Business Commons^™

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 …

Constructing The Social In The Fiscal: A Discourse Analysis Of Irish Budget Speeches (1970-2015), Ewan Alexander Macdonald

Doctoral

Budget speeches are important discursive institutional practices in which fiscal and monetary policy are presented to parliaments on an annual basis. The issue of ideology and the contingent nature of discourse is rarely considered with budgets delivered in specific policy contexts presented as pragmatic truth statements unhindered by the distorting lens of ideology. Employing contributions from post-structural discourse theory, dialogism, critical realism and corpus linguistics this thesis addresses three research questions: what discourses are employed in Irish budget speeches from 1970 to 2015? How are these discourses structured? How are social imaginaries and subject positions constructed through these discourses? Methods …

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 …