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This chapter illustrates the consequences that can result from a mismatch between leadership style and organizational contexts required to encourage genuine investigation and exploration – particularly in topical areas relevant to the enterprise’s business model. This cautionary tale suggests not only that leadership approaches need to complement the necessary conceptual challenges involved in rigorously defining relevant problems and strategies in order to sustain organizational success; ideally, it should also align with the strengths and goals of the teams led. Thus, a senior marketing, communication and sales leader may not support the creative research and evidence-based, user-centered design necessary to nurture innovation within, for example, a future-oriented research and development team. Such cultural misalignments have been well framed by classical theories of leadership as well as by empirical comparisons of enduringly successful companies with more transient corporations.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss four main research questions which are as follows: how does a consumer turn into a devoted fan? How does a devoted fan react to the expansion of a human brand? What kind of strategies does a devoted fan take when facing challenges encountered by a human brand? And are devoted fans homogeneous, or can they be further divided into different subgroups?

The basis of grounded theory process is intensive depth interviews with 14 devoted fans of a famous Taiwanese pop singer in a qualitative manner along with content analysis of messages from online fan clubs.

Using the metaphor of kingdom to parallel the phenomenon of fandom, the research also explicates the importance of initial brand position, and the construction and expansion from the core castle – the core positioning of the human brand – to become a kingdom where devoted fans swear to be loyal to the human brand and cross-buy the derivative products of the latter. Five fan’s subgroup and a theoretical framework are obtained.

The theoretical framework derived in this study explicates how consumers’ initial perceptions of the human brand are formed and reinforced and how they become different kinds of fans which in turn influence the strategies they take in the face of the expansion or withdraw of the human brand.

The purpose of this study is to explore the use of expletives and derogatory terminology in the naming structure for companies, products and brands; a marketing strategy which is growing across a wide range of industries. The author defines this concept as brand vulgarity and explores the practice, as it situates in the midst of irony, as terms commonly held as taboo and societally indecent, are moving into the mainstream.

This study draws on the established literature in branding, profanity and ironic marketing to create a conceptual framework through which to understand brand vulgarity.

Brand vulgarity is intended to capture attention. However, several factors influence consumer receptivity and acceptance. These factors include perceived offensiveness exposure and the reclaiming and reappropriation of vulgar terms. Brand vulgarity not only challenges traditional approaches to nomenclature in branding but the building of brand image as well.

The marketplace has become a brand war demarcated by fierce competition each entity vying for attention. The use of vulgar terminology and the growing ease of consumer receptivity calls to question changes in sociocultural sensitivity and its influence on social acceptance of brand vulgarity.

This work breaks new ground as the first to introduce the concept of brand vulgarity and examine the practice across multiple industries.

The following is an introductory profile of the fastest growing firms over the three-year period of the study listed by corporate reputation ranking order. The business activities in which the firms are engaged are outlined to provide background information for the reader.

“We’re watching the wiring of the cerebral cortex of society”, said Jay Walker, founder and vice‐chairman of priceline.com, of the new Internet revolution. “It is dramatically transforming communication and marketing models; it is providing marketers with a new set of capabilities.” But with new capabilities come casualties; Jay Walker cautions that advertising will disappear on the Net, “It may take two or ten years, but it will disappear.” Walker’s hypothesis is borne out by the latest research findings from Roper Starch. In its latest report it identifies the “The advertising‐free zone brought to you by (fill in the brand)” phenomenon. Roper Starch predict “ad‐free zones will be popping up on the Internet soon, a reflection of consumers’ increasing antipathy towards advertising”. This paper examines the opportunities for effective online marketing that go beyond the now omnipresent banner advertisements, and provides guidelines for marketers as to how to harness the “new set of capabilities” through planning and evaluation. The paper has relevance to those involved with public relations in a marketing context (often called marketing PR), and those interested in planning and evaluating online communications campaigns.

This book is a policy proposal aimed at the democratic left. It is concerned with gradual but radical reform of the socio‐economic system. An integrated policy of industrial and economic democracy, which centres around the establishment of a new sector of employee‐controlled enterprises, is presented. The proposal would retain the mix‐ed economy, but transform it into a much better “mixture”, with increased employee‐power in all sectors. While there is much of enduring value in our liberal western way of life, gross inequalities of wealth and power persist in our society.

The study's purpose was to gather scientist end‐user perceptions of their impending phased move to a new facility within a US national laboratory site.

The researchers, a college faculty member and three undergraduate student interns, visited 59 laboratories and asked an open‐ended question. Based on assessments of subjects' responses, the raters independently assigned ratings to subjects.

A total of 57 ratings were given by three undergraduate intern raters for 19 scientist subjects. Raters selected the relatively positive, Pragmatic rating for the majority of subjects. Some inter‐rater reliability was found.

The relatively small subject sample and case study nature of this work limits the ability to generalize. However, this case study fills a gap in the body of knowledge regarding scientists' perceptions of laboratory moves and contributes to facility management education by documenting the successful involvement of undergraduates in field studies.

This research provides end‐user evidence necessary for developing or communicating move protocols at this site as well as others. The methodology developed in this study may be adopted at other laboratories and facilities with a large number of knowledge workers.

This facility management research strives to support scientists in their work and therefore contributes to the fulfilment of a national laboratory's mission.

This unique study involves undergraduate interns in a research project at a national laboratory and contributes to the understanding of facility management issues related to laboratory environments and scientist end‐users. Prior to this study, little scientific research regarding laboratory end‐users was found.

The adoption of a model‐building approach to marketing is today inevitable, due to improvements in hardware and software and the increased professionalisation of marketing and its techniques. Aggregate response models are focused upon, particularly the issues of which responses are realistic and should be modelled, how the response can be expressed and how a choice can be made between options available. The traditional model‐building process is described, and the inclusion of correct variables found to be critical, the primary means of doing this being statistical analysis. Simple expressions perform as effectively as more complex ones, and should be used if able to give operationally meaningful results. Cross‐correlation analysis and biased estimation techniques provide good guides to usable variables and their effects.

Online information research on hotels is gradually emerging as a key area of research with the increasing use of social media as a platform for co-creative service innovation (CCSI). The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between the key drivers of co-creation intention in the social media context. Understanding relationships between key drivers of customers’ co-creation intention will prove valuable in advancing current knowledge about service innovation using social media. The key drivers examined in this study are – customer innovativeness, attitude toward CCSI on social media, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control. This knowledge will be of considerable value for its practical application in the hotel industry.

Data were collected from 346 hotel guests using survey method. Structural equation modeling with a bootstrapping estimation was used to analyze the data.

The results show that customer innovativeness, attitude toward CCSI on social media, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control positively influence both co-creation and adoption intention. Further, it was also found that co-creation intention mediates the relationship between its two driving factors, namely, customer innovativeness, attitude toward CCSI in social media and adoption intention.

The findings provide theoretical implications for hospitality discipline. The findings also provide various strategies hospitality firms can use to co-create service innovation through the effective use of social media.

The relationships examined in the present study have not been tested previously; this is the first attempt of the kind. Thus, the associations established in this study form an important contribution to the existing body of knowledge in co-creation, service innovation and social media literature.