Search results

to examine consumers' perceptions of retail brand representations of gender-oriented and/or sexuality-oriented identities. The authors explore the value of developing more progressive, inclusive brand values to support more effective retail brand communications and imagery.

Photo elicitation, utilising LGBTQIA+/sexuo-gendered imagery from retail brand marketing communications, facilitated discussion within focus groups representing various genders, age generations and sexualities.

Younger generations indicate a preference for fluid gender and sexuality and endorse retail brands that represent this progressive understanding. Gender and age moderate preferences for representative imagery, with older males more resistant to sexuo-gendered messages and females of all ages more accepting.

The research is limited in generalisability, geography and demographics. The focussed approach did, however, enable collection of rich, insightful data to underpin evaluations of communicative brand values.

The inclusion of diverse and fluid sexuo-gendered identities within the brand values of retailers would enable effective targeting of consumers across a range of more traditional cohorts.

The evolving ideology towards inclusiveness, identified within the generational cohorts, demonstrates social change through progressive acceptance of more fluid gendered and sexual identities.

The research adopts a novel approach to examining diverse, sexuo-gendered imagery within gendered and generational cohorts, offering qualitative examples of a progressive social ideology.

Extant research downplays the influence of children under the age of eight on food‐related decision making and consumption within families. This paper seeks to address this issue.

Utilising novel techniques to elicit responses, the research employed focus group and interviews of a sample of children aged between three and eight years and a sample of their parents.

The exploratory findings of this study suggest that younger children apply effective if less sophisticated pestering techniques than older children, and play a significant role in determining family food consumption. They demonstrate a purposeful and directed pursuit of food brands and products, along with an awareness of the purpose of promotion and a desire to use a number of persuasive techniques in their dealings with parents. This contradicts some of the existing thinking that younger children in the 3‐8 year age group have little/less influence on purchasing food.

This research offers a number of contributions in that it presents the views of both children and parents, and uses novel techniques through visual representations of feelings and emotions to elicit findings.

Fashion retailers are increasingly attempting to categorise fashion clothing according to their perceptions of consumer motivations. However, much of the research in this area centres around economic and demographic considerations, disregarding the social and psychological significance of fashion clothing as a means of forming group identity and differentiation. Knowledge of the form and frequency of these group dynamics involved in fashion clothing purchasing will, potentially, have important implications for retailers and marketers alike. The paper considers prevalent theories on the development of social identification, the role of fashion in facilitating these formations (through the semiotic conveyance and interpretation of information), and the mediating role of culture and lifestyle determinants. The relationship of these theoretical underpinnings to the social interactions of the apparel consumer is explored through the construction of an incipient conceptual framework, underlying the cyclical but capricious nature of clothing choice. Implications for future research are identified.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate and measure employees' perception of actual and desired corporate ethical values as a component of corporate identity within a major UK financial institution, against a comparison with their employees' own individual ethical values.

The multi‐method case study uses a mix of secondary data analysis, key interviews and 245 employee questionnaires. The financial institution is selected as it is identified as being in the process of instigating what may be termed a “monolithic” corporate branding strategy while using a “top down” communication approach across its various operations in the UK.

The paper shows that employees' perceive managements' ideal identity to be significantly different to the operational reality that “is” the company, especially in relation to ethical values. These gaps also vary between major divisions within the organisation, as well as between differing staffing levels, adding empirical support to existing theories that corporate identity and corporate brand management will need to take into account many sub‐cultures within any large organisation, as well as the individual values of its employees, and that a top down communication programme that fails to take this into consideration will face many difficulties.

This empirical based case study research focuses upon a comparison between internal perceptions of actual and ideal corporate values as part of the corporate identity, in comparison to employees' own individual values has been largely overlooked within the corporate identity and branding literatures to date.

Presents a special issue, enlisting the help of the author’s students and colleagues, focusing on age, sex, colour and disability discrimination in America. Breaks the evidence down into manageable chunks, covering: age discrimination in the workplace; discrimination against African‐Americans; sex discrimination in the workplace; same sex sexual harassment; how to investigate and prove disability discrimination; sexual harassment in the military; when the main US job‐discrimination law applies to small companies; how to investigate and prove racial discrimination; developments concerning race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; developments concerning discrimination against workers with HIV or AIDS; developments concerning discrimination based on refusal of family care leave; developments concerning discrimination against gay or lesbian employees; developments concerning discrimination based on colour; how to investigate and prove discrimination concerning based on colour; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; using statistics in employment discrimination cases; race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning gender discrimination in the workplace; discrimination in Japanese organizations in America; discrimination in the entertainment industry; discrimination in the utility industry; understanding and effectively managing national origin discrimination; how to investigate and prove hiring discrimination based on colour; and, finally, how to investigate sexual harassment in the workplace.

The purpose of this paper is to help answer “To what degree can creative employees be encouraged or motivated to align with a leader's creative vision and what issues may be faced along the way?” The management and communication of vision in relation to the organisational brand within the creative industries can face many unique challenges.

As much of the existing creativity literature at an organisational level is not empirically based, a rigorous, inductive and exploratory case study approach was employed to explore emergent issues relating to the management and communication of the brand within creative small to medium‐sized organisations. Recent research attempts to uncover the link between organisational creativity and the brand are reviewed. The inductive case study approach undertaken is discussed. This incorporates interviews and thematic analysis with the aid of various qualitative data software packages.

The inductively generated themes uncover interrelating issues of relevance to owners and managers relating to: vision and alignment; creative growth; creative evaluation and rewards. The themes also help to draw attention to some of the potential barriers to achieving a desired or effective creative brand.

It can be argued that by taking an exploratory and inductive approach, a wide number of potential effects on creativity and the ensuing brand have been identified. Practitioners within the creative industries can potentially benefit from the observations because they are empirically based rather than being purely theoretical, and focus on both employees and clients. These also appear to go beyond the themes identified within previous studies within these same creative industry sectors. The investigation and reflections may act as a useful starting‐point for further research into the formation and management of a creative brand.

The purpose of this paper is to answer a specific research question: How have EU and US regulators translated the idea of central clearing into law?

A meticulous legal research is carried out. First, the pre‐crisis regulatory regime for credit default swap (CDS) is reviewed, from a securities law angle as well as from a comparative Euro‐American perspective. Next, the regulatory processes leading to the adoption of the central clearing regulations are discussed. Thereafter, a material comparative analysis is made of the provisions related to central clearing in the EU and US regulatory initiatives. Finally, the paper is concluded with an evaluation of both legislations in the light of all previous analyses.

The research first shows that central clearing regulations rely on a series of presumptions, both concerning the gravity of counterparty risk threats and the necessity of central clearing. Additionally, the EU and US clearing regulations are similar with regard to the broad innovations they introduce, i.e. the mandatory central clearing of a variety of over‐the‐counter derivatives and counterparty risk management requirements for central clearing institutions and for non‐cleared swaps. However, the specific content of the provisions often differs. Furthermore, both legislations are limited to enouncing broad principles. This is also the case for the crucial provisions related to counterparty risk management. Therefore, these provisions in se do not guarantee the proper regulation of counterparty risk management practices. Consequently, much is to be expected from the implementing measures adopted by regulatory institutions.

The paper provides an overview of those provisions in the European and US regulations that specifically concern central clearing for CDS. It is one of the first papers which does this in a very well‐structured and clearly written manner. Also it is one of the first to provide a clear comparison between the provisions in the EU and the US regulations.