially, marketing experts included PR techniques as an additional tool to grant it a greater specific instrumental relevance over time. On the other hand, PR scholars have tried to dissociate themselves from marketing in order acquire an independent position within the field of communication. In Spain, these conceptual differences are currently blurred due to the creation of new university degrees and double degrees combining both disciplines. This trend is evidenced within the Spanish university market which, throughout this article, will be compared to other markets, namely the American and the British ones, as a scientific reference for both concepts, and to the Portuguese one, given its geographical proximity. We will reflect on the reasons that have led the Spanish university market to combine both concepts and to offer official studies that include them in their nomenclature, far from the historical tradition in this country, where studies in public relations have been related to the field of communication, while those in marketing have been related to the field of economics. The identification of this trend in the job market of organisational communication professionals poses new challenges to training institutions, especially to universities.

Purpose Sensory experience profoundly impacts consumer cognition and behavior. This paper aims to illuminate the structure and development of sensory and experiential marketing research, to condense knowledge and to stimulate future research. Design/methodology/approach In all, 156 articles with 9,670 references serve as this paper’s database. The factor analysis on co-citation patterns of the top-cited 148 articles reveals the main research streams. The social network analysis unveils the degree of intellectual exchange between and within these schools of thought. The authors also map the temporal emergence of research streams and condense insights into an overarching framework that guides future research. Findings Early research in experiential marketing and store atmospherics emphasized the importance of affective reactions. Grounded and embodied cognition revised the understanding of the role perception plays in cognition. These developments culminated in the now most central research stream of sensory marketing, which bridges other research streams. Research limitations/implications Although the research field is strongly interconnected, integration with other marketing disciplines potentially enriches the discourse. Practical implications This paper is useful for any reader who wants to gain a synthesized overview of the research field of sensory marketing. The framework presented in this paper can serve as a starting point for new sensory marketing research. Originality/value This paper offers a structured and unbiased account of sensory marketing and merges findings from diverse research backgrounds.

Over the past decade we have seen a global increase in interdisciplinary sustainability degrees. These degrees are relatively understudied due to their recent emergence. To better understand the challenges and benefits of this type of coursework and learning experience, we must explore students’ perspectives. Rarely explored from the student viewpoint are: (1) highly interdisciplinary instruction that transcends more than four disciplines; (2) the potential effect of students’ incoming disciplinary background. This case study seized an opportunity to gain insights and perceptions from students across very diverse backgrounds within a shared interdisciplinary program. We surveyed 61 students enrolled in a highly interdisciplinary degree (Master of Environment and Sustainability; Monash University, Melbourne, Australia) and compared responses of students from STEMM, non-STEMM and mixed incoming degrees. Students’ specific disciplinary backgrounds were diverse, including physical sciences, engineering, marketing, business, fashion, law and education. We used a mixed methods approach to analyze survey data. The dominant perceived benefits of interdisciplinary training reported were: (1) career relevance; (2) expanded knowledge and perspectives of sustainability issues; (3) confidence in envisioning sustainability solutions. The main perceived challenges reported were potential confusion from rapidly upskilling into new domains and disciplinary jargon. Interestingly, respondents in this case study viewed these challenges as an authentic reflection of professional sustainability practice rather than a pedagogical issue. In line with this, students showed a preference for pedagogical approaches that simulated real world scenarios and developed career skills. Disciplinary background did not generally influence students’ views. All students identified similar challenges, benefits and pedagogical preferences, with one difference. Students from mixed prior degrees and non-STEMM disciplines showed a possible trend towards valuing cross-disciplinary teamwork more than those from STEMM backgrounds. Overall, our findings suggest that the diverse student cohort within the highly interdisciplinary sustainability program of this case study generally viewed this mode of education as beneficial, career-relevant and accessible. This case study may additionally encourage interdisciplinary educators from other fields, such as health professions, to also include more diverse domains and student cohorts in their programs.

The article discusses the relatively new concept of computer sports. Computer sports (or eSports) have so far been studied mainly by representatives of business and marketing. The attention of researchers was mainly attracted by its target audience, both players and spectators, the main types and criteria of eSports disciplines, as well as indicators of commercial success. Based on the results of four author’s qualitative local studies and secondary data analysis, the article successively describes the key actors in the Russian eSports market: eSports organizations, advertisers/sponsors, media platforms covering tournaments, participating teams and spectators. The main interconnected structural components of the organization / units of the holding (eSports arenas, advertising agency and the teams themselves) are considered. Also presented are expert assessments from eSports competitors, allowing the evaluation of not only the peculiarities of the recruitment of eSports competitors, but also of the degree of their amateurism/professionalism, the attitude toward age restrictions on competitors and toward state control over the development of eSports, the potential of eSports as an advertising market and, generally, the current state of the eSports market in Russia, as well as its prospects for development.

Purpose Innovation and entrepreneurship are economic drivers promoting competition and growth among organizations throughout the world, many of which would not exist without well-established new product development processes coupled with intentional and strategic focus on research and development. New product development processes, such as the lean start-up methodology and design thinking, are well-known and thriving as a result of empirically grounded research efforts. Unfortunately, educational institutions and educational researchers, alike, are lagging when it comes to new program/degree development processes. Although the quantity of new degree offerings has increased substantially over the past several decades (in particular for multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary programs), limited research has been conducted to document key procedures associated with the creation of new degree programs. The purpose of this study is to show one approach to how students can be involved within the new program development process. Design/methodology/approach This approach uses participatory research, wherein students act as researchers and actively participate in the data collection and analysis process. Under the umbrella of participatory research, the study uses photovoice, photoelicitation and focus groups for collecting qualitative data. Findings Results suggest that students in one transdisciplinary studies in technology program value the following key attributes: learning style (agency and choice, active hands-on learning and real-world applications) and learning context (technology and design-focused assignments, integration of humanities and self-selected disciplines of interest). Originality/value Recommendations are provided for various higher education benefactors of the user-generated data, including administration, faculty, marketing, recruitment, advisors and the students themselves.

AbstractResearch purpose. The pursuit of higher education has, until recently, been viewed as a worthwhile pursuit. However, factors including rising tuition costs, graduate job-readiness, and the associated debt have diminished the perceived value of college degrees at all levels. This research seeks to explore both academic literature and popular publication sources to gain a deeper understanding of the value proposition of higher education in the dynamic 21st century.Design/Methodology/Approach. An aggregative qualitative synthesis of the selected academic and popular sources is examined for emergent themes. Drawing on theory from the disciplines of economics, marketing, education and humanities, a meta-matrix is then constructed from the content analysis, with the goal to not only more effectively describe the variant perceptions of value but also to reconcile and synthesizes these views where possible.Findings. The perceived value of a contemporary higher education has been challenged, requiring post-secondary institutions to find new ways to demonstrate the benefits that accompany an advanced degree. Through a more explicit understanding of the dichotomies that exist between the various perceptions of value, as well as the emergence of thematic agreements, a more holistic depiction of higher education’s value proposition may be created.Originality/Value/Practical implications. The creation of a framework that allows post-secondary institutions to gain a more explicit understanding of the perceptions of value held both within and outside the academy will allow colleges and universities to respond more directly to this critical challenge and more accurately demonstrate both the short-term and life-long value of a college degree.

Higher Education Institutes across the world have started using social media to reach out to the prospective students as well as to interact with current students and alumni. Social media improves the communication on one hand and helps in promotional and development activities on the other. Present work explores the integration of social media in different processes in Higher Educational Institutes. A student enters the institute with admission process and exits after completion of degree. While on the campus, a student is involved in curricular, co-curricular and extra-curricular activities. At the same time, a student participates in the communication with the fellow students and other corporate and social forums. In all of these activities, social media can play a prominent and vital role. However, the success of social media roles depends upon; how the different stakeholders are engaged. A comprehensive study has been carried out to identify the role of social media in different activities of the higher education institutes. These activities range from looking for the new students, engaging them on the campus and maintaining communication after they leave the campus. Implications from teaching-learning, administrative, marketing and communication perspective have been identified. A framework has been proposed to integrate the specific social media channels in different processes in the higher education institutes. The framework will be very much useful in developing successful social media campaigns for higher educational institutes as well as to effectively engage the stakeholders.

Today, the food sector is characterised with intense competition and continuously becoming more challenging for marketers. When it is realised that 95% of consumers' purchasing decisions are made unconsciously, marketing tools started to target unconscious minds. Combining neuroscience and marketing disciplines, neuromarketing studies found that neuro-stimuli, directly addressing the brain, are influential on consumer perceptions. This study investigates the effects of neuro-stimuli applied on food product poster and packaging on mother-woman and child consumers' brand awareness, quality perceptions and purchase intentions. In the experimental design implemented, a total of 284 subjects composed of women and children are divided into 6 groups, and they were exposed to various degrees of neuro-stimuli in the poster and product packages in order to measure the influence of these stimuli. Findings of the research confirmed that application of neuro-stimuli significantly increased quality perception of women and purchase intentions of both woman and child consumers. Increasing intensity of neuro-stimuli also generated a partially significant influence. Theoretical and managerial implications are provided based on these findings.

ABSTRACT We develop constructs to evaluate the factors influencing the degree of students' acceptance of cases. In our proposed framework, student acceptance is affected by the case selection, intensity of faculty use, training, course type and level, level of instructor expertise, teaching atmosphere, and the faculty's beliefs about the usefulness of the case method. Our sample includes faculty teaching quantitative or qualitative courses across several disciplines in undergraduate business administration. Responses to a survey are analyzed using factor analysis and regression. The quantitative analysis is complemented by interviews with a subset of expert faculty using a two-round modified Delphi technique. This study may be limited by the fact that it measured faculty perceptions of the degree of students' acceptance of cases, rather than student acceptance directly. Future research might survey students or use students' courses evaluations to validate or contradict our results.

The article is devoted to the author’s approach to the formation of management indicators of market sustainability of modern business. The approach is focused on the classical understanding of the market mechanism, which has its own patterns at the current stage of management development, characterized by the high importance of social and ethical marketing, a set of technological costs in the field of production, sales, product promotion and beneficial impact to all community groups. In the course of the study, the resulting and factor indicators were considered: change in income and expenses, direct and indirect ratio of income and profit to process costs for production, sales of products, expenses for corporate social responsibility (strengthening of social well-being as a result of ongoing business activities). These relation-ships between changes in income and expenses were plotted through a combination of their various types (additive, multiplicative, multiple), which help to identify the degree of influence of each factor indicator (element of process costs for marketing activities) on the resulting indicators and take measures to maximize the result and minimize such costs using the computational-constructive method in its interaction with individual elements of mathematical analysis. The material is useful for entrepreneurs of all spheres and branches of activity, people employed in educational and scientific institutions, specializing in economic and management re-search and disciplines, and their students.

This research reports on how future heritage interpreters are being trained in academic institutions in North America. Faculty and instructors from 130 colleges and universities were asked about the skills taught, textbooks used, types of degrees offered, certification, and accreditation. Respondents were asked about challenges to the profession and ideas for improving the academic arm of the profession. Colleges who responded teach interpretation courses in various academic disciplines around the continent, suggesting some inconsistencies for potential students interested in a professional career in interpretation. Challenges to the profession are discussed regarding the needs of future professionals in the field of interpretation and the potential need for academics to improve marketing of the profession and to collaborate more with professionals in the field who are interested in hiring the latest pool of graduates from colleges and universities.

When a marketer teaches general ethics courses, widespread ontological shock can result on campus. A case for positive paradigm expansion of all involved persons in an interdisciplinary environment is made. Suggestions for specific interdisciplinary opportunities and applications are provided. A call for interdisciplinary efforts is made and supported. Teaching outside your field is always chancy but when your terminal degree is marketing and the courses outside the area of expertise you are asked to teach are general distribution courses in ethics, cross-listed as Philosophy, it might be more than chancy, it may be ridiculous according to the received view. Reactions from colleagues in the business school may (and did) range from puzzlement to high hilarity particularly if one has been successful in business in the real world as was the case in this instance. Other colleagues seem to experience ontological shock as if they have suddenly found themselves in an alternate universe where up is down. This report is about doing the academically strange thing of teaching across the curriculum and enjoying it. But wait, theres more, and even greater heresy! This will urge others in professional schools, sciences and other disciplines to consider the idea; and then do it, for all-around wins for all involved.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study the progress of research on business research in India and identify the key disciplines, journals, articles, authors, and institutions. Design/methodology/approach – Bibliometric analysis using data for articles published from the ISI Web of Knowledge databases consisting of the ISI Web of Science (1899-present) consisting of Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-expanded), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), and Arts & Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI); BIOSIS Previews (1969-present); CABI: CAAAB Abstracts (1910-present); MEDLINE (1950-present); Zoological Record (1864-present); and Journal Citation Reports (1999-2008). Findings – There is growing number of research literature on the theme and more so post 2002. Among the journals, the most prolific, measured by number of articles published are Management Decision, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Harvard Business Review, and Journal of International Marketing and the top ten percent of the journals are responsible for 36 percent of all publications. Similarly the top seven authors are responsible for about 15 percent of all publications and the top ten institutions account for 30 percent of all publications. This highlights that few journals, authors, and institutions are dominating the research arena of business research in India. Research limitations/implications – Despite its high degree of objectivity, bibliometric analysis has a subjective dimension (Van Raan, 2003) since the researcher had to make choices on the search terms, the time period used, etc., and while the data set is comprehensive, is it not exhaustive as many new journals are not part of SSCI (Pillania and Fetscherin, 2009; Pillania, 2011). Practical implications – The study undertakes a multi-disciplinary review of literature on business research in India. It identifies the key disciplines, journals, articles, authors, and institutions on business research in India. It is a ready reference for practitioners and future researchers on the subject. Originality/value – This study has made an attempt to study and document the literature on business research in India.

Objective: Silver has become a global treatment option with the US Food and Drug Administration providing marketing clearance for many silver-impregnated wound dressings and topical agents. However, the increased use of silver-based products across medical disciplines has raised questions concerning the development of acute silver resistance. In this study, the efficacy of previously identified silver-resistant clinical bacteria (Klebsiella pneumoniae and Enterobacter cloacae) against a variety of commercially available silver-based wound dressings was further investigated. Method: To further explore the clinical significance of these isolates, multiple time-course and repeat-challenge assays were conducted with nine dressings using a panel of silver-resistant and silver-sensitive microorganisms. Silver-impregnated dressings were ranked by silver species, quantity of silver and overall efficacy. Results: Both silver-resistant strains were largely unaffected and exhibited phenotypic resistance even when exposed to the high silver concentrations found in commercially available wound dressings. In stark contrast, the majority of the dressings were able to maintain a high degree of efficacy over the course of 72 hours and during repeated bacterial challenges against silver-sensitive microorganisms. Conclusion: Our findings provide additional evidence that clinically significant silver-resistance has emerged in the clinical setting. Such resistant microbes are capable of sustained silver resistance against a wide variety of silver adjuvants. These findings suggest that the further development and dissemination of these resistance mechanisms could significantly impact current practices in wound healing.

World-wide, Integrated Pest Management (IPM) has been considered one of the eco-friendly and powerful tools to manage crop pests. In Nepal, it has been adopted for more than two decades with its highest success in various crops. As dissemination and up-scaling tools to this approach, Farmers Field School (FFS) is being launched in numerous farming communities. The basic notion of initiation of this program was to mitigate and combat the negative consequence created by chemical pesticides while controlling insect pests in crops. In Nepal, it started in 1997 through a FAO Technical Cooperation Project (TCP). This article summarizes IPM activities ever since TCP to Second Phase of IPM Program (2008-2013) launched by the Government of Nepal with the support of Norwegian government. Until, 2012/013, altogether 3772 FFSs were conducted by PPD and FAO initiatives and 99751 farmers graduated in IPM Program, while 1175 farmers trained as IPM FFS Facilitators. More than 5000 farmers groups benefited from yearlong IPM FFS. Medium level agricultural technicians, government Officers from different disciplines and 25 participants from Council for Vocational Education and Training Centre (CTEVT) were trained as IPM Master Facilitators. IPM policy and participatory system of IPM product certification system were drafted however; they could not be finalized during the project period. Support for Master Degree studies and Bachelor degree mini-thesis were provided to students of various Agriculture Education Institution. Curricula developed for yearlong IPM FFS in different crops were adopted by CTEVT and other Institute in their academic programs. In the the later phase of project, emphasis was towards the institutionalization of the outcomes into regular program of the Government with a modified approach of bio pesticide production, plant clinics and networking. The program ignited and stressed largely on the socio-technical empowerment to the farmers and technicians. Initiation on the marketing of IPM products was also one of the outputs. This should be linked with increasing use of bio pesticides to the healthy food production so that environmentally damaging chemical pesticides may be reduced from the country.

Despite the fact that crisis management both in terms of the nature of knowledge required and approaches used is largely a synthesis of various disciplines, interdisciplinary aspects and the relationships do not receive sufficient attention. International literature of recent years allows a somewhat broader look at a number of both theoretical and practical aspects of crisis management in a wider context of topics and disciplines. A thorough multi-disciplinary approach to crisis management could be an important part of both the domestic research and training, and practice in the field of crisis management. This article reviews some of the most important interdisciplinary connections of crisis management with risk management, corporate governance, macroeconomic shocks, the concepts of stakeholders and corporate social responsibility, information technology, new institutional economic theory, and a number of concepts from sociology and psychology. The list of categories, models, individual concepts and theories of different subject areas which are closely interrelated with crisis management, according to international researchers, is quite long. In connection with the problems of crisis management this paper considers integrated risk management, holistic risk management, COSO-approach, moral hazard, the abuse of information asymmetry, opportunism, adverse selection, bounded rationality, the propagation model of bankruptcies depending on macroeconomic factors, the models of the influence of international integration and globalization on the dynamics of bankruptcies, epidemic models in crisis management, the sociological concept of disaster management, stakeholder theory of crisis management, the concept of reputation damage of crises, high-frequency trading in financial instruments, and the concepts of organizational learning and organizational storytelling. These and other interdisciplinary concepts serve as a book of recipes that can be applied with varying degrees of relevance to various crises in a company. It is plausible to assume that, other things being equal, crisis management, using an interdisciplinary arsenal, will be more effective and adaptive than the more limited approach based solely on the core of crisis management: economic analysis, legal regulation, management and marketing basics.

Abstract Introduction OSA is a highly prevalent and co-morbid condition across the US and the world. Recent data shows between 14% and 49% of middle-aged men have clinically significant OSA and although the data shows OSA is less prevalent in women, the consequences of this condition is as severe as in men. Further studies suggest 80% of more than 25 million cases of OSA in the US are undiagnosed. At our institution, several factors contributed to the under diagnosis of OSA: knowledge deficit, complicated order process, inconvenience, fear and cost. We developed a plan to increase the diagnosis of OSA by increasing home sleep testing by 50% within 6 months of initiating a home delivery model. Methods Our multifaceted, multidisciplinary and comprehensive plan included a contractual agreement with the manufacturer of our preferred device, WatchPAT, to directly ship the HSAT device to the patient, receive the device back after testing and upload the data for physician interpretation. Integration was established between middle-ware and the HSAT software for flow of information. A collaborative effort with our marketing department to develop a health risk assessment tool specific to sleep apnea, targeted by health history, resulted in mailings to thousands of patients. A coordinated effort with our Call Center to explain delivery process and schedule testing was done. Paramount to our success was streamlining the ordering process for providers. Results 2,122 HSTs were done in the initial 6 months of using home delivery compared to the same 6 month time frame the previous year - an increase of 71%. Conclusion Using a broad, collaborative effort among several disciplines within our health care system, we found the access and use of home sleep tests dramatically improved. This was cost effective, saving .5 FTEs, provided a high degree of patient satisfaction and resulted in increased diagnoses. Support

Education’s gamification has represented an opportunity to boost students’ interaction, motivation and participation. ARG (Alternate Reality Games) offer a new highly immersive tool that can be implemented in educational achievements. One of the strongest points of these immersive games is based on applying the sum of students participating efforts and resources (so called collective intelligence) for problem resolution. In addition, ARG combine online and offline platforms a factor that improves the realism on the game experience. In this regard, this present work aims to summarise ARG potentialities, limitations and challenges of these immersive games in higher and further education context. In terms of methodology, this research draws from an appropriate theoretical corpus and, analyses the educational potential of AGR that, in fields like marketing or corporate communication, has already started successfully, but it has still not been studied in depth in education. This study compiles, also, best practices developed in several subjects and academic degrees all around the world and not easily traceable. It concludes that, given the antecedents, potentialities and the exposed analysis, the possibility of incorporating alternate reality games into the university teaching practice in the frame of an educational strategy that determines its aims and more suitable system of evaluation, has to be considered. La ludificación de la educación ha representado una oportunidad para fomentar la interacción, la motivación y la participación del alumnado. Los ARG (las siglas inglesas de juegos de realidad alternativa) ofrecen una nueva herramienta altamente inmersiva que puede implementarse en el logro de los objetivos docentes. Uno de sus puntos fuertes consiste en la suma de esfuerzos y recursos (la llamada inteligencia colectiva) aplicada a la resolución de problemas. A esto se añade su combinación de plataformas en los entornos online y offline, lo que favorece el «realismo» de la experiencia. En este sentido, el presente trabajo pretende condensar las potencialidades, limitaciones y retos de los ARG al servicio de la educación universitaria. Basándose, a nivel metodológico, en la elaboración de un corpus teórico relevante y adecuado, analiza el potencial educativo de esta herramienta que, en ámbitos como el marketing o la comunicación corporativa ya ha despegado con éxito, pero que en el área educativa todavía no había sido abordada en profundidad. Recopila, además, ejemplos satisfactorios que se han desarrollado en diversas disciplinas académicas en otros países y que no resultan fácilmente localizables. Se concluye que, dados los antecedentes, potencialidades y análisis expuesto, debe valorarse la posibilidad de incorporar los juegos de realidad alternativa a la práctica de la docencia universitaria en el marco de una estrategia educativa que determine sus objetivos y sistema de evaluación más adecuado.

The article deals with issues related to project activities in the framework of training students for a bachelor’s degree in publishing and journalism at Moscow Polytechnic University. The emphasis is placed on the concept of implementing project activities in the educational process in the context of the implementation of the Federal State Educational Standard and on the consideration of various practices and approaches to the implementation of this concept. The introduction of innovative methods in higher education and practice-oriented approaches in training related to professional fields have been developed in the training of students for a bachelor’s degree in publishing. The complexity of production processes and the formation of a complex of creative, organizational, legal, technological, and communication components directly affect the nature of the activity and form requirements for the competencies of a modern specialist in the media industry. This leads to a revision of approaches and the introduction of new teaching methods. At the forefront is the formation of resource links with professional industries and the implementation of the idea of training specialists who can quickly adapt to changing economic conditions and solve production problems. The project method is an important tool for the professional motivation of students for it allows them to participate in the development and creation of a project, to see the final product that has been accepted into production, has passed full publishing preparation, and has been materialized. The method of integrating projects into the educational process allows structuring and organizing students’ independent work and experimental research. Within the framework of the practice-oriented approach to teaching at Moscow Polytechnic University, various subjects of both the educational and professional environment are involved in the organization of projects so that students form the scientific and practical competencies of a BA in publishing. An innovative approach to teaching students majoring in publishing and journalism is present in various areas of training and in various formats. Moscow Polytechnic University implements diverse practices involving the use of innovative methods for solving professional problems. Among them are the use of interactive forms of conducting classes, participation in project activities, development of bachelor’s thesis topics based on the development of publication projects, participation in practice-oriented events related to publishing. The bachelor’s curriculum includes disciplines related to the modeling of publications, the formation of projects of publications and publishing houses. The bachelor’s thesis is made on the basis of a project of a publication or a publishing house; it involves research in the field of publishing management, organization of the editorial and publishing process in a publishing house, development of a marketing plan for a modern publishing house. Interactive and informationalcommunicative educational technologies are used. Various events with workshops on the creation of publishing projects are held. The considered practice-oriented approaches in training implement the main ideas and tasks of project activity – they create a multilevel system for the formation of students’ competencies.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to answer the question of how continuity and change coexist in the work of institutional actors who can combine maintenance, disruption and/or creation. Past studies mention this coexistence without an explanation. Design/methodology/approach The paper develops a perspective through literature review. Findings Institutional actors are both socialized into the norm-oriented space of continuity and maintenance through their reciprocal relations and associated social knowledge and roles and disciplined into the goal-oriented space of change and disruption/creation through their power relations and associated expert discourse and subject positions. Their institutional existence indicates a particular combination of reciprocity and power and thus their work includes changing degrees of maintenance, disruption and creation, depending on the nature of this combination. Research limitations/implications The paper points out research directions on the relational conditions of the actors, which facilitate or constrain their work toward institutional continuity or change. Practical implications Organizations whose concern is to continue the existing practices in a stable environment should emphasize reciprocal relations whereas organizations whose concern is to change those practices for more effectiveness in a dynamic environment should emphasize power relations. Also, too much emphasis on either relations leads to inflexibility or instability. Originality/value The paper provides an explanation on the sources of coexistence of continuity and change in institutional work. It also contributes to the discussions on contingency of institutions, resistance productive of institutional change, reflexivity of institutional actors and intersubjective construction of institutional work.

Language tools that implement the marketing model of consumer behavior and ensure the consumer’s purchase decision, have occupied the focal place in linguistic studies. Such studies have led to the formation of a new pragmalinguistic direction – marketing linguistics. This syllabus is designed for 45.04.02 direction of training ("Linguistics"), the orientation (profile) "General and typological linguistics and applications in the field of linguistics" (training level – master's degree, graduate qualification – master's degree).

The visibility of non-heterosexual identities is more prevalent today than ever before, yet there is little research about the consumption behaviors and preferences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer, 2/two-spirit, questioning, intersex, asexual, ally, and other non-heterosexual (LGBTQ+) consumers—often referred to as the “pink pound”. A rare systematic review of LGBTQ+ literature is presented in this paper with the purpose of offering an argument for a wider adoption by marketing scholars and practitioners for research into LGBTQ+ consumer segments. The results of a longitudinal bibliometric analysis are presented to objectively demonstrate the hitherto limited engagement that consumer researchers have had with the discipline, and the limited degree that the discipline has influenced that literature. The key findings reveal a growing, but formative body of inter- and intra-disciplinary literature that, hitherto, has only just begun to be addressed by present day marketing researchers. A conclusion of the paper is that although the bibliometric analysis identifies the limited engagement with LGBTQ+ consumer research, this limited engagement appears to present a very significant lacuna and just as significant an opportunity for both marketing scholars and practitioners to engage much further with this literature in the future. Building on the analysis, the value of the paper also discusses potential directions for further research in marketing scholarship and practice.

The visibility of non-heterosexual identities is more prevalent today than ever before, yet there is little research about the consumption behaviors and preferences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer, 2/two-spirit, questioning, intersex, asexual, ally, and other non-heterosexual (LGBTQ+) consumers—often referred to as the “pink pound”. A rare systematic review of LGBTQ+ literature is presented in this paper with the purpose of offering an argument for a wider adoption by marketing scholars and practitioners for research into LGBTQ+ consumer segments. The results of a longitudinal bibliometric analysis are presented to objectively demonstrate the hitherto limited engagement that consumer researchers have had with the discipline, and the limited degree that the discipline has influenced that literature. The key findings reveal a growing, but formative body of inter- and intra-disciplinary literature that, hitherto, has only just begun to be addressed by present day marketing researchers. A conclusion of the paper is that although the bibliometric analysis identifies the limited engagement with LGBTQ+ consumer research, this limited engagement appears to present a very significant lacuna and just as significant an opportunity for both marketing scholars and practitioners to engage much further with this literature in the future. Building on the analysis, the value of the paper also discusses potential directions for further research in marketing scholarship and practice.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present the findings of a bibliometric analysis of the evolution and structure of business model research in industrial marketing scholarship during the period between 2011 and 2020 and to discuss potential directions for future empirical research. Design/methodology/approach Bibliometric methodologies are deployed to objectively evaluate the business model research that has made the most impact within industrial marketing scholarship as well as the prominent scholars and key topics driving the discipline at points in time. Findings The findings demonstrate the formative but increasing engagement that industrial marketing scholarship has had with business model literature and the limited but increasing degree that business models have influenced industrial marketing literature. Potential directions for the empirical development of business model literature are argued to lie in the areas of collaboration and coopetition by examining the notion of value within the relationships, interactions and/or networks evidenced in European seaports business models. Research limitations/implications Bibliometric analysis is retrospective in nature so developments in the literature appear only after some time has elapsed. Different keyword selection when formulating search strings for sampling may have brought some deviations in the analysis. Originality/value Research that investigates the link between business models and industrial marketing is still scarce. This paper is among the few that analyze objectively the evolution and structure of business model literature in industrial marketing scholarship from a longitudinal perspective with a particular emphasis on the period between 2011 and 2020.

In the midst of global competition and a turbulent business environment, the survival of businesses is possible if and only if the business organizations harness their business opportunities by optimizing and matching their core competencies with such opportunities. In this hypercompetitive world, in the race for sustainable competitive advantage, knowledge enriched, strategically oriented Marketing Information Systems (MkIS) embedded with marketing intelligence, enable marketing decision makers to gain an unmatched competitive advantage. However, MkIS effectiveness is a rarely examined complex construct, and the research effort in this direction has been sporadic and whether MkIS effectiveness leads to improved business performance has rarely been effectively investigated globally. Hence, the objective of the present research is to investigate the degree of adoption of MkIS, to discover the effectiveness of MkIS, to find the managerial and organizational factors that affect the adoption of MkIS and to investigate whether there is a positive correlation between such adoption of MkIS and Business Performance mediated by MkIS effectiveness in Sri Lankan manufacturing companies. In this regard, the empirical research conducted by the present researcher in 40 Sri Lankan manufacturing companies, triangulated with the in-depth interviews with marketing Executives revealed, that MkIS adoption (ADP) is in its infancy in Sri Lankan manufacturing Companies (t value =-13.626, significance 2 tailed = 0.000). The research surprisingly revealed that Sri Lankan Manufacturing companies, embraced Learning Organizations (LO) together with marketing managers’ MkIS related ICT knowledge (EDU) have the strongest, 50 %, influence on Adoption of MkIS (ADP) (ADP = .425 * LO + .567 * EDU – 1.937, 50%, of variance, R2=0.504), especially through embedded systems and continuous learning, innovatively through “meta noia” – a fundamental shift of the mind, and through the fifth discipline – the conceptual frame work of LO – (systems thinking), creating improved innovative products and fulfilling the customers’ ultimate expectations. The findings strengthen the body of knowledge about the positive relation between the adoption of MkIS and business performance, mediated by the MkIS effectiveness, by weakening the traditional belief of the “IT paradox” of Sri Lankan Manufacturers. Keywords: Marketing Information Systems (MkIS), MkIS Effectiveness, Business Performance, Manufacturing companies, Sri Lanka

The article raises a number of problems related to the risk management of working capital of a trading enterprise. It is noted that the war against Russian aggression exacerbated the problem of formation and replenishment of working capital at trade enterprises. It is substantiated that risk management is a process of influence on the subject of economic activity, which provides the widest possible range of coverage of possible risks, their justified acceptance, reduction of the degree of impact of risks on the subject to a minimum, development of a strategy for the behavior of this subject in the event implementation of specific types of risks. It was established that the working capital optimization mechanism covers the following areas: improving the state of payables and receivables; short-term cash flow planning for individual counterparty enterprises and for the company as a whole; rationing and reduction of stocks, launch of management and control mechanisms to ensure the maintenance of stocks at an optimal level. It is proposed to develop and implement risk management tools for working capital and cash, which would involve the following stages: formation of an optimal organizational structure with a clear division of responsibilities; creation of a reporting management system; monitoring the effectiveness of inventory management, receivables and payables; determination of key performance indicators and creation of a system of motivating units for achieving the established indicators. It was determined that in the practice of domestic trade enterprises, it is advisable to apply the following methods of working capital management: rationing; ABC method; optimization. It is justified that in order to increase the efficiency of the use of the company's working capital, it is advisable to implement a number of measures in all spheres of the company's operation, in particular: improvement of the company's marketing activities; acceleration of the process of selling finished products; improvement of the settlement system for shipped products; effective management of receivables; expansion of cooperation with banking institutions regarding raising funds and carrying out settlements; compliance with contractual and payment discipline.

This study recorded nearly 1.5 million citations to measure research productivity of the 4,918 full time faculty members with doctoral degrees at 51 leading US business schools. These schools had been included at least once in the 25 most recent ranking lists produced by three major business publications. This research included lifetime citation counts for each faculty member, and resulted in 1,497,162 citations that were recorded between March and June 2003. The citation counts were cumulated by academic discipline. The disciplines for which rankings were made were accounting, economics, finance, information systems, marketing management science, organizational behavior, and strategy. Ranked lists of the top 25 schools in each disciple are included. The paper contains a review of the literature on citation analysis, and suggests how citation analysis might be used as an assessment tool by business school administrators, professors, students, and corporate managers.

This is volume number 10, meaning JISIB has published articles in intelligence studies for ten consecutive years. We have addressed the changes in the discipline during these years in articles and notes. I want to share with you another reflection. This year I am a reviewer and a member of the organizing committee of two similar conferences. The first is the CI2020, a conference on collective intelligence with participants from many larger and well-known universities. The second is the ICI2020, this year with a focus on collective intelligence and foresight. There are many more conference and journals presenting and publishing on similar topics simultaneously, but in different networks. Science as a whole—the advancement of knowledge for the benefit of all mankind— would most likely be better off if at least some of these groups merged. That was also my impression when reviewing the extended abstracts for these two conferences. I also tried to see if members of the CI2010 conference would consider joining the other, but that seemed more difficult than first imagined. This is also about ownership and identity, which is not an entirely unfamiliar idea. The consequences of these tendencies are not favorable for the objects we study. The unnecessary division of networks that look at the same phenomenon is sometimes referred to as “academic tribalism.” Academic tribes become a barrier to learning and this can result in closemindedness1. This is also according to my own experience. Academic clustering is a similar mechanism whereby graduates from one institution favor those who come from the same institution, but there are also those universities that systematically refrain from this. Among these is Harvard University, which seldom hires their own PhDs, or so I have been told. If so, that is probably better for the progress of science. Where is it meaningful to draw a line between academic groups then? Everyone will agree that the natural sciences are quite different from the humanities. Between psychology and business though there is much overlap with psychology in business. Between accounting and management, a good understanding of how to manage a business requires the knowledge of income statements, balance sheets and how to set up a cash flow analysis. One way to think about division is if the method is different. According to this criterion most social scientists should be able to do each other’s work, and subsequently go to each other’s conferences. Another meaningful division is based on experience and the depth of specialization obtained by the discipline. This criterion is less precise. I do not pretend to have the answer, but I think it’s a pity that all these tribes exist, with their own buzzwords often studying more or less the same phenomenon, with the same methods. What distinguishes intelligence studies from other tribes is, in my opinion, first of all that we see that the private organization is better organized as an intelligence organization, with focus on information gathering and analysis. It has less to do with departments of marketing, HR or accounting, even though the one does not exclude the other. Another way is to see the intelligence organization as a superstructure, a layer that exists above all functional departments where the aim is to achieve a competitive advantage through better information. In this respect the need for CEOs is not unlike those of ministers of state. Now, is this perspective so radically different that it deserves its own tribe with its own journal and conferences? That is the important question. And in some way, I cannot help but think that learning would be better without them, that is, it would be better if it was all one big interchangeable group, going to one another’s conferences, and writing for each other’s journals. Science would benefit from it. From time to time I have also peeked over into other groups and joined their conferences. What is astonishing especially for an outsider is that you are immediately confronted with a pecking order that 1 Rogers, S. L., & Cage, A. G. (2017). Academic Tribalism and Subject Specialists as a Challenge to Teaching and Learning in Dual Honours Systems; a Qualitative Perspective From the School of Geography, Geology and the Environment, Keele University, UK. Journal of Academic Development and Education, (8). Journal of Intelligence Studies in Business Vol. 10, No 1 (2020) p. 4-5 Open Access: Freely available at: https://ojs.hh.se/ 5 is related to who has been there the longest and published the most in the group. This cannot be an advantage for the advancement of science, I tell myself. But, then again, pecking orders seems to be the rule rather than the exception for most social creatures, not only chicken. The first article by Nasullaev et al., entitled “Technology intelligence practices in SMEs: evidence from Estonia,” is on operationalization of technology intelligence practices by small firms in catching-up economies. Their analysis reveals that elements of technology intelligence in large and small companies are similar. Furthermore, they conclude that there is no unique set of technology intelligence. The second article by Nguyen entitled “The effects of cross-functional coordination and competition on knowledge sharing and organisational innovativeness: A qualitative study in a transition economy” reveals the potentially significant effect of coopetition (i.e., the simultaneous coordination and competition) on the degree of knowledge sharing between marketing and other departments in business organisations. The enhanced knowledge sharing can, according to author, positively improve organisational innovativeness. The third article by Hendar et al. entitled “Market intelligence on business performance: the mediating role of specialized marketing capabilities” integrates market intelligence dimensions and one dimension of marketing capabilities, i.e. specialized marketing capabilities (SMC), into an empirical model to try to gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between market intelligence and SMC and how these factors shape business performance (BP). The study suggests that owners or managers of SMEs recognize that important market intelligence factors are increasing SMC and BP. This helps them make better investment decisions in developing the right combination SMC to increase BP. The fourth article, by Zafary, is entitled “Implementation of business intelligence considering the role of information systems integration and enterprise resource planning”. It shows the value of integrated information systems and enterprise resource planning in the success of business intelligence implementation. The author concludes that organizations should pay more attention to their working processes to improve business intelligence success. The fifth and last article is an opinion piece by Barnea. The title is “How will AI change intelligence and decision making?” In the article Barnea argues that with increased attention on artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, the value of the human factor will not become redundant but rather improve its use. Furthermore, in the future AI will be significant to analysis and predictions in advance of competitors’ moves and delivering early warning signals of threats both in the private sector as well as in state services. In the last issue of JISIB we said we were looking forward to a meeting in Bad Nauheim for the ICI2020. Now due to the Corona pandemic the conference will be held online, but we still hope to see you, on video camera, that is. As always, we would above all like to thank the authors for their contributions to this issue of JISIB. Thanks to Dr. Allison Perrigo for reviewing English grammar and helping with layout design for all articles. On behalf of the Editorial Board,

Peer learning, a pedagogical approach whereby students are partnered together to have one student actively help another student learn predetermined content or skills, has long been utilized as an effective complement to more traditional instructional methods across a wide range of educational disciplines. This approach has been found to reduce the stress of learning, increase student engagement, and yield benefits to both the tutor and the tutee to a roughly equal degree. Yet, pedagogical research to this point has mostly failed to explore the usefulness of this approach to marketing and sales education. In the present research, we examine the effectiveness of peer-learning applications in a sales context and discuss marketing educators' implications. More specifically, we assess college sales students’ perceptions of peer-learning role-play exercise and further examine whether peer-learning exercises can improve students’ abilities. The results indicate that peer-learning exercises are not only enjoyed by students but are capable of producing objective performance improvement for both introductory and advanced students.

The results of experiences of the link in order to motivate entrepreneurship between students of two different careers are reported. Food science develops, characterizes and validates a food and marketing makes its business plan. And the Master of Law supports the working relationship with confidentiality letters, advice for product protection and collaboration contract, in case both students decide to continue together in incubation towards a company. The information used for this work was obtained from the anecdotal experiences documented during the work with the students during the 2019B, 2020A and 2020B school cycles. Students' comments were retrieved from the comments they left on their teacher evaluations at the end of the semester. The participating students valued the experience very much and learned new things that in their career they do not normally receive. Relating to other disciplines enriches and fosters new ideas, new relationships and the best results of any project. It lets them see how, their project, seen with different eyes can offer greater and better advantages. From the legal part, they live it, not only study it. And new forms of interaction-experience are proposed that add for their professional training

Currently, the sports industry is generated by a professional movement. The association policy has strong repercussions on the degree of professionalism, efficiency and freedom of initiative in the activity of professionals in the field. In modern society, professional sports are presented as a type of business, as an important part of the entertainment industry, as well as one of the most complex forms of trade. In other words, we can mention that professional sport is a type of entrepreneurial activity, whose purpose is to make a profit from the sale of the competitive show. In the last decade, professional sports have actively developed, both nationally and internationally, so that the practice of entering into partnerships has expanded, if we refer to athletes who are interested in working in foreign clubs. The professionalization of sport is an objective, inevitable process that contributes to an increase in the effectiveness, technicality, aesthetics and entertainment of sport. In addition, placing sport on a new organizational and economic basis gives the state the opportunity to supplement its budget with additional financial resources [3, 4]. However, the characterization of the dynamics of the development of professional sports, reflected by several authors, attests to the fact that, through its professionalization, sport loses its function and humanistic role in society. "Professional sport is a social disaster, because its product does not only consist of victories and results that constitute the glory and image of a state, but involves people who have lost their health" [5]. In professional sports, the principle of the Olympic sport "Fair - play" loses its meaning, leaving room for the one referring to obtaining "Victory at any cost" (intimidation of the opponent, aggression, fraud, severe psychological pressure on the competitor out of competition and in the competitive process). We are currently witnessing the commercialization of sport and the fact that the Olympic movement is beginning to be a "synthesis of sports performance, advertising technology and public policy". Olympic sports are distancing themselves from mass (ordinary) sports, arguments highlighted by the following aspects: the rapid growth of sports achievements is not in line with those of the physical condition of the population. At the same time, Olympic sports guide and ensure the subsidization of huge sums from a state budget. For example, the budget for the Tokyo Olympics was 1.6 - 1.8 trillion Japanese yen, or about 14.5 - 16.2 billion euros for 33 sporting events, 47 disciplines and 324 events, at which was attended by over 12,000 athletes [7].

A central concern of media studies is to understand the transactions of meaning that are established between the encoders and decoders of media messages: senders and receivers, authors and audiences, producers and consumers. More precisely, this discipline has aimed to describe the semantic disconnects that occur when organisations, governments, businesses, and people communicate and interact across media, and, further, to understand the causes of these miscommunications and to theorise their social and cultural implications. As the media environment becomes complicated by increasingly multimodal messages broadcast to diverse languages and cultures, it is no surprise that misunderstanding seems to occur more (and not less) frequently, forcing difficult questions of society’s ability to refine mass communication into a more streamlined, more effective, and less error-prone system. The communication of meaning to mass audiences has long been theorised (e.g.: Shannon and Weaver; Schramm; Berlo) using the metaphor of a “transmitted message.” While these early researchers varied in their approaches to the study of mass communication, common to their theoretical models is to characterise miscommunication as a dysfunction of the pure transmission process: interference that prevents the otherwise successful relay of meaning from a “sender” to a “receiver.” For example, Schramm’s communication model is based upon two individuals sharing “fields of experience”; error and misunderstanding occur to the extent that these fields do not overlap. For Shannon and Weaver, these disconnects were described explicitly as semantic noise: distortions of meaning that resulted in the message received being different from what was being transmitted. While much of this early research in mass communication continues to be relevant to students of communication and media studies, the transmission metaphor has been called into question for the way it frames miscommunication as a distortion of otherwise clear and stable “meaning,” and not as an inevitable result of the gray area that lies between every sender’s intention and a receiver’s interpretation. It is precisely this problem with the transmission metaphor that Derrida calls into question. For Derrida (as well as for many post-structuralists, linguists, and cultural theorists) what we communicate cannot necessarily be intended or interpreted in any stable fashion. Rather, Derrida describes communication as inherently “iterable … able to break with every given context, and engender infinitely new contexts in an absolutely unsaturable fashion” (“Signature” 320). Derrida is concerned that the transmission metaphor doesn’t account for the fact that all signs (words, images, and so on) can signify a multitude of things to different individuals in different contexts, at different points in time. Further, he reminds us that any perceived signification (and thus, meaning) is produced finally, not by the sender, but by the receiver. Within Derrida’s conception of communication as a perpetually open-ended system, the concept of noise takes on a new shape. Perhaps ambiguous meaning is not the “noise” of an otherwise pure system, but rather, perhaps it is only noise that constitutes all acts of communication. Indeed, while Derrida agrees that the consistency and repetition of language help to limit the effects of iterability, he believes that all meaning is ambiguous and never final. Therefore, to communicate is to perpetually negotiate this semantic ambiguity, not to overcome it, constrain it, or push it aside. With these thoughts in mind, when I return to a focus on mass media and media communication, it becomes readily apparent that there do exist sites of cultural production where noise is not only prolific, but where it is also functional—and indeed crucial to a communicator’s goals. Such sites are what Mark Nunes describes as “cultures of noise”: a term I specify in this paper to describe those organised media practices that seem to negotiate, function, and thrive by communicating ambiguously, or at the very least, by resisting the urge to signify explicitly. Cultures of noise are important to the study of media precisely for the ways they call into question our existing paradigms of what it means to communicate. By suggesting that aberrant interpretations of meaning are not dysfunctions of what would be an otherwise efficient system, cultures of noise reveal how certain “asignifying poetics” might be productive and generative for our communication goals. The purpose of this paper is to understand how cultures of noise function by exploring one such case study: the pervasive use of commercial stock images throughout mass media. I will describe how the semantic ambiguity embedded into the construction and sale of stock images is productive both to the stock photography industry and to certain practices of advertising, marketing, and communicating corporate identity. I will begin by discussing the stock image’s dependence upon semantic ambiguity and the productive function this ambiguity serves in supporting the success of the stock photography industry. I will then describe how this ambiguity comes to be employed by corporations and advertisers as “filler content,” enabling these producers to elide the accountability and risk that is involved with more explicit communication. Ambiguous Raw Material: The Stock Industry as a Culture of Noise The photographic image has been a staple of corporate identity for as long as identity has been a concern of corporations. It is estimated that more than 70% of the photographic images used in today’s corporate marketing and advertising have been acquired from a discrete group of stock image firms and photography stock houses (Frosh 5). In fact, since its inception in the 1970’s, increasing global dependence on stock imagery has grown the practice of commercial stock photography into a billion dollar a year industry. Commercial stock images are somewhat peculiar. Unlike other non-fiction genres of stock photography (e.g., editorial and journalistic) commercial stock images present explicitly fictive, constructed scenes. Indeed, many of the images of business workers, doctors, and soccer moms that one finds through a Google Image search are actually actors hired to stage a scene. In this way, commercial stock images share much more in common with the images produced for advertising campaigns, in that they are designed to support branding and corporate identity messages. However, unlike traditional advertising images, which are designed to deliver a certain message for a quite specific application (think ‘Tide stain test’ or ‘posh woman in the Lexus’), commercial stock images have been purposely constructed with no particular application in mind. On the contrary, stock images must be designed to anticipate the diverse needs of cultural intermediaries—design firms, advertising agencies, and corporate marketing teams—who will ultimately purchase the majority of these images. (Frosh 57) To achieve these goals, every commercial stock image is designed to be somewhat open-ended, in order to offer up a field of potential meanings, and yet these images also seem to anticipate the applications of use that will likely appeal to the discourses of corporate marketing and advertising. In this way, the commercial stock image might best be understood as undefined raw material, as a set of likely potentialities still lacking a final determination—what Derrida describes as “undecided” meaning: “I want to recall that undecidability is always a determinate oscillation between possibilities (for example, of meaning, but also of acts). These possibilities are highly determined in strictly concerned situations … they are pragmatically determined. The analyses that I have devoted to undecidability concern just these determinations and these definitions, not at all some vague “indeterminacy”. I say “undecidability” rather than “indeterminacy” because I am interested more in relations of force, in everything that allows, precisely, determinations in given situations to be stabilised through a decision … .” (Limited 148) A stock image’s ambiguity is the result of an intentional design process whereby the stock photography industry presents the maximum range of possible meanings, and yet, falls artfully short of “deciding” any of them. Rather, it is the advertisers, designers, and marketers who ultimately make these decisions by finding utility for the image in a certain context. The more customers that can find a use for a certain image, the more this image will be purchased, and the more valuable that particular stock image becomes. It is precisely in this way that the stock photography industry functions as a culture of noise and raises questions of the traditional sender-to-receiver model of communication. Cultures of noise not only embrace semantic ambiguity; they rely upon this ambiguity for their success. Indeed, the success of the stock photography industry quite literally depends upon the aberrant and unpredictable interpretations of buyers. It is now quite explicitly the “receiver,” and not the “sender,” who controls meaning by imbuing the image with meaning for a specific context and specific need. Once purchased, the “potentialities” of meaning within a stock image become somewhat determined by its placement within a certain context of circulation, such as its use for a banking advertisement or healthcare brochure. In many cases, the meaning of a given stock image is also specified by the text with which it is paired. (Fig. 1) Using text to control the meaning of an image is what Roland Barthes describes as anchorage, “the creator’s (and hence society’s) right of inspection over the image; anchorage is a control, bearing a responsibility in the face of the projective power of pictures-for the use of the message” (156). By using text to constrain how an image should be interpreted, the subjects, forms, and composition of a stock image work to complement the textual message in a clear and defined way. Fig. 1: Courtesy of Washington Mutual. Used by permission. Barthes’ textual anchorage: In advertising and marketing, the subject, form and composition of a stock image are made specific by the text with which the image is paired. Filler Content: Advertising and Marketing as a Culture of Noise In other marketing and advertising messages, I observe that stock images are used in quite a different way, as filler content: open-ended material that takes the place of more explicit, message-oriented elements. As a culture of noise, filler content opposes the goal of generating a clear and specific message. Rather, the goal of filler content is to present an ambiguous message to consumers. When stock images are used as filler content, they are placed into advertising and marketing messages with virtually the same degree of ambiguity as when the image was originally constructed. Such images receive only vague specificity from textual anchorage, and little effort is made by the message producer to explicitly “decide” a message’s meaning. Consider the image (Fig. 2) used in a certain marketing design. Compared with Figure 1, this design makes little attempt to specify the meaning of the image through text. On the contrary, the image is purposely left open to our individual interpretations. Without textual anchorage, the image is markedly “undecided.” As such, it stages the same ambiguous potential for final consumers as it did for the advertiser who originally purchased the image from the stock image house. Fig. 2: Courtesy of VISA.com. Used by permission. Filler content: What meaning(s) does the image have for you? Love? Happiness? Leisure? Freedom? The Outdoors? Perhaps you rode your bike today? While filler content relies upon audiences to fill in the blanks, it also inserts meaning by leveraging the cultural reinforcement of other, similar images. Consider the way that the image of “a woman with a headset” has come to signify customer service (Fig. 3). The image doesn’t represent this meaning on its own, but it works as part of a larger discourse, what Paul Frosh describes as an “image repertoire” (91). By bombarding us incessantly with a repetition of similar images, the media continues to bolster the iconic value that certain stock images possess. The woman with the headset has become an icon of a “Customer Service Representative” because we are exposed to a repetition of images that repeatedly stage the same or similar scene of this idea. As Frosh suggests, “this is the essence of the concept-based stock image: it constitutes a pre-formed, generically familiar visual symbol that calls forth relevant connotations from the social experience of viewers…” (79). Fig. 3: The image repertoire: All filler content depends upon the iconic status of certain stock photography clichés, categories and familiar scenes. Perhaps you have seen these images before? As a culture of noise, stock images in advertising and marketing function as filler content in two ways: 1) meaning is left undecided by the advertiser who intends for customers to create their own interpretations of an advertisement; 2) meaning is generated by the ideological constructs of an “image repertoire” that is itself promulgated by the stock photography industry. As such, filler content signals a shift in the goals of modern advertising and marketing, where corporate messages are designed to be increasingly ambiguous, and meaning seems to be decided more than ever by the final audience. As marketing psychologists Kim and Kahle suggest: Advertising strategy … may need to be changed. Instead of providing the “correct” consumption episodes, marketers could give … an open-ended status, thereby allowing consumers to create the image on their own and to decide the appropriateness of the product for a given need or situation. (63) The potentiality of meanings that was initially embedded into stock images in order to make them more attractive to cultural intermediaries, is also being “passed on” to the final audiences by these same advertisers and marketers. The same noisy signification that supported the sale of stock photos from the stock industry to advertisers now also seems to support the “sale” of messages that advertisers pass on to their audiences. In the same way as the stock photography industry, practices of filler content in advertising also create a culture of noise, by relying upon ambiguous messages that end customers are now forced to both produce and consume. Safe and Vague: The Corporate Imperative Ambiguous communication is not, by itself, egregious. On the contrary, many designers believe that creating a space for thoughtful, open-ended discovery is one of the best ways to provide a meaningful experience to end users. Interaction designer and professor Philip Van Allen describes one such approach to ambiguous design as “productive interaction”: “an open mode of communication where people can form their own outcomes and meanings … sharing insights, dilemmas and questions, and creating new opportunities for synthesis” (56). The critical difference between productive interaction and filler content is one of objective. While media designers embrace open-ended design as a way to create deeper, more meaningful connections with users, modern advertising employs ambiguous design elements, such as stock images, to elide a responsibility to message. Indeed, many marketing and organisational communication researchers (e.g.: Chreim; Elsbach and Kramer; Cheney) suggest that as corporations manage their identities to increasingly disparate and diverse media audiences, misunderstandings are more likely to bring about identity dissonance: that is, “disconnections” between the identity projected by the organisation and the identity attributed to an organisation by its customer-public. To grapple with identity dissonance, Samia Chreim suggests that top managers may choose to engage in the practice of dissonance avoidance: the use of ambiguous messages to provide flexibility in the interpretations of how customers can define a brand or organisation: Dissonance avoidance can be achieved through the use of ambiguous terms … organisations use ambiguity to unite stakeholders under one corporate banner and to stretch the interpretation of how the organisation, or a product or a message can be defined. (76) Corporations forgo the myriad disconnects and pitfalls of mass communication by choosing never to craft an explicit message, hold a position, or express a belief that customers could demur or discount. In such instances, it appears that cultures of noise, such as filler content, may service a shrewd corporate strategy that works to mitigate their responsibility to message. A Responsibility to Message This discussion of “cultures of noise” contributes to media studies by situating semantic noise as productive, and indeed, sometimes vital, to practices of media communication. Understanding the role of semantic noise in communication is an important corner for media scholars to turn, especially as today’s message producers rely and thrive upon certain productive aspects of ambiguous communication. However, this discussion also suggests that all media messages must be critically evaluated in quite a different way. While past analyses of media messages have sought to root out the subversive and manipulative factors that resided deep down in our culture, cultures of noise suggest that it is now also important for media studies to consider the deleterious effects of media’s noisy, diluted, and facile surface. Jean Baudrillard was deeply concerned that the images used in media are too often “used for delusion, for the elusion of communication … for absolving face-to-face relations and social responsibilities. They don’t really lead to action, they substitute for it most of the time” (203). Indeed, while the stock image as filler content may solve the problems faced by corporate message producers in a highly ramified media environment, there is an increasing need to question the depth of meaning in our visual culture. What is the purpose of a given image? What is the producer trying to say? Is it relying on end users to find meaning? Are the images relying an iconic repertoire? Is the producer actually making a statement? And if not, why not? As advertising and marketing continues to shape the visual ground of our culture, Chreim also warns us of our responsibility to message: What is gained in avoiding [identity dissonance] can be lost in the ability to create meaning for stakeholders. Over-reliance on abstract terms may well leave the organisation with a hollow core, one that cannot be appropriated by [customers] in their quest for meaning and identification with the organisation. (88) While cultures of noise may be productive in mitigating the problems of dissonance and miscommunication, and while they may signal new opportunity spaces for design, media, and mass communication, we must also remember that a reliance on ambiguity can sometimes cripple our ability to say anything meaningful at all. References Barthes, Roland. “The Rhetoric of the Image”. The Rhetoric of the Image. Trans. Richard Howard. Berkeley: U of California P, 1977. Baudrillard, Jean. “Aesthetic Illusion and Virtual Reality.” Reading Images. Ed. Julia Thomas. Houndmills: Macmillan, 2000. Berlo, David K. The Process of Communication. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1960. Chreim, Samia. “Reducing Dissonance: Closing the Gap between Projected and Attributed Identity”. Corporate and Organizational Identities: Integrating Strategy, Marketing, Communication and Organizational Perspectives. Eds. B. Moingeon and G. Soenen. Chicago: Routledge, 2002. Derrida, Jacques. “Signature, Event. Context.” Derrida, Jacques: Margins of Philosophy. Trans. Alan Bass. Chicago: 1982. Derrida, Jacques. Limited Inc. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern UP, 1988. Frosh, Paul. The Image Factory. New York: Berg, 2003. Gettyimages.com. Getty Images. 20 Oct. 2007 http://gettyimages.mediaroom.com>. Kahle, Lynn R., and Kim Chung-Hyun, eds. Creating Images and the Psychology of Marketing Communication. New Jersey: Lawrence Elbaum Associates, 2006 Shannon, Claude F., and Warren Weaver. The Mathematical Theory of Communication. Urbana, Ill.: The University of Illinois Press, 1964. Schramm, Wilbur. “How Communication Works”. The Process and Effects of Mass Communication, ed. Wilbur Schramm. Urbana, Ill.: U of Illinois P, 1961. Van Allen, Philip. “Models”. The New Ecology of Things. Pasadena: Media Design Program, Art Center College of Design, 2007. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Ward, Christopher Grant. "Stock Images, Filler Content and the Ambiguous Corporate Message." M/C Journal 10.5 (2007). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0711/04-ward.php>. APA Style Ward, C. (Oct. 2007) "Stock Images, Filler Content and the Ambiguous Corporate Message," M/C Journal, 10(5). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0711/04-ward.php>.

The newly opened Alan Gilbert Learning Commons (AGLC) provides a flexible learning space catering to students from across the University of Manchester With over 1000 study spaces, ranging from informal to formal, enclosed to open, complimented by state of the art innovative technology, the AGLC is an attractive central hub for students to visit anytime of the day and night. However, the Library's vision for the AGLC travels far beyond the physical space and seeks to engage with students at a much deeper level enhancing and developing their learning. To this end, the AGLC was a driver for the library to deliver its own unique training programme and open learning materials in support of the learning and development needs of all students, irrespective of academic discipline. This is achieved through collaboration and partnership between the current providers across campus, with the Learning Commons providing a central focus for a wide range of activity, to exemplify the best of what the University of Manchester can offer to enhance the student learning experience. This paper describes the development of the Learning Commons, from planning to launch, in particular highlighting how ‘the learning' was put into the learning commons. It will illustrate some of the ways in which the Learning Commons joins up existing and newly developed activity from across the campus to proactively encourage and support engagement with learning as well as providing a physical space that students really want to learn in. It will describe the current open training programme and this is now being developed further from a pedagogic perspective and through partnerships with other skills providers across the University to enhance the AGLC offer and to ensure effective integration of student skills provision. The Alan Gilbert Learning Commons (AGLC) is the newest library service at the University of Manchester and opened in October 2012. The £24 million investment in the space is part of a wider strategy at the University to invest in the student experience. The facility provides flexible learning space and caters for students from all parts of the university. There are over 1000 study spaces, ranging from informal to formal, enclosed to open, complimented by state of the art innovative technology. Learning has always been in mind when building the AGLC and the design encourages this through materials and technology in the space and flexible and formative furniture and learning opportunities. The infrastructure also supports learning, it is a 24/7 building 244 days of the year with excellent wifi coverage both indoors and in the outside garden space. There are power points wherever possible and room to put in more, 30 group rooms which encourage learning across distance with as well as in a specific PC cluster that encourages students to use that software as a collaboration tool. The furniture is flexible and reconfigurable, with whiteboards and digital screens integrated throughout the building. No spaces are labelled instead students have the flexibility to make them their own. Even the quiet areas are not labelled, but depend on the students to decide where and exactly how quiet an area might need to be. This allows the building to flexibly support the students with whatever their needs are at the time, serving them best as they shape the space around them. The building aims to inspire students; there are creative concepts commissioned throughout the building to inspire those studying and working in the space. Student's artwork adorns the walls and glass in the building, and there are distinguished alumni tiles in the entrance area which all show students they don't just learn in this space but stand on the shoulders of giants. There are quotes from the great and the good of Manchester engraved into the solid oak panels that adorn the stairwells. There are 25 bespoke Nobel Laureate chairs associated with the University of Manchester intended to enthuse and inspire students to aspire to equal greatness. There is also a dedicated flexible training room in the building with laptops, clickers, a touch screen TV, stackable chairs and tables and a coffee machine and biscuits to encourage our students to want to be in this environment. The AGLC is an attractive central hub for students to visit anytime of the day and night. It is at the heart of the campus, opposite the main library, students union and University visitors centre. However the learning part of the building goes beyond the physical. Students and staff from across the University acted as consultants to ensure that the University tapped into the needs of its students and it became clear that a key area was supporting academics and schools to help them with developing student skills. Academic support provision at the University was not consistent. This clear need led to the creation of a learning development team dedicated to developing an open training programme that would support these areas of learning. This team delivers its own unique training programme of open learning materials in support of the learning and development needs of all students, irrespective of academic discipline. In fact the idea of these not being subject aligned is extremely important to the programme, none of the training is school aligned and any student is able to come to any session, interdisciplinarity is encouraged and exploration into the thoughts of someone from a different mindset expected. The training offer is achieved through collaboration and partnership between the current providers across campus, with the AGLC providing a central focus for a wide range of activity, to exemplify the best of what the University of Manchester can offer to enhance the student learning experience. The programme develops and delivers training and workshops that are new ,innovative, and following a facilitative model, covering topics from Academic Writing to Presentation Skills to Interview and Job Searching. It brings together the expertise and best practices already available on campus with the library acting as a bridge between the students' needs and the wider university resources. The goal is not to duplicate already existing resources, or create a parallel programme, but to create training that links students to the resources they need, wherever they happen to be provided. Going forward, what is really exciting is that this is part of a wider context, a Manchester vision. At the University of Manchester there is clearly a skills agenda. The University of Manchester has recently announced its "vision" for 2020, a vision that includes the sort of skills development currently being created by the library. Students at the university will be expected and encouraged to investigate beyond the strict content of their degree programmes and invest time in developing a broader and more varied set of skills than is traditionally expected. To achieve this goal, the partnerships across the university become key, an opportunity to demonstrate both the resources available and the multitude of ways the skills and knowledge acquired at university can impact a student after they have left. The open training programme (My Learning Essentials) allows students to self-select workshops and resources they use. There are online learning resources, formal workshops and informal face-to-face components. The workshops are designed to give students the tools they need to be more successful learners, not answers. With this goal in mind, we can invite students from all degree programmes to attend the workshops and learn from each other, as the process is often broadly transferable no matter the specific content. It may be that our students don't suffer from a skills gap, where they don't know "how" to do something, but that they are not sure "what" to do. Given examples and guidance (but not answers), they will be able to use the skills they have to acquired during their time at University to attack problems far beyond their time in their degree programmes. This also changes the conversation around the skills agenda. It is not about identifying what is wrong; instead, it is about students' ability to self-evaluate and improve-whatever their starting point. Feedback is used from students and staff (and data gathered from registers) to understand which workshops should be offered and how the resources are being used. This helps develop the most appropriate resources and also works to target groups that appear to be under-served. One of the key components of student success with feedback (and, in fact, with the student experience) is understanding how to move forward and improve. These workshops, because they focus on process, allow students to answer the question of "what next?" that makes feedback (and other support resources) most useful. The offer during the Spring of 2013 was deliberately kept minimal in order to assess both student demand and the optimal timing and design of the programme. The workshops that were developed covered areas from academic writing to presentation skills and also included an employability emphasis led by a partnership with the careers division at the university, focusing on CVs, interview skills and job search techniques. In all, twenty one workshops were delivered to nearly 300 students in a twelve week period. This was a soft pilot, so minimal marketing was done, but attendance rates were generally very high, with, on average, over 60% of students signing up then attending a session. September 2013 saw a fuller launch, there are now 17 different titles delivered and take up has been considerable. In October 2013 My Learning Essentials saw 429 students, a significant increase and 97% of attendants found the sessions useful. The programme does not intend to replace skills support in schools (there is not enough resource in the library to help every student that needs this support), but will work to improve it across the University. In this sense, the workshops, online provision, work with faculties and work with other partners will add up to more than the sum of its parts. Expertise of the entire university will be drawn upon to deepen the student experience and create a unique and innovative programme that goes beyond skills support and actively impacts learning. Much of the work has involved seeking partnerships with other service providers across the university and inviting them to create workshops and become an active part of the open training programme. The courses delivered on this programme are open to all students at the university, regardless of year, degree programme or postgraduate or undergraduate designation. These workshops and training sessions allow the students to evaluate and self-select areas where they feel they need support or have an interest in improving or learning. This structure moves the focus from a top-down remedial model to one where students are encouraged to explore the options and resources available to them at university, providing pathways for success that go beyond the traditional content studied during a degree.

This article examines the concept of self from the perspective of the self as manifest and reflected in consumption decisions. Within the consumer behaviour literature there is general acceptance for a high degree of autonomy in individuals' self-related consumption decisions. The assumption is that we can choose the type of person we want to be, and purchase, within income limits, the appropriate "props" to assist in achieving our goal. I argue that this view is simplistic and fails to appreciate the extent to which culture influences individuals' perceptions of the desirability of different "ways to be" and the objects that are considered appropriate to communicate specific personal attributes. The self-concept and consumption According to psychologists, individuals understand their self-concepts on the basis of observations of their own behaviours, as well as the reactions of others to these behaviours. If the self is viewed in terms of what actions are performed by the individual, consumption behaviours in modern consumer economies should be instrumental in the development and expression of the self-concept (Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton). In the discipline of consumer behaviour, people are thought to derive their sense of self at least partially from the goods and services they consume. Through the consumption of the symbols contained in products, consumers attempt to enhance their self-concepts by using products to communicate particular personal characteristics to themselves and others. Consumption is thus argued to operate as an effective means of communicating identity and positioning oneself relative to others. Not just single products but constellations of products are required to effectively communicate this information to others (Solomon and Englis). Anthropologists recognise that every culture-member is both a source and a subject of judgements made according to object ownership. They also note the fracturing of social systems that have traditionally been considered suppliers of self-definition. These systems include family, religious, and community relationships, and their loss of influence allows greater individual control over self-concept formation and communication. As societies come to operate on a larger scale, the growing anonymity and diversification of duties result in identities being increasingly inferred from the ownership of symbolic possessions, rather than reliance on personal familiarity. In such an environment, stereotyping according to consumption is the norm. Stereotyping can be seen as a mechanism by which we can select between symbolic options to construct desirable versions of our selves. Advertising exists to inform us of the range of products and associated "selves" available, and thus provides a valuable service in our ongoing efforts to develop appropriate or desirable selves. In this sense the use of objects in the construction and maintenance of the self-concept is seen as a conscious, controllable process in which consumers engage to maximise their satisfaction (Ger). Consumers shop for a self-identity just as they would shop for a consumer good, and there is an assumed intentionality in their actions that stems from a conscious thought process. Another way of interpreting the relationship between the self and consumption is that communication of the self via consumption is not an optional activity, but one that is necessary for social survival. And not just one self, but multiple selves must be constructed and maintained for each of the different roles we play in life (Firat 1995). Some have suggested that an outcome of this need to exhibit multiple selves may be individuals who are alienated from themselves due to the discomfort of being unable to identify their own core selves (Havel; Ogilvy). Awareness of the stereotyping activities of others forces consumers into defensive modes of consumption that are designed to protect them from unwanted judgements. Self-representation via consumption thus requires planning and organisation, as opposed to being an optional pastime in which consumers can participate if they so desire. According to some analysts, this concern with presenting a desired image via consumption is actively encouraged as it is a source of ongoing consumption (Droge, Calantone, Agrawal, and Mackoy; Kilbourne, McDonagh, and Prothero). The close relationship between the self and consumption is seen as a necessary by-product of the need for high levels of consumption in capitalist markets (Murphy and Miller; Miller). Compelled into consumption designed to manage their images to others, consumers are not free to consume any products in any combinations, as such behaviour is unlikely to achieve the image outcomes they have been conditioned to desire. In order to communicate the appropriate self in a given situation, consumers must acquire specific products and consume them in specific ways. The power of choice of the individual in this scenario is more perceived than real, and this may leave consumers more susceptible to advertising and other forms of marketing communications than is currently acknowledged. The media can widely disseminate versions of social reality that consumers absorb as part of their understanding of their world (Davis 1997). For example, appropriate consumption patterns for individuals from different age, gender, and social class categories are specifically communicated in advertising messages (Holbrook and Hirschman). The role of culture The self as reflected in individuals' consumption decisions is culturally influenced in that different cultures and subcultures incorporate different objects into their sense of self (Belk). The relationship between the self and culture is reflected in the term "cultural anchoring", a term that describes the process by which certain products become part of an individual's self-concept (LaTour and Roberts). The self develops to operate within a culture, and in doing so reinforces that culture (Cushman). Consumers are conditioned to develop self-concepts that are appropriate to their age, gender, and social groupings (Levy). They feel compelled to fulfil the requirements of these classifications, usually accepting the role assigned to them by their culture (Firat 1991). Roles are culturally connected to a range of consumer goods that are considered crucial to the "correct" performance of the role, and culture is the force that specifically provides the associations between objects and social roles (Solomon). As described by Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton: "Thus, by a process whose beautiful inevitability recalls that of a cell duplicating and differentiating itself into a complex organism, the self through its own seemingly autonomous choices replicates the order of its culture and so becomes a part of that order and a means for its further replication." (105) The inherent nature of this drive to conform to societal expectations remains unapparent to consumers, allowing them the perception of free choice rather than coercion. In fact, the perception of free choice is of critical importance to the continuation of the prevailing system. But how is it that individuals do not appreciate the extent to which their efforts at self-development through consumption are culturally driven? Consumer researchers argue that people wish to feel unique in consumption, thus supposedly selecting objects that are somehow special or unique. Paradoxically, the objects selected are often mass-produced products and are thus common to many other consumers. The argument is that these products in their sameness can perform the valued function of communicating social integration, while permitting some degree of individuality in their combination. Fiske, Hodge, and Turner give the case of the ubiquitous T-shirt, explaining how this product simultaneously provides a mechanism for communicating group membership and individual difference. The generic form of the T-shirt symbolises conformity, while the vast range of T-shirt designs allows personal differentiation. To some, consumers' beliefs in their individuality are legitimate as small differences in product combinations are considered to be adequate to claim uniqueness. Another interpretation, however, is that such beliefs are a form of self-delusion, as small differences only camouflage the over-riding similarity between the consumption patterns of individuals. To conclude, consumption is used extensively in self-concept construction and maintenance in modern consumer economies. What is not always recognised is that the nature of the self-concept that is desired and the parameters for product usage to achieve the desired self-concept are highly specified by the cultural environment. The implication of this is that individuals are highly dependent on consumption for communication of their selves, to the point that the concept of the autonomous consumer who is free to choose between a multitude of product options can be viewed as a modern myth. References Belk, R. W. "Extended Self and Extending Paradigmatic Perspective" Journal of Consumer Research 16 (1989): 129-132. Csikszentmihalyi, M. and E. Rochberg-Halton. The Meaning of Things, Domestic Symbols and the Self. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Cushman, P. "Why the Self Is Empty" American Psychologist 45.5 (1990): 599-611. Davis, M. Gangland: Cultural Elites and the New Generationalism. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1997. Droge, C., R. Calantone, M. Agrawal, and R. Mackoy. "The Strong Consumption Culture and its Critiques: A Framework for Analysis" Journal of Macromarketing 13.2 (1993): 32-45. Firat, A. F. "The Consumer in Postmodernity" Advances in Consumer Research 18 (1991): 70-75. ---. "Consumer Culture or Culture Consumed?" In Marketing in a Multicultural World J. A. Costa and G. J. Bamossy eds. California: Sage Publications (1995): 105-125. Fiske, J., B. Hodge, G. Turner. Myths of Oz. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1987. Ger, G. "Human Development and Humane Consumption: Well-Being Beyond the "Good Life"" Journal of Public Policy and Marketing 16.1 (1997): 110-125. Havel, V. "The Need for Tanscendence in the Post-Modern World" Journal for Quality and Participation 18.5 (1995): 26-29. Holbrook, M. B. and E. C. Hirschman. "The Experiential Aspects of Consumption: Consumer Fantasies, Feelings, and Fun" Journal of Consumer Research 9 (1982): 132-140. Kilbourne, W., P. McDonagh, and A. Prothero. "Sustainable Consumption and the Quality of Life: A Macromarketing Challenge to the Dominant Social Paradigm" Journal of Macromarketing 17.1 (1997): 4-24. LaTour, M. S. and S. D. Roberts. "Cultural Anchoring and Product Diffusion" The Journal of Consumer Marketing 9.4 (1992): 29-34. Levy, S. J. Meanings in Advertising Stimuli. Advertising and Consumer Psychology. J. Olson and K. Sentis eds. New York: Praeger. 3, 1986. Miller, D. Consumption and its Consequences. Consumption and Everyday Life. H. Mackay ed. London: Sage Publications, 1997. Murphy, P. L. and C. T. Miller. "Postdecisional Dissonance and the Commodified Self-Concept: A Cross-Cultural Examination" Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 23.1 (1997): 50-62. Ogilvy, J. "This Postmodern Business" Marketing and Research Today (February 1990). Solomon, M., R. and B. G. Englis. "Observations: The Big Picture: Product Complementarity and Integrated Communications" Journal of Advertising Research 34.1 (1994): 57-63. Citation reference for this article Substitute your date of access for Dn Month Year etc... MLA Style Pettigrew, Simone. "Consumption and the Self-Concept" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5.5 (2002). [your date of access] < http://www.media-culture.org.au/mc/0210/Pettigrew.html &gt. Chicago Style Pettigrew, Simone, "Consumption and the Self-Concept" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5, no. 5 (2002), < http://www.media-culture.org.au/mc/0210/Pettigrew.html &gt ([your date of access]). APA Style Pettigrew, Simone. (2002) Consumption and the Self-Concept. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5(5). < http://www.media-culture.org.au/mc/0210/Pettigrew.html &gt ([your date of access]).

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the origins and evolution of the concept of servitization by studying the definitions of servitization provided in the literature. Servitization represents an academic field that has grown rapidly since its inception. However, the conceptualization of servitization varies greatly, in part because of the number of studies on this topic and the fact that it has been analyzed in a range of disciplines using a number of theoretical approaches. There is a need to standardize the vocabulary to create a general definition that can support the development of theory in this domain and help legitimize servitization as a research area. Design/methodology/approach This study conducts a systematic, quantitative analysis of a broad set of definitions of servitization. Specifically, this study performs content analysis (combining co-word analysis and social network analysis) and consensus analysis. This study develops a strategic diagram to represent the morphology of the research network. Findings The definitions of servitization are deconstructed and analyzed in depth to create a comprehensive picture of the research on this topic. This analysis reveals the origins and evolution of this research area. The results show a low degree of consensus among scholars regarding the concept of servitization. This study proposes a definition that should be widely accepted thanks to its inclusion of the core terms from other definitions. Explicit recognition of multiple approaches to defining the term can help practitioners and researchers. Predictions about future progress in this area are discussed. Originality/value A universal definition of servitization is proposed based on the results of co-word and network analysis. This definition unifies a range of multidisciplinary viewpoints. From a practical perspective, the key vocabulary in servitization research is highlighted.

The author is a mathematician and engineer who has conducted medical research work over the past 13 years. Thus far, he has written 670 medical research papers. Beginning with paper No. 578 dated 1/8/2022, he wrote a total of 80 medical research articles using the viscoelasticity and viscoplasticity theories (VGT) from physics and engineering disciplines on 80 different medical problems with their associated data. These papers aim to explore some hidden biophysical behaviors and provide a quantitative understanding of the inter-relationships of a selected medical output (symptom) versus either singular input or multiple inputs (root causes, risk factors, or influential inputs). The hidden biophysical behaviors and possible inter-relationships exist among lifestyle details, medical conditions, chronic diseases, and certain severe medical complications, such as heart attacks, stroke, cancers, dementia, and even longevity concerns. The chosen medical subjects with their asso- ciated data, multiple symptoms, and influential factors are “time-dependent” which means that all biomedical variables change from time to time because body living cells are dynamically changing. This is what Profes- sor Norman Jones, the author’s adviser at MIT, suggested to him in December 2021 and why he utilizes the VGT tools from physics and engineering to conduct his medical research work since then. From 1980 to 1981, the author attended a college in California for his MBA degree, emphasizing finance and marketing. In addition, he spent many years managing a successful high-tech semiconductor business in Silicon Valley, where it involved many key factors of economics and finance, such as gross domestic product (GDP), inflation rate, consumer price index (CPI), NASDAQ stock performance, price/earnings ratio (P/E ratio), various investment decisions, return on investments (ROI), etc. As a result, he has a strong background in money topics associated with finance and economics.