Search results

The paper aims to explore how companies communicate their heritage by drawing on heritage marketing and corporate communications literature and mapping the corporate heritage communication strategies of iconic Italian brands.

The study adopts an inductive multiple case study approach, analysing the communication of corporate heritage by nine iconic Italian brands (Pastificio Lucio Garofalo, Barovier & Toso, Pasta Farina, Ducati, Amaro Montenegro, Fiat, Bonomelli, Olivetti and Illy).

In communicating corporate heritage, companies adopt different strategies that vary along two main dimensions – the subject of the story and the tone of voice of the content. The strategies are: (1) heritage for authenticity; (2) heritage for market leadership; and (3) heritage for continuity.

From a theoretical point of view, the study highlights that heritage marketing strategies vary according to underlying strategic themes and narrative approaches. From a managerial point of view, it offers a preliminary guide for the development of corporate heritage communications, also providing indications for their implementation.

This study is amongst the firsts to investigate the strategic antecedents that can shape corporate heritage communication strategies. It represents an integration of the existing literature, which is limited to the descriptive presentation of heritage marketing principles and tools.

The purpose of this research is to show how the variety of ways of performing through knowledge and intangible resources exploitation raises the question of how these kind of resources can be coherently and successfully declined into companies' processes and operations, what are the “right”, or appropriate approaches to manage intellectual capital (IC), and how these approaches can disentangle the mechanisms by which those resources contribute to improve companies' organizational performance. In this introduction to the special issue some conceptual interpretations are developed to investigate IC‐based approaches, methods, tools and factors of companies' performance improvement.

The approaches, evidences and insights discussed in this introduction are largely based on the discussion of the topics of the conference “International Forum on Knowledge Assets Dynamics” organized in June 2007 in Matera, Italy. At this conference, leading experts discussed the importance of IC for organizational performance improvement, the IC key‐value drivers of the performance management and measurement, and theoretical concepts of, and practical approaches towards, a high‐performing IC management.

The outcomes of this introduction and of all the contributions to the special issue reflect the current discussion about better operationalization of IC management constructs. This discussion is largely focused on the importance of space for IC management activities, on the main knowledge assets that drive companies' processes improvement, the diversity of the relative relevance of each knowledge asset and the necessity for strategic and managerial decision‐makers to learn to apply general approaches, methodologies and instruments in specific companies. In this context, managing IC was mostly dealt with as a means to reach performance targets.

This introduction as well as all the contributions to the special issue deal with different aspects, which are important in the discussion of needs for a better understanding of the relationships between IC management and companies' performance improvement as well as the approaches, tools, methods and techniques to better disentangle the mechanisms by which knowledge assets, separately or interdependently, contribute to improve companies' organizational performance.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate empirically the relative emphasis accorded by members of a brand community to identification with that community and identification with the brand‐owner, and thereby close a gap in the literature to date.

Based on a review of the literature relating to identification, loyalty, and potentially mediating brand‐related constructs, a cross‐sectional questionnaire‐based survey was carried out at a brandfest organised by a major European motorcycle manufacturer. Data collected from 256 respondents were analysed by structural equation modelling, testing seven hypothesised causal links.

Brand loyalty is primarily influenced by identification with the brand community, through the mediating role of brand affect.

The findings require confirmation in other settings and industry sectors before they can be generalised with confidence, but point to several fruitful research directions.

Brand strategists have new evidence to guide allocation of effort and resources to the effective cultivation and maintenance of brand loyalty.

The study makes an original contribution, in a real‐world setting, to the understanding of how members of a brand community relate to the brand, and of how their brand loyalty is activated.

The aim of the chapter is to focus on the connections between three types of actors who build the new world of brands – consumers, marketers, and financier – by focusing on the co-creation of value between the brand community and the company owning the brand.

The chapter use three case vignettes to highlight the dual process at play when a community of consumers co-create brand value.

The chapter not only highlights a value-creating trajectory for companies but also shows how a reverse process can destroy value for the very same companies. It suggests that marketers’ desire to maximize the value co-created between the company and the community in order to answer the financial requirement of brand valuation could damage the value co-creation process. According to our case vignettes’ results, these marketers are exposing themselves to the risk that consumers/fans will rebel as a result of this branding maximization, leading in return to the creation of a competitor in the form of a community brand.

Future research will have to investigate how by cutting across organizational boundaries and functional areas, brand communities would reshape the marketing–finance interface.

The chapter stresses the need for companies to manage carefully the triadic relationship community/marketing/finance in order to avoid the development of a reverse brand value destruction process. In addition, the chapter contributes to research on the marketing–finance interface by highlighting the need to look beyond this level of interaction when it comes to branding.

Starting with the principle that consumers grouped into communities are increasingly responsible for making brands through their value-creating practices, the chapter highlights the problems raised by the company’s will to transform them into value for shareholders.

This paper aims to contribute to the debate about creating shared value (CSV) and clusters, by shedding light on how clusters might generate shared value, i.e. cause social and business benefits, hence focusing on the following research question “do clusters create shared value?”

The study relied on social network analysis methods and techniques. Data have been collected from both primary and secondary sources, in the empirical context of the Motor Valley cluster in Emilia-Romagna. The authors computed three independent and four dependent variables to operationalize the concept of cluster development and shared value creation. A multiple regression quadratic assignment procedure and, more specifically, the most accurate model of that procedure, that is the double semi-partialling method, has been carried out to answer the research question. Finally, empirical evidence has been complemented with other cluster-level data recently collected by the Italian Cluster Mapping project.

The findings confirm how the development of the Motor Valley cluster in Emilia-Romagna contributed to the creation of economic and social growth opportunities for all the actors. The study shows that clusters do create shared value and the chosen cluster development variables do explain much of the business and social impact variables at a very high statistical significance level.

The paper contributes to the under-explored research on clusters and CSV with a very first attempt in providing quantitative evidence of the phenomenon.

The purpose of this paper is to combine studies that describe the spin-off creation process with studies that analyze spin-off determinants to understand the phenomenon of spin-off development.

This paper proposes a theoretical framework to improve our understanding of academic spin-off development in southern Italy. Following a systematic combining approach, the framework is constructed by iteratively matching the concepts derived by the literature on spin-off processes and spin-off determinants with the empirical findings obtained through a case study of 19 spin-offs in southern Italy.

The combination of empirical results and literature analysis helps us to identify a general model for spin-off creation that could be particularly useful to explain the criticalities of their development.

This paper provides implications for policy-makers in southern Italy regarding factors for which intervention would support the creation of new spin-offs. This study also provides useful implications for policy-makers in other contexts, such as areas that may or may not be at a disadvantage.

The resulting framework represents an original contribution to the literature because it: links two aspects – the stages of spin-off creation and determinants of spin-off development – which are often considered separately in existing studies; explores factors that either impede or facilitate the different stages of spin-off development; provides a series of findings that can be successively tested in other studies; and sheds more light on the context of southern Italy, which has been investigated in only a limited number of previous studies.

The purpose of this study is to discuss the complexities and challenges involved in retailing luxury motorcycle brands in India.

This study has been developed by carrying out in-depth interviews of company officials of Triumph Motorcycles. The researchers also reached out to various distributors of luxury motorcycles in Tiers I and II cities, and through the interview process, tried to understand the problems/issues faced while selling luxury motorcycles.

There has been a marked increase in the branding and marketing of luxury products in the recent years. Although the two wheelers account for 80 per cent of the domestic demand, the luxury motorbike market in India is still in its introductory stages. This study discusses the challenges faced at Triumph Motorcycles and raises questions on what should be done to increase the market share of Triumph Motorcycles in India. Readers would get insights into the activities carried out to build customer connect and would be able to suggest marketing strategies and customer relationship programmes for luxury motorcycle brands.

This study can be used for the core course on marketing management or for elective courses on customer relationship management, brand management or consumer behaviour course in MBA programme.

To analyse the power that a virtual brand community exerts over a brand of a mass‐marketed convenience product. To draw implications about the strategy that a company can employ facing this power shift. To track emerging trends in virtual brand communities applied to convenience product (as opposed to niche or luxury goods).

Case study of the web community “my Nutella The Community” promoted by the firm Ferrero in Italy. The study applied multiple methods and was conducted through interviews with key informants, netnography and document analysis.

The virtual community that gathers around a convenience product brand shows a new form of sociality and customer empowerment: it is not based on interaction between peers, but more on personal self‐exhibition in front of other consumers through the marks and rituals linked to the brand. The company should play the role of non‐intrusive enabler of these personal expressions, reducing its control over the brand's meanings.

The literature on brand community has traditionally focused on communities born around niche or luxury brand (Harley Davidson, Mercedes, Saab). The paper deals with a mass marketed convenience product like Nutella (the worldwide famous hazelnut spread), showing noteworthy differences that would advance current knowledge on brand communities and customer empowerment.