Business Commons^™

What Is The Entrepreneurship Process For Communication Design Enterprises?, Con Kennedy

Doctoral

The literature indicated that entrepreneurship plays a crucial role in economic development and that understanding what entrepreneurship is has changed with the development of society and entrepreneurship theory (Murphy et al., 2006). However, there is an identified skills deficit in understanding entrepreneurship in the communication design sector (Design Enterprise Skillnet, 2021; Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, 2016; Intertrade Ireland, 2009; Design Council, 2007; Enterprise Ireland, 1999). Nevertheless, within each of these studies, the deficit has not been addressed, nor is the entrepreneurship process for communication design enterprises established. The literature on entrepreneurship generally ignores entrepreneurship in the design sector, …

An Investigation Of Teenagers’ Advertising Literacy In The Context Of The Brand-Rich Environment Of Social Media, Emma Sweeney

Doctoral

Teenagers are avid consumers of social media and consequently, constitute attractive target audiences for marketers. On social media, advertising can be integrated into content such as YouTube videos and Instagram posts which means the boundary between commercial content (the advertisement) and non-commercial content (e.g., the video in which the ad appears) becomes increasingly blurred. Therefore, in this context, the consumer must be able to navigate a minefield of overt and covert advertising that is disseminated by a range of sources, including brands and social media influencers. A resulting concern for academics, parents and policy makers alike relates to young people’s …

Sports Franchises As Catalysts For Tourism In An Urban Setting, David Proctor

Doctoral

This research investigates the leverage of sports franchises by destination marketing organisations for their tourism potential. It adds to the literature in covering a hitherto under scrutinised field of tourism enquiry focusing on the role of globally renowned professional football teams as agents of tourism in the cities that host them. In doing so the study links theory to practice and provides policy makers with options for implementing initiatives in collaboration with sports franchises, resulting in benefits across the wider stakeholder environment.

Underpinned by a pragmatic philosophy, the research employs a mixed methods approach within a multiple case study design …

An Exploratory Study Of The Role And Contribution Of Absorptive Capacity Levels In The Commercialisation Of Knowledge In Knowledge Intensive Smes, Francis Martin Behan

Doctoral

Absorptive Capacity (ACAP) is a construct introduced by Cohen and Leventhal in 1990 to describe the process by which an organisation recognises and absorbs new external knowledge to increase its current stock of knowledge, thereby giving it increased capability to create value for its customers, stakeholders and wider society. ACAP, as a construct, has gained widespread acceptance within academia and the construct has been further refined and developed over the last thirty years. However, the application and testing of the construct, is in practice, still in the early stages of development. The aim of this exploratory study was to investigate …

Consumer Reactions To Alcohol Advertising Health Warnings In Ireland: An Experimental Research Study, Vania Filipova

Doctoral

Introduction and Aims As part of several measures to inform consumers about the health risks of alcohol and reduce alcohol consumption, the Irish Government signed into law the Public Health (Alcohol) Act 2018, with Section 13 requiring the implementation of multiple health warnings in all alcohol ads. While health warnings on product labels have been subject to intensive political discussion and academic research, health warnings in alcohol ads have received little attention and empirical support. This doctoral dissertation investigates whether health warnings in alcohol ads can promote cognitive and affective reactions in consumers. Furthermore, this thesis also examines whether the …

Social Norms Marketing, Social Networks And Alcohol Consumption: A Collegiate Context. Investigating Feasability In Ireland., Sarah Samdani

Doctoral

The current Irish policies have not been adequately effective in reducing alcohol consumption. There is a need to consider alternative strategies, such as the increasingly popular SN marketing campaigns, which have been applied successfully in the US college system. However, the potential of these campaigns has not been evaluated in Ireland. It is also not clear from the literature if descriptive or injunctive norm types will be more likely to induce behaviour change. Further, while SN interventions tend to provide ‘friends’ or ‘typical student’ as referent groups, little is understood about how individuals visualize these groups and how salient these …

Incorporating Environmental Stimuli Into The Service Profit Chain In A Retail Grocery Context: A Structural Equation Modelling Approach., Treasa Kearney

Doctoral

Several theoretical contributions are highlighted; firstly that employee environmental stimuli construct contained five sub-factors, these were termed, E-design, E-music, E-lighting, E-olfaction and E-layout. This highlights the complexities of the environmental stimuli for employees. Furthermore this research found a significant direct link between employee environmental stimuli and employee satisfaction. Considering the literature examining the effects of environmental stimuli on employee behaviour is astonishingly scant (Skandrani et al., 2011), this is an important contribution to several literature streams. Secondly, examining a global configuration of the environmental stimuli can provide a fuller framework for understanding and exploring customer and employee behavioural responses. In …

An Empirical Investigation Of Consumer Resistance To Green Product Innovation, Marius Claudy

Doctoral

Responding to the sustainability imperative has emerged as a key challenge and opportunity for businesses. Developing and marketing innovative ―green‖ products in particular can be a vital strategy for businesses to increase productivity, develop new markets, improve corporate image and ultimately attain competitive advantage. But despite consumer sensitisation towards environmental issues, many sustainable products face slow rates of diffusion in mainstream markets as consumers‘ green preferences regularly fail to translate into adoption behaviour. In this thesis we take a consumer resistance perspective to investigate empirically the so-called attitude–behaviour gap in the context of green product innovation. The aim of this …

A Film Marketing Action Plan (Fmap) For Film Induced Tourism Destinations, Noelle O'Connor

Doctoral

This research study examines the impact of film induced tourism and destination branding on locations featured in popular films and television series. It also investigates the characteristics of film induced tourism and determines if the key film and tourism stakeholders support the integration of film into Yorkshire’s (UK) tourism product. Yorkshire was selected as the case study area, as it has been the film location for many popular television series and is the subject of much location research within the tourism discipline. The need for a thorough investigation into the film induced tourism phenomenon was particularly evident from the literature …

Young Irish Adults In Civil Society: Volunteering, Reflexive Identity Work And Social Capital, Geoffrey Robert Weller

Doctoral

This thesis seeks to explain how young Irish adults are capable of achieving identities as episodic volunteers. Participation in civil society in Ireland is changing, with new forms of volunteering emerging (Donoghue et al 2006). Issues of identity and identity construction appear to be symptomatic of these changes (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2002). This research focuses upon young Irish adults identity work as they discursively construct their episodic volunteering (Macduff 2005). The research uses a discourse analysis lens (Wetherell 1998; Wetherell and Edley 1998, 1999; Edley and Wetherell 1995, 1996, 1997, 1999; Edley 2001). It is based upon 17 intensive interviews …

How Does Advertising Articulate The Tropes Of The Posthuman That Exist In Contemporary Culture?, Norah Campbell

Doctoral

The posthuman is a concept that has accrued much currency in disciplines as diverse as legal theory, artificial life science and philosophy. This thesis explores the meaning of the concept by initially examining what it means to be human, finding that art and science have so far failed to provide a long-lasting definition of humanness. Instead of a temporal “coming-after” stage of humanity, posthumanism might be more usefully seen as a concept that draws attention to the cracks that have always existed in the apparently water-tight description of the human- how the “human” has changed radically and continues to change …

The Influence Of The Servicescape On Post-Consumption Processes, Daire Hooper

Doctoral

The physical and atmospheric cues in service environments have long been accepted as potent contributors to consumers’ overall evaluations of their service experiences. Theoretical frameworks conceptualising how these environmental cues impact on both emotional and cognitive processes have been put forward, yet the empirical work supporting these theories has become highly disjointed with a great deal of confusion regarding what should be classified as an environmental stimulus. By integrating the extant literature, this dissertation attempts to overcome theoretical ambiguities and proposes a second order factor model of service environments, also known as the servicescape, which is subsequently tested using a …

Culture In Services Marketing, Malcolm Mitchell

Doctoral

This research features both theoretical and empirical work underlining the potential value of marketing to contribute to commercial performance. The theory draws from those authors who have been predominant in promoting the concept of a market orientation as an antecedent to organisational success. The marketing culture paradigm is introduced and developed to specifically consider the area of services marketing. The empirical investigation concludes that there is an acknowledged appreciation of the value of a market oriented culture, particularly at senior levels of organisation, and that a market-oriented culture can be said to be associated with market shareholding and to a …